Enfilade

From ArtHist.net:

Images and Institutions: The Visual Culture of Early Modern Scientific Societies
Accademia dei Lincei, Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), and the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome, 14–16 September 2022

Organized by Katherine Reinhart and Matthijs Jonker

Proposals due by 15 May 2022

One of the most important developments in early modern science was the foundation of institutions for collaborative research and the publication of knowledge, such as the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome (1603), the Accademia del Cimento in Florence (1657), the Royal Society in London (1660), the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris (1666), and the Scientific Academy of St Petersburg (1725). The communication of knowledge was integral to early modern processes of knowledge production in these new sites of collaborative science. Within these institutions, knowledge was not only acquired and disseminated orally and textually, but also visually. From drawings which circulated in society meetings to the printed plates in their published books, images across all media were vital to the developing practices of early modern science.

A growing body of scholarship has convincingly shown the importance of images and image-making practices to early modern knowledge production. Scholars have shown, for instance, that early modern botanists, zoologists, and physicians used drawings and prints as visual narratives to prove an argument or the existence of a species, as substitutes for the objects described, as mnemonic aids, or as tools themselves (Dackerman, Daston, Kusukawa). Research has also been done showing the important relationships between artists, natural philosophers and their collections (Baldriga, Egmond, Tongiorgi Tomasi). However, these studies have focused on single institutions or individual practitioners, and we still lack a comprehensive and comparative understanding of the relationships between visual culture and the developing practices of collaborative science.

Therefore, this project, Images and Institutions, seeks to fill that gap by bringing together an international team of historians of art and science for a three-day symposium in Rome to gain a larger picture of these relationships. Within these early institutions, images functioned in diverse ways: they communicated new ideas, recorded new phenomena, demonstrated new instruments, and stood in for missing specimens. They expressed theories, clarified arguments, organized concepts, and persuaded colleagues. Some images were created from nature or ad vivum, while others portrayed scientific ideas allegorically. In bringing together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, this symposium will reevaluate the functions of images and image-making practices that were integral to the advancement of early modern science within its formative institutions. The symposium contributes to widening disciplinary boundaries by bringing scholars from different fields into conversation and by having a wide geographical perspective.

We are interested in how images and image-making practices contributed to the collective and collaborative production and dissemination of knowledge in scientific institutions from the 16th until the 18th century. Central questions for this symposium include: What common visual practices were shared among these institutions, and importantly, where did they diverge? How did differing national artistic contexts impact the visual culture of scientific institutions? And how did these relationships shift over time with new enlightenment societies founded in the 18th century? By comparing these institutions, this symposium will explore the ways in which images and image-making practices were integral to the advancement of early modern collaborative science.

The symposium will consist of 30-minute papers, which will be the basis for a published edited volume. The symposium will take place on 14–16 September 2022 in Rome, and some travel and lodging assistance is available. Scholars of art history, visual studies, and history of science and knowledge from all career phases are encouraged to apply. We welcome abstracts which explore visual strategies in early modern collaborative science, particularly in the context of Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe, as well as non-European regions.

To apply, please send an abstract of no more than 300 words, accompanied by a brief (2-page) CV to secretary@knir.it with the subject line: ‘Images and Institutions’. The deadline for abstracts is 15 May 2022. Applicants will be notified in early June. For queries, please contact Katherine Reinhart (kmreinhart@wisc.edu) or Matthijs Jonker (m.jonker@knir.it).

Scientific Committee
Irene Baldriga (Sapienza, Università di Roma), Sietske Fransen (Bibliotheca Hertziana), Matthijs Jonker (KNIR), and Katherine Reinhart (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

This symposium is made possible with support from the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, the Accademia dei Lincei (IT), the Association for Art History (UK), the Society for Renaissance Studies (UK), and The Huizinga Institute RNW History and Philosophy of Science (NL).

