Call for Panelist: IMAGE AS ARTIFACT

Call for Panelist:  AAR 2013 (Section TBD)

IMAGE as ARTIFACT: EXPERIENCING THE "THINGNESS" OF PHOTOGRAPHS IN AMERICAN RELIGION

DEADLINE: February 18, 5pm

Panel Abstract:

Photographs are more than visual fields to be mined for symbolic meaning, ethnographic data, or historical reference. They are objects embedded in histories of production, circulation, and beholding. This panel works to position photographs from a variety of archival contexts as material artifacts that speak beyond the frame to the haptic experiences of beholding. The panel is conscious of the changing profile of photography in the digital age and is invested in historicizing the medium’s rich history of materiality. As researchers and educators we are furthermore attentive to the heterogeneity of images, to their simultaneous operation as icon and relic. Photographs can reference religion and they can disclose it. Working from a variety of methodological approaches, the panelists each incorporate the “thingness of the visual” into their analyses of a photographic archive that contributes to the study of American religion.

The panel is currently comprised of three papers and is seeking a fourth panelist to contribute to the discussion.  If you are interested, please send a current c.v. and brief paper proposal (250 words or less) describing your project and its relevance to the panel to Rachel Lindsey (rmlindsey@fsu.edu) or Mike Pasquier (mpasquier@lsu.edu) by Monday, February 18 at 5pm.