Enfilade

From ArtHist.net:

Plant Lives: Sacred Interdependencies in the Arts of the Americas

Yale Institute of Sacred Music, New Haven, 11 April 2026

Proposals due by 16 January 2026

In 1831, the preacher Nat Turner testified that hieroglyphics had appeared to him on leaves and corn stalks, relaying divine messages that inspired him to lead a rebellion of enslaved Virginians. The capacities of plants to transmit divine insights across time is the starting point for this one-day conference, which explores the ways in which plants perform, evoke, and embody sacred relations throughout the Americas. In addition to considering plants as agents of divination, the conference and the subsequent planting celebration will look to plants as a means of reviving sacred interdependencies in art and musical practices. Coconut shells and seed beads frequently appear in contemporary Santeria divinations; the banjo is a cousin of gourd-based stringed instruments originating in Africa and Brazil; African American eco-feminist musicians have revived shekere and coconut percussion instruments since the 1980s. Images of plants are also powerful reminders of the tastes, smells, and other sensory experiences lost to migration.

We are interested in 20-minute papers or performances that discuss plants, planting, or plant-derived materials in relation to ecology and the sacred. On the evening of the conference, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music will host a public groundbreaking for a gourd garden at the Urban Naturescapes Native Plant Nursery in New Haven’s Newhallville neighborhood. We hope the event will activate questions such as: How have plants sustained spiritual relationships across geographic contexts? How can we see plants as living archives that impact what we remember in the here and now?

Possible topics include:
• The role of plants in precolonial or Indigenous cosmologies
• The production of plant-based musical instruments
• The cultural patrimony of sacred plants
• Plants and planting in sacred music repertoires
• Planting and agricultural work as teaching tools
• Plants that defy normative categorization, e.g. weeds
• The preservation of sacred plant lineages, such as through seed banks or community food projects
• Motifs in sacred art and architecture
• Queer intimacies with organic matter or vegetation

The Yale Institute of Sacred Music will cover the cost of hotel accommodates in New Haven and will provide a $250 stipend toward travel. Interested participants should send a 250-word abstract, along with the presenters’ names and affiliations, if any, to plantlivesconference@gmail.com by 16 January 2025. All abstracts will receive a response by 23 January 2025. Questions can be directed to Katie Anania at katie.anania@yale.edu.

From the Call for Papers and ArtHist.net (which includes the Call for Papers in German). . .

Visualizing Antiquity: On the Episteme of Early Modern Drawings and Prints V:

The Copy of the Copy … of the Copy: Techniques of Pictorial Reception of

Antiquity in the Early Modern Period

Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 3 July 2026

Organized by Elisabeth Décultot, Arnold Nesselrath, Cristina Ruggero, and Timo Strauch

Proposals due by 11 January 2026

Various early modern depictions of Harpocrates (the Greek form of the Egyptian child-god Horus).

In virtually all domains of human creativity, the outcomes—whether deliberately or inadvertently—are subject to the principle of repetition. This phenomenon likewise characterizes the history of acquiring knowledge about antiquity. Once information has been recorded in written or visual form, it typically becomes the point of departure for subsequent reproductions. The material documented at the beginning of the transmission process is copied and disseminated for as long as it is considered useful, with the copies themselves generally functioning as further agents of replication.

In this process, copies function not merely as duplicates in a subordinate hierarchical relationship to the ‘original’, but as powerful resources of knowledge. They enable the preservation, transmission and creative transformation of knowledge about specific objects, monuments and forms. In transmission chains that are often only partially preserved—and frequently lack the now-lost ‘original’—, copies are rather the standard means of transmission. As such, they provide essential insights into historical developments, reveal methodological approaches, and support the production of knowledge by making ongoing engagement with ancient models visible.

The fifth colloquium in the series Visualizing Antiquity: On the Episteme of Early Modern Drawings and Prints focuses on copying processes in graphic arts that deal with antique or supposedly antique artefacts. The primary aim is not to examine the function of repetition as an artistic exercise or attempt at stylistic emulation, but rather the role of copies in the context of the transmission and transformation of knowledge. Images ‘live on’ by being traced, redrawn, re-engraved or otherwise transformed in order to preserve and convey concepts, forms and concrete objects, or to illustrate and continue discourses about them.

The entire chain of possible lines of transmission will be examined: from the study of the ‘original’—a term that in this context needs to be questioned itself—to proven or inferred copies in drawing or print, to their use in antiquarian, academic or artistic contexts. What material, institutional and epistemic structures determined the circulation of these images? How did repeated transmission influence the perception of antiquity, and were objects and images reinterpreted or creatively transformed despite being copies? Did the actors involved—draughtsmen, engravers, antiquarians or publishers—address the methodology of copying and the quality of the reproductions? What significance did the point of origin of the tradition have, and how did the status of graphic art as a medium between documentation, illustration and imagination change? Are there differences depending on the type of objects being passed on, for example in the case of records of antique architecture and their use in architectural theory (editions of Vitruvius)?

Possible topics, with further suggestions also welcome:
• Examples of ‘long-chain’ transmission of ancient artefacts and monuments in 17th- and 18th-century graphic arts
• (Non-)availability of lost and missing artefacts and monuments
• Manipulation and conjecture in the process of replication
• Breaks and ruptures in established patterns
• Copying as practice and method
• Technical reproduction processes: from drawing to drawing, from drawing to print, from print back to drawing
• Copies in drawing and print as instruments of knowledge circulation and preservation
• Academic, antiquarian and publishing contexts of graphic reproduction
• Copies as a means of documentation, systematisation and virtual collections

The colloquium thus aims to highlight the process of copying as a mode of cultural and media transmission—as a process in which images, and with them knowledge, remain in motion.

Researchers are invited to submit proposals for 20-minute presentations in German, English, French, or Italian, ideally combining case studies with broader perspectives. Proposals (max. 400 words) can be submitted until 11 January 2026, together with a short CV (max. 150 words) to thesaurus@bbaw.de with the keyword ‘Episteme V’. Hotel and travel expenses (economy-class flight or train; 2 nights’ accommodation) will be reimbursed according to the Federal Law on Travel Expenses (BRKG). Publication of the contributions to the colloquium in expanded form is planned.

Bildwerdung der Antike: Zur Episteme von Zeichnungen und Druckgrafiken der

Frühen Neuzeit V: Die Kopie der Kopie … der Kopie: Techniken der bildlichen

Antikenrezeption in der Frühen Neuzeit Bildwerdung der Antike

Organized by the Academy Research Project Antiquitatum Thesaurus. Antiquities in European Visual Sources from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Conceived by Elisabeth Décultot, Arnold Nesselrath, Cristina Ruggero, Timo Strauch.

From ArtHist.net:

Sculpture and Trompe l’œil in European Ceramics,

From Bernard Palissy to the Present

Hôtel de la Roche, Mons, Belgium, 10–13 July 2026

Proposals due by 12 December 2025; full papers due by 30 April 2026

Second Edition of the Annual Conference on European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

A combined effort of the Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ébénistes and the Low Countries Sculpture Society, whose libraries and archives have merged and are housed in the Hôtel de la Roche (1750) at Mons, the Annual International Conference had its inaugural edition in July 2025. This edition, dedicated to European ceramics, aims to address issues relating to figurative sculpture in the round, to relief sculpture and to trompe l’oeil, all in the medium of ceramics. This includes the imitation of other materials, such as wood or precious stones, and the mimetic representation of animals and plants. Sculpture and trompe l’oeil are recurring themes but have been little studied in a comprehensive manner in European ceramic art, not even in Art Deco ceramics, which frequently use sculptural forms, both in tableware and in purely decorative pieces.

The term trompe l’oeil comes from the world of easel painting, and the conference will be an opportunity to define more precisely the use and usefulness of this term in the world of ceramics. Our conference proposes to study cases that can shed light on this practice, from the Renaissance to the present day, in terms of the rendering of forms, colours, and textures. These cases may concern the production, consumption, collecting and display of these types of ceramics throughout Europe and North America, from the Renaissance to the present day. Issues of design history, collaborations between creators and producers, artists and artisans, as well as the relations with any other people involved in the production of these ceramics may be studied. The theme will draw, in particular but not exclusively, on the rich tradition of ceramics in the Low Countries, from Antwerp majolica, via Tournai porcelain and Bouffioulx stoneware, to contemporary productions.

