Visual studies as an innovative field of interdisciplinary research has in recent years generated much interest among students of modern and contemporary Chinese culture, politics, and history. We see that modernity in twentieth-century China has given rise to a distinctive visual culture; we also realize that without visual literacy one can hardly comprehend contemporary China, either abstractly or in everyday encounters.

The planned international conference at USC will focus on exploring visual forms and consciousness in modern and contemporary China. It seeks to bring together scholars from related fields and disciplines to further the study of twentieth-century Chinese visual culture.

We hope to engage a wide range of mediums and experiences: from prints to paintings, posters to photographs; from calligraphy to installation art, urban planning to interior decoration; from television shows to internet visuals; from theater to cinema to iconography. Specifically, we wish to ask how we may meaningfully talk about different visual regimes or structures from the late Qing to the present. How is the evolving field of vision constituted and contested? And how does it permeate collective memory and subjectivity? Furthermore, how do we understand the continual translation among words, images, sounds, performances, and multi-media spectacles that we witness in modern China?

Paper proposals are hereby invited. A preliminary proposal should describe what materials will be examined in the paper, and which aspects of twentieth-century Chinese visual culture will be addressed.

Please submit your proposal, along with a brief résumé and contact information, to Xiaobing Tang at xiaobing.tang@usc.edu.

The deadline for preliminary proposals is August 6, 2006.