Professor Emeritus Deanna Petherbridge, University of Melbourne Free Public Lecture

The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions and the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne presents:

“Scorn, Greed, Malevolence & Mischief: Goya’s graphic expression of emotions,” Professor Emeritus Deanna Petherbridge (University of the West of England)

Date: Monday 12 October 2015
Time: 6:15-7:45pm
Venue: Macmahon Ball Theatre, Old Arts Building, The University of Melbourne
Enquiries: Jessica Scott or +61 3 8344 5152

This presentation will examine the consummate skill with which Goya represents emotions in his late private albums and some of the print series associated with these drawings. From 1795-6 Goya borrows the figure of the bruja or witch as an historically subversive topos for portraying his disgust with a corrupt clergy, monarchy and cruel social order. As the proportions of his figures change in the album drawings so his ability to suggest subtlety of facial and bodily emotions in his brush and pen work deepens. Language also becomes more intense for Goya, isolated by his total deafness, and the texts appended to drawings and prints are variably metaphoric, playing with language/visual puns or seeming blocks to clarity of meaning. Like his drawings the titles become sparer but more esoteric, especially in his late self- imposed exile to Bordeux. The relationship between ‘speaking’ facial expressions, bodily construction, emotion and textual hints therefore become essential cross referents in approaching the powerful late works.

Deanna Petherbridge is an artist, writer and curator primarily concerned with drawing. Now Professor Emeritus, University of the West of England, Bristol she was previously Professor of Drawing at the Royal College of Art and has held other academic appointments. She has written extensively for art and architectural journals and is the author of The Primacy of Drawing: Histories and Theories of Practice, 2010 and, most recently, Witches and Wicked Bodies, 2013 the catalogue of an exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and the British Museum, London. She has lectured and exhibited internationally and undertaken drawing residencies in various countries including Australia. A retrospective of her drawings will be held at the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester 2016-7. www.deannapetherbridge.com.

Spaces and Places of Leisure, Recreation and Sociability in Early Modernity – Call For Papers

Spaces and Places of Leisure, Recreation and Sociability in Early Modernity (c. 1500-1800)
German Historical Institute, London, England
19-21 May, 2016

Convener: Angela Schattner

This conference looks at practices of leisure, recreation and sociability in pre-modern societies and how these were reflected in and shaped by spatial practices. As is the case today, sociable, leisure and recreational practices and events were important means for strengthening associations and social bonds, creating local and regional identities, and maintaining distinctions. While the role and practices of sociability in clubs, societies and guilds have been well explored in recent decades, their connections with leisure and recreation have been neglected. Sociability has in recent years featured prominently in histories of consumer societies and material culture. A new interest in spatiality has also led to an intensive investigation of sociable public places such as coffee houses, clubs, salons, shops, and taverns and their connection with the emergence of a (political) public sphere. (Spatial) practices and modes of sociable leisure and recreation in early modern society, however, have received much less attention. The main research undertaken in this area is largely concerned with English urban developments in commercial leisure in the eighteenth century, while practices and spaces of recreation, diversion and sociability before 1660 and beyond Europe have only very recently come into clearer focus.

The aim of this conference is to take stock of the current state of research in the field of spatial practices of leisure, recreation and sociability. It aims to bridge the gap between histories of recreation, leisure and sociability in the eighteenth century and earlier periods, and to facilitate conversations between historians working on different case studies in Europe and beyond in order to develop comparative perspectives. Contributions might investigate spatial practices or the creation and usage of public, economic, exclusive or private places and spaces for leisure and sociability in urban, courtly or rural contexts. Papers are also welcome to explore different forms of leisure and recreation (sport, games, performances, drinking and eating etc.) and sociability (for example, with family, friends, neighbours, status groups, work and religious associations etc.)

