Call for Applications: Funded Graduate Student Workshop: “1980s: Representational Pressures, Departures, and Beginnings for the study of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey” | AMCA | Association for Modern + Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran + Turkey

Call for Applications: Funded Graduate Student Workshop: “1980s: Representational Pressures, Departures, and Beginnings for the study of Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey”

Nov 3, 2022, plus attendance at subsequent conference Nov 4-5  

University of North Texas, Denton, TX

Conveners: Anneka Lenssen (lead), Nada Shabout, Salwa Mikdadi, Sarah Rogers, Pamela Karimi, and Jessica Gerschultz.

Organizational Sponsors: Office of the President and Department of Art History, University of North Texas; al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art, NYU Abu Dhabi; Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA).

The Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA) invites applications for its second ever Graduate Student Workshop, to be hosted in person at the University of North Texas on Thursday, November 3, 2022. AMCA welcomes applications from doctoral students working on art and visual culture from the Arab world, Iran, or Turkey who wish to build connections to an international cohort of scholars with regional expertise and engagement. The workshop is meant as an opportunity for relatively early stage doctoral candidates—preferably in the research or early writing stage of the dissertation—to meet one another, present work-in-progress, share ideas about sources and challenges, and establish grounds for collaborating on questions of shared concern. The workshop is timed to coincide with the conference “1980s: Representational Pressures, Departures, and Beginnings” and an accompanying exhibition, “A banquet for seaweed: Snapshots from the Arab 1980s” (curated by Nada Shabout). The conference CFP may be found here: [https://amcainternational.org/call-for-papers-2/] It is not necessary for applicants to be working directly on the 1980s in their doctoral studies, but we hope they will possess curiosity about the conference topic! 

Selected workshop participants will be asked to participate in two Zoom calls (one in May, one in June), led by Prof. Anneka Lenssen, to begin to get to know one another by discussion of selected research materials and artwork. Students who wish to contribute to the exhibition with credited wall texts and contextual information will have opportunity to do so—to be discussed as a group. The workshop itself takes place from 11 to 4 pm on November 3, 2022, followed by a two-day conference at the same location. Participation will be generously subsidized: meals, accommodation, and airfare (up to $1000) will be covered.

We are asking applicants to submit 1) a CV and a one- to two-page statement of interest. The documents may be submitted to amcaorg@gmail.com. Please use “Graduate Student Workshop Application” as the subject. To be considered, both items should be submitted by April 20, 2022. Students will be notified of their acceptance around May 1.