The 15th Annual RAW Graduate Student Conference, an academic convention organized by graduate students from the Harry Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology, will delve into diverse perspectives on beauty through a theoretical lens.
The conference’s official theme, “Fugly: Aesthetics, Activism, and Politics,” explores the intersections of aesthetics, activism, and politics in shaping perceptions of beauty. The day-long, in-person conference will highlight the work of scholars from UT Dallas and beyond and feature a keynote presentation by Dr. Kartik Nair, assistant professor of film studies at Temple University, on Feb. 17.
The conference will showcase research papers, creative multimedia projects, and performance-based pieces addressing what is considered “ugly” in history, politics, aesthetics, and society.
Two graduate students from the Bass School and doctoral candidates in Visual and Performing Arts, Arya Rani, in film studies, and Mazyar Mahan, a teaching associate, serve as the organizers of RAW 2024. The program committee, comprising senior graduate students, meticulously selected the featured works by reading and judging abstracts. The panels are scheduled to take place in various rooms throughout the UT Dallas Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building.
“This year, the conference will be conducted entirely in person for the first time after the COVID pandemic,” Rani said. “We received a record-breaking number of abstracts. In addition to the works of UTD graduate students, we will have presenters from other regional, national, and even international institutions. The presence of contributors from various academic backgrounds and geographic locations is expected to enhance the overall quality and global perspective of the event.”
The conference explores the underpinning ideology of the perfect, the polished, and the pretty to spotlight the revolutionary potential of transgressive art, literature, and performance. The lens of fugly or frigging ugly allows us to examine what has been and might be hushed, censored, and removed from public memory.”
Dr. Nair, a researcher of popular cinema and a scholar in Indian cinema, will deliver a presentation on the material life of genres. His work explores the infrastructures that produce moving images and how viewers experience those infrastructures as expressive screen forms. Nair’s first book, forthcoming from the University of California Press in January 2024, Seeing Things: Spectral Materialities of Bombay Horror, examines the familiar conventions of horror films for the spectral presence of filmmaking histories.
To learn more and to register for this conference, visit https://utdraw.wixsite.com/fugly/about