Appel à communication : « Surrealism and Counterculture, 1960-1980 »

Surrealism and Counterculture, 1960—1980

This panel broadly investigates Surrealism’s influences upon and
relationship to international countercultural currents of the 1960s and
1970s. We invite papers that address Surrealism’s ongoing activity
during this period as well as the movement’s interaction with and
influence on popular or sub-culture, radical politics, post-Freudian
psychologies, the sexual revolution, and the psychedelic movement,
along with other relevant esoteric, marginal or avant-garde currents.

Significant research has been devoted  to Surrealism’s rapport with
prominent post-war art movements such as Abstract Expressionism and to
a lesser degree Pop Art, but there is still much to be considered in
terms of the movement’s influence on other artistic, political,
literary, and musical developments during this period, particularly
those that have exceeded an academic purview. In that sense, the panel
invites material culture, interdisciplinary, and transhistorical papers
in particular so that new light may be shed upon the rich associations
that resulted from Surrealism’s trans-national and multifaceted
character.

How did Surrealism’s emancipatory ideals influence popular music and
film from this period, from Cageian experimentalism, to Maya Deren’s
occultism, to Alice Cooper’s performative rock and roll, for example?
Was there a Surrealist legacy in the Black Power movement or any of the
large-scale political manifestations and protest actions of the 1960s?

Other topics might include new perspectives concerning Surrealism’s
influence on Op Art, Feminist Art, and Happenings, or explorations into
the counter-cultural character of marginalized exhibitions (e.g.,
L’Écart absolu), artists, and publications (La Brèche, L’Archibras).
Additionally, the panel invites new considerations of broader popular
culture phenomena, such as the way in which post-war drug cultures may
have drawn upon the Surreal desire for the au-delà and the merveilleux,
or how notions of bacchanalian “free love” might correspond to or
conflict with Bretonian amour fou or Bataillian transgression. Wilhelm
Reich’s sexual radicalism is of particular interest in this regard, and
other less prominent post-Freudian coteries are also relevant. Farther
afield, can comparisons be made between the rise of Punk rock and
proto-surrealist anarchism, or might the rise of urban graffiti
cultures in the early 70s correspond to a Surrealist notion of an
inscribed and palimpsestic metropolis? Following these examples, we
particularly welcome papers that pursue underexplored comparisons and
unexpected juxtapositions.

For further information and the application form, see:
http://www.collegeart.org/proposals/2014callforparticipation

Please send an abstract of 1-2 double-spaced pages, a CV, and an
application form by May 6, 2013 to both:

Abigail Susik, Willamette University and Elliott H. King, Washington
and Lee University:

asusik[at]Willamette[point]edu