Craft Critique Culture Conference

This year’s theme is "Elaborating Labor." This year’s conference recognizes the spatial and temporal context within and beyond a written text.

CRAFT CRITIQUE CULTURE is an interdisciplinary conference focusing on the intersections of critical and creative approaches to writing both within and beyond the academy. CRAFT CRITIQUE CULTURE is an interdisciplinary conference focusing on the intersections of critical and creative approaches to writing, both within and beyond the academy. Within the text, we examine what has been mapped by the m

argins as well as the communities that have been marginalized by the borders of the page. Here, margins refer to the open spaces on the page — not inhabited by words, punctuation, ornamentation, etc. This year’s conference begins at the margins: whether it be the page, the camera lens, the pictorial frame, the margins of philosophy, the undercommons of the university, the peripheries of the city....margins are everywhere. Marginalia gives readers an opportunity to comment on established structures in writing, analysis, and adaptation, and create conversations that span space, time, and media forms. Crossing canonical borders gives us the opportunity to rework the borders of the page and its marginalized bodies; that is, to expand and reimagine our understanding of racial, gendered, socio-political, and environmental communities. On the subject of reimagined communities, Benedict Anderson remarks, “Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity or genuineness, but in the style in which they are imagined.” We seek to open up discussions that reimagine from the margins, exploring visual, auditory, and alternative forms of text. CCC 2022 seeks submissions that address these big questions as well as our intimate relationships with ourselves and others. We welcome research that engages with existing individuals, communities, and spaces, as well as work that speculates on imagined futures. In reading between the lines and writing beyond them, we prioritize the practice of inclusivity and seek to reimagine the margins of existing intellectual spaces. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to the following:
● Institutional margins and spaces, university, prison, etc.
● Spaces and margins impacted and/or exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic
● Practice of reimagining communities (positive and negative, material and immaterial): creating safe spaces, gerrymandering etc.
● Margins, marginalia, book studies, film studies, social sciences, manuscripts, book arts
● Margins and marginalia as explored in narrative studies, narratology
● Readership, methodologies of reading, characters/authors who are readers
● Environmental perspectives, ecocritical studies, geographical and imagined space
● Definitions of the canon and discussions of its ongoing influence

We invite 300-word proposal submissions for the following categories:
• Panel Presentations
• Creative Work
• Roundtable Sessions Proposals
to [email protected] before Monday February 14, 2022. Please include your name and affiliation. For more information, you can visit our website at https://craftcritiquecultureconference.wordpress.com/; follow our Twitter @craft_crit_cult; or find us on Facebook: @craftcritiqueculture https://www.facebook.com/craftcritiqueculture.

Photos from Craft Critique Culture Conference's post

04/01/2026

Our Craft Critique Culture (CCC) Conference will be next Friday, April 10th! Check out our schedule below!:

04/01/2026

The 25th Craft Critique Culture (CCC) Conference is next Friday, April 10th! Come see our keynote speaker (the talented Dr. Thora Brylowe) present on "Working Paper: The Machines that Make our Archive"!

11/06/2025

Labor is inevitable and inescapable.

“As individuals express themselves, so they are,” wrote Marx and Engels. “What they are, therefore, coincides with their production” (1845).

However, the concept of labor pre-dates Marx and Engles’ treatise, and subsequent interrogations of the subject evolve beyond this definition. For example, domestic labor, childbirth, and caregiving are essential to a functioning and flourishing society, yet the visibility of these forms of labor are often marginalized if not completely unacknowledged in discussions of labor theory and economics.

Contemporary scholarship continues to pursue questions of labor in all its meanings, yet there is still much to be examined. Thus, our conference theorizes labor as a multivalent word that not one single definition or perspective can encompass.

Situating this analysis of labor within the intellectual communities at the University of Iowa, we invite students from all departments to present their scholarly research at our graduate conference, Elaborating Labor. We seek submissions that ask incisive questions about labor in all its forms:

How will new definitions of labor bring the labor of caregivers and childbirth to the forefront?
How will labor adapt to a twenty-first century society dependent on digital infrastructures for communication and at the brink of an epoch potentially defined by artificial intelligence?
How does labor in all its meanings shape us as individual citizens and as participants in globally networked societies?
Why do we embrace certain types of labor while eschewing others?
How do we define and use labor, or rather how does labor define and use us in the twenty-first century?
How do we teach and theorize labor inside and outside the university?

To answer these questions, we welcome submissions that create, embody, and/or criticize labor from across disciplines. Presentations are open but not limited to scholarly essays and scientific articles, creative fiction and poetry, and digital or visual art pieces.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

History of labor movements, unions, strikes, and alternative labor movements.
Archival projects that consider labor as a significant part of the original circulation and archival conservation/curation process.
Object lessons tying the material qualities of an artifact to the labor that produced them.
Impacts of Marxism on literary theory and philosophy
Literary and textual analyses contemplating labor
Labor pedagogies and pedagogical perspectives on labor
Creative labor and craft
Audience and fan labor
Impacts of labor on the body, mind, and heart
...or any other creative or scholarly project that considers labor in any capacity!

Our conference offers you the opportunity to gain experience presenting at an academic conference, and we welcome your unique scholarly and creative submissions. Moreover, our conference provides a space for the University of Iowa community to engage in critical academic discussions, meet colleagues across departments, forge meaningful connections between University of Iowa community members and strengthen our academic network. All University of Iowa faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend.

Please submit a 250-word abstract for all presentations to [email protected] by Wednesday, December 31, 2025, for consideration.

For more information, please visit: craftcritiquecultureconference.wordpress.com

02/07/2024

Wed in secret, Desdemona and Othello crave a new life together. But as unseen forces conspire against them, they find their future is not theirs to decide.

OTHELLO. Presented as part of National Theatre Live.

This Sunday, February 11th at noon.

Arrive early at 11:30am and enjoy a dessert reception hosted by the University of Iowa Craft Critique Culture Conference

icfilmscene.org/film/othello

02/06/2024

Have you submitted to CCC 2024 yet?

cfp | call for papers On April 4th – 6th 2024, English graduate students are hosting the 23rd annual Craft Critique Culture interdisciplinary graduate conference on the University of Iowa campus. This year’s conference addresses themes of “Black Legacies.” For this conference, “Black Legacies” is, first, a re...

02/05/2024

Don't forget we have extended our deadline for abstract submissions! The deadline is now February 16th!

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/10/11/deadline-extended-23rd-annual-craft-critique-culture-graduate-conference-black

02/01/2024

Happy Black History Month from CCC!

01/31/2024

"A viscereal piece of theatre."—Time Out

OTHELLO. Presented as part of National Theatre Live.

February 11th at Noon.

Arrive early at 11:30am and enjoy a dessert reception hosted by the Craft Critique Culture Conference.

Tickets: icfilmscene.org/film/othello-2