Enfilade

From H-ArtHist:

The Allure of Rome: João V of Portugal and His Cultural Policy in the European Context
New University, Lisbon, 15–18 July 2015

Proposals due by 19 December 2014

João V (1689–1750) is believed to be the Portuguese Sun King. He not only put Portugal into the European politics raising its prestige to unknown levels but he also developed an ambitious artistic policy supported by huge spending in art, music and luxury items. Considering João V’s transcendence, it is surprising the relatively lack of interest showed by non-Portuguese historians regarding his role in the European cultural context. This panel will deal with the King’s artistic policy in Europe with especial attention to Rome. Rome was the dreamed city of the ‘gentiluomini’ and artists who used to travel to Italy to improve their education and their training. Joao V wanted to spend some time enjoying his own Grand Tour but his political responsibilities didn’t allowed him to take that journey. This ‘viaggio mancato’ was without doubt some kind of frustration and part of his artistic policy can be better understood if we keep that in mind.

The king went through great artistic/cultural investments to display his wealth and power and to achieve a stronger position in Europe, but also because he obviously has a very particular taste. He supported lavish ambassadors entrées, made substantial donations to the Pope and became (in absentia) one of the most generous art patrons in Rome. He commissioned hundreds of masterpieces, namely the magnificent sculptures for his Royal palace in Mafra or the sumptuous San Rocco’s chapel in Lisbon, and he and his courtiers became some of the most influential collectors in the awakening of the Grand Tour. We encourage papers dealing with (but not only):

• Cultural milieu and artistic trade in the Embassies
• The print collection and the Mariettes
• Art market in Rome
• Collectors and diplomats as trade agents for the king

Contact: Pilar Diez del Corral (FCSH, Univ. Nova de Lisboa), pcorral@fcsh.unl.pt

From H-Asia:

Rhetorics of Landscape: Court and Society in the Early Modern World
Proposals due by 21 November 2014

I am seeking targeted contributions for an edited volume exploring the role of landscape in the articulation and expression of imperial and elite identities and the mediation of relationships between courts and their many audiences across the early modern world. Through a series of focused studies from Asia, the Islamic world, and Europe, the volume seeks to illuminate how early modern courts and societies shaped, and were shaped by, the landscape, including both physical sites, such as gardens, palaces, cities and hunting parks, and conceptual ones, such as those of frontiers, idealized polities, and the cosmos. Please see description of the volume rationale below.

Proposals focusing on landscapes from all regions in Asia from the 16th to the 19th century are welcome. Areas of particular interest include, but are by no means limited to, Ming and Qing China; Choson Korea; Tokugawa Japan; pre-colonial Southeast Asia; the Mughal empire; Rajput states; the Ottomans, and Central Asian states. The volume is in preparation for submission to a US-based university press and will be peer-reviewed. Finished essays should be approximately 6,000–9,000 words inclusive of notes.

Potential contributors should plan on submitting a first draft for internal editing and comments by the end of January 2015, with drafts for peer review by 1 April 2015 (there may be some flexibility around deadline; please be in touch if you are interested but need a different schedule). Interested scholars should submit a proposal of 250–500 words and CV by Friday 21 November 2014, to stephen.whiteman@sydney.edu.au. Questions and comments are also welcome.

Stephen Whiteman
Department of Art History & Film Studies
The University of Sydney

(more…)

I’m glad to put in a good word for MAHS, an organization that far exceeds common expectations of a regional society. Particularly because of its commitments to bringing together scholars from both the museum world and the academy, the organization fills a vital need within the field of art history in America. Conference participants will be in for a treat with the Minneapolis Institute of Arts’ hosting the exhibition Habsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections during the event. The program will include general sessions on ‘Architecture’, ‘American Art’, ‘Latin American Art’, and ‘Nordic Art’; thematic sessions addressing ‘Midwest Collections’, ‘Representing Non-European Religions in Early Modern Europe’, ‘Clothing, Textiles, and Fiber’, ‘Decorative Arts and Design’, ‘Gender and Sexuality’, and ‘Prints and Drawings’; along with period panels on ‘Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Art’ and ‘Nineteenth-Century Art’. See the newsletter for a full listing. –CH

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Midwest Art History Society Conference
Minneapolis and St. Paul, 26–28 March 2015

Proposals due by 15 December 2014

The University of St. Thomas Department of Art History is pleased to announce that we are co-hosting the 42nd annual Midwest Art History Society Conference with the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, with additional support from the Weisman Art Museum and the Thrivent Financial Collection of Religious Art. The conference will be held in the Twin Cities, March 26–28, 2015. Please consider submitting a proposal to present at the conference. There are a variety of thematic sessions planned, along with open sessions in many fields of the discipline, as well as a panel set aside for research by undergraduates. More information about the event, including descriptions of the sessions and instructions for application, is available in the MAHS newsletter.

