conferences

Each year the Center designates a theme that lends itself to multidisciplinary study as the subject for its research. Around this theme we present a full program of public lectures, seminars, symposia, and conferences.

Coming October 23-25, 2008:

Since 1968

a 40th anniversary conference
at the Center for 21st Century Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

conference organizers
Jasmine Alinder, Aneesh Aneesh, Kumkum Sangari, Daniel J. Sherman, and Ruud van Dijk

conference coordinator
Kate Kramer

If what historians might call a long 1968–the period from the mid-1960s to the early '70s–gave rise to new epicenters of theory, including original Marxist and feminist paradigms; artistic experimentation and new cultural forms, in music, visual art, and literature; and explosive protest movements around the world, the reaction to these developments arguably had as great a transformative impact on the right as on the left. 1968 has remained a touchstone for activists, artists, and theorists of all stripes, and has taken on new significance at the present moment, which bears certain uncanny resemblances to the earlier time. "Since 1968" especially seeks to explore the uses, in several senses of the term, of 1968 today.

Thus the conference asks: what are the parallels between the international situation in 1968 and 2008? What versions of 1968 have artists, theorists, and activists made use of in the decades since? To what extent are theoretical paradigms, political and social movements, and artistic practices that emerged or were tested in the fulcrum of 1968 taking on new life now, and how are they adapting to the physical and virtual spaces of the twenty-first century? Discussions of these and related questions will, we hope, lead to reflection on the larger process of recuperation of historical events, cultural production, and theoretical paradigms in various domains.

keynote
Carolee Schneemann (multidisciplinary artist)

Conference website and curricular guide

call for conference proposals
The Center seeks proposals that will further its mission of promoting cutting-edge research and encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries in the humanities, arts, and humanistically informed social sciences. Topics should have the potential both of appealing to a broad range of researchers in and around UWM and of having a wider impact on scholarly debates in the humanities nationally and internationally. Any topic that falls within the humanities, broadly conceived, has interdisciplinary appeal, and does not duplicate recent conferences may be proposed. Descriptions and some programs of recent conferences are available below.

For complete application information, please click here

past Center conferences include:

• In Terms of Gender: Crosscultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (May 4-5, 2007)
• In/Dependence: Disability, Welfare, and Age (April 7, 2006)
• Art of the State: Sovereignty Past and Present (October 21-22, 2005)
  
• Routing Diasporas (April 8-9, 2005)
• Museums and Difference (November 14-15, 2003)
• 9/11: Reconstructions (October 4-5, 2002)
• Just Feelings: Citizenship, Justice, and the Emotions (April 27-28, 2001)
• Representing Animals (April 13-15, 2000)
• Knowing Mass Culture/Mediating Knowledge (April 29 - May 1, 1999)
• Anthropology, Genetic Diversity, and Ethics (February 12-13, 1999)
• Public Showing (1998)
• Biotechnology, Culture, and the Body (1997)
• Women & Aging: Bodies, Cultures, Generations (1996)

Center for 21st Century Studies

Daniel J. Sherman, Director