Calls for Papers, Posters, and Proposals
The Art History Information Exchange
People, committees and even acronyms are all out there seeking valuable input from you. Aside from sharing knowledge, Calls are also golden opportunities to network in a tight job market. In an effort to facilitate this professional 'matchmaking,' each time a pertinent Call for Papers, Proposals, or Posters crosses my inbox it will be posted here, the most recent request being placed first.
If you are in charge of posting a Call of interest to art historians, please contact me with your information. I will be happy to post your notice, verbatim, right here. Please note: I will not post any CFP if its stated deadline is less than two weeks from the time it was submitted to me.
Posted: 05/20/12
Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina is accepting presentation submissions for its biannual Southern Appalachian Culture Series, an interdisciplinary conference to be held October 12-13, 2012. This year will feature presentations on Cherokee culture, although we also invite and encourage other papers that deal with any aspect of Southern Appalachian culture, literature, or tradition. The conference is part of a symposium which will offer concurrent sessions of presentations by writers and scholars, including graduate and undergraduate students, and prominent Cherokee scholar and storyteller, Freeman Owle.
Possible presentations on Southern Appalachia include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
• Cherokee culture and language
• literature of Southern Appalachia
• historical or travel writing
• musical heritage
• nature and the environment in Southern Appalachian literature
• mass-media portrayals, stereotyping, and mythologizing
• Piedmont mill culture
• the effects of outmigration
• National Parks in Southern Appalachia
• tourism
• roles of gender, class, and race in Southern Appalachia
Email 250-word abstracts for presentation topics to Elizabeth Pack at epack@gardner-webb.edu. Please include all contact information and a brief biographical sketch. Attach abstracts as Word or Rich Text Format and write “SoApp Presentation Submission” in the subject heading. Upon acceptance, all presenters will be sent information to register online at the Southern Appalachian Culture Series website: SoAppculture.com.
Deadline for submissions: August 1, 2012. Earlier submissions are appreciated.
Posted: 05/20/12
CFP
Politeness and Prurience: Situating Transgressive Sexualities in the Long Eighteenth Century
University of Edinburgh, 2-3 September 2013
Paper abstracts are invited for an upcoming multi-disciplinary conference entitled, Politeness and Prurience: Situating Transgressive Sexualities in the Long Eighteenth Century. The conference will attempt to reconcile the dominant discourse of politeness with the subject of illicit sexuality, which have been hitherto pursued as two separate fields of enquiry within cultural histories of the eighteenth century. We particularly welcome abstracts which address the representation and/or articulation of sexualities in the visual and material culture of the period.
This two-day event will be hosted by the History of Art Department at the University of Edinburgh on the 2-3 September 2013. Please see the conference website www.politenessandprurience.com for the full call for papers, details of our distinguished speakers and associated public lecture. We invite abstracts of no more than 500 words relating to the themes as outlined in the call for papers to be sent to Dr. Viccy Coltman, Freya Gowrley and Jordan Mearns at politeness.prurience@gmail.com by 10 September 2012.
Posted: 05/13/12
CFP: The Violent Lives of Artists in Early Modern Italy
RSA, San Diego, April 4 - 06, 2013
Giorgio Vasari wrote the first edition of the Lives of the Most Excellent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors in 1550, initiating an interest in the lives and personalities of artists and sparking imitators throughout the early modern era. Vasari, in addition to discussing the genius and skill of Italian artists, displayed a great interest in their often violent and eccentric behavior. This side of Italian artists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods has captured the curiosity and imagination of countless scholars—most importantly Margot and Rudolf Wittkower in Born under Saturn. These panels will focus on the violence of early modern Italian artists--conceived broadly as brawling, murder, bad behavior, sexual violence, and intense rivalry. The panels will investigate what violence meant to the lives and status of artists. Was it connected to their personality? Was it related to competition for patronage? Was it part of the greater social system of Italian cities?
Paper proposals are invited for the 59th Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America April 4-6, 2013 in San Diego. The panels are open to all disciplines, and will focus on Italian artists from 1350 to 1650. Please send a brief abstract (150 words) and a one page CV to John Hunt (john.hunt@unf.edu) and Tamara Smithers (t.smithers@temple.edu) by June 1.
