Enfilade

The Eighteenth-Century Gothick Symposium
University of Oxford, 7 August 2013

Proposals due by 31 May 2013

The Gothick Revival in eighteenth-century Britain is a multi-faceted phenomenon, simultaneously liminal and mainstream, historical and modern, whimsical and serious. This one-day symposium seeks to explore the revival’s many dimensions. Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers that address any aspect of the Gothic revival, and may include:

• art
• architecture
• interiors
• furniture
• antiquarianism
• history
• literature
• medievalism
• patronage
• politics
• restoration
• sexuality

Please email 250-word proposals to the symposium organisers, Oliver Cox and Peter Lindfield by 31 May 2013 at 18thCenturyGothick@gmail.com.

The 2014 ASECS Conference takes place in Williamsburg, Virginia, March 20-23. Proposals for panels are due by June 1 (extended from the original May 1 deadline). Details and a form for submitting a session for consideration can be found here»

From SAH:

Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians
Austin, Texas, 9-13 April 2014

Proposals due by 1 June 2013

The Society of Architectural Historians is now accepting abstracts for its 67th Annual Conference in Austin, TX, April 9-13, 2014. Please submit abstracts no later than June 1st for one of the 30 thematic sessions or open sessions. 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 partner organizations. (more…)

Gall and Guts: Entrails and Digestion in the Long Eighteenth Century
Paris, 21-22 March 2014

Proposals due by 31 May 2013 (final papers due 15 July 2013)

In his recent book, Versailles, l’ordre et le chaos, Michel Jeanneret describes the representations of Molière’s Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. The play wittily mixes the underbelly and the underworld: Parisian purse-snatchers confront provincial narrow-mindedness in a farce whose emblems are the clyster and the “obscure and polluted area of the entrails.” The farcical catharsis is enabled by the purgation of Pourceaugnac’s allegedly diseased body. Jeanneret underlines the close relation between this play and Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), another of Molière’s comedies in which the bowels and their evacuation are at the very centre of the scatological farce. At Versailles, Le Malade imaginaire was played in front of the setting of the artificial cave of Thetis and Jeanneret sees the valetudinarian obsessed with his entrails as being echoed by the man-made grotto “which opens onto marine depths, buried in the bowels of the earth, imitating the labyrinth of the viscera.”

The representation of the entrails, the belly and the bowels is not limited to the anatomical descriptions that have influenced the caricatures and the apprehension of the body in the eighteenth century (Mandressi, 2003). The bodily functions associated with the bowels — digestion and evacuation — were used as metaphors throughout the period. They are also linked to medical practices that rely on entrails for diagnosis and treatment. The examination of excrement or the frequent prescription of enemas and emetics also confirm the central position of the belly in the perception of the body. Untainted by metaphors, patients’ narratives and case-descriptions underline the materiality of digestion. (more…)

From the Modern British History Network:

Conference on Modern British History: Society, Culture, Politics and Religion since 1750
University of Edinburgh, 10-11 June 2013

Proposals due by 6 May 2013

Following the success of the conferences held at Strathclyde (2007-2009), at St Andrews in 2010, at Dundee in 2011, and at Stirling in 2012, the Modern British History Network will host a seventh major Conference on Modern British History at New College, University of Edinburgh, on 10-11 June 2013. The event is particularly aimed at members of the Scottish universities and the northern English universities although all historians are very welcome. Previous conferences have attracted delegates from across the UK and from overseas.

Proposals for papers or registration to attend the event are now invited from researchers working on all aspects of modern British history. The conference aims to represent work covering the whole period since the late eighteenth century with topics in social, cultural, political and religious history. Proposals should be submitted by 6 May 2013 to Dr Juliette Pattinson (juliette.pattinson@strath.ac.uk). Over two days there will be three main papers from senior academics and short papers by other academics and postgraduates, who are equally welcome to speak. (more…)

The following represents a selection of panels that might be of interest for scholars of the eighteenth century, though readers are encouraged to consult the full Call for Papers. HECAA members are asked to pay special attention to the session organized by Kevin Chua ‘After the Secular: Art and Religion in the Eighteenth Century’ and the ‘New Scholars Session,’ chaired by Kristel Smentek. Proposals for minor sessions (90-minute panels) typically have a slightly later due date; so stay tuned. -CH

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102nd Annual Conference of the College Art Association
Chicago, 12-15 February 2014

Proposals due by 13 May 2013 (extended from 6 May 2013)

The 2014 Call for Participation for the 101st Annual Conference, taking place February 12–15 in Chicago, describes many of next year’s programs sessions. CAA and the session chairs invite your participation: please follow the instructions in the booklet to submit a proposal for a paper or presentation. This publication also includes a call for Poster Session proposals and describes the seven Open Forms sessions.

