Smithsonian American Art Museum Fellows, 2015–16
Among this upcoming year’s 14 new Smithsonian American Art Museum Fellows is
• Emily Casey, Terra Foundation Predoctoral Fellow in American Art, University of Delaware; “Waterscapes: Representing the Sea in the American Imagination, 1760–1815.”
A full list is available here»
Since 1970, the museum has hosted more than 565 scholars who now occupy positions in academic and cultural institutions across the United States and in Australia, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East and South America. Fellowship opportunities include the Joe and Wanda Corn Fellowship for research that spans American art and American history; the Douglass Foundation Fellowship; the Patricia and Phillip Frost Fellowship; the George Gurney Fellowship; the James Renwick Fellowship in American Craft; the Sara Roby Fellowship in 20th-Century American Realism; the Joshua C. Taylor Fellowship; the Terra Foundation for American Art Fellowships for the cross-cultural study of art of the United States; the William H. Truettner Fellowship; and the Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship for the study of excellence in all aspects of American art. The museum also hosts fellows supported by the Smithsonian’s general fellowship fund. For additional information, call (202) 633-8353 or email americanartfellowships@si.edu. The deadline for applications is December 1, 2016.
Conference | Orientality: Beyond Foreign Affairs
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From the conference website:
Orientality: Beyond Foreign Affairs
National Portrait Gallery, London, 2–3 June 2015
A biennial conference series developed by the Orientalist Museum, Doha
The inaugural conference Orientality: Cultural Orientalism and Mentality took place at Cambridge University in 2013. The subsequent conference is scheduled for the National Portrait Gallery, London, 2015. The only conference of its kind, Orientality gives international art and museum professionals an opportunity to come together and discuss the art, history, politics and future of the Orientalist art movement. The conference aims to develop understanding between east and west, and showcase the continued vibrancy of the Orientalist art movement in the 21st century.
The conference title orientality is a combination of two terms—orientalism and mentality. The term orientalism has been used in art history since the early nineteenth century in association with works of art on Middle Eastern and North African subjects pioneered by French artists. The term mentality is defined as “way of thinking of a person or a group,” and can be metaphorically translated as an “opinion,” formed and shaped, in our case, under various historical, political, social and cultural circumstances and environments, what allows the orientalism to be seen and interpreted in various ways by different societies. The theme of cultural orientalism and mentality captured the scholarly imaginations largely because we were able to articulate the dialog in both artistic and sociological terms, spanning the geographical area of orientalism and widening its historical borders.
We hope that our interpretation of orientality will influence many other disciplinary areas in the social sciences, humanities and beyond. Orientalism as a historical and cultural event has been uniting various aspects of cultural life for a number of centuries—literature, fine arts, architecture, music, philosophy—and generating an exotic image within our consciousness, one that had a right to its own existence.
Entry to the conference is free, and all are welcome. We do ask that you register your attendance ahead of time to ensure we have adequate seating available.
