ASCA Conference: Trajectories of Commitment and Complicity

This is an interesting conference series. I reported, for Rhizome, on
their last conference, Sonic Interventions. This call doesn't mention
media art specifically, but I know that there's a strong interest in
new media and network culture, there…

> Trajectories of Commitment and Complicity
> Knowledge, Politics, Cultural Production
>
> The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)
> invites proposals for the international workshop,
> Trajectories of Commitment and Complicity, to be
> held between 29th - 31st of March, 2006 in
> Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This interdisciplinary
> workshop will be dedicated to exploring the concepts
> of commitment and complicity as they manifest
> themselves at the intersections of knowledge,
> politics and cultural production.
>
> Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Prof. Timothy Brennon
> and Prof. Elleke Boehmer
>
> The concepts of commitment and complicity come into
> play when scholars engage with tensions between
> knowledge, world politics and everyday life. For
> example, if one asks how knowledge and methodologies
> in the humanities can travel to make a difference in
> everyday politics and vice versa. Although the two
> concepts are widely used in colloquial language,
> their intellectual trajectories have often been
> under-illuminated. Either commitment seemed (a) good
> in itself, or the so-called disinterestedness of
> knowledge production foreclosed any kind of
> assessment of the term. Equally, the uses of
> complicity have kept the concept outside the realm
> of examination. Either complicity was used to stress
> the accommodating roles of knowledge, intellectuals
> and cultural production in relation to dominant
> power structures, or it was celebrated as an
> enabling condition for research.
>
> Sparked by an interest in commitment as a form of
> self-reflexive, engaged and responsible knowledge
> production, while haunted by the hidden or explicit
> complicity of the theories and concepts with which
> we work, this workshop sets out to examine both
> concepts within their situated trajectories. In
> order not to turn blind - methodologically and
> conceptually - at the very moment we use commitment
> and complicity, both concepts need to remain subject
> to critical examination. Thus, the question is not
> whether one is a committed or a complicit scholar,
> but how the twin concepts crystallize and manifest
> themselves at the intersections of knowledge,
> politics and cultural production, and how they
> travel through space and time, institutions, and
> methods of analysis.
>
> Uncomfortably and paradoxically, 'individuality',
> 'freedom' and 'choice' are some of the constitutive
> conditions of intellectual practices. However, the
> position of the intellectual, the commitment and/or
> complicity of the knowledge s/he produces and
> her/his actions are not merely contingent upon these
> conditions, particularly when other notions such as
> autonomy, intellectual solidarity, critical thought
> and answerability are taken into consideration.
> Opening up a space for discussion for alternative
> conceptualizations of intellectual practices while
> keeping in mind that knowledge, politics and
> cultural production are discourses of power, we wish
> to develop an understanding that both works with and
> against commitment and complicity. In doing so, we
> intend to treat these twin concepts with the same
> kind of generous scrutiny bestowed on other
> traveling concepts in the humanities.
>
> * We encourage contributions surrounding, but by no
> means limited to, the following questions:
>
> Spatio-temporal Trajectories: Definitions of
> commitment and complicity are often dependent on the
> historical, political and cultural frameworks within
> which they are discussed. Due to this variation, the
> 'object' of commitment and complicity as well as its
> specific spatio-temporal cultural manifestations
> should not be taken for granted. Yet, commitment and
> complicity also seem to relate to universalisms such
> as 'human rights' and 'freedom of thought'. How can
> we think of commitment and complicity without
> running the risk of turning them into either master
> narratives or culturally relativist concepts? To
> what extent are commitment and complicity culturally
> specific concepts? How do specific forms of
> commitment and complicity arise in particular
> geographic, cultural and social locations, and how
> can they possibly move to other contexts? Regarding
> the genealogy of commitment and complicity, how, by
> whom and to what aims have both concepts been used?
>
> Trajectories in Cultural Production: Cultural
> artifacts as productions of knowledge are often
> informed by practices of commitment and complicity,
> and hence require to be analyzed in terms of them.
> In what ways do cultural products articulate or
> produce forms of commitment and complicity? How, and
> through which strategies, do cultural artifacts
> negotiate the ways in which they are committed or
> complicitous? How are reading/viewing practices
> informed by commitment and complicity? In what ways
> do overtly 'committed' cultural artifacts become
> expressions of complicity? Is there such a thing as
> a 'committed' cultural artifact or is it more apt to
> talk about committed or complicitous readings? How
> can we understand processes of cultural production
> and consumption in terms of commitment and
> complicity?
>
> Trajectories of intellectual production: While
> committed to socio-political causes, intellectuals
> are also mediated by that which they seek to resist.
> Through the concepts of commitment and complicity,
> the nature of the relationship between the
> intellectual, the knowledge s/he produces, and
> everyday politics can be scrutinized. How can we
> envision intellectuals to be committed and complicit
> in terms of their political (institutional,
> personal, cultural) situation? To what extent is
> their institutional situation an enabling or
> restrictive condition, and to what extent does that
> situation politicize or depoliticize the very
> material and ideas they work on? When do the
> commitment and complicity of knowledge and its
> production risk inserting one's scholarly production
> into the dominant ideologies one sets out to
> criticize? And to what extent could the concepts of
> commitment and complicity contribute to an effective
> methodology (e.g. self-reflexivity) for studying
> these questions?
> * Organizing Committee: Bregje van Eekelen, Begum
> Ozden Firat, Sarah de Mul, Ihab Saloul, Sonja van
> Wichelen
> * Practicalities: The Amsterdam School for Cultural
> Analysis (ASCA) is devoted to studying contemporary
> culture through detailed, historically as well as
> theoretically informed analyses of case studies.
> Participants should specify how the concepts of
> commitment and/or complicity are theoretically,
> politically, and culturally relevant and related to
> their own work. The concepts may be addressed
> together or separately and preferably in correlation
> with cultural objects such as film, artworks,
> television, literature, photography, music, museums,
> scientific objects/practices, religious
> objects/practices, etc. This conference is the
> latest in a series of ASCA graduate conferences and
> is inspired by the Theory Seminar organized by Mieke
> Bal in 2004-2005 on "Commitment in the Humanities."
> *The workshop format of the conference is designed
> to stimulate discussion in the panels. Instead of
> "reading" their papers at the conference,
> participants are encouraged to give a 15-minute
> presentation of their work, connecting their paper
> to the other papers in their panel and to the
> overall concerns of the conference. Please send your
> one-page proposal, accompanied by a short CV, by
> October 15th 2005. Proposals will be selected
> according to their relevance to the topics of the
> conference. Participants will be asked to send the
> final version of their papers (4000-word maximum) by
> January 30th, 2006. A reader will be prepared for
> each of the panels and will be circulated before the
> workshop. Keynote speakers are to be announced.
> * Please send your proposal to the ASCA office at
> the following address:
> Dr Eloe Kingma, Managing Director ASCA
> Spuistraat 210. 1012 VT Amsterdam. The Netherlands.
> Phone: +31 20 525 3874.
> Fax: +3120 525 3052.
> Email: [email protected] .
> Website: .
>
>