From the Call for Papers:

The Cultural Ramifications of Water in Early Modern Texts and Images, 1650–1850
A special issue of 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era
Edited by Leigh G. Dillard and Christina Ionescu

Proposals due by 15 May 2022

This special issue offers a fresh, wide-ranging perspective on the agency of water in relation to knowledge, innovation, and individual or collective identity by investigating parallel and interconnected visual and/or textual representations of this fundamental element in the early modern period. We currently seek two more contributions to complete this issue that evolved from a series of panels at the 2021 virtual conference of the International Association of Word and Image Studies.

A number of bestselling novels of the early modern period include key episodes in which water—whether in the form of oceans, seas, ponds, lakes, torrents, springs, rivulets, falls, wells, or fountains—plays a crucial symbolic role, variously expressing the passions embodied by ‘nature’ or more cultivated versions of this dangerous element. Charged with significance and symbolism, these representations of water are sometimes used as a backdrop or setting to the main action, but at other times, they represent an active agent in the human dramas that unfold when characters interact with this element in its materiality and that interaction unexpectedly alters the course of their lives in consequential ways. The results are often deeply poignant—drowning, shipwreck, trauma, flooding, etc.—but they can also be positively transformative—self-discovery, spiritual healing, physical nourishment, even fulfilment, etc. Within fictional realms, water acts, moreover, as a marker of identity and place in literary cartographies, triggers vital memories and meanings, surreptitiously encodes libertine thoughts, and simultaneously separates and unifies peoples, countries, and continents. In early modern literary illustration, water is equally omnipresent, and its representation is endowed with a degree of complexity that invites a closer look from an interdisciplinary perspective.

As humans grappled with mechanisation and modernisation in the Age of the Industrial Revolution, water emerged from the background to become a key element in scientific and technical illustration. Technological innovations relying on the use of water, such as the stationary steam engine and the spinning frame, were prominently displayed and meticulously explained in encyclopedias, periodicals, and specialised treatises. Through empirical observation, both professional and amateur scientists lavished attention on natural phenomena such as geysers, waterfalls, and stalagmites and stalactites, often documenting their findings not only by conventional textual means but also inventive pictorial ones. At a time when the lack of water facilitated the spread of death and disease in overcrowded cities such as Hogarth’s London, bathing in thermal pools or exposure to seawater, which were strongly advocated in medical literature, were perceived by the wealthy as beneficial to health and healing. Prints depicting the age-old cult of water, watering-places, and structures designed to contain or manipulate the flow of water proliferated throughout Europe.

For this special issue of 1650–1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era, we invite proposals engaging with texts and images that shed light on the cultural ramifications of water during this important timeframe. In particular, we are interested in the way in which images visually interpret and subtly challenge the sophisticated textual dynamics between nature and culture or investigate the multiple configurations of water. Examples of verbal and visual engagements with water and its materiality during this transformative historical period may be selected from a diverse range of fields, including angling, architecture, art, botany, garden design, geology, horticulture, hydraulics, literature, natural history, medicine, and print culture. Papers addressing word and image interaction through the following topics are particularly welcome: architecture and landscape designs as a nexus of space, place, identity, and water; connections through water between humans and the environment; and water as a healing agent, source of life, and force of nature. Proposals that engage with the topic diachronically and transnationally would enhance this special issue. Please send proposal to Leigh G. Dillard (leigh.dillard@ung.edu) and Christina Ionescu (cionescu@mta.ca) by May 15, 2022.

Overlapping with The Stono Legacy Project, a month-long commemoration of the 1739 Stono Rebellion, this year’s Slave Dwelling Project Conference will take place in a hybrid format, with in-person activities in and around Charleston as well as live-streamed virtual events. From the Call for Papers:

The 1739 Stono Rebellion and the Atlantic World
Seventh National Slave Dwelling Project Conference
College of Charleston, 8–10 September 2022

Proposals due by 1 May 2022

The Stono Rebellion, a transformative event in the history of enslavement in the Americas, tells a powerful story of resistance and resilience. In September 1739, against near-impossible odds, a group of enslaved South Carolinians south of Charleston armed themselves and set out to make their way to freedom in Spanish Florida. As they marched through the countryside, they were confronted by an armed white militia and engaged in bloody combat. Many of the rebels were murdered; others faced execution after the fighting or were re-enslaved. Only a handful survived into freedom. In its immediate aftermath, the 1739 Stono Rebellion led to restrictive slave codes in South Carolina, which quickly spread throughout the American South. At the same time, word of the courageous rebellion spread throughout the Atlantic world, inspiring multiple acts of defiance.

