Enfilade

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.

I’m hoping to put together a panel for this year’s NACBS meeting in Portland. Please email me with any questions! -CH

Session on the British Country House at NACBS
North American Conference on British Studies, Portland, 8-10 November 2013

Proposals due by 18 February 2013

This session seeks to bring together scholars working on the full range of topics associated with country houses in British history – including architecture, the decorative arts, and gardens. Papers might address material aspects as well as larger contextual approaches that situate particular families and houses within narratives of power, patronage, the history of taste, and British identity. Please email a 200-word proposal and a CV to CraigAshleyHanson@gmail.com by 18 February 2013 (the complete panel will need to be submitted together in March).

From the Art History Supplement:

Call for Articles: Histories of Conservation
Art History Supplement, Issue 3.2 (March 2013)

Submissions due by 25 February 2013

In a recent fund raising email campaign (December 17, 2012), Michael Gallagher, conservator in charge of the Department of Painting Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, stated: “Imagine a picture coated in a thick varnish, making the artist’s original brushwork almost undetectable. Then, imagine removing that discolored
surface to reveal the true painting beneath – it is painstakingly careful work, but exhilarating when the picture returns to the gallery with its integrity restored.” This could be the formula through which, according to Gallagher, general public might have the chance to approach, discover and enjoy or be thrilled by great art and old masters.

The above assessment for role of conservation, considering the “original brushwork” of the “true painting” may reveal a modernist aspect of purity and uniqueness that brings along pleasure in the eye of the beholder and thus viewer. From such a starting point, any conservation theory, or better conservation practice, is both indicating a way of “contemporary” thinking about “past” using historical mechanisms in its expression and, in the same time, it is
characteristic of the environment in which it was produced and of the environment it was practiced and cultivated. Humanistic, religious or strictly (micro-) political receptions and appropriations of a past suggest each time a certain way a particular culture has used, wittingly or not, material culture, being at its disposal, for a firm reason.

“Reception” is regarded here as the act of decoding a past; while “appropriation” is considered here to be the product of re-encoding the same past be the same someone who practiced the decoding.

In this forthcoming issue of Art History Supplement, papers are sought dealing with conservation stories about receptions and appropriations of a certain, or not, past from a particular culture. “Histories of conservation” issue is planned to explore uses of the past, reasons for such, and primarily the why a certain reception or appropriation took place through conservation (aka restoration), from late medieval to modern times.

Visualizing Portuguese Power: The Political Use of Images
in Portugal and Its Overseas Empire, 16th to 18th Century
Munich, Center for Advanced Studies, 26-27 September 2013

Proposals due by 28 February 2013

Images have always played a vital role in political communication and in the visualization of power structures and hierarchies. They gain even more importance in situations where non-verbal communication prevails: In the negotiation processes between two (or more) different cultures, the language of the visual is often thought of as the more effective way to acquaint (and overpower) the others with one’s own principles, beliefs, value systems. Scores of these asymmetrical exchange situations have taken place in the Portuguese overseas Empire since its gradual expansion in the 16th century.

In art history, the role of images in the contact zones of the early modern empires has recently met with an increasing interest. It is above all the study of objects belonging to the so-called Jesuit mission art and the art produced in the context of the other religious orders that has shed new light on the potentiality of images in
transcultural exchange processes. Numerous of these religious art works were, however, also used to visualize political claims and transmit notions of colonial power. The Munich workshop aims to develop thoughts on the broad phenomenon of Portuguese-Christian Art in the African, Asian and American colonies further by adding the dimension of the political appropriation of these (and other) objects. How were these ‘hybrid’ artefacts staged and handled to generate new layers of meaning and visualize political ideas and concepts? (more…)

Collections, remaniements, expositions: Les vies du manuscrit médiéval
aux périodes moderne et contemporaine
Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, 18 November 2013

Proposals due by 19 May 2013

Saint Jean à Pathmos. Heures d’Étienne Chevalier, enluminées par Jean Fouquet (Chantilly: Musée Condé) Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Dismantled codices, where pages have been extracted from their original contexts, have provided museums with important examples of medieval and Renaissance illumination. Although artists of the late medieval period began to create single-leaf illuminations, many of the pages donated and purchased by museums resulted from the cutting and reshaping of complete manuscripts during the eighteenth century, a phenomenon which was spurred by changing collecting practices that favoured the presentation of single objects as a works of art.