The conference has an international and multidisciplinary orientation. As such, we hope to attract lively participation from junior and senior scholars in the history of ceramics, sculpture, archaeology, ethnography, as well as practitioners of restoration-conservation in the same and other relevant fields. Short papers (maximum 30 minutes) of new research or work in progress may be presented in English or French. A minimal passive knowledge of English and French are highly recommended to enable full participation in the ensuing discussions, which form the core of the seminar. The Society covers accommodation expenses for foreign speakers at the conference, as well as group meals and the optional excursions. On the other hand, travel arrangements to and from Mons are the responsibility of the individual participants and their travel expenses will not be reimbursed.

The conference will take place without audience (apart from the speakers, moderators and a few benefactors), but it will be filmed and broadcast live on YouTube for free, on our dedicated channel, The Low Countries Sculpture Society. The conference proceedings will be published in 2027 in a new academic journal dedicated to European sculpture and decorative arts, based on our annual international conferences.

Please send participation proposals with a 200-word abstract of the intended paper and a 200-word CV by email to info@lcsculpture.art. We prefer to receive your abstract written in your mother tongue. We will then have it professionally translated into English and French for our Scientific Committee. We will inform of the Scientific Committee’s decision in December. Full papers, with their accompanying PowerPoint presentation, will then be due by 30 April for peer review and final paper acceptance.

Scientific Committee
Jean-Dominique Augarde, Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ebénistes, Paris / Mons
Yves De Leeuw, collector and exhibition curator at the château d’Ecaussinnes-Lalaing, Fondation van der Burch
Bernard Dragesco, Dragesco-Cramoisan Gallery, Paris / Château de Barly
Errol Manners, E & H Manners Gallery, London
Sylvie Milasseau-Wengraf, art historian, Switzerland
Tamara Préaud, formerly Cité de la Céramique, Sèvres, and president, The French Porcelain Society, London
Miriam E. Schefzyk, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Volker Seiberth, University of Heidelberg / The Low Countries Sculpture Society
Pier Terwen, art historian and conservator of sculpture and ceramics, Leiden

Organizing Committee
Katia Berseneva, Ecole du Louvre, Paris / The Low Countries Sculpture Society
Théodore and Clotilde de Brouwer, château d’Ecaussinnes-Lalaing, Fondation van der Burch
Guillaume Hambye, notary, Mons
Laurence Lenne, Galerie Art & Patrimoine, Ath
Léon Lock, The Low Countries Sculpture Society, Brussels / Mons
Grégory Maugé, Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Maîtres Ébénistes, Paris / Mons
Thierry Naveaux, The Low Countries Sculpture Society, Brussels / Mons
Sébastien Tercelin de Joigny, Tercelin de Joigny Gallery, Mons / Seneffe
Jenny Tondreau, Collegiate church of Sainte-Waudru, Mons

Punch bowl, made in China, 1788–89, hard paste porcelain, overglaze polychrome enamels, gilding
(Historic Deerfield, HD 2772)

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From Historic Deerfield:

The Local and the Global in New England

Historic Deerfield, 7 March 2026

Proposals due by 9 January 2026

A one-day symposium sponsored by Historic Deerfield, Inc. and the Grace Slack McNeil Program for Studies in American Art at Wellesley College.

New England has always been a place characterized by movement, exchange, and connectivity. People, animals, objects, and ideas traversed the land and waterways long before European colonization, which in turn transformed trade, technology, migration, and warfare in the region. This one-day symposium aims to gather scholars and researchers who explore the nature of local, regional, and global networks in New England from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. By bringing together a diverse range of scholars from multiple disciplines, we hope to elucidate how objects—from fine and decorative arts, to buildings, to everyday pieces of material culture—linked New England localities to far-flung makers and markets.

