CFP: MLA 2025 panel on class politics of cultural production during socialism

DEADLINE: 25 March 2024

We seek paper submissions for a panel at next year’s MLA convention in New Orleans (January 9–12, 2025)

The Class Politics of Cultural Production During and Inspired by Socialism

“What is proletarian art?” asked Theo van Doesburg in his 1923 manifesto on the category in question. This panel explores the many diverse answers that have been brought to this question, through philosophy and praxis, during the intervening century. As socialist institutions, individuals, and grassroots groups strove to enlist culture in the radical reordering of class society, proletarian culture came to flourish in varied forms despite vexed and rarely resolved debates over the artist’s position among social classes. We invite papers on initiatives to organize and support cultural production among working classes in socialist Eastern Europe and by left-oriented actors worldwide, as well as papers reflecting, more broadly, on the class politics surrounding who makes and critically consumes culture.

Please send abstracts (~200-word) by March 25 to Eliza Rose and Djordje Popović < dpopovic@berkeley.edu>

Presenters will be notified by March 29. Please note that all panelists must be active MLA members by April 7. This panel is sponsored by the Slavic and East European MLA Forum and has a guaranteed slot at the convention.