Charles Eldredge Prize for 2014 (Lecture) and 2015 (Nominations)
Wendy Bellion, ‘Here Trust Your Eyes’: Visual Illusion and the Early American Theater
2014 Charles C. Eldredge Prize Lecture
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 18 September 2014
The Smithsonian American Art Museum invites you to join Wendy Bellion (associate professor of American art and material culture at the University of Delaware and winner of the museum’s 2014 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Citizen Spectator: Art, Illusion, and Visual Perception in Early National America) for a discussion entitled ‘Here Trust Your Eyes’: Visual Illusion and the Early American Theater on September 18th, 2014, at 4:00pm at the museum. Bellion’s talk will explore how Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street Theater was also a space of visual display and illusion akin to and in conversation with exhibition sites like Charles Willson Peale’s museum.
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2015 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for a Single-Author Book
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Nominations due by 1 December 2014
The Smithsonian American Art Museum invites nominations for the 2015 Charles C. Eldredge Prize, an annual award for outstanding scholarship in American art history. Single-author books devoted to any aspect of the visual arts of the United States and published in the three previous calendar years are eligible. To nominate a book, send a one-page letter explaining the work’s significance to the field of American art history and discussing the quality of the author’s scholarship and methodology. Self-nominations and nominations by publishers are not permitted. The deadline for nominations is December 1, 2014. Please send them to: The Charles C. Eldredge Prize, Research and Scholars Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012. Nominations will also be accepted by email: eldredge@si.edu or fax: (202) 633-8373. For more information about the prize, please visit americanart.si.edu/research/awards/eldredge.
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Note (added 26 October 2014) — A slightly different version of the announcement for the 2015 Eldredge Prize originally appeared in this posting; the new wording reflects the most recent description from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
L’Aquila: The Future of the Historical Center
From the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz:
L’Aquila: The Future of the Historical Center, A Challenge for Art History
Summer School of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut
Florence, 8–15 September 2014
Applications due by 25 May 2014
Concept and organization: Carmen Belmonte, Elisabetta Scirocco and Gerhard Wolf
The devastating earthquake that struck L’Aquila on 6 April 2009 created a major rupture in the social and cultural history of the city. After dealing with the immediate aftermath of the natural disaster through the construction of the so-called ‘New Towns’, the necessity of securing the city’s buildings has paralyzed the historical center. Today, ongoing restorations are accompanied by a lively debate, requiring the expertise of specialists from various disciplines. It is crucial that art historians participate in the discussions on the complex issues of reconstruction, restoration, and preservation, that are deciding how to return the city to its citizens and to ensure the survival of its monumental heritage.
The KHI summer school invites young art historians and scholars from neighboring disciplines to discuss the future of historic centers, focusing particularly on the critical as well as the ethical roles of art history. The case of L’Aquila provides an opportunity to reflect broadly upon the effect of natural disasters on civic life and cultural heritage and its management.
Located on site, the summer school will take a diachronic approach to the study of the city of L’Aquila, both inside and outside the walls, beginning with its medieval foundation as a free ‘civitas’ disputed by popes and emperors, through Spanish rule, up to the urban transformations of the Fascist period. Located in a strategic position on the ‘Via degli Abruzzi’, L’Aquila has long been a market town; its main raw materials, wool and saffron, reached the markets of northern Italy and beyond the Alps. The city of L’Aquila serves as a shrine that houses the bodies of Pope Celestine V and Bernardino of Siena. Throughout its history, the city has therefore been a place of exchange, a center of culture and artistic patronage, and an important pilgrimage site beginning with the institution of the plenary indulgence in 1294 at Collemaggio.
The close study of the historical city, its urban structure, its works of art, and its dispersed and decontextualized collections, together with an awareness of the dynamics of destruction and reconstruction of its cultural heritage, will call attention to the future of L’Aquila and to the methodological questions related to the preservation of its past. What techniques and methodologies allow mediation between aesthetic and historical values? Is it possible to find a balance between the protection of heritage and the needs of the citizens of L’Aquila; between the desire for change and the impulse to return to the forms of the past? Issues such as reconstruction, integration, and authenticity versus fake are central topics to be addressed. (more…)
English Collaborative Doctoral Award: At Home With Books
AHRC-funded English Collaborative Doctoral Award: At Home With Books
The University of Oxford Faculty of English Language & Literature and The Geffrye Museum of the Home are pleased to announce a new English Collaborative Doctoral Award (AHRC-funded): ‘At home with books: the role and history of reading in domestic contexts in the long eighteenth century.’
