Enfilade

From the Call for Papers:

The Africa of European Scholars, 17th–20th Centuries
Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar (Senegal), 5–7 February 2018

Proposals due by 30 August 2017

The production of knowledge about Africa was not left to the sole initiative of merchants, missionaries, soldiers, or editors of travel narratives. Contrary to what one might think, Africa and Africans were at the heart of scholarly concerns in the 17th and 18th centuries. The scholars of the great European Academies were also constructing their own Africa. Although this Africa did not represent a split from the common contemporary prejudices of the time on Africans, it could fashion its own existence, borne out of the epistemological demands of scholarly disciplines. Thus, from the Maupertuis’s Dissertation physique à l’occasion du nègre blanc (1744) to Buffon’s theories on the color of Blacks (A. Curran), Africa and the Africans inspired all sorts of intellectual constructs animated by a certain « will to truth » (Foucault).

Nevertheless, although the issue of skin color was the main focus of attention (the nature of which to be scientifically explained), preoccupations about Africa began to shift. The imagined and theorized Africa of the past would gradually be replaced by an Africa drawn from exploration and in situ scientific investigation, in direct contact with the African environment. Detailed memories of learned travelers trained in the methods of scientific observation were added to the preliminary data reported by the ‘surgeons’—who were the best qualified, among those travelling with the commercial Companies, for such work of erudition.

In its simplest sense, the Africa of scholars refers to a tradition of writing that claims to break with an imaginary Africa to propose a “concrete” Africa. Within the framework of a “reorientation of the scientific esprit” (Gusdorf, Foucault), it tends to build upon the African experience of scholarly travelers, and it confers an increasing importance to African societies. No part of the fauna, the flora, nothing relating to the peoples, their languages, their customs, their religious beliefs and rites, was neglected by these “explorers of the unknown” (A. Bailly).

This Africa at the crossroads of western scientific theory and practice is the proposed object of our study. Depending on a periodization structured both by scientific mutations and the evolution of historical contexts, the Africa of European scholars is not one but many. Be they Michel Adanson (1727–1806), considered in the French milieu as the first scientist of formation to have traveled in Africa and to be interested in all fields of knowledge, or Theodore Monod (1902–2000), considered by the French as the first educated naturalist, motivations and the results of scientific research continue to be influenced by political and ideological contexts.

Although initiated by GRREA 17/18, a research group dedicated to the study of European representations of Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries [Groupe de Recherche sur les Représentations Européennes de l’Afrique aux 17e et 18e siècles], this interdisciplinary reflection will be open to researchers in the sciences and in the humanities specialized in the subsequent two centuries (19th and 20th centuries). The geographical areas studied will cover the Francophone, Anglophone, and Lusophone fields.

Paper proposals may include one of the following four areas of study:

I. Training of European scientists
• What kind of scholars contributed to the construction of knowledge on Africa?
• What were their main motivations?

II. Information channels of scholars
• First hand information: letters and field notes of the scholarly traveler
• Second-hand information: printed or informal travel accounts (reports, lectures, and handwritten communications)
• Third-hand information: collections of travel stories

III. Channels of diffusion of learned knowledge
• Academies of sciences in Europe
• Scholarly journals
• Museums (Natural history museums and cabinets of curiosities)
• Obstacles to the diffusion of knowledge
• Science and colonization

IV. What knowledge of Africa can we learn from this past scholarly literature?
• In natural history (fauna, flora…)
• Cultural history (languages, manners…)
• History of religions (religious and cultural practices, polytheisms and monotheisms)
• Political and economic history (evolution and dissolution of great empires, wars of succession, wars and economic co-operation)

Paper proposals (in English or French), of a length not exceeding 500 words, and followed by a short Curriculum Vitae, are to be sent before August 30, 2017, to David Diop diop.david@wanadoo.fr and Ousmane Seydi oumane.seydi@unibas.ch.

Scientific Committee for L’Afrique des savants européens
Sylviane Albertan-Coppola (Université d’Amiens, France), Mamadou Ba (Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Sénégal), Alia Baccar (Académie Beït El Hekma, Tunisie), Isabelle Charlatte Fels (Université de Bâle, Suisse), Andrew Curran (Wesleyan University, Etats-Unis), Hélène Cussac (Université de Toulouse, France), Catherine Gallouët (Hobart and Willliam Smith Colleges, États-Unis), Patrick Graille (Wesleyan University, Paris, France) Françoise Le Borgne (Université de Clermont-Auvergne, France), Jean Moomou (Université des Antilles, France), Claudia Opitz-Belakhal (Université de Bâle, Suisse), Ibrahima Thioub (Recteur de l’Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Sénégal) Izabella Zatorska (Université de Varsovie, Pologne), Roberto Zaugg (Université de Bâle, Suisse).

