Enfilade

From New College, Oxford:

James Gillray@200: Caricaturist without a Conscience?
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 28 March 2015

Proposals due by 15 November 2014

James Gillray’s reputation in the two centuries since his death has been as varied and layered as his prints. Trained at the Royal Academy, he failed at reproductive printmaking, yet became, according to the late-eighteenth-century Weimar journal London und Paris, one of the greatest European artists of the era. Napoleon, from his exile on St Helena, allegedly remarked that Gillray’s prints did more to run him out of power than all the armies of Europe. In England, patriots had hired him to propagandize against the French and touted him as a great national voice, but he was an unreliable gun-for-hire. At a large public banquet, during the heat of anti-Revolutionary war fever, he even raised a toast to his fellow artist, the regicide, Jacques-Louis David. Gillray produced a highly individual, highly schooled, and often outlandish body of work with no clear moral compass that undermines the legend of the caricaturist as the voice and heart of the people, so that the late Richard Godfrey described him as a caricaturist without a conscience. Following 2001 and 2004 retrospectives in London and New York, and fuelled by scholarship of a new generation of thinkers, our era’s Gillray is just now coming into focus.

To commemorate the 200th anniversary of Gillray’s death, and in conjunction with the Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition, Love Bites: Caricatures of James Gillray (26 March – 21 June 2015), based on New College’s outstanding collection, we are organizing a one-day symposium at the Ashmolean Museum to hear and see the latest Gillray scholarship.

We seek proposals papers that address any aspect of Gillray’s work or that consider artistic duty or purposeful negligence of duty in the period around 1800. Comparative, formal, contextual, and theoretical approaches to Gillray and our theme are all welcome. Proposals should be a maximum of 200 words and be accompanied by a short bibliographical statement.

Organised by Todd Porterfield (Université de Montréal), Martin Myrone (Tate Britain), and Michael Burden (New College, Oxford), with Ersy Contogouris (Université de Montréal)

All enquiries should be addressed initially to the New College Dean’s Secretary, Jacqui Julier, jacqui.julier@new.ox.ac.uk, to whom all abstracts should be submitted by 15 November 2014. The programme will be announced on 21 November 2014.

From INHA:

L’image Railleuse: La satire dans l’art et la culture visuelle, du 18e siècle à nos jours
Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, 25–27 June 2015

Proposals due by 30 October 2014

Colloque international organisé par l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, l’Université du Québec à Montréal et le LARHRA UMR 5190 de Lyon

La satire, soit l’attaque moqueuse, contestataire ou réformatrice d’un individu, d’un groupe, d’une époque, voire de toute une culture, constitue l’une des armes privilégiées de la fonction critique des images et, au-delà, de l’ensemble des artefacts visuels. Se constituant en genre littéraire dès l’Antiquité, la satire a gagné les beaux-arts et les arts graphiques à l’âge classique, seule ou en conjonction avec l’écrit. Ce sont toutefois les médias modernes—édition, presse, expositions, télévision, internet—qui, en élargissant progressivement sa sphère d’influence, ont renouvelé ses formes et ses objectifs, et augmenté leur efficacité. Autorisant une diffusion planétaire et presque instantanée des images satiriques, internet et les technologies numériques n’ont pas seulement transformé la matérialité et les moyens d’action de cette imagerie et leurs effets socio-politiques, ils ont aussi affecté les formes de la recherche sur le satirique en donnant accès de plus en plus rapidement à des corpus extrêmement vastes. La satire est ainsi partout, et aucun acteur ni canal de diffusion ne peut prétendre désormais en contrôler ses usages généralisés.

Ce colloque porte sur la satire visuelle du 18e siècle à nos jours, entendue comme genre aussi bien que comme registre, selon que l’on s’intéresse à un type de représentations (caricaturale, en particulier) ou à une veine (le satirique) traversant de multiples champs, parmi lesquels celui de l’art contemporain. Envisagée dans sa visualité même, elle recouvre des objets, particuliers ou partagés, des mécanismes et des effets spécifiques que nous souhaitons interroger à partir des études visuelles.

Les propositions d’intervention de 30 minutes seront adressées avant le 30 octobre 2014 à frederique.desbuissons@inha.fr afin d’être examinées par le comité scientifique. Elles comprendront 500 mots maximum et seront accompagnées d’une courte bio-bibliographie.

Pour lire l’intégralité de l’appel à contributions, cliquez ici.

