Enfilade

Graduate Student Symposium| Movement: The Body and Object in Motion
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 4 October 2013

Proposals due by 30 April 2013

The graduate students in the History of Art program at Cornell University invite abstracts for papers to be presented at the Graduate Student Symposium to be held on October 4th, 2013. This year’s symposium, “Movement: The Body and Object in Motion,” will feature a keynote lecture presented by Dr. Coco Fusco and will explore the theme of movement in visual culture via three panels consisting of three speakers each.

Movement in visual culture is a fundamental theme across all media and periods. Movement defines both the pre-modern and modern periods in all their complexities, as peoples are colonized and decolonized, orders are invented and moved, tourists visit sites, products are shipped from other continents for consumption, and wars are waged around the globe. It is manifest in the journey of the soul through life and in its final voyage into death. Movement also creates a narrative for objects and ideas as they travel with people. Possible panel ideas include but are not limited to: migration, diaspora, grand tour, tourism, slavery, across realms, exchange/trade, urban planning
and the movement of the body/political body, spiritual movement, movement of objects and cultural property.

The graduate students in the department of History of Art at Cornell University welcome the submission of abstracts for papers from graduate students. We invite papers from a broad range of periods, from prehistoric to contemporary, and from a broad range of disciplines. Submission is open to graduate students in art history, archaeology, conservation, museum studies, classics, anthropology, sociology, and beyond. Please send a 250-word abstract of your paper, a list of two or three possible panel themes your paper may fit, a current CV, and contact information by April 30, 2013 to cornellgradsymposium@gmail.com.

Traveling to Ithaca: Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport, Lansing, NY (15 mins from Cornell University). Please also look here for additional information and alternatives on how to reach Ithaca. We are happy to facilitate shared lodging/travel costs among speakers.

“The Senses of Humour,” edited by Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins, is a special issue of Eighteenth-Century Fiction that will explore the relationships among various meanings of the term “humour” in the long eighteenth century, from humoral theories of the body to the cultivation and regulation of “senses of humour” in literature, culture, and social interaction. We invite submissions on eighteenth-century legacies of classical humoral theory; the philosophy of laughter; the emergence of modern forms of wit, satire, and other humorous genres in literature and illustration; cul-tural negotiations of body and mind as sites of “humour”; and the role of humour(s) in discourses of feeling, sentiment, sensibility, and sociality. We welcome articles that treat the topic in areas both inside and outside of imaginative prose fiction. Manuscripts (5,000-8,000 words) should reach ECF by 1 May 2013. Electronic submissions are encouraged: visit ECF at Digital Commons & choose “Submit Article.”

Further details about submitting articles can be found at / Les protocoles de la présentation et de la soumission des articles sont consultables à “Editorial Policy.” To submit an article for a special issue, or a call for articles, or a  regular issue of the journal, which publishes 4 issues per year, choose “Submit Article.” We encourage electronic submissions at Digital Commons, but if you have any concerns about this online submissions system, you may contact the ECF editors at ecf@mcmaster.ca.

Pour l’amour de l’art ? Les enjeux de la pratique amateur de l’art dans l’Europe des Lumières
Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, 13 September 2013

Proposals due by 1 April 2013

Appel à communication Pour l’amour de l’art ? Les enjeux de la pratique amateur de l’art dans l’Europe des Lumières — Journée d’études organisée par le Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine avec le concours de l’Institut Universitaire de France et du projet ANR CITERE Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis Nice, vendredi 13 septembre 2013. Organisateurs scientifiques : David Rousseau et Marie Villion.

