REVISIT THE 2021-2022 "CONVENTIONS" SYMPOSIUM
Time: noon September 18 - 5 p.m. May 5
Part of the Syracuse Symposium series.
CONVENTIONS are as much about world-making as world-breaking. Treaties, laws, compacts, promises, agreements, and rules may be followed, modified, challenged, or broken, just as traditions, customs, tenets, habits, and expectations—whether philosophical, artistic, linguistic, musical, legal, religious, political, or personal—may be defied, adhered to, or transformed. Depending on context, and one’s place in history, conventions can refer to sanctioned but also unsanctioned ideas/actions: the concept shines a light on consensus as much as discord. Groups convene to organize against (or shore up) the status quo, and to challenge (or secure) authority.
Whether we approach conventions as norms and expectations—or as rituals, gatherings, and assemblies—they are particular to a time, place, circumstance, people, and culture and are shaped by power, institutional context, and social values. Conventions can be sites of ritual gathering, community-building, politicking, or forging solidarity to engage in protest (e.g., for civil rights and social change), but they can, equally, be gatherings where people assemble to reinforce orthodoxy, enact regulation and social control, or seek to enforce the status quo. Our 2021-2022 partners explored this theme on various fronts.
View or download the archived flyers for "Conventions"