<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>
<body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><b>CFP Transformations issue 28: "The Ruin, the Future."</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">Over the past few years a swathe of what has come to be known as “ruin porn” has swept the internet. Perhaps in an uncanny updating of Albert Speer’s dark fantasies of “ruin value”, photographs of Detroit’s abandoned factories
and theatres, Chernobyl’s crumbling tenements and “urbex” photos of ruined asylums and hotels are gleefully traded on Facebook and Reddit and have amassed immense cultural currency.</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">This contemporary interest in ruins scales from numerous blogs and sub-Reddits to the vaulted heights of major art institutions, with the Tate gallery’s 2013 “Ruin Lust” exhibition. But of course – as the Tate’s exhibition
charted – this fascination has its roots in much older traditions. The ruin was employed for theological purposes in the paintings of the Renaissance, and for didactic and allegorical purposes in the Romantic paintings of the 18th century. For hundreds of
years ruins have been both quotidian elements of the daily lives of many, especially in Europe, while they have also operated as rich sources of historical meaning within various modes of artistic expression.</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">What can be done with the ruin today? Can we put the observations of key theorists of the ruin, such as Walter Benjamin and Georg Simmel, to new purposes? And from our ancient, colonial and industrial ruins can we pull some
hope, some imagination or possibility for the future that sees the ruin differently than as an emblem of a glorious or inglorious past?</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">This issue of Transformations calls for reflections on the ruin and ruination, its past and its future. Possible topics may include (but need not be limited to):</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>Ruins of the ancient world and archaeological practice</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>The ruin and Romanticism</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>Walter Benjamin’s allegory and the ruin</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>The city in ruins</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>The aesthetics of the ruin</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>Colonial ruins and ruination</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>Film emulsion and the media, the ruin of the image</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>The ruin and the archive, memory and forgetting</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>The ruin as poetics</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>Hermeneutics of the ruin</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>Contemporary ruins: “ruin porn” memes and the internet</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>Urban exploration and the industrial ruin</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>The ruin and pollution, bloodstreams and the environment</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>The ruin as messianic event</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">
</span>The ruin and the future, the ruin as possibility</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">>> Abstracts (200-400 words) are due 1st September 2015, with a view to submit articles by 15th January 2016.</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">>> Abstracts should be forwarded to: editor@transformationsjournal.org</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">>> View Transformations online: <a href="http://www.transformationsjournal.org">
http://www.transformationsjournal.org</a> </font></div>
</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br>
</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br>
</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br>
</div>
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<div>-- </div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre;">Dr Grayson Cooke</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">Course Coordinator BMedia</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">Director of Higher Degree Research Training</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">School of Arts and Social Sciences</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">Southern Cross University</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">PO Box 157</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">East Lismore NSW 2480</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre; ">Ph: +61 2 6620 3839</span></div>
<div><a href="http://www.graysoncooke.com">http://www.graysoncooke.com</a></div>
<div><span style="color: rgb(131, 131, 131); font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium;">CRICOS Provider: 01241G</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre;"><br>
</span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>