<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 6.0.4630.0">
<TITLE>CFP: The Politics and Aesthetics of Refusal</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<!-- Converted from text/rtf format -->
<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">‘The Politics and Aesthetics of Refusal’</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Darlington Centre, The University of Sydney</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">April 15, 2005</FONT>
</P>
<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Philament, the online journal of cultural studies and literary arts affiliated with the University of Sydney (</FONT><A HREF="http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philament"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philament</FONT></U></A><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">), invites postgraduate scholars to contribute single-page proposals for an upcoming conference on ‘The Politics and Aesthetics of Refusal.’</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Art, writes Herbert Marcuse, has ‘magic power only as the power of negation. It can speak its own language only as long as the images are alive which refuse and refute the established order.’ Marcuse’s call for cultural production to refuse the limitations of hegemonic culture has particular resonance in a contemporary political and cultural landscape where patterns of production, distribution and consumption are increasingly regulated and homogenized. To refuse is to be against consensus, to be contrarian, to be non-conformist. Refusal presents itself as a strategy for resisting the totalising forces of normative thought and practice. It contains the potential for a form of immanent critique which operates within the parameters of dominant order whilst simultaneously rejecting its uniformity.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">We are looking for proposals that consider social and political acts, as well as acts of literature and art which refuse hegemonic paradigms of theory and praxis.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Papers may address, but are not limited to:</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*unilateralism and/or isolationism</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*culture jamming</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*counter-culture</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*sub-cultures</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*nomadology</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*autonomous activism</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*avant-garde aesthetics</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*extremism</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*alterity</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*deviance</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">*subversion</FONT>
</P>
<BR>
<BR>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Please note:</FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes. Please send proposals as email attachment in a PC-readable format (preferably Microsoft Word) to philament@arts.usyd.edu.au no later than February 10, 2005.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">For further information visit </FONT><A HREF="http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philam"><U><FONT COLOR="#0000FF" SIZE=2 FACE="Courier New">http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philam</FONT></U></A>
</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>