From H-ArtHist:

Does your research into architectural history deserve a wider public? The Architectural Review seeks contributors for its new History section, a 1,200-word feature which aims to bring the unexamined to light and open new perspectives on more familiar questions. Any subject relating to architecture or urbanism will be considered, whether it concerns a practice, person, building, exhibition, event, or a wider theme. However, international topics having current relevance for an audience of architects, historians, and non-specialists alike are particularly welcome. The tone should be witty and engaging, but also informed and authoritative.

Forthcoming examples include essays on British architecture on the eve of the First World War, queer Gothic space, Walter Gropius’s Playboy Club in London, and a postwar estate of Scandinavian-style houses for the intelligentsia in Warsaw.

Abstracts of 200 words maximum, plus a short biography, should be sent to the magazine’s History Editor, Tom Wilkinson, tom.wilkinson@emap.com.

From the project website:

Domestic Devotions in the Early Modern World, 1400–1800
St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge, 9–11 July 2015

Proposals due by 7 January 2014

Across faiths and regions and throughout the world, the home was a centre for devotion in the early modern period. Holy books, prayer mats, candlesticks, inscriptions, icons, altars, figurines of saints and deities, paintings, prints and textiles all wove religion into the very fabric of the home. While research into religious practice during this period often focuses on institutions and public ceremonies, it is clear that the home played a profound role in shaping devotional experience, as a place for religious instruction, private prayer and contemplation, communal worship, and the performance of everyday rituals.

The ERC-funded research project Domestic Devotions: The Place of Piety in the Italian Renaissance Home will be hosting this three-day international interdisciplinary conference in July 2015. The project team invites proposals for 20-minute papers that explore domestic devotions in the early modern world. Papers may consider this theme from a variety of perspectives, including material culture studies, art and architectural history, gender studies, theology, religious studies, economic and social history, literary studies, musicology, archaeology and anthropology. Topics may include, though are not limited to

• Religion, ritual and belief in the home
• The use of images, objects or books in private devotion
• Daily life and life cycles
• The relationships between collective (e.g. institutional or non-familial) devotion and private devotion
• The role of the senses in spiritual experience
• The production and ownership of religious objects found in the home
• Gender, race or age and devotional life
• Policing and regulating household religion
• Encounters between different faiths and traditions in domestic context
• Domestic devotional spaces
• Music in domestic devotion
• Devotional literature

Plenary speakers will be Debra Kaplan (Bar-Ilan University), Andrew Morrall (Bard Graduate Center) and Virginia Reinburg (Boston College).

Please email abstracts of no more than 300 words to Maya Corry at mc878@cam.ac.uk, Marco Faini at mf531@cam.ac.uk, and Alessia Meneghin at am2253@cam.ac.uk by 7th January 2015. Along with your abstract please include your name, institution, paper title and a brief biography. Successful applicants will be notified by 7th February 2015.

The conference will take place at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. College accommodation will be bookable nearer the time. Registration fees (tbc) will be kept as low as possible and graduate bursaries will be available to help with costs.

From the conference website:

Scientiae, Toronto 2015
Victoria College, University of Toronto, 27–29 May 2015

Proposals due by 17 November 2014

Keynotes by Anthony Grafton (Princeton) & Peter Dear (Cornell)

Paper, panel, and round-table proposals are invited for the fourth annual international conference on the emergent knowledge practices of the early-modern period (1450–1750). The major premise of this conference is that knowledge during the period of the Scientific Revolution was inherently interdisciplinary, involving complex mixtures of practices and objects which had yet to be separated into their modern ‘scientific’ hierarchies. Our approach, therefore, needs to be equally wide-ranging, involving Biblical exegesis, art theory, logic, and literary humanism; as well as natural philosophy, alchemy, occult practices, and trade knowledge. Attention is also given to mapping intellectual geographies through the tools of the digital humanities. Always, our focus must be on the subject-matter at hand, rather than on the disciplinary performances by which we access it. Although centred around the emergence of modern natural science, Scientiae is intended for scholars working in any area of early-modern intellectual culture.