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T U E S D A Y , 2 J U N E 2 0 1 5
8:30 Coffee and registration
9:30 Opening and welcome
9:45 Art and Nation Building
• The Somerset House Painting of 1604: How a Turkey Carpet Became a Symbol of British Imperialism, Gerald MacLean
• Design Reform at the British Embassy: James Wild’s Arabesque Hall in Qajar Tehran, Moya Carey
• Ottoman Photography and Late Nineteenth-Century Modernity, Zeynep Çelik
11:45 Lunch break
13:15 Diplomatic Gifts
• Across Religious Borders: Diplomatic Gifts at the Mamluk Court, Doris Behrens-Abouseif
• Pearls, Bezoar Stones, Carpets and Diplomatic Gifts: The Portuguese Luxury Trade in the North of the Indian Ocean and the Gulf, Jean Michel Massing
• Illustrated Manuscripts as Persian Diplomatic Gifts to the Russian Court, Firuza Melville
W E D N E S D A Y , 3 J U N E 2 0 1 5
8:30 Coffee and registration
9:30 Opening and welcome
9:45 Art and Politics
• Bellini, Bronze and Bombards: Sultan Mehmed II’s Requests Reconsidered, Antonia Gatward Cevizli
• Collecting Arts for Imperial Needs: Acquisitions of Russian Military Men and Diplomats in Levant during the Russo-Turkish war of 1768–1774, Elena Borisovna Smilyanskaya
• The Von Celsing Family History and the Eighteenth-Century Collection of Ottoman Art at Biby, Anna-Sophia von Celsing
• Searching for the Meaning of the Rare Mughal Animal Carpet in David Wilkie’s Painting The Preaching of Knox before the Lords of the Congregation, 10th June 1559, Dorota Chudzicka
12:25 Lunch break
14:00 Oriental Encounters
• ‘Speak of Me as I Am’: A Portrait of a Moorish Ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I, Sophie Bostock
• Iconographies of the Levant, ca. 1800, Paolo Girardelli
• Mme Lucas-Robiquet’s Artistic Portrayal of Late Nineteenth-Century Algeria, Mary Healy
New Book | Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV, volumes 1–6
From the Voltaire Foundation:
Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV, volumes 1–6, edited by Diego Venturino, et al. (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2015–17).
Attributed to Antoine Benoist (1632–1717), Portrait of Louis XIV, lead pencil, sanguine and white chalk (Château de Versailles)
2015 marks the 300th anniversary of the death of Louis XIV (1638–1715), the Sun King, whose reign defined the era of the ‘Grand Siècle’ and saw France rise to become the dominant player on the European stage. To mark this anniversary, the Voltaire Foundation, in collaboration with the Château de Versailles, is publishing Voltaire’s seminal account of his reign, the Siècle de Louis XIV (1751), the first major overall account of the reign of Louis XIV. This text is the starting-point for any reflection on the political and cultural history of the era of the Sun King, and is a monument of eighteenth-century historiography, paving the way for both modern historiography and literary history. The lasting success of this flagship work is due to the depth of Voltaire’s insight into the people and events that he is describing and to his historical method, which was remarkable for its day. The emphasis on first-hand accounts from those who witnessed events and on the perspective of the age as a whole rather than a parade of facts bears the stamp of Voltaire. This edition is the first-ever full critical edition, and will be published in volumes 11–13 of the Complete Works of Voltaire. It takes as its base text the last version of the work that Voltaire authorised (1775), and gives variant readings from all preceding versions of the text. It will include the Catalogue des écrivains français qui ont paru dans le siècle de Louis XIV, an important and fascinating work in its own right. The edition will be supplied with an index with full names and dates of all persons mentioned in the text. These volumes are published with the support of the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles.
See “The Sun King and Voltaire: 300 Years On” for an overview of good reading relating to Louis XIV and his era, along with our Siècle de Louis XIV blog pieces: “Picturing the Reign of Louis XIV” and “Shadows at the Court of the Sun King.”
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• Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, tome 11 | Siècle de Louis XIV (I): Introduction, Textes annexes, Index (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2017), ISBN: 978-0729411462.
• Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, tome 12 | Siècle de Louis XIV (II): Listes et Catalogue des écrivains (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2016), ISBN: 978-0729411479.
• Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, tome 13A | Siècle de Louis XIV (III): Chapitres 1–12 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2015), ISBN 978-0729409650.
• Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, tome 13B | Siècle de Louis XIV (IV): Chapitres 13–24 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2015), ISBN: 978-0729411561.
• Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, tome 13C | Siècle de Louis XIV (V): Chapitres 25–30 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2015), ISBN: 978-0729411578.
• Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, tome 13D | Siècle de Louis XIV (VI): Chapitres 31–39 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2016), ISBN: 978-0729411554.
