Category: conferences & symposia

CFP: Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference

RADICALISM & REFORM
The 43rd Annual Conference
Nineteenth-Century Studies Association
Rochester, New York
March 16-19, 2022
Proposal Deadline: September 30, 2021

Conference Website: ncsaweb.net/conferences/2022-ncsa-conference-information/

Join NCSA’s mailing list: mailchi.mp/4b3379af336e/ncsamailinglist

Inspired by the history of radicalism and reform in Rochester, New York, the NCSA committee invites proposals exploring the radical possibilities of the nineteenth-century world. From the aftershocks of the French and American revolutions to mutinies and rebellion in colonies across the globe, the nineteenth century was a period of both unrest and possibility. Abolition, suffrage, and reform movements reshaped prisons, education, and housing, marking this century as a period of institutional making and unmaking: a reckoning with ills of the past that was also profoundly optimistic about a more just and prosperous future.

Radicalism is also a generative term for considering transitional moments or social tensions: “radical” is often used interchangeably with “extreme,” but its earliest definitions describe not what is new or unusual, but what is foundational or essential. “Radical” is used to describe literal and figurative roots: the roots of plants, roots of musical chords, and the roots of words. To be radical is to embody tensions between origins and possibilities: to be anchored in what is foundational while also holding the potential for paradigm-shifting change. We welcome papers that consider these tensions in nineteenth-century culture, as well as those that consider possibilities for reforming nineteenth-century studies or academic life. Topics on nineteenth-century literature, history, art, music, or other cultural forms might include political movements or divisions, activism, resistance, labor, collective and direct action, or mutinies and rebellion. We also encourage broader interpretations of the conference theme: outsiders and outcasts, visionaries, agents of change, utopias, breakthroughs, failed reforms, conformity, or stagnation.

Topics on the state of nineteenth-century studies might include politically engaged teaching and scholarship, academic labor practices, harassment or prejudice in the academy, or new approaches to humanities education.

For more information, visit: ncsaweb.net/conferences/2022-ncsa-conference-information/

Advertisement

CFP: Beyond In/visibility: the Politics of Asian American Representation in American Art History (for CAA Annual Conference 2022) –submit by Aug. 30, 2021

CFP for CAA Annual Conference 2022

Beyond In/visibility: the Politics of Asian American Representation in American Art History (Association of Historians of American Art [AHAA] Panel Session)

What are the consequences of asking for greater Asian American visibility in art history?

We are reckoning anew with our discipline’s intellectual and material priorities which have enforced racial-class-gender hierarchies and American imperialist and exceptionalist ideologies. Across museums and universities, immediate solutions call for increased inclusion and representation of marginalized peoples into existing historical canons. What are the limits of these correctives for peoples who have been dehumanized through aestheticization and surveillance throughout American history, and endangered because of their hypervisibility in everyday life? Now over 50 years since the term “Asian American” emerged as a disciplinary and political category, we must reflect on ways to narrate the specificities of the Asian diaspora within American academies and museums beyond the binaries of visible/invisible, inclusion/exclusion.

This panel invites ongoing research, curatorial case studies, and experimental methodologies that engage with issues such as: How has “Asian [United States] American” been a useful and limiting category for research, curation, and museum interpretation? What are strategies to present the historical absence or loss of Asian American subjects in archives and permanent collections? Are there ways to identify unconventional presence through creative citation or display practices? How might Asian American art histories attend to moments of solidarity and failure with respect to Black, Latinx, Indigenous and Pacific Islander communities and objects? How can Asian American art histories counter existing disciplinary priorities to aestheticize, visibly represent, visually clarify, expose, access, and possess its subjects—for example, through opacity, obscuration, dis-orientation, mistranslation, protective veiling?

Please submit by August 20, 2021

SYMP: Teaching the ‘Long’ 18th Century


https://virginia.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_qPSWyVTlSzCdu6PkVWVUlw

James A. Porter Colloquium

Dear Supporters of the James A. Porter Colloquium:

We are pleased to announce that registration for the 31st Annual James A. Porter Colloquium is available at:
https://www.nga.gov/research/casva/meetings/porter-colloquium.html

The 31st Annual James A. Porter Colloquium on
African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora
“Defining Diaspora: 21st Century Developments in Art of the African Diaspora”
Friday, April 16, 2021, 4:30–6:00 p.m.

