Enfilade

From the Call for Papers:

Women in the Global Eighteenth Century
Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, 5–6 November 2015

Proposals due by 15 May 2015

Plenary lecture by Dr. Lynn Festa, Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 1 from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 1719 (National Museum of Women in the Arts).

In The Global Eighteenth Century, Felicity Nussbaum and her contributors urged scholars to see the eighteenth century as ‘wide’: a period with a geographical as well as temporal sweep. Such a perspective, Nussbaum contended, would require different, more complex narratives of the people, events, systems, and discourses of the age. In the spirit of our namesake Aphra Behn, whose poetry, drama, plays, and translations reflect a complex awareness of a widening world, The Aphra Behn Society for Women in the Arts, 1660–1830 takes up the challenge posed by The Global Eighteenth Century to invite papers exploring any aspect of women and the arts in this ‘global eighteenth century’. How does a wider, potentially global, lens change the view of people, places, and things both familiar and strange, domestic and imperial, Us and Other? How does gender affect those views?

The Aphra Behn Society for Women and the Arts invites papers addressing the intersection of gender and the global eighteenth century from a wide variety of disciplines, including but not limited to Literature, History, Art History, Music History, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Women and Gender Studies. We welcome papers
on this topic from all sub-fields of these disciplines.

Papers might address the following topics:
•    Investigations or representations of ‘difference’ in literature and the sister arts
•    Representations of social and political authority
•    The arts, women, and empire
•    Women and the construction of literary, artistic, domestic, public, national, imperial, and colonial spaces
•    Women and travel writing
•    Women and diaspora
•    Women and the metropole
•    Women and indigenous knowledge
•    Women, genre (textual, visual, musical, etc.), and space/place
•    Notions of performance and gender
•    Notions of gender and race, class, religion, or other markers, perhaps under pressure in a widening context
•    Gender and encountering the Other
•    Women, modernity, and post-colonial situations
•    Women and the colonial or post-colonial Enlightenment

As always, we also welcome abstracts for papers not related to the conference theme. Please upload 1–2 page abstracts or panels to the conference website by May 15, 2015. Conference registration includes all conference events, including the a luncheon, the concluding banquet, a performance by Seton Hall students, and a reception with the rare books librarians and university archivists to view highlights of the university’s collection. The Aphra Behn Society also sponsors a graduate student travel award ($150) and a graduate student essay prize ($150 and the possibility of publication in ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830). For more information, please see the conference website or contact the conference organizers, Dr. Kirsten Schultz at Kirsten.schultz@shu.edu or Dr. Karen Gevirtz at Karen.gevirtz@shu.edu.

Sponsored by the Aphra Behn Society for Women in the Arts, 1660–1830, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Women and Gender Studies Program at Seton Hall University.

From H-ArtHist:

Entering the City: Spaces, Transports, Perceptions, and Representations
Brussels, 15–16 October 2015

Proposals due by 15 March 2015

Organized in Brussels on 15 and 16 October 2015, the international conference, Entering the City: Spaces, Transports, Perceptions, and Representations from the 18th Century to the Present, is an initiative of the MICM-arc research project (micmarc.ulb.ac.be) based at the Université libre de Bruxelles. The conference will provide a forum for exploring the ways and means of entry into the urban space and the resulting impressions and representations of that experience, one closely related to the themes of mobility, culture and metropolitan identity at the heart of the MICM-arc research project.

Enclosed by fortified walls, ancient and medieval cities were delineated by clear boundaries. Access via land routes was clearly marked by city gates. Historians have extensively studied the controlling function of such thresholds as well as their symbolic dimensions. The growth and industrialization of urban centers changed the way in which they were approached from the exterior. In the 19th century, new modes of transportation and suburban sprawl rendered old city gates obsolete and radically changed the ways in which cities were accessed. Today, roundabouts and off-ramps seem to have replaced those gates, and the infrastructure that lines the routes connecting one town to another makes it difficult if not impossible to perceive their boundaries. Moreover, an increasing part (if not the majority) of entrances into urban space are no longer the result of a gradual progression along a traditional route but often pass through the intermediate zones of train stations and airports that lead to urban zones without further transition. These changes affect travelers and the experience of travel. Beyond analyzing the entry-points to the city, it is also necessary to envisage the symbolic, subjective dimension of passing from one space to another, to study the perceptions and representations associated with entering the city.

