The 8th annual Graduate Symposium planning committee at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill invites papers for our upcoming Fall 2022 symposium. The symposium will be held in-person at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Saturday, September 17 from 9:00 AM-4:00 PM EDT. We invite abstracts of no more than 300 words for 20-minute paper presentations. Presentations will be followed by a Q&A session and are open to a general audience.

This year’s symposium will foreground materiality with an emphasis on raw materials, both in the production of art objects and in artistic depictions. We are interested in exploring the cross-cultural exchange of objects and materials; the extraction and exploitation of natural resources (especially under colonial auspices); the role of art objects as material commodities; the sensory interactions between the viewer and art objects; and the translation of raw materials into artistic products.

Our keynote speaker is Monica Domínguez Torres from the University of Delaware. The event will take place Friday and Saturday, September 16 and 17, 2022 at UNC Chapel Hill. Abstracts are due no later than 5 PM EDT on Sunday, July 3, 2022. All other details can be found in the Call for Papers.