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Note (added 2 October 2014) — Here’s the English version:

Satire—which can be understood as the mocking, contesting or reforming prosecution of an individual, a group, an era, or an entire culture—is one of the main weapons of the critical function of images and, more broadly, of visual artefacts. Emerging as a literary genre in Antiquity, satire joined the fine arts, and particularly the graphic arts, in the early modern era, either on its own or in connection with the written word. Modern media—publishing, the press, exhibitions, television and the Internet—have progressively widened its sphere of influence, renewing its forms and objectives and increasing its efficacy. Enabling the worldwide and nearly instantaneous dissemination of satiric images, the Internet and digital media have not only transformed the materiality and means of this imagery and its socio-political effects, they have also had an impact on the forms that research can take with respect to the satiric, by giving ever swifter access to an ever-wider range of bodies of work. Satire is thus everywhere, and no actor nor platform of dissemination can now claim to control its generalized usages.

The subject of this conference is visual satire from the eighteenth century to today. Visual satire is understood not only as genre but also as a register, depending on whether one is interested in a type of representation (caricatural, in particular) or as a vein (the satiric) that crosses several fields, among which that of contemporary art. Satire, envisaged in its visuality, ranges across individual or shared objects, specific mechanisms and effects that we hope to question from the perspective of visual studies.

We welcome proposals for papers that address, but that need not necessarily be limited to, the following thematic strands :

1. Historiographical perspectives

How can we think about and construct a history of visual satire within the history of art and visual studies? Studies in caricature and graphic satire have been delineated by a number of (?) researchers and approaches, the limits of which are fairly precise and have contributed to the establishment of a pluridisciplinary set of tools that have tended to become normative. Following the first large inventory projects (Champfleury, Wright, Stephens and George) and studies centred on perception and psychoanalysis (as just one example, Gombrich and Kris), international research, based around the university, the museum, among collectors and archives, has given us results that typically align with a certain range of objectives: the publication of monographs and studies that focus on artistic procedure, on iconology, on political discourse or on the sociology of artists. It might be important to identify the characteristics of this wide range of approaches in order to understand the disciplinary impact they have had. In this international framework, do linguistic, territorial and ideological borders play a role? Beyond this, we might reflect on the impact of this work on our critical and historical consideration of the satiric as it manifests itself in contemporary art. In short: what does satire do, what has satire done to art history—and vice-versa?

2. Norms and inventivity : the creativity of the satirical

While it is possible to understand how the satirical and the caricatural have been used throughout the history of art, the integration of this artistic undertaking—or should we speak of process, mode, genre?—nevertheless sets up certain challenges for research. These challenges arise when we think through artists’ manipulation of cognitive and narrative elements (in the articulation of figural representation with the possibilities of narrative structure, for example). It might be useful, then, to think of visual satire as a form of inventivity that connects to a wider form of social behaviour, one that might index a satiric field in which a number of expressive forms, among them those of the visual arts, have their place. If satire can be linked to the parameters of normativity in a given society or period (parameters that might in turn be malleable according to shifting social contexts), might it be possible to consider the satiric or caricatural endeavour as the site of meta-representational undertakings? Can we connect the satiric endeavour to precise historical conditions?

3. Parody of art and autonomy of the satiric genre

Satire and caricature were part of artists’ graphic practices since well before the eighteenth century. Whether created as exercises or for private recreation, they often represent the personal sphere or the artistic community. Starting in the mid-nineteenth century, the satire of art becomes a genre in its own right and conquers a public that is all the more far-reaching(?) as access to contemporary art becomes democratized. At the same time, it becomes a set of recurring themes and processes, notably at the end of the century and even more so among certain avant-gardes of the twentieth century, modern or post-modern. What is the importance of this phenomenon? What does satire do to art, notably in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and what does art do to satire, especially in the twentieth and twenty-first? What are satire’s objectives, its publics, and to what aims?

4. The satiric body and violence

Satire cannot be reduced to a figure of rhetoric and to visual objects. Because it is a form of social and political action, its efficacy (whether rhetorical, effective or fantasized) makes it a weapon directed towards whatever it mocks. Its violence is deployed on three levels: it is made thematic in its motifs, instrumentalized so that its targets can be attacked, and shared with those who see it. Satire used against real persons, or against targets that are more collective and abstract (institutions, political ideas, social events, etc.) and that are almost always represented by characters or types, affects its spectators before it reaches those it targets. The corporeal dimension thus plays an important role in the workings of satire. It is sometimes put into play by caricature’s expressive deformation, thus leading to a somatism and a materialism of critical laughter. The modalities of this satirical violence will be the starting point for studies that can explore any of the paths it takes, or that can focus on the relationship between the strategies used and their resulting effects, as much for satire’s victim as for its spectator.

5. Materials and dissemination of satire

The efflorescence of the satiric genre is closely linked to the emergence of new means of reproduction and dissemination: engraving in the sixteenth century, the trade in prints, the introduction of lithography and the renewal of wood-engraving at the turn of the nineteenth century, photo-montage, etc. It seems nonetheless useful to develop a critique of the reality of such a deterministic account, both with respect to the periods just mentioned as well as in the case of more recent developments. More importantly, it seems important to measure the effects of dissemination on the modalities of reception. Several contemporary examples have shown the extent to which the Internet platform is itself a component of such a reception. In what terms is it necessary to consider this phenomenon? Does it have an impact on artists working today?

