CALL-FOR-PAPERS

Power to Empowerment: Critical Literacy in Visual Culture

University of North Texas

Denton, Texas, June 7-8, 2008

Papers are solicited for an international, transdisciplinary conference examining visual literacy as it is shaped by, shapes and integrates private and public identity and subjectivity through social institutions and forces including design, education, politics, ethics, technology, media, marketing, commerce, the environment and society. The conference understands visual literacy from the perspective of individuals, communities, groups and organizations to mean the ability to successfully compose and deliver meaningful communication as well as decode and interpret visual messages. It involves perceiving visual images as components of a larger culture matrix, constituting their meaning and significance, discerning relationships between their intended and actual purposes and audiences, and acting with or upon them. Visual literacy generates and is affected by relationships between the visual, literacy and power, including disenfranchisement. Particular themes or topics for papers may include but are not limited to the economics of visual culture, constructing the visual landscape, visual culture and affiliations and disenfranchisements, brands and users, ethnographies of visual culture, the charge of education to superintend visual literacy, visual literacy and power, visual illiteracy, visual culture and social difference, and visual cultures of everyday life.

Abstracts between 250-500 words are sought for 15-20 minute paper presentations.

Please send your abstract electronically as a word-document to Keith Owens,

Assistant Professor, Communication Design, University of North Texas College of Visual Arts & Design, kowens@unt.edu.

Important Dates:

February 1, 2008, Deadline for abstracts

March 1, 2008, Notification of acceptance

Keith Owens

University of North Texas

College of Visual Arts & Design

P.O. Box 305100

Denton, TX 76203

940-369-7243