CALL FOR PAPERS:
Conference: Art Histories, Cultural Studies and the Cold War
Date: Friday 24 September 2010
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London
Keynote Speaker: Miranda Carter (author of Anthony Blunt: His Lives,
2001)
Study Day: Cold War Cities
Date: Saturday 25 September 2010
Venue: Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London
Twenty years ago the world witnessed the most momentous geo-political
changes since the end of the Second World War: the fall of the Berlin
Wall,
the implosion of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the USA as the
global superpower. The period of the Cold War (c.1948-89) was one of
ideological struggle and profound cultural crisis, no less so than for
the discipline of Art History, rooted in the ideals and aspirations of
the
European Enlightenment. But the crucible of the Cold War also witnessed
the re-definition of Art History, the birth of the New Left and a
nascent
tradition of Cultural Studies.
In 1952 Erwin Panofsky wrote a paper surveying Three Decades of Art
History in the United States - an essay pervaded by an acute sense of
how the development of the discipline of Art History, and the lives of
individual art historians, had been shaped by the momentous political
events of the 1930s and 40s. In a specific reference to McCarthyism,
Panofsky noted how 'nationalism and intolerance' remained a terrifying
threat to academic freedom and that 'even when dealing with the remote
past, the historian cannot be entirely objective.' Although the
situation was less extreme in the UK, intellectuals and academics with
left wing sympathies such as Frederick (Frigyes) Antal, Francis
Klingender and Eric Hobsbawm still faced 'red baiting' and other
challenges in gaining employment in universities and other
teaching-related posts.
Writing in 1960 to Adrian Stokes about his book Art and Illusion, Ernst
Gombrich reflected on the 'considerable shock' with which he discovered
that Art History had been misused to propagate pseudo-historical myths
on both the Right and the Left.
Some decades later Peter Fuller was faced with a changing political
landscape and
the need to re-consider his own response to national identity and to the
Marxism he had cherished earlier in his career.
This conference on Friday 24 September, organized by the department of
History & Philosophy of Art at the University of Kent, aims to explore
how the Cold War delineated approaches to Art History, Historiography
and Cultural Studies and how its conditions and constraints shaped the
professional careers and influenced the writings and ideas of scholars
and cultural theorists. We welcome a wide range of perspectives that
might include, for example, the use of particular methodologies, the
choice of specific subjects for analysis that were explicitly
politically motivated or contextualised readings of particular art
historical monographs or reviews of wider art historical topics, such as
'the Renaissance' or 'the history of Modern Art', as sites of displaced
ideological conflict.
Alternatively, papers might involve the exploration of state patronage
and of the intellectual debates and cultural events around the visual
arts, whether overt in the form of Soviet Realism, or more covert as in
the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom. Contributions are not
confined to Anglo-Saxon Art History and we welcome Post-Colonial and
European perspectives (from both sides of the former Iron Curtain).
A related study day on Saturday 25 September, organized by the Centre
for the Study of Cultural Memory (CCM) at the Institute of Germanic &
Romance Studies, will explore Cold War Cities. We welcome papers from a
variety of angles and disciplines, including history, art history, film,
architecture, politics, memory and cultural studies. Amongst other
things, papers may address: post-war memories; cities at the
centre/cities at the fringes; architecture, including divisive
architecture (e.g. walls); cities in film; the Eastern Bloc, especially
former Yugoslavia; utopian/distopian cities; cities and the space race;
migration; terrorism and the city.
Please send your abstract (250 words max) by 24 February 2010 to
[log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] (for the Art Histories
Conference); to [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] (for
the Cold War Cities study day).
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
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