Manifestos and Polemics | PAMLA Panel | Abstracts due May 25 (PAMLA)
Seattle, Washington
Event: PAMLA
Organizer: Liza Wemakor, Ph.D. Candidate at UC Riverside (English Department)
When performing for general audiences, radical artists often fold cultural critiques into their performances and compositions, like discrete medicine. But when their critiques are aimed at a specific audience, including other artists, their politic itself may take center stage. In these instances, distinctions between art and discourse are blurred. This panel will offer multiple engagements with the fertile zone where art and politic meet, and consider how political critique may be an art in and of itself.
The organizer of this panel welcomes submissions of papers and presentations related to the manifestos and polemics of radical / revolutionary artists. Submit your abstract here: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/20140
Potential topics include but are not limited to:
- Studies of artworks that overtly critique their own genre or medium, and/or exhort the unreached potential of their own genre or medium
- Studies of zines as both art and political critique / action — e.g. Rebirth Garment’s Radical Visibility zine
- Analyses of select spoken word performances as political manifestos — e.g. Saul Williams’ body of work, Ntozake Shange’s choreopoems
- Studies of manifestos circulated within particular art scenes or art collectives — e.g. The 2004 Clarion West Workshop ‘Mundane Manifesto,’ Wijeratne’s 2019 Ricepunk Manifesto, nonfiction writings produced within The Black Arts Movement or Beat(nik) Movement
- Analyses of the writings of Aimé and/or Suzanne Césaire, or other associates of Negritude
- Analyses that position seminal Ethnic Studies texts as both art and call-to-action — e.g. This Bridge Called My Back, Audre Lorde’s multi-genre publications
- Analyses of art installations and/or published issues whose forewords or statements double as manifestos — e.g. Colored People Time (2020 art installation), Kara Keeling’s art exhibits, People of Colour / Disabled People Destroy SF magazine issues, Black Quantum Futurism publications, Black Speculative Arts Movement publications, the Octavia’s Brood anthology
- Readings of theoretical academic work as performance art — e.g. publications by Fred Moten, Saidiya Hartman, Roland Barthes, Jennifer Doyle, Donna Haraway
https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/20140
Liza Wemakor