A day of preliminary work to the conference in Dakar gathering the members of the scientific committee is planned for November 7, 2017, at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour.

From The Courtauld:

Recasting Reproduction, 1500–1800
The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 18 November 2017

Proposals due by 6 July 2017

David Teniers, The Monkey Painter (detail), ca.1660, oil on panel (Madrid: Museo del Prado).

The contested concept of ‘reproduction’ stands at a critical nexus of the conceptualisation of early modern artistic thought. The early modern period has been characterised by the development of novel and efficient reproduction technologies, as well as the emergence of global empires, growing interconnectedness through trade, warfare and conquest, and the rise of new markets and cultures of collecting. This ethos of innovation and exchange was, however, contextualised against myriad contemporary ideologies still rooted in the values and legends of past narratives. Reproduction stood at the centre of this dichotomy. Set against the context of changing cultural tastes and the increasingly overlapping public and private spheres, ‘reproductions’ were involved within changing viewing practices, artistic pedagogy, acts of homage, and collecting.

The idea of reproduction connotes a number of tensions: between authenticity and counterfeit; consumption and production; innovation and imitation; the establishment of archetype and the creation of replica; the conceptual value of the original and the worth of the reproduction as a novel work of art; the display of contextualised knowledge and the de-contextualisation of the prototype. At the same time, production is shaped historically through practices and discourses and has figured as a key site for analysis in the work of, for example, Walter Benjamin, Richard Wolin, Richard Etlin, Ian Knizek, and Yvonne Sheratt. Participants are invited to explore reproduction ‘beyond Benjamin’, investigating both the technical and philosophical implications of reproducing a work of art and seeking, where possible, a local anchoring for the physical and conceptual processes involved.

We welcome proposals for papers that investigate the theme of reproduction from the early modern period (c.1500–1800), including painting, print making, sculpture, decorative arts, architecture, graphic arts, and the intersections between them. Papers can explore artistic exchanges across geopolitical, cultural and disciplinary divides and contributions from other disciplines, such as the history of science and conservation, are welcome. Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to

• The conceptualisation and processes of reproduction and reproduction technologies before and at the advent of ‘the mechanical’
• Reproduction in artistic traditions beyond ‘the West’
• The slippage between innovation and imitation
• Part-reproduction and the changing, manipulation and developments of certain motifs
• Problematizing the aura of ‘authenticity’ and the ‘value’ of the original, copies and collecting
• Fakes and the de-contextualisation of a work through its reproduction
• Reproduction within non-object based study e.g. architecture
• Theoretical alternatives and the vocabulary used to describe the process and results of reproduction in contemporary texts

Please send proposals of no more than 300 words along with a 150 word biography by 6th July 2017 to kyle.leyden@courtauld.ac.uk and natasha.morris@courtauld.ac.uk.

Organised by Kyle Leyden, Natasha Morris, and Angela Benza

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From H-ArtHist:

Bibliothèques et Musées en Suisse: Histoires Croisées, 18e-19e siècles
Musée historique de Lausanne, 24–25 May 2018

Proposals due by 31 August 2017

La présence d’objets, voire de véritables cabinets de curiosités, dans l’enceinte des bibliothèques caractérise bon nombre de bibliothèques d’Ancien Régime. Depuis le XVIIe siècle, l’interaction entre livres et objets est en effet thématisée comme un enjeu bibliothéconomique primordial : monnaies, médailles, instruments scientifiques, échantillons naturels et artéfacts exotiques sont appelés à dialoguer avec les livres afin de nourrir le projet de connaissance encyclopédique de la bibliothèque. À la fois ornements et compléments du savoir livresque, ils mettent en scène une confrontation entre le discours et la dimension matérielle, voire palpable de ce même discours.

À la suite de la Révolution française, qui décrète le musée espace public aux fins didactique, patrimoniale et civique, ces objets se voient cependant progressivement expulsés de l’enceinte des bibliothèques et soutiennent, dans de nombreux cas, la naissance d’institutions muséales. Entre la fin du XVIIIe siècle et tout au long du siècle suivant, innombrables sont en effet les musées qui se créent sur la base de collections « éjectées » de l’espace de la bibliothèque. Les causes de cette autonomisation forcée sont souvent pratiques, ces collections ayant atteint une ampleur qui ne leur permet plus de demeurer intégrées aux surfaces prévues pour les livres. Mais des raisons d’ordre politique, scientifique voire épistémologique entrent également en ligne de compte. Il n’en reste pas moins que, dans cette perspective, les bibliothèques, et notamment les bibliothèques publiques, apparaissent comme des antichambres des musées et la condition sine qua non de l’émergence d’un panorama muséal régional et national.