6. The configurations of the visual

Visual satire, as opposed to its literary counterpart, has elicited only too few historical and theoretical studies. What accounts for this contrasted situation? Is it because the reading of an image can be assimilated to that of a text? Is it because its elucidation is often determined by accompanying texts (dialogues, legends and other paratexts)? If so, how can we explain the ambiguity of satiric images, their semantic instability that means that the same figure can lead to highly divergent interpretations? Is this because the phenomenon is of the order of the visual, or is it due to something that might be fundamental to the satiric genre as a whole? These questions could be addressed through the study of visual and discursive configurations that are set in play in the field of satire.

On June 25th, a joint “Bande dessinée and satire” session will be presented in collaboration with the International Bande Dessinée Society and the International Comics and Graphic Novel Society. Proposals for papers, not to exceed 30 minutes, should be sent by October 30, 2014, to frederique.desbuissons@inha.fr in order to be sent to the Conference review board for evaluation. Proposals should be a maximum of 500 words in length and accompanied by a short bio-bibliography.

Heroes – Heroizations – Heroisms
Transformations and Conjunctures from Antiquity to the Modern Day
Freiburg, 19–20 Nov 2015

Proposals due by 15 November 2014

The discussion in history and the cultural sciences usually views heroic figures and their deeds as manifestations of human autonomy and agency. The planned conference confronts this viewpoint with the question of how the heroic is intertwined with material objects across various epochs and cultures. The goal is to gain a new perspective on assumptions concerning heroic agency and inquire into the relevance of current theoretical approaches (such as actor network theory, assemblage theory, new materialism) for discussions on the heroic as well as on the challenge the heroic presents for the material turn.

By virtue of their physicality, heroic figures themselves have a material dimension that influences their actions. But the capacity for heroic agency is also linked to the world of things and determined in a positive and a negative sense by artefacts and other objects, technologies, and media as well as their structures. The basic thesis of the conference is that the capacity for heroic agency manifests itself in charged assemblages of human and nonhuman protagonists, in the complex interactions between heroic figures and the influence of things they make use of, take action against, or even fuse with: from Hercules’ club to “machine heroes.” The conference invites papers focused on history, society, aesthetics, and the media that explore the following central aspects of this premise:

1) Things as conditions, extensions, and potentialisations of heroic agency: How dependent are heroic figures on their material attributes (weapons, armour, other implements)? Are things what make the hero into a hero in the first place? What material attributes are associated with the charisma of heroic figures? How and under what conditions do things and technologies serve to extend or augment the capacity for heroic agency? When and how do such extensions become catalysts for characterising the heroic? Is it possible to make out historical trends for such processes?

2) Things as resistance to and limitation of heroic agency: Under what circumstances are the possibilities of heroic agency limited by material circumstances? What natural objects or artefacts must heroes clash with to prove their exceptional abilities? What does it mean when heroes are confronted with the agency of artefacts or natural objects? How do technological and scientific innovations affect the possibilities of heroic agency (e.g., weapons of mass destruction or surveillance technologies that limit autonomous agency)? Which technologies tend to promote individual heroism and which collective heroism? Under what social or political conditions did or does this happen? Can heroism be paid for or rewarded by material means?

3) Things as modifications, optimisations, or substitutions of the hero’s body: How does the materiality of the hero’s own body limit his or her capacity for agency, and how is it possible to compensate for this limitation through modification of the hero’s body? How far do imagination and reality go in this respect? When and with what consequences for our understanding of the heroic does the body of the hero finally itself become a thing (machine heroes, cyborgisation) and at what point is the hero substituted entirely by things (drones instead of soldiers)?

4) Things as heroes: Can nonhuman agency be heroised or become the hero’s antagonist? Under what circumstances and with what intentions are things themselves heroised in reality or in the imagination?

The conference will be held in English and German (with translations).

Please send your abstract of up to 300 words by 15 November 2014 to info@sfb948.uni-freiburg.de.

From the Call for Papers:

Femmes à la cour de France. Statuts et fonctions (Moyen Âge – XIXe siècle)
Institut d’études avancées, Paris, 8–9 October 2015

Proposals due by 31 January 2015

Colloque international organisé par Cour de France.fr avec le soutien de l’Institut Émilie du Châtelet, l’Université américaine de Paris et l’Institut d’études avancées de Paris.

Ce colloque international, pluridisciplinaire et transchronologique a pour objet le statut et les fonctions des femmes de la cour de France : les dames des suites d’honneur, les épouses des grands officiers et ministres, les officiers féminins des maisons royales, les marchandes et autres femmes qui ont séjourné de manière régulière ou irrégulière à la cour. Ce sont ainsi des femmes au service de la famille royale, installées dans les différents degrés de la hiérarchie curiale, que nous proposons d’étudier. Car si les reines et princesses ont bénéficié d’une attention soutenue tout au long des siècles et ont fait l’objet de nombreuses études, la recherche au sujet des femmes qui séjournent avec elles à la cour présente encore de nombreuses lacunes.

