College Year in Athens is proud to announce its 3rd Annual Student Conference: “The Iconography of Power: Art, Politics, Propaganda & Religion in the Mediterranean across Time.” The conference will take place in Athens on May 2 and 3, 2019.

Throughout human history, the role of images has been fundamental to the shaping of political ideologies, communal identities, religious beliefs and military supremacy. Images are carriers of certain messages that appear to be repeated or reshaped by different societies. The aim of this conference is to explore these issues both through time and through different methodological approaches which can be applied across the Mediterranean region from prehistory until the present. In doing so, the conference also aims to comment on the influential role that pictorial art plays in characterizing certain societies.

CYA students are invited to present their case studies, thoughts and ideas, or the preliminary results of research projects in order to explore the following -or other- aspects of iconography:

• The use of images for political or religious influence and propaganda
• Perception, access to and appreciation of art
• Pictorial loans, adaptation, manipulation, and consumption of symbols
• Does the choice of medium matter?
• Do technologies and techniques matter?
• Monumental versus portable iconography
• The continuity and discontinuity of motifs
• Modern approaches to the study of ancient images
• Art movements and politics
• Street art as urban political expression
• Appropriation of images as a power statement

Papers will be 15 minutes in length, allowing for short discussion. Please submit an abstract of no more than 200 words, by March 6, 2019.
Poster presentations will be considered.

For assistance and advice please contact our Academic Skills Advisor, Christine Harrison, and the Committee Chair, Angelos Papadopoulos.