Graduate Student Workshop | Representing Slavery
William Hogarth, Portrait of a Family (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection). An interactive site includes images, a timeline of events, and audio commentaries on a selection of works included in the exhibition. Chi-ming Yang, for instance, describes some of the ways Hogarth’s painting might be understood to aestheticize race and skin color in relation to global commodities (both people and things).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the Yale University Library:
Workshop for Graduate Students | Representing Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain
The Yale Center for British Art, New Haven and The Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, 9–10 December 2014
Applications due by 1 December 2014
In December 2014, The Lewis Walpole Library and the Yale Center for British Art will jointly host a two-day workshop for graduate students focusing on two current Yale University exhibitions related to the visual culture of slavery: Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain and Prospects of Empire: Slavery and Ecology in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain. The workshop will provide an opportunity to explore these complementary exhibitions in depth and to examine additional materials related to the topic selected from the rich holdings of both institutions with curatorial and academic scholars working in the field. The workshop is open to graduate students from a variety of disciplines whose work would benefit from participation in this collaborative exploration of the topic.
Prospects of Empire is curated by Heather Vermeulen, Doctoral Candidate in African American Studies and American Studies, Yale University, and Hazel V. Carby, Charles C. & Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of African American Studies and Professor of American Studies, Yale University. The exhibition explores the notion of empire’s ‘prospects’—its gaze upon bodies and landscapes, its speculations and desires, its endeavors to capitalize upon seized land and labor, as well as its failures to manage enslaved persons and unruly colonial ecologies.
Figures of Empire is curated by Esther Chadwick and Meredith Gamer, PhD candidates in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University, and Cyra Levenson, Associate Curator of Education at the Yale Center for British Art. The exhibition explores the coincidence of slavery and portraiture in eighteenth-century Britain.
The workshop will take place at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, and the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington and will offer exhibition walk-throughs with the curators of each exhibition and additional presentations and conversation in a study room setting. Lead discussants for the workshop will be Gillian Forrester, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, Yale Center for British Art, and Dian Kriz, Professor Emerita, Art History, Brown University. Additional participating scholars working in the field include Paul Grant Costa, Executive Editor, Yale Indian Papers Project, and Marisa Fuentes, Assistant Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies and History, Rutgers University. The program will also include a talk at 2:00 on Tuesday at the Yale Art School by artist Fred Wilson, whose groundbreaking project Mining the Museum (1992–93) at the Maryland Historical Society initiated his ongoing critique of the ways in which museums consciously or unwittingly reinforce racist beliefs and behavior, followed by a walk-through of Figures of Empire with the artist at 4:00.
Participants will be provided with accommodations at the Lewis Walpole Library guest house in Farmington, Connecticut. Shuttle transportation between Farmington and New Haven will be provided. A syllabus and list of readings will be provided in advance of the workshop.
Application Procedures
Applications must be submitted electronically. Please include a CV and a brief statement (of no more than one page) outlining how your research interests intersect with the focus of this workshop and what benefits you expect from participating. Applications and questions about content, organization or practicalities of the workshop should be emailed to Cynthia Roman, Curator of Prints, Drawings and Paintings, The Lewis Walpole Library cynthia.roman@yale.edu. Space is limited. The deadline for receipt of applications is Monday, 1 December 2014.
Call for Papers | The Many Faces of Slavery
From cfp.english.upenn.edu:
The Many Faces of Slavery: Non-Traditional Slave Experiences in the Atlantic World
University of Montpellier, 21–22 May 2015
Proposals due by 31 January 2015
Plenary speakers: Professor Jacques de Cauna (CNRS/EHESS CIRESC) and Professor Herbert S. Klein (Columbia University)
By the 18th century, racial slavery had matured into a fully-fledged, firmly established, profitable form of labour in the Atlantic World. In slave societies, the development of the plantation unit led both to the geographical concentration of the slave population and to a growing homogenization of the activities bondsmen performed. However, throughout the Atlantic World, the existence of phenomena such as urban slavery, slave self-hiring, quasi-free or nominal slaves, domestic slave concubines, slave vendors, slave sailors, slave preachers, slave overseers, and many other types of “societies with slaves,” broadens our traditional conception of slavery by complicating the slave experience. This conference does not aim to challenge the significance of the plantation system, but, by using it as a paradigm, seeks to assess the extent and nature of non-traditional forms of slavery in the context of the historical evolution of labour in the Atlantic World.
In order to do so, this conference seeks to ask the following questions:
Were certain locations, historical periods and economic conditions more favourable to the diversification of the slave experience? How does the variety of slave experience inform the essence of slavery itself? What strategies did slaves employ to negotiate or manoeuvre themselves into different relationships with their masters or with their societies? Did the privileges that certain slaves benefit from, such as geographic or social mobility, undermine the slave system by subverting the established social and racial order? At what point did slave autonomy develop from an act of the assertion of agency and become an act of rebellion? Could it be argued that the development of non-traditional forms of slavery was the result of deliberate political choices?