Posted: 05/13/12
CFP: Florence in Transition
Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, San Diego, California, April 4 - 6, 2013
Deadline: June 3rd, 2012
"Florence in Transition I: Art, Architecture and Patronage in Florence between the Fall of Piero de' Medici and the Rise of Piero Soderini (November 1494 - November 1502)".
"Florence in Transition II: Art, Architecture and Patronage in Florence between the Collapse of the Medici Regime and the Death of Alessandro de' Medici, First Duke of Florence (May 1527 - January 1537)".
It seems most worthwhile for scholars to have another look at art and architecture in Florence during these periods of transition, for which we have a far vaguer picture than we have for artistic patronage in Florence during, say, the age of Lorenzo il Magnifico, the age of Piero Soderini, the period of Medici restoration prior to the Sack of Rome (September 1512 - May 1527), or the age of Duke Cosimo de' Medici.
Proposals for papers are sought for the 59th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, April 4 - 6, 2013, in San Diego, California.
Please submit your abstract (up to 200 words) and a one-page CV (including affiliation and contact information) no later than June 3, 2012 to: Michael Amy, Rochester Institute of Technology, mjafaa@rit.edu
Speakers must be members of the Renaissance Society of America at the time of the conference.
Please consult the RSA website for additional information: http://www.rsa.org
Posted: 05/13/12
Call for Papers
High Trash
A Conference on the Genealogy and Cultural Assimilation of Trash Aesthetics
Museum of Contemporary Art
(Museum für Gegenwartskunst), Siegen
June, 7-9, 2013
Organized by
Lehrstuhl für Kunstgeschichte, Universität Siegen and Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen
Traditionally, trash has been seen as the unnecessary expression of mass society and mass consumption. However, from the 1950s and 1960s onward, an entire 'Trash aesthetic' has come into being, from classic 'kustom kar' pin-striping, and tattoo 'flash art' to musical exotica or Mexican wrestling, – a refuge for sensibilities tired of the banalities on offer both from the mainstream and academic markets.
Today, this aesthetic has taken on a different meaning. Proceeding from the assumption that Trash aesthetic has been integrated and normalized to a significant degree in contemporary politics, cultural life and global mainstream markets, this conference calls into question the relevance of the still much-discussed postmodern paradigm of high-low-exchange.
It is obvious that "turning high art into vaudeville" (Leslie Fiedler) and vice versa – at least in contemporary liberal consumer societies – is no longer "a threat to all hierarchies insofar as it is hostile to order and ordering in its own realm" (Fiedler) as it was assumed half a century ago. On the contrary: today, "vaudevillization" rather seems to be capable of strengthening hierarchies and order. As Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello have argued, the global success of capitalism – and particularly late/post-industrial capitalism – is based precisely on its willingness and its capacity to incorporate contradictory and even hostile elements in a purposeful, productive manner.
Current examples of such a strategy can be found a.o. in Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign for the governorship of California in 2003, in the collaboration between the infamous Trash-artist Jonathan Meese and the renowned management consultant Roland Berger, or in the fashion design of Marc Jacobs who created a "Trash Bag" for the manufacturer of luxury goods Louis Vuitton.
Accordingly, since aesthetics derived from diverse Trash genres no longer seem to "form a threat to all hierarchies", as also Christoph Schlingensief's apotheosis at the Bayreuth Festival and at the Venice Biennale suggests, it is salient to discuss the theoretical and methodical implications of this shift with regard to visual studies, art history, cultural studies, literary studies, film studies and related fields. New methodological and terminological tools need to be developed in order to discuss Trash from a post-postmodern perspective.
At the same time, the conference will attempt to explore the more complex historical sources and genealogies of Trash, including not only its aesthetic, but also its socio-political dimensions – thus attempting to return to the phenomenon some of its initial critical potential.
Established as well as emerging international scholars, from the humanities and beyond, are invited to present their respective case studies and theses and to elaborate on problems such as:
What are the historic origins and mythological fundaments of Trash Aesthetic and how have they been modified in the course of the 20th century?
What political, cultural, social, or economic case studies are significant for the integration and normalization of Trash in contemporary consumer societies?
