Stone Summer Theory Institute School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Calendar: A week of intensive seminars,

•
The Institute runs from July
16 to July 21. For a full
schedule see page 3.
lectures, and panel discussions
•
An introductory lecture will
be given Tuesday, May 8, at 6
The Stone Summer Theory Institute is a new initiative at the
PM. (See p. 7.) School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It is designed to explore
current, unresolved issues in the conceptualization of art. Each
•
Reading groups will be held
summer studies a different theme.
in preparation for the event,
and texts are available for Internationally known scholars, artists, and writers lead seminars, give lectures, and participate in panel
teachers. (See p. 7.) discussions; the events will be publicized internationally, and published—the first such initiative in an art
school, and the first summer institute that will result in a series of books.
The Stone Summer Theory Institute is supported by a generous grant from Howard and Donna Stone,
longtime friends of the School. With their help, the School of the Art Institute anticipates a series of 7
books, potentially involving over 250 scholars worldwide.
Individual Highlights:
Events
Faculty
2-3
4
Subject for summer 2007: the globalization of art
Future Institutes 5-6 The “biennale culture” now determines much of This is the first event to bring political theorists
For Teachers 7 the art market. Literature on the worldwide together with writers and historians concerned
Registration 8
dissemination of art assumes nationalism and specifically with the visual arts.
ethnic identity, but rarely analyzes it. Seminars will be taught by Fred Jameson, Harry
At the same time there is extensive theorizing Harootunian, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Shigemi
about globalization in politics, postcolonial Inaga, Susan Buck-Morss, and others.
theory, economics, sociology, and anthropology.
 Page 2 of 8
Schedule of events
Opening and closing panel discussions
The Theory Institute opens with a two-hour
round table. There we will set out the
problematic of the conference, and frame the
questions for the week.
On Saturday, a second roundtable closes the
event.
The two roundtables both include time for
audience questions. Both will be taped,
Seminars
Each weekday has two three-hour seminars on
the crucial topics of world art.
The seminars are attended by 15 Fellows, who
are chosen competitively. For application
information, see the last page of this brochure.
(Morning seminars are also attended by
students in a graduate seminar at the School
of the Art Institute.)
Stone Summer Theory Institute
transcribed, edited, and published as a book,
Theorizing World Art. (See the sidebar on this
page.) Audience questions may also be
included in the book.
Both roundtables are open to the public.
Tickets are $10 for the opening roundtable,
and $20 for the closing roundtable.
For registration and location, see page 8.
Public lectures
On Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the
scholars and artists will give lectures,
presenting their most recent work.
These are open to the public; tickets are $20.
For registration and location, see page 8.
Publications:
This is the first event of its
kind that will result in a series
of publications.
Each year’s Art Theory Institute
will be made into a book.The
opening and closing round
tables will be taped, and form
the core of the book. Fifty
scholars, artists, and writers
who did not attend the event
will be asked to write assess-
ments of the round tables; the
books will also include
introductions selected essays,
afterwords, and bibliographies.
The series will continue The
Art Seminar (Taylor and
Francis, 2004-2008), a series
of seven books on different
topics, hosted in part by the
School of the Art Institute.
 Globalism in Art
(Tentative schedule; times and subjects of seminars may change.
For the most recent version, consult the website, www.imagehistory.org.)

Monday July 16 Tuesday July 17 Wed. July 18 Thurs. July 19 Friday July 20 Saturday

Welcome Seminar 2: Seminar 4: Seminar 6: Seminar 8: Closing

Opening roundtable The state of Capital, global power, Temporality and Limits of postcolonial roundtable
globalization culture Modernity theory (9–2)
Led by Thomas Led by Zhivka Led by Harry Led by Susan Buck-Morss
DaCosta Kaufmann Valiavicharska Harootunian A four-hour
Assessments of recent discussion by
9–12 seminar
Introducing the An assessment of the Marxist critical Seminar topics TBA. critiques of post-colonial
problematic of the state of theorization of approaches to the global theory and multi- leaders, with
Institute in a two-hour worldwide practices in predicament. Readings will culturalism; readings include audience
roundtable discussion, visual arts. Readings TBA. include Jameson, Harvey, Buck Morss’s “Hegel in participation,
which will be taped and Hall, Hart&Negri, and Haiti” and Spivak’s Critique of which will be
published. others. Postcolonial Reason taped and
published.

Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch

Seminar 1: Seminar 3: Seminar 5: Seminar 7: Seminar 9:

Recent texts by Globalization in art
Fred Jameson history and theory
Led by Jim Elkins
2–5
Jameson will lead a Readings will include Is Art
reading of his recent History Global?, and
work. discussions of the World
Art Studies centers in
Leiden and East Anglia
Recent texts by
Harry Harootunian
Harootunian will lead a
reading of his recent
work.
Recent texts by Neoliberal
Shigemi Inaga governmentalities
Led by Zhivka
Valiavicharska
Inaga will lead a reading of What is neoliberal gover-
his recent work. nance? Can we think of it in
relation to transnational
capital? Readings will include
Foucault, Lemke, Brown, and
Gupta.

Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner

(faculty only) (faculty, Institute Fellows) (faculty, Institute Fellows) (faculty, Institute Fellows) (faculty only)

Evening lecture: Evening lecture: Evening lecture: Susan

7:30–9 Fred Jameson Free evening Harry Harootunian Buck-Morss Free evening
 Stone Summer Theory Institute
Susan Buck-Morss
Teaches at Cornell University, where she has recently
been teaching on globalism, sovereignty, and visual
culture. Her books include The Dialectics of Seeing and
Dreamworld and Catastrophe.
Harry Harootunian
Is professor of History and East Asian Studies at
NYU. His books include History Disquiet: Modernity,
Cultural Practice and the Question of the Everyday Life
and Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture and Com-
modity in Interwar Japan.
Fredric Jameson
Is an internationally acclaimed scholar who has helped
chart the discourse on postmodernism. He teaches at
Duke University; his recent books include Archae-
ologies of the Future:The Desire Called Utopia and Other
Science Fictions.
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann
Teaches at Princeton University; his recent books
include Toward a Geography of Art and, as co-editor,
Time and Place:The Geohistory of Art.
Page 4 of 8
Faculty for 2007
Faculty in the Stone Summer
Theory Institutes are chosen to
Shigemi Inaga reflect the widest possible range
of ideas on a given subject, from
Works at the International Research Center for
concerns usually voiced only in
Japanese Studies in Kyoto. His interests include the
historiography of the Japanese reception of the West; universities, to those seldom
his books include L’Orient de la peinture: de l’Oriental- heard, or excluded, from
isme au Japonisme. academic discourse—such as
the voices of artists, places, and
James Elkins
institutions marginalized by
Teaches at the School of the Art Institute; his recent scholarly practices. In that way
publications include (as editor) Art History versus the School of the Art Institute
Aesthetics and Is Art History Global?. serves as a bridge between
sometimes widely divergent
Alice Kim
conceptualizations.
Is a PhD candidate in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley. She is
working on her dissertation, “Airport Modern,” on
the relationship between neo-liberalism and cultural
nationalism through the lens of contemporary airport
projects in East Asia.
Zhivka Valiavicharska
Is also doing her PhD in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley. She
studies modern political and social thought, and works
on neoliberalism and culture in post-communist
Southeastern Europe.
 Page 5 of 8
The Stone Summer Theory
Institutes are part of an
initiative at the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago
to produce a critical
literature that includes the
perspective of art practice.
This is the first major
publishing enterprise in an
art school or academy, and
it is intended to fill a
conceptual gap between the
university-based
interpretation of the arts
and the concerns of
artworld institutions.
Stone Summer Theory Institute
Topics for Future Theory
Institutes
2008: What is an Image?
Co-organized by James Elkins and Gottfried Boehm (Basel)
Few critics, philosophers, or art historians develop
theories of images; most work pragmatically or
empirically, and rely on others for foundational
accounts of what images are and how they create
meaning. In recent decades, several theories have
emerged from the practice of historians and critics.
They are not yet known as theories, and they have
not been compared. This event is the first to try to
make major current theories explicit, and to ask
how they might be compared.
2009: What do Artists Know?
During the 1960s, the Master’s degree in art became
the standard terminal degree for artists; in the 1980s
it was augmented, in English-speaking countries
outside the US, by the PhD in art practice. An
enormous literature has grown up justifying the PhD
degree, which is now spreading in the US market.
Meanwhile, conversations on the future of
introductory courses in studio art continue to be
bogged down by conflicting agendas and insufficiently
clear allegiances to formalisms and modernisms.
The participants at this event will be asked to
address one of three related questions:
(1) Does your practice imply a theory of
images? (2) What is an optimal account of what
images are, and how they create meaning? or
(3) What is the most interesting or challenging
recent work on images? (The co-organizers
have no agenda here: our implicit theories are
different, and we are only hoping to create a
forum in which the theories can be examined.)
Thinking on the education of artists is divided
in an unpromising way among teachers avid for
practical tips, administrators interested in the
bottom line, educators invested in philosophies
of teaching, and artists proposing idiosyncratic
solutions.
We hope to bring together the principal
theories that describe what artists can learn in
schools and academies, and what they actually
do learn.
 Stone Summer Theory Institute Page 6 of 8

2010: Who Speaks for the Visual World?