Despite their importance to the history of the book, these objects are rarely displayed, little studied, and generally unknown. In the fall of 2013, a series of three exhibitions will be presented in collaboration with the INHA (the French National Institute for Art History): the first at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Angers, followed by the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, and then the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse. These exhibitions, which will help to inform audiences about this fragile heritage, will bring together objects from the collections of museums and learned societies in regions such as the Centre and Pays de la Loire, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Picardy and
Champagne-Ardenne, Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon.

To mark this occasion, the INHA will organize a one day conference on the 18th of November, 2013. This Journée d’études will consider the history of modern and contemporary manuscript collections, paying special attention to the practice of cutting, pasting, and revising medieval works during the eighteenth century. Issues relating to the conservation, restoration, and exhibition of these objects in museums will also be taken into account.

The famous manuscripts known as the Hours of Etienne Chevalier by Jean Fouquet is an example of this phenomenon. Dismembered during the eighteenth century, its miniatures were pasted on panels to create independent images satisfying the desires of collectors. For both economic and aesthetic reasons, the history of medieval books is full of similar examples of assembly from several manuscripts, collections of initials, and detached single leaves. Such practices reveal the tastes and the aspirations of collectors, some of whom were famous for their approach to illuminated manuscripts (J. Granger and J. Bagford during the eighteenth century, or Luigi Celotti during the nineteenth century). Collectors and learned societies played an important role in the constitution of certain collections, facilitating the preservation of many illuminated works. Papers may thus address the following questions:

• Practices of collectors concerning illuminated manuscripts from the beginning of the modern era to the contemporary period (cutting, reshaping, destruction, creation of false/fakes/false leaves, etc.)
• The development of manuscripts collections in museums
• The conservation, restoration and presentation of manuscripts in museums or private collections and learned societies from the nineteenth century to the present day

Communications in English, French or Italian. Please send an abstract of 250 words with a CV (maximum two pages) to Tania Lévy (tlevy@info-histoire.com) and Judith Soria (judith.soria@yahoo.fr) before the May 19th, 2013. The program will be announced in July 2013.

For the call for papers in French, click here»

From the H-WRBI:

Materializing the Spirit: Spaces, Objects, and Art in the Cultures of Women Religious
Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London, 5-7 September 2013

Proposals due by 1 February 2013

The History of Women Religious of Britain and Ireland Annual Conference will be hosted by the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, on 5-7 September 2013.

Paper proposals are now invited. Presentations should be 20 minutes in duration, and should address some element of the conference theme, with reference to British and/or Irish contexts. The devotional and vocational activities of women religious sculpted the physical space of religious houses in unique ways. Patterns of use were etched into the fabric of buildings, guiding structural design and interior decoration. But buildings also shaped practice: whether the formal monastic sites of early or revived enclosed orders or the reused secular buildings of active congregations, women both adapted and adapted to their material surroundings.

A growing body of literature has addressed itself to convent art, exploring nuns as patrons, consumers and manufacturers of material and visual culture. These practices span the history of women’s religious life – from the early Middle Ages to the present day – and suggest a hidden but dynamic tradition of artistic enterprise. This conference explores the creative output of women religious including but not limited to textiles and the decorative arts, illuminated manuscripts and printed books, women’s patronage of painting and architecture, the commercial production of ecclesiastical textiles in the nineteenth-century, production of liturgical and devotional art in recent periods, and the development of unique convent and institutional spaces by and for women religious.

Key aims of the conference will be to highlight the scholarly value of these under-researched and little known spaces and collections and also to raise awareness and discuss the threats that they face as communities decline, buildings close, artefacts and archives are dispersed.

This conference will take a broad and diverse view on what constitutes ‘material culture’, emphasizing the conception, production, and meanings of the many material outputs of convents and monasteries. Papers are welcomed from a diverse range of disciplines: scholars from social and religious history, art and architecture, theology, anthropology, psychology and beyond are invited to offer fresh and innovative perspectives in order to illuminate ways in which women religious in Britain and Ireland created and were formed by material histories for over a thousand years.

Please send 200-word proposals for 20-minute papers to conference conveners Kate Jordan (kate.jordan.09@ucl.ac.uk) and Ayla Lepine (ayla.lepine@gmail.com) by no later than 1 February 2013.