Enfilade

From ArtHist.net:

Jewish Topographies: 5th International Congress on Jewish Architecture
Technische Universität Braunschweig, 21–23 September 2020

Proposals due by 27 February 2020

Bet Tfila—Research Unit for Jewish Architecture in Europe will organize the conference Jewish Topographies: 5th International Congress on Jewish Architecture at the Technische Universität Braunschweig. The conference will focus on the meaning of the term ‘Jewish topography’ (jüdische Topographie) and also on how historical phenomena can be categorized both socially and culturally. Jewish residential areas and settlements, facilities of Jewish communities (such as synagogues, cemeteries, schools, or hospitals), or locations of companies and shops can form significant topographical networks in cities and landscapes. Jewish topographies stand in a spatial and social context with corresponding places of the non-Jewish population, in which different cultural, religious, or ethnic groups find their own spaces. Conflicts and cooperations, exclusions and limitations emerge in the spatial relationships between these locations and their respective urban and architectural design reflect the possibilities and expectations of the respective and related groups.

The conference aims at examining different levels of Jewish topographies: the spectrum of possible contributions ranges from macro studies to cross-region networks of Jewish communities or Jewish institutions and people (e. g., commercial networks, Verbandsfriedhöfe (association cemeteries)), to locations and facilities of the individual communities (e. g., Judengassen (Jews Lanes), eruv, DP-Camps), to micro studies of residential areas or individual facilities and buildings. Topographies of forced housing (such as ghettos, concentration camps, and Judenhäuser (Jewish houses) may also be discussed. Religious and profane places and objects will be viewed; synchronous and diachronic perspectives will also be welcomed. The focus of the conference is on developments after the Middle Ages. However, comparative studies on earlier epochs are as welcome as general theoretical and systematic studies, e. g., on symbolic, religious, and literary topographies. Ideas on how Jewish topographies can be appropriately researched, represented, and later conveyed may also be further subjects of discussion. The conference will be held in English.

Please send your abstract (max. 2400 characters) and your CV (max. 1200 characters) including your academic affiliation by 27 February 2020, to Dipl.-Ing. Mirko Przystawik (m.przystawik@tu-bs.de).

The academic board and the organizers will decide on acceptance by 12 March 2020. The publication of selected articles in the Bet Tfila’s Series of Publications is planned. The organizers endeavor to cover travel and accommodation costs for the speakers; this depends, however, on the approval of corresponding funding applications.

For any questions, please contact
Dipl.-Ing. Mirko Przystawik, m.przystawik@tu-bs.de
Dr.-Ing. Ulrich Knufinke, u-j.knufinke@tu-bs.de

From the Museums and Galleries History Group:

Museum Networks and Museum History
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 16–17 July 2020

Proposals due by 6 March 2020

Networks have become an increasingly important part of the analytical toolkit used by historians of museums and collections. As scholars have moved away from narrative institutional histories, they have embraced the study of social and material networks as approaches which expand understandings of museums. In Chris Gosden and Frances Larson’s words, museums can then be seen as “innumerable sets of connections between people and objects …[which] extend over time and through space.” Such approaches have themselves been fuelled by the growth of similar ideas such as Actor Network Theory and object biographies.

These new approaches have been especially useful in recovering forms of agency beyond those of powerful institutional actors, especially curators, and have highlighted the contributions of, for example, object creators and mediators, informants and collecting assistants, as well as, sometimes, of objects themselves. They have drawn attention to the formation of new social identities and forms of expertise; have shown the extent of material flows around the world in relation to museums; revealed the role of affect and the relational in museum history; and encouraged closer attention to the different physical properties of things. There have, though, been some differences of emphasis on whether networks in museum history are a useful metaphor, a set of statistical analyses, or a theoretical model.

This conference seeks to take critical stock of the role of networks in understanding the history of museums and collections. It welcomes proposals which use networks of various sorts as tools of analysis, or which engage with the methodological/theoretical issues raised by networks and/or the rejection of network approaches. It is keen to see proposals which interrogate approaches from other disciplines. Contributions may respond to (but are not limited to):
• Networks of museum donors and makers
• Networks and empire; networks and power
• Professional networks and modern identities
• Global and transnational networks
• Networks and the role of indigenous knowledge
• Affect and the role of materiality
• Actor Network Theory and museum/collection history
• Networks of museums, collections, people, objects
• Museum practice and museum networks
• The limits of networks as analytical tools

Submissions may be for individual papers, panels of three papers, or posters. Paper proposals should be for papers of twenty minutes’ length. Proposals should be 250 words maximum and include a title as well as the name, contact details and affiliation (if applicable) of the speaker. Panel proposals should consist of a panel title, proposals for three papers, along with a rationale for the panel theme, and contact details and affiliations (if applicable) of all participants. Please indicate whether you will provide a chair for your session or not (it does not matter which). Poster proposals are also welcomed. Please follow proposal guidelines for papers while indicating clearly that a poster is proposed. All the above proposals should be sent to contact@mghg.info by 6 March 2020. Please note all speakers and poster presenters will be expected to pay the conference registration fee, but we aim to keep the fee as low as possible.

From ArtHist.net: