a2ru 2022 National Conference Call for Proposals

About the Conference

a2ru’s next national conference will take place from November 3-5, 2022, on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. This will be an in-person conference, though we anticipate remote attendance will be an option for many sessions.

The a2ru national conference is an opportunity for practitioners and researchers from across the higher education spectrum to share innovations and perspectives in the arts. a2ru advances the full range of arts- and design-integrative research, curricula, programs, and creative practice to acknowledge, articulate, and expand the vital role of higher education in our global society. a2ru’s work, in partnership with an international network of leading higher education institutions, envisions a world in which universities—students, faculty, and leaders—explore, embed, and integrate the arts in everyday practice and research.

Conference Theme

The term, “Art-based research,” was coined by Elliot Eisner at a 1993 Stanford University symposium to describe a mode of formal qualitative inquiry that uses artistic processes to understand and articulate the subjectivity of human experience. That definition is one of many, and invites a more expansive inquiry from both within and beyond higher education: Isn’t artistic research also quantitative? Or is it neither  textual nor numerical? Shouldn’t it be excepted from the concerns of capital on which our accepted notions of research rely? What are examples of pure and applied artistic research? What are the possible rewards of defining artistic practice as research? What are the risks? Why would artists define their work in terms of “research?” What have we learned since 1993 and how can we expand Eisner’s and other definitions?

This year, we are issuing a call for proposals to every discipline, with perspectives on, experiences of, and experiments within the theme, “Exploring Artistic Research.” We welcome proposals that explore artistic research and what it means to individual artists, to the research agenda at our institutions of higher education, and to society at large.

Call for Proposals

• TRACK ONE: Exploring artistic research
  Topics in Track One connect directly with the 2022 conference theme through the lens of the arts, design, performance and other art-based practices, as well as the practice and teaching of artistic research. Presentations and workshops should contribute to the conference by addressing one of the following themes or related issues: artistic research, arts-based research, collaborative research involving arts methodologies, ways of knowing that are unique to the arts, the landscape of artistic and arts-based research, “disrupting” and revisiting accepted definitions of research, the status of research in arts schools, and addressing differences in global perspectives on the arts and research.

• TRACK TWO: The arts and design in higher education
  Topics in track two are broadly concerned with creating and supporting art-based practices, developing tools, and presenting ideas about the arts and design in the context of academic research and teaching cultures. Presentations and workshops should contribute to the conference by addressing one of the following themes: modes of collaboration; interdisciplinary stewardship; equity; arts integration on campus; promotion and tenure; and insights, cultures of evidence, impacts case-making, and dealing with data.

Deadline for Submission: June 6, 2022, 5pm EDT

Click here for more information on Session Formats and Guidelines.