CONFERENCE SHORT PROGRAMME
AUTOTHEORY: THINKING THROUGH SELF, BODY & PRACTICE
HELLO CONFERENCE PROGRAMME AND INFO PACK
Wednesday 26th October - Online only Thursday 27th October - University of Glasgow + Online Friday 28th October - Tramway Arts Venue, Glasgow
CONTENTS
4
6
welcome & keynote session information
schedule & panel information
12
15
about the conference workshops
how to register
16
22
information for delegates
about our funders & organisers
WELCOME The conference organisers would like to welcome you to Autotheory: Thinking Through the Self, Body and Practice: a three-day online and in-person exploration of the possibilities and potential of working, thinking and creating autotheoretically. Held across the University of Glasgow and Tramway, an arts venue in Glasgow, the event brings together artists, writers, performers, activists, and theorists from across disciplines, locations and backgrounds and aims to build connection, understanding and excitement for an emerging mode of ‘doing theory’. ‘Autotheory’ describes a mode of thinking that blends self-representation and philosophical or theoretical engagement within and across disciplines, including literature, film, art, music, and academic work. It is a genre-defying practice with deep roots in the work of Women of Colour, Indigenous, LGBTQIA+ and workingclass feminists who sought to speak back to the academy and its hegemonic modes of knowledge production through creative and bodily practices. The term is both nebulous and porous, open to multiple iterations, manifestations and conceptions, but it is grounded, always, in a feminist ethics of the personal is political and the personal is theoretical. Over three days, we aim to explore autotheory across practices, mediums, disciplines, places and times, paying particular attention to the radical possibilities of autotheoretical work. Day one is our online day and includes our Key Note address by Dr Lauren Fournier, the author of Autotheory as Feminist Practice (2021). Thinking happens everywhere, and so too, does autotheory. On days two and three, along with a range of insightful panels, we are excited to include a number of performances and workshops that challenge traditional conceptions of where and how theoretical work is done and which foster a practice of thinking through one’s body and experiences. We see this event as taking part in a process of expanding definitions, breaking boundaries, and building inter- and transdisciplinary alliances. We hope you’ll join us in this vital work. The conference organisers
Check back on 1 July 2022 for the full conference programme, which will include panel abstracts, speaker information and more information about Glasgow
WEDNESDAY 26TH OCTOBER 15.00-16.30 - ONLINE
KEYNOTE The organising committee are delighted to welcome Dr Lauren Fournier as the keynote speaker at 'Autotheory: Thinking through Self, Body and Practice'. Dr Fournier has been at the forefront of autotheory scholarship, completing her doctoral dissertation on autotheory and publishing the first monograph on the topic in 2021, and so we could not think of a better person to provide a keynote for this inaugural autotheory conference. We invite all conference delegates to join us online to hear Dr Fournier's insights and learn more about her work. With special thanks to Dr Fournier for joining us.
Dr Lauren Fournier
Lauren Gabrielle Fournier (she/her) is a writer and researcher working at the intersection of the arts, sciences, and humanities. A first-generation student and scholar, her writing and teaching cohere around hybrid and multi-genre writing as practices of storytelling and philosophical inquiry. She holds a PhD in English Literature and completed a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in Visual Studies at the University of Toronto. Her debut monograph Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism (The MIT Press, 2021) is the first book-length study of 'autotheory,' which historicizes the English-language term in light of longer, intersectional, and transmedial feminist art histories. As a curator, she has organized exhibitions and screenings of contemporary art and film at such venues as the
Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, the Medical Museion in Copenhagen, and the Horse Hospital in London. She is the founder of the ongoing, site-responsive project Fermenting Feminism, which bridges eco-aesthetics and the life sciences. Her debut novella The Barista Boys is forthcoming through Fiction Advocate (San Francisco, 2022), and commingles autofiction, literary criticism, and place-based/siteresponsive writing.
