CALL FOR PAPERS

The Affect Factory: Precarity, Labor, Gender, and Performance

The New York University-based journal, Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, will be hosting a conference on the NYU campus, February 10 and 11, 2012.

Life and work, and their dependence upon one another, are often imagined as increasingly precarious. At the same time, “creative capital” invests a kind of promise in precarity. The manipulation of affect is stock in trade for art production, theatrical and performance labor, and now constitutes everyday anxieties about work and living in the current economy. “The Affect Factory: Precarity, Labor, Gender, and Performance,” a two-day conference hosted by Women & Performance, reconsiders the feminist critique of the relation of time and work, material and immaterial labor, waged and unwaged emotional labor. Are we living in the affect factory?

These are timely considerations in light of the recent popularity of outsourced, delegated, and participatory performances, and their inclusion in traditionally object-oriented museum spaces.  This conference will bring together scholars in visual art, performance studies, sociology, history, feminist and queer theory, critical ethnic studies, and transnational studies, for an interdisciplinary dialogue on precarity, labor, performance and affect as social and political, as well as constitutively relational or between bodies.

“The Affect Factory” conference is in concert with the upcoming special issues "Precarity" and "Precarious Situations," from TDR and Women & Performance respectively. Emma Dowling, Lecturer in Ethics, Governance and Accountability at Queen Mary, University of London, will be the keynote speaker.

Possible topics include:

• Labor, gender, and affect
• The impact of the experience economy and celebrity culture on arts institutions
• Dancers, performance artists, members of the public and amateur performers in delegated and/or outsourced performance
• Capitalism, affect, and aesthetics
• Sincerity, sentimentality, simplicity and/or antagonism in the imaginary of precarious situations
• Situations regarding labor in art and performance history from the Situationist International/Autonomia to the present
• Curation of outsourced performance and affective labor
• Critical ethnic and racial perspectives on outsourced performance
• Everyday affective delegation
• Resistance and precarity

Please send a 250 word abstract and CV to affectfactory@gmail.com by October 15, 2011.

Co-sponsored by The Humanities Initiative at New York University, TDR: The Drama Review, The Gallatin School of Individualized Study, The Draper Program in Humanities and Social Thought, Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, The Joe A. Callaway Program of the Department of English, the Departments of Anthropology, Art & Public Policy, Comparative Literature, Art and Art Professions, and Performance Studies at New York University, and the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University.

Seeking Performances/Installations

We are still in the early stages researching potential performers/artists. While we will have a number of installation-like performances and video throughout the conference in various locations, we are also looking to devote a specific time slot during the conference in a somewhat unconventional space (it is not a theater but more of a lecture hall with surrounding reception areas, of course there is also the street outside and Washington Square park a block away as well). We are looking for performances and performative lectures that speak to the conference themes elaborated below.  If you would like to be considered for this unique opportunity to present your work to what promises to be an impressive interdisciplinary audience of academics and performers, please send us a short performance proposal or artist statement about the piece to be considered, keeping in mind the themes of the conference.  Unfortunately, our funds are limited and we can only offer a modest stipend.

The conference theme is developed around two special conjunctive issues of Women & Performance and TDR that will be published in 2012 by the respective journals. Entitled “The Affect Factory: Precarity, Labor, Gender and Performance,” the conference reconsiders the feminist critique of the relation of time and work, material and immaterial labor, waged and unwaged emotional labor. This two-day conference will bring together scholars in visual art, art history, performance studies, sociology, history, feminist and queer theory, critical ethnic studies, and transnational studies, for an interdisciplinary dialogue on precarity, labor, performance, and affect as social and political, as well as constitutively relational or between bodies. Emma Dowling from Queen Mary, University of London has agreed to give the keynote address, which will be followed by a reception. On day two there will be 2 panels of speakers, performances, installations, and a roundtable led by the special issue editors from NYU and Brown University.

Again, please send a short proposal to Krista Miranda and Elizabeth Stinson by September 30, 2011 to krista.miranda@gmail.com, stinson@nyu.edu.

Co-sponsored by The Humanities Initiative at New York University, TDR: The Drama Review, The Gallatin School of Individualized Study, The Draper Program in Humanities and Social Thought, Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, The Joe A. Callaway Program of the Department of English, the Departments of Anthropology, Art & Public Policy, Comparative Literature, Art and Art Professions, and Performance Studies at New York University, and the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University.