Abstracts for individual papers of 20 minutes should be between 250 and 350 words in length. For panel sessions of 1 hour and 30 minutes, a list of speakers and chair (with affiliations), a 500-word panel abstract, and individual abstracts from each speaker are required. Newly at Scientiae 2015, we also invite proposals for a limited number of topic-based roundtable sessions. These should feature brief presentations from 2 or 3 knowledgeable speakers on a defined but broad issue in early-modern intellectual history, with the intention of opening up multilateral discussion from the floor—the main business of the session. All submissions should be made by 17 November 2014 using the online form here.

We are also pleased to announce that Mario Biagioli (UC Davis), Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck), Peter Dear (Cornell), Anthony Grafton (Princeton), and Jonathan Sawday (SLU) have joined the Advisory Board of the Scientiae conferences.

From H-ArtHist:

Entre l’œil et le monde: dispositifs et expédients d’une nouvelle
épistémologie visuelle dans les sciences de la nature entre 1740 et 1840
Université de Neuchâtel, 4–7 November 2015

Proposals due by 5 January 2014

I. Contexte de l’événement

Du 6 au 7 novembre 2014 aura lieu à Neuchâtel un colloque intitulé “‘La bêtise des yeux’. Illusions des sens et épistémologie visuelle au XVIIIe siècle” (“‘Der Augen Blödigkeit’. Trugwahrnehmungen und visuelle Epistemologie im 18. Jahrhundert”). Il s’agit de se pencher sur les dimensions physiologique, individuelle et sociale du processus de perception visuelle, tel que le mettent en scène la littérature, les beaux-arts et la philosophie du XVIIIe siècle. Nous avons placé au centre de cette rencontre les expériences visuelles problématiques, qu’elles relèvent de l’illusion ou soulignent la faiblesse des sens, voire le caractère trompeur des informations prodiguées par ceux-ci, relativisant ainsi la valeur d’une connaissance essentiellement fondée sur une ‘idéologie de la lumière et de l’œil’. En novembre 2015, un second volet de cette réflexion sera organisé autour de questions plus spécifiquement liées aux sciences naturelles et expérimentales des années 1740 à 1840. (more…)

As noted at Le Blog de L’ApAhAu:

Charles de La Fosse et les arts en France autour de 1700
Château de Versailles, 18–19 May 2015

Proposals due by 15 December 2014

Charles de la Fosse, Clitia Changed into a Sunflower, 1688, 128 x 156 cm (Versailles: Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon)

En complément de l’exposition Charles de La Fosse qui se tiendra au Château de Versailles du 23 février au 24 mai 2015, l’établissement public du château, du musée et du domaine national de Versailles et le centre recherche du Château de Versailles organisent un colloque sur l’artiste, les lundi 18 et mardi 19 mai 2015.

L’exposition, organisée en cinq grandes sections (les commandes pour les maisons royales ; La Fosse dessinateur ; la tradition académique ; le triomphe du coloris ; un précurseur du XVIIIe siècle) sera en effet de l’occasion de faire le point sur un artiste majeur de la seconde moitié du règne de Louis XIV.

Le colloque voudrait être à la fois un approfondissement et un élargissement du propos de l’exposition et permettre de mieux situer La Fosse dans les enjeux de la pratique artistique autour de 1700. Il s’articulera donc en quatre grandes sections, chacune avec plusieurs thématiques possibles (indiquées ici à titre d’exemple), qui pourront accueillir entre trois et cinq communications d’environ 20/25 minutes:
• L’art de La Fosse (la question du dessin; les artistes contemporains élèves ou collaborateurs de La Fosse)
• Le grand décor au temps de La Fosse (quadratura et plafond; le grand décor religieux)
• La mythologie vue par La Fosse et ses contemporains (Apollon- Soleil; Clytie et les fleurs; les amours des dieux)
• La Fosse et le rayonnement des capitales artistiques (Venise à Paris; le séjour Londres; le cercle Crozat)

Toute personne qui souhaiterait présenter une communication doit envoyer un synopsis de celle-ci en 300–500 mots pourvu d’un titre, avec un curriculum vitae d’une page avant le 15 décembre 2015 à
beatrice.sarrazin@chateauversailles.fr et olivier.bonfait@u-bourgogne.fr. Les réponses seront données autour du 10 janvier. Le colloque devrait pouvoir être publié.

