Enfilade

From ArtHist.net:

Hospitals and Confraternities in Europe, 13th–18th Centuries

Naples, 8–11 April 2026

Organized by Gemma Colesanti, Toni Conejo, Salvatore Marino, and Stefano D’Ovidio

Proposals due by 30 November 2025

The 15th edition of the Abrils de l’Hospital, a series of annual conferences promoted by the University of Barcelona since 2103, will be held in Naples in April 2026. This edition will focus on the role of charitable confraternities and craft guilds in the foundation, administration, reform, and expansion of hospitals and other welfare institutions. The conference will place particular emphasis on both the tangible and intangible heritage of these organizations, examined through interdisciplinary and gender-aware approaches. The broad chronological scope will encourage innovative research adopting a longue durée perspective on the ongoing processes of reform, refoundation, and restructuring that characterized confraternities, hospitals, and charitable institutions of the ancien régime. Special attention will be devoted to large and medium-sized urban contexts, in order to promote comparative discussions across the diverse political, economic, social, and cultural landscapes of Christian Europe.

The sessions will be organized around three main research strands:
1. The agency of confraternities, craft guilds, associations of foreigners, and charitable movements in the foundation, management, and administrative reform of hospitals.
2. The involvement of members of ruling families and the urban patriciate, merchants, artisans, and farmers in confraternities and associations responsible for hospitals and other charitable institutions (orphanages, leprosaria, lazarettos, and almsgiving organizations).
3. The written records produced by confraternities and guilds engaged in the management of pious institutions, along with the architectural and artistic heritage commissioned by lay and religious groups for the enlargement, embellishment, and ritual use of hospital spaces and their attached religious buildings.

Alongside academic sessions and discussions, the program will include poster presentations, as well as guided visits to archives and to the main hospitals and confraternal buildings in the city of Naples.

The Call for Papers is open until 30th November 2025. Proposals should be submitted to the conference organizers at abrils.hospital@ub.edu and must include the following information in a single PDF or Word file: full name, academic affiliation, paper title, abstract (150–200 words), and a short CV (maximum 200 words). Presentations may be delivered in Catalan, French, English, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish. Accepted proposals will be notified by 31st January 2026.

Organizers: Gemma T. Colesanti (ISP-CNR, Napoli), Toni Conejo and Salvatore Marino (Universitat de Barcelona), Stefano D’Ovidio (Università di Napoli Federico II)

From ArtHist.net and SSPRB::

Beauty and the Sublime in Gestation and Coming into Being:

Art and the Aesthetics of Pregnancy and Birth

Online, 4–5 June 2026

Keynote Speakers: Lauren Bice and Sheila Lintott

Proposals due by 1 December 2025

The Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB) is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for its second international virtual symposium, Beauty and the Sublime in Gestation and Coming into Being: Art and the Aesthetics of Pregnancy and Birth, a virtual event that will take place online across two half-day sessions on June 4–5, 2026 (to facilitate participation across time zones).

In her work on experiences of a feminist sublime in gestation and birth, American philosopher Sheila Lintott has described these experiences as, “dangerous internal experiences that prompt both introspective and extrospective exploration and recognition.” This international virtual symposium explores and recognizes these experiences, seeking to highlight scholarship and ideas on art about birth and pregnancy, as well as philosophical approaches to aesthetic properties, values, and qualities related to beauty and the sublime in gestation and coming into being.

Some areas of interest include
• How have artists represented pregnancy and birth, both historically and in our contemporary world, and what do these images convey to their viewers about the experiences they represent?
• How do aesthetic qualities emerge through our experiences of pregnancy, birth, and coming into being?
• How do birth professionals inform us about birth, neonatal life and the aesthetics of the birth environment through their work?
• Where do we see the aesthetics of pregnancy and birth within the field of philosophy?
• What are some of the ways in which different cultures celebrate or influence the art, beauty, and/or the aesthetics of pregnancy and birth?
• What are the internal and external aesthetic experiences of parents who adopt or foster children?
• How does phenomenology intersect with the aesthetics of pregnancy and birth?
• How are art and the aesthetics of pregnancy and birth part of the Birthing Justice Movement or other movements?

We are interested in philosophical, interdisciplinary, and/or artistic approaches to art and the aesthetics of pregnancy and birth, and welcome papers in fields across the arts, humanities, social sciences and psychology. We also welcome the work of birth professionals whose backgrounds inform their understanding of aesthetics in spaces of birth.

We invite abstracts for short papers (15–20 minutes) from any discipline to be submitted by Monday, 1 December 2025. Please email abstracts (with titles) of no more than 250 words and a short biography (75 words) to the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB) at ssprbpapers@gmail.com. Full panel submissions are also welcome and should include the same information for each presenter on the panel (abstract and biography). Panels should include 3–4 presenters. Please note that presenters on a 4-person panel will have less time to present their work. The event will be recorded and accessible on request for those not able to attend.

You can contact us at ssprbsociety@gmail.com. Sign up for the SSPRB Newsletter here: ssprb.substack.com. To learn more about the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth, visit our website.