Which methodological and terminological approaches are required to assess "High Trash"?
What consequences for the historiography of postmodernism does the normalization and integration of Trash into established power structures imply? Does such normalization distract us from understanding
Trash aesthetic as a pathological condition?
With regard to "High Trash", is it still possible to speak of "strong images" (e.g. visual art) and "weak images" (e.g. scientific visualizations or illustrations), as the philosopher and art historian Gottfried Boehm has suggested, when even the reality TV serial I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, arguably one of the epitomes of Trash, is now regularly being dealt with in university courses and in the feuilletons of reputable newspapers?
Is it still possible at all to develop aesthetic/artistic strategies which cannot be assimilated by mainstream markets or politics in times of the management creed "commodify your dissent"? Is the emergence of new "borders" and new "gaps" only a question of time?
Please send an abstract of your talk (300–500 words) and a short cv before June 15th, 2012 to Joseph Imorde (imorde@kunstgeschichte.uni-siegen.de) and Jörg Scheller (scheller@kunstgeschichte.uni-siegen.de).
Travel expenses and accommodation will be covered.
Posted: 05/13/12
Call For Papers
(In)appropriated Bodies
Cornell University Annual History of Art Graduate Student Symposium
Keynote Speaker: Amelia Jones, Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University
November 16-17, 2012
Ithaca, New York
Merriam-Webster defines appropriation as taking exclusive possession of something; setting it apart; assigning it to a particular purpose or use; and taking or making use of it without authority or right. This definition begs the question of whether it is inappropriate to appropriate, particularly when it comes to bodies.
This symposium aims to address how bodies have been appropriated in seemingly inappropriate ways. We are interested in improper, incorrect, perverse, and unsuitable uses of bodies that figure as unexpectedly apt creative strategies and political interventions. Artists have appropriated bodies, visual and corporeal, as a strategy to subvert established norms and meanings. Curators have categorized, displayed, and reconfigured imagery of bodies. Furthermore, scholars have appropriated concepts of race, gender, nation or culture onto bodies to develop the socio-political discourses that surround them. In all of these cases, questions of inappropriateness often arise. However, these (in)appropriations also reveal themselves to be alternative forms of inquiry or representation that encourage new ways of seeing and speaking about bodies.
We invite graduate students of all disciplines to present papers on the appropriation of bodies by artists, curators, scholars which have been (or could be) considered inappropriate, and how this aspect of their work proves useful in expanding the ways we look at art and understand its significance and purpose in culture, society, politics and history. Possible approaches to the topic include, but are not limited to:
Negotiation of identities (race, gender, class, and so on) through appropriation
Subversion of power dynamics by appropriating identities
Grafting of theoretical approaches on to bodies
Past or present collections and displays of bodies
Loss or theft of corporeal identity, ownership or originality
Reenactments and portrayals of bodies in film, dance, video and performance
Caricatures, stereotypes, and other visual misrepresentations in art or performance
Reuse/revision of ignored, avoided or dismissed theoretical approaches to bodies
Mimicry, quotation, allusion as creative strategy or concept
Criticism of historiography
Political and governmental co-optation of figural forms
Presentations for this two-day conference should be in English and 20 minutes in length. For those interested in participating, please email a 200-300 word abstract and c.v. by August 15, 2012 to cornellgradsymposium@gmail.com.
Posted: 05/13/12
CFP: Exhibitions and Display in Dada and Surrealism
The journal Dada/Surrealism invites submissions for a special issue on exhibitions and display practices.
We seek essays that illuminate the relationship of Dada and Surrealism to exhibitionary practices past and present, from studies of early artist-organized events to considerations of recent blockbuster exhibitions and museum installations. Submissions (from any discipline or perspective) that consider other intersections of the concepts 'exhibition' or 'display' with Dada, Surrealism, their histories, or legacies are also welcome. For the full CFP and submission instructions, visit http://ir.uiowa.edu/dadasur/vol21/iss1/ .
Abstracts due October 1, 2012.
Completed essays due March 1, 2013.
Inquiries to: Kathryn Floyd at kmfloyd@auburn.edu.
