[ecrea] Peripheral Visions: Suburbs, Representation and Innovation CFP

> Peripheral Visions
>
> Suburbs, Representation and Innovation
>
> Kingston University, United Kingdom, 18-19 June 2011
>
> Recent work in the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of suburban studies
> has focused on how suburbs have become increasingly diverse and dynamic
> places. Arguably, though, perceptions of suburban life, whether in
> executive commuter belts, banlieues or shanty towns, continue to
> be dominated by a relatively narrow range of representations. Yet, as
> suburbs have emerged, developed and diversified, new forms of creative
> production – across film, photography, literature, music and digital
> media – have arisen from and in response to them. This two-day conference
> will investigate what it is about these seemingly inauspicious
> environments and lifestyles that has rendered them so inspirational. It
> seeks to illuminate the aesthetic shifts and formal innovations that have
> been involved in their representation over the last century, across all
> media and genres, and within and across different cultures and
> territories. By focusing on such innovations, Peripheral Visions
> will interrogate developments to concepts that are central to twentieth
> and twenty-first century life, including property, autonomy, consumption
> and citizenship.
>
> Confirmed keynote speakers:
>
> Professor Rob Shields (University of Alberta)
>
> Professor Carrie Tarr (Kingston University) 
>
> Dr Jo Gill (University of Exeter)
>
> We welcome proposals for panels and papers which explore topics
> including, but not limited to:
>
> ·       Defining suburban aesthetics and
> poetics 
>
> ·       Suburbs and genre
>
> ·       The suburb as fictional
> world
>
> ·       New technologies and
> auto-documentary / subcultural production
>
> ·       Pioneer suburbs and their
> representation
>
> ·       Poverty on the periphery / the
> suburbs in economic crisis
>
> ·       Suburban pasts, suburban
> futures
>
> ·       Representing transnational
> suburbs
>
> We also welcome contributions which cross critical/creative
> boundaries.
>
> Please submit abstracts (of up to 500 words) online at
>
> http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/conferences/abstracts/ by
> 01/02/2011. Email enquiries to
> (m.dines /at/ kingston.ac.uk) or
> (t.vermeulen /at/ let.ru.nl)