Dès leur plus jeune âge, les héritiers de l’aristocratie et de ceux qui dans la haute bourgeoisie aspirent à y parvenir sont sensibilisés aux différentes formes artistiques, tant dans la sphère domestique que dans les institutions d’éducation. Cet engouement pour l’art a bouleversé sa pratique en la diversifiant et en la rendant beaucoup plus personnelle. La forme artistique s’est alors insérée dans les espaces privés et intimes de la vie des élites européennes. Cependant, dans une société où les apparences conditionnent la vie sociale, où les comportements sont réglés par des codes respectant une hiérarchie établie, la pratique désintéressée de l’art semble difficile à concevoir, car ceux qui font vivre l’art pratiquent avec maîtrise et assurance les jeux de distinction sociale que la « vie de société » recèle.

Au-delà des valeurs esthétiques, par quels intérêts sont poussées ces élites dans leur pratique amateur de l’art ? Volonté de se distinguer socialement, désir de sociabilité ? Quelles logiques les conduisent à développer émulation et compétition dans la pratique amateur de l’art ? Que nous apprennent les écrits des protagonistes de ces jeux de société sur leur pratique et celle du monde dans lequel ils rivalisent ? Que nous disent-ils à travers le prisme de la pratique amateur de l’art sur les acteurs qui sont aussi les juges des performances  des « sociétés » auxquelles ils appartiennent ? Ces interrogations seront au cœur de la journée d’études du 13 septembre 2013. (more…)

Images of the Art Museum: Connecting Gaze and Discourse in the History of Museology
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, 26-28 September 2013

Proposals due by 15 April 2013

Organized by the Max Planck Research Group Objects in the Contact Zone: The Cross-Cultural Lives of Things, directed by Eva-Maria Troelenberg.

Scholars normally consider the institution of the museum to have arisen in Europe. Historians have traced its origin back to the collections of the Renaissance princes and the ‘cabinets of curiosity’, the ‘Kunstkammern’ and ‘Wunderkammern’, literally art chambers and wonder chambers, of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Western Europe. From their initial establishment until today, museums have become increasingly elaborate institutions, the purpose of which is not simply to exhibit collections of beautiful artefacts, but also to become a social agency able to interact with a different kind of public. In particular, in recent years, it seems as though ‘the museum’ has become a geographically universal or ‘global’ institution. At the same time, museum discourses are almost inevitably entangled with political questions, implying definitions of cultural values and privileges of interpretation.

Since the early 1990s, the emerging field of museum studies has seen rapid expansion in the critical study of museums. New Museology started to question the institution and its functions. Anthropological approaches to the object, theories on the aesthetics of perception or ‘Bildakt’ have affected our ideas of the artwork. The current museum boom and the ensuing new wave of historiographical and theoretical writing on museums have on the one hand addressed notions of ‘the museum’ as a temple, a cultural storage or even a universal symbol of enlightenment. On the other hand, more pro-active postmodern approaches work with concepts of the museum as a forum, a place of participation, but also as a machine or even a brand. (more…)

Repetition: Second Annual Art History Graduate Student Conference
University of California, Riverside, 18 May 2013

Proposals due by 15 March 2013

Repetition, as both logic and device, has played a significant role in the history of art. As logic, repetition underlies the very possibility of artworks as meaningful objects, as it is through repeated acquaintance with an object or form that it gains meaning in a prescribed context. And as stylistic device, the use of repetition has transcended historical periods and visual cultures. From prehistory to the present, the repetition of forms and objects has been used by practically all cultures as a way to define common identities, establish order, and inscribe sense and meaning into the world. The use of repeated forms stands at the center of, for instance, practices and objects as distinct as Inca tunic design, Buddhist and Hindu mandalas, Outsider art and 1960s Minimalism. Yet repetition was also part of painterly strategies in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and pervades the concepts of Early Modern print culture as well as sculptural practices. These various examples serve to highlight our expanded approach to the idea of repetition as an integral aspect of a series of diverse practices, including pattern design, seriality, doubling, mirroring, symmetry, recursion, copying and reproducibility. (more…)

From CSECS:

Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies: Enlightenment Constellations
London, Ontario, 16-19 October 2013