THE SCHEDULE WEDNESDAY 26 OCTOBER
THURSDAY 27 OCTOBER
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER
ONLINE
UNIV. SENATE ROOM
TRAMWAY
10:00 - 11:30 Online Panel: Body Thoughts
09:00 - 10:15 Panel A: Autotheoretical Collaborations
09:30 - 11:00 Panel C: Feminist Redux
11:30 - 13:00 Break
10:15 - 10:45 Break
11:00 - 11:15 Break
13:00 - 14:30 Online Panel: Locating Autotheory
10:45 - 12:15 Performance Panel: Object Encounters
11:15 - 12:45 Panel D: Theory Incarnate
14:30 - 15:00 Break
12:15 - 13:00 Lunch break
12:45 - 13:30 Lunch break
15:00 - 16:30 Keynote: Dr Lauren Fournier
13:00 - 14:00 Plenary
13:30 - 15:30 Performance Panel: Mouthing Autotheory
14:00 - 14:15 Comfort break
15:30 - 16:00 Break
14:15 - 15:45 Panel B: Working Autotheory
16:00 - 17:30 Workshop: DIY Theory Autotheoretical Zine-Making
15:45 - 16:00 Comfort break
16:00 - 18:00 Workshop: Processing Theory with Our Hands 18:30 - 20:00 Conference Dinner
VENUE: ONLINE
WEDNESDAY 26TH OCTOBER 10.00-11.30
ONLINE PANEL 1: BODY THOUGHTS
Jeana Moody
Homebody, or at Home in This Body: A Chronically Ill and Queer Narrative
Jakob Summerer
Autotheorising Eating Disorders: Metaphors and the Positioning of Selves
Abhisek Pal
"God Is My Asshole": Theorising the Gay Male Body in Gustave Vinagre and Rodrigo Carneiro's The Blue Flower of Novalis
11.30-13.00
BREAK
13.00-14.30
ONLINE PANEL 2: LOCATING AUTOTHEORY
Lily Sabath, Angus Green, Maria Laurids Lazzarotti, Jessica Aimufua, Jonathan Lubasch
(TBC) Scarring Autotheory
Tania Romero
Mapping The Self: Auto-ethnographies from the in-between
Brit Schulte
“The perzine as autotheory in (art) practice”
14.30-15.00
BREAK
15.00-16.30
KEYNOTE - DR LAUREN FOURNIER
THURSDAY 27TH OCTOBER 09.00-10.15
PANEL A: AUTOTHEORETICAL COLLABORATIONS
Marjana Johansson
Writing differently: Vulnerability and theorizing from the self
Grace Borland Sinclair & Christine Borland
The Distaff Dialogues
Lisa Bradley & colleagues
Untamed selves for plural publics: exploring the political (im)possibilities of collective autotheory within the social sciences
10.15-10.45
BREAK
10.45-12.15
PERFORMANCE PANEL 1: OBJECT ENCOUNTERS
Adam Dention
Auto-Parts: Performance Vehicles & Encounter Driven Practices
Goda Palekaitė
Film Screening: I Write While Disappearing
Nerea Bello Sagarzazu
Txalaparta, elkarhizketa/Txalaparta a dialogue
Lisa Bradley
Thesis as text/ile for thinking, writing and reimagining time and knowledge
12.15-13.00
LUNCH BREAK
VENUE: SENATE ROOM, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW + STREAMED ONLINE
13.00-14.00
PLENARY. SPEAKER TO BE ANNOUNCED
14.00-14.15
COMFORT BREAK
14.15-15.45
PANEL B: WORKING AUTOTHEORY
Hannah Spruce and Angie Lee
The Reading Group as Autotheoretical Practice
Ella Berny
Beyond autotheory towards a collaborative theorising
Lauren Bunce
'A Factory of Emotions': Affective Labor and Autotheoretical Practice
Cat Auburn
Risky Palimpsests: Plural-authorship in an autotheoretical art practice
15.45-16.00
COMFORT BREAK
16:00-18.00
WORKSHOP
Lesley Guy, Grace Denton, Cat Auburn
18.30-20.00
Processing Theory with our Hands
CONFERENCE DINNER, THE GROSVENOR CAFE
FRIDAY 28TH OCTOBER 09.30-11.00
PANEL C: FEMINIST REDUX
Sponsored by Contemporary Women's Writing Association (CWWA)
Inés García
“Citation Politics and Feminist Bricks in Dionne Brand’s Autotheoretical Novel Theory”
Xenia Mura Fink
Self-Representation, the Gaze, Desire, and the Female Artist: A Personal Case Study
Emily Moeck
[sic]: Archiveology as a Feminist Theory of Narrative in Practice
Isabella Shields
Refracting Queer Trauma: Autotheory as Haunted Mansion in Carmen Maria Machado’s In The Dream House
11.00-11.15
BREAK
11.15-12.45
PANEL D: THEORY INCARNATE
Judith Schreier
"The Size of My Body Is A Simple Fact: Autotheorical Approaches in Fat Life Writing
Rebecca Mackenzie
Swimming with Submarines: violence and becoming on the Clyde
Hatty Nestor
The Performative “I”: On Della Pollock and Denise Riley’s Embodied I
Maria Gil Ulldemolins
Autotheory for mountains: land(e)scaping the first-person voice
VENUE: TRAMWAY, GLASGOW
12.45-13.30
LUNCH BREAK
13.30-15.30
PERFORMANCE PANEL 2: MOUTHING AUTOTHEORY
Iain Findlay-Walsh
Words as mouth, worlds as ear: a pop music theory-fiction
Rachel Lyon
