The first annual Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference at George Mason University will interrogate the politics of cultural programming in public spaces.

Institutions within the conference purview include: museums, festivals, the performing arts, sporting events, multicultural and/or ethnically specific celebrations, gigs and club nights, and tourist spectacles. Of special interest is the menu of activities available in specific localities at any given moment: Of what is this menu comprised? To whom is it offered? And at what cost?

Questions to be considered may include but are not limited to:

* How is the knowledge of cultural programming produced in and through institutions?
* How does cultural programming produce knowledge?
* How do cultural institutions interpellate performative identities of race, class, gender and sexuality?
* How do we understand labor in the context of cultural events?
* What are the ideological stakes of cultural programming and what is its political economy?
* What kind of subject and desire does cultural programming produce?

Graduate students from relevant disiciplines are invited to submit abstracts of no more than 300 words addressing these and related topics to Vicki Watts (vwatts@gmu.edu) by March 15th 2007. Please include your institutional affiliation and any technical requirements.