[Englecturers] FYI: Modernism-Fascism-Postmodernism (5/15/06; 9/20/06-9/22/06)

[Steven Axelrod]

Here's a particularly interesting-sounding conference. Cheers to all, Steve

Steven Gould Axelrod
Professor of English
Director of Graduate Studies
President, PAMLA
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521
951 780 5653 (home phone) 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-cfp at lists.sas.upenn.edu [mailto:owner-cfp at lists.sas.upenn.edu]
On Behalf Of Susanne Baackmann
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 10:37 AM
To: cfp at english.upenn.edu
Subject: CFP: Modernism-Fascism-Postmodernism (5/15/06; 9/20/06-9/22/06)


CFP: MODERNISM - FASCISM - POSTMODERNISM
September 20-22, 2006
The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

Fascism was frequently motivated by a rejection of 
modernity and modernization, along with other 
"internationalizing" features of the early 20th century. 
Similarly, fascism in Germany entailed a repudiation of 
modernism's various aesthetic modes, especially its visual 
languages: from Expressionism and Cubism through 
Constructivism and the Bauhaus to Dada and Surrealism. Not 
surprisingly, the most famous modernist painting of the 
entire 20th century, Picasso's Guernica (1937), was 
triggered by anti-fascist partisanship. Nonetheless, some 
strains of nationalistic modernism, such as Futurism in 
Italy and Vorticism in England, articulated ideological 
sympathies with fascist governments. The celebrated 
critiques of Futurism by Walter Benjamin and Meyer 
Schapiro remain key texts to be discussed in this regard. 
More ambiguously, the legacy of fascism in the West, as 
linked to figures like philosopher Martin Heidegger, 
presents us with some intriguing contradictions, 
especially given this thinker's subsequent impact on 
post-modernist thought and aesthetics in the 
Anglo-American world, as well as in France and elsewhere 
in Western Europe. At once an anti-modernist and a 
modernist, Heidegger occupies a paradoxical position in 
the history of thought that calls for a concerted look at 
the ongoing legacy of fascism within the current 
"post-fascist" culture of the West. In fact, critical 
engagement with fascist iconography, as found in the work 
of contemporary artists like Barbara Kruger, Hans Haacke, 
Anselm Kiefer, and Thomas Demand, among others, testify to 
the ongoing aesthetic negotiations of our "post-fascist" 
culture. These complex relationships, along with others, 
will be explored by conference participants.

Main session topics include, but are not limited to the 
following:

o	Modernism versus Fascism
o	Modernism in Collusion with Fascism
o	Questions of Gender and Fascism
o	Post-Modernism and Post-Fascism
o	Mass Culture, Kitsch, and Fascism
o	Fascism as State Capitalism and Instrumental Thinking
o	The Culture of Trauma and Loss in Post-Fascist Societies

The Conference will take place in September 2006 at the 
University of New Mexico.

Please send paper proposals and/ or session proposals by 
May 15, 2006 to:	
theodor at unm.edu and/or dcraven at unm.edu or by mail/fax to:

Dr. Susanne Baackmann				 
                                     Dr. David Craven
Dept. of Foreign Languages & Literatures            	Dept. 
of Art & Art History
MSCO3  2080						 
                                                       MSCO4 
  2560
1 University of New Mexico 
                                    	1 University of New 
Mexico
Albuqerque, NM 87131-0001                               	 
 Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
Tel:  505-277-4771					 
                                              Tel: 
505-277-5861
Fax: 505-277-3599					 
                                              Fax: 
505-277-5955


Susanne Baackmann Ph.D.
Associate Professor of German
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Ortega Hall 229
MSC03 2080
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
Tel 505 277-3206
Fax 505 277-3599

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