The aim of the conference is to reflect upon the manners in which the city is entered, in terms of the evolution of peripheries, modes of transport, the urban planning of the spaces involved and the experience of entering the city itself. The organizers envisage a resolutely interdisciplinary exchange involving the participation of historians, geographers, architects and urban planners, sociologists, and art historians. Papers will permit comparisons between different historical periods and different urban centers, with special attention being given to the case of Brussels. The period in question extends from the 18th century to the present day and embraces a range of models from the pre-industrial town to the post-industrial metropolis.

1) The first focus of the conference is devoted to the spaces through which both occasional and regular travelers move to access the city, as well as the means of transport involved. The slow and steady arrival with a defined point of entry defined by the transportation and origin of the journey of the 18th and early 19th centuries was supplanted and upended by new and varied manners of entering the city: more rapid, sometimes underground or through the air, centralized through train stations, relegated to the peripheral zones in the case of airports, or allowing travelers to avoid central zones in the case of ring roads. Of particular interest in the present context are approaches that theorize the act of entering the city, the notion of city limits, questions of accessibility, the spatial forms of urban entrances, and particular means of transportation. More particular points of inquiry might include:
• Is it possible to create typology of city entrances (spaces, infrastructures, landscapes)? Can one speak of the homogenization of these paces via the existence of a particular sort of dominant architecture, or are should such entrances be understood as attempts by various municipalities to distinguish themselves from their neighbors?
• What sort of skyline has presented itself to the traveler at the city entrance at different points in history? Are there models of city planning specifically adapted to these functional and symbolic zones?
• How are the entrances to cities built, designed, and landscaped? What sort of infrastructure (hotels, museums, markets, businesses) and functions (economic, touristic, cultural, healthcare, etc.) are grouped around the urban transport infrastructure found at a city’s points of entry? What forms do these infrastructures take? What aspects are rendered visible or invisible? What symbolism is implied by architectural choices? What considerations are made in conjunction with spaces of mobility and consumer activities?
• What public and private forces model the entrances to cities? Take for example, the neighborhoods surrounding train stations dominated by hotels and hotel-related businesses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

2) A second area of focus of the conference will be devoted to perceptions of entering the urban space. The spaces that mark arrival in the urban space and their appearance, be it infrastructure or landscape, affect the way in which the city is first perceived, shaping experience and memory. The arrival by boat in Venice cemented the city’s reputation as a town built on water, just as architectures of iron and glass of the 19th-century train stations defined the typology of the new modern metropolis.  Choices of materials and architectural gestures continue to define present day ambitions embodied in the new train stations and airports of the present day. Before arriving at a destination, the conditions in which it is approached (speed, view, sounds, smells) offers a unique impression of the city. As a result a particular panorama or a neighborhood can be disproportionately influential upon first impressions without necessarily being representative of the larger urban area which remains to be discovered. The starting point of the journey, be it a small or large town, a foreign country, perhaps a suburb, and the frequency of the route traveled (for work or tourism, as an immigrant or asylum seeker), both have an impact upon the perception of one’s first encounter with a city. In moving from one city to another, the traveler leaves one point of reference and encounters new environments and experiences through mobility that affects the vision of each city that is visited.  Questions evoked by the perception of the arrival in a city might include:
• What marks the entrance into a city and how is it perceivable or staged through physical boundaries, signs, and monuments? What might the absence of evident dramatization reveal? How has the appearance of city entrances evolved with the evolution of the city itself?
• How does the time passed in entering a city and eventual stops along the way allow for perception of its age, architecture, social structures, topography, in a word, its identity?
• How do means of transportation affect the perception of one’s entrance into a city?
• How does one know one has arrived? What factors upon leaving a train, plane, parking lot constitute thresholds or symbols of arrival?
• How are our perceptions of arrival in a city influenced by the place from which we come or the frequency with which we make the journey? What characterizes the experience of a tourist compared to that of a commuter or regular resident?

