By Ashley,
January 30th, 2012 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers)
Call for Papers: Women’s Studies Quarterly Fashion Issue
Article submission deadline is March 15, 2012
A thorough study of the history of fashion in its symbolic, creative and coercive faces shows how it has been crucial in the construction of national identities in fascist regimes or in processes of decolonization, such as in India, or in the remapping of the world economy, including China, India and Brazil. Fashion is closely tied to industrial, technological and economic developments and is at the center of cultural activity and change. In today’s globalized world, the fashion and textile industry are key factors to understand the profound transformations occurring in cities, nations and regions the world over.
Is fashion a women’s issue? Inherently gendered, based on female bodily display, taking fashion seriously demands exploring the limits of gender and embodiment. Pushing that envelope reveals how fashion can question pre-established notions of gender, aesthetics and behavior. How do we understand masculinity in relation to dress and fashion? WSQ invites exploration of fashion, clothing and adornment through plays of androgyny, from dandyism to lesbian chic. Seeing through clothes to the politics of power they materialize draws fashion into debates concerning identity, selfhood, sustainability, subjectivity, representation, and virtuality. How does the fashioned body trouble the boundaries between lived and represented, driving toward new phenomenological conceptions? How do the globe spanning trends of fashion reshape experiences of self and locale, and bring new relations of time and space? How has fashion in the blogosphere affected technologies of self, and produced new relations between bodies and city-scapes all over the world? How does fashion mediate the body? How do these mediations feed through text, film, the Internet and beyond?
WSQ invites a rethinking of the traditional organization of disciplines within the social sciences and the humanities to include the impact of fashion within their contexts and welcome academic papers from a wide range of approaches, including theory, empirical research, literature, art, history, design, media and film studies, cultural studies, performance studies, women’s and gender studies, psychology, sociology, semiotics, and anthropology, as well as creative prose, poetry, artwork, memoir and biography.
Article submissions are due by March 15, 2012. The full call for papers and submission instructions are available here: CFP: Women’s Studies Quarterly Fashion Issue
Contact:
Eugenia Paulicelli and Betsy Wissinger
Guest Editors of Fashion Issue
WSQ at the Feminist Press
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Email
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By Ashley,
January 23rd, 2012 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers)
Rags and Riches: Dress and Dress Accessories in Social Context
University of Reading
21st April 2012
Deadline: 17th February 2012
CALL FOR PAPERS
This multidisciplinary day conference aims to bring together archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and others from related disciplines with an interest in the social analysis of dress to discuss current issues of methodology, theory and interpretation. The conference will address the subject holistically: from the production and exchange of textiles and dress accessories to their use and eventual deposition in archaeological contexts, or even their accession in museums. Ideas of identity, materiality, production, and transmission now shape our interpretations of dress accessories and this conferences aims to provide a forum for their discussion.
The Conference welcomes abstracts of less than 300 words for 20 minute papers from researchers at any stage in their career, studying periods from the Palaeolithic to the present day and addressing subjects relevant to the following themes:
● The construction and display of identity, such as gender, age, and ethnicity
● The facilitation, resistance and articulation of cultural change
● Production and its significance to the meaning of clothing
● Consumption, conspicuous display, and hegemony
● Cross cultural interactions, colonialism and acculturation
● Biographical approaches to objects and people
● Bodies and sexuality
● Ritual and performance
Contact
Please send abstracts to Rosie Weetch and Toby Martin along with your name, affiliation and email address to: [email protected]
website
Image credit: all-art.org
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By Ashley,
January 16th, 2012 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers)
Women in Magazines: Research, Representation, Production, Consumption
Kingston University
London, United Kingdom
22 June 2012 – 23 June 2012
Abstracts of 250 words should be emailed by 9 March 2012.
In November 2011, Woman’s Weekly celebrated its 100 year birthday by including a reproduction of the first issue inside the centenary edition. A month later, US Vogue launched a digital archive containing every page published since 1892. These events remind us of the rich history which lies behind titles that continue to grace the shelves marked ‘women’s magazines’ on both sides of the Atlantic. Academics, especially feminist scholars, have long explored this history and the relationship between women and the journals that target them, but in recent years this interest appears to have declined. ‘Women in Magazines’ seeks to reassert the importance of magazines, in Britain and America, as a significant source for women’s and gender historians, by showcasing their latest research.
