Enfilade

From The Courtauld:

Contested Views: Visual Culture and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
Courtauld Institute of Art Research Forum at Tate Britain, London, 19-20 July 2012

Proposals due by 16 December 2011

Goya, "The Third of May 1808," 1814 (Madrid: Prado)

In July 2012, in advance of commemoration of the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo, Tate Britain is to host a two-day conference exploring the impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars on world-wide visual culture, from the outbreak of the pan-European conflict with France in 1792 to the present day. Centered on themed panels, plenary lectures and workshops, this cross-disciplinary conference will promote knowledge and understanding of the range of ways in which the ‘First Total War’ has been mediated in visual cultures, not only in Britain and continental Europe but throughout the world.

The organizers are keen to receive proposals for papers that present new research and/or methodological approaches. In particular they would like to encourage proposals from scholars from different disciplines who wish to work in collaboration with each other. Please send proposals of no more than 250 words to Phil Shaw ps14@le.ac.uk.

Organised by Martin Myrone (Tate Britain), Satish Padiyar (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Phil Shaw (University of Leicester), and Philippa Simpson (National Maritime Museum)

Ars Judaica Conference: Traditions and Perspectives in History of Jewish Art
Bar-Ilan University, Israel, 10-13 September 2012

Proposals due by 6 November 2011

The conference will bring together historians of art and material culture and researchers in history, religions, semiotics, psychology, sociology, and folklore to explore the fields of interest of Ars Judaica: The Bar-Ilan Journal of Jewish Art that include, but are not limited to:

– The Jewish contribution to the visual arts and culture from antiquity to the present
– Art and architecture of Jewish sacred spaces
– Biblical texts as a source in Christian and Muslim visual arts
– Jerusalem and the Holy Land as an object and model in visual arts
– Images of Jews in visual arts
– Hebrew script in visual arts
– Patrons, collectors and museums of Jewish art
– Jews, arts and politics

Abstracts (limited to 200 words) of twenty-minute presentations with a short CV should be submitted (as attached MSWord documents) by January 6, 2012 to gr.ajudaica@biu.ac.il. The applicants will be notified of the decision regarding their proposals by February 6, 2012.

Special Issue of World History Connected: Art in World History
Submissions due 1 December 2011

The February 2012 issue of the online journal World History Connected will focus on “Art in World History.” It seeks to offer case studies and effective methodological and/or pedagogical approaches highlighting this important aspect of both research and teaching in the field of world history. The editor of the journal, Marc Jason Gilbert, and the guest editor of this forum, Ralph Croizier, seek five sorts of contributions: (more…)

Women Artists in Early Modern Italy
The Medici Archive Project, Florence, 3 March 2012

Proposals due 1 December 2011

The Jane Fortune Research Program on Women Artists in the Age of the Medici at The Medici Archive Project is organizing a one-day conference (Florence, March 3, 2012) to highlight new documentary findings on the creative production of women in the visual arts (broadly defined) in the period 1500-1750.

Researchers have been exploiting historical archives to answer such questions as, What were the lives of women artists like in early modern Italy? Did their creative production take its cues from the social, cultural and professional circumstances that characterized their careers? Did they operate workshops similarly to male artists? Did their techniques for attracting patronage and setting prices follow the example of male artists?  Where else besides the professional artist’s studio did women engage in the visual arts? Are there works of art by women artists that can be identified, dated or otherwise clarified by means of archival evidence?  This conference offers an opportunity for comparing findings on early modern women artists and for examining a range of useful archival strategies and historiographic methodologies.

Although Italian women artists are of primary concern at this conference, papers on women artists of other countries are welcome particularly if they can be linked with the Medici or if their works were collected by any of the Medici (as in the case of Rachel Ruysch for instance). We are also particularly keen to include papers dealing with the collecting and display of works by women artists in the years 1500-1750, as well as papers that characterize the patronage enjoyed by women artists of this period.

To apply, please submit by December 1, 2012, a paper title, a one-page abstract either in English or Italian, and a curriculum vitae. Submissions should be sent via email to Dr. Sheila Barker: barker@medici.org

Jews and Jewish Districts in Europe, 18th to 21th Centuries
11th International Conference on Urban History
Charles University, Prague, 29 August — 1 September 2012

Proposals due by 15 November 2011

Charles University, Prague

Panel organizers invite paper proposals for the session Jews and Jewish Districts in Europe, 18th to 21th Centuries in conjunction with the 11th International Conference on Urban History, sponsored by The European Association for Urban History. Focusing on ‘Cities & Societies in Comparative Perspective’, the conference will be held in Prague from 29 August to 1 September 2012. More information is available at the conference website. For online submission visit www.eauh2012.com/sessions/call-for-paper-proposals/.

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The European Association for Urban History was established in 1989 with the support of the European Union. Conferences are organised every two years. These biannual conferences provide a multidisciplinary forum for historians, sociologists, geographers, anthropologists, art and architectural historians, economists, planners and all others working on different aspects of urban history. Membership in the Association is free of charge, and is demonstrated
by repeated active participation at the conferences.

The Association supports participation of young scholars by stipends, which cover registration fees, and since 2010 it even offers mobility stipends in a limited number of justified cases. Up to now 10 conferences have been organised. The first one took place in Amsterdam in 1992; twenty years after this first conference, we will meet in Prague. You are sincerely welcome to join us.

Call for Papers as noted at British Art Research:

The Trade in Luxury & Luxury in Trade: Production, Display, and Circulation
Musée Gadagne, Lyon, 22-23 November 2012

Proposals due by 1 January 2012

This Call for papers is for an international interdisciplinary conference, The Trade in Luxury & Luxury in Trade: The Production, Display, and Circulation of Precious Objects from the Middle Ages to the Present Day, organized by the Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (UMR 5190) to take place at the musée Gadagne in Lyon, on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 November 2012.