3) The third area of focus deals with representations of arrival in the urban space. A mix of experience, previous knowledge (through travel guides or the description of others), personal sensations all contribute to the representation of arrivals in the urban space, which in turn can be studied from a historic, artistic or symbolic point of view. The arrival in a city often provides the starting point for fictional plots or the articulation of their form and is a literary topos in and of itself from the Bildungsroman to contemporary novels. The act of entering the urban space often represents the hopes of the traveler and is associated with the expectations they have for a city in which they will grow and develop as they perceive it for the first time. The expectations created by travel guides and the accounts of other travelers are complemented by representations in art and literature and are juxtaposed with new perceptions as the traveler enters the city. Capturing and transforming memories, filtering and accumulating perceptions, diverse forms of literature and art frequently deal with the entrance into the city. Questions related to this inquiry involving representation of urban spaces in both their anticipation and the actual experience of entering a city include:
• How do travel guides of the past and present describe the entry points of the city?
• How do new modes of communication lead travelers to forge an impression of a destination before they arrive?
• What forms has the entrance into the urban space taken in literature? How have these forms developed over the past three centuries? Is there a recurring dramaturgy that unifies their treatment?
• How have sites of modernity linked to movement inspired avant-gardes? Do they remain a pertinent field of artistic exploration?
• Are there current creative projects linked to the notion of entering a city?
• It is not unusual for municipalities to situate artworks that influence traveler’s perceptions at the entry points of their territory and other zones of mobility. Is this a contemporary trend or the conjugation of a historical practice?

The questions proposed here in connection to the three zones of inquiry are far from exhaustive and represent a few suggested starting points for further reflection. The received propositions will be selected according to their pertinence, originality and capacity to encourage exchange through complementary reflection. Please send your title and proposed abstract, in English or French (a maximum of 2500 characters), before 15 March 2015 to micmarc@ulb.ac.be. Final selection will be made at the end of March 2015 and the results will be communicated in early April. You may also direct questions regarding this call to micmarc@ulb.ac.be.

Sixth Annual Feminist Art History Conference
American University in Washington, D.C., 6–8 November 2015

Proposals due by March 2015

This annual conference builds on the legacy of feminist art-historical scholarship and pedagogy initiated by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard at American University. To further the inclusive spirit of their groundbreaking anthologies, we invite papers on subjects spanning the chronological spectrum, from the ancient world through the present, to foster a broad dialogue on feminist art-historical practice. Papers may address such topics as: artists, movements, and works of art and architecture; cultural institutions and critical discourses; practices of collecting, patronage, and display; the gendering of objects, spaces, and media; the reception of images; and issues of power, agency, gender, and sexuality within visual cultures. Submissions on under-represented art-historical fields, geographic areas or national traditions, and issues of race and ethnicity are encouraged.

To be considered for participation, please provide a single document in Microsoft Word. It should consist of a one-page, single-spaced proposal of unpublished work, up to 500 words in length for a 20-minute presentation, followed by a curriculum vitae of no more than two pages. Please title the document “[last name]-proposal”.  Submit materials with the subject line “[last name]-proposal” to: fahc6papers@gmail.com. Submission Deadline: May 15, 2015. Invitations to participate will be sent by July 1. Send general queries to: fahc2015queries@gmail.com.

Keynote speaker: Professor Amelia Jones, University of Southern California: “The Curating of Feminist Art (or is it the Feminist Curating of Art?)”

Sponsored by the Art History Program and the Department of Art, College of Arts and Sciences, American University. Organizing committee: Juliet Bellow, Norma Broude, Kim Butler Wingfield, Mary D. Garrard, Helen Langa, Andrea Pearson, and Ying-chen Peng

From the Call for Papers:

Fancy‒Fantaisie‒Capriccio: Diversions and Distractions in the Eighteenth Century
Toulouse, 3–4 December 2015

Proposals due by 31 March 2015

Keynote speaker: Professor Martin Postle, Deputy Director of Studies, Paul Mellon Centre for British Art

In conjunction with the exhibition of paintings, Fantasy Figures, to be held at the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, the Université de Toulouse Jean Jaurès and the University of Exeter are pleased to announce a call for papers for an interdisciplinary colloquium.