Dada/Surrealism is a peer-reviewed, open-access electronic journal sponsored by the Association for the Study of Dada and Surrealism and published by the International Dada Archive, University of Iowa Libraries.
Posted: 05/06/12
CFP: Recollection and Performance in Contemporary Indigenous Art (Montreal, 1-3 Nov 12)
UAAC Montreal, QC, November 1 - 03, 2012
Universities Art Association of Canada Conference, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Congrès AAUC 2012 / UAAC Conference 2012
Session: Memory Holders: Recollection and Performance in Contemporary Indigenous Art
This session explores performance as a site of recollection for First Nation artists in Canada. A decade ago, Diana Taylor asked how artistic expression transmits cultural memory and identity (The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas, 2003). If in addition to the historical documents stored in the archive, we also considered performed actions – what would we know that we don’t know now? What stories become visible? What tensions are revealed in performance that is not recognized in the archival documents?
Such questions and the notion of recollection reverberate within contemporary Indigenous performance art as contemporary artists negotiate language, communication, identity, history and nationhood. Artists are questioning the (perceived) stability of the archive and fluidity of narrative as a body of knowledge. This session invites discussions related to performance and cultural memory, decolonizing history/memory and the archive, the performed past and present, and cultural recall and the artwork.
Session Chairs:
Lori Beavis, PhD candidate, Concordia University: loribeavis@gmail.com
Lori Blondeau, Artist, Executive Director, Tribe Inc., PhD candidate, U of Saskatchewan: loribe@sasktel.net
- Paper proposals should be of no more than 250 words in length; please attach a brief cv (no more than 100 words).
- Please forward all submissions by email directly to the Session Chairs.
- The deadline for submissions to the Call for Papers is 4 June 2012.
- All presenters must be members of UAAC-AAUC.
- Members may present only one paper at the Conference.
- All presenters must register for the conference before 14 September 2012.
Please take note of the regulations for submitting papers to the conference. This year we are asking members to complete a paper proposal form, available on the UAAC website (www.uaac-aauc.com).
- For further information: http://www.uaac-aauc.com
Posted: 05/06/12
CFP: Looking to Germany (Newcastle, 6-7 Sep 12)
Looking to Germany: New Germanist Studies Conference - Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK
6-7 September 2012.
Paper proposals are invited for this conference exploring the inspirational role played by Germany for individuals from other countries. We are interested in contributions from scholars of various academic disciplines exploring the reception of German ideas, events and or cultural artifacts. We seek to map the different receptions of Germany that the world has witnessed and how these have changed over time.
The keynote speakers for this event are Professor Rosemary Ashton, Quain Professor of English Language and Literature, University College London and Professor William Vaughan, Emeritus Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London.
Paper proposals (max 200 words) should be submitted to Matthew Potter (matthew.potter@northumbria.ac.uk) by 8 June 2012. Panel proposals are welcome also: in these cases the constituent paper proposals should be submitted by the delegate and the panel convenor(s) should submit a panel overview. Both convenor and delegates should indicate their involvement in the panel clearly.
Early-bird conference registration rates are available until 8 July 2012. Please visit http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/sd/academic/sass/events/sassevents/looktogermany for more details or to book conference attendance and/or accommodation.
Posted: 05/06/12
CFP: 'Visualising East Asia: Diasporas and (Post)digital Dialogues'
Macao, China, July 24 - 27, 2013
Digitalisation is an important aspect of today's globalised world, enabling instant communication and access both to data and to individuals, including culture makers residing in different nations. While digital communication transcends the borders of East and West, so do people, as they physically travel and relocate to different regions. Such diasporas, like the Internet itself, are in some ways situated in more than one location at once, as they experience inbetweenness and necessary multi-national dialogues. This poses the question as to whether the omnipresence of digital technology to some extent annuls diasporic identity or, alternatively, whether - in the twenty first century - we are all in some ways diasporic. This panel addresses such questions and asks participants to explore the relationship between East Asian cultural diasporas and digital art.