Proposals due by 1 March 2013

The Enlightenment has resurfaced as a vital site for the study of the long eighteenth century. As the ideological critique of humanism and universalism has subsided, a variety of projects have been undertaken, ranging from the digital mapping of the early modern republic of letters, to the “Re-Enlightenment” of knowledge formation for the twenty-first century, to studies of local, radical, religious, and many other enlightenments. Enlightenment Constellations explores this plurality of possibilities. We seek panels and papers on a range of eighteenth-century ideas, discourses, and practices that speak to the expansion and rejuvenation of enlightenment. In addition to traditional panel formats, we welcome proposals for roundtables, panels with digital or new media components, seminars, etc. Panel topics or paper topics may include: (more…)

From Money, Power and Print: Interdisciplinary Studies of the Financial Revolution in the British Isles, 1688-1776:

Money, Power, and Print
The Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe, Leuven, 12-14 June 2014

Proposals due by 15 June 2013

This colloquium, the sixth in a biennial series and the first to be held in Belgium, offers an opportunity for scholars from a variety of disciplines to enrich their mutual understanding of the intersections between public finance, politics and print during Britain’s ‘financial revolution’. The term ‘Britain’ is used loosely to refer to all constituent parts of the United Kingdom and also to Ireland and the colonies.

The organizers invite proposals for papers that will build on the three papers already contributed and the two contemporary publications they have chosen for discussion in an opening-day session. Ideally, submissions should develop ideas in, or comment upon issues raised by, one or more of the papers or readings already included in the program. Abstracts of the organizers’ three papers are printed below.

The contemporary publications to be discussed are:

Laura Auricchio seeks proposals on the subject of “Artistic and Social Practices,” for an August conference in Oslo: The Eighteenth Century in Practice, the fourth Nordic Conference for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

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Artistic and Social Practices in the 18th Century
Proposed Session at the Nordic Conference for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Oslo, 28-31 August 2013

Proposals due by 15 February 2013

At present, there are plans to include in the session a talk addressing drawing as practice rather than product through consideration of a little-known suite of drawings  produced in New York between 1807 and 1814 by a  royalist émigré from Napoleonic France, Anne Marguerite-Henriette Rouillé de Marigny, Baroness Hyde de Neuville. A second paper will address artistic and religious practices vis-à-vis artists’ social networks in 18th-century Paris. Please write with ideas or questions to Laura Auricchio, AuricchL@newschool.edu.

From Hélène Bremer:

The Art of Lying in the Eighteenth Century
Amsterdam, 17-18 January 2014

Proposals due by 15 March 2013

Thomas Rowlandson, Transplanting Teeth, 1787

On Friday January 17 and Saturday January 18, 2014 the annual conference of the Werkgroep 18de Eeuw will be held in Amsterdam. The major theme of the conference is: The Art of Lying.

Lying and cheating were daily practice in the eighteenth century. That is, if we believe the many pamphlets, newspapers, comedies, criminal biographies and criminal records. Before one knew one had lost his money, goods, reputation or health. Despite the severe penalties on stealing and murdering and despite all Enlightenment ideals, trickery and deceit seem to have been rather mainstream. Historical criminologists have shown that it is a misconception to think that cheating only existed in the lower classes or in the margins of eighteenth century society. In each social class fraud and corruption were common. Persons like Casanova and Cagliostro were operating in the highest circles. Some of the wealthiest people were specialized in real estate fraud and illegal speculation, not to mention the corruption in politics and in the (para)medical sector. At the same time, an anti-movement started. Eighteenth-century ‘philosophes’ were fascinated by the truth and the late eighteenth-century revolutions could not have taken place without the desire to eradicate corruption.

