CUJAH Annual Art History Conference

7th Annual Concordia Undergraduate Journal of Art History Conference

“(Dis)CONNECT: Alienation and Art.”

Application Deadline: Friday, November 24th, 2017 at 11:59 PM
EV Building, 1515 rue Sainte-Catherine
Concordia University, Montreal, QC 

The Annual Concordia Undergraduate Art History Conference, coordinated by students in the Department of Art History, provides a unique environment for students to share their own research with the Concordia community and with participants from universities across Canada. Entering its seventh year, the conference is for the fifth time being organized under the auspices of the Concordia Undergraduate Journal of Art History (CUJAH), a peer-reviewed publication that is entering its fourteenth year. In its past six iterations, the conference has allowed students to gain valuable experience presenting their work in front of their peers – a professional  experience that is invaluable to any student considering further education at the graduate level.

(Dis)CONNECT: Alienation and Art
Alienation is both a feeling (to feel excluded) and an action (to estrange); it is a phenomenon of withdrawal and ostracization. Looking at historical trends and contemporary society, art has often been used as a tool to respond to instances of rejection and segregation. However, art institutions, groups, communities and exhibitions have also been sites of exclusion. CUJAH’s (Dis)CONNECT conference asks students to reflect on how art has contributed, instigated or rebelled against states of society throughout history and in the present. Moreover, it questions how art responds to moments of political, economic or cultural alienation and how art itself sometimes promotes exclusion in the manner it is produced, written about or exhibited.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• How art aids, skews, or contributes to a (dis)connection between public perception and a state of affairs (ex: Palestine-Israel conflict, corruption in Latin American , global warming, American politics, etc.)
• Analysis of artistic responses to political, economic, environmental or social alienation/dissonance
• The art object as truth-teller – how artists are combating fake news and alienating qualities of the media and the online world
• Interdisciplinary studies promoting collaboration as opposed to alienation (either in artworks or in art historical analyses)
• Expressions of art commenting on religious, territorial and national alienation
• Relationship between practice of the visual arts and art history/art education (between the artist and the art historian/critic/educator)
• Curatorial examples of instances supporting or denouncing alienating aspects of society
• The relationship between artwork or the public and the exhibition/museum space – questionings the Museum space and the White Box
• Analysis of gendered spaces, awareness of social alienation in art and art spaces

All students studying art history and the visual arts (theoretically or in practice) at the undergraduate level are invited to submit. Though we also encourage submissions from other disciplines as well on the theme with the aim to promote interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration. The conference will focus on a mixture of student and professional panels to create a harmonious fusion of theoretical knowledge and professional experience. Students involved will be given the opportunity to begin growing their network in the academic and professional world on an international level while gaining experience in their field.

To apply, please submit the following by Friday, November 24th, 2017 at 11:59 PM in a single PDF to conference.cujah@gmail.com:

• 350-word abstract + proposal title
• Student ID, University and Program of Study
• Please do not put your name on any documents as the review process is anonymous

*Abstracts may be submitted in French or English.