La Suisse et ses villes illustrent clairement la fécondité de cette articulation. Les collections des cabinets de la bibliothèque de Genève, de la bibliothèque de l’Académie de Lausanne ou encore de la Bibliothèque de la Bourgeoisie de Berne, pour n’en mentionner que quelques-unes, provoquent et alimentent dans un premier temps la création des muséums d’histoire naturelle de leurs villes respectives, puis dans un second temps celles des musées d’art, d’histoire et d’ethnographie de ces lieux.

Malgré son importance, cette interdépendance ne semble pas avoir stimulé l’intérêt des chercheurs. Au contraire, un certain cloisonnement disciplinaire persiste entre les spécialistes de l’histoire des bibliothèques et de l’histoire des musées. Si les premiers attribuent aux cabinets un rôle fondamentalement mineur dans le programme de connaissance de la bibliothèque des Lumières, les seconds ne concentrent leur regard que sur le musée dès le moment où celui-ci acquiert une existence autonome. C’est cette lacune que le colloque propose de combler. Dans le but d’élaborer une réflexion interdisciplinaire, la rencontre souhaite réunir historiens des collections et professionnels du monde des bibliothèques et des musées pour présenter une série de cas d’étude. Le colloque se focalisera essentiellement sur la Suisse afin de faciliter la délimitation géographique de la problématique. Cependant, des propositions concernant d’autres territoires nationaux seront les bienvenues dans la mesure où elles contribueront à la formulation de principes méthodologiques.

Quatre axes de réflexion structureront les échanges

1. il s’agira d’abord de problématiser le statut des collections d’objets de bibliothèques pour saisir les modalités sous-jacentes de leur arrivée et de leur arrangement. De même, nous chercherons à comprendre comment ces objets négocient leur cohabitation avec les collections livresques.

2. nous soulèverons également la question de leur émancipation par rapport aux livres : qu’est-ce qui motive cette émancipation ? Qui en sont les acteurs ? Qu’est-ce que ces remaniements impliquent au sein même de la bibliothèque ? Comment le rapport entre le musée naissant et la bibliothèque se pense-t-il ? Comment s’entretient-il ? Pourquoi se dégrade-t-il ?

3. nous aborderons ensuite le problème de la perte de sens souvent provoquée par la répartition des objets dans des collections spécialisées, perte qui se répercute sur les politiques de gestion des collections.

4. des questions méthodologiques retiendront enfin notre attention : est-ce qu’une histoire croisée des bibliothèques et des musées est véritablement réalisable ? Quels types de sources peuvent la soutenir ? Et qu’en est-il aujourd’hui de l’articulation bibliothèques/musées dans la gestion d’institutions culturelles ? Conditionne-t-elle les politiques patrimoniales contemporaines ?

La période prise en compte est celle allant du XVIIIe siècle à la fin du XIXe siècle ; des communications portant sur le XXe seront toutefois acceptées si elles dialoguent avec des pratiques ou des discours hérités des siècles précédents.

Les communications individuelles seront limitées à 25 minutes, celles en tandem à 40 minutes. Les propositions, en français, en allemand, en italien ou en anglais comprendront environ 300 mots. Elles sont à adresser à Rossella Baldi (rossella.baldi@unine.ch) et à Valérie Kobi (valerie.kobi@uni-bielefeld.de). Délai pour l’envoi des propositions : 31 août 2017. Les réponses seront envoyées dans le courant du mois d’octobre 2017.

Comité scientifique
Rossella Baldi, Danielle Buyssens, Valérie Kobi, Claude-Alain Kuenzi, Matthias Oberli, Michel Schlup, Martin Schultz.

From H-ArtHist:

‘Num’rous Uses, Motions, Charms, and Arts’: Fans as Images,
Accessories, and Instruments of Gesture in the 17th and 18th Centuries
University of Zurich, 30 November — 1 December 2017

Proposals due by 30 June 2017

This interdisciplinary conference discusses the cultural role of fans in art, fashion, and material culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Taking the visual and material diversity of fans as a point of departure, it aims at gaining new insights into the various interrelations between fans, paintings, and printed artworks in this period.

The conference takes painted and printed folding fans as its main focus in order to take a closer view of the pictorial and intermedial interplay of ornamental patterns, figurative elements, and artistic subject matters. From the late seventeenth century onwards, fan depictions were often inspired by or based on Renaissance and contemporary paintings. In the course of the eighteenth century, fan leaves displayed an increasing variety of cultural themes, thereby also functioning as souvenirs as well as conveyors of political and social messages.