Nous proposons d’étudier l’évolution de leur présence à la cour et les fonctions qu’elles y occupaient ainsi que l’impact de leur présence sur les structures et la vie quotidienne de l’entourage royal. Les engagements des femmes, leurs objectifs, leurs stratégies et leur marge de manœuvre, constituent un autre volet de la thématique, comme leur rôle dans la gestion des intérêts familiaux et des carrières curiales ainsi que leur mécénat architectural, artistique et culturel. Nous nous interrogeons aussi sur la représentation et l’imaginaire qui s’attache aux femmes de la cour dans la littérature et l’historiographie. Enfin, des études comparatives concernant d’autres cours européennes permettent d’élargir la perspective et de cerner la particularité de leur situation à la cour de France.

Les propositions de contribution peuvent s’inscrire dans quatre thématiques :

Structures, charges et fonctions

Des enquêtes sur l’évolution de la présence féminine à la cour et la forme que prit cette présence sont au cœur de ce premier volet. L’évolution des maisons féminines de la cour et des charges occupées par des femmes n’est connue que partiellement, comme les responsabilités et les privilèges attachés aux charges féminines. Des études à ces sujets permettront de mieux comprendre la structure curiale et la place des femmes dans celle-ci.

À côté des charges officielles ont existé des « fonctions officieuses » qui n’ont laissé que peu de traces dans les archives de l’administration royale. On trouve à la cour aussi des femmes qui ne sont pas intégrées dans les maisons royales, mais qui y séjournent fréquemment ou de manière quasi permanente (épouses d’officiers et de domestiques, marchandes, prostituées…). Leurs conditions de vie et la règlementation royale à leur sujet font partie des thématiques abordées dans ce premier volet.

Alliances, réseaux et cérémonial

L’intégration des femmes à la cour va souvent de pair avec un engagement en faveur de leur famille, leur clientèle, leur « parti » (qu’il soit religieux ou politique) et leur pays d’origine. On les trouve à toute époque aussi parmi les mécontents, les opposants à la politique royale, qui établissent parfois leur quartier général dans une des maisons féminines de la cour.

Notre intérêt porte prioritairement sur la manière dont les femmes profitèrent des opportunités offertes par la cour et les résistances ou obstacles auxquels elles pouvaient se heurter. Les mariages dont la cour était le théâtre font partie de ce volet ; il s’agit d’un terrain particulièrement fertile pour étudier l’exogamie de l’aristocratie et ses effets, des mariages internationaux qui dominent au plus haut niveau aux « mésalliances », qui ont laissé de nombreuses traces dans les écrits des contemporains.

Étroitement lié à la question des mariages est le sujet du rang des femmes dans la société curiale dont la définition varie d’une époque à l’autre et qui a un impact important sur l’étiquette et le cérémonial. Des études récentes ont renouvelé la recherche dans ce domaine et ont démontré que, loin d’être un détail pittoresque de la vie curiale, les rituels du quotidien servent à organiser et à faire fonctionner l’État monarchique. En suivant cette approche, nous souhaitons donner une place importante aux enquêtes qui concernent la place des femmes dans le cérémonial de cour et son évolution.

Art, religion et culture matérielle

La question du mécénat artistique et architectural des femmes de la cour constitue un autre volet des sujets abordés, comme la question des espaces occupés par elles et le décor qui les caractérise. Le mécénat des femmes a laissé de nombreuses traces dans les châteaux et palais, leur participation à l’organisation de festivités et de passe-temps divers (jeux, musique, chasse, danse, théâtre, académies …) une riche documentation. Des études à ce sujet font partie de ce volet, comme des enquêtes qui concernent l’engagement religieux des femmes, non seulement en ce qui concerne le mécénat, la charité et la fondation d’établissements religieux, mais aussi en ce qui concerne leur engagement au sein de courants spirituels plus ou moins contestataires. Ce volet peut concerner également le rôle de la religion dans l’éducation des jeunes femmes à la cour.

Les femmes de la cour interviennent aussi dans la culture matérielle du quotidien. En témoignent les marchandes et fournisseuses de la cour, dont certaines comme Rose Bertin ont suscité un vif intérêt. La cour en tant que moteur économique et centre de consommation et de production a également fait l’objet de recherches ; moins connue est la place que les femmes de l’entourage royal ont prise dans ce domaine.

