2006 SPE Annual Conference Overview

A New Pluralism: Photography's Future

When March 23-26, 2006
Where Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers, Chicago, Illinois
Keynote Speaker Henry Jenkins
Featured Speakers Barbara Stafford
Honored Educator Carl Toth

For fifty years we have been living in a world inundated and defined by photographic imagery while photography has been taught in relative isolation in academia. SPE members recognize the necessity to address the cultural context of our medium, moving beyond academic boundaries. A New Pluralism: Photography's Future seeks to explore the current cultural and conceptual evolution of the photographic image and the influence new technologies are having on our understanding of what it means to make photographs both in and out of our departments. How is photographic practice re-defined as a result of the inclusion of digital technologies? Can we eliminate barriers between the various arts and humanities departments in our schools, allowing for a cross pollination of crafts and philosophies? As educators and artists we seek to understand photography's future in an age of multi-disciplinary practice.