This early-American story of rebellion, resistance, and resilience powerfully impacted the 18th- and 19th-century Atlantic world, and continues to wield power today as we seek to unearth the full story of African American resistance to enslavement, and to celebrate the extraordinary legacy of African American resilience. The 2022 Slave Dwelling Project Conference: The Stono Rebellion and the Atlantic World seeks to examine not only the 1739 rebellion but also its remarkable legacy—one that continues to resonate throughout the world today in the ongoing fight for racial justice.

The conference will take place 8–10 September 2022, at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. Concurrent with The Stono Legacy Project, a month-long commemoration of the 1739 Stono Rebellion, this 7th national SDP conference will employ a hybrid format, with in-person activities in and around Charleston as well as a number of live-streamed virtual events.

Conference organizers welcome proposals for both 60-minute and 90-minute sessions on the Stono Rebellion itself as well as other important rebellions by enslaved Africans throughout the Atlantic World. We are also seeking sessions on the subsequent legacy of these events—up to and including the present day. We welcome both scholarly presentations, panels, and round-tables as well as sessions on historic sites and interpretation, and cultural offerings. Proposals will be accepted between 15 March 15 and 1 May 2022. Questions should be directed to the Slave Dwelling Project at slavedwellingproject@gmail.com.

Key partners in the 2022 Slave Dwelling Project Conference are the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) Program at the College of Charleston, the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program, and the Slave Dwelling Project. Major funding for the conference has been generously provided by the 1772 Foundation.

Developed by a collective of cultural organizations, the Stono Legacy Project includes a month-long series of public programming surrounding South Carolina’s Stono Rebellion, its impact on antislavery and Civil Rights activism, and its contemporary relevance. Key partners in the Project are the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW) Program at the College of Charleston; the Caw Caw Interpretive Center in Ravenel, SC; Charleston County Parks; the Fort Mose Historical Society in St. Augustine, FL; the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor; the International African American Museum in Charleston, SC; the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program; the Slave Dwelling Project; and historians Jane Landers of Vanderbilt University and Peter H. Wood, professor emeritus of Duke University.

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The Slave Dwelling Project envisions a future in which the hearts and minds of Americans acknowledge a more truthful and inclusive narrative of the history of the nation that honors the contributions of all our people, is embedded and preserved in the buildings and artifacts of people of African heritage, and inspires all Americans to acknowledge their Ancestors.

Mission
1  Raise awareness and organize resources to preserve, interpret, maintain and sustain extant slave dwellings and other structures significant to the stories of the enslaved Ancestors.
2  Bring together scholars and practitioners, preservationists, students and educators, writers, artists, legislators, organizations and businesses with the general public to:
• Change the narrative of American history and address the legacies of slavery,
• Preserve and sustain slave dwellings,
• Promote education about slavery and the contributions of African Americans,
• Engage in conversation about all these matters.
3  Support and encourage individuals and organizations to preserve and mark sites related to the institution of slavery and the legacy of slavery.
4  Educate ourselves and others about the intertwined history of Americans of African and European origins, from the country’s founding to the present, to help us rewrite the narrative of history, preserve slave dwellings, and have dialogue about the legacies of slavery.
5  Engage people in honest conversations about slavery, race, racism and racial equity in search of improved racial relations.

What We Do: The Slave Dwelling Project . . .
• Gives talks and presentations.
• Organizes and conducts overnight stays at sites associated with slavery.
• Presents living history programs, “Inalienable Rights: Living History through the Eyes of the Enslaved.”
• Holds a major conference annually and at least one mini-conference each year.
• Provides consultation and networking support for those interested in preserving an extant slave dwelling.

