1st International Conference on Visual Culture. Periphery and Interdisciplinarity in Visual Studies

Over the last few decades, the fields of knowledge of art history, aesthetics, literary theory, cultural industries –and many others– have given way to an interdisciplinary encounter conceptualized as visual studies. This field has focused on the image in any medium, media, or time period. Images have the capacity to influence our perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors and, in turn, are nourished by the cultural conditioning factors of each time and place.

The study of visual culture is not limited to dominant discourses and practices, but must prominently include marginalized, subversive, or alternative perspectives and voices, which have been displaced in some cases from the more visible cultural spotlight. By paying attention to approaches from the periphery, the conference seeks to open up spaces for the critical analysis of images and representations linked to secondary spaces, outside the 'canon' and mainstream trends, that are overlooked or not directly supported by the dominant cultural policies of the time.

As Keith Moxey, Norman Bryson, and Michael Ann Holly have pointed out, visual studies have not come to banish traditional art historical studies, but to provide new tools for the analysis of both past and present historical culture. For this reason, this congress will give a special place to proposals focused on the past whenever they discuss the applications of the concepts of periphery or interdisciplinarity, especially from visual evidence prior to our present time.

In this current era of disciplinary hyper-specialization, subjected to the commercialism of increasingly commercial science, to speak of visual culture as an interdisciplinary field does not imply leaving visual phenomena on the margins of traditional areas of study, but rather integrating them discursively with very different methodologies to provide novel readings of devices, artifacts, and visual or audiovisual media.

Keynote speakers
Mieke Bal (University of Amsterdam), Matthew Rampley (Masaryk University), Michele Bacci (University of Fribourg), Juan Martín Prada (University of Cádiz), Sergio Martínez Luna (UNED) and Keith Moxey (Columbia University).

Preferred thematic lines
The communication proposals can be framed along one of the following lines:

Visual Studies and Art History as Epistemologies in the 21st Century.
Visual Studies as an Interdisciplinary Field of Study.
Cultural Tensions Between Visual "Centres" and "Peripheries" Throughout History
The Globalisation of Visuality and Spatial and Temporal Borders
Digital Humanities and Visual Studies
The Visuality of the Past from the Present: New Approaches to the Visual 'Canon'
Interdisciplinarity and Periphery in Cultural Institutions: Museums, Criticism and Art Market
Other Projects and Practices un Visual Studies and Art History


Submission of abstracts for evaluation
Researchers interested in participating with an oral communication in-person in the congress, should send their abstract before 15 September 2023 through the application of the congress' webpage: https://eventos.urjc.es/97197/upload/1st-international-conference-on-visual-culture-periphery-and-interdisciplinarity-in-visual-studies.html. Any questions or doubts will be answered at congreso.culturavisual@urjc.es.


Publications derived from the Conference
After the event has taken place, at least one scientific monograph will be edited and published with a selection of chapters written by the speakers and participants who wish to do so, with an independent evaluation process that will supervise the final texts of the interventions to guarantee their scientific quality. The book will be published by an impact publisher indexed in Q1 of the Scholarly Publishers Indicators (SPI) or a Q1 journal in Scopus. Interested persons may purchase the book in advance as a complement to their registration for the conference, bearing in mind that the publication will be delayed for at least one year after the date of the conference.


Summary of Deadlines
Deadline for submission of paper proposals: 15 September 2023
Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 18 September 2023
Deadline for early registration for the conference: 28 September 2023*.

* It will be compulsory for at least one of the authors of the paper to register for the conference, following the corresponding modality. Certificates and conference documentation will only be issued to those who have successfully registered for the conference.