Enfilade

From J18:

Journal18, Issue #8 (Fall 2019) — Self/Portrait
Edited by Melissa Hyde and Hannah Williams

Proposals due by 21 September 2018; finished articles will be due by 7 April 2019

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, The Vexed Man, 1771–83, alabaster, 39 × 27 × 26 cm (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum).

This issue of Journal18 explores artworks, objects, spaces, performances and other visual or material productions that engaged with the self during the long eighteenth century. Rather than a study of ‘self-portraits’ per se, this issue is concerned with expanded definitions of both the ‘self’ and the ‘portrait’, seeking to deepen our sense of how self-expression, self-perception, and self-representation were understood in the long eighteenth century.

Enlightenment philosophy defined modern conceptions of the individual and the self. Not coincidentally, the eighteenth century was also a period in which representations of the self took on a new prominence in artistic practice, becoming sites of innovation and experimentation in a range of visual and material forms. Across the long eighteenth century, self-representation emerged as a crucial space for navigating the individual’s place in society, for pushing the boundaries of artistic convention, and for exploring perceptions of the corporeal self. As institutional restrictions on art were challenged, as new movements redefined who and what the artist was, and as a new emphasis on introspection and subjectivity developed, the eighteenth century witnessed a shift in the artist’s relationship with the self.

We invite proposals for articles that explore artistic engagements with the self in any media, from any cultural context, at any moment across the long eighteenth century. How was art used to explore the self? Beyond mere self-fashioning, how did eighteenth-century artists use portraits (in whatever shape or form) to interrogate, examine, relate, express and communicate? Outside of conventional self-portrayals, how did artists inscribe themselves in their works (e.g. through signatures or self-referential codings)? Of particular interest are proposals that explore unexpected modes or materials of self-portrayal (e.g. architectural self-portraits, porcelain self-portraits, or combinations of word and image) or that take up pertinent issues of methodology (e.g. questions of biography and its problematic place in art-historical writing).

Issue Editors
Melissa Hyde, University of Florida
Hannah Williams, Queen Mary University of London

Proposals for issue #8 Self/Portrait are now being accepted. Deadline for proposals: September 21, 2018. To submit a proposal, send an abstract (250 words) and brief biography to editor@journal18.org and mlhyde@ymail.com. Articles should not exceed 6000 words (including footnotes) and will be due on April 7, 2019. For further details see Information for Authors.