Call for Papers: Import/Export
Octopus (Volume 3) Fall 2007
http://www.octopusjournal.org
Deadline for Submissions: April 15, 2007

Octopus: A Visual Studies Journal invites submissions for its third volume, Import/Export. We are interested in exploring how registers of the visual and the aesthetic contribute to contemporary and historical perspectives on globalization, economics, culture, and artistic practice—especially as they relate to questions of exchange, influence, traffic, and regulation. Our efforts to make these issues more tangible also compel us to investigate the stakes of cultural transmission and problematize forms of cultural exchange. Explorations of what occurs between these historical, geographical, and conceptual spaces are also encouraged. Octopus encourages work that questions the notion of “import/export” or rephrases the question in fruitful ways from a diverse range of approaches.

Located at the University of California, Irvine, part of our interest in this topic is based on our own geographic specificity. Our position near the two busiest ports in the country (Los Angeles and Long Beach) brings our attention to the constant flow of goods and the interconnectedness of commerce. Culturally, southern California and its environs are situated in a complex matrix of influences from Mexico, the Pacific Rim, Hollywood, and a multitude of global locations. Hardly unique, we share this position with many other sites—some real, some virtual—throughout the world: bodies, bits, borders, and commodities are constantly in flux.

What are the ramifications for import/export in the art world? It is crucial that we rethink received modernist lineages of artistic influence and recover the place of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean world in the legacy of modernity and modernism. Moments of cross-cultural artistic exchange or collaboration offer another mode for thinking about artistic import and export. The continuing popularity of strategies of appropriation and recuperation demonstrates the vitality of the import/export question in visual practice.

We are also interested in how the thematic frame of import/export resonates with contemporary debates about citizenship, immigration, economics, and politics. Globally, our government has undertaken the uncertain prospect of exporting a foreign system of government—democracy—to another nation, while the IMF has also been accused of capitalist self-promotion. By contrast, the importing of Asian and European TV programs, comics, movies, sports, and fashions increasingly challenge the cultural imperialism of the United States. While more clandestine activities, such as drug running, illegal immigration, and transnational corporation (TNC) laborers allude to more invisible forms of import/export. It is important to destabilize the center/periphery model and the power relations this implies.



Paper topics may include but are not limited to:

- Globalization, transnationalism, internationalism
- Pirates and Piracy: exchange/sharing of information
- Trade in historical perspective
- Transportation
- World bank, IMF
- Travel, tourism, souvenirs, and collecting
- Appropriation, rehabilitation, and recuperation
- Processes of selection and access
- Politics of space
- Pilgrimage, Ecotourism, destination shopping
- Rethinking the canon and modernism
- Data and new media
- Satellite television, Internet, viewer reception
- Nationalism, borders, and mestizo cultures
- Immigration debates
- Cultural export- and importation
- Center/periphery model and its limitations
- Imperialism and the colonial legacy of political importation
- Simulation, re-creation, re-enacting, anachronism
- Translation, reinterpretation
- Intellectual exchange: debates, émigrés, “schools of thought”

Deadline for Submissions: April 15, 2007.

Submission Guidelines:
All submissions must include the title of the contribution, the name(s) of the authors, and the postal address, e-mail address, and phone numbers for the author who will serve as the primary contact with the editors on revisions.

Electronic submissions should be sent as Microsoft Word .doc or Rich Text Format attachments to octopusjournal@gmail.com. Please put the word “submission” somewhere in the subject line.

Manuscripts to be considered for publication should be accompanied by an abstract of no more than 150 words, six keywords, and a short biographic entry about the author(s). Please provide a brief history of the manuscript; whether it is part of a dissertation or thesis, book-length project, conference presentation, etc. Because Octopus follows a policy of blind peer-review, no material identifying the author(s) should appear anywhere other than on the detachable title page. Manuscripts should conform to CHICAGO formatting standards.

For book reviews and criticism [~750 words] please include title of book(s), retail price, and ISBN at the beginning of the review. Art/show reviews should include the gallery, curator, and dates. For film and video/media reviews, include the director, production company (if applicable), and year of production.

Manuscripts and reviews submitted to Octopus should not be under consideration at any other journal. Written permission to reproduce film and video stills, artworks, photographs, song lyrics, or any other copyright protected materials must be obtained by the authors from the copyright-holders before submission.

Subscriptions/Advertising:
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Octopus is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal published by the graduate students of the Program in Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine. The journal is devoted to work by emerging scholars engaged with visuality, culture, history, and theory from a range of contexts, disciplines, and methodologies. In addition to submissions on “Import/Export,” Octopus welcomes scholarship and criticism addressing questions regarding the politics of vision, the historicity of visual practices, and the cultures and theories of vision and visuality on an on-going basis.

http://www.octopusjournal.org
octopusjournal@gmail.com

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