Associated with the imagination and not reason, fancy (fantaisie) in the eighteenth century was a sort of whimsical distraction from the everyday. For Voltaire it was ‘a singular desire, a passing whim’ (‘un désir singulier, un goût passager’), while for Samuel Johnson it was ‘something that pleases or entertains without real use or value’. Together with its near-synonym caprice (capriccio), fancy was part of a rich semantic network, connecting wit, pleasure, erotic desire, spontaneity, improvisation, surprise, deviation from norms, the trivial and inconsequential. Unpredictable and quirky, it offered many outlets for artistic creativity.

Papers are invited that investigate the expressive freedom of fancy (fantaisie, capriccio) in European culture during the eighteenth century—in figure and landscape painting, architecture and garden design, philosophy and fiction, theatre and music. Topics may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Tensions between fancy/capriccio and reason
• Fancy’s relationship to the imagination
• Fancy as a precursor of the Gothic and the fantastic
• The fancy picture or tête de fantaisie
• Capriccio in landscape, architectural painting, engraving
• Fancy in conjunction with a space, place or decorative schema
• Fantasia in musical composition or musical theatre
• Anecdote, imagination and desire in fiction
• The role of fancy in the discourse of love and seduction
• Creativity as a deviation from norms and rules

The colloquium will incorporate a guided visit of the fantasy figures exhibition with the curators. It is hoped that a volume of published essays will arise from the event. Participants should be prepared to meet their own travel and accommodation expenses. Refreshments will be provided on the day. Proposals (maximum 250 words in English or French) should be submitted to Professor Melissa Percival, University of Exeter, M.H.Percival@exeter.ac.uk by the 31 March 2015.

From H-ArtHist:

Artistic Correspondences: Rome and Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries
Rome, 15–16 June 2015

Proposals due by 1 March 2015

Epistolary correspondence among artists is a privileged source to unravel the dynamics of intellectual exchange across regional and national boundaries, as it requires a research agenda necessarily focused on ‘mobility’, and a transnational approach and methodology avoiding the rhetorical pitfalls of past European historiography. By focusing on the cosmopolitan context of 18th- and 19th-century Rome as a paradigmatic field of enquiry, the research network Artistic Correspondences: Rome and Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries aims to recast epistolary exchanges among artists as an inescapable source of information on the transnational circulation of a shared stock of artworks, people, books, models, technical and critical skills across Europe. The organizing research team would like to meet other academics and research groups working on the same topic in order to explore new opportunities of collaboration at a European level.

The workshop to be held in Rome, 15–16 June 2015, is intended to explore new forms of research collaboration and dissemination of sources (e.g. networks, databases, digital repositories, etc.). The ultimate goal of the workshop is to initiate a debate leading to the construction of a digital platform of artists’ correspondences in the modern era. The workshop endorses a synchronic and diachronic approach to the study of artistic correspondences that will enable the mapping of geographical trajectories and cultural exchanges. We particularly welcome proposals illustrating the role of artists’ letters as a tool to study the history and historiography of collections from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective; as a source offering new clues on the education and professional training of artists and their self promotion (e.g., the links between artists and institutions, artists and patrons, artists and intellectuals, etc.); as a document to trace the circulation of ideas and practices, rather than for sketching individual biographies (with a focus, therefore, on itineraries, geographies, social exchange, etc.); as a material providing insight on technical and specific terminology (e.g. words of practice, description of works of art, etc.).

Abstracts (maximum 200 words) for 25-minute papers should be submitted to Serenella Rolfi (serenella.rolfi@uniroma3.it) before 1 March 2015. We intend to provide travel allowance and/or accommodation for speakers with accepted papers.

Conference Committee: Serenella Rolfi (Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università di Roma TRE), Giovanna Capitelli (Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Università della Calabria), Susanne Adina Meyer (Dipartimento di Scienze della formazione, dei beni culturali e del turismo, Università di Macerata), Ilaria Miarelli Mariani (Dipartimento di Lettere, Arti e Scienze Sociali, Università di Chieti), Christoph Frank and Carla Mazzarelli (Istituto di Storia e Teoria dell’arte e dell’architettura, Università della Svizzera Italiana), Maria Pia Donato (CNRS Institut d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine). With the cooperation of KNIR, Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome and of the Svenska Institutet i Rom.