Commentators - such as Ascott - suggest that we are living in a post-digital age. They suggest that the significance of digital technology is its capacity to improve or benefit the human function and experience; that to digitalise is to humanise. It can also be acknowledged or contested that the digital is now so intrinsic to our everyday existence, that it is no longer debatable as a post-modern phenomenon; we are beyond digitalisation and so we are post-digitalisation. If this is the case, then further questions need to be asked regarding how this affects contemporary artists who may be working outside of the digital medium itself, or who are living in Asian countries where Internet usage is limited or unsanctioned? Is it possible for diasporic artists in particular to ignore forms of digital art and communication, and to what degree does it impact upon their cultural existence?
Participants are encouraged to discuss specific artistic groups and individuals from East Asia who consider themselves to be diasporic and the ways in which the digital or post-digital globe works to enhance or alienate their everyday creative experiences.
This call for paper aims to form a panel for the International Convention of Asian Scholars. Macao: The East-West Crossroads, to be held on 24-27 June 2013 in Macao. http://www.icassecretariat.org/.
Please submit a maximum 250 words abstract with a maximum 200 words biography to the panel convenors, Dr Ming Turner (De Montfort University, mturner@dmu.ac.uk) and Dr Beccy Kennedy (Manchester Metropolitan University, b.m.kennedy@mmu.ac.uk) by 24th June 2012.
Posted: 04/29/12
CFP: FSU Art History Symposium (Tallahassee)
Florida State University, October 5-6, 2012
The Art History faculty and graduate students of The Florida State University invite students working toward an MA or a PhD to submit abstracts of papers for presentation at the Thirtieth Annual Art History Graduate Student Symposium, October 5th and 6th, 2012. Papers may come from any area of the history of art and architechure. Papers will then be considered for inclusion in Athanor, a nationally-distributed journal published by the Department of Art History and the FSU College of Visual Arts, Theatre & Dance.
The deadline for receipt of abstracts (maxium 500 words) is August 27, 2012. Please include the title of the talk, graduate level, and whether the subject originated in thesis or dissertation research.
Send the abstract by email to:
lajones@fsu.edu
Dr. Lynn Jones, Symposium Coordinator
Department of Art History
The Florida State University
Posted: 04/22/12
CFP: Demons in Russian Icons, AATSEEL 2013 (Boston, 3-6 Jan 13)
Boston, Massachusetts, USA, January 03 - 06, 2013
Deadline: July 1, 2012
I am proposing a panel on demons in Russian art for AATSEEL 2013.
The panel will be chaired by Sally Pratt.
For the panel I am proposing to give a paper on the representation of demons focusing mainly on 17th c. Russian icons and illustrated manuscripts. Since icons are meant to make the invisible world visible, they help to shed light on contemporary interpretations of concepts such as evil.
Focus on provenance of a particular demon type is of interest as well as such topics as to the type of evil being represented with a particular subset of features such as color, etc.
For further information please contact me at rsmith@museumofrussianicons.org.
- Prof. Raoul Smith
Museum of Russian Icons
Clinton, MA 01510
Posted: 04/22/12
CFP: Gender Politics and the Art World 2012/13
Wien, October 1, 2012 - June 30, 2013
The "Art - Research - Gender" lecture series is organized by the Office of Gender Issues of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The topic for the academic year 2012/13 is "Gender Politics and the Art World".
Gender Politics and the Art World
Even though for the first time women head a number of museums, lead art rankings, and serve at the helm of art schools and universities, questions regarding gender politics and gender differences in the art world have been all but resolved. Increasingly precarious employment conditions and dwindling resources give rise to the presumption that structures of inequality are in the process of being reinforced. At the same time, recent scientific and artistic research has shown considerable interest in the analysis of gender differences in today's art world and recent art history.
Thus, this lecture series seeks to achieve two goals: The first is to conduct, in light of the current circumstances, a critical review of gender politics in the art system. The term "art system" encompasses institutions and mechanisms in the areas of museums, exhibitions, and the art market as well as art universities, associations, education, mediation, historiography, criticism, and funding policies. What role do the „gender" category and gendered power relations play in past or present processes of producing, collecting, exhibiting, receiving, and communicating art? What lines of development and rollbacks can be ascertained? With regard to these issues, the focal point of interest is on the present; contributions focusing on the different periods of modern art or tracing certain aspects over a longer period of time are welcome as well.
