CFP - Agent Orange: Landscape, Body, Image

Agent Orange: Landscape, Body, Image

May 7-9 2009

UC Riverside

Since the 1960’s, use of chemical defoliants in the Vietnam War commonly known as Agent Orange served as a cause célèbre, focusing public attention in Vietnam and the world on environmental destruction and associated birth deformities. Agent Orange, especially through images and media reports, symbolizes both the widespread tragedy of war and its silent legacies that persist for generations not only in damaged ecosystems but also in the genetic and social landscapes of human bodies. As one of the more discussed and researched aspects of the Vietnam War, the study of Agent Orange’s social and physical traces highlights the complexity involved in analyzing the technologies of modern warfare. The nature of the chemicals’ production and distribution as well as the series of scientific and political efforts made to remediate damaged places and bodies points to a phenomena that transcends national and disciplinary boundaries.

The proposed conference investigates the enormous legal, medical, environmental, and social ramifications of Agent Orange, as it continues to affect populations both inside and outside Vietnam. It explores the lingering effects of Agent Orange as it surfaces in multiple discussions and discourses in the arts, humanities, and sciences. By bringing together a diverse and international set of artists, activists, scholars, and veterans, the conference aims to explore how people interpret and represent the war’s continued manifold legacies and its in/visible impact on the land and human body. As part of this objective, we consider the ways in which Agent Orange has been the subject of various and oft conflicting discourses and representational practices, and has been understood by different communities in complex and multi-layered ways that challenge conventional forms of knowledge. The goal of this conference is not to reproduce existing scientific, political, or disciplinary perspectives on Agent Orange, but rather, to consider the kinds of situated knowledge produced about technologies of war through visual, discursive, and performative modes of representation. 

Papers are sought that can contribute to such a discussion on one of three interdisciplinary panels, each organized around one of the following themes: landscape, body, or image. Topics may consider science, technology and ecology in relation to knowledge production of chemical weapons; visual and representational strategies used to examine and document Agent Orange; and institutional projects and practices that address community and bodily rehabilitation. Accompanying film viewings and an extended art exhibit will include the works of Goro Nakamura, Tran Van Thuy, Dinh Q. Le, among others.

Abstracts of 200 words should be sent via email to aoconference2009@gmail.com by Sunday, November 23. Accepted submissions will be notified by December 15. Questions can be directed to the conference organizers: David Biggs (dbiggs@ucr.edu), Christina Schwenkel (cschwenk@ucr.edu) and Lan Duong (lduong@ucr.edu). 

This conference is supported with funding from UCOP’s Pacific Rim Research Foundation, UCR’s Center for Ideas and Society, and the Department of Media and Cultural Studies, and Program of Southeast Asia Text, Ritual and Performance (http://seatrip.ucr.edu) at UC Riverside.