The themes this conference endeavours to explore include, but are not limited to:
Urban slavery
Hiring out of slaves and slave self-hire
Industrial slavery
Slave hierarchies within plantation culture
Subsistence slavery
Manumission by self-purchase or by a relative
Nominal or quasi-free slaves
Slaves owned by non-traditional owners (women, free blacks, indigenous people, institutions)
Socialising across legal or racial lines (i.e. between slaves and free people of colour or whites)
Spaces of negotiation
Slave geographic and social mobility
Slaves in the westward migration
Runaway slaves and Maroon communities
Please send proposals of no more than 300 words in English (for papers or panels) and a brief CV mentioning your institutional affiliation to manyfacesofslavery@gmail.com by January 31st, 2015. Notification of acceptance will be sent by February 20th 2015. We welcome papers that cover any region of the Atlantic World as well as proposals for round table discussions.
Conference organisers: Lawrence Aje (University of Montpellier), Catherine Armstrong (Loughborough University), and Lydia Plath (Canterbury Christ Church University).
Call for Papers | Circulations of Objects in Natural History
From the conference website:
Knowing Things: Circulations and Transitions of Objects in Natural History
Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Germany, 23–24 March 2015
Proposals due by 1 December 2014
With this call for papers we invite researchers and young scholars from different fields—including, but not limited to, the history and theory of collections, museum studies, cultural history, art history and aesthetics—to present exemplary moments of transition in the history of natural specimens and to explore the impact of spatial and disciplinary mobility on the history and theory of natural history objects.
The goal of this conference is to contribute to the history and theory of these Wissensdinge (Objects of Knowledge) by reconstructing historical transitions and threshold areas within their institutional contexts, the collection and the museum. Can we identify different phases in the mobility of things of knowledge? How do various spaces of knowledge, such as the laboratory, the collection and the exhibition, influence the ways of handling natural history objects? How do meanings attributed to these objects vary in different contexts? Rather than constructing a ‘biography’ oriented towards the life cycle of the object, should we not instead be telling a history of fractures and shifts? Finally, to what extent does an expanded, multidisciplinary approach impact the use, meaning and presentation of Wissensdinge?
The focus of the conference will be on case studies. These will provide the basis for exploring the degree to which this fundamental characteristic of Wissensdinge—their mobility—can serve as a point of departure for better understanding natural history objects. Using the history of tangible objects within their institutional framework, we want to examine the extent to which Wissensdinge are shaped, not only by their materiality, but rather by their migration through diverse realms of knowledge, through technical settings, and through scientific, political, as well as cultural discourses. Furthermore, we want to ask how these settings and discourses are in turn shaped by things of knowledge. The conference will focus on the time period between the mid-19th century and the present.
The conference is organized by the research department PAN – Perspectives on Nature (Perspektiven auf Natur), Museum für Naturkunde Berlin in cooperation with the scientific collections of the Humboldt-Universität and with the base project “Mobile Objects” in the Cluster of Excellence “Image Knowledge Gestaltung: An interdisciplinary Laboratory.”
The event will take place from March 23rd to 24th, 2015 at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. The conference will be held in English. Please include in the application an abstract (max. 500 words) and a short CV. The deadline for submission is December 1st, 2014 at: pan@mfn-berlin.de
Keynote speaker: Lynn K. Nyhart
The complete Call for Papers and additional details are available here»
Charles E. Peterson Fellowship
From H-ArtHist:
Charles E. Peterson Fellowship
Applications due by 2 January 2015
In a joint program with the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, the Society of Architectural Historians is pleased to offer an annual fellowship that will support the participation of a graduate student in the research and writing for a volume in the Buildings of the United States (BUS) series and/or SAH Archipedia, the Society’s online architectural resource. This fellowship was established in 2008 in honor of Charles E. Peterson, FAIA, founder of the Historic American Buildings Survey. The recipient will research some aspect of American architecture prior to 1860, which he/she may choose from a list of topics provided by authors of forthcoming BUS books. The prize will be presented at the Society’s annual conference in April and will be announced in the SAH Newsletter following the conference.
The Award
The committee will award the fellowship by February 1, 2014, at which time the recipient will choose from the pre-defined list of available topics. The fellowship grant of $2,000 will be contingent upon the recipient’s completion of the project, which is expected to require no more than 100 hours of work. A portion of the award ($500) will be paid in early June to cover the recipient’s immediate expenses. The balance of the award ($1500) will be payable upon completion of the project. The completed project must be submitted to SAH by August 31, 2014.
Criteria for Application
The fellowship is intended for students currently enrolled in graduate programs in art or architectural history, architectural design, urban planning, historic preservation, landscape architecture, American studies, or related disciplines. Preference will be given to SAH members. The successful applicant does not need to reside in Philadelphia, although the Athenaeum will be glad to have the fellowship recipient use its collections. Applications will be reviewed by a committee composed of BUS/SAH Archipedia editors, authors, and Athenaeum staff. You do not have to be a member of SAH to apply for this fellowship, but membership is encouraged.
Application Details
Applicants must submit the following:
• Cover letter discussing their research interests and professional goals
• CV or resumé
• Brief writing sample (5–10 pages)
• Letter of recommendation from an advisor or principal professor
Applications for the 2015 award will be accepted up to January 2, 2015. Apply at the SAH website.
Enfilade 
leave a comment