Renaissance Society of America (RSA) 2017 Conference
Chicago, The Palmer House Hilton, 30 March - 1 April 2017
Calls for papers
Embodying Value: Representing Money in the Early Modern Period
Joanna Woodall and Natasha Seaman, co-organizers
As media of exchange, coins were essential to trade and economic
development in the early modern period. Their double-sided form and the
precious materials from which they were made had deep resonance in
European culture and beyond. The efficacy of coins depended on faith in
their inherent value but they were subject to debasement and
counterfeiting. This session seeks papers that explore the signifying
potential of money in works of art, and how abstract concepts of value
intersect with and are figured in material and monetary forms. While
the art market may have some relevance to this subject, papers selected
will have as their primary focus the particular character of coins as
physical and semiotic entities, money as it appears within images and
texts, and how concepts of money and currency can inform our
understanding of works of art in this period.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to
Depictions of coins in exchange, gifts, or theft
Represented coins in hoards and kunstkammers
Coins as metaphors in literature
Coins and the production of knowledge
Counterfeiting and debasement in works of art
Coins in relation to portrait medals, seals, or pilgrimage badges
Coins and the Eucharist and/or Incarnation
The materiality, design and production of coins in relation to their
value and use
Please send proposals to Natasha Seaman ([log in to unmask]) and Joanna
Woodall ([log in to unmask]) by Friday, May 27, 2016.
As per RSA guidelines, proposals should include the following: paper
title (15-word maximum), abstract (150-word maximum), keywords, and a
very brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum). See
http://www.rsa.org/?page=submissionguidelines#CfP
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Altarpieces on the Move: Religious Art Redeployed in Early Modern Italy
Session Sponsored by the Italian Art Society
Organizers: Gail Feigenbaum, Getty Research Institute; Sandra Richards,
Department of Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada
Beginning in the 16th century, and with increasing frequency throughout
the 17th century, altarpieces and other works of art originally
destined for churches were moved to private and often secular spaces
where they took on new roles and meanings. The motives and mechanisms
that enabled these works to be redefined—avid collectors, issues of
decorum, dramatic displays of power, international politics, an
increasingly aestheticized view of sacred objects, to name a few—are
many and complicated. Across such varied circumstances, these
altarpieces on the move necessitated a recalibration of their sacred
and aesthetic content as they were recontextualized in new settings
such as picture galleries in palaces, or even repurposed in new church
settings.
For this session, we seek papers that address instances in early modern
Italy of altarpieces and other religious art objects being removed from
their settings and put to new uses. Questions addressed might include,
but are not limited to, the following: What measures, both theoretical
and practical, helped ensure the transformation of these works? What
distinctions were made between what was considered appropriate for
sacred and secular contexts? What role did church authorities play in
the removal of religious art? What can we learn from this phenomenon
about the nascent art market and practices of collecting?
Please send a brief abstract (no more than 150 words); a selection of
keywords for your talk; a brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum in
outline rather than narrative form) to Gail Feigenbaum at
[log in to unmask] and Sandra Richards at [log in to unmask]
by Monday, May 23rd. Please indicate “RSA” in the subject line of your
email.
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Kingdom Animalia: Collecting and Representing Animals in the Global
Renaissance
Animals have appeared in early modern art in a number of seemingly
formulaic categories—serving as allegorical symbols, metaphors of human
behavior, and as emblems of familial dynasty among other functions.
Numerous scholarly studies have therefore been devoted to them as such.
In these models, depictions of animals are understood to offer
moralizing messages about faith, virtue, and vice. In recent years,
however, alternative theories have emerged that assert the scientific
and ethnographic implications attendant to the representation of
animals in the period 1400-1700. These methodologies converge with new
histories of the 'global' Renaissance which have introduced to the
discipline vastly different interpretations of the natural world.
Animals, in turn, should be seen to play an important role, not only in
the wunderkammer or menagerie, as is well known, but in the production
of global knowledge itself.
This session aims to explore the ways that animals—whether real,
imagined, represented, or collected—participated in epistemologies of
the 'exotic' or 'foreign' in early modern Europe. How might the
European cultural history of animals have changed as a result of
factors like increasing international trade, overseas exploration and
colonization, and contact with indigenous religions? And finally, in
what ways might European attitudes toward exotic animals have resembled
their perceptions of the 'other' more generally?
Papers in this session(s) might explore a series of related topics and
questions including but not limited to:
- The representation of animals from Africa, Asia, or the Americas in
devotional or secular art
- The use of animal fur, feathers, bone, or tusks in the manufacture of
decorative or utilitarian objects
- Non-European animals adopted as familial emblems
- Collection of taxidermy animals or composite, fantastical creatures
- The representation of animal myths and legends recounted in early
modern travel literature
- The role of animals in the construction of early modern racial
stereotypes
- The incorporation of non-European animals in large-scale, public
monuments such as fountains.
Please send proposals to Erin Benay ([log in to unmask]). Include in your
proposal: name and affiliation, paper title (max. 15 words), abstract
(max. 150 words), and a brief CV (max. 300 words; in ordinary CV
format) by Sunday, June 5th at the absolute latest.
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Discovering & Rediscovering Renaissance Objects
Jacob Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860)
has long been heralded as a pivotal moment for the rediscovery of the
Renaissance. Throughout the long nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, Renaissance 'discoveries' came to light that contradicted,
shaped and informed the flourishing academic disciplines of history,
art history and archaeology.
From archeological finds and archival revelations to 'hidden' art
collections, discoveries come in many different forms. But as Francis
Haskell and Ernst Gombrich have deftly demonstrated, 'discoveries' are
also often 'rediscoveries' connected to taste, fashion and collecting;
external events can act as a catalyst to perpetuate 'discoveries', or
slow their widespread recognition; and 'discoveries' can make and break
careers.
Leading on from these studies, this session proposes to explore the
phenomenon of the 'Discovery' itself, as event, narrative, and academic
moment, and as a cipher between this time and the discovered
Renaissance past.
We invite case studies and historiographical approaches in the
discovery and rediscovery of Renaissance objects, to explore how such
objects have been received, revived, and recounted. We welcome
discoveries in Western and non-Western contexts, from the early modern
period until the present day, as well as papers that consider the
paradoxes in the notion of discovery itself.
Please submit a paper title (15 word maximum), abstract (150-word
maximum), key words, and a brief CV (300 words) to Imogen Tedbury, The
Courtauld Institute of Art ([log in to unmask]) and Thalia
Allington-Wood, University College London
([log in to unmask]) by Thursday, June 2, 2016.
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