The conference is broad in scope, reflecting the interests of its supporting organisations: the Centre for the Historical Record (Kingston University), the Centre for American, Transatlantic and Caribbean History (Brunel University), the Society for the History of Women in the Americas (SHAW), the Women’s History Network and The Women’s Library. It will offer a platform for examining the role of women as producers, subjects and consumers of magazines; it will also explore magazines as important historical records which are being made more accessible by digital technology. The remit is neither bound by time period nor genre: women’s relationships with specialist journals, trade magazines and non-gender specific lifestyle publications such as Ebony are of equal interest to traditional ‘women’s magazines’. The aim is to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue alongside discussion between scholars and representatives of the contemporary magazine industry. An edited collection based on papers presented is planned.
Key themes for the event are consumption, lifecycles and age, race and ethnicity, social class, geography and location. Suggested topics could include, but are not limited to:
- Advertising and marketing
- Advice and education
- Archives and digitization
- Beauty and fashion
- Celebrity culture
- Editors and journalists
- Entertainment and gossip
- Gender ideology
- Methodology and literature
- Notions of public and private
- Politics and citizenship
- Readers, reading and reception studies
- Relationships and the family
- The home
- The magazine industry
- Work and careers
Contact
http://womeninmagazines.tumblr.com/
Organiser(s):
Sue Hawkins, Jay Kleinberg, Nicola Phillips, Rachel Ritchie
email
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By Jenna,
January 11th, 2012 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers, Events, Exhibitions, Museum Life)
This spring, the Museum of London will host an innovative and timely look at developments in the display of dress, and the evolution of mannequins as surrogate bodies for exhibiting historic dress. It is to be titled: New Approaches to the Display of Dress. I’ll be attending the conference and reporting for Worn Through, but I hope to see those of you in the London area there this March!
Below is the conference announcement by Senior Curator of Dress and Decorative Arts, Beatrice Behlen.
In May 2010 The Museum of London launched the Galleries of Modern London. Two curators, four conservators (some part-time) and many volunteers helped putting the 70 outfits on mannequins which took the best part of two years. Other permanent displays of dress opened or relaunched at a similar time, such as the Gallery of Costume in Manchester and the Fashion & Textile Gallery at The Bowes Museum and temporary dress exhibitions are probably more frequent and popular as ever before.
We thought this would be a good time to bring together speakers from a variety of backgrounds to share their experiences with different types of dress supports. We will look at materials to use and avoid for short-term exhibitions and permanent displays; the different ways of making ‘cut-out’ mannequins including the Body-Thèque – a collection of historic body shapes; how to create character and movement; the reasons behind the use of full-figure mannequins and the advantages and potential issues when working with artists and designers. To put it all into context the day will begin with an exploration of the history of ‘the body in the museum’.
The conference is aimed at curators, conservators, designers and project managers involved in the display of dress. You should come away with a better understanding of how best to tailor your display methods to the ‘look’ you are trying to achieve, your time and your budget. You will also have the opportunity to see more than 60 outfits and 250 accessories displayed in the new Galleries of Modern London.
Download the conference programme here.
Download speaker profiles and abstracts here.
Scheduled for Saturday, March, 17; £40
To book, please call +44 20 7001 9844
View of the Pleasure Garden installation at the Museum of London with metal hairpieces by Yasemen Hussein. Photo courtesy of Museum of London.
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By Ashley,
January 9th, 2012 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers)
6th Global Conference
Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging
Sunday 16th September 2012 – Wednesday 19th September 2012
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom
Abstract due: Friday 16th March 2012
Call for Papers:
This multi-disciplinary project seeks to explore the new and prominent place that the idea of culture has for the construction of identity and the implications of this for social membership in contemporary societies. In particular, the project will assess the context of major world transformations, for example, new forms of migration and the massive movements of people across the globe, as well as the impact of globalisation on tensions, conflicts and on the sense of rootedness and belonging. Looking to encourage innovative trans-disciplinary dialogues, the Conference warmly welcomes papers from all disciplines, professions and vocations which struggle to understand what it means for people, the world over, to forge identities in rapidly changing national, social and cultural contexts.
Papers, workshops and presentations are invited on any of the following themes:
- Challenging Old Concepts of Self and Other
- Nations, Nationhood and Nationalisms
- Institutions, Organizations and Social Movements
- Persons, Personhood and the Inter-Personal
- Media and Artistic Representations
- Transnational Cultural Interlacing of Contemporary Life
- New Concepts, New Forms of Inclusion
The 2012 meeting of Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging will run alongside the forth meeting of our project on Fashion – Exploring Critical Issues and we anticipate holding sessions in common between the two projects. We welcome any papers considering the problems or addressing issues of Fashion, Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging.
Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 16th March 2012 to the Organising Chairs. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 22nd June 2012.
Organising Chairs
Dr S. Ram Vemuri
School of Law and Business, Faculty of Law, Business and Arts
Charles Darwin University
Darwin NT0909, Australia
[email protected]
Rob Fisher
Network Leader, Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
[email protected]
The conference is part of the Diversity and Recognition research projects, which in turn belong to the At the Interface programmes of Inter-Disciplinary.Net. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore discussions which are innovative and challenging. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.
For further details of the conference, please visit the website.
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By Ashley,
January 2nd, 2012 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers)
Innovations and Anxieties
University of Rhode Island
Graduate Conference
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Deadline for receipt of proposals is February 15, 2012
Innovations cross a multitude of interdependent fields: aesthetic, scientific, technological, historical, informational, educational, political, and ethical. Across these fields, innovation cleaves fault lines between, for instance, the hope for cosmopolitan betterment and the politico-economic success of an isolated few; between the possible formation of open, more egalitarian social relations and the breakdown or deformation of normative modes of relation; between the anticipation of solutions to pressing problems and the inequalities, violences, and injustices caused by these solutions. This year the URI Graduate Conference title, Innovations and Anxieties, captures the dynamic negotiations that are and have been possible within and across these fault lines. It asks:
- What have innovations enabled or disabled?
- What traces or tracks do innovations leave behind?
- What sort of futures might innovation prefigure?
- What histories or continuities will have been possible in the wake of innovation?
- How might innovations inspire praise and critique, hope and fear, promise and imbalance, progress and diversion, quietude and combat, tranquility and anxiety?
Graduate students are invited to submit papers, panels, or creative works that attend to these and other questions in a variety of fields: history, film, philosophy, languages, literature, political science, rhetoric and composition, communications, cultural studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, medicine, women’s studies, technology, visual and media studies, library and information studies, (though not limited to these fields).
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- gender and transexuality
- digitization
- workplace technologies
- robotics, cyborgs
- social networking
- globalization
- sustainability
- multiliteracies
- online media
- textiles and manufacturing
- outsourcing
- critical theories
- architecture, planning design
- modernization, invention
For more information and submission directions, please visit the conference website.
University of Rhode Island
Graduate Conference
Direct all questions regarding submissions and conference details to [email protected].
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By Arianna,
December 29th, 2011 at 5:00 am
(Academic Research & Related, Conferences and Calls for Papers, International Fashion)
Early this month, I went to my first conference here in Stockholm. Although I am now confident in Swedish, I was glad to learn that most of the faculty at the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University hail from countries worldwide, and thus English is the diplomatic language for most of the Centre’s courses and events.
In light of this international faculty and student body, it was appropriate that this year’s conference was: Fashion in Translation. The idea of openness and accessibility was evident in the lack of entry fee and choice of venue, the community center ABF House on Sveavägen in Central Stockholm, to encourage a wider audience for this international conference.
Despite the use of English, conference organizers Peter McNeil and Dr. Louise Wallenberg sought to challenge the “Anglophone dominance of fashion scholarship” through the inclusion of geographic areas less often seen in the field. Each speaker took a different and complex angle on the idea of “translation”, working toward answering the directors’ question: Is fashion truly global?
Not apparently seeking a definitive answer, the topics presented demonstrated instead the need for broadening discourse across media, cultures and geographies.
"Portrait of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene and her Daughter Portia", c. 1551, Paolo Veronese. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Used by Professor Welch in her presentation.
Professor Evelyn Welch, of Queen Mary University of London, presented her research on “holding things in Early Modern hands”, an exploration of zibellini and feathered or folded fans in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European portraiture. Although the emphasis was on the pictorial portrayal of these objects, I was galvanized by her concentration on the action of holding–instead of simply the objects themselves–and the significance this held with regards to gendered rights and ownership in this period. Here, translation is not only from 2D representation to imagining the reality of 3D objects and practices, but also from natural world to cultural construct, and is used as a warning against modern interpretations of early modern portraiture.