Applicants are sought for a three year, fully funded studentship to work towards a DPhil (PhD) in the Faculty of English, University of Oxford on the AHRC project ‘At home with books: the role and history of reading in domestic contexts in the long eighteenth century.’ This collaborative doctoral award (CDA) will be supervised jointly by Dr Abigail Williams, of the University of Oxford, Ms Hannah Fleming, Curatorial Department of the Geffrye Museum, and a member of the Learning and Engagement Department of the Geffrye Museum. The Geffrye Museum in East London is a leading centre for the study of home, with a focus on middle class urban homes over 400 years.
The studentship will commence in October 2014 and is open to UK nationals, or EU nationals who have resided in the UK for 3 years or more. The successful applicant will normally have achieved a Master’s degree with distinction (or equivalent) in literary studies or history, or will have done so by October 2014. It would be an advantage to have a solid grounding in the literature or history of the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
Applicants for this position should apply online by Friday 18 April 2014 at http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/postgraduate_courses/index.html and quote reference ENGL AHWB Studentship in the ‘Departmental Studentship Applications’ section of page 6 of the application form. Interviews for the studentship will be conducted in late April or May. Further information on the studentship and details on how to apply may be found here. If you would like to discuss this informally, please contact Dr Abigail Williams or Hannah Fleming.
More information (as a PDF file) is available here»
Attingham’s French Eighteenth-Century Studies Course
From The Attingham Trust:
The Attingham Trust’s French Eighteenth-Century Studies Course
The Wallace Collection, London, 12–17 October 2014
Applications due by 30 April 2014
François Boucher, Shepherd Piping to a Shepherdess, ca. 1747–50
(London: Wallace Collection)
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French eighteenth-century studies is organised by The Attingham Trust on behalf of the Wallace Collection. Based at Hertford House, this intensive, non-residential study programme aims to foster a deeper knowledge and understanding of French eighteenth-century fine and decorative art and is intended primarily to aid professional development. A day at Waddesdon Manor, Ferdinand de Rothschild’s former country house, will help broaden the scope of the course still further.
The academic programme will provide privileged access to the world-class collections of furniture, paintings, sculpture, textiles, metalwork and porcelain in these two collections. The group will be limited to fifteen people to allow for detailed, object-based study, handling sessions and a look at behind-the-scenes conservation.
Study sessions and lectures will be led by Dr. Christoph Vogtherr, Director of the Wallace Collection, and the relevant curatorial staff; other international authorities and the curators at Waddesdon will provide further specialist teaching. The Course Director is Dr. Helen Jacobsen, Curator of French eighteenth-century Decorative Arts at the Wallace Collection. This course is primarily aimed at curators and other specialists in the fine and decorative arts.
More information is available here»
Call for Participation | Technologies of Turning
From the Call for Participation:
Technologies of Turning: An Exploration of Making and Meaning
Harvard University, 20–22 May 2014
Applications due by 18 March 2014
Organized by Jennifer L. Roberts (Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University) and Ethan W. Lasser (Margaret S. Winthrop Associate Curator of American Art, Harvard Art Museums)
Eligibility: Current graduate students in any discipline; space is limited to nine students.
This workshop is the second in a new annual series focusing on processes of making in the fine, decorative, and industrial arts. The workshops will bring together faculty, artists, museum professionals, and graduate students for demonstrations, hands-on exercises, and discussion. Each day will combine instruction in historic techniques with the close analysis of related historic objects. One of the features that will differentiate this workshop from others like it is that it will include time for extensive discussion about the merits of bringing technical and artisanal knowledge into the historical and interpretive disciplines in a conceptually rigorous way. Rather than focus on a specific medium or type of object, each workshop is organized around a single species of physical operation that cuts across multiple media and can also be evocatively transposed into cultural and theoretical dimensions.