Imitatio as method: becoming Catherine of Siena's voice
Lesley Guy
LG and RCP Continued in Fragments
Samantha Talbot
Some Notes on Fire: Performing desire and its discontents
15.30-16.00
BREAK
16.00-17.30
WORKSHOP
Lauren Cooper
DIY Theory: Autotheoretical Zine-making Workshop
WORKSHOPS SPACES LIMITED - BOOK TICKETS AT REGISTRATION
THURSDAY 27TH OCTOBER 15.30-18.00 - SENATE ROOM, UNIV. OF G
WORKSHOP 1 LESLIE GUY, GRACE DENTON & CAT AUBURN
PROCESSING THEORY WITH OUR HANDS
We invite colleagues to join us in an experimental workshop that will enable a range of ways we can think through our hands and embody theory in new and unexpected ways. This is an opportunity for researchers to develop an autotheoretical toolkit and explore inverting the power dynamics of Theory through creative practice within a safe group environment. We are inspired by the simple idea put forward by Monica Pearl that autotheory “deconstructs the generic conventions of memoir and academic prose but remakes them as well”.[1] We want to create a workshop that allows us to ask as a collective the question: ‘what new ideas can we create through the practice-based deconstruction of theory’? We are excited to process new ideas together as a group as this can help to balance out the introspective aspects of working autotheoretically. We will focus on the following processes through making and discussion: · Freewriting · Guided meditation · Reworking an existing piece of text through haptic and craft-based methods · Collaboration and the practice of ‘thinking-with’ or together Materials: Participants are to bring along a photocopy of a section of theory to work with. We will bring a selection of printed texts, but this may work best with material chosen by the attendee. We will build acknowledgements of the lineages from which we draw our ideas and techniques into this workshop, which are refined from a plethora of sources, including those developed from our own practices. We will include consideration of accessibility into the workshop. We would like to plan a 2-3 hour session but will be open to negotiating this with the organisers. We are also open to the possibility of using the workshop content to reflect back to the rest of the conference. [1] Pearl paraphrased in Wiegman, Robyn. “In the Margins with The Argonauts.” Angelaki 23.1 (2018): 210.
FRIDAY 28TH OCTOBER 16.00-17.30 - TRAMWAY
WORKSHOP 2 LAUREN COOPER
DIY THEORY: AUTOTHEORETICAL ZINE-MAKING WORKSHOP
Researchers, artists and creatives are invited to explore the category of autotheoretical zines and engage in autotheoretical practices to create their own zine, in this 90-minute workshop. Zines are DIY publications that often use personal experience and affective writing to explore a particular topic. Scholars have identified many categories of zines and Lauren’s research, upon which this workshop is based, poses autotheoretical zines as an additional category, one which straddles personal and political zines. Autotheoretical zines engage in cultural critique and theorising, through writing about personal experience, and they engage with other theoretical works and citational practices, accordant with existing definitions of autotheory. These zines render theory into everyday language, actions and experiences, making theory more meaningful and digestible to readers, reflecting autotheory’s ambition to bridge ‘High Theory’ and lived reality. Workshop participants will learn more about autotheoretical zines and will have the opportunity to explore examples before turning to creative practices. Participants will be invited to: · Engage with a work of theory in personal ways · Respond to a series of writing prompts · Mine prompt responses for zine content · Create a mini-zine from autotheoretical practices and haptic zine techniques such as collage, marginalia and personal writing
COMPLETE REGISTRATION
NEXT STEPS
Attendance to the conference is free but registration is required for both online and in-person attendees. There are specific tickets to the workshops, as numbers are limited, available on a first-come basis. You'll find these in the 'add-ons' on Eventbrite. Please also make sure that you register for the correct attendance type: online only or in-person.
