The Visual Arts of the West area seeks research in all aspects of visual culture in or about the American West, including but not limited to photography, painting, drawing, graphic media, sculpture, mixed media works and installations, video, digital media, architecture, urban planning and design, indigenous art, museum studies, special collections, online collections, and public art. The West is defined very broadly to include everything west of the Mississippi River in the United States, Alaska and Western Canada.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
--topographical landscape illustration produced during early explorations
--classic painters of the West–Catlin, Moran, Remington, Russell
--California Impressionism
--the Taos artists colonies and early painters in New Mexico
--Regionalist painting of the 1930s in the Southwest, California, and Texas
--New Deal art in the West
--painting in the Pacific Northwest; the Northwest School, Asian and Asian-American influence
--printmaking and lithography
--painting in Alaska and Western Canada
--architecture and urban design of indigenous peoples and colonial settlers in the West
--early modernist and postmodern architecture and urbanism in the West
--perceptions and attitudes toward the West / the uniqueness of the West
--Manifest Destiny and the West / politics and art of the West
--depictions of women, Native Americans, Mexican-Americans, or other minorities in Western art
--issues of the "other" in Western art
--depictions of frontier life
--women artists, Native American artists, and Mexican-American artists from the West
--depictions of the West by artists from the Eastern U.S. and foreign artists
--ecology and environmentalism in Western art and architecture
--portraiture in the West / depictions of famous Westerners
--early modernists who painted the Western landscape
--modernist, abstract art, and Surrealism in the West
--depictions of the urbanized and suburbanized West
--Earth Art and earthworks
--contemporary art and museum practices
--public art and memorials in and about the West

The submission deadline for the SW/TX PCA/ACA is December 15, 2010. For the Visual Arts of the West area, email queries and proposals for either individual presentations or full panels to area chair Victoria Grieve (Dept of History, Utah State University) at victoria.grieve@usu.edu. Full panel submissions need to include 3 or 4 papers. Please include a 200-word abstract with a two-part working title as well as a CV and contact information for each potential presenter. Mention the conference or Visual Arts of the West in the subject line.

Professors, independent scholars, teachers, and professionals are encouraged to participate. Graduate students are particularly welcome at the conference, which offers awards for the best graduate papers. Please note that the SW/TX PCA/ACA does not generally accept previously presented or published papers. Further, it permits only one presentation per person per year. The conference features numerous individual subject areas, each with its own Area Chair, and each typically including multiple conference panels. Therefore, please consult the area list on the SW/TX PCA/ACA website to determine whether the Visual Arts of the West area is the appropriate area to receive your proposal.

http://www.swtxpca.org

Proposal submission deadline: December 15, 2010

Conference hotel: Marriott Rivercenter San Antonio
101 Bowie Street
San Antonio, Texas 78205 USA
Hotel Phone: 1-210-223-1000

The 32nd annual SW/TX PCA/ACA conference will take place jointly with the PCA/ACA national conference, occurring April 20-23, 2011, at the Marriott Rivercenter in vibrant San Antonio, Texas (just steps from the popular Riverwalk). Further conference details are available at http://www.swtxpca.org