From the conference website:

Irishness? Changing Perspectives on Irish Identity, 1700–1914
Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, 14 May 2015

Proposals due by 28 February 2015

Papers are invited from postgraduates and early career researchers for a one-day workshop at the University of Edinburgh. The workshop will explore the changes that took place in Irish society and identity formation between 1700 and 1914. We hope to move away from the standard narrative of rebellion and famine which currently dominate conferences on Irish history and studies. While acknowledging the role played by politics and rebellion in the moulding of Irish society, this workshop will approach the changes in how Irish people saw themselves, and how they were seen by others, from angles that are often excluded from the mainstream academic narrative. We hope to attract papers from students of cultural, social and economic history, history of art, literature, and other fields to create a truly interdisciplinary discussion on the idea of what constitutes Irish identity.

In accordance with the non-traditional approach of this workshop, the format of the event will consist of morning and afternoon panels of papers from a variety of disciplines, followed by a late afternoon roundtable discussion, which although led by a senior academic, will encourage all attendees to engage on issues raised by the research earlier in the day, and on discussion of the future of the wider field of Irish Studies.

While this one-day workshop will be primarily concerned with Ireland and Irish society, we are keen to stress that Irish society was not purely influenced by the events within the national-boundaries of Ireland and the wider United Kingdom. To this end, this workshop will also incorporate notions of, and ideas about, ‘Irishness’ which involve those who self-identified, or were identified by others, as Irish, whatever their ancestry, religious inheritance, current location, or personal allegiances.

Abstracts of 200–300 words that relate to this theme are sought. Please send enquiries and abstracts to organisers Maeve O’Dwyer and Sophie Cooper (perspectivesonirishness@gmail.com) by 28 February 2015. The workshop will take place on 14 May 2015 at the University of Edinburgh.

From the Call for Articles:

Court Etiquette: Normative Texts and Customs, 2014–16 Research Progamme
Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles

Antoine Dieu, Marriage of Louis de France, Duke of Burgundy and Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, 7 December 1697 (Château de Versailles)

For its three-year research programme (2014–16), the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles has launched a research axis on Court Etiquette: Normative Texts and Customs and wishes to publish articles related to this subject in the Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles.

Although the word etiquette has today taken on an accepted meaning that might appear clear and well defined, it quickly becomes clear that this notion is far from self-evident. In addition to the fact that people often confuse ‘ceremonial’, ‘protocol’ and ‘etiquette’, the latter term was only used rarely at the time, and often with very different meanings. Whether in Richelet’s dictionary or Furetière’s, the lexicographers took it in what was essentially a legal sense. In fact, in France, the word related to elements of judicial procedure. However, the dictionary of the Académie Française (starting with its 1718 edition and in the last definition it gives of the word) recalls the familiar use of this word in Spain in the sense of “what must be done daily in the King’s Household, and in the principal ceremonies.” The absence of the current definition of the word etiquette in contemporary dictionaries in no way means that the word was not used in this sense in the language. We have evidence of this in a letter by Madame Palatine dated 3 February 1679 in which the Duchess of Orléans explained that she had never been able to get used to this “insipid etiquette.”

Bernard Hours in his study on the court of Louis XV describes the historical authenticity and origins of French etiquette (Louis XV et Sa Cour, Paris, PUF, coll. “Le Nœud Gordien”, 2002, p. 77–98). It goes back to the Burgundian court of Philippe le Bon in the 15th century when “it referred to a written formula setting out the timetable of the prince and his court” (ibid., p. 78). From then on, there was an effort to retain the customs in order to perpetuate them. As situations developed, so did etiquette and each new code was recorded to establish a precedent.

This line of research aims to formalise the unwritten customs of the French court. In fact, in contrast to the many systematic studies carried out particularly on the Hapsburg court in Madrid and those on the court in Vienna, French etiquette has always been universally viewed according to the customs and rituals of the court. The main objective here is to understand the evolution of etiquette as it developed, improved and declined.