We are interested in a broad range of papers that address how material things complicate our sense of what was local and what was global about the region now called New England, including:
• How do objects, from tools to trade goods, reveal patterns of circulation within and beyond this region?
• How can material things challenge our understanding of distance and proximity?
• How did the creation and exchange of objects both useful and decorative shape the creation of particular New England identities?
• How was the trade of objects local and global entwined with concepts of refinement, social class, and exclusion?
• What methods can scholars and Native knowledge keepers offer to better understand items as they moved in and out of Indigenous and settler communities over time?
• How can objects reveal histories of cultural plurality, transculturation, and survivance?
• How does the movement of objects suggest ways that urban makers and markets mutually constituted those objects’ meanings with their rural counterparts?
• Did New Englanders’ gendering of particular objects, and consumption generally, reflect or diverge from related notions held elsewhere?
• How do networks of exchange crystallize into unique hybrid forms?
• How can we find all these narratives in not only form and function, but also the material substance of these objects?
• And how do responses to these questions complicate the very definition of ‘New England’?

We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations. Speakers invited to present will receive overnight accommodation and dinner on Friday, March 6 and lunch on Saturday, March 7. We can also offer some reimbursement of travel expenses (with receipts) and a modest honorarium. Presenters will be expected to participate fully in the in-person symposium program on site in Deerfield, MA. Please email, as one document, a 250-word proposal and a CV (not longer than two pages) to Erika Gasser at egasser@historic-deerfield.org. Proposals should include the title of the paper and the presenter’s name and title/affiliations, if any. The deadline for submissions is 9 January 2026; the selection committee will respond to submitters in February.

From the Call for Papers:

Local: 21st Annual Yale University American Art Graduate Symposium

Yale University, New Haven, 11 April 2026

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Caitlin Beach, Associate Professor of Art History, CUNY Graduate Center

Proposals due by 31 January 2026

What is at stake in identifying artists, subjects, materials, and economies as local? The term commonly circumscribes a particular space while evoking feelings of inclusion. To be “a local” is to belong to a place or a people, to have insider knowledge, to see oneself as part of a community, to be and feel at home. From quilts made by generations of Black women in Gee’s Bend to the centuries-long production of lienzos by Ñuu Dzaui, Nahua, and other Indigenous artists, objects play outsized roles in shaping and defining the local. Embracing the local may also function as a subversive move. Establishing a local artistic identity can oppose hegemonic national narratives, a gesture in line with what Arjun Appadurai has termed “the production of locality.” Maroon communities in the Caribbean, for instance, blended West African traditions with Taino knowledge and indigenous materials to assert their own definitions of place within imperial landscapes.

Across time, place, and media, artists and viewers alike have imagined and reimagined the local, stretching and compressing its contours to define who falls within its bounds. The term’s elasticity continues to provide fertile ground for new interpretations within art history and beyond. How does the local open onto discourses of repatriation and conservation, or histories of migration, diaspora, and Indigeneity? How do we navigate the term alongside related concepts like intimacy, insularity, and domesticity? How might locality interface with decoloniality?

Featuring Dr. Caitlin Beach as our keynote speaker, the Twenty-first Annual Yale University American Art Graduate Symposium asks what centering the local affords art historical inquiry. We welcome submissions exploring art, architecture, performance, and visual and material culture across the Americas, including the Caribbean, North, Central, and South America. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• Community-based artistic practices, collectivized artistic labor, and local artistic identity
• Local materialities and histories of industry
• Indigenous understandings of space, the local, and (home)lands
• Site specificity and placemaking
• Local audiences and reception
• The local in relation to provincialism, urbanism, and cosmopolitanism
• Local ecologies and economies; agrarianism and rural uplift
• Tourism and the commodified local
• The local and the nation state, narratives of locality and universality

You are invited to submit an abstract of no more than 350 words and a CV to americanist.symposium@gmail.com by 31 January 2026. Accepted participants will be notified in mid-February. Local will take the form of a day-long, in-person symposium, with food and hotel accommodations provided for all speakers.

From the Call for Papers (with proposals in English welcomed) . . .

Les Rencontres des Arts Décoratifs, Le XVIIIe siècle:

Objets, sensibilités, perceptions, réceptions

Musée des Arts décoratifs de Paris, 16 April 2025

Proposals due by 15 December 2025

Porcelain clock, Ladouceur (clockmaker), Manufacture de Chantilly, ca. 1740–50, soft-paste porcelain, polychrome decoration, over glaze, chased and gilded bronze (Paris: Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 22757).