Papers could address issues such as the following, but are not limited to this list:

  • Topographies of places and spaces. What are the different places and spaces of leisure, recreation and sociability in early modern towns and villages? How are they connected? Are different spaces used by the same groups on different occasions or do they co-exist?
  • Multi-functionality of spaces. What other purposes do sociable places serve and does the multi-functionality of places influence or reflect on the practices of leisure and sociability?
  • Comparisons. How do practices and spaces differ between town and country, between different regions, between countries? Are there similarities?
  • Transfer of practices from town to country and vice versa, between cities, between countries. Who are the agents of transfer? How are fashions created and transferred?
  • Change over time. How did spatial practices of leisure and sociability change over time? Which spatial practices or places formerly in use were abandoned, and what replaced them? Who or what initiated these changes? Who opposed these changes and how?
  • Social relations created in sociable places and spaces and modes of inclusion or exclusion (gender, status, age).

Proposals from scholars at any stage in their career are invited and papers with an interdisciplinary approach are particularly welcome.

Standard travel expenses and the cost of accommodation for the duration of the conference will be reimbursed.

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please submit an abstract of up to 300 words and a short CV by 8 November, 2015.

All enquiries and proposals should be sent to Angela Schattner: schattner@ghil.ac.uk

National Archives of Australia/Australian Historical Association Postgraduate Scholarships (Round 2) – Call For Applications

For those undertaking research towards a MA or PhD in history, the National Archives of Australia/Australian Historical Association scholarships assist scholars with the cost of copying records held in the Archives.

Applications for the second round of these scholarships open on October 1 and close on October 31.

Full details can be found here: http://www.naa.gov.au/about-us/grants/postgraduate-scholarships/index.aspx

 

GOLD: the 33rd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand – Call For Papers

GOLD: the 33rd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand
Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning and ACAHUCH (Australian Collaboratory for Architectural History, Urban and Cultural Heritage), Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, Australia
6-9 July, 2016

Conference Website

GOLD, for millennia, has fascinated humanity and possessed an extraordinary value amongst most civilizations. It was the favoured ultimate currency in many cultures and served as the signal form of capital: both its accumulation and its waste. It was the catalyst of wars, and constituted its spoils. Gold is the adjective to describe mythical lands: for Marco Polo, Japan was ‘Zipangu, the Land of Gold’. There have been venerated building types celebrating religious and cultural beliefs like ‘golden’ temples and ‘golden’ houses like Nero’s Domus Aurea. There have been buildings to protect gold, buildings which openly display it. In art and architectural historiography, there have been ‘golden’ periods and ‘golden ages’. Gold is about luxury, glamour and excess. It also has as its direct opposite objects of no value, things that might be described as worthless.

The 33rd Annual SAHANZ Conference to be held in Melbourne in July 2016 is to be devoted to the exploration of architecture and gold. The public announcement in 1851 that gold had been discovered in the newly created state of Victoria changed the course of Australian history. Melbourne, the state’s capital, grew to be one of the world’s great provincial metropolises and gold was its motor. In 1854, the Victorian Gold Discovery Committee observed that “The discovery of the Victorian Goldfields has converted a remote dependency into a country of world wide fame; it has attracted a population, extraordinary in number, with unprecedented rapidity; it has enhanced the value of property to an enormous extent; it has made this the richest country in the world; and, in less than three years, it has done for this colony the work of an age, and made its impulses felt in the most distant regions of the earth.” Melbourne is thus the ideal conference venue for critically examining gold and the history of the built environment.

Papers are invited that examine and reflect on various aspects and examples of this theme within different cultural contexts. There are many ways that this can be approached as suggested by the following sub-themes:

  • architecture and capitalism
  • colonial and neo-liberal transformations in Asia and the circulation of people and commodities
  • veins of gold: colonisation, imperialism and neo-liberalism
  • Victorian prosperity: the phenomena of gold rushes in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, South America and elsewhere in the world
  • towns: their landscapes, foundation and sometime disappearance
  • gold rushes as triggers for migration and the transfer of ideas, people and technologies
  • gold diggers: labour migration, mining and casino cultures
  • golden lands, golden kingdoms and ‘gold’ places like the Gold Coast and the Golden Horn in Istanbul
  • buildings and gold: treasuries, golden houses, golden temples, even the Smithsons’ Golden Lane housing
  • gold medals: as accolades in architecture, for architects, expositions as in sport
  • gold and its connotations of ornament, gilding, and the rise of décor
  • the meaning of gold in different cultural settings like Japan and Mexico;
  • Spandau Ballet’s ‘Gold’ and 1980s architecture culture
  • ‘golden days’ and a ‘golden age’: questions of architectural history and historiography
  • gold and the idea of preciousness in conservation
  • gold, alchemy, materiality and craft
  • gold and the interior (picture palaces, James Bond, the ‘solid gold’ disco era and 1970s glamour)
  • penniless: spaces of abjection in new global economies
  • “All that glisters is not gold”: reflections on architecture and authenticity

