Enfilade

Materials of Persuasion
Bard Graduate Center, New York, 23 April 2010

Proposals due by 29 January 2010

Few persons are capable of being convinced; the majority allow themselves to be persuaded. -Goethe

I’m in the persuasion business, and frankly I’m disappointed by your presentation. -Peggy Olson, Mad Men

Critics passing judgment, clergy seeking converts, advertisers selling products, and politicians running for office are all in the persuasion business. Persuasion is the key to the art of rhetoric, but there has always been a material dimension to persuasion as well. Objects are vehicles of persuasion. We are persuaded to purchase and consume objects, and we use them to persuade others, to mediate the identities we put forth, and our interactions with each other. The roles of persuasive objects change over time as they pass from hand to hand. The mutable relationships between material objects, people, and desire are powerful, tantalizing subjects of study. So how does persuasion factor into these fluid equations? Makers, buyers, and users all have unique perspectives on the art of persuasion, as well as unspoken intentions that are constantly at work beneath the surface. Some of these intentions may be deceptive – persuasion can have a dark side. Finally, persuasion rests upon various types of evidence – what must we see in order to believe? We invite scholars from diverse fields to explore these issues– come, and be persuasive. Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Marketing, advertising, and the mechanics of consumer desire
• Branding and the elevation of the status symbol: what’s in a name?
• The continuum of authenticity: influences, appropriations, copies, knock-offs and forgeries
• Persuasive scholarship: methodologies, authorial tone, and the use of revealed/suppressed information
• Surface treatments: gilding, varnishing, veneering, trompe l’oeil and faux materiality
• The toolbox of persuasion: emotion, rationalism, the hard sell, manipulation, and deceit (more…)

German Studies Association Conference
Oakland, California, 7-10 October 2010

Paper proposals due by 15 February 2010

The German Studies Association will hold its thirty-fourth annual conference in Oakland, California, October 7-10, 2010. This will be the GSA’s first conference in the San Francisco Bay Area in over twenty years. The Program Committee cordially invites proposals on any aspect of German, Austrian, or Swiss studies, including (but not limited to) history, Germanistik, film, art history, political science, musicology, religious studies, sociology, and cultural studies. Proposals for entire sessions and for interdisciplinary presentations are strongly encouraged. Individual paper proposals and offers to serve as session moderators or commentators are also welcome.  Programs of past GSA conferences may be viewed at the GSA website. Please see the website for information about the submission process, which opens on January 5, 2010.  Please note that ALL proposals must be submitted online; paper forms are not used. The deadline for proposals is February 15, 2010. Presenters must be members of the German Studies Association. For more information, visit the GSA website or contact members of the 2010 Program Committee:

• Program Director: George Williamson (University of Alabama), gwilliam@ua.edu
• Medieval, Early Modern, Eighteenth Century: Jason Coy (College of Charleston), coyj@cofc.edu
• Nineteenth Century: Jonathan Hess (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), jmhess@email.unc.edu
• Twentieth- & Twenty-First-Century History: Andrew Port (Wayne State University), ar6647@wayne.edu
• Twentieth- & Twenty-First-Century Literature/Cultural Studies: Jennifer Ruth Hosek (Queens University, Ontario), jhosek@queensu.ca
• Political Science: Louise Davidson-Schmich (University of Miami), davidson@miami.edu
• Interdisciplinary: Janet Ward (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), janet.ward@unlv.edu

Conference on British Queer History
McGill University, Montreal, 14-16 October 2010

Proposals due by 1 February 2010

The Department of History at McGill University solicits paper proposals for a conference on British Queer History. Keynote addresses will be given by

• Laura Doan (Professor of Cultural History and Sexuality Studies, University of Manchester)
• Chris Waters (Professor and Chair of History, Williams College, Mass.)
• Jeffrey Weeks (Emeritus Professor of Sociology, London South Bank University)

We welcome proposals on all aspects of the topic and for all periods. We hope to attract both established and younger scholars researching in and writing about some of the freshest and most promising new approaches across the field. Selected papers from the conference will be considered for publication. Details of venue, accommodation and registration fees will be forthcoming in the New Year.

Please send a paper abstract of under 500 words, plus a CV by February 1, 2010 , to brian.lewis@mcgill.ca or to Brian Lewis, Associate Professor, McGill University, Department of History, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T7, Canada.

More than a Spa Resort? — The Urban Experience in Bath since the Reformation
Symposium at Bath Spa University, 24 April 2010

Paper proposals due by 1 January 2010

Bath is a city in need of historical reappraisal. Much historiography focuses on the city as a spa resort and the personalities involved in its development, but little has been written on the residential population and links between them and the visitors. Bath attracted entrepreneurs and young people with the offer of employment opportunities and education. Could the city be seen as a centre for commerce and education outside London? The city was also a centre of conversation and opinion with many spaces set aside for sociability and display. How did these social networks develop and how were they maintained? The relationship between Bath and the rest of country also needs to be addressed. Was the city a trend follower or a trend setter? How did Bath stand in relation to London and other main towns?