Les relations entre les arts, les métiers et l’industrie suscitent aujourd’hui un très grand intérêt. Cours, séminaires et conférences se multiplient, nous incitant à approfondir les connaissances et à débattre autour de questions méthodologiques, théoriques, patrimoniales et techniques. Les Rencontres des Arts Décoratifs entendent contribuer à la structuration de ce champ relativement récent de l’histoire de l’art en donnant une visibilité à la jeune recherche.

L’université, les écoles d’art et d’architecture ainsi que les institutions patrimoniales publiques et privées sont appelées à nourrir ces échanges. Étudiantes et étudiants titulaires d’un Master 1 ou d’un Master 2 (soutenu depuis moins de deux ans), doctorants et jeunes docteurs font découvrir à un large public des collections et des fonds inédits, des créations encore ignorées, des techniques oubliées, des courants esthétiques méconnus.

Les analyses et les discussions sont introduites et animées par des spécialistes reconnus pour l’acuité de leur regard et la singularité de leur approche. Chaque rencontre peut être suivie par des visites d’exposition, de fonds d’archives ou de collections. Le lieu qui nous accueille—le musée des Arts décoratifs de Paris—est hautement emblématique : conçu au milieu du XIXe siècle pour instruire artistes, artisans et ouvriers d’art, diffuser les savoirs et promouvoir la création contemporaine, il est le cadre le plus approprié pour mettre en lumière les dimensions multiples du « faire » qui, encore aujourd’hui, vivifient la production des objets. Réunis à l’occasion de ce rendez‑vous annuel, jeunes chercheurs, enseignants, professionnels et amateurs sont incités à mener ensemble une réflexion historique, critique et prospective, sur les chemins croisés de la conception des formes, de la fabrication des choses et de l’aménagement des espaces de vie.

Du 16 février au 5 juillet 2026, le musée des Arts décoratifs vous invite à plonger au cœur de l’intimité d’une demeure aristocratique du XVIIIe siècle et de ses habitants, maîtres, domestiques et animaux familiers, grâce à une exposition immersive, intitulée Une journée au XVIIIe siècle, chronique d’un hôtel particulier. Dans une mise en scène vivante, sonore, olfactive et haute en couleurs, qui convoquera tous les sens et suivra un fil narratif romanesque, le visiteur sera invité à déambuler de pièce en pièce, comme s’il était un proche, un ami ou un invité privilégié de la famille. Riche de plus de 500 pièces originales issues principalement des collections du musée des Arts décoratifs dans toute leur diversité (boiseries, mobilier, céramique, orfèvrerie, peinture, sculpture, arts graphiques, textiles et mode, jouets, bijoux, verres, papiers peints, etc.), cette exposition se propose de redonner vie à un univers fait de raffinement et de commodité, en s’intéressant à la fois à l’insertion urbaine de l’hôtel, à sa distribution et à son aménagement intérieur, à son fonctionnement, ainsi qu’aux occupations quotidiennes de ses propriétaires. De la toilette du matin aux jeux du soir en élégante compagnie, en passant par la magnificence d’un dîner à la française, les doux accords d’un concert de musique au salon ou les plaisirs piquants de la conversation au gré d’une promenade dans le jardin, celles-ci seront appréhendées sur toute la durée d’une journée, du lever au coucher, chaque pièce ainsi réinventée étant associée à un moment précis.

Comme les Rencontres précédentes, cette cinquième manifestation entend s’inscrire dans une perspective large, ouverte à toutes les approches. Le sujet de l’art de vivre et des arts du décor au XVIIIe siècle, ainsi que de leurs postérités, est envisagé dans ses liens avec l’histoire des sciences et des techniques, l’histoire culturelle, l’histoire des sensibilités, l’histoire matérielle ou encore l’histoire du genre… Les propositions pourront notamment aborder la perception du XVIIIe siècle par le XIXe siècle et par l’époque contemporaine (XXe–XXIe siècles). Amateurs, collections, lectures et interprétations pourront faire l’objet de communications centrées sur la culture matérielle et les arts décoratifs du siècle des Lumières. L’appel est ouvert aux propositions de jeunes chercheurs internationaux. Les propositions d’intervention d’environ 2500–5000 signes (espaces compris), ainsi qu’une bio-bibliographie sont à envoyer avant le 15 décembre 2025 aux adresses suivantes:
jeremie.cerman@gmail.com
rossella.froissart@ephe.psl.eu
ariane.james-sarazin@madparis.fr
anne.perrin-khelissa@univ-tlse2.fr
sebastien.quequet@madparis.fr
estelle.thibault@paris-belleville.archi.fr
celine.trautmann-waller@ephe.psl.eu
amandine.loayza-desfontaines@madparis.fr

