Call for Papers: Nervous Aesthetics
The Stimulated Body and the Arts:
The Nervous System and Nervousness in the History of Aesthetics
Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, Durham University, 17-18 February 2011
Proposals due by 31 July 2010
This conference will discuss the history of the relationship between aesthetics and medical understandings of the body. Today’s vogue for neurological accounts of artistic emotions has a long pedigree. Since G.S. Rousseau’s pioneering work underlined the importance of models of the nervous system in eighteenth-century aesthetics, the examination of physiological explanations in aesthetics has become a highly productive field of interdisciplinary research. Drawing on this background, the conference aims to illuminate the influence that different medical models of physiology and the nervous system have had on theories of aesthetic experience. How have aesthetic concepts (for instance, imagination or genius) be grounded medically? What effect did the shift from animal spirits to modern neurophysiology have on aesthetics?
The medical effects of culture were not always regarded as positive. The second focus of the conference will be the supposed ability of excessive reading, music and so on to ‘over-stimulate’ nerves and cause nervousness, mental and physical illness, homosexuality and even death. It will consider questions regarding the effects of various theories of neuropathology and psychopathology on the concept of pathological culture. What kinds of culture could lead to such over-stimulation? How was this medical critique of culture related to moral objections and changes in gender relations, politics and society? How was it linked to medical concern about lack of attention and willpower?
This interdisciplinary conference brings together scholars working in a wide range of fields, including not only the history of medicine but also in subjects such as art history, languages and musicology. Abstracts for 20-minute papers (maximum 250 words) should be submitted electronically to the organisers by 31 July 2010 at the following address: James.kennaway@durham.ac.uk
Organisers: Dr James Kennaway, Professor Holger Maehle, Dr Lutz Sauerteig.
The Social Life of an Object
The Material Life of Things Project
Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 2010-2011
Applications due by the 12 March 2010
Project coordinated by Dr Francesco Lucchini
In recent years, the evidence of technical and material analysis has become increasingly important to art-historical interpretation. Beyond their traditional role in informing the restoration of artefacts, technical investigations have greatly contributed to our understanding of how works of art were made. Yet, less critical attention has been paid to the ‘use-life’ of artefacts – that is, to the manipulation, exchange and consumption of artefacts throughout their life histories. Drawing together researchers from different areas of expertise including curators and conservators, this research project aims to explore the material lives of artefacts in a variety of media, encouraging object-based, methodological and theoretical discussions relating to the shifting relationship between artefacts, people and environments throughout the life history of particular objects or classes of objects. Emphasis is placed on works of art as material objects considering the ways in which they are manipulated, re-made and unmade by different individuals, at different times, manifesting different social and cultural practices
Aims, Issues and Themes
The aim of project is to draw together scholars working across the dicipline in order to research and discuss aspects of the material life of works of art from different periods, claryfying theoretical and methodological issues and advancing our understanding of the subject. Among issues that can be raised are the following:
- Temporality, authenticity and change
- Fragmentation and reconstruction
- Aggregation of artefacts and the status of the object
- Ritual damage/reparation and pre-modern restorations
- Material history and conservation of new media
- Durability, ephemerality and material residuals
- Recontextualisation/decontextualisation, artefacts in consonant and dissonant environments
- Confiscation, displacement and repatriation
- Individual vs. corporate attitudes towards materiality of art
- Commoditisation and decommoditisation
- Ownership, market and the value of materiality
- Historiographic and methodological approaches to the materiality of art
- The concept of ‘object biography’ and its implications/limitations (more…)
Enfilade 
leave a comment