From ArtHist.net:

The Longue Durée of Cultural Heritage: Curation of the Past from Antiquity to the Present Day
Norwegian Institute in Rome, 5–7 December 2022

Proposals due by 15 May 2022

An interdisciplinary conference at the Norwegian Institute in Rome (University of Oslo), in collaboration with the Heritage Experience Initiative (HEI), University of Oslo.

Across the world, there is a burgeoning interest in cultural heritage, among academics and professionals, as well as in politics. While heritage is typically thought of as a modern concept with origins in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there is ample proof that pre-modern societies curated their pasts in highly comparable ways. Starting from the understanding of cultural heritage as a process, we recognize certain practices regarding the management of spaces, monuments, and objects in pre- and early modern societies as congruent to types of activity commonly placed within the heritage rubric. By adopting a long-term approach to the subject, this conference aims to create opportunities for new lines of research across disciplines. This includes examining historical examples to contextualize, interrogate, and deepen our understanding of modern approaches to heritage. Moreover, developments in contemporary heritage theory and practice can provide a fresh and productive framework for examining and categorizing processes in the past. By bringing together scholars working on issues of heritage in the present day with those studying similar ideas in more remote, historical contexts, this interdisciplinary conference aims to foster a dialogue which can enrich analyses of heritage practices in the past and in the present day.

We invite contributions from scholars with a contemporary and/or historical focus (in particular, we welcome research on pre-modern periods). Relevant themes include (but are not restricted to):
• Methodologies of heritage
• Case studies of pre-modern heritage curation/preservation
• Authenticity
• Destruction and iconoclasm
• Ruins and reconstructions
• Commodification
• Preservation as deconsecration
• Restoration
• Are texts intangible heritage? Textual heritage(s) and their material dimensions: epigraphy, archives, corpora, etc.
• Images/representations of heritage processes

Please submit a paper proposal of no more than 250 words and a short CV (half page) to k.b.aavitsland@roma.uio.no by 15 May 2022. Scholars without funding from their home institutions may apply for travel grants to the same address.

Confirmed invited speakers include Thora Petursdottir (HEI/University of Oslo), David C. Harvey (Aarhus University), Birgit Meyer (University of Utrecht), Chiara Mannoni (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Lars Boje Mortensen (University of Southern Denmark), Anne Eriksen (University of Oslo), Arnold Witte (University of Amsterdam), and Christopher Whitehead (Newcastle University).

From the Call for Papers (which includes a bibliography). . .

Historical Interiors and the Digital: The Possibilities and Limits of Virtual Reconstructions for Research
Paris and Versailles, 17–18 November 2022

Proposals due by 5 June 2022

The virtual reconstruction of historical interiors—from architecture to wall decoration and furniture to textiles—has been a proven instrument of cultural mediation in recent years, particularly in museums, exhibitions and/or for the study of historical monuments (for instance in archaeology). Questions of spatial proportions and fundamental architectural units are today at the forefront, with emphasis often placed on the possibility of visiting these spaces virtually, either on a 2D screen or with an immersive headset.

However, when it comes to the recreation of the aesthetic characteristics of interiors, which are one of the key issues for their understanding, the possibilities of these new models seem limited. Depending largely on the harmonious interaction of different materials such as woods, metals, and textiles, as well as the structures of their respective surfaces, the nuances of colour or gold, or even the traces of artisanship, the existing solutions in rendering the materiality of an historic interior remain insufficient, both aesthetically and scientifically. The hope to swiftly overcome the excessively sanitized surfaces of digital models, expressed in 2013 (Kohle 2013, p. 166), has not yet come to fruition. Nevertheless, there is more to it than that, as the possibilities of using virtual reconstruction effectively for researching historical interiors—for example, through the virtual insertion of materials that are no longer ethically justifiable or prohibited today—are not fully exploited.

Focusing on the possibilities and limits of virtual reconstructions of historical interiors, of which questions of materiality are only one aspect, this conference highlights the fundamental issues that occupy current research. Firstly, there is the question, not yet completely resolved, of the utility of three-dimensional virtual models—often drawn from the video-game sector—as instruments or even auxiliaries for research in art history. We cannot respond satisfactorily without also exploring the genesis and transformation of the object studied and the representation of one or more states including later modifications. Although research, and in particular archaeology, has already established a tradition of haptic and digital modelling of space, the history of art still seems to be far behind on this front (Messemer 2020). Such a circumspect attitude is off pace with the growing use of three-dimensional models and augmented-reality applications for the transmission of knowledge in museums or in connection with monuments and places of memory (Jeffrey 2021).