Historiographie, représentation et mise en perspective

Dès le XVe siècle, des ambassadeurs et visiteurs étrangers soulignent qu’aucune cour européenne n’accorde autant de libertés aux femmes que celle de France : liberté de parole et de comportement. Mais est-ce que cette observation reflète la réalité ou s’agit-il d’une idée préconçue, inscrite dans le registre des stéréotypes nationaux ? Des études présentant la situation des femmes dans d’autres cours européennes peuvent apporter des éclairages à ce sujet, comme les caractéristiques de ce discours et le contexte social et culturel dans lequel il émerge et évolue.

Les femmes de la cour ont laissé de nombreux témoignages écrits sur la vie curiale. Cette production très hétéroclite comprend des lais, des romans, de la poésie, des mémoires et des correspondances, voire même des ouvrages critiques et des pamphlets. Leurs œuvres rejoignent le vaste corpus des écrits sur la cour émanant d’historiens et de contemporains qui, entre critique et vénération, ont dressé un portrait très contrasté des femmes de l’entourage royal. L’historiographie de la cour et la place des femmes dans celle-ci ainsi que la vision donnée par elles-mêmes présentent encore de nombreuses zones d’ombre qu’il est possible d’éclairer dans le cadre de ce colloque.

Les propositions de communications

Nous vous prions de nous faire parvenir un dossier de 2 à 3 pages qui présente la thématique de votre intervention (avec quelques informations sur les archives/sources utilisées) et une courte présentation de vous-même avant le 31 janvier 2015 à :
zumkolk@cour-de-france.fr
kathleen.wilson-chevalier@wanadoo.fr

Comité scientifique

Fanny Cosandey, maître de conférences en histoire moderne, EHESS, CRH-LaDéHiS
Jean-François Dubost, professeur d’histoire moderne, université Paris Est Créteil Val-de-Marne
Sheila ffolliott, professeur émérite en histoire de l’art, George Mason University, ancienne présidente de la Sixteenth Century Society, trustee du Medici Archive Project
Murielle Gaude-Ferragu, maître de conférences en histoire médiévale, Université Paris 13
Henriette Goldwyn, professeur de littérature, université de New York
Katrin Keller, enseignant-chercheur en histoire moderne, université de Vienne
Jacques Paviot, professeur d’histoire médiévale, université Paris Est Créteil-Val de Marne
Mary Sheriff, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, université de North Carolina

Organisateurs

Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier, professeur, The American University of Paris / Cour de France.fr
Caroline zum Kolk, chargée de mission, Institut d’études avancées de Paris / Cour de France.fr Pauline Ferrier, doctorante, université Paris-Sorbonne (Centre Roland Mousnier, UMR 8596) / Cour de France.fr
Flavie Leroux, doctorante, EHESS / Cour de France.fr

From Candide: Journal for Architectural Knowledge:

Streitsache: Architecture as Matter of Contention
Aachen University, 29–31 January 2015

Proposals due by 20 September 2014

From January 29 to 31, 2015 the second Candide Conference will take place at RWTH Aachen University. The peer-reviewed Candide: Journal for Architectural Knowledge was founded in 2009 and publishes contributions on the knowledge of architecture. The best papers presented in the conference will be published in a forthcoming issue.

The interdisciplinary conference Streitsache: Architecture as Matter of Contention intends to probe the complex relation between architecture and conflict. There are numerous instances in which architectural objects become objects of conflict, ‘bones of contention, a Streitsache. Conceiving of architecture as a Streitsache generates new architectural knowledge, including knowledge on the interactions that emerge from and through the objects of contention. Architectural things, whether in the form of architectural details, buildings or entire cities, are actors whose agency becomes manifest in conflictual processes. The field of politics and the negotiation of law is constituted through and by them. As thresholds Streitsachen are politically operative because they render conflicts visible and negotiable. The debates surrounding the Stuttgart 21 project, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, or Les Halles in Paris could serve as recent examples.

The aim of the conference is to expand the scope of thinking about architecture, its function and character, into fields of the theory of law and political philosophy. As agents of the political, ’things of contention render plurality and heterogeneous interests visible and negotiable. Architecture’s dissension opens up a new space for collective thinking and action. The conference is interdisciplinary and addresses scholars and practitioners from the fields of architecture, art, political sciences, legal studies, cultural studies, anthropology, science and technology studies, cultural technology studies, and media philosophy.

The structure of the conference follows the phases of architectural processes in which matters of contention become visible and negotiable: a) design, planning, and implementation b) judgment and critique c) negotiation and settlement.

a) Conflicts arise because of sketches, plans, models, construction site protocols, budgets, legal rules, and press releases. How and through which circumstances does architecture turn into a matter of contention? What precisely is the disputed subject? How can we frame the design process as a sequence and as a negotiation of difference between agencies, both human and non-human? What kind of architectural knowledge becomes manifest in a concrete dispute?

b) Matters of contention generate their own social spaces. They are the sites where a contending community—and therewith the precondition for the political—emerges. How do disputing actors appropriate architecture? What modifications do contested things undergo during the conflictual relation? How do values become comprehensible and negotiable during a conflict? How do processes of selection function and how are verdicts reached? How do architectural objects become instruments that trigger or resolve conflicts?

c) Architectural matters of contention not only promote bellicose polemics but also social knowledge, which is implemented in processes of negotiation and arbitration. How does architecture function as a repository of or evidence of past conflicts? How can knowledge gained from past conflicts be used to create strategies to prevent future conflicts? Does it make sense to think the culture of architecture as a culture of contention?