How were luxury objects produced, displayed, disseminated and consumed? The aim of this conference is to return to the question of progressive specialization in a trade devoted to precious objects. The chronological, spatial and disciplinary boundaries are flexible, open in order to encourage the participation of specialists from different backgrounds – history, art and design history, economics, literature, sociology, etc. The conference’s objective is to reveal the richness and diversity of what the term ‘luxury’ embraced (and embraces) and to consider how specialist markets were gradually created and defined. Two specific approaches will be developed. On one hand, the focus will be on people and goods; on the other, it will be on points of sale and the material and symbolic power deriving from this particular sector of the economy.

The methods of production, display, circulation, and consumption of luxury goods will be the subject of this conference. The aim is to raise questions about growing specialization in a trade devoted to precious objects which are designed to make people and their surroundings more attractive. Specialists from different backgrounds will deal with these questions from many chronological, spatial and disciplinary perspectives. Diverse acadenic fields will thus be represented, among them history, art and design history, economics, literature, sociology, etc.

This interdisciplinary approach to the luxury market across a long period of time, from the Middle-Ages to the present day, will make it possible to contrast different experiences and underline continuities as well as changes. Luxury has often been discussed merely with reference to fine arts production. Here, in contrast, the objective is to reveal the richness and diversity of a phenomenon referred to as ‘luxury’, and the progressive emergence of specialized markets. Two specific approaches will thus be developed in the conference: on the one hand, a focus on people and goods, and on the other hand, a focus on points of sale and the material and symbolic power deriving from this particular sector of the economy. Indeed, luxury does not only derive from the methods and forms of the material economy; it is also a controversial value, a symbolically charged trade, a political argument, a religious controversy. These facets of luxury are either linked with or remote from the circuits of consumption, leading or following consumption practices. The papers, which may refer to French or foreign examples, should contribute to the following topics and perspectives: (more…)

Call for Papers, noted by Hélène Bremer; from the festival website:

2e Festival de l’histoire de l’art: Voyages (with a focus on Germany)
Fontainebleau, 25-27 May 2012

Proposals due by 2 November 2011

Le Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art et le Château de Fontainebleau s’associent pour proposer la deuxième édition du Festival de l’histoire de l’art. Conçues comme un carrefour des publics et des savoirs, ces trois journées offrent conférences, débats, concerts, expositions, projections, lectures et rencontres dans le château et dans plusieurs sites de la ville de Fontainebleau.

Le Festival explore chaque année un thème, en 2012 « voyages », et propose trois rendez-vous annuels : le Forum de l’histoire de l’art, rendez-vous de toute l’actualité du monde des arts ; le Salon du livre et des revues d’art et Art & Caméra, panorama et perspectives sur le film et l’art. Le Festival est aussi l’occasion de propositions pédagogiques pour l’enseignement de l’histoire des arts à l’école, à travers une Université de printemps et des ateliers pédagogiques proposés et soutenus par le Ministère de l’Éducation nationale.

L’ensemble des manifestations est placé sous le regard privilégié d’un pays invité : en 2012, l’Allemagne. Les interventions intégrant des recherches allemandes ou concernant en tout ou partie le domaine allemand seront les bienvenues. L’appel à communication s’adresse à des chercheurs français et étrangers, de préférence francophones, confirmés ou débutants. Les propositions de jeunes chercheurs, conservateurs ou encore restaurateurs, seront examinées avec une attention particulière.

The full Call for Papers is available here»

Call for Papers from The Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at IU:

The 11th Bloomington Eighteenth-Century Workshop: Play
The Center for Eighteenth-Century  Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, 9-11 May 2012

Proposals due by 13 January 2012

The Center for Eighteenth-Century  Studies at Indiana University is pleased to announce the eleventh Bloomington Eighteenth-Century Workshop, to be held on May 9-11, 2012. Our subject for 2012 is “Play.” From the aesthetics of Schiller to the card tables of socialites; from Pascal’s wager to Emile’s childhood (“which is or ought to be only games and frolicsome play”)—the long eighteenth century was a century of play. Dismayed at all this non-utilitarian behavior, Jeremy Bentham coined the phrase “deep play” to describe entirely irrational gambling, the making of bets that could reduce players “to indigence” in an instant. Writing in the twentieth century, Johan Huizinga still saw a “play-quality” penetrating all aspects of the era: “statecraft had never been so avowedly a game as in that age of secret cabals and intrigues.” Play, in other words, can look like pretty serious stuff in an eighteenth-century context. What can eighteenth-century developments tell us about the objects, forms, and occasions of play? Clifford Geertz applied Bentham’s words to the cock fights of Bali; Robert Darnton transposed that analysis to cat killing in eighteenth-century Paris: in both cases, the authors argued that grappling with such “opaque” activities allowed one to “grasp a foreign system of meaning in order to unravel it” (Darnton). But must all analyses of play culminate with the discovery of cultural work? What happens when we juxtapose different forms of play and different sets of players? Would we want to say that narrative or poetic fictions constitute kinds of play, or forms of absorption homologous to playing? Do the revolutionary dramas in the American colonies, France, or Haiti represent the fulfillment or the destruction of the notion that politics is a performance?

We invite papers that range across aesthetic, anthropological, historical, and philosophical registers, and that offer new ways to see the relation between these fields and disciplines. Possible topics include: games, toys, puppets, contests, riddles, and puzzles; play and the theory of fictions; making and breaking rules; theatricalization and mimesis as aesthetic, behavioral, and political tactic; the psychologization of play; the policing of the border between action and enactment, the “real” and the “make-believe,” play and non-play; transcultural impacts on conceptions of culture as a kind of play, game, or performance. (more…)