Moreover, this disciplinary reservation seems to contradict the often reaffirmed claim of the capacity of digital models to densify scientific reflection beyond the possibilities of language (Pfarr-Harst 2020). Analysis of historical interiors involves confronting architectural structures along with moving objects. However, in the scientific use of three-dimensional models to date, these structures and objects have largely been considered separately. This is why most discourses are interested either in the architectural dimension of spaces or in the objects themselves, considered in isolation. In this context, we would note that the 3D modelling of objects (e.g. pieces of furniture) can give rise to discussions of notions of reproduction and authenticity or, more recently, to questions of cultural appropriation (Jeffrey et al. 2020; Jeffs 2020).

As for the mise-en-scène of social representations and power (Hoppe/De Jonge/Breitling 2018), embodied in the visual and bodily perception of spaces (in their use, particularly ceremonial), this remains insufficiently conveyed by virtual reconstructions, as does the dimension of the use of objects—chairs or desks, for example—as constituting the experience of the room. In addition to the exploration of scenarios of historical utilization in comparison with modern exigencies, the modelling of the acoustic and thermal properties of spaces that were abundantly furnished with textiles (carpets and rugs, curtains, wall hangings, baldachins, and Gobelin tapestries) opens up new research perspectives of the utmost interest. Generally speaking, the absence of those sensory elements integral to the art of interior design constitutes a considerable limitation in the potential benefits of virtual representation.

The international conference—organized jointly by the German Center for Art History Paris (DFK Paris), the Mobilier national, and the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles (CRCV)—will allow for an exchange of information among specialists from the world of museums, historians and historians of art, and experts in digital reconstruction and 3D modelling. It will give occasion to reflect on the stages prior to modelling and virtual restoration, on the creation phase of the tool and dialogues between art historians and technicians, and finally on the future and the public’s reception of such tools. The conference will also enable young researchers to present their own research projects and submit them for discussion in a circle of specialists in the field.

The symposium will take place in Paris, both in person and via videoconference (DUAL MODE), in the conference room of the DFK Paris and the auditorium of the palace of Versailles on November 17 and 18, 2022. Presentations will be limited to 30 minutes. Proposals—in French or English—of around 3,000 characters (including spaces) must include the title of the paper, along with an abstract of its argument, and be accompanied by a short biography (1,200 characters) and the contact details of the candidate. Materials must be received before 5 June 2022, via email to interieursetnumerique@dfk-paris.org. Applicants will receive a response regarding their participation in the conference by 5 July 2022.

Organizing Committee
Muriel Barbier (Mobilier national), Marc Bayard (Mobilier national), Markus A. Castor (DFK Paris), Jörg Ebeling (DFK Paris), Anne Klammt (DFK Paris), Benjamin Ringot (CRCV), Mathieu da Vinha (CRCV)

Jean Siméon Chardin, Attributes of the Sciences, 1731, oil on canvas, oil on canvas, 140 × 220 cm
(Paris: Musée Jacquemart-André)

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From the Call for Papers for the conference. And please note the separate due date for NEASECS soliciting panels (April 8) with paper proposals due by May 6; send to neasecs@gmail.com. Art history panels and papers are encouraged!