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Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture
After the Secular: Art and Religion in the Eighteenth Century
Kevin Chua, Texas Tech University, kevin.chua@ttu.edu
Religious art of the eighteenth century has long been framed within a narrative of secularization. It was thought that, with modernization, societies would move away from religious values to embrace secular ones. Yet scholars such as Charles Taylor, Talal Asad, and Hent de Vries have questioned this dominant narrative. Not only has secularization been shown to be not the end point of modernization, it has proven to be, perhaps, the last progress narrative that we need to unbind. This panel seeks papers on religious art, visual culture, and architecture that trouble the old secularization narrative, and come to grips with the paradoxical efflorescence of religion in the eighteenth century. Papers might address the contradictory place of art between the flourishing of marginal religions and the public sphere, engage the various “returns” of religion in and for art, and rethink the supposedly unidirectional shift from “religious” to “secular” worlds in aesthetic media.

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Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture
New Scholars Session
Kristel Smentek, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, smentek@mit.edu

The Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture (HECAA) invite paper proposals from advanced doctoral students and recent PhDs that present innovative approaches to the interpretation of the art, architecture, and material culture of the global eighteenth century. Presenters selected for this session are expected to become members of HECAA before the conference.

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Collaborators: The Role of Collectors, Critics, Curators in Artistic Practice, ca. 1780-1914
Humanities Research Centre, University of York, 26 June 2013

Proposals due by 26 April 2013

In May 1884 the art critic Marion Harry Spielmann wrote in defence of the often criticised profession of art criticism: “The critic – (I am not now referring to the mere notice writer of daily journalism) – spends his life in devotion not only to art but to artists: and, so far as public recognition is concerned, he reaps his reward in sneers and ‘chaff’: sneers from painters, thoughtless and irresponsible, like Mr Whistler; indifference from others less splenetic and querulous.” Spielmann, a prolific author, editor and arts administrator, was an advocate for and close friend of numerous contemporary artists. Along with the collectors and curators whom he frequently worked with and wrote about, he was an active and influential participant in contemporary art practice in late-Victorian London.

Relationships between artists, collectors, critics and curators are often considered in isolation but rarely in tandem. Drawing upon a diverse range of case studies, covering a variety of local and global contexts, this one day post-graduate workshop aims to unpick consistencies, changes and crossovers in the sometimes fraught but often productive relationships between artists, collectors, critics and curators in the long nineteenth century. By bringing together students, early-career researchers and established academics, we hope the workshop will provide an informal but stimulating forum for conversation, debate and interdisciplinary exchange about the nineteenth-century art world and its constituents.

We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers from postgraduate students, early career researchers and established academics. Papers might explore, but are not limited to, the following topics:
•    The advent of professional art critics and curators and its impact on artistic practice
•    Patronage and collecting in the long nineteenth century
•    Artists as collectors, critics and curators
•    The fabrication and decoration of Museum buildings
•    Curating contemporary art in the long nineteenth century
•    The art press and art publishing
•    The Grand Tour/tourists as collectors, critics and curators
•    Conversations/collaborations in the studio
•    Collectors, critics, curators and local/regional/national identities
•    Agency and authorship in artistic practice in the long nineteenth century
•    Documents: catalogues, contracts and correspondence

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Charlotte Drew (ckd502@york.ac.uk) and Eoin Martin (eoin.martin@warwick.ac.uk) by Friday 26 April. This event is generously supported by the Centre for Modern Studies, University of York.

From The Costume Society of America:

Uncommon Beauty | Annual Meeting of the Costume Society of America, Midwest Region
Chicago, 20-21 September 2013

Proposals due by 10 April 2013

The Midwest Region of the Costume Society of America seeks original presentations on topics of Uncommon Beauty. Potential presenters will respond with topics that emerge from seeing beauty with an open mind and an open eye. This could include inquiry into the urban, the “fringe,” the utilitarian, the ethnic, the diverse, the modern, and the very individual. Topics are generated by interest in current or historical fashion, the body, and garments. Your original as well as your traditional academic approaches to presentation of information and images will create an uncommonly inspiring weekend of inquiry and exchange. Uncommon methods of presentation are encouraged, including poetic and literary elements. Garment makers are welcome to present applied and three-dimensional research.

Topics are also sought for exploration in the Ideas Theater, which will provide an informal venue to engage attendees in lively discussions about issues that matter to you now. Spotlight-worthy submissions may include research dilemmas, teaching methods, interpretive strategies, and theater costume or fashion design processes. Although poster presentations and slideshows will be considered, topic presenters are encouraged to consider hands-on activities, quick surveys or games, dance or role-playing, and other imaginative scenarios to involve participants.

Requirements: Proposals are invited for 20-minute oral presentations and Idea Theater topics. Abstracts must be no longer than two typed, double-spaced pages, including endnotes. The top of the first page should include only the title (no names). All proposals should include a cover page with working title, name, address, telephone number, email address, and professional affiliation. Please identify your proposal as an oral presentation or Idea Theater topic.

The organizers encourage papers from established professionals, early career scholars, independent researchers, garment makers, and students. Please identify student papers on the cover page. Abstracts are due by April 10, 2013, to Jacqueline WayneGuite at csachicago2013@gmail.com. For more information about the symposium, contact Caroline Bellios at csachicago2013@gmail.com.