Dear Art Historians of Southern California,

Your attendance would be greatly appreciated at the AHSC's Session at CAA 2012 in Los Angeles which addresses exceptionally important topics about the State of the Discipline of Art History with contributions from some of the most respected scholars in the United States. There have been multiple changes that have occurred relating to disciplinarity, theory, and the institutional framing and practice of the discipline over the last 25 years. The discipline has been theorized to be more inclusive of objects, gender, classes and cultures. Whether practical or symptomatic of the changes in the discipline’s focus, the institutional framing or contextualization of the discipline has also gone through many manifestations and exists in different forms throughout the country. College and department affiliations have changed; Museum Studies/Public History and Visual Culture/Visual Studies programs have been proposed, succeeded and been dismantled. We would like to have a conversation about the State of the Discipline from a critical, a theoretical, and an institutional standpoint.

Our session will be on Friday, February 24th 12:30-2 PM in the West Hall Meeting Room 501ABC. We will have a panel discussion with our speakers on Friday evening, February 24th 5:30-7 in the same room. However, the panel discussion will be billed as “AHSC Business Meeting” in the CAA program.

Rebooting Artistry and Its History, Theory, and Criticism
Donald Preziosi
Emeritus Professor of Art History, UCLA
Visiting Professor, University of York, UK, 2011-2012

A Labyrinth Without a Thread: Decreating Art History
Jae Emerling
Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art
University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Has Visual Studies Come of Age?
Bridget R. Cooks
Associate Professor, Art History, African American Studies, and Visual Studies
University of California, Irvine

The Center Does Not Hold: Museum Studies as a Field in Need of (a)Discipline
Selma Holo
Professor, Art Historyand Director of the USC Fisher Museum of Art
University of Southern California

We look forward to your participation at the session and panel discussion.

THE ART HISTORIANS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Invite you to participate at the

ANNUAL MEETING – CONSTRUCTING AND CONTESTING BEAUTY

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5th, 2011

USC Fisher Museum of Art
823 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90089
12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.

USC Fisher Museum of Art

Opening remarks about the current exhibition by
Selma Holo, Director of USC’s Fisher Museum of Art
A reception and tour of the exhibition will immediately follow.

Our theme is in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition Posing Beauty in African American Culture. We will be discussing issues about representations of beauty in visual culture that relate to race, cultures, classes, genders and loci of power within art historical and theoretical frameworks.

Call for Papers

Our theme for the annual meeting complements the exhibit Posing Beauty in African American Culture at USC’s Fisher Museum of Art. The Fisher Museum of Art has generously offered to host our annual meeting on Saturday, November 5th, 2011.

We invite abstracts of 200 words that address any of the many contexts in which the idea of beauty is at stake. We want to explore how beauty is idealized and how concepts of beauty are related to race, class, gender and power. This might include the expression of beauty in performance, ritual, pageants, performance art, all forms of visual culture and viewer/subject relationships.

Deadline: First review of abstracts will be on Friday, September 30th 2011. We will accept abstracts until we have finalized the program. AHSC membership is required in order to present. The topic should allow for a 20 minute paper.

The submission should include:
a) Abstract with title
b) Contact information
c) Institutional Affiliation
d) CV

Please submit your abstract for consideration to deanahight@sbcglobal.net.