Experiencing Modernity; Modernity of Experimentation
Expérience de la modernité; Modernité de l’expérimentation
Canadian Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (CSECS) in collaboration with the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society (ECSSS) and the Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (NEASECS)
University of Ottawa / Delta Hotel by Marriott, Ottawa City Centre, 26–29 October 2022

CSECS paper proposals due by 15 April 2022 / NEASECS panels due 8 April and papers due 6 May 2022

In the years leading up to the eighteenth century, the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns sparked a passionate debate in which the concept of modernity featured prominently. This was not the first time the concept of the ‘modern’, as a present that contrasted with the remote past, was invoked, but it marks a significant, perhaps defining, development or consolidation of the idea. At issue in the Quarrel was the question of whether or not ancient learning, thought, and literary achievement had been overtaken and superseded by modern thinkers and writers. The Quarrel brought into focus the very idea of modernity itself, of novelty and newness. Was the new century in some fundamental way new and different from previous eras, whether in its socio-political organization; its understanding of nature and the cosmos; its conception of art, literature, and the aesthetic; or its invention of new technologies and material processes? How was the world of the eighteenth century different from what came before it? When and where did this modernity begin? Are we to see this as a heroic narrative of progress, or does it also manifest a dark, destructive dimension that undermined and defeated optimistic visions of the future?

Two features that stand out in this project of self-conceptualization are a sense of historical difference from the past and a drive to record human experience—in dictionaries and encyclopedias—or to measure it by experimentation. Our conference title highlights the interplay between these two terms, for historically, ‘experimentation’ and ‘experience’ are closely related. Indeed, in modern French the word expérience is almost interchangeable with expérimentation, and in English, the earliest meaning of ‘experience’ was an action of putting something to the test (“to make experience of: to make trial of” [OED]). An experience is also an observation of facts or events, and in more recent usage it refers to what a person might subjectively encounter, undergo, live through, and be affected by. We invite conference participants to explore all these facets of the experience of modernity in the eighteenth century.

For explorers, scholars, and creators of the eighteenth century, modernity demanded to be experienced and experimented with, and it came to be defined by a multiplicity of experiments. In the sciences and philosophy, this trend is especially clear, with the development of ‘experimental philosophy’, deriving from Bacon, Newton, and Locke, which made possible the development of new fields of knowledge, new understanding of the grounds of knowledge, and new technologies and practices—in manufacturing, medicine, and military art, for example.

But experimentation in the period is also manifested in field research: that of travelers who set out to meet other cultures, that of correspondents of the academies and learned societies who described the natural world around them, that of inventors and innovators who came to present the fruit of their work to assemblies. Experimentation, here, evolved beyond the collection of ‘curiosities’, to be displayed in cabinets (a matter of spectacle and wonder), to become research, in the sense that we still understand it today, that is to say a deliberate, controlled testing of phenomena in order to bring about predicted effects.

In the fine arts and literature, experimentation took many forms, such as the development of new genres (domestic tragedy, bourgeois drama, prose fiction) and the transformation and mixing of existing ones (georgic, the mock-heroic). Artistic experiments like these were designed to elicit new pleasures and to stimulate new effects in audiences, of moral transformation or aesthetic response. But artists in the period went further: the eighteenth century was also a laboratory of media, as artists endeavoured to exploit the technical discoveries of their time, from the magic lantern to the ocular harpsichord.

We could extend this intellectual and cultural survey almost indefinitely, taking in politics, law, moral inquiry, economics and other nascent social sciences. But modernity was also experienced as difference and alterity: gender, ethnicity, race, and foreignness, for example, figured prominently in the imagining and experience of modernity, as projections of anxieties, fears, and hopes about profound cultural and social change. Financial volatility and novel instruments of credit, for example, were often allegorized as fickle, valetudinarian women, and innovation and novelty were often stigmatized xenophobically as ‘foreign’. Conversely, the inhabitants of Africa and the Americas suffered often calamitous consequences in their encounters with the modernity of an alien culture and alien intruders. This darker side of the experience of modernity will be equally prominent in our exploration of the CSECS 2022 conference theme.

A key dimension of this experience of modernity, for us today, is the ongoing contact between European explorers, empire builders, and colonizers and the indigenous nations who confronted them. The 2021 CSECS conference in Winnipeg mounted an ambitious program of inquiry into the ‘Indigenous Eighteenth Century’, and it is our aim at the Ottawa conference to build on this important work. Thus, the conference organizers particularly invite panels and roundtables that focus on non-European perspectives on the European project of modernity.

