Brooklyn Aesthetics Conference CFP

anybody wanna propose something with me?

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Brooklyn Aesthetics: A One-Day Conference

St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Brooklyn.  Borough of stevedores and seamstresses, lawyers and landlords.  Birthplace of a truly unique aesthetic, one which integrates poetry and dance, architecture and memoir, old-school politics and contemporary novels into a lively, ever-changing and always exciting landscape bookended by the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island and encompassing areas as diverse as Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn Heights and Gravesend. 

For generations, artists and writers have lived in, looked across the river toward, complained about, and extolled the virtues of, Brooklyn.  Architects and engineers have taken this “broken land” and turned it into a series of neighborhoods which, for better and for worse, reflect the hopes and aspirations (and sometimes failures) of those who live in them.  A rough-and-tumble politics has developed in the borough, a hurly-burly of civic pride, neighborhood affiliations, and national issues.  And then there are the movies: from The Lords of Flatbush through Last Exit to Brooklyn to Do the Right Thing and beyond, filmmakers have developed their own aesthetics of Brooklyn cinematic storytelling.   

This conference will explore Brooklyn topics as varied and multi-faceted as the borough itself.  Papers on any and all aspects of Brooklyn aesthetics are welcome; those submitting proposals are encouraged to think broadly about the topic. 

            Some possible areas of inquiry are:

·         Brooklyn Poetry after Whitman

·         The Brooklyn Novel

·         Brooklyn Artists and Their Works

·         Cinematic Stories of Brooklyn

·         Brooklyn Memoirs

·         Dance in Brooklyn

·         Brooklyn Bridge/Coney Island

·         Brooklyn Literature After 9/11

·         Fashion and Design in the Borough

·         Working Class Heroes

·         Gentrification

·         Religion and Religious Communities in Brooklyn

·         Brooklyn: Geographical Location/State of Mind

·         Literary Friendships

·         Brooklyn Plays and Playwrights

·         Brooklyn in Photography

If you have questions, or would like more information, please contact the conference organizer, Dr. Wendy Galgan, at wgalgan at stfranciscollege.edu (please note that this e-mail will convert to wgalgan at sfc.edu on December 12, 2011).  She can also be reached by telephone at 718-489-3441.

Please submit proposals of no more than 500 words to conference@sfc.edu.  Deadline for proposals is December 30, 2011.