This year we will concentrate on “turning.” From the lathe to the spindle to the potter’s wheel to the turntable, rotational dynamics sit at the heart of multiple mechanical and artisanal practices. The workshop will trace processes of turning through pottery throwing, textile production, and media playback and projection. What modes of thinking and approaches to materials link these processes? How have makers across time conceptualized working “in the round” and how might such modes of embodied making inform our understanding of the creative process? What are the implications of turning’s intricate relationship to control in artisanal and industrial settings? How does turning engage with problems in programming, tacit knowledge, and automation?
Each participant will be expected to complete a short list of preliminary readings and to attend all portions of the workshop. The workshop is organized by Americanists and will focus primarily on American material, but students in all fields are encouraged to apply. Lodging for four nights and most meals will be provided for selected participants. Participants will be responsible for supporting their own travel to and from Cambridge.
Send a CV and a short statement explaining your reasons for wishing to participate in the workshop to both roberts6@fas.harvard.edu and elasser@fas.harvard.edu by March 18, 2014, 5pm. Selected participants will be notified by March 25. Space in this workshop will be limited to nine students.
Sponsored by the American Art Workshop Fund and the Department of American Art, Harvard Art Museums
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T U E S D A Y , 2 0 M A Y 2 0 1 4 — C E R A M I C S
Demonstration and hands-on studio session, Harvard Ceramics Studio (Allston, MA)
Handling session with historic material
Debriefing and reflection
Dinner
W E D N E S D A Y , 2 1 M A Y 2 0 1 4 — T E X T I L E S
Demonstration and hands-on session with early machinery, American Textile History Museum (Lowell, MA)
Handling session with historic material
Debriefing and reflection
Dinner
T H U R S D A Y , 2 2 M A Y 2 01 4 — M E D I A
Demonstration and hands-on session, Harvard Film Archive
Final debriefing, workshop conclusion
Historic New England 2014
From Historic New England:
Program in New England Studies
16–21 June 2014
Each year, Historic New England presents the Program in New England Studies, an intensive learning experience with lectures by curators and architectural historians, workshops, and behind-the-scenes tours of Historic New England’s properties and collections, as well as of other museums and private homes in the region.
Program in New England Studies examines New England history and material culture from the seventeenth century through the Colonial Revival, and delves into building design and technology, and the wide-ranging lifestyles illustrated by the historic sites on the itinerary. The program is designed to appeal to owners of historic houses, collectors, museum professionals, graduate students, and those who enjoy New England history, and is limited to twenty-five participants.
More information, including an itinerary, is available here»
HBA Publication Grant
Historians of British Art Publication Grant
Proposals due by 1 March 2014 (extended from the original date of 15 January 2014)
The Historians of British Art (HBA) invites applications for its Publication Grant. The organization grants a sum of $600 to offset publication costs for a book manuscript in the field of British art or visual culture that has been accepted by a publisher. Applicants must be current members of HBA. To apply, send a 500-word project description, publication information (name of press and projected publication date), budget, and CV to Renate Dohmen, Prize Committee Chair, HBA, brd4231@louisiana.edu. The revised deadline is March 1, 2014.
Online Course | Conservation of Globes
From the Hornemann Institute in Hildesheim:
Online Course | Patricia Engel and Michael Højlund Rasmussen, Conservation of Globes
Through the Hornemann Institute, 31 March — 1 June 2014
Historic globes exist all over Europe, in public collections and libraries, but also as private property. While older celestial globes were made of metals, since Behaim’s Erdapfel from 1492, globes have been made of paper, papier-mâché, wood, and parchment. In contrast to this omnipresence of globes, there is a sort of vacuum in conservation expertise concerning globe conservation. Today there are only a few conservators working in different European countries, who, due to their individual careers, are able to deal with the conservation of globes. Isolated articles in various journals have so far been the only competent publications in the field of globe conservation.
Course Structure
The first chapter of the course gives a description of the cultural and historical background of the topic and describes the history of the globes from 3000 BC to the 20th century. This is followed by helpful suggestions for the documentation of a globes material and an overview of damages. The latter provides pictures of typical damages on the globes along with case-by-case explanations. It will enable conservators to identify damages – even rare ones – and help the laymen to deal with their problems. The main chapters deal with specific suggestions for conservators concerning concrete practical conservation requests including the preparation of some materials and the techniques of surface cleaning on globes. The last chapter explains the practical storage problems, the climatic conditions and the correct packing and transportation of globes. Fee: 198€ (20% reduction for students).
