The Department of Art History

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Call for Papers

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Abstracts by OCTOBER 5, 2009

The Chicago Art Journal, the annual publication of the University of Chicago Department of Art History, is seeking submissions for its 2009-2010 edition. The Editors welcome original work by faculty and graduate students reflecting recent research or lectures. This year's issue will focus on Architecture and Design, with an emphasis on the theme of community formation. We welcome research from all disciplines, in all periods and regions.

In recent decades, new developments in communication and networking technologies, transportation systems, and the growth of international markets for architecture and design have given rise to a host of debates concerning the impact of globalization on the shape of the built environment. Architectural and design practices have been explored in fields as diverse as public policy, urban planning, and the environmental movement, offering sustainable solutions for regional and global communities. In the field of art history, architecture and design have similarly entered into the fore as a means of structuring both the discipline as well as its subjects. Through various historical, aesthetic, social, and cultural lenses, scholarship in architecture and design can offer insight into the complex relationships between a theory and praxis of community formation.

The CAJ seeks contributions that examine the role of architecture and design within art history and its implications for community construction. Such work can show both the possibilities and challenges that arise when particular theoretical models of community are materially realized within given political, social, economic, and ecological situations. How have architecture and design informed the ways in which we conceive of group formation and designation, user and viewer involvement and participation, spatial practices and communication? How can we understand architecture and design’s position in discursive communities of art historians, critics, and practitioners? In what ways can the social and political import of such questions be brought to bear not only on the named mediums of architecture and design, but also in extra-disciplinary practices that have envisioned and constructed spaces, places, and other forms of community?

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

Submissions:

Please send submissions to the graduate student editors, Mia Khimm AND Maggie Taft by OCTOBER 5, 2009.