As visual studies (or visual culture studies, or image studies) spreads
around the world, it has borrowed from adjacent disciplines that
study the visual—including art history, literature, anthropology, and The seven subjects of the
sociology. Other disciplines—such as cognitive science, neurobiology, Stone Summer Theory
and archaeology—have continued on separate paths, largely Institute, 2007-2013, are
unaffected by initiatives in the humanities. It is not clear, any more, chosen to reflect the
what might count as the optimal places where the visual is studied.
most important
unresolved issues that
2011: Beyond the Anti-Aesthetic currently affect art
practice, art theory, and
One of the most interesting features of early twenty-first century theorizing on the visual arts art pedagogy. None of
is the continuing hold of an old dichotomy, first defined by Hal Foster in the 1980s. Despite
many challenges and thirty years of new art, the dichotomy of the aesthetic and anti-aesthetic
continues to offer no viable alternative except for adventitious and local experiments. The
impasse is made more difficult by the proliferation of identity politics, which obscures other
theories of meaning (for instance Gilles Deleuze’s), and it is made less negotiable by the
hegemony of anti-aesthetics in academic discourse on art. This event, and the following book,
will be aimed at possible reformulations of the problem.

2012: Problems in Curatorial 2013: Farewell to Visual

Theory
Innovative curation has gone in several mutually
incompatible directions. Among artists there is a
growing desire to blur the distinction between
curator and artist. A principal writer on this
subject, Nicolas Bourriaud, has been roundly
critiqued but no clear alternative is in sight.
Studies
The field of Visual Studies, inaugurated in the
1990s, has not fulfilled its promise. Despite the
continuously increasing number of departments
worldwide, the field remains a minority interest
with an increasingly predictable set of interpre-
tive agendas and subjects. Hence our farewell.
 Page 7 of 8
these subjects, we hope, is
amenable to any simple
solution.
The resulting books, with their
inclusive architecture (see the
sidebar on p. 2), are meant to
be resources for future
discussions.
Educational material
The Theory Institutes include extra events to help orient students.
Introductory
lecture
James Elkins will give an
introductory lecture to
introduce the visiting
scholars and the issues in
the globalization of art.
The lecture is free and
open to all.
Tuesday, May 8, at 6 PM, in
the School of the Art
Institute Auditorium,
corner of Columbus Drive
and Jackson Blvd. No pre-
registration is necessary.
Stone Summer Theory Institute
Reading groups
Reading groups will be held in
preparation for the Theory
Institute.
Reading groups are free and
open to all; registration is
required.You will receive emails
with the readings in advance of
the groups.
Times and venues are TBA. For
further information, email:
info@imagehistory.org
For teachers
If you are a teacher and you
would like to bring a class,
we can provide texts written
by the invited scholars and
artists. That way your
students can be familiar with
the speakers and the issues.
Classes can also be brought
to the School of the Art
Institute, by prior arrange-
ment, for seminars on the
readings.
 Page 8 of 8 How to register
To register for these events, please go to the “Register” page on our website:

www.imagehistory.org
Pricing
Roundtable on Monday, July 16:
Questions about the
Ballroom, 112 South Michigan Avenue
events?
Tickets $10, online or at the door
info@imagehistory.org Roundtable on Saturday, July 21:
Morton Auditorium, Art Institute
To send application
Tickets $20, online or at the door Apply for a Fellowship
materials for the
Fellowships: Both roundtables:
Single ticket $25 Fellows (students in the seminars) are limited
conferences Lecture Monday, July 16: to 15. Applications are invited from advanced
@imagehistory.org Ballroom, 112 South Michigan Avenue graduate students and faculty.
Tickets $20
All other inquiries,
please use the Contact Lecture Wednesday, July 18: To apply, send a two-page letter of intent,
form on the website: Ballroom, 112 South Michigan Avenue stating your interest in, or knowledge of, the
Tickets $20 topic, along with a CV and any pertinent
www.imagehistory.org Lecture Thursday, July 19: texts (published or unpublished), to:
Ballroom, 112 South Michigan Avenue
conferences@imagehistory.org. Deadline May
Tickets $20
15; applicants will be notified May 25.
Combined ticket, good for all three lectures:
Ticket $45 Successful candidates receive full travel and
accommodation.

Advertising . . .
Next year we plan an expanded version of this brochure, with introductory essays. It will be sent out internationally, to over
2,000 institutions. If you would like to inquire about advertising in future editions of this brochure, email jwright@saic.edu.