Article proposals can deal with one or several of the following themes and lines of enquiry:
• The definition of etiquette
• The origins and emergence of etiquette
• The nature of etiquette in relation to court ritual
• The circumstances in which etiquette was applied (large household, ceremonial occasions, rituals) and etiquette according to topography, and vice versa
• Etiquette as a political tool, or a means to control or civilise
• Who determines or arbitrates on matters of etiquette?
• Are courtisans the protagonists, driving force or victims of etiquette?
• A Europe-wide expansion of etiquette

Authors can refer to a non-exhaustive bibliography on the subject (available as a PDF file).

Article proposals (abstracts of about 5,000 characters) should be addressed to Mathieu da Vinha (mathieu.da-vinha@chateauversailles.fr) in French or in English. These proposals will be reviewed by the scientific committee. If the proposals are accepted by the scientific committee, the full articles will be examined both by the latter and by two members of the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles’s peer review committee (or by external scholars appointed by the scientific or peer review committee if necessary). Articles must be submitted before 31 December 2015. Proposals can be submitted in French, English, German, Italian, or Spanish. The final articles will be 40,000 characters maximum (bibliography and footnotes included). Authors should comply with the editorial guidelines of the Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles.

Scientific Committee of the Court Etiquette Research Programme
Mathieu da Vinha (Centre de recherche du château de Versailles), Raphaël Masson (château de Versailles), Alice Camus (Centre de recherche du château de Versailles), Delphine Carrangeot (université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, centre de recherche ESR-DYPAC), Nicole Lallement (Centre de recherche du château de Versailles), Bénédicte Lecarpentier-Bertrand (université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne), Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier (université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, centre de recherche ESR-DYPAC), Benjamin Ringot (Centre de recherche du château de Versailles)

Peer Review Committee
Marc Bayard (Mobilier national), Monique Chatenet (université Paris-Sorbonne/École du Louvre), Anne Conchon (université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Claire Constans (conservateur général honoraire du patrimoine), Alexandre Gady (Centre André Chastel/université Paris-Sorbonne), Pauline Lemaigre-Gaffier (université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, centre de recherche ESR-DYPAC), Nicolas Le Roux (université Lumière – Lyon 2),Nicole Reinhardt (université de Durham, Grande-Bretagne), Thierry Sarmant (musée Carnavalet)

From H-ArtHist:

Know Thyself: A Conference on Early Modern Images
University College London, 2 May 2015

Proposals due by 2 February 2015

Nosce te ipsum/ know thyself

The tragedy of Narcissus was his failure to recognise the image he admired on the surface of the pool as his own. His fate might have improved, had he possessed the deeper self-knowledge implied by the Delphic maxim, “know thyself.” The question prompted by Narcissus, of how images pertain to self-knowledge, is especially relevant to the Early Modern period, during which the ancient aphorism nosce te ipsum was engaged provocatively in a range of visual material: it is quoted in illustrations of anatomy, natural history and cartography, and evoked in religious and secular works of art. This renewed cultural imperative to self-knowledge is bound up with the scientific and technological advancements of the period. It is epitomised by the technical refinement of the looking glass, which enabled a person to admire—or better, scrutinise—her own face with unprecedented clarity.

The premise of this conference is that consideration of the Delphic maxim can be productively channeled into interrogating the role of the image in relation to the self: How might images mobilise the philosophical challenge to “know thyself”? What are the mechanisms within images that invite participation in the practices of selfdiscovery and self-representation? The conference aims to explore the role of visuality in the early modern pursuit of self-knowledge in a broad sense. As such, it invites approaches to visual material by which the Delphic maxim is evoked knowingly, or otherwise. Focusing on images from the period c.1500–1800, proposals for papers may include, but are by no means limited to: mortality and bodily materiality, cultural identity and difference (race, religion, gender…), subjectivity and self-fashioning, and encounters with the new world and new technologies.

UCL Department of History of Art invites proposals for 20-minute presentations on the theme of ‘self-knowledge’ in early modern images. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to Sophie Morris
sophie.morris@ucl.ac.uk and Nathanael Price n.price.12@ucl.ac.uk by 2nd February 2015.

