ASAP/12 will take place virtually, in the interest of the continued health and safety of our membership, as well as in recognition of depressed institutional and fiscal resources. This virtual conference aims to bring about the fullest possible expression of our collective creative intellectual energy and collegial spirit as scholars and practitioners of the Arts of the Present, which is a tall order given the levels of Zoom fatigue and webinar saturation that many of our members have experienced over the past year of COVID-related protocols.
The conference theme—Reciprocity—both responds to and, more importantly, resists the alienating social effects of the pandemic, as well as other contemporary structural, institutional, geopolitical, economic, and planetary forms of estrangement. Working together in and against a global climate of pervasive dividedness and isolation, the conference theme reflects instead the priorities of collective struggle, abolitionist self-care, mutual aid, love, and the creation—or reconstruction—of resistant forms of infrastructure that animate the contemporary arts worldwide.
ASAP is seeking papers and other proposals for their virtual conference that will take place from October 27–30, 2021. Submission portal opens on April 15. Panel proposals and individual abstracts due by June 1 and seminar topics due May 15.