The 31st Annual James A. Porter Colloquium is co-presented by Howard University’s Department of Art, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art and the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at University of Maryland, College Park. This year’s virtual program will explore the theme “Defining Diaspora: 21st Century Developments in Art of the African Diaspora.” Sessions will investigate the ways in which visual artists and scholars are defining, and redefining, the aesthetic contours and possibilities of the African Diaspora in American art spaces. Started in 1990 by art historian Dr. Floyd Coleman, the Porter Colloquium is the foremost academic setting for innovative dialogue and perspectives from leading and emerging scholars, artists, curators, and cultural critics.

The National Gallery of Art will live-stream presentations with online audience Q&A on Friday, April 16, 2021, 4:30-6:00 PM. Online registration is available at: https://www.nga.gov/research/casva/meetings/porter-colloquium.html

Generous programming support has been provided by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Michael Rosenfeld Gallery.
James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora
This event brings together artists and art historians to explore the aesthetic practices, critical issues, and art historical interpretations of the art of the African Diaspora. To celebrate the centennial of Howard University’s department of art, we are honored to cosponsor this event.
www.nga.gov

2021 Porter Colloquium Honorees and Distinguished Speakers
Lifetime Achievement Awards
Renée Stout, artist

Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis, Evjue-Bascom Emerita Professor of African and African American Art History & Visual Culture, Departments of Afro-American Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

James A. Porter Book Award
Travel and See: Black Diaspora Art Practices Since 1980, by Kobena Mercer, Professor, History of Art and African American Studies, Department of the History of Art, Yale University

Full Program of Events

The 19th David C. Driskell Center Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts Series in Honor of David C. Driskell, hosted by The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora, University of Maryland, College Park
Thursday, April 15, 6:00 PM EST           (Register at: https://driskellcenter.umd.edu/)

Prof. Curlee Holton, Director and Artist-in-Residence, David C. Driskell Center for the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora
“What’s Next? David C. Driskell Artist/Scholar/Activist: A model for future role and practices of African American Artists”

Porter Colloquium Keynote Lectures, co-sponsored with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, livestreamed on CASVA website, April 16, 4:30-6:00PM (Register at:  https://www.nga.gov/research/casva/meetings/porter-colloquium.html)

Porter Colloquium Opening Lecture
Erica Moiah James, Assistant Professor, Department of Art and Art History, University of Miami
“Undress to Redress: African Diasporic Art History and Archives of Black Representational Bodies”

Keynote Lecture
Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis, Evjue-Bascom Emerita Professor of African and African American Art History & Visual Culture, Departments of Afro-American Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
            “Reflections on My Personal/ Professional Journey That Continues Amid Crises”

James A. Porter Distinguished Lecture
Kobena Mercer, Professor, History of Art and African American Studies, Department of the History of Art, Yale University
“Flowback—How Africa is Redefining Today’s Diaspora”

Floyd Coleman Distinguished Lecture
Renée Stout, artist
           “Thank You for Talking to Me Africa: Trusting the Voice Within”

Artist Conversations (Available on Howard University Gallery of Art Porter Colloquium Website after 4/16; no registration necessary)

Willis “Bing” Davis in conversation with Akili Tomassino (Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Aïda Muluneh and Larry Cook (Assistant Professor of Photography, Department of Art, Howard University) in conversation with Natalie Hopkinson (Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Culture and Media Studies, Howard University)

Please register and join us on April 15th and April 16th, 2021.

CAA2021 | 20 Years of Critical Race Art History

ACRAH will be at CAA2021. Even though CAA will be virtual, we are participating. To find out about the conference and the virtual format, visit the CAA conference portal:
https://caa.confex.com/caa/2021/meetingapp.cgi/Home/0

We are celebrating our 20th anniversary with an interview between ourselves, your founding co-directors, and two emerging scholars Melanee Harvey, Howard University, and julia neal, UTexas-Austin. Plus we have some reflections from a range of scholars on how critical race art history informs their work. Our session information is on the following page of the CAA Conference portal:
https://caa.confex.com/caa/2021/meetingapp.cgi/Session/8073

The interview and presentations will be available on the CAA website for advanced viewing on February 5th, 2021. The live q&a for the session is on Friday, February 12, 2021 at 6pm.

CFP: Discovery @ Nineteenth Century Studies Association Conference

DISCOVERY

The 42nd Annual Virtual Conference
Nineteenth Century Studies Association
March 11-13, 2021
Proposal Deadline: October 31, 2020

Website: ncsaweb.net/current-conference-2021-cfp/

NCSA welcomes proposals for papers, panels, roundtables, and special sessions that explore our theme of “Discovery” in the long nineteenth century (1789-1914). Scholars are invited to interrogate the trope of “discovery” by questioning the term’s ideological and colonial implications. Why was the concept of “discovery” so appealing in the nineteenth century, and what does its popularity tell us about the people and social structures that were so invested in it? Papers might also consider indigenous perspectives that challenge ideas of western “discovery” and settler colonialism, new voices that theorize and critique nineteenth-century “discoveries,” intellectual exchange between cultures, and other methods of unmasking narratives of exploration and “discovery.”