Colloquium | Perception Machines
From the University of Geneva:
Machines à Percevoir / Perception Machines
Université de Genève, 29–30 May 2015
Organised by Marie Theres Stauffer and Stefan Kristensen
Le colloque traite des différents types de machines construites entre le 17e et le 20e siècle et dont la fonction consiste à produire des expériences esthétiques. Il sera question, d’une part, des processus et phénomènes perceptifs déclenchés par les machines et, d’autre part, de la conception souvent complexe de ces dispositifs. La période historique très large, qui est envisagée, permettra de dégager des liens thématiques et structurels, de localiser des processus d’innovation et de discuter la signification de la conception, de l’usage et des transformations de l’usage de ces machines dans une perspective d’histoire des savoirs. Enfin, il s’agit également de dégager les différences entre les objets particuliers et leurs contextes historiques.
Le colloque réunira des perspectives de l’histoire des arts visuels et scéniques, de l’histoire des techniques, ainsi que de la philosophie. Il est organisé par l’Unité d’histoire de l’art et la Société suisse de théorie de la culture et de sémiotique.
L’entrée est libre et toute personne intéressée est la bienvenue.
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F R I D A Y , 2 9 M A Y 2 0 1 5
9:30 Welcome
9:45 Julia Zons, Universität Konstanz: Qui a tué le beau monstre noir? Life and death of the pantelegraph (1855–1867)
10:30 Veronica Peselmann, Freie Universität Berlin: The Kaiser-Panorama. Mobilizing spaces of perception in the late 19th century
11:15 Break
11:45 Benoît Turquéty, Université de Lausanne: Machines imageantes, machines- images
12:30 Lunch break
14:30 Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc, Université de Toulouse: Désir et perception chez Deleuze et Guattari
15:15 Bianca Westermann, Ruhr-Universität Bochum: Biomorphic automats in the 18th century
16:00 Break
16:30 Marie Theres Stauffer, Université de Genève: La reconstruction de machines catoptriques. L’intérêt et ses défis
17:15 Philip Ursprung, ETH Zürich: Olafur Eliasson’s machines
18:15 Assemblée générale de l’ASSC
S A T U R D A Y , 3 0 M A Y 2 0 1 5
9:30 Nina Zschokke, ETH Zürich: Machines, instructions, skills, rewards. Jon Kessler’s The Web (2012) and the production of perception in the 21st century
10:15 Dieter Dietz, EPF Lausanne: Immersive devices. The expanded eye in space
11:00 Break
11:30 Holle Rössler, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolffenbüttel: Spectacular Delusions. Perception Machines and the Perception of Machines in the History of Theater
12:15 Lunch break
14:00 Stefan Kristensen, Université de Genève: Les « machines à influencer » entre esthétique et psychopathologie
14:45 Felix Thürlemann, Universität Konstanz: Le miroir-transparent chez Lee Friedlander ou l’alternative rendue simultanée
15:30 Closing remarks
Sir John Soane’s Private Apartments and Model Room
From Sir John Soane’s Museum:
Soane Tour: Private Apartments and Model Room
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, starting May 19
Sir John Soane’s Model Room, watercolour by C. J. Richardson ca. 1834–35
Explore Soane’s unique house-museum with our expert staff on the Soane Highlights Tour. Be transported back to Regency London as we guide you through Sir John Soane’s extraordinary home, including Soane’s fully-restored private apartments and Model Room, not seen by the public for 160 years. Offering a fascinating insight into his work and family life, the tour will show you the highlights amongst the many treasures on display, including paintings by Canaletto and J.M.W. Turner, the 3,000 year-old sarcophagus of Egyptian King Seti I, and William Hogarth’s complete A Rake’s Progress. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 12:00, £10.
Coverage from The Guardian is available here»
Exhibition | Unbuttoning Fashion
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Now on view at Les Arts Décoratifs:
Déboutonner la mode
Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 10 February — 19 July 2015
For the first time, the Déboutonner la mode exhibition at Les Arts Décoratifs is unveiling a collection of over 3,000 buttons unique in the world, and also featuring a selection of more than 100 female and male garments and accessories by emblematic couturiers such as Paul Poiret, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier and Patrick Kelly. Acquired in 2012, this collection was classified as a Work of Major Heritage Interest by the Consultative Commission on National Treasures.