Instructors: Based on her broad experiences in globe conservation Dr. Patricia Engel (European Research Centres for Book and Paper Conservation-Restoration in Horn, Austria) developed an e-learning course with the most up-to-date technical possibilities. Michael Højlund Rasmussen (Conservation Centre Vejle, Dänemark) cooperated in this project. For further information ask: hentschel@hornemann-institut.de
If you also want to deepen practically your new knowledge, please contact directly the author Dr. Patricia Engel, who offers regularly workshops for the conservation of globes in the European Research Centre for Book and Paper Conservation-Restoration in Horn, Austria. Further information can be found here.
Summer Institute | Rebuilding the Portfolio: Digital Humanities
This brings the number of summer institutes devoted to the digital humanities announced here at Enfilade up to three (with one in Los Angeles and one in Middlebury, Vermont). Try a keyword search (available to the right) for other opportunities.
Rebuilding the Portfolio: Digital Humanities for Art Historians Summer Institute
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, 7–18 July 2014
Applications due by 15 March 2014
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Applications are now open for Rebuilding the Portfolio: Digital Humanities for Art Historians, a summer institute at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History in New Media, George Mason University, supported by the Getty Foundation, July 7–18, 2014. The program is designed for 20 art historians, from different stages of their careers and from varied backgrounds, including faculty, curators, art librarians, and archivists who are eager to explore the digital turn in the humanities. We seek applications from individuals who have had very limited or no training in using digital methods and tools, or in computing. A tentative schedule is available here. We will accept applications until March 15, 2014.
Sheila Brennan and Sharon Leon
Co-Directors, Rebuilding the Portfolio: DH for Art Historians
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
Summer Institute | Digital Mapping and Art History
Summer Institute on Digital Mapping and Art History
Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, 3–15 August 2014
Applications due by 3 March 2014
Middlebury College is pleased to invite applications for Fellows to participate in the first Summer Institute on Digital Mapping and Art History (August 3–15, 2014), generously sponsored by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Co-directed by Paul B. Jaskot (DePaul University) and Anne Kelly Knowles (Middlebury College), the Summer Institute will emphasize how digital mapping of art historical evidence can open up new veins of research in art history as a whole. All art historians of any rank (including graduate students, curators, or independent scholars) with a scholarly problem related to spatial evidence or questions are encouraged to apply.
Whether talking about the spreading influence of Rembrandt’s workshop, Haussmann’s Plan of Paris, the Roman Forum, the caves of Dunhuang, the views of Edo, the market for Impressionist painting, the looting of assets by Napoleon, the movement of craftsmen over the medieval pilgrimage road, or the current proliferation of art expos globally, art history is peppered with spaces, both real and imagined. As such, spatial questions are central to many art historical problems, and visualizing spatial questions of different physical and temporal scales is an intellectual and technical problem amenable to the digital environment. Building the capacity to think spatially in geographic
terms will carry an art historian a long way towards developing sophisticated questions and answers by exploiting the digital environment.
At the end of the two-week period, Fellows will have a grounding in the intellectual and historiographic issues central to digital humanities, basic understanding of the conceptual nature of data and the use of a database, an exposure to important examples of digital art history in the field, and a more in-depth study of one particular digital approach (GIS and the visualization of space). Graduating Fellows will have the vocabulary and intellectual foundation to participate in on-going digital humanities debates or other specialized digital humanities workshops while also gaining important practical and conceptual knowledge in mapping that they can begin to apply to as scholars and teachers.
Given this focus, our Institute will be ideal for those art historians who already have identified a spatial problem in their work. Note, though, that no prior knowledge or experience in digital humanities will be necessary or assumed for the application process. Naturally, general awareness of the scholarly potential of the digital environment or mapping will be a plus. All geographies, time periods, and subareas of art history will be considered. For more information on the application process, is available here (PDF file). All materials must be sent electronically by March 3, 2014.
For questions, please contact the co-directors:
Paul B. Jaskot, pjaskot@depaul.edu; Anne Kelly Knowles, aknowles@middlebury.edu
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