As an interdisciplinary organization, we particularly seek papers by scholars working in art/architecture/visual studies, cultural studies, economics, gender and sexuality, history (including history of the book), language and literature, law and politics, musicology, philosophy, and science (and the history of science). In light of the many changes in pedagogy, research, and the exchange of ideas we have all experienced this past year, we particularly welcome papers, panels, or roundtable topics that address discoveries in the use of technology for nineteenth-century studies and teaching.

Papers might discuss recovering forgotten manuscripts, or discovering new ways of thinking about aesthetic and historical periods. Scholars might explore not only the physical recovery of the past (archeology, geology), but also intellectual recovery as old ideas become new (evolution, neoclassicism, socialism, spiritualism). Papers might discuss publicizing discoveries (periodicals, lectures), exhibiting discoveries (museums, world’s fairs, exhibitions), or redressing the legacy of nineteenth-century practices (decolonization of museum collections and the repatriation of colonial-era artifacts). Other topics might include rediscovering and revisiting the period itself: teaching the nineteenth century, editing primary texts, and working toward diversity and social justice in the humanities. For more details, visit: ncsaweb.net/current-conference-2021-cfp/

CFP: Race and Representation in French Colonial Empire at AAH conference

CFP: Race and Representation in the French Colonial Empire
Co-convenors: Susannah Blair (Columbia University) and Dr Stephanie O’Rourke (University of St Andrews)
Contact details: seb2210@columbia.edu and so38@st-andrews.ac.uk

Abstract
This panel will consolidate new research on the visual culture of race in France and its colonies during the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century. It will be oriented around two key terms, ‘representation’ and ‘possession’, and their many resonances­­ – artistic, political, legal, and relational. We invite papers to explore how art objects articulated, contested, and disseminated changing notions of racial identity and citizenship in France and its global networks.

Over the past several years, scholars have examined the role of pictorial representation in shaping ideas of race, identity, indigeneity, and slavery in the context of the eighteenth-century British empire. However, as Anne Lafont observes in her recent book (L’Art et la race, 2019), the French case has received relatively less sustained attention. Bringing together new scholarship that builds upon these precedents, we aim to address a deliberately expansive geographical notion of French visual culture, one that includes the Caribbean, New France, Canada, and the Indian Ocean in addition to sites within the ‘metropole’ such as Paris and Nantes. Fostering a dialogue between art history, indigenous studies, and critical race theory, our panel will provide a crucial scholarly platform for research that can inform pedagogy, curatorial practice, and future scholarship.

How to Submit a Proposal:
We invite proposals for 25-minute papers. At present AAH is planning a hybrid event that will involve a physical conference as well as a digital participation option for those who cannot or would prefer not to attend in person. We encourage submissions from those who intend to participate in a digital-only capacity as well as from those interested in attending in person. To submit a paper proposal, please fill out the proposal form (bit.ly/3eVYWZu)  and send it to seb2210@columbia.edu and so38@st-andrews.ac.uk by 19 October 2020. Please provide a title and abstract (250 words max), and a CV.  For more information, visit forarthistory.org.uk/our-work/conference/2021-annual-conference/

CFP: “The ‘Long’ 18th Century” at Journal18/CAA2021

The “Long” 18th Century?

This issue of Journal18 takes off from the ubiquity of the phrase “the long nineteenth century.” Proliferating in calls for participation and panel descriptions–not to mention its prominent position in the description of this journal–if the mark of an elongated eighteenth century is inescapable, we propose that this terminology merits further scrutiny. What is meant by the “long” eighteenth century? From which vantage points, and for whom, is it long? And to what ends has this elongation been directed?