Furthermore, the conference seeks to examine fans as gender-specific instruments of gesture and communication. In eighteenth-century Europe, fans became important fashion accessories across the social classes and were almost omnipresent in social interaction. In 1711, Joseph Addison, satirizing social etiquette, describes fans as “modish machines” and powerful “weapons” of their female owners. Later visual and written sources enhanced this attribution of meaning, particularly emphasizing the fan’s expressive movements of opening and closing, of displaying and not displaying, which could hide their owners’ faces while at the same time rendering visible their emotions. On the other hand, painted and printed fans presented a wide variety of social knowledge in fast and fleeting pictures, in this way conveying personal statements of those who carried them.

The conference aims to bring together different perspectives on the cultural importance of fans in order to consider issues such as their production, their material qualities, the visual elements and subject matters in fan painting, as well as the various social uses and the reception of fans in art and literature. We invite discussions of both individual fans as well as visual and written sources which reveal the cultural role of the fan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This call addresses art historians, fashion historians, and researchers from related disciplines. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to
• painted and printed fans as conveyors of (political and cultural) information
• fans as souvenirs and conveyors of memory
• the reception of artworks in fan depictions
• fans as/within the context of fashion accessories, dress norms and gender-specific body cultures
• fans in cultures of communication and cultures of feeling
• fans in the visual arts (portraits, genre painting, caricatures, etc.) and in literature
• the manufacture and (global) trade of fans
• case studies in the conservation and restoration of fans

Please send your proposal (max. 300 words, in English, German or French), for a paper (20 minutes), a short CV and a short list of keywords (max 6) no later than June 30, 2017 to Dr Miriam Volmert (miriam.volmert@khist.uzh.ch) and lic. phil. Danijela Bucher (danijela.bucher@uzh.ch). Notification of authors: July 7, 2017. Travel reimbursement depends on the availability of funds.

Thomas Gainsborough, Wooded Landscape with a Cottage and Shepherd, 1748–50, oil on canvas, 43.2 × 54.3 cm (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1976.2.1).

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From the Paul Mellon Centre:

Landscape Now
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 30 November – 1 December 2017

Proposals due by 30 June 2017

The pictorial representation of the landscape has long played an important role in the history of British art. It has been central to writers from Gilpin and Ruskin onwards, and was the subject of sustained scholarly attention in the 1980s and 1990s with the emergence of a social history of art. Writers such as John Barrell, Anne Bermingham, Stephen Daniels, Christiana Payne, Michael Rosenthal and David Solkin not only helped transform interpretations of British landscape painting, but made the study of such imagery seem essential to a proper understanding of British art itself.

Over the past two decades the centre of gravity of British art studies has shifted. An imperial turn has characterized some of the most ambitious scholarship in the field; a raft of powerful new voices have shifted attention to the Victorian and modern periods, and to the imagery of urban life; and there has been a dramatic growth of interest in such topics as print culture, exhibition culture, and the material culture of the work of art. With these developments, existing approaches to the study of landscape pictures lost some of their urgency and relevance.

However, this same period has seen the growth of a broader interest in landscape images in adjacent disciplines, driven in part by political and environmental imperatives. A newly energised category of ‘nature writing’, associated with authors such as Robert Mcfarlane and Helen MacDonald, has gained widespread currency beyond the purely academic arena. Cultural geographers such as David Matless and film-makers such as Patrick Keillor have offered nuanced investigations of the British landscape in their work, asking us to think afresh about its relationship to national identity, memory and post-imperial decline. And while many scholars in the humanities, in an age of globalisation and deepening ecological concern, have felt compelled to think about landscape on a vastly expanded basis, others have been driven to offer a new and suggestive focus on the local.

The moment thus seems ripe for a major art-historical reassessment of the image of the British landscape, taking account these and other emergent concerns. This international conference—the third in an annual series organised collaboratively by the Paul Mellon Centre, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens—is designed to offer an opportunity for such a reassessment.

We seek proposals for 20-minute papers that offer new perspectives on the visual representation of the British landscape of any period. We equally welcome papers that focus on canonical landscape artists and paintings, and those that deal with lesser-known figures and objects, as well as those that investigate the topic in relation to drawing, printmaking, photography, film and television. Themes that might be addressed include:

• Landscape imagery and national identity
• Local/global histories of British landscape art
• The production of landscape images – in the field and in the studio
• Alternative landscapes: urban, suburban, rural, wild, touristic, agricultural
• The landscape image in a wider visual culture
• The pictorial logic of the landscape image
• The landscape image in an age of erosion

Please send proposals of 400 words maximum together with a short biography of no more than 100 words to events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk by 30 June 2017.

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Johan Zoffany, Colonel Blair with His Family and an Indian Ayah, 1786
(London: Tate)

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From ANZSECS:

Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment
Griffith University and the University of Queensland, Brisbane, 13–15 December 2017

Proposals due by 1 August 2017

The Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ANZSECS) is pleased to announce that the sixteenth David Nichol Smith Seminar, Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment, will be held in Brisbane, Australia, at Griffith University and the University of Queensland on the 13th to 15th December 2017. We welcome proposals for papers or panels on the theme ‘Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment’, broadly conceived as referring to the plurality of Enlightenments as well as the ideas and uses of nature which they endorsed, and the spaces in which they developed.

In the inclusive spirit of the David Nichol Smith Seminar, proposals may address any aspect of the long eighteenth century. Especially relevant topics include
• Enlightenment and religion, science, empire, or gender
• Popular, moderate, and radical enlightenments
• Regional, national, and global enlightenments
• Climate, the environment, and the Anthropocene
• Emotion, sentimentalism, and the language of feeling
• Theories of human nature and civil society
• Improvement and social utility
• Travel, exploration, and discovery
• Trade and commerce
• Philanthropy and the culture of moral/social reform
• Spaces of sociability such as clubs, salons, coffeehouses, and taverns
• Urban and rural spaces
• Ideas of landscape and forms of land use
• Nature in art, literature, and music
• Natural history, natural philosophy, natural law, and natural theology
• Nature in economic and political writing
• Nature, medicine, sexuality, and the body
• Botany, geology, and geography
• Representations and uses of animals
• Work, leisure, technology, and industrialisation

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers and panels comprising 3 x papers. Please submit an abstract of 250 words (maximum) and a 2-page CV, as PDF documents, to the following email address by 1 August  2017: dnsconferenceqld@gmail.com. Participants must be current members of ANZSECS. If you have any questions about the conference, please contact one of the organisers: Peter Denney (p.denney@griffith.edu.au) or Lisa O’Connell (l.oconnell@uq.edu.au).

Keynote Speakers
• Deidre Lynch (Harvard University)
• Jan Golinski (University of New Hampshire)
• Georgia Cowart (Case Western Reserve University)
• Sujit Sivasundaram (University of Cambridge)

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From H-ArtHist:

European Lacquer in Context
Jubelpark, Brussels, 18–19 January 2018

Proposals due by 4 June 2017

The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA, Brussels, Belgium), the University of Antwerp (UA, Antwerp, Belgium) and the Royal Museums of Art and History (KMKG-MRAH, Brussels, Belgium) invite you to participate in our two-day conference European Lacquer in Context. The theme of this conference is European lacquers in a broad sense: theoretical and practical work concerning conservation and restoration, art historical, technological and chemical research will be highlighted.

We encourage students, young and established professionals to submit an abstract for either a poster or a paper presentation. Both theory and practice-oriented contributions from professionals working with European lacquers are considered (among others curators, conservators, restorers, art historians, analytical scientists and anyone with an interest in European lacquers). Presentations of collaboration projects between different professions are strongly encouraged.

For more information about the conference, please visit the ELinC-conference website. Please submit the abstract before 4 June 2017 through the conference online abstract form.

From H-ArtHist:

Moral Cultures / Kulturen der Moral
Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts Annual Conference
Paderborn, 19–22 September 2018

Proposals due by 30 June 2017

Hardly any term is as ubiquitous during the 18th century as the term ‘morale’. For Niklas Luhmann the “universalization of moral demands” is a pivotal trigger in the ongoing transformation of society from stratified to functional differentiation: It forces back religion’s dominance, gives way to those new pedagogical (e. g. Pestalozzi, Weiße), psychological (Erfahrungseelenkunde), and political or juridical concepts (democracy, theories of penalty) that modern societies are based on. Furthermore, the omnipresence of morale is intertwined with the way an aspiring bourgeoisie defines itself and its educational values in opposition to nobility (see Carl Friedrich Bahrdts Handbuch der Moral für den Bürgerstand, 1790).

In addition to these social developments, morale is also the key element of the 18th-century aesthetic discussion since arts and literature aim at transforming uneducated masses into responsible and mature citizens who are able to tell right from wrong, and therefore make useful members of society. This is even true of concepts like that of Autonomieästhetik around 1800. Schiller’s classical approach still sees theatre as an institution of morale (moralische Anstalt), although the aesthetic ideals of both Weimarer Klassik and Romanticism have often been set apart from those of the Enlightenment.

Morale’s domination of both academic discourse and everyday life during the 18th century, its forms, and consequences need to be studied thoroughly in order to truly understand the culture of the time. In fact, contemporary debates show that there is no simple answer to the question of morale in the 18th century itself. On the contrary, the need to include morale into every aspect of life causes a number of problems. For example, it remains unclear what specific measures are to be taken in order to facilitate the moral education of the people. In the early 18th century, most scholars choose a rational approach. Such an approach leads to the ascent of literary genres that offer an explicit lesson or advice to the reader, just like the ‘morale’ of the fable, one of the most popular genres at the time. During the 18th century this rational approach draws more and more criticism. The philosophy of moral sense, as an alternative, establishes the ideal of an integral education that enables individuals to judge for themselves, not having to rely on a set of ‘lessons’ they were given by an academic elite. Now, having an explicit morale at the end of a literary text is even considered hurtful to the goal of making the reader a better person—not only because reality is too complex to capture everything a person has to know in a single sentence, but also because a mature audience, the one the Enlightenment wants to create, will not appreciate being spoken to as children who know nothing of the world. Once the discussion reaches this point, of course, even more attempts are made to solve the conflict. As long as giving up the goal of moral education altogether is not an option, which it finally will be around 1800, the ‘problem of morale’ remains central giving way to what can be called the different ‘moral cultures’ the conference would like to explore.

The term ‘moral culture’ refers, on the one hand, to the fact that the question of morale in the 18th century is not just an academic or aesthetic problem, but defines large parts of everyday life. People read moral weeklies and find joy in extending and constantly questioning their faculties of judgment. Behaving morally is a requirement for anyone who wants to be part of society; critique becomes a matter of public interest. Bon ton requires a certain amount of display of one’s morality, which is truly to be lived through joined enjoyment and critical assessment of art—whether in the direct personal contact of family life or reading societies or, at more distance, in writing (letters, public journals etc.). Using the term ‘culture’ also implies that morale is an essential requirement for cultivated existence and the progress of civilization—a crucial general idea of the Enlightenment’s worldview. For this reason moral judgment is seen to be a predicament of critical judgment as such, so aesthetic education becomes a relevant basis of moral schooling. Of course, there is the opposite point of view we can see in story of Inkle and Yariko about the ‘barbarian’ who has higher moral standards than the civilized European. This story illustrates that morality is something one is born with and faces the danger of being lost in the course of civilization. These opposite views both show how western societies use morale to define themselves in contrast to ‘naïve’ cultures that either existed in the past or that are found in other regions of the earth in the course of the discovery and the conquest of new continents.

On the other hand, we emphasize the plural of ‘morale cultures’ to accentuate that the central function of morale not only comes along with many different shapes on the numerous levels of social and aesthetic discourse but furthermore develops a plurality of distinct moral cultures. The reason for this is primarily that the 18th century aims to make access to moral discussion available for a great amount of people. Not only scholars get to voice their thoughts in moral weeklies but also ‘common’ folks and especially women, represented in dialogues and letters by authentic or fictional authors.

The 2018 Annual Conference of the German Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (DGEJ) wants to provide scholars in relevant fields with the opportunity to take the importance of morale during the 18th century seriously, and initiate an intense ongoing discussion about the complexity of the phenomena which we believe will prove to be extremely fruitful for future studies. The following eight sections offer suggestions and potential research questions to inspire proposals for the conference.

S E C T I O N S

1  Moral Cultures in the 18th Century
This section gives room for major theoretical reflection on morale, both on the term and its specific role in the 18th century. Papers can address the particular historical background which leads to the ascent of morale as a crucial concept of discourse or raise the question when, how and why this phase comes to an end. What other macro-level theoretical concepts are useful to describe or elaborate the individual potential outcomes of the other section (e. g. Luhmann’s differentiation of society, beginning of modernism, Sattelzeit). What does it mean to use the term ‘moral cultures’? Which distinct cultures of morale can be found? Which are the underlying similarities that suggest the existence of only one moral culture or a superstructure that brings the different versions of morale cultures together?

2  Morale, Ethics, and Religion
This section gives room to discuss works of philosophy and theology on morale from the 18th century and to highlight interdependences between moral philosophy, ethics and religion. Since the topic is vivid there are numerous reflections on the concept of morale and its role in society. While rationalistic approaches tend to claim that moral judgment can be taught and learned, the theories of moral sense see morale as something every individual has a natural understanding of which can only be cultivated or protected from disfiguration. The importance of religion is now based on its moral achievements (as in Lessings Nathan der Weise). An intimate practice of religion outside the church comes into practice (Pietism) in close relation to questions of morale. Both of these developments help overcome simplified theories of secularization during the Enlightenment.

3  Morale in Politics and Law
The leading function of morale results in a different relationship between individual and government, reflected in new political and juridical concepts. In opposition to absolutism, the most important form of government in the 17th century, the ruler now has to meet certain moral standards to be seen as a ‘good’ head of state. In other countries, the concept of monarchy is eliminated altogether—sometimes successfully like in the foundation of the United States, sometimes only temporarily like in France. The moment former subjects are considered humans, more humanitarian forms of punishment are discussed (the best-known example is, of course, the guillotine). We invite scholars to discuss the various aspects of morale and public welfare in all fields of political or legal reforms as well as constitutional aspects.

4  Moral Culture: Time and Place
This section wants to explore the nature of a western moral culture in comparison and in opposition to other moral cultures that can be situated in the past (Ancient Greek, Middle Ages) or on different continents the civilized world gets to read about in the accounts by travelers that flood the book market. Attention should be paid to how the ‘barbarian’ or ancient cultures are described in terms of morale: Are they immoral people or just the opposite representing an unadulterated way of living that is always superior to more progressive societies? What concepts lie in-between? In addition, we have to ask whether there really are uniform western moral cultures or if the same procedures of delineation can be found inside the western world, e. g. between different European countries or between Europe and the western societies on the American continent. On the one hand, Paul Hazard observes the emerge of a mutual European thinking around 1700 when the never-ending process of critical thinking, which is so crucial to questions of morality, comes put into motion. On the other hand, the philosophical discussions of morale during the 18th century alone each have a different focus that has to be taken into consideration. An important frontier of mentality (and there are certainly others that are less talked about) surely runs between the north and the south of Europe. There is, for instance, the specific aura of Italy where many artists go to get in touch with the Ancient World or the Renaissance.

5  Morality in Everyday Life
On the one hand, this section explores the establishment of strategies to secure moral’s place in everyone’s life and promote moral behavior on a daily basis, such as joined reading of moral weeklies and other publications of the sort but also common practices like living pictures or social gatherings in general. On the other hand, a growing individualization and internalization of morale takes place, e. g. in the sense that a virgin’s purity now includes her soul. Friendships between the sexes are made possible by the faith in every human’s natural moral sense; other research areas include the relation between morale and love, marriage and family. They have to be considered in the light of the various social classes for it is the bourgeoisie which plays an important part in initiating these altered concepts of family and friendship.

6  Immorality
As morale becomes an omnipresent and, seemingly, omnipotent factor, alternatives to this dominance gain importance. They are in part created in direct opposition to the discourse of morale but also intertwined with it. There is, for example, the culture of libertinage and gallantry, which has been heavily criticized from the bourgeois standpoint, or the erotically teasing artworks of Rococo (see the paintings by Fragonard and Baudouin) and Anacreontic that are no less stigmatized as immoral although their defenders, like Christoph Martin Wieland, deliberately see them as way of a more effective moral education that does not only build on denial and sanctions. Even pornography begins to bloom with the expansion of the book market and the loss of female virtues becomes a popular literary motif (Richardson, Choderlos de Laclos). Furthermore, there is the moral bandit as another example of how morale and immorality are brought together.

7  Communication and Morale
In the 18th century the rise of new media also established a new, more intimate, language to communicate in, which plays its own part in making morale a central discourse of the time. This section focuses on strategies of communication through the eyes of linguistics, cultural or media studies. How do people communicate about morale? Where and in what way does this communication take place? What is ‘moral communication’? Papers can also relate these concepts to questions of common sense, rationality, sentimentalism, honesty, thoroughness or decency, ask to what degree they aimed at specific groups (educated/non-educated, adults/children, men/women etc.) or highlight their role in public critique and (scholarly) polemics.

8  Moral Aesthetics
Art in the 18th century is often defended by the argument that it has a moral value, so one of the key goals of the Enlightenment is to make it available for a large number of people. But what exactly are the strategies artists, writers and thinkers come up with to ensure moral education by means of art really does succeed? Is a literary text supposed to make its goal visible or must it be hidden in order to reach reluctant readers? How does moral education work in the visual arts and in music? In addition to these general questions papers can also address genres or topics that become popular because of their acclaimed moral value.

Prof. Dr. Lothar van Laak, Dr. Kristin Eichhorn
Neuere deutsche Literatur und Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft
Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften
Universität Paderborn
Warburger Str. 100
D-33098 Paderborn

Please send your abstract (about 300 words) for a 20-minute paper, along with a short CV (1 page), until 30 June 2017 to: Lothar.van.Laak@uni-paderborn.de and keich@mail.uni-paderborn.de.

From the Call for Papers:

Furniture and the Domestic Interior, 1500–1915
The Frick Collection, New York, 27 October 2017

Proposals due by 18 June 2017

The Furniture History Society and The Frick Collection invite submissions from PhD students, post-doctorates, and emerging museum scholars for a symposium dedicated to the history of furniture and interiors in Europe, Britain, and the United States. Furniture and the Domestic Interior, 1500–1915 is the Furniture History Society’s fourth Research Seminar, following previous academic events at the Wallace Collection in London (2015, 2012) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2014).

This event aims to present current research by scholars at an early stage of their career on subjects in European and British furniture history. Topics relevant to the Frick’s distinguished collection of European furniture or Gilded Age setting are encouraged, as are those that have a particular focus on the history and influence of European furniture in the United States, either through design, manufacture, commissions, or collecting. In addition to presenting their work, participants will have the opportunity to study furniture in the Frick’s permanent collection with curatorial and conservation staff and discuss ongoing research in a seminar setting.