The second thrust of this lecture series is the presentation and analyses of specific art projects that point to gender differences and structures of inequalities in the art world through subversive aesthetic strategies in various media, thus allowing for shifts in perspective or alternative views in the moment of reception. How do artists undermine institutional mechanisms of exclusion?
Scientists and artists of all disciplines are invited to present their perspectives on the questions raised above. We particularly welcome submissions by young researchers. Speakers are paid compensation of € 300 and can claim reimbursement of travel costs.
Usually, nine lectures are selected for each academic year, which are held on Wednesdays at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. We expect talks to take up to 60 minutes; a discussion follows.
Concept & Organization: Office of Gender Issues
Please submit your proposal by email on or before June 10, 2012, to kostelle@uni-ak.ac.at. Please include:
• Working title
• Abstract (300 words)
• Short biography
• Your contact data
Posted: 04/15/12
CFP: Simón Bolívar as National Myth and Cultural Sign
As we enter into the two hundredth anniversary period of Simón Bolívar's leadership of the Admirable Campaign in 1813, the formation of Gran Colombia in the 1820s, and his death in 1830, the myth of Bolívar continues to loom large. The "Bolívar" image and narrative have come to stand for a wide array of political and social meanings and have been configured in diverse forms of cultural production in music, visual arts, literature, historical narratives, film and television, and performance arts. Cultural formations of the "Bolívar" story are as wide-ranging as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novels to Diego Risquez's films and offer a rich lens through which to understand multiple mythologies of nation, liberation, and official discourse. While there is a significant body of historical and documentary work about the man, his contemporaries, the independence era and canonical texts, there is much more cultural engagement than the current literature reflects. Our aim is an edited collection of essays about the broad constellation of "Bolívar" phenomena.
Numerous questions arise and are the impetus for this edited collection. For example, how has the image or name of "Bolívar" come to signify in multiple temporal moments or national cultures as a sign of "liberation" or hegemonic discourse? How has Bolívar's signification metamorphosed contingent upon historically specific conceptions of "liberty," "freedom," or "nation"? When and how has Manuela Sáenz become a sign of female agency or gender as performance? How have Hipolita, Precipitacion, Nicanor, José Pedilla (the Afro-Peruvian general) or other African or Incan figures in the liberation narrative been reconfigured or re-imagined? Where does Haiti figure in the imaginary of Bolívarian emancipation? In addition, we welcome critical engagements with these themes as well as those not articulated here.
We are a musicologist and two art historians of modern and contemporary Latin American and European culture. We seek contributions of 5000-6000 words. We will consider previously published articles only if they have not previously appeared in English.
Please email a 500-word proposal and c.v. to the editors: Maureen G. Shanahan (shanahmg@jmu.edu); Pedro Aponte (aponte@jmu.edu); and Ana María Reyes (areyes@uchicago.edu). Please consider coming to our panel at the Latin American Studies Association in San Francisco in May 2012. Proposals are due by September 1, 2012.
Posted: 04/15/12
Perception and Experience in the Italian Garden, 1500-1750
Buffalo, NY, USA, SAH Annual Conference, 10-14 April, 2013
Early modern visitors delighted in the gardens and villa estates built throughout the Italian peninsula. Foreigners and local viewers alike took in the antique statuary displays, contemporary sculpture and fountains, architecture, verdant plantings, flowers and exotic naturalia, and sweeping vistas afforded by these sites. Many described their garden experiences in written or visual form, precious documentation of gardens and landscapes later destroyed or dramatically altered by time.
Historians have traditionally employed primary sources to reconstruct the layout of villa and garden spaces, but these sources may also reveal the physical, emotional and social experiences visitors underwent as they moved through gardens and parks. Visual images, poetic verses, travelogues, legal documents, and personal anecdotes tell us something about how gardens appeared; they also form a picture of how visitors used and understood such spaces and how they perceived the garden owner, fellow visitors, or the nearly invisible laborers who maintained gardens. Though several exemplary studies have engaged contemporary theory to interpret the social significance of particular sites, and a few recent essays address the issue of viewer perception in gardens, there remains no comprehensive study of the social history of early modern Italian gardens.