Comité scientifique
• Jérémie Cerman, professeur, Université d’Artois, UR 4027 – Centre de Recherche et d’Études Histoire et Sociétés (CREHS)
• Rossella Froissart, directrice d’études, École Pratique des Hautes Études, EA 4116 – Savoirs et pratiques du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine (SAPRAT)
• Bénédicte Gady, directrice du musée des Arts décoratifs et du musée Nissim de Camondo Ariane
• James‑Sarazin, conservatrice générale du patrimoine, musée des Arts décoratifs
• Anne Perrin, professeure, Université Toulouse-Jean-Jaurès,
UMR 5436 – FRAMESPA (France, Amériques, Espagne. Sociétés, pouvoirs, acteurs)
• Sébastien Quéquet, attaché de conservation, musée des Arts décoratifs
• Estelle Thibault, professeure, École nationale supérieure d’architecture Paris-Belleville, IPRAUS/UMR AUSSER 3329
• Céline Trautmann‑Waller, directrice d’études, École Pratique des Hautes Études, EA 4116 – Savoirs et pratiques du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine (SAPRAT)

From ArtHist.net and the Lebanese American University:

Arts and Crafts in the Late Ottoman Empire:

Material Culture in Syria and Beyond, 18th–Early 20th Century

Lebanese American University, Beirut, 22–23 May 2026

Organized by May Farhat and Sarah Sabban

Proposals due by 15 January 2026

Long excluded from the foundational narratives of Islamic art and architecture history, the period from the 18th till the early 20th centuries has attracted growing scholarly attention since the turn of the 21st century (Flood and Necipoğlu 2017; Behrens-Abouseif and Vernoit 2006; Deguilhem and Faroqhi 2005; Vernoit 1997). New interdisciplinary research shaped by the material turn in the humanities and by critical reflections on the Eurocentric framing of modernity—has challenged earlier assumptions that Islamic artistic and architectural practices declined after the 17th century (Graves forthcoming; Trevathan 2025; Rosser-Owen 2020; Hamadeh and Kafescioğlu 2021; Flood 2019, Phillips 2016). Equally, scholars have demonstrated the vitality, adaptability, and creativity of late Ottoman visual and material worlds, revealing their entanglements with global flows of goods, ideas, and technologies, as well as their embeddedness in local practices, knowledge systems, and social lives (Lanzillo 2024; Graves and Seggerman 2022; Volait 2021; Avcıoğlu and Flood 2009). Despite this momentum, Syria (Bilād al-Shām) received far less sustained attention than other Ottoman and Islamic lands such as Anatolia/Turkey, Egypt, or Iran, and has only recently started to gain traction (see Milwright 2018; Abou-Hodeib 2017; Auji 2016; Sheehi 2016; Scharrahs 2013; Weber 2009, and Establet and Pascual 2005).

Building on this new scholarship, the Arts and Crafts conference aims to advance art historical and interdisciplinary research on practices and concepts of material culture in Ottoman lands between the 18th and the early 20th centuries. While inviting contributions on all geographies of the Empire, our call for papers foregrounds late Ottoman Syria as a case through which to expand the analytical and historical horizons of Islamic art and architecture studies and to contribute to broader debates in Ottoman and Arab historiographies of modernity.

Entangled Modernities: Materialities, Epistemes, and Temporalities

Following the methodological program of entangled histories, our endeavor is not limited to chronologically expanding the scope of study but strives for a deeper reflexive commitment to rethinking the relationship between material culture, knowledge, and modernity as an integral part of the history of the Islamic world. We propose to employ “entangled modernities” as a critical site of inquiry into materialities, epistemes, and temporalities at play in the configuration of arts and crafts in the late Ottoman Empire. Integral to this approach is the premise of polyvalent and malleable thinking that can transcend rigid boundaries, undo dichotomies, and illuminate processes of cross-fertilization.