We welcome submissions of case studies, historical and theoretical reflections dealing with particular projects, built architectures and specific disputes. The working languages at the conference will be German and English. Please send an abstract (max. 500 words) and a short CV before September 20, 2014 to: candide@theorie.arch.rwth-aachen.de.

From The Jenks Society:

Lost Museums Colloquium
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 7–8 May 2015

Proposals due by 15 September 2014

In conjunction with the year-long exhibition project examining Brown University’s lost Jenks Museum, the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, and the John Carter Brown Library invite paper proposals for a colloquium on lost artifacts, collections and museums. (Other formats—conceptual, poetic, and artistic—are also invited.)

Museums, perhaps more than any other institutions, think in the very long term: collections are forever. But the history of museums is more complicated than that. Museums disappear for many reasons, from changing ideas about what’s worth saving to the devastation of war. Museum collections disappear: deaccessioned, traded away, repatriated, lost to changing interests and the ravages of time.

We are interested in this process of decline and decay, the taphonomy of institutions and collections, as a way of shedding light not only on the history of museums and libraries, but also on the ways in which material things reflect and shape the practices of science and the humanities, and also to help museums think about current and future practices of collections and collections use. We invite presentations from historians, curators, registrars, and collections managers, as well as from artists and activists, on topics including:

• Histories of museums and types of museums: We welcome case studies of museums and categories of museums that are no more. What can we learn from museums that are no more? Cast museums, commercial museums, and dime museums have mostly disappeared. Cabinets of curiosity went out of and back into fashion. Why? What is their legacy?
• Artifacts: How do specimens degrade? How have museums come to think of permanence and ephemerality? How do museums use, and ‘use up’ collections, either for research (e.g., destructive sampling), or for education and display; how have they thought about the balance of preservation and use? How can they collect the ephemeral?
• Museum collection history: How long does art and artifact really remain in the museum? Might the analysis of museum databases cast new light on the long-term history and use of collections?
• ‘Lost and found’ in the museum: How are art and artifacts ‘rediscovered’ in museums? How do old collections regain their importance, both in artistic revivals and in new practices of ‘mining’ the museum as artists finding new uses for old objects?
• Museum collections policy: How have ideas about deaccessioning changed? How should they change? How do new laws, policies, and ethics about the repatriation of collections shape ideas about collections?
• Museums going out of business: When a museum needs to close for financial or other reasons, what’s the best way to do that? Are there good case studies and legal and financial models?
• The future of museum collections: How might museums think about collecting the ephemeral, or collecting for ‘impermanent’ collections. What new strategies should museums consider for short-term collecting? How might digitization and scanning shape ideas about the permanence of collections?

Papers from the Colloquium may be published as a special issue of the Museum History Journal. If you’d like to present at the conference, please send an abstract of about 250 words and a brief CV to Steven Lubar, lubar@brown.edu. Deadline for submission of paper proposals is September 15, 2014.

Steven Lubar
Department of American Studies
John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage
lubar@brown.edu

As noted at Le Blog de l’ApAhAu (24 August 2014) . . .

‘Visual Artists Must Live like Kings or Gods’
Artists’ Homes in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era
Nuremberg, 11–14 June 2015

Proposals due by 31 August 2014

“Plastic artists should dwell like kings and gods: how else are they to build for kings and gods?”(Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years II, 8). What pertained to Goethe in a figurative sense is our question from varying perspectives in respect to the real visual artist in Europe up to 1800. Exceptional artists such as Goethe but also Mantegna, Dürer, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt or the Asam Brothers sometimes lived almost princely. But does this apply in general to the European artist of the pre-modern era?

The conference will take a look at the artist’s home and initially examine his status from the perspective of social topography. What factors influenced this status? To be considered are, for example, the neighbourhood, the proximity to possible clients or to prestigious places for sales such as centrally located squares, prominent streets or significant churches. The conference will investigate architecture and furnishings, the iconography and iconology of an iconographical program of artists’ homes from the perspective of art history and cultural history. Finally, the conference will also examine an early nascent conservation of the artist’s home or the dwelling as a place of remembrance in the period before 1800 and thus explore questions of the history of discourse or perception.