I first saw the next speaker, Dr. Djurdja Bartlett of the London College of Fashion, when she presented her book, Fashion East, at FIT last February (reviewed on WT). Here in Stockholm, she spoke about her current work on the Russian fashion legacy, “Russian Sartorial Heritage in Translation and Auto-Translation.” Dr. Bartlett explored a triad of issues surrounding the use of what are seen as “traditional” Russian patterns and dress.
Fancy Dress Costume, 1911, Paul Poiret. A classic example of Poiret's fluid use of "the Orient" in his designs. From the Costume Institute at the Met.
First, Western designers from Poiret to Gucci and Chanel to Lagerfeld have romanticized “vernacular and primitive” Russian themes in a search for “authentic culture“. Secondly, newly (incredibly) wealthy Russian consumers “return the gaze”, buying into Western styles and fetishizing local dress–but only through “high fashion-ethnic” Western interpretations. The third group are young Russian designers such as Denis Simachev, Alena Akhmadullina and Igor Chapurin, who use national heritage and nostalgia as well as a personal experience of the West to “translate” Russian tradition in ironic, mocking, exaggerated ways. Dr. Bartlett creates strong vocabularies in her work, with which she elaborates on the discussion of East-West appropriation.
Ready-to-Wear from Denis Simachev, Fall 2009, shown by Dr. Bartlett in her presentation. Soviet themes, characters, icons. From The Fashionisto and Simachev's website.
This familiar issue was picked up after lunch by Professor Peter McNeil, prolific author and professor at Stockholm University and the University of Technology, Sydney. He spoke about his experience writing texts for an exhibition on Australian design company Easton Pearson, for which he explored the designers’ relationship with “authenticity, intervention and revival”. The company often reprints old fabrics and modifies styles from a perceived “provincial Australia”.
"Campfire Calling" textile, designed by "Aboriginal urban designer" Bronwyn Bancroft 1989, printed by Ersatz Sydney 1993. From the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.
Much like the Ripsa textiles I wrote about earlier, most of the Easton Pearson product is consumed outside of Australia, and the designers become ambassadors for their country. Are they thus more responsible for their design choices? Another layer of exploitation lies in the use of poor Indian textile artists, and translation becomes manifold as “traditional” designs are interpreted by designers and then worked by foreigners, with impressive skill but no vernacular knowledge.
Easton Pearson "Quista Dress", S/S 2011. From Australian Vogue website.
A further discussion of artistic depictions of dress and drapery was given by Swedish professor Margaretha Rossholm-Lagerlöf of Stockholm University . She spoke about the signs inherent in the wearing of dress, which indicates social status, as opposed to drapery, showing an interest in timelessness, as seen in Early Modern painting. Focusing then on the technical aspects, she also discussed techniques artists used to “translate” the cloth into painted form. In this work were threads from that of Professor Welch, warning of modern interpretation: Professor Rossholm-Lagerlöf cited Ter Borch’s The Gallant Conversation, assumed to be a customer propositioning a prostitute in a brothel.
"The Gallant Conversation/Paternal Admonition" by Gerard ter Borch, 1654. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
In a late eighteenth century French print, it was given the name Paternal Admonition, a (possibly intentional) mis-”translation” of the scene which persisted into the early twentieth century. How do we interpret the woman’s unchanging dress in light of the dual titles?
Professor Patrizia Calefato of Bari University rounded out this largely visual discussion with a presentation on semiotics: “Fashion as Cultural Translation” as relates to war, revolution and resistance. She spoke about the Arab Spring and Autumn, and the clothing systems in three spaces related to these revolutions: street (everyman), square (Tahrir), and (inter)net. In these public spaces, how do Middle Eastern clothing traditions mix with street-and protest-styles, which are so often Western? When do When does fashion become a fashion system, what are the signs of the Arab Spring?
Presentations wrapped up with work-in-progress reports from Paula von Wachenfeldt on Fashion as the Art of Observation, Andrea Kollnitz on Frenchness in German and Swedish Caricature (1880-1930), and Patrick Steorn on Swedish 1960s Fashion in the United States. Such interesting topics–ten minutes of each was such a tease!
Fantastic Sighsten Herrgårdh photo shoot: his signature unisex jumpsuits. Here, he has put his extended family in matching black and white versions, to fit in with the penguins! From LIFE Magazine, Sept. 27, 1968.
With presenters from East and West, Northern and Southern Hemispheres, a lot of geographical area was covered. It would have been maybe even stronger to hear from presenters and/or areas less often represented, although this conference was a good reminder that issues of translation and appropriation are not limited to the more easily identifiable binaries of white/non-white, West/East, colonizer/colonized, etc.
I enjoyed the focus on two major topics, media/art and interpretation/appropriation, and I came away from this conference with an understanding of, among other things, a new approach (actions vs. objects), a new region (Russia circa now), and a wider global view. While the conference far from answered the question, “Is fashion truly global?” (a topic as huge and spherical as the planet itself), I was inspired by the questions raised by the research as well as by the strong, effective, and enjoyable presentations: one of the most difficult acts of translation.
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By Ashley,
December 26th, 2011 at 5:00 am
(Academic Research & Related, Conferences and Calls for Papers)
American Friends of the V&A Scholarship and Friends of the V&A Scholarship
The priority deadline for application for 2012/13 is 16th January 2012
The V&A/RCA History of Design MA programme, run in partnership by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art, invites applications for 2012/13. Applicants this year will be considered for the award of the American Friends of the V&A Scholarship and the Friends of the V&A Scholarship.
The programme is a two-year full-time programme, based at both the V&A and the RCA, offering three specialist pathways at MA level:
- Renaissance: History of Design and Material Culture 1400-1650
- Asian: History of Design and Material Culture 1450-present day
- Modern: History of Design and Material Culture 1650-present day
The small seminar-based classes provide an environment for the study of the aesthetic, social, cultural, technological, economic and political contexts for design. The course specializes in object-focused scholarship ranging across architecture and interior design, fashion and textiles, furniture and product design, ceramics, metalwork, glass, prints, drawings and digital media, giving students direct access to the V&A’s unrivalled collections and the highly specialized art and design practices of the RCA. As well as placing emphasis on primary research and object analysis, it offers a broad-ranging theoretical and methodological basis for the study of design and material culture.
American Friends of the V&A Scholarship
Students applying from the United States of America are eligible for this new award, the American Friends of the V&A Scholarship. The AFV&A Scholarship will be offered to a student applying from the USA who intends to work in a museum after graduating from the V&A/RCA History of Design MA programme. It covers overseas fees for the two years of the MA course and also includes a maintenance grant of up to £3000 per year.
Friends of the V&A Scholarship
Students applying from the UK or the EU are eligible for the Friends of the V&A Scholarship. The FV&A Scholarship will be offered to a student applying from the UK or EU who intends to work in a museum after graduating from the V&A/RCA History of Design MA programme. It covers overseas fees for the two years of the MA course and also includes a maintenance grant of up to £3000 per year.
The awards are given on a competitive basis, judged at interview. Students should indicate their interest in and suitability for the Awards on their application form. The priority deadline for application for 2012/13 is 16th January 2012, and interviews will be held in March 2012.
For more information please contact the course administrator: [email protected].
Katrina Royall
V&A/RCA MA Course
Victoria and Albert Museum
0044 (0)79422574
[email protected]
website
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By Monica Sklar,
December 23rd, 2011 at 5:00 am
(Academic Research & Related, Conferences and Calls for Papers, Events, Uncategorized)
"I Love Philadelphia," by William C. Ressler, sourced online.
This post is by guest contributor Kelly Cobb.
Sorry to be tardy to class with this report from The International Textile and Apparel Association conference (ITAA) this year. The conference ran November in Philadelphia, PA, home of Rocky, a world class art museum and the Philly Roller Girls who rank 8th in the world! Here is a re-cap for those who could not make it. The conference “Celebrating Inclusivity & Innovation” was held in Philadelphia and planned by Joseph Hancock and Alphonso McClendon of Drexel University. The organization was stellar-kudos to Joe! The conference sessions were complimented by a unique film event DRESSED as well as a tremendous runway show professionally organized by Barbizon Chic Productions.
credit:JKallal
ITAA Lectra Design Award 2011: Jo Kallal, Roiling Waters (a no waste pattern design)
Concurrent to poster and presentation sessions were opportunities to stretch the leg and brain: travel tours to local apparel operations such as QVC, Destination Maternity Corp. and URBN focusing on the wealth of Industry in the Philadelphia region. The highlight for me was watching Steven Stipelman and Linda Tain tag team during a fabulous workshop on Portfolio Preparation. It was clear that we are all in awe of the rare combination of talent + teaching + a healthy dose of repartee.
ITAA Stipelman workshop. Credit: K.Cobb
I live in Philly and was excited to be on my own turf. I want to say this: this conference was expensive, more expensive incidentally if you do not stay at the conference hotel, I suppose this is standard for many conferences. Most participants receive funding from their programs to attend. What if a scholar does not have a program? What about independent scholars and contingent faculty?
These vibrant and quite large populations of scholar (I freelanced and was contingent faculty concurrent with my creative practice for almost 10 years) should have support to sit at the table. In my circle of movers and shakers, a full-time academic is a minority, and it is not due to lack of talent. My most dynamic colleagues are odd jobbing, adjunct teaching, writing and making projects with time that they don’t really have. Am I describing you? I wish we could have met at the table in Philadelphia. With all the talk Inclusivity and Innovation I felt a little like the current game-changers are left out of the formula.
It is clear that ITAA is quite actively evolving by putting energy into cultivating the potentials of the organization in special topic sessions such as The Future of ITAA Marketing and Public Relations: Evaluating Discourse Through Social Media Initiatives facilitated by Keith Nishida, Oregon State University And Cindy Istook, North Carolina State University. For scholars whose research focuses on hybrid design, new media, fashion studies, culture and history there is buzz but not a quantifiable mode of dissemination. With the resurgence of craft and inclination towards fashion in our culture right now, it would serve the organization to find solid means to support fluid contemporary hybrid scholarship, beyond the current journal mode.
We are dealing with this now in my department in an ad-hoc committee that is working toward updating our promotion and tenure policies. Is fashion blogging counted as research as it is not a vetted publication? Can we talk about social practice within fashion because the method is slippery and there is no content analysis capability? How is maintaining a costume collection and exhibiting timely themes from the perspective of the garment quantified as scholarship?
I am touching on two issues here: How to measure contemporary scholarship in a way that champions fluidity and innovation AND how to support the peripatetic contemporary scholar. I suppose what I am left with after ITAA this year is:
- What a fabulous foundation and what amazing brainpower this organization holds, what potential exists!
- How as a contemporary scholar, who finds herself/himself at the table, can we meaningfully contribute and participate?
- How can you, dear reader, be at my table? What are you working on? How can your research be shared and acknowledged and supported?
Next year: Hawaii.
Kelly Cobb is a Philadelphia-based designer who uses costume as a basis for her cross genre work. She is also an Instructor at The University of Delaware, where she teaches CAD, Product Development and Management Studio, and Creative Design Methods.
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By Ashley,
December 19th, 2011 at 5:00 am
(Conferences and Calls for Papers)
Beyond the Frame: Portraits and Personal Experience in Renaissance Europe, c.1400 – 1650
Saturday 28 April 2012
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
Please send proposals of 250 words for papers of 20 minutes, and a short biography to: [email protected] by 20 January 2012
In Renaissance art historical scholarship, the category of the portrait has provided a key framework for thinking about and discussing representations of the individual, an emphasis that has been echoed in a range of recent exhibitions celebrating Renaissance ‘faces’.
The inaugural Renaissance postgraduate symposium invites new scholars to explore the limits of this framework. It aims to encourage students of the Renaissance, in its broadest definition, to consider the domestic, devotional and urban environments of portraits. Contributors are invited to consider how the experience of viewing, commissioning and living with portraits affects our understanding of their meaning and function, situating the images within their historical contexts rather than within the museum’s exhibition space. Likewise, participants are invited to challenge the terminology of portraiture and to consider objects and images which do not fit into the conventional category of the ‘portrait’ but which nevertheless ‘portray’ individuals.
Topics could include, but are not limited to:
• Self-fashioning
• Portraiture and problems of terminology
• Public and private spaces for portraits
• Portraiture and its relationship to literature, music & architecture
• Fashion, make-up and adornment
• Experience of the domestic space
• Mimesis
• The role of the patron
• New media: engravings, woodcuts, etchings
• The relationship between portrait and narrative
• Author portraits and book illustrations
• Funerary monuments
• Exhibiting Renaissance portraiture
• Collecting habits
Organised by Emily Gray and Harriette Peel (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
Research Forum
The Courtauld Institute of Art
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
Email
For more information, please visit the symposium’s website
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