Topics related to the conference theme might include, but are not limited to, the following:
• the experimental sciences in dialogue with artistic production
• the idea of innovation in literature and the arts
• experience and the modern novel
• empirical and moral philosophy as sciences of humanity
• enlightenment and the critique of modernity
• travel writing—both real and imagined.
• Lettres persanes (301 years later)
• economic experiments; financial modernity
• conjectural history as experimental or speculative historiography
• constitutional experimentation
• experience of gender; gender and modernity

In keeping with past practice at CSECS conferences, panel and paper proposals on current research unrelated to the conference theme will be equally considered. Deadline for submission of panel proposals: 15 March 2022. Deadline for submission of individual paper proposals: 15 April 2022.

NEASECS soliciting panels are due April 8, with paper proposals due by May 6; please either send to neasecs@gmail.com. Art history panels and papers are encouraged!

All those presenting at the conference must be members in good standing either of CSECS, ECSSS, or NEASECS. Paper proposals should include title, 150-word summary, and brief biographical note indicating the presenter’s name, email, academic status, and institutional affiliation. Panel proposals should include titles and 150-word summaries of both panel and individual papers, and brief biographical notes for all presenters (normally three) and respondents (if any), including names, email addresses, academic statuses, and institutional affiliations. Please send your proposals to csecs-scedhs2022@uottawa.ca. Participants may present papers in English or French and will be invited to submit articles based on their papers in either language to Lumen, the official journal of CSECS, for publication.

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Note (added 20 March) — The original posting did not include the separate due dates for NEASECS submissions.

As announced by CAA:

Objects, Pathways, and Afterlives: Tracing Material Cultures in Early America
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, 20–22 April 2023

Organized by Christine DeLucia, Tiya Miles, Scott Manning Stevens, and Jennnifer Van Horn

Proposals due by 15 May 2022

This two-and-a-half-day symposium in April 2023 at the Huntington Library will articulate new pathways forward in American material cultures, broadly defined in terms of subject matter, hemispheric geography, and time period (from roughly 1500 to 1860). We invite holistic thinking about existing fault lines in object study and the generative spaces around issues of power, absence, representation, labor, hybridity, and materiality. Recognizing that ‘early’ America itself has been contested in productive ways, we ask what work ‘early’ American objects can help effect along the lines of contemporary visual sovereignty as well as cultural preservation and knowledge production.

As critical reckonings with the enduring legacies of white supremacy and settler colonialism that shaped early America continue to impact communities today, we seek to create a space for creative learning to investigate: How do we do this work? How do we interpret this work with and for multiple publics? How can we better engage younger community members and college students with materials collected by museums? What through-lines can museums elucidate between historical materials and contemporary Indigenous and African American artists and knowledge keepers?

Symposium participants can engage with the Huntington’s Fielding Collection of Early American Art as a resource and point of departure, but talks do not have to respond directly to works in the collection.

We invite proposals for 20–30 minute papers addressing these themes from people in many fields, including but not limited to African Diaspora, Archaeology, Art History, History, Indigenous Studies, Material Culture, and Museum Studies. Cross-disciplinary and comparative studies are also welcome. To submit, please email abstracts of no more than 200 words, along with a short (2 page) CV, to objectspathwaysafterlives@huntington.org by 15 May 2022.

Travel and accommodations will be provided for speakers arriving from outside the Los Angeles area, and meals will be provided for all. Graduate students outside the Los Angeles area who want to attend the conference are welcome to apply for grants to cover travel and lodging. To be considered, email objectspathwaysafterlives@huntington.org a 300-word statement detailing your research interests and outlining how attending the conference will further your scholarly or career development, along with a short (2-page) CV by 15 May 2022.

After Jacques Étienne Victor Arago, Vue de Notre-Dame De bon Voyage (Rade de Rio de Janeiro), 1825
(Wikimedia Commons)

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From the Call for Papers:

18th DNS Seminar: The Marine Worlds of the Long Eighteenth Century
Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, 7–9 December 2022

Proposals due by 1 August 2022

The Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ANZSECS) and the Australian Catholic University invite you to the 18th David Nichol Smith (DNS) Seminar for Eighteenth-Century Studies.* In 2022, the DNS will be held on 7–9 December at the ACU Fitzroy Campus in Melbourne. It will convene in-person, but will also feature a digital hub hosting a suite of provocations from colleagues around the world. We are delighted to announce that the seminar will include three keynotes: Lynette Russell, ARC Laureate Professor at Monash University; Kevin Dawson, Associate Professor of History at UC Merced; and Miranda Stanyon, ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne.