Applicants are requested to send a current CV and 300-word abstract outlining the topic of a 20-minute paper to grants@furniturehistorysociety.org and academic@frick.org by June 18, 2017. Limited assistance with travel expenses may be available on an as-needed basis; please describe any requests in the abstract. All applicants will be notified by July 11, 2017. The symposium is free, but online registration is required.

From The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) . . .

The Jewish Country House
University of Oxford, 5–6 March 2018

Proposals due by 12 June 2017

Organised by Abigail Green, David Rechter, and Oliver Cox (Oxford) and Juliet Carey (Waddesdon Manor)

This workshop aims to establish the Jewish country house both as a focus for scholarly research and as a site of European memory. By focusing on a hitherto unidentified group of country houses—those that were owned, renewed, and sometimes built by Jews—we aim to establish the importance of Jewish country houses like Port Lympne Mansion, Schloss Freienwalde, Villa Kerylos, and Castello Sonnino as variations of a pan-European phenomenon deserving serious consideration from an academic and a heritage viewpoint.

The workshop aims to bring scholars working on Jewish country houses, castelli, chateaux, Schlösser, and Villas together with curators, museum, and heritage professionals working either in ‘Jewish country houses’ themselves or in the area of European Jewish heritage more broadly. The two day workshop will be held at TORCH, University of Oxford, with a visit to Waddesdon Manor, the only surviving Rothschild house with its collections and interiors intact.

Jewish country houses have so far escaped systematic study because they do not fit existing paradigms either in modern Jewish history or country house studies. The historiography of European Jewish elites has tended to focus on the grande bourgeoisie in its urban setting and does not consider the role families like the Bischoffsheims, the Bleichröders, the Péreires, and the Sonninos assumed through their rural estates, nor the role of Jewish country houses in the self-fashioning of many leading Jewish figures such as Benjamin Disraeli, Ferdinand de Rothschild, and Philip Sassoon in the UK, Leopoldo Franchetti in Italy, Walter Rathenau in Germany, and Théodor Reinach in France. Conversely, the literature on country houses, which typically focuses on the landed aristocracy, has paid little or no attention to the existence of country houses and rural estates in Jewish hands, or to the particular challenges this posed in a rural landscape and social context so powerfully shaped by Christianity.

We are seeking proposals for two types of contributions:
1) Scholarly contributions exploring Jewish country houses in the UK and continental Europe, their architecture, furnishing, collections and social functioning, and their cultural and political role in the self-presentation and perception of European Jewish elites.
2) Case studies of specific country house museums presented by country house and heritage professionals, which will allow us to consider the Jewish country house as a site of European memory and a significant aspect of European Jewish heritage and material culture. These case studies are designed to illuminate more generally the issues of presentation and display presented by specific Jewish country houses.

Particular questions likely to arise in either or both strands of the programme include:
• What, if anything, was Jewish about these properties besides their owners?
• What can be gained from comparing Jewish country houses with each other, both within and between national contexts?
• Is it possible to identify personal, artistic, or political connections between them, both nationally and internationally?
• How do these houses and their rural estates relate to and/or challenge paradigms either of Jewish cosmopolitanism/ exoticism or of landed, aristocratic rootedness?
• What was the relationship between these country houses and their urban counterparts?
• How far, if at all, did these houses figure as ‘Jewish’ in public discussions of their owners, architecture, collections and preservation?
• What particular issues of presentation and display do Jewish country house museums raise for curators and heritage professionals both in general, and perhaps in relation to the ruptures of the Nazi era?
• How can we engage these issues sensitively without generalizing or over-simplifying the many different ways in which the Jewishness of individual estate owners both did and did not find expression in their properties and collections?

We anticipate that the British dimension of this workshop will be disproportionately important both in terms of scholarship and for heritage professionals, partly because of the cultural significance of the country house in Britain, but also because without a National Trust similar properties (and the archival record) have been less well preserved elsewhere, while the depredations of the Nazi era had a devastating effect on Jewish houses and their collections in continental Europe. Given this reality, we would particularly welcome contributions from scholars and heritage professionals related to Jewish country houses in continental Europe that will enable us to make scholarly connections between the Anglo-Jewish country house and its continental counterparts, and to promote ties between heritage professionals working in this area both in the UK and in continental Europe.

Confirmed speakers: Leora Auslander, Todd Endelman, Paolo Pellegrini, Thomas Stammers.
Please submit your proposal with title, abstract of no more than 300 words, and a short bio/CV in one pdf or doc to JCHconference@humanities.ox.ac.uk by Monday, 12 June 2017.

We are grateful for the funding and resources towards this event provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Brasenose College, the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art, and the University of Oxford John Fell Fund.