Direction scientifique
Béatrice Sarrazin (Conservateur général au Château de Versailles et de Trianon) et Olivier Bonfait (professeur à l’Université de Bourgogne)

Comité scientifique
Olivier Bonfait (professeur à l’Université de Bourgogne), Adeline Collange-Perugi (conservateur au musée des beaux-arts de Nantes), Clémentine Gustin-Gomez (historienne de l’art), Béatrice Sarrazin (Conservateur général au Château de Versailles et de Trianon).

While this conference falls outside of art history, some readers may find it useful, and it got me thinking, by way of analogy, about the relationship between printed texts and manuscripts, on the one hand, and prints and drawings on the other. Might there be a productive way of thinking about all four together? If someone has just written a brilliant book, dissertation, or article on the topic, I would be glad to learn about it. –CH

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From the ASECS listserv:

After Print: Manuscripts in the Eighteenth Century
The University of California, Santa Barbara, 24 April 2015

Proposals due by 15 December 2014

Co-sponsored by the Mellon Fellowship in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School and the UCSB Early Modern Center

This one-day conference at UCSB will bring together junior and senior scholars to explore the continued vitality of manuscript publication and circulation in the eighteenth century. Scholars now often take for granted that the eighteenth century constituted an established ‘print culture’, whether that culture was inherent in the technology or forged by its users. By the age of Addison and Pope, this narrative contends, the spread of print and lapse of licensing had rendered superfluous a manuscript world of scurrilous libels, courtly poetry, and weekly newsletters. But a growing body of research is arguing for the ongoing importance of manuscript production and publication into the Romantic period, and for a critical stance that questions the solidity of the print-manuscript binary. In texts from diaries and journals to notes, letters, sheet music, scientific observations, and hybrid multimedia documents, scholars are turning their attention to the manuscript traditions and innovations that were also central to eighteenth-century literature. And they are drawing connections to our own moment of protracted media shift, focusing on aggregative, iterative steps rather than a single ‘revolution’.

After Print will join this exciting subfield by exploring a range of manuscript practices in the long eighteenth century. Margaret Ezell, distinguished professor of English and Sara and John Lindsay Chair of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University—whose works Social Authorship and the Advent of Print (1999) and The Patriarch’s Wife: Literary Evidence and the History of the Family (1987) have been foundational to the field—will deliver the keynote lecture on Friday evening. Proposals are solicited for papers on any aspect of eighteenth-century studies related to the theme; in particular, proposals are welcomed from junior scholars (graduate students, postdocs, and untenured faculty) for a special panel on new methods. Limited travel support for junior scholars may be available. Please send paper proposals by December 15 to Rachael Scarborough King (Asst. Prof. of English, UCSB), rking@english.ucsb.edu.

As noted at H-ArtHist:

Saint-Ours Aujourd’hui
Geneva, 19–21 November 2015

Proposals due by 30 November 2014

À l’occasion de l’exposition rétrospective consacrée à Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours (1752–1809), le Musée d’art et d’histoire (MAH) et le Département d’histoire de l’art de l’Université de Genève lui consacreront un colloque international, à Genève, du 19 au 21 novembre 2015. Ce colloque souhaiterait faire le point de la recherche, passée et présente, sur l’un des peintres les plus importants de l’histoire des arts à Genève.

Invitant des spécialistes confirmés mais aussi de jeunes chercheurs, ce colloque offrira aussi l’occasion de réinterroger les relations que les peintres genevois ont établies avec les autres artistes européens et la place des arts à Genève à la fin du XVIIIe siècle et au début du XIXe siècle.

Les chercheur-e-s intéressé-e-s sont prié-e-s de transmettre
•    le titre envisagé et un résumé de 300 mots de leur conférence
•    un bref curriculum-vitae, agrémenté d’une éventuelle liste de publications

à Jan Blanc jan.blanc@unige.ch, avant le 30 novembre 2014

An extended Call for Papers with bibliography is available at Le Blog de L’ApAhAu.