Button, late eighteenth century, wax on painted metal
(Paris: Les Arts Décoratifs)
Although small in size, the priceless materials and skills involved in making these pieces dating from the 18th to the 20th century can make them fully-fledged objets d’art. Produced by artisans ranging from embroiderers, soft furnishers, glassmakers and ceramicists to jewellers and silversmiths, they crystallise the history and evolution of these skills. The button has also fascinated famous painters, sculptors and creators of jewellery, inspiring them to produce unique miniature creations for the great couture houses.
This collection, gathered by Loïc Allio, is exemplary in its variety, richness and eclecticism. Its exceptional pieces include a portrait of a woman in the Fragonard manner, a trio of buttons inspired by La Fontaine’s fables by the silversmith Lucien Falize, a set of eight birds painted on porcelain by Camille Naudot, and a series of 792 pieces by the sculptor Henri Hamm. The jewellers Jean Clément and François Hugo and the artists Jean Arp and Alberto Giacometti all produced pieces for the famous fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, as did Maurice de Vlaminck for the couturier Paul Poiret. Couture houses such as Dior, Balenciaga, Mme Grès, Givenchy, Balmain and Yves Saint Laurent enlisted the talents of the jewellers Francis Winter and Roger Jean-Pierre, and the exhibition also features creations by Sonia Delaunay and Line Vautrin.
Structured chronologically, the exhibition reveals the incredible history of the button, showing via this extraordinary collection how it perfectly reflects the creativity and humour of a period. Pictures, engravings, drawings and fashion photographs emphasize its importance on the garment and how crucial it is in creating the balance of a silhouette.
Button, attributed to Fragonard, late eighteenth century, miniature on ivory (Paris: Les Arts Décoratifs)
Since its appearance in the 13th century, the button has maintained its key role on the garment. Its production and use gradually developed but the golden age of the button in France did not come until the late 18th century, when it became a luxury item often more expensive than the garment itself. More than a mere ornament, it was also a means of conveying penchants and opinions, via humorous, intimate and even political messages (portraits of the royal family, scenes showing storming of the Bastille, etc.). However, not until around 1780 and the French craze for all things English, did the button appear in female fashion, on dresses and bodices with cuts inspired by male garments.
In the 19th-century male wardrobe the art of the button gave way to the art of buttoning. Now smaller and more discreet, the button came to denote the degree of refinement of a garment or level of distinction of its wearer. The attention paid to its positioning is particularly apparent on that most essential component of the male wardrobe, the waistcoat. With the industrial revolution in the second half of the 19th century button manufacturing developed into a full-scale industry mass-producing all sizes and colours of buttons for every type of garment and accessory.
Women’s buttons remained much more modest in size but their number increased. They now also appeared on ankle boots, gloves and eventually lingerie as the number of undergarments increased around 1850. Their number was precisely noted in fashion magazines and their description in contemporary literature established them as objects of coquetry and even seduction. In parallel, silversmiths and jewellers created valuable buttons, sometimes presented in caskets like jewellery and reflecting the artistic movements of the period, especially Art Nouveau.
The first floor of the exhibition ends with the 1910s and the return of the so-called ‘Empire’ line under the influence of the avant-garde-inspired couturier Paul Poiret, for whom the importance of a detail, for instance a button and its precise positioning, is dictated by a “secret geometry that is the key to aestheticism.”
The exhibition continues with the fashion of the 20s, featuring Art Deco buttons and the emergence of the paruriers, creators of accessories, jewellery and buttons, each with their own style and preference for different materials. Their close collaborations with the great couturiers are highlighted in a display featuring creations for Elsa Schiaparelli, Jean Clément and Jean Schlumberger. François Hugo’s designs for Schiaparelli include uncut stones set in bent and compressed metal. He also enlisted the talents of artists such as Pablo Picasso and Jean Arp for original creations. The decline of the button began in the 80s as couturiers returned to more minimal creations in which the button regained its original use.
