Enfilade

Call for Papers:

The London-Irish in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680-1830
University of Warwick, 13-14 April 2012

Proposals due by 31 January 2012

The Irish became an intrinsic part of the London population through the course of the eighteenth century. Whether Catholic and Protestant, professional or plebeian, London provided opportunities for waves of Irish migrants. Irish migrants can of course be found throughout Britain (and Europe) at this time but London offered a burgeoning world capital that embraced all tiers of Irish society. The Irish, from both sides of the religious divide, could be found almost anywhere in London: in its kitchens, drawing rooms, legal chambers, banking houses, theatres, newspaper offices, and courts. Nevertheless robust systematic historical data on these migrants is scarce – such accounts that exist of the Irish diaspora in pre-1815 London (Denvir, Akenson, and Jackson) are useful but fragmentary and Irish historiography on the diaspora has generally tended to concentrate on the famine years.

There is work on Irish Catholics in Europe but only recently have more focused accounts of Irish networks operating in London in the eighteenth century begun to emerge. Yet despite the sparse accounts of their activities, there was certainly a strong Irish – Catholic as well as Protestant – presence in London throughout this period. Archbishop King warned that Irish visitors in London ‘converse only in a very sneaking private way with one another’ and this observation suggests a metropolitan space within which the Irish diaspora could form themselves into tight social and professional networks. The study of such networks would provide a fresh perspective on London in the long eighteenth century. How did such networks form? How did they evolve? To what degree were they inclusive/ exclusive? How did they represent ‘Irishness’ and/or Ireland to London? And how were they received?
This interdisciplinary conference is being organized by David O’Shaughnessy and will be hosted by the Department of English & Comparative Literature, University of Warwick. Plenary lectures will be given by Professor Toby Barnard (History, University of Oxford); Professor Claire Connolly (Literature, University of Cardiff; and Professor Mary Hickman (Sociology, London Metropolitan University). Papers will be welcomed in all disciplines and from scholars at all stages of their careers. The deadline for 300-word abstracts is 31 January 2011 (email: londonirish@warwick.ac.uk). Suggested topics might include but are not limited to:

• Quantifying the Irish diaspora (population, migration patterns/routes, births, deaths, baptisms, funerals)
• Defining an Irish community/network
• Catholic and Protestant communities/networks
• Professional Irish (lawyers, bankers, merchants, tutors, physicians, booksellers)
• Literary and artistic Irish (theatre, newspapers, literary clubs, artists, Society of Antiquaries, Royal Academy, bookshops)
• Labouring Irish (military, servants, sailors, shipwrights, builders)
• Religious Irish (places of worship, priests)
• Political Irish (clubs, societies, parliament, lobbyists, spies, petitioners, the Irish at court)
• Anti-Irish sentiment
• Irish language
• Riots
• Sport
• Irish societies and charitable organizations
• The Irish on trial (lawyers and criminals)
• The rise of the Irish pub (taverns/coffee houses patronised by the Irish)
• The Irish ‘ghetto’ (geography of the Irish in London)
• Irish elites and their circles (Burke, Goldsmith, Sheridan)

From The Courtauld:

Contested Views: Visual Culture and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
Courtauld Institute of Art Research Forum at Tate Britain, London, 19-20 July 2012

Proposals due by 16 December 2011

Goya, "The Third of May 1808," 1814 (Madrid: Prado)

In July 2012, in advance of commemoration of the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo, Tate Britain is to host a two-day conference exploring the impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars on world-wide visual culture, from the outbreak of the pan-European conflict with France in 1792 to the present day. Centered on themed panels, plenary lectures and workshops, this cross-disciplinary conference will promote knowledge and understanding of the range of ways in which the ‘First Total War’ has been mediated in visual cultures, not only in Britain and continental Europe but throughout the world.

The organizers are keen to receive proposals for papers that present new research and/or methodological approaches. In particular they would like to encourage proposals from scholars from different disciplines who wish to work in collaboration with each other. Please send proposals of no more than 250 words to Phil Shaw ps14@le.ac.uk.

Organised by Martin Myrone (Tate Britain), Satish Padiyar (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Phil Shaw (University of Leicester), and Philippa Simpson (National Maritime Museum)

Ars Judaica Conference: Traditions and Perspectives in History of Jewish Art
Bar-Ilan University, Israel, 10-13 September 2012

Proposals due by 6 November 2011

The conference will bring together historians of art and material culture and researchers in history, religions, semiotics, psychology, sociology, and folklore to explore the fields of interest of Ars Judaica: The Bar-Ilan Journal of Jewish Art that include, but are not limited to:

– The Jewish contribution to the visual arts and culture from antiquity to the present
– Art and architecture of Jewish sacred spaces
– Biblical texts as a source in Christian and Muslim visual arts
– Jerusalem and the Holy Land as an object and model in visual arts
– Images of Jews in visual arts
– Hebrew script in visual arts
– Patrons, collectors and museums of Jewish art
– Jews, arts and politics

Abstracts (limited to 200 words) of twenty-minute presentations with a short CV should be submitted (as attached MSWord documents) by January 6, 2012 to gr.ajudaica@biu.ac.il. The applicants will be notified of the decision regarding their proposals by February 6, 2012.