*CFP* "'WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?' QUEER-FEMINIST DESIRES IN RESEARCHING AND WRITING ART HISTORIES", ASSOCIATION FOR ART HISTORY ANNUAL CONFERENCE

‘What’s love got to do with it?’ Queer-feminist desires in researching and writing art histories  

Association for Art History Annual Conference

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Organization: Association for Art History

Desire and sexuality have been widely discussed in art history in a variety of contexts: from the sexualising male gaze, exoticisation and fetishisation of non-whiteness, to explorations of the male nude in coded homoerotic argot. Looking into queer archives, feminist and queer art practices and histories pay particular attention to how desire may forge kinship and communities ‘across time and space’, and how desiring and affective modes of research and intellectual inquiry can become driving forces for uncovering silenced and overlooked narratives. Fantasy and turned-on imagination infused with tenderness and care may be considered effective modes of approaching the research subject and the responsibility for telling stories from the archive. This desiring approach grants the subject agency beyond the status of an object to be looked at and enables an affective, attentive relationship between researcher and the research subject.

This session calls for papers that explore affective and entangled approaches to research in artistic practice and art history. Of particular interest are papers that consider the desiring, turned on approaches to art history from any time and place. We ask, what gets you off (in art)? Or, more specifically, what drives us in selecting a research subject? How does desire shape our relationships with living subjects? How do desiring approaches translate onto art writing? What might the ethics of such queer-feminist approaches be? Moreover, what are the political efficacies in such approaches?

We particularly welcome practice-based interventions and submissions that disrupt abled, white, heteronormative, and Western-orientated narratives.

Submit a paper

Please email your paper proposals direct to the session convenors above, using the Paper Proposal Form.

You need to provide a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 25-minute paper (unless otherwise specified), your name and institutional affiliation (if any).

Please make sure the title is concise and reflects the contents of the paper because the title is what appears online, in social media and in the printed programme.

You should receive an acknowledgement receipt of your submission within two weeks from the session convenors.

Deadline for submissions: Monday 21 October 2019

Aleksandra Gajowy: a.gajowy2@ncl.ac.uk