Temporalities

The timespan covered by the conference aligns with a strategic decision to step back and, we hope, productively reframe the usual terms of periodization and pregiven contours of modernity and pre-modernity that preset the objects of study and their coordinates in time. We thereby encourage serious attention to indigenous temporalities embodied or performed in objects, concepts, and material processes that reveal new matrices of continuities, ruptures, and revivals. Indeed, the period under consideration witnessed the gradual integration of the Empire into the global economy and the implementation of a series of reforms, culminating in the Tanzimat period (1839–1876), which signaled profound changes that the state and society had to contend with. These developments raise the question of plural and contested temporalities, which gains further importance in light of increasingly unequal terms of exchange and interaction that characterized Ottoman relations with a fast-industrializing and expansionist Europe.

Epistemes

Our approach emphasizes the mutually constitutive nature of cross-cultural encounters (often between parties of unequal power) and, to the extent possible, contextualizes their components and outcomes in a processual, holistic, and heuristic manner. It equally entails the necessity to historicize categories of knowledge, partly by focusing on webs of meaning formed between emic and etic notions that organized the material world, transformed it, and were transformed by it. The many languages spoken across the Empire fostered unique environments where the modern Western order of knowledge was refracted in many directions and made to reflect local and regional histories. Translation between languages and epistemes undoubtedly depended on emergent, experimental, and contingent forms of knowledge that can instruct the modern historian on the changing conditions and materialities within which they existed.

Materialities

The staggering effects of the Industrial Revolution on the material world and people’s engagement with it cannot be overstated, but they were not all-encompassing, simultaneous, or uniform. Hence, the central aim of this conference on arts and crafts is to reconsider all aspects that constituted, (re)shaped, and represented material culture across this period of more than 200 years including conditions, modes, and tools of production; regional and global circulations of goods and technology transfer; interplay between science, economy, and state; relations between makers, patrons, merchants, and consumers; apprenticeship and other forms of knowledge transmission; skill and artistic traditions between artisanal and mechanical production; modes of valuation, such as taste or aesthetics; how Ottoman economic and legal reforms as well as international agreements negotiated between global pressure and internal stakes.

Overall, we encourage authors to consider the analytical frameworks—temporalities, epistemes, and materialities—that underpin the conference’s critical inquiry into the entangled modernities of Ottoman arts and crafts, in Syria and beyond. We welcome contributions engaging with any of the themes discussed in this call, or those that innovatively expound on them, including but not limited to interdisciplinary research, object-centered studies, case-based micro-histories of concepts, people, and institutions, as well as historiographical questions on sources, archives, conservation discourses, and digital humanities initiatives dealing with material culture.

Submission Guidelines

We invite abstracts of up to 300 words, along with a short biography (max. 100 words), to be sent to MAIA.events@lau.edu.lb by 15 January 2026. Papers may be delivered in English or Arabic. Decisions will be communicated by 1 February 2026. Selected papers from the conference will be considered for publication in an edited volume or a special issue of a journal.

s e l e c t e d  b i b l i o g r a p h y

Abou-Hodeib, Toufoul. A Taste for Home: The Modern Middle Class in Ottoman Beirut. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017.

Auji, Hala. Printing Arab Modernity: Book Culture and the American Press in Nineteenth-Century Beirut. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

Avcıoğlu, Nebahat and Finbarr Barry Flood, eds. “Globalizing Cultures: Art and Mobility in the Eighteenth Century.” Special Issue, Ars Orientalis 39 (2009).

Behrens-Abouseif, Doris and Stephen Vernoit, eds. Islamic Art in the 19th Century: Tradition, Innovation, Eclecticism. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

Deguilhem, Randi and Suraiya Faroqhi, eds. Crafts and Craftsmen of the Middle East: Fashioning the Individual in the Muslim Mediterranean. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005.

Establet, Colette, and Jean-Paul Pascual. Des tissus et des hommes. Beyrouth: Presses de l’Ifpo, 2005.

Flood, Finbarr Barry. Technologies de dévotion dans les arts de l’Islam: Pèlerins, reliques et copies. Paris: Hazan / Musée du Louvre, 2019.

Flood, Finbarr Barry, and Gülru Necipoğlu, eds. A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture. 2 vols. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2017.

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