In counterpoint to creations by artists, the exhibition emphasizes the manner in which certain couturiers creatively used and interpreted the button in their own way, ranging from Gabrielle Chanel and Christian Dior to Cristobal Balenciaga and the ‘jewellery buttons’ of Yves Saint Laurent. And of course there are also exquisite 21st-century examples, notably Jean Paul Gaultier’s trouser suit entirely covered with small mother-of-pearl buttons, and the coats by Céline subtly revisiting double-breasted buttoning.
Despite the emergence and increasing use of new types of fastenings such as the zip, the pressure button and velcro, the button is ever-present and still has many years to come.
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From Les Arts Décoratifs:
Véronique Belloir, ed., Déboutonner la mode (Paris: Les Arts Décoratifs, 2015), 164 pages, ISBN: 978-2916914541, 45€.
Il est des objets avec lesquels nous entretenons des rapports tout en délicatesse, entre conscience et émotion. À plus d’un titre, le bouton est de ceux-là, de ceux que l’on conserve parfois, sans bien savoir pourquoi, au fond d’une poche ou dans une boîte. Sur un vêtement, qu’il soit masculin ou féminin, son rôle est loin d’être anodin : élément structurant l’équilibre des formes, il entre en résonance avec une ligne, celle d’une boutonnière, d’une couture ou celle du vêtement lui-même. L’histoire du bouton révèle bien d’autres aspects méconnus. Qu’il soit modeste et utile ou précieux et décoratif, sa place évolue au fil du temps en fonction des convenances, des règles de savoir-vivre ou des variations de mode.
Sous la direction de Véronique Belloir, chargée de collections au musée Galliera. Auparavant conservatrice au musée des Arts décoratifs, en charge des collections mode 1800-1940, elle a fait classer la collection de boutons de Loïc Allio en 2012. Textes de Loïc Allio, Véronique Belloir, Raphaèle Billé, Farid Chenoune, Michèle Heuzé, Geoffrey Martinache, Sophie Motsch, Hélène Renaudin. Photographies de Patrick Gries. Référence dans le milieu de l’édition d’art, il excelle dans la photographie d’objets complexes, monumentaux ou minuscules, en répondant à de nombreuses commandes pour le monde du luxe, du design et de l’art contemporain.
Exhibition | Gilbert Stuart: From Boston to Brunswick
From the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Gilbert Stuart: From Boston to Brunswick
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, 9 July 2015 — 3 January 2016
Gilbert Stuart, Portrait of Thomas Jefferson
(Bowdoin College Museum of Art)
This exhibition brings together a selection of oil paintings by Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) from the Museum’s collection, including his famous portraits of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
The preeminent portraitist of the early republic, Stuart created fashionable likenesses of the period’s most important political, military, and social figures. Each of works included in the exhibition was completed after Stuart’s move to Boston in 1805. Collectively, they provide insight into the artist’s relationship with other artists and collectors in the region, including members of the Bowdoin family.
New Book | James Thomson’s The Seasons
From Rowman & Littlefield:
Sandro Jung, James Thomson’s The Seasons, Print Culture, and Visual Interpretation, 1730–1842 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2015), 318 pages, ISBN: 978-1611461916 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1611461923 (ebook), $80 / £53.
Drawing on the methods of textual and reception studies, book history, print culture research, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary study of James Thomson’s The Seasons (1730) understands the text as marketable commodity and symbolic capital which throughout its extended affective presence in the marketplace for printed literary editions shaped reading habits. At the same time, through the addition of paratexts such as memoirs of Thomson, notes, and illustrations, it was recast by changing readerships, consumer fashions, and ideologies of culture. The book investigates the poem’s cultural afterlife by charting the prominent place it occupied in the visual cultures of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain. While the emphasis of the chapters is on printed visual culture in the form of book illustrations, the book also features discussions of paintings and other visual media such as furniture prints. Reading illustrations of iconographic moments from The Seasons as paratextual, interpretive commentaries that reflect multifarious reading practices as well as mentalities, the chapters contextualise the editions in light of their production and interpretive inscription. They introduce these editions’ publishers and designers who conceived visual translations of the text, as well as the engravers who rendered these designs in the form of the engraving plate from which the illustration could then be printed. Where relevant, the chapters introduce non-British illustrated editions to demonstrate in which ways foreign booksellers were conscious of British editions of The Seasons and negotiated their illustrative models in the sets of engraved plates they commissioned for their volumes.