This session seeks papers that examine and interpret the rhetorical nature of primary sources for the social experience and perception of Italian gardens. Primary sources may include guidebooks, maps, architectural plans, diaries and letters, poetry, paintings and drawings, and legal documents. Papers that discuss the experiences of non-elite viewers whose voices are elusive or difficult to discern, such as architects, stonemasons, fountaineers, gardeners, and women are especially welcome. Session chairs: Tracy Ehrlich, M.A. Program in Decorative Arts and Design, Cooper Hewitt Museum, tehrlich@nyc.rr.com; and Katherine Bentz, Assistant Professor, Fine Arts Department, Saint Anselm College, kbentz@anselm.edu.
66th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Buffalo, NY, 10-14 April 2013.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words are due 1 June 2012. SAH is using an online abstract submission process – please do not send your abstract to the session chair's email address as this will delay the review of your abstract or possibly void your submission. For submission instructions and the SAH webpage: http://tiny.cc/xaaicw
Posted: 04/15/12
Claes Jansz. Visscher and his Progeny
Draftsman, Printmakers and Print Publishers in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam
January 17-18, 2013
Leiden, The Netherlands
Organized by:
Amanda K. Herrin (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, Kress Institutional Fellow, Universiteit Leiden) and
Maureen E. Warren (Northwestern University, Kress Institutional Fellow, Universiteit Leiden)
in cooperation with the Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen (Institute for Cultural Disciplines) and
Kunsthistorisch Instituut der Rijksuniversiteit at Universiteit Leiden
Keynote speaker:
Huigen Leeflang, Curator of Prints, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
CALL FOR PAPERS
Claes Jansz. Visscher (1587–1652) was one of the most important printmakers and publishers active in the Dutch Republic during the first half of the seventeenth century. Playing on the word "Visscher" (fisherman), he sometimes signed his works in Latin as Nicolaus Ioannis Piscator. Over the past few decades, scholarship has contributed greatly to our understanding of the dynamic role Visscher played in the rise of printmaking in the Netherlands. He is perhaps best known for his excellence in map illustration, his innovations in the genre of landscape prints, and his publication of Dutch picture-bibles. Evidence of his graphic output is enormous, with almost five thousand prints having been issued from the Visschers' shop, Sign of the Fisher, on the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam. Yet many aspects of the Visschers' artistic productivity and publishing business remain little studied. This conference aims to broaden our understanding of Claes Jansz. Visscher's work, as well as the printmaking dynasty he founded, through papers exploring all aspects of the Visscher family's print business, including workshop practices, personal and professional networks, distribution to local and foreign markets, and the production, marketing, diffusion, and reception of graphic artworks drafted, printed, and published by Claes Jansz. Visscher (1587–1652), his son Nicolaes (1618-1679), his grandson Nicolaus (1649-1702) and Nicolaus's widow, Elisabeth Versijl, who continued the firm until her death in 1726. With case studies and theoretical contributions we hope to begin to analyze the significant contributions the Visscher family made in the early modern period.
We invite papers of original research dealing with the Visschers' working methods, their prolific graphic oeuvres, and their chameleonic roles as draftsmen, printmakers, mapmakers, and publishers. Papers examining, but not limited to, the following topics are most welcome: the "house style" of the Visschers, their collaboration and competition with other printmakers and print publishers in Amsterdam, their relationship with sixteenth-century printmaking in the Southern Netherlands and Italy, issues and attitudes concerning reproductive printmaking, the status of copying, and the re-use of plates, the relationship between word and image in the Visschers' prints, and consideration of the various genres of material they produced (book illustrations, maps, news prints, picture-bibles, portraits, landscapes, other historical, political, religious, and mythological imagery, etc.). We will also entertain papers that consider the reception of Claes Jansz. Visscher's prints and the ways in which other artists and publishers responded to his work. Our hope is that an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Visscher dynasty, drawing on contributions across the fields of art history, cartography, literature, history, and religious studies, etc., will greatly enrich current scholarship on the Visscher family.