The conference aims for an interdisciplinary and international approach to the phenomenon of fraud and corruption. Topics may include an international affair such as the South Sea Bubble, the corruption of regents, the medical  malpractice of quacks or the vicissitudes of a local thief. We will also focus on the ways in which the criminal world was represented in the media. Possible key questions to be addressed are:

• What was the top 10 list of famous con men in the eighteenth century, nationally and internationally?
• What was the relationship between truth and lying in the eighteenth century?
• To what extent were corruption and fraud considered to be normal?
• Could one survive without lying?
• Can we consider the Enlightenment movement as a response or an antidote to this culture of lying?
• How were con men, thieves and murders punished and sentenced?
• How did the late eighteenth-century revolutions contributed to a transformation of a culture of lying into a more just society?
• Why became the genre of criminal biography so popular in the eighteenth century? And why in general do we find so many crooks, thieves and swindlers in eighteenth-century literature?
• In what sense did literature and the arts play an active part in combating fraud?
• Can we state that neither the Enlightenment nor the Judeo-Christian tradition – both considering lying as a sin – have been able to change human nature?

Historians, art historians, criminologists, philosophers, sociologists, economists, literary and medical historians, are all invited to give an inspiring lecture of approximately twenty minutes. We also welcome scholars who want to bridge the gap between past and present. Please submit proposals (approximately 300 words in Dutch or English) before March 15, 2013 by email to: devriesmarleen@hotmail.com. Contributors will be notified that their proposal has been accepted by April 1, 2013.

Note: On Friday, January 17, we will host one or more guest speakers from abroad. This day will therefore be in English, and all lectures should be conducted in English. The language for Saturday, January 18, will be Dutch.

From the MWCBS:

The Midwest Conference on British Studies, 60th Annual Meeting
DePaul University, Chicago, 11-13 October 2013

Proposals due by 1 April 2013

The Midwest Conference on British Studies is proud to announce that its 60th Annual Meeting will be hosted by DePaul University in Chicago, October 11-13, 2013. The keynote speaker will be Professor Robert Bucholz of Loyola University of Chicago, and the plenary address will be given by Professor Jonathan Rose of Drew University. The MWCBS is also pleased to celebrate the career of Professor Walter L. Arnstein at this year’s meeting.

The MWCBS seeks papers from scholars in all fields of British Studies, broadly defined to include those who study England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Britain’s Empire and the Commonwealth. We welcome scholars from a broad spectrum of disciplines, including but not limited to history, literature, political science, gender studies and art history. Proposals for complete sessions are preferred, although proposals for individual papers will be considered. We welcome roundtables (of four participants plus chair) and panels (of three participants plus chair/commentator) that:

• offer cross-disciplinary perspectives on topics in British Studies
• situate the arts, letters, and sciences in a British cultural context
• examine representations of British and imperial/Commonwealth national identities
• consider Anglo-American relations, past and present
• examine new trends in British Studies
• assess a major work or body of work by a scholar
• explore new developments in digital humanities and/or research methodologies

After positive responses to recent roundtables on teaching and employment, we would particularly like to receive proposals for teaching roundtables that discuss collaborative or innovative learning techniques in the British Studies classroom and for professional development roundtables dealing with research, publication, or employment. We are also pleased to announce a session on holdings available to scholars conducting research in the Chicago area.
The MWCBS welcomes papers presented by advanced graduate students and will award the Walter L. Arnstein Prize for the best graduate student paper(s) given at the conference. A limited number of graduate travel scholarships will be available, and all graduate students are encouraged to apply. Please see the MWCBS website for further details.

Proposals must:

• Include a 200-word abstract for each paper and a brief, 1-page c.v. for each participant, including chairs and commentators.

• For full panels, include a brief 200-word preview of the panel as a whole.

Please place the panel proposal, the accompanying paper proposals and vitas in one file and send it as a single attachment. Also identify within the email the contact person for the panel. All proposals should be submitted electronically by April 1, 2013, to the Program Committee Chair, Jennifer McNabb at JL-Mcnabb@wiu.edu.

Program Committee: Martin Greig, Ryerson University; Phil Harling, University of Kentucky; Robin Hermann, University of Louisiana at Lafayette; Isaac Land, Indiana State University; Jennifer McNabb, Chair, Western Illinois University; and Cathryn Spence, University of Guelph.