But we also expressly request papers deviating from the idea of the artist’s home à la Goethe, rather talks considering those visual artists who rented or who frequently moved and therefore acquired no property, also talks on artists who found accommodations with their clients. What do we know about these artists’ flats or their homes? Where and in what cities did artists’ quarters, artists’ streets or blocks of flats evolve, places where artists lived over a longer period? Who lived with the artist? How were the studios situated? Were there sales rooms in the house, in the flat? Were they also used for art instruction, to hold ‘academies’ (Joachim von Sandrart)? Is there a difference between the artists bound to guilds and those who worked at court?

The conference will examine text and picture sources to determine the image of artistic self-portrayal at the time via the medium ‘artist’s house’. The latter is primarily to be viewed from the standpoint of the visual artist’s strategies to rise to a higher stratum in a hierarchical society where he was relegated to the status of craftsman. What was the role of the sometimes extensive art collections for which rooms were often exclusively built or reserved? Using case studies, overview representations and comparative examinations, the conference will approach the topic from the perspective of different disciplines, primarily, however, from the perspective of art history, cultural history, and social history.

Abstracts for as yet unpublished articles (a maximum of 2,000 characters, including spaces) with a brief CV and a possible selection of relevant publications may be submitted in German or English by 31 August 2014 to Danica Brenner M.A., brenner@uni-trier.de. Publication of the articles is planned for 2016 in the series Artifex: Sources and Studies on the Social History of the Artist [Artifex: Quellen und Studien zur Künstlersozialgeschichte] (Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg).

The conference is held in cooperation with the Albrecht-Dürer-Haus, curated by Dr. Thomas Schauerte (the Nuremberg Museums) and the Social History of the Artist Research Centre (SHARC), principally the EU project « artifex », directed by Dr. Andreas Tacke, Professor (University of Trier, Chair, Art History).

Le colloque international « Visual artists must live like kings or gods ». Artists’ homes in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era se tiendra à Nuremberg du  11 au 14 juin 2015 ; les communications seront dispensées en allemand ou en anglais.
Organisateurs : Dr. Thomas Schauerte, Dr. Andreas Tacke, University Professor.

As noted at Le Blog de l’ApAhAu (18 August 2014) . . .

Le Paysage Spectacle: La Suisse au Regard du Tourisme, 1750–2015
Université de Lausanne, 23–25 April 2015

Proposals due by 15 September 2014

Le paysage construit le « pays », ce territoire naturel, urbain, rural et social. Ce dernier est le produit d’un processus d’artialisation, notamment par le truchement du regard que les artistes portent sur leur environnement biophysique et humain, et qui obéit à des codes esthétiques, culturels ou idéologiques. L’attrait du naturel et de l’artifice forge des visions utopiques ou des anticipations dystopiques. Le paysage est un lieu renvoyant le spectateur à son propre « lieu » géographique et culturel. Dans ce cadre, les points de vue des touristes ont joué un rôle primordial, du Grand Tour au voyage virtuel sur Google Maps. Le « regard touristique » opère ainsi une esthétisation de sites conventionnels ou inhabituels.

Depuis les écrits de Albrecht von Haller, la Confédération helvétique, et les Alpes en particulier, ont occupé une place centrale dans les pratiques et les théories paysagères. Ces dernières se développèrent notamment par le tourisme européen et ses projections. Les Alpes constituent à cette époque un lieu d’expérimentation que s’approprient les écrivains, artistes, philosophes, géographes, ingénieurs, biologistes, etc., construisant un ensemble de représentations historiques et culturelles. L’essor des moyens de transport et le développement de la production industrielle a favorisé de nouvelles pratiques artistiques et littéraires telles que la gravure coloriée, le panorama, l’affiche, le récit de voyage, la photographie de montagne et diverses formes de décor dans l’espace public (expositions nationales, « peintures de gares », etc.).

Ce colloque interroge les sources et les modèles qui ont contribué à l’image de la Suisse moderne et contemporaine, entre regards exogènes et indigènes. L’accent sera mis sur les approches du touriste spectateur, sur ses représentations et ses discours, sur son interaction avec les paysages et sur les approches des sciences, de l’histoire de l’art, de l’histoire, de la littérature, de la sociologie, de la philosophie, des sciences des cultures ou des sciences naturelles.

Nous nous réjouissons de recevoir des propositions de contribution (max. 300 mots) adressées à Valentine von Fellenberg : valentine.vonfellenberg@unil.ch avant le 15 septembre 2014.

Comité scientifique
Valentine von Fellenberg (UNIL)
Philippe Kaenel (UNLI)
Mathis Stock (IUKB)

From the Voltaire Foundation’s Facebook page, via Early Modern Architecture:

Posterity in France, 1650–1800
University of Cambridge, 19 March 2015

Proposals due by 6 October 2014

Organised by Jessica Goodman (Cambridge) and Russell Goulbourne (King’s College London)

‘La postérité pour le philosophe, c’est l’autre monde de l’homme religieux’.