It is our contention that we must understand the rise of a “long” eighteenth century alongside the significant transformation of art historical inquiry into expanded geographical and cultural terrains. Since 2003, the study of eighteenth-century art has been enriched by a new commitment to “worlding,” even if decolonizing art histories remains an ongoing and incomplete project. As a result, habitual chronological slices, whether defined by European political history or by European stylistic shifts (e.g., Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical), have been ripe for reconsideration as scholars have asked new questions about the transmission and sedimentation of practices, experiences, and art objects around the world. When the focus on histories of colonialism and slavery forces us to look anew at the bodies, lands, and knowledge presented in art, how do our narratives change and how do the sites and objects of our inquiry shift? What are the implications of this broadened scope of inquiry for habits of locution and the habits of mind that underwrite them? While the habitual slicing up of Britain’s eighteenth century to 1688–1815 is not that far out of alignment with France’s 1643–1815, it looks very different from the perspective of, for instance, South Asia, where an end point has tended rather to be located in the 1830s. What impact, if any, has a “worlding” of art history had upon our thinking about the relative length or shortness, narrowness or breadth, of the eighteenth century? What conceptually binds an eighteenth century once we have taken up the project of tracking the entanglements of art, commerce, and empire across worlds? For whom is the eighteenth century long, from what vantage points, whether local, regional, or transregional, and to what ends? And what relationship does this designation have to the equally omnipresent “long” nineteenth century, as well as to accounts of the Enlightenment, its seductions, and its repercussions?

We invite contributions that reflect upon a “long” and “broad” eighteenth century–its contours, analytic possibilities, and limits. We particularly welcome submissions that explore new models for tracking intellectual and artistic through-lines and inheritances, and that spur us to rethink periodization, or stylistic terminology that has been too often limited in its utility by being yoked to the goal of a successional narrative telos. Authors are encouraged to explore this wide-angle view by way of one term, one object, one phenomenon, or one margin. We welcome interventions that originate in art history or in other allied humanistic disciplines.

Issue Editors: Sarah Betzer, University of Virginia & Dipti Khera, New York University

Proposals for Journal18 issue #12 THE “LONG” 18TH CENTURY? are now being accepted.

To submit a proposal, send an abstract of 250 words (or 500 words for multi-authored proposals) and a brief biography to editor@journal18.org and sbetzer@virginia.edu.

Accepted participants will be invited to virtually convene for a panel in February 2021 under the auspices of the College Art Association annual conference for presentation and collaborative workshopping of their contributions.

Information on how to apply for CAA panel, sponsored by the American Society for 18th Century Studies, THE “LONG” 18TH CENTURY?:  https://caa.confex.com/caa/2021/webprogrampreliminary/meeting.html
Co-chairs: Sarah Betzer, University of Virginia and Dipti Khera, New York University
Email: sb4fg@virginia.edu; dipti.khera@nyu.edu

 

CFP: Materializing Race: An ‘Unconference’ via Zoom

Do you study material culture in the Americas before 1830 or know someone who does? Dr. Cynthia Chin and I are excited to announce Materializing Race: An ‘Unconference’ on Objects and Identity in #VastEarlyAmerica! This participant-driven, lightning round-style event will be held in late August via Zoom, with two approximately two-hour afternoon sessions. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches to historical constructions of race and their material legacies in North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. Presentations will be made in English.

Feel free to be in touch with any questions, submissions can be sent to materializingrace@gmail.com. For more information and submission details, please visit www.cynthiachin.com/materializingrace.

Symposium @ Lunder Institute, Colby College

SAVE THE DATE: March 12-13, 2020
Lunder Institute Research Symposium: Art by African Americans
Lunder Institute for American Art, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine

The Lunder Institute is organizing a research symposium in conjunction with its inaugural Research Fellows Program focused on art by African Americans. To kick off this free public event, on the evening of Thursday, March 12, the Lunder Institute and the Colby Museum will host a conversation between renowned artist David C. Driskell and Curlee R. Holton of the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, College Park. Presentations by the Lunder Institute Research Fellows, invited speakers, and members of the Colby community will take place throughout the day on Friday, March 13. Fellows will share their research on selected artworks at the Colby Museum, connecting it to important questions in the field regarding African American artists. A roundtable featuring leading academics and curators will comment on the current state and parameters of African American art history and reflect on how and why art by African Americans has been distinguished from the broader field of American art.

Confirmed speakers include: Anna Arabindan-Kesson, Princeton University; Adrienne L. Childs, Harvard University; Tuliza Fleming, National Museum of African American History and Culture; Melanee Harvey, Howard University; Key Jo Lee, Cleveland Museum of Art; Tess Korobkin, University of Maryland, College Park; John Ott, James Madison University; James Smalls, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Diana Tuite, Colby College Museum of Art; Rebecca VanDiver, Vanderbilt University.

For more information on the 2019-2020 Lunder Institute Research Fellows Program, go to www.colby.edu/lunderinstitute/2019/09/11/inaugural-research-fellows-for-2019-2020/. Questions about the symposium should be directed to Tanya Sheehan, Distinguished Scholar and Director of Research, tsheehan@colby.edu.

%d bloggers like this: