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The 2007 Conference of the International Visual Sociology Association will take place August 10,11,12 at New York University in New York City.
Theme: Public Views of the Private; Private Views of the Public
Cameras record our lives from the intimate family realm of baby pictures through required driver’s license and passport photos, to the now ubiquitous video surveillance on highways and city sidewalks. In effect each person leaves a visual trail from birth to death. The theme for the 2007 IVSA conference is the multi-faceted relationship between public and private realms and how they are shaped by human action while at the same time condition our lives. The aim of the conference is to visually examine the various layers of the public/private relationship. Presenters and panelists are invited to explore how the social is embodied in the built environment, how visual media challenge and/or reinforce the traditional divide between public and private; and alternative frameworks that visual sociology offers for reconstructing this relationship.
Cultural forms, social institutions, and power structures always frame private and public realms. Recent research suggests that the relations and borders between public and private are rapidly changing. Technological developments, changing social mores and folkways, cross-cultural perspectives, urban conditions, and advancing communication media seem to be breaking down borders or making them more permeable. Visual Sociology provides useful tools for investigating and interpreting the complexity and interpenetration of public and private realms; making visible intersections, historical legacies, and cross-cultural processes. Art, photography, film and video as well as careful observation can depict local communities and global society and elucidate social cohesion and social conflict.
Visual researchers also construct their own images and interpretive narratives elucidating and questioning “the image” of public views and private views. We welcome a wide variety of formats including video, poster sessions, installations, performances, photo exhibits, and multimedia presentations as well as traditional papers.
Focusing on public and private views draws attention to the physical dimension of human interaction and to the spatial ground that gives rise to social phenomena. It also allows researchers to consider dialectics between home and community, front stage and backstage, local communities and the global society. In order to address these issues, papers and sessions may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
1. Visual media in public and private
2. Changing borders between the public and private
3. Social Conflict and Fear
4. Terrorism as a public catastrophe
5. Gender and sexuality
6. Surveillance and invasion of private and public space
7. Built environments
8. Neighborhoods, localities, and semi-public realms
9. Public/Private: theories and methods
10.The body in the arts and science
11. Cinematic representations
12. Public/Private narratives: home made videos to “Reality' TV
Those interested in organizing sessions on the topics listed above, or other related topics, should submit proposals to IVSA2007@gmail.com Deadline for submission of session proposals is March 15rd Please submit an abstract of about 50-100 words on the session’s theme to be used as guidelines for presenters.
For further information and updates, go to: http://www.visualsociology.org/
Information about submitting papers will be posted about April 15.
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