From H-ArtHist:

Thematic Issue of Perspective: La Revue de l’INHA—Textiles
Submissions due by 31 March 2015

The forthcoming thematic issue of Perspective: La Revue de l’INHA (slated for publication in December 2016 and conceived jointly with the Mobilier national and the Manufactures nationales) will be devoted to textiles across different periods and different places of production and use. The double purpose of this issue is to bring together articles that represent the state of recent—or even ongoing (in the case of Switzerland, Germany and France)—research, while at the same time following single diachronic threads: from medieval embroidery to Louise Bourgeois’s arachnid works, from the ornamentation of the body in antiquity to the Silk Road… It will provide an occasion to examine the textile craft as portrayed by Diego Velázquez in Las Hilanderas (1657, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado); indeed, this seminal painting from the artist’s abundant oeuvre inspires precisely the sort of innovative study that considers the notion of textile as a metaphorical and intermedial space, whereby the canvas reveals itself as both surface and subject.

While textiles offer art history a plethora of objects and subjects, the field must also open itself to interdisciplinary dialogue involving labor history, gender studies, and museum studies, as well as material culture studies, postcolonial studies, economic history, and geopolitics, especially as it relates to the procurement of raw materials. Art history is similarly strengthened when it brings scientific and technical history to bear on the fabrication of hand-made or industrial artifacts. The history of artisans and other agents, from producers to consumers, also offers particularly rich areas of study, on topics ranging from the Cévennes weavers of yesteryear to today’s Bangladeshi textile workers to visitors at the Centre national du costume de scène (National Center for Stage Costumes) in Moulins. In the context of a denationalized history of art, it is possible to examine—to name just a few—the industry of Indian-inspired cotton fabrics in eighteenth-century Europe, the international distribution in the twentieth century of ready-made clothing manufactured in China, or the many avatars of African textiles that reappear, for example, in the contemporary art of Yinka Shonibare, but that can also be traced through the long history of Benin appliqué cloths or the appropriation of ancestral textile practices in contemporary art of the Maghreb.

The issue will delve into the worlds of cultivation (sowing and harvesting), manufacture (weaving, dyeing, tailoring), and local and international commerce, and, more generally, examine the manifold uses of textiles in all periods and in all the corners of the globe. Artists have constantly been reinventing their relationship to textility as both ideal and material, from Mesoamerican feather cloth to Jana Sterbak’s Flesh Dress, not to mention the well-established archetypal relationship with abstract painting. Finally, a diachronic exploration of the history of textile institutions is also encouraged, ranging from centuries-old traditional manufactures to franchised fashion institutes such as the Parsons The New School for Design, now established in New York, Paris, and Shanghai. Similarly, much can be gained from looking more closely at museums involved in the conservation, restoration, or exhibition of textiles, or even the re-creation of old textiles and the commissioning of contemporary creations (Aubusson, Beauvais, The Gobelins).

These numerous topics (textile archeology, printed embroidery materials, theories of the arabesque, sampling processes, etc.) and objects (wall hangings, rugs, lace, clothing, upholstery, stage props, sculpted draperies, and so on) represent a variety of leads that Perspective wishes to explore. The thematic issue on textiles will comprise articles representing multiple forms and contents. Proposals may fall into one of two categories: either a synthetic article highlighting a particular aspect of textiles (25,000 characters/4,000 words) or a historiographical study concentrating on a specific medium, territory of production, or historical period whose textile specificity (in terms of materials, style, etc.) remains to be defined (45,000 characters/7,000 words).

This call for papers does not aim to cover all of the projected subjects. All submissions are therefore welcome, although we wish to favor, as far as possible, a trans-chronological approach. Submissions will be examined by the editorial committee for the issue, which includes Marc Bayard, Marion Boudon-Machuel, Catherine Breniquet, Pascale Charron, Rossella Froissart, Charlotte Guichard, Rémi Labrusse, Anne Lafont, Johanne Lamoureux, Philippe Malgouyres, Sara Martinetti, Nicole Pellegrin, Zahia Rahmani, Katie Scott, Philippe Sénéchal, Philippe Thiébaud, Merel van Tilburg, and Tristan Weddigen.

Please send submissions (a 2000–3000 character/300–500 word abstract and a 2–3 line biography) to revue-perspective@inha.fr by March 31, 2015.