Sandro Jung is research professor of early modern British literature and founding director of the Centre for the Study of Text and Print Culture at Ghent University.
Exhibition | Costumes by Bellange and Berain
From Chantilly:
Fastes de cour au XVIIe siècle: Les costumes de Bellange et Berain
Château de Chantilly, 13 May — 13 August 2015
This exhibition is the first public showcasing of a portfolio acquired by the Duke of Aumale in 1854, which is now kept in the Condé museum in Chantilly. The portfolio features 23 exceptional drawings by Jacques Bellange (c. 1575–1616), depicting the Lorraine region festivities for the wedding of Henri de Bar and Marguerite de Gonzague (1606), as well as a series of 34 prints by Jean Berain (1640–1711) featuring watercolour, gold and silver highlights and magnificently depicting the splendours of the courts of Lorraine and France from the beginning to the end of the 17th century.
Paulette Choné and Jérôme de La Gorce, Fastes de cour au XVIIe siècle: Les costumes de Bellange et Berain (Saint-Remy-en-l’Eau: Éditions Monelle Hayot, 2015), 264 pages, ISBN: 978-2903824945, 49€.
Paulette Choné, professeur émérite des Universités, a enseigné l’histoire de l’art moderne à l’Université de Bourgogne. Philosophe, spécialiste de la civilisation des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, elle a consacré une large partie de ses travaux à l’art lorrain, aux fêtes de cour, aux études emblématiques qu’elle a contribué à mettre à l’honneur en France.
Jérôme de La Gorce est directeur de recherche au CNRS, historien d’art et musicologue. Auteur de plusieurs livres, il s’est spécialisé dans les arts de l’éphémère en étudiant notamment les dessins relatifs aux fêtes, aux spectacles et aux cérémonies aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.
Call for Papers | 2016 Society of Architectural Historians, Pasadena
From SAH:
Society of Architectural Historians 69th Annual Conference
Pasadena/Los Angeles, 6–10 April 2016
Proposals due by 9 June 2015
The Society of Architectural Historians is now accepting abstracts for its 69th Annual International Conference in Pasadena/Los Angeles, April 6–10, 2016. Please submit abstracts no later than June 9, 2015, for one of the 38 thematic sessions, Graduate Student Lightning Talks or for open sessions. The thematic sessions have been selected to cover topics across all time periods and architectural styles. SAH encourages submissions from architectural, landscape, and urban historians; museum curators; preservationists; independent scholars; architects; and members of SAH chapters and partner organizations.
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A selection of sessions that might be relevant to the eighteenth century:
Fiske Kimball and Visual Culture
Session Chair: Marie Frank, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Marie_Frank@uml.edu
2016 marks the centenary anniversary of the publication of Fiske Kimball’s Thomas Jefferson Architect (1916), a seminal book that not only established Jefferson as an architect but also propelled the young Kimball to the forefront of architectural history in the United States. Until his death in 1955, Kimball remained a powerful and influential voice in the arts. As a historian, his pioneering publications earned him the sobriquet “the father of American architectural history.” As an educator, he established the School of Fine Arts at the University of Virginia and laid the groundwork for the Institute of Fine Arts in New York City. As a preservationist, he played a critical role at Monticello, Colonial Williamsburg, Fairmount Park, and numerous other historic sites. As a critic, he wrote regularly on contemporary architecture. As the director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1925–55), he oversaw the construction of the new museum, installed period rooms, and built the collection. He practiced architecture throughout his life and had a keen regard for landscape architecture and its history.