To explore these issues, Bath Spa University is hosting an international symposium on 24th April 2010, with a view to holding a conference later in the year placing Bath within the European context. Keynote speakers include Professor Rosemary Sweet (Head of History, University of Leicester) and Professor Peter Borsay (Aberystwyth University). Proposals for papers of 15 minute duration are invited on any of the following subjects:

• Urbanisation
• Commercialisation
• The use of space
• The growth of civic consciousness
• Class (particularly the rising middle classes and servants)
• Gender
• Philanthropy
• Education
• Religion
• Political culture
• Other subjects relating to the urban milieu

Interdisciplinary and non-historical papers are particularly welcome. Please send abstracts of proposed papers (250 words) to d.hughes@bathspa.ac.uk. The closing date for the submission of abstracts is 1st January 2010.

Call for Papers: Forms of Life in the Eighteenth Century
Indiana University, Bloomington — Eighteenth-Century Workshop, 12-14 May 2010

Proposals due by 8 January 2010

The Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University is pleased to announce the ninth Bloomington Eighteenth-Century Workshop, to be held on May 12-14, 2010. The workshop is part of a series of annual interdisciplinary events that has been running since 2002, with 12-15 scholars presenting and discussing papers on a broad topic in a congenial setting. Our topic for 2010 is “The Forms of Life.”  We’d like to consider the implications of the eighteenth-century debate about the nature of life and the turn to vitalist proposals of an animating force, broadening beyond the discourses of physiology and the natural sciences, where many of these ideas originate, to consider their connections elsewhere in the period. Why does the idea of a life force emerge (or re-emerge) at this moment? How are living forms distinguished from each other? What sorts of decisions create the hierarchies of animate forms (and, for instance, what gets called “animal”)? Which lives matter and which don’t? How might we reconsider eighteenth-century answers to these questions in light of twenty-first-century rethinking of life and animality? How is the line drawn distinguishing the living and the non-living, animate being and thing? Participants might also consider the implications of contemporary thinking about life for the discourse of political economy, in its treatment of populations, masses, collective life and the role of hunger in history and also for developments in the religious sphere. One might also turn to the numerous Pygmalionic fantasies of animation in art and criticism, from “tableaux vivants,” illuminated statuary, life-like automata and still lives to critical pronouncements on the living body as the highest achievement of true art. (more…)

Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society
Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, 24-27 June 2010

Proposals Due by 15 December 2009

The Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society (ECSSS) is seeking proposals for 20-minute papers or complete panels for its annual conference, which will be held at the Princeton Theological Seminary from 24-27 June 2010. This year’s topic is Reid, Cullen and Smith: The Science of Mind and Body in the Scottish Enlightenment; but, as always, the society is happy to receive proposals on all things pertaining to the Scottish eighteenth century, even if they don’t directly address the conference theme. Please send abstracts for papers or complete panels by December 15, 2009 to Richard Sher by email (rbsher6@gmail.com) or by mail to the address following:

Richard B. Sher
Exec. Secretary, ECSSS
New Jersey Institute of Technology
University Heights
Newark, NJ 07102-1982 USA

Please note the following CFP for the Rudé seminar in 2010. As a member of the organising committee, I am interested in increasing the number of art historical and visual culture papers at the conference. There is always some participation from scholars in the field, but it would be good to have more. I encourage colleagues working on French topics to submit proposals. If you would like more information, please write to me.

Julie Plax
jplax@email.arizona.edu

17th George Rudé Seminar in French History and Civilization
University of Sydney, 14-16 July 2010

Proposals due by 1 December 2009

Every two years, the George Rudé Seminar brings together specialists in French history and other areas of French studies from Australia and New Zealand with colleagues from around the world for a major conference.  A selection of papers from the biannual conferences is now published in peer-reviewed format on H-France. The 2010 Rudé Seminar will be held at the University of Sydney. Among the featured guests will be Professor Olivier Wieviorka from the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Cachan), author of numerous works on twentieth-century French history. The general theme of the 2010 Seminar is History and Memory. However, paper proposals are invited on any area of French history, or on subjects in other areas of French studies with an historical perspective.  In general, speakers will have twenty minutes for delivery, and papers may be presented in either English or French. If speakers are interested in their papers being considered for publication, they should be ready to submit a complete version of their texts (of 8000 words maximum) at the time of the conference.

The registration form with payment details and other information can be downloaded here. This is the second call for papers.  Proposals should include a tentative title, a one-paragraph summary of the paper, a one-paragraph biographical note on the speaker and full contact details.  They should be addressed by 1 December 2009 to: rude.2010@usyd.edu.au. Please also send your contact details if you would like to be put on the mailing list. The organising committee for the Rudé Seminar includes Robert Aldrich, Liz Rechniewski, Jennifer Milam, Julie-Anne Plax, Briony Neilson, Margaret Sankey, Glenda Sluga, and Bronwyn Winter.