Presentations for this two-day conference should be in English and 20 minutes in length. For those interested in participating, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words and a CV to the conference organizers: Amanda Herrin (amanda.herrin@gmail.com) and Maureen Warren (mwarren@u.northwestern.edu) before 1 July 2012. Selected papers will be considered for publication in a thematic volume on the Visscher Dynasty.
Posted: 04/15/12
CFP: Post-Modernism Revisited
Buffalo, New York, USA, April 10 - 14, 2013
Whatever happened to postmodernism in architecture? After the term has been furiously debated in the 1970s and enjoyed fashionable status during the 1980s, its validity slowly eroded, until it has been silently replaced by minimalism, neo-modernism, deconstruction, etc. Yet it can be argued that these tendencies still belong to the larger legacy of post-modernity as a cultural condition, in difference to postmodernism as an architectural style. Or shall we think of the modernities as contested, but unfinished and reflexive projects, which means that we have never been postmodern, but rather witnessed another iteration of massive changes in society, economy and culture? On the other hand, critics turned to architecture as prototypical agent or symptom of post-modernity, even if its historic forces had fundamentally challenged the discipline.
After architectural historians revised the modern movement in the 1980s and the postwar period as well as alternative modernizations during the last two decades, it is now the recent past roughly between 1968 and '89 (2001?) that asks for reconsideration. Every shift in architectural research has been accompanied by a revision of its historiographical methods. The writing of history turns especially problematic with a period that sustains a negative-reflexive relationship to its predecessor (modernity/modernism) and that has been obsessed with language, textuality, reproduction and representation. What are the conditions, possibilities and problems of analyzing the relation between architecture, history and postmodernism?
This session welcomes presentations that address postmodernism theoretically (the cultural condition, economic, political and social background) and empirically (case studies of postmodern architecture) in order to scrutinize the concept of historic styles and epochs. Both approaches shall contribute to the historiographical problem of how to write architectural histories of the recent past. Session chair: Ole W. Fischer, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, University of Utah; fischer@arch.utah.edu.
Deadline for paper proposals (300 words max): 1 June 2012
For submission details, see
http://www.sah.org/index.php?submenu=2013&src=gendocs&ref=Call%20for%20papers%202013&category=Annual%20Conference%202013#x
Posted: 02/26/12
CFP: Devine Artefacts: Stella Kramrisch and Art History in the
20th century
Courtauld Institute of Art, London, November 23-24, 2012
A symposium organised by Deborah Sutton (Lancaster University), Deborah Swallow (Courtauld Institute of Art) and Sarah Turner (York University).
This symposium addresses one of the most significant lives and art histories of the twentieth century; that of Stella Kramrisch. Kramrisch's career spanned Central Europe, India, Great Britain and the United States. The personal legacy of her influence is considerable; her reputation - still mediated by the memories of those who knew her - endures in South Asia, Europe and North America. Her scholarship on the art, architecture and visual cultures of South Asia remains redoubtable, even canonical, though her arguments often find little currency in contemporary scholarship on the materials she studied. Equally considerable is the material legacy of her work as a collector, connoisseur and curator of Indian art. An individual of immense personal charisma, Kramrisch subsisted within a series of intense personal and intellectual relationships during her life yet she presents an elusive figure for biography. Mythologies of Kramrisch's extraordinary life permeate far more freely than attested biographical narratives, an elision Kramrisch herself occasionally encouraged.
This symposium desires to bring together scholars interested in any aspect of Kramrisch's work and career. A series of papers and roundtable discussion will map the current field of research on Kramrisch's work and life. Papers are invited which consider biographical, intellectual and practical aspects of Kramrisch's work and the networks in which she framed and formed her work. Held at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where Kramrisch lectured in the second half of the 1930s, this symposium will also be of interest to those working on the art-historiography of South Asia. Suggested topics for consideration are:
The practices of acquisition, collection and curation
The influence of Bengali artists and art history
Iconography and iconology
Aesthetic theory and the plastic arts
Kramrisch and interwar art histories
Arts, Artefacts and Crafts
The influence of Jungian thought
Please send abstracts of 250 words (by the 31st July) to: Deborah Sutton, d.sutton@lancaster.ac.uk
Dr Deborah Sutton
Department of History,
Lancaster University.
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/history/profiles/Deborah-Sutton/
