SAVAH CONFERENCE 2024 – CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The advent of the post-colonial epoch in Africa during the mid-twentieth century ushered in a wave of revisionist and African-based theoretical prisms of seeing and reading the art of the continent, such as Negritude, Afrocentrism, Black Aesthetics and so on. Since their emergence, these theories or “registers of inquiry” (Taylor 2024) have dominated visual arts praxis as well as scholarly dialogues on the complex and vibrant aesthetics of Africa. Acknowledging their significance and building on these formative re-narrativisations of African artistic practice, the 2024 conference aims to explore more recent visual discourses in Africa, such as, but certainly not limited to, Afropolitanism, Post-Africanism, Post-Afrikanerism, Afro-Indianism, Afrotopianism and Afrofuturism. Paper presentations that engage with fresh and/or re-contextualised historiographies on creative African artefacts, ranging from jewellery to architecture and everything in betwixt, are specifically welcome.
Subthemes

• Post-Africanism
• Afropolitanism
• Afrofuturism
• Post-Afrikanerism
• Feminisms in Africa
• Afro-Indian perspectives
• African utopias/Afrotopianism
• The artist/artisan/crafter in contemporary Africa
• The social history of African artefacts

We invite paper presentations of 20 minutes related to the conference theme and/or subthemes or indeed any other discourse(s) that deal with [South] African visual culture.
Please send a title of your proposed paper, an abstract of between 300 and 400 words as well as your affiliation. Please write the words “SAVAH conference 2024” in the subject line of your e-mail. Submissions must be sent to Nina Newman at newmann@tut.ac.za
Closing date for the first call for papers is Friday, 31 March 2024
Special call for Master’s degree candidates
The 2024 conference hosted the first ever session specifically dedicated to presenters who were completing their Master’s degree qualifications at the time. The 2024 conference also invites submission of abstracts from postgraduate students registered for their Master’s degrees during the 2024 academic year. Papers for this special call need not conform to the overall conference theme as presenters are specifically encouraged to submit abstracts related to their respective research topics, so long as they engage with visual culture(s)/discourse(s) in South Africa, Africa and beyond.
Please send a title of your proposed paper, an abstract of between 300 and 400 words as well as your affiliation. Please write the words “SAVAH conference 2024 special call” in the subject line of your e-mail. Submissions for the Master’s Degree presentations must be sent to Pfunzo Sidogi at sidogip@tut.ac.za
Closing date for this special call is Wednesday 31 May 2024.