So writes Diderot to the sculptor Etienne Falconet in early 1766. Their long correspondence on the subject of posterity is just one response to a topic that pervades cultural production in eighteenth-century France: from the Encyclopédie’s aim to convey to the future not only human knowledge but also the names of its creators, through Rousseau’s desire to control his posthumous image in his Confessions, to the celebration of the first literary centenaries, which gave contemporary writers cause to think on their own legacies.

The desire to be remembered was nothing new in the period: as far back as Horace’s claim in 23BC that ‘I shall not wholly die’, writers and artists had been imagining the afterlife that would be available to them through their works. This one-day conference, though, sets out to investigate the specificity of the idea of future glory for French cultural producers in the period 1650–1800, when there seems to be a suggestive confluence of social and intellectual changes: the growth of the public sphere, a new concept of an exemplary ‘grand homme’ focusing on moral and intellectual achievement rather than high birth or military might, a context of declining patronage and de-institutionalisation, and an increasing secularism, with the attendant questions about the afterlife of the soul.

Topics to be addressed could include:
• The specific features of the concept of posterity developed in the period
• How a consciousness of posterity affects how and what people write—both as individuals and in terms of broader cultural trends
• How the lure of posterity relates to an individual’s social self-positioning in life
• Whether writers and artists hold a particularly privileged position in the quest to be remembered
• The extent to which new cultures of mourning and commemoration influence or are influenced by contemporary writings on posterity
• The relationship between posterity and the religious afterlife in the thought of the period

Papers may be given in English or French and should last 20 minutes. Abstracts of 200–300 words should be sent to earlymodernposterity@gmail.com by Monday 6 October 2014. Questions may also be addressed to the organisers at this address. Contributions from early-career scholars and postgraduates are particularly welcome.

From the Call for Papers:

Cities and Citizens: Seventeenth-Century Studies Conference
Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University, 13–15 July 2015

Proposals due by 1 November 2014

Durham’s Centre for Seventeenth-Century Studies—now part of the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies—has, since its foundation in 1985, organized over a dozen high-profile international conferences. Next year’s conference will address the topic of ‘Cities and Citizens’ and will focus on the ways in which urban centres were perceived, experienced, understood and represented in the ‘long seventeenth century’ (c.1580–1720). The conference will be held within the UNESCO World Heritage Site on Palace Green in the heart of the medieval city of Durham.

The built environment of the city was represented in cartography, painting, printed images and in literary and dramatic works. What were the physical and sensory characteristics of the urban environment? How did the material form of the city change? Especially important here is architectural form—civic, ecclesiastical, official and vernacular. How did urban and rural people read the urban landscape? Here we hope to draw on the insights of archaeological theory as well as on recent findings in post-medieval urban archaeology.

The distinctiveness of the urban experience will be explored. What were the effects of inter-urban trade and of trade and migration between town and countryside? What were the economics of urbanization? In what ways did urban labour differ from that in rural communities and how was it regulated? How did urban people understand customary law and access to common resources? How did civic remembrance connect with popular memory? How did religious conflict change cities and in what ways were confessional identities inflected by the urban experience?
Special emphasis will be placed upon the idea and practice of citizenship. Who did this term include and who was left out? In what ways were ideas about citizenship inflected by nationality, ethnicity, belief, class, gender, property, skill, schooling and age? How far were early modern ideas about citizenship reflective of classical ideals, and how did they connect to those of the late medieval period? To what extent did citizenship guarantee inclusion within the urban polity, and what rights and obligations came with that inclusion? In what ways did those excluded from citizenship nonetheless participate in the urban polity?

We invite proposals either for single papers or for 3-paper panels. Papers should last for 20 minutes, with half an hour at the end of each panel for discussion. Panels may be specific to a particular town or city, or might be national or international in scope, including New World urban centres. Potential subjects might include (but are not restricted to):
• Defining towns, cities and urban communities
• The urban environment and the urban landscape
• Perceptions of space and time
• Gender, age, household and citizenship
• Social relations and social conflicts
• Crime, authority, resistance and the law
• Civic identities and vernacular urban cultures
• Urban customary rights and common resources
• Urban political cultures and public spheres
• Work and leisure
• Print, literacy and education
• Cities and international trade and exchange
• Fuelling and feeding the city
• Migration and social mobility
• Urban parish identities and patterns of belief
• Monastic houses, cathedrals and religious authority
• Occupations, social structures and demographics
• Disease, famine, medicine, and social policy
• Siege warfare
• Urban revolt
• Art, architecture and civic portraiture

Proposals for 20-minute papers and full panels should be submitted to early.modern@durham.ac.uk by 1 November 2014. Replies will be sent in early December 2014. Details concerning travel and accommodation for both speakers and delegates will be made available around the same time. It is hoped that the conference will give rise to an edited volume of selected essays.