“Visual Culture and Global Practices” is the theme for the 45th annual Comparative World Literature and Classics conference that will take place March 4-6 at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB).
This year’s plenary speaker is the University of Chicago’s W.J.T. Mitchell, who will address the conference on “World Pictures: Globalization and Visual Culture” on Friday, March 5, at 11 a.m. Admission is free.
“W.J.T. Mitchell is a renowned scholar on visual culture and the author of such landmark books as ‘What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images’ in 2006 and ‘Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation in 1995,’” said Nhora Serrano, CSULB ssistant professor of comparative literature and organizer of the conference. “It is important for any conference to have a plenary speaker who is a scholar and works in the field. I think his participation is a big reason why the conference has drawn such a strong response from potential speakers who are coming from everywhere from Canada to Brazil.”
Visual culture means more than a literary perspective, Serrano believes. “Presentations will deal with everything from movies (New York University’s Hilary Ashton on ‘The Other Vocabulary of Zombies and Psychos: Genette’s Paratext in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ `Grindhouse') to postcards (Southwestern University’s Kimberly Smith speaks on ‘Constructing Thebes: Text and Image in Franz Marc’s Postcards for Else Lasker-Schuler’). Visual culture covers all that.”
The contemporary situation in humanities and social sciences is often characterized by the so-called “visual turn,” or the increasing emphasis of theory on the power and scope of the visual in everyday life, science, literature, media and the arts, Serrano explained. Visual culture as well as the formation of the field of visual studies stems from this renewed focus upon pictorality, the power of the image and its expression through various linguistic, visual and media forms.
“Visual Culture and Global Practices” seeks to examine literature (across time periods and languages), images, visual objects and mechanisms, and events from diverse cultures, across national boundaries, and within global contexts, Serrano said.
CSULB participants include student Scott Kulek, who will appear as part of the March 4 panel on “19th Century Images and Interrogations” and present on “Negotiating Images in Henry James and Oscar Wilde.” Also on the first day will be Pravina Cooper of the Comparative Literature Department in a panel on “Consumer Culture,” speaking on the topic “TV’s `Mad Men’ and Why We Love Them.”
On the conference’s second day, Friday, March 5, the opening panel on “Pedagogy and Visual Culture” will include presentations by Boak Ferris of the CSULB English Department on “50 Images of Prometheus Crucified” and Linda Alkana of the History Department on “Visual Culture and Safety: From Comic Books to Visual Consent Forms.”
Also due on March 5 is a panel on “Italian Visualities” including a presentation by Enrico Vettore, an assistant professor of Italian, on “The Search for the Essential Image: The Paradoxical Case of Roberto Rossellini.” A panel on “Popular Sightings” will feature Linguistics Professor Alexandra Jaffe on “Image and Text, Material and Virtual: Textual Trajectories, Stance, Genre and Medium in the Post-Secret ‘Virtual Community.’” A third panel on “German Aesthetics” will feature CSULB student Megan Hoetger on “Re-Presentations: The Filmic Image in the Postwar Vienna.”
On the conference’s third day, March 6, a panel on “Empire and Ethnography: Cultural Representations” will feature Emily Berquist, an assistant professor of history, on the topic “The Science of Empire: Envisioning a Bishop’s Utopia in Colonial Peru.”
Serrano applauds the Comparative World Literature and Classics Department for its continued commitment to the conference despite current economic woes.
“The 45th year of a conference says a lot about how supportive and encouraging a place this department can be. It speaks to how the department bands together. It speaks to the department’s dedication to a long-standing tradition and to each other,” she said. “Even in times of crisis, conferences like these prove the university is still thinking and educating. We haven’t lost our passion for our fields.”
Serrano encourages the university to take a look at the conference. “Potential audiences ought to check out the conference's Web page to see what interests them,” she said. “The big draw this year is WJT Mitchell, who is charming, intelligent and approachable. He is truly a unique scholar.”
For more information on this year’s conference, check the Web site at http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/cla/departments/complit-classics/conference/
-- Rick Manly
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