Enfilade

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/.

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

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…)

As noted at Le Blog de L’APAHAU and H-ArtHist:

French Bronzes: History, Materials, and Techniques, 16th-18th Centuries
Musée du Louvre and Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, Paris, 9-12 June 2012

Proposals due by 1 November 2011

With this three-day international symposium, we are aiming to bring together a diverse group of specialists — e.g., historians (of technology, art, trade, ideas), conservation scientists, curators, and conservator-restorers — to engage in an inter-disciplinary exchange and to promote further research into the development and cross fertilization of ideas and technology related to the making of bronzes in France — and by French artists abroad — from the Renaissance to the 19th century.

The conference will focus primarily on the following three inter-related subject areas:
1. The origins and cross-fertilization of ideas and technology related to the making of bronzes in France between the Renaissance and the 18th century. This would include three types of perspectives: chronological, geographical and typological.
2. The production of specific sculptors and founders, or of specific works of art. While technical aspects would be mostly discussed, all approaches aiming at documenting the production modes will be much appreciated, including the diverse roles of those who had a hand in the making of bronze statuary (e.g., sculptors, founders, merchants, …) and how this may have impacted stylistic and technical outcome.
3. Current state-of-the-art research methods and their application to multi-disciplinary studies. This would include historical and archaeological investigations, analytical studies of materials (e.g. metal, core and patina), as well as experimental reconstructions of metallurgical processes.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Genevieve Bresc-Bautier, musée du Louvre, France
David Bourgarit, C2RMF, France
Philippe Malgouyres, musée du Louvre, France
Jane Bassett, J. Paul Getty Museum, USA
Francesca Bewer, Harvard Art Museums, USA

REGISTRATION and SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS
Participants are invited to submit abstracts for oral or poster presentations before November 1st, 2011 (see http://frenchbronze.net ). The conference language will be English. Authors will be informed of the acceptance of their contribution and the type of presentation (oral or poster) by February 28th, 2012. A peer reviewed publication of the conference papers and poster presentations is planned to follow the conference. More information concerning the publication will be available in due course. There will be no registration fee, but conference places may be limited, so early registration is recommended.

2012 American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference
San Antonio, Texas, 22-25 March 2012

Proposals due by 15 September 2011 — Next Thursday!

The 2012 ASECS conference takes place in San Antonio at the Hyatt Regency Riverwalk, 22-25 March. Along with our annual luncheon and business meeting, HECAA will be represented by two panels chaired by Christopher Johns, Heidi Strobel, Amber Ludwig, and Melissa Hyde and Heidi Kraus.

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

Exoticisms: Global Commodity Exchange in the Long Eighteenth Century (Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture)

Christopher Johns, Heidi Strobel, and Amber Ludwig, for Strobel: Dept. of Archaeology and Art History, 1800 Lincoln Ave., U. of Evansville, Evansville, IN, 47722; Tel: (812) 746-9711; Fax: (812) 488-2430; E-mail: hs40@evansville.edu

Global commodity exchange radically altered European culture in the long eighteenth century. Exoticisms became fundamental to understanding colonization and routes of international exchange, as well as iconographic and stylistic transformations in the arts. Each paper proposal should define exoticism, its geographical parameters, and its unique and unfamiliar qualities.  The role of material culture, decorative arts, and prints in defining and developing the idea(s) of exoticism(s) is of particular interest.  Interdisciplinary approaches are welcome and encouraged.

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

New Scholar’s Open Session (Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture)

Melissa Hyde, University of Florida and Heidi Kraus, University of Iowa; Tel:  (Hyde) (352) 273 3057; E-mail: mhyde@ufl.edu AND heidiekraus@yahoo.com

This panel, sponsored by the Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture, seeks papers that deal with any aspect of visual art and culture, or architecture. It is open to graduate students (priority will be given to those who are ABD) or who have received the Ph.D. in the past 5 years.

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

There are numerous other panels that should prove interesting for art and architectural historians. A full list of panels is available at the ASECS website, but a couple of dozen are included here»