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Unfortunately, the funding we have secured does not quite cover the venue costs and so we are asking for donations to support the event and to help us build a fund for catering. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated.
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INFORMATION FOR DELEGATES
TRAVELLING TO GLASGOW View information about getting to Glasgow Accommodation near the University can be found here Arrange to share a room or transport around Glasgow with other delegates by indicating that you would like to be added to the Room & Ride Share board when you complete registration
THE VENUES The conference is hybrid and will run both online and in-person. Day 1 will be exclusively held online. Speakers presenting on Day 2 or Day 3 will need to travel to Glasgow. Please note that there are two in-person venues for the conference and that you should make arrangements to get to each venue accordingly.
UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW Senate Room, University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ Thursday 27 October
TRAMWAY 25 Albert Drive, Glasgow, G41 2PE Friday 28 October
SENATE ROOM, MAIN BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW TRAMWAY, ALBERT DRIVE, GLASGOW
View the Campus Map, check accessibility & campus directions here
CONFERENCE DINNER All delegates are invited to join us at a conference dinner on Thursday 27 October at 18.30. We will dine privately at the Grosvenor Cafe: a former cinema turned ambient restaurant, close to the University, on the picturesque and iconic Ashton Lane.
A three course meal will be served for a price of £29 per person. You will be asked to pay a deposit upon registration and will be required to pay the remaining amount in the weeks leading up to the conference. View the menu here and reserve your space. We look forward to spending this time with you. Please email us if you have any dietary or accessibility concerns and we will liaise with the venue.
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GROSVENOR CAFE 24 Ashton Lane Glasgow G12 8SJ
Image credit: Simone Smith
SPECIAL THANKS INFORMATION ABOUT CONFERENCE ORGANISERS & SPONSORS
FUNDERS
The Contemporary Women's Writing Association (CWWA) has kindly sponsored the panel 'Feminist Redux'. The CWWA is a network of researchers interested in contemporary women’s writing in all genres. It welcomes academics, writers, performers, publishers and reading groups and has a subnetwork for PGRs and ECRs. The association regularly hosts conferences and events and you can find out more and join at www.thecwwa.org
This conference is largely funded by the College of Arts Collaborative Research Award (CRA) from the University of Glasgow. 'Autotheory: Thinking through Self, Body and Practice' is a cross-disciplinary conference welcoming speakers from around the world and collaborating with local organisations such as Tramway arts venue. The conference organisers would like to thank the CRA committee for supporting this event.
ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Lauren Cooper (she/her) is a PhD researcher and teaches at the University of Glasgow. Her thesis is on the socio-political interventions that autotheory makes in memoir, manifestos & zines. Lauren often hosts writing workshops based on her research and recently started making her own zines.
Dženana Vucic (she/they) is a BosnianAustralian essayist, poet and critic. She is in the final months of a PhD in English Literature at the University of Glasgow and is also writing an autotheoretical book about the Bosnian war, identity, un/belonging and memory. She tweets at @dzenanabanana.
WITH THANKS TO THE CONFERENCE ASSISTANTS Christina Chatzitheodorou Erin Gannon Elisa Pesce Luz Cacerespaton Wei Zhao Ziyao Wang Samantha Talbot/Sam Lou Talbot is a musician, performance artist, poet, and popular music academic. She is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Glasgow, and a Lecturer in Popular Music at Perth College, UHI. Her research pioneers an aesthetic and onto-epistemology of spontaneous song/writing and its formal, methodological, and conceptual entanglements. samloutalbot.com. Twitter: @talbot_sl. Instagram: @samloutalbotmusic.
Serena Wong is a PhD Researcher in English Literature and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Glasgow. She researches on modernist literature, particularly on the texts of Virginia Woolf and concepts of orientalism. Her doctoral project also works closely with racial and postcolonial theories.
CONTACT QUESTIONS
autotheoryconference@gmail.com
autotheoryconference2022.wordpress.com @autotheory2022
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