We welcome proposals that address our theme The Marine Worlds of the Long Eighteenth Century. We seek to explore and understand the experiences, knowledges, and spaces of the sea and undersea from 1650 to 1850. We are particularly keen to highlight and interrogate how the ‘blue humanities,’ and the environmental humanities in general, are in conversation with the study of the eighteenth century across disciplines.

Topics may include
• human-animal relationships in eighteenth-century oceans
• more-than-human oceans
• ideas and practices exploring ocean depths and sea surfaces
• oceanic lives: Indigenous, Black, gendered, plebeian, mercantile, imperial
• queering the eighteenth-century ocean
• feminist, subaltern, or decolonial knowledges of the marine
• seacraft design and representation
• maritime wrecks, disasters, and salvage operations
• reinterpretations of piracy and seaborne conflict
• marine and maritime labours, both free and unfree
• sensing seascapes: sights, sounds, tastes, and smells
• marine genres / oceanic forms
• aquatic sports, leisure, and culture
• relations between eighteenth-century studies and the blue humanities
• marine geographies, or ‘thalassographies,’ in formation, relation, and conflict
• philosophies and practices of sub/marine science
• sea-languages of the long eighteenth century
• submergence, diving, and drowning
• marine worlds of coasts and shores
• objects, things, and oceanic materialisms
• marine memories, testimonies, and archives

We are seeking proposals for panels, workshops, and roundtables (see below). We are happy to help prospective applicants make connections between people in order to form or participate in a session. If this proves impossible, we will of course then accept a 200-word abstract for an individual paper. We are pleased to offer some travel bursaries to postgraduate students or unemployed scholars to assist in the cost of travel to Melbourne. If you would like to be considered for a travel grant, please indicate so in your proposal and include a three-page CV. Please email proposals to dns.xviii@gmail.com by Monday, 1 August 2022.

S E S S I O N  V A R I E T I E S

Panel of 90 minutes — 4 × 15-minute papers with a chair. Please submit a proposal with a title that covers your broad topic, the name and email of the main correspondent for the panel, the names of the four speakers, and 4 × 100-word abstracts (one for each prospective paper). You are welcome also to include a chair, or we can arrange one for you.

Panel of 60 minutes — 2 × 15-minute papers with a commentator. Please submit a proposal with a title that covers your broad topic, the name and email of the main correspondent for the panel, the names of the two speakers, and 2 × 100-word abstracts (one for each prospective paper). Please also arrange for a commentator who will reflect for 10 minutes on the paired papers.

Workshop of 60 minutes — This will involve group discussion of 2 × pre-circulated new works-in-progress. Please submit a proposal with a title, the name and email of the main correspondent for the workshop, and the names of the two scholars who will pre-circulate their article/chapter-length drafts for discussion, as well as a 100-word abstract for each. You are welcome also to include a chair-discussant, or we can arrange one for you.

Roundtable of 90 or 60 minutes — This has an open format but must include only short talks by participants that all speak to a central question or issue within the field of eighteenth-century marine studies. Please submit a proposal with a title that signals the key problem, a 200-word abstract for the roundtable, the name and email of the main correspondent/moderator for the roundtable, and the names of all the other participants.

As with previous DNS conferences, we aim to pursue a publication of some work arising from the seminar. We are already in talks with two interested publishers.

Convenors: Kristie Flannery, Kate Fullagar, Killian Quigley

* Inaugurated in 1966 by the National Library of Australia, the DNS is the leading forum for eighteenth-century studies in Australasia. It brings together scholars from across the region and internationally who work on the long eighteenth century in a range of disciplines, including history, literature, Indigenous studies, art and architectural history, philosophy, theology, the history of science, musicology, anthropology, archaeology, and studies of material culture.