Madison Conference -- April 19, 2008
Department of English
James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Mark Facknitz, James Madison University
From Elvis to Eminem, popular culture reveres “authentic” art and artistic performance that inevitably, upon closer scrutiny, reveals a web of symbolic and/or linguistic influence. Thus, contemporary discourse in a variety of disciplines betrays a general anxiety regarding the production and evaluation of “art” in all its manifestations. Additionally, technologies (particularly the internet and its attendants) of the past few decades have heightened the situation, multiplying the number of “sites” conducive to this aesthetic cross-fertilization.
Jonathan Lethem’s, “The Ecstasy of Influence” (Harpers Feb. 2007), examines the anxiety and “ecstasy” surrounding acts of appropriation. Using Bob Dylan’s patch-work style as an example, he writes: “Dylan’s art offers a paradox: while it famously urges us not to look back, it also encodes a knowledge of past sources that might otherwise have little home in contemporary culture…Dylan’s originality and his appropriations are as one” (60).
The James Madison University English Graduate Organization seeks to explore this aesthetic “paradox” at our annual Madison Conference held on April 19th, 2008.
Our general queries: How do both artists and critics negotiate the line between “originality” and “appropriation”? Specifically, how does the tension between tradition and invention register in the early 21st century? In this interdisciplinary conference we welcome any creative approach to these and other topical questions.
Possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:
•The reproduction and redefinition of cultural artifacts
•Historical considerations of aesthetics (localized or global)
•Issues of appropriation in anthropological and historical documents
• The tension between High and Low art in literature, fine arts, film, music, etc.
•The impact of technology on aesthetics with possible focus on
the psychological, sociological, or material.
We are also pleased to announce our keynote speaker, Dr. Mark Facknitz, who will be addressing these and other questions in his lecture “Kitsch, Modernity, and the Deathworks.”
Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words, noting any A/V needs, to madconf08@gmail.com no later than March 21st, 2008. (No attachments please.) Please direct all other inquiries to this address as well.
Contact: Erik Moellering
JMU English Graduate Organization
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Sponsored by the students of the English Graduate Program