The range of Kimball’s activities invites connections between disciplines often studied in isolation. This session therefore seeks to examine Kimball’s contributions as a lens to situate architectural history within the broader context of visual culture in the early twentieth century. Papers on a broad range of topics are welcome. Topics can include studies of individual projects in which Kimball had a presence; or they might provide more synthesizing studies on his methodology and the current state of research; or address the legacy of Kimball-inspired scholarship. Because he spent over half of his professional career as a museum director, papers could also address the role of the architectural historian within museum studies.
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Graduate Student Lightning Talks
Session Chairs: R. Scott Gill, University of Texas at Austin, SAHligtningtalks@gmail.com
This session is composed of approximately 12 five-minute talks that allow graduate students to introduce their current research. We are seeking work in various forms, including a focused summation, concentrated case study, and methodological exegesis. The individual talks are divided into thematic groups with a short question and discussion period following each set of presentations.
Graduate students are invited to submit a concise abstract (under 300 words). Preference will be given to doctoral students, but all graduate students are encouraged to apply, and the Lightning Talks co-chairs welcome geographic and institutional diversity. The Graduate Student Lightning Talks provide graduate students with an invaluable opportunity to test their ideas, refine their thoughts, and enhance their presentation skills among a circle of empathetic and supportive peers.
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History of Heritage Preservation Revisited
Session Chair: Josep-Maria Garcia-Fuentes, Newcastle University, josep.garciafuentes@ncl.ac.uk
Although we should conceptualise medieval relics as the prime forms of Western heritage, it is well known that the modern Western understanding of heritage and preservation have their origin in the debates that took place between the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. They were later enriched through different national-building processes during 19th and 20th centuries, and finally spread worldwide after World War II when the United Nations decided to create World Heritage.
This globalization of the modern Western understanding of heritage and preservation has challenged the contemporary notion of heritage and has given rise to dissonances and conflicts around the world. In the emergent interdisciplinary field of heritage studies is widely accepted that Heritage should be understood as a process rather than as an object to be revered and preserved—that is, as the constantly changing outcome of the struggle between those who aspire to capitalize it. This dynamic and creative understanding is rather different from the preservation and conservation paradigm widely assumed within the field of architecture. However, in recent years new attempts by architects and architectural historians have been made to define a novel approach to this discussion.
This session welcomes papers reviewing and examining this dynamic political, social and cultural process from late 18th century up to the present. Innovative research on case studies about the history of preservation and conservation and on the theoretical conceptualization of heritage are particularly welcome, as well as on architects and provocative key case studies ranging in scope from individual architectural works to the urban scale. The ultimate goal is to interconnect existing original research on Heritage and preservation with the aim to contribute to the definition of a new approach to Heritage research grounded on the history of Architecture.
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Reframing Landscape History
Session Chairs: John Beardsley, Dumbarton Oaks, beardsleyj@doaks.org and Anatole Tchikine, Dumbarton Oaks, tchikinea@doaks.org
Originally a subfield of art history, garden and landscape studies is now truly interdisciplinary in scope and objectives, combining a variety of methodologies and perspectives that are no longer peculiar to the humanities. Correspondingly, its focus has evolved from gardens as primarily artistic creations to the more inclusive category of designed landscapes to the still broader study of landscape as a meeting point of environmental, social, and economic histories. While this approach has allowed garden and landscape historians to transcend the boundaries of individual disciplines, it has also posed the challenge of generating constructive cross-disciplinary dialogue. In what ways can practitioners and scholars from divergent disciplinary backgrounds, who are trained to prioritize different sets of data, find a common language of communication? And does this move away from the traditional emphasis on iconography and meaning towards broader concerns with ecology, planning, and sustainability reflect a desire to incorporate new and potentially enriching perspectives—or does it represent a gradual displacement of garden and landscape studies from the domain of the humanities to that of social sciences?
Intended to mark the 75th anniversary of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection envisaged by its founders as a “home for the humanities,” this session invites papers to reflect on the history and the current disciplinary status of garden and landscape studies addressing the different methodological approaches, institutional frameworks, and individual visions that informed this field’s past and are likely to shape its future. Papers should consider this topic not just as a theoretical or historiographical challenge, but as one to be worked through by a discussion of specific examples of landscape interpretation.
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