Abstract submission

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted via the Online Conference Paper Management website.

You will need to create a Login ID and password to allow secure uploading of your abstract. Abstracts will be blind reviewed by at least two members of the Conference Academic Committee. External referees may be called upon to review an abstract if needed. Full papers (4500 words, including notes) will be double blind peer reviewed and those accepted for presentation at the conference will be published on the conference website, with print-on-demand editions of the full conference proceedings available after the conference at additional cost.

Please note that in addition to a sole-authored proposal, a participant may also be named on a second, co-authored submission but no more. Irrespective of who would deliver the latter paper, if accepted for presentation and publication, each author is required to register to attend the conference. Authors may not present more than one paper as a sole author. Authors may not present more than two papers as a co-author.

Work submitted for review and for publication in the conference proceedings should be original research that has not previously been published elsewhere, or work that has undergone substantial development from a prior publication.

Plenary Session themes

Participants may choose to submit their abstract/paper for consideration in the general program, or submit the abstract for review in one of the plenary sessions listed on the website. The purpose of the plenary session is to provide a more focused forum for academics already engaged in specific topic with additional time for discussion and critical feedback. Plenary sessions will be allocated two hours in which speakers will present truncated 15-minute presentations, leaving one hour for discussion and debate. Plenary session participants are encouraged to distribute final accepted papers to each other for advanced reading before the conference.

Please note, inclusion in a plenary session does not guarantee acceptance into the final program and is dependent on the paper review process. All papers, including the papers of session chairs, are considered individual submissions, which will undergo the same double blind peer review process mentioned above. Some plenary sessions may expand into two if there are enough individual papers that fit under one theme. If plenary sessions fail to gather enough qualified papers, the session may be dissolved and accepted papers will be redistributed into the general conference program.

Participants interested in presenting at a specific plenary session should indicate their preference by uploading their papers under the plenary session theme on the Online Conference Paper Management website. Abstracts which have been accepted through the peer review process but not accepted into a plenary session will be invited to submit the full paper for peer review for the general program.

Abstracts due: 14 October, 2015.

ANZAMEMS Member News: Shannon Lambert, Thoughts on the 10th ANZAMEMS Conference @ UQ, July 2015

Shannon Lambert, Doctoral Candidate, University of Adelaide

In July, I attended the ANZAMEMS Conference at the beautiful University of Queensland. I was fortunate enough to have the support of an ANZAMEMS conference bursary to help with some of the costs associated with attending. This was the second time I have received an ANZAMEMS postgraduate bursary for conference travel, and I would like to thank ANZAMEMS for their commitment to supporting postgraduates. I know I represent my fellow postgraduates when I say that this support is greatly appreciated.

Perhaps because of the topic of the paper I gave—“becoming-drone” in Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece—the word “buzzing” comes to mind when I think back on this conference. In the breaks between sessions, the hall was filled with conversation, and it was so motivating to be part of a collective with a shared interest in medieval and early modern periods. I always enjoyed hearing about people’s research, and sharing what I do. In the sessions I attended, the presenters captured the attention of the audience, who, in turn, expressed their interest by asking carefully thought-out questions. From the sessions I attended, I particularly enjoyed the affective transmissions of Jennifer Clement’s “Sermon Theory,” the liveliness and animation of the panel on “Facial Feeling in medieval English Literature,” and, as so many others have noted, the enthusiasm which flowed from Barnaby Ralph’s “A sense of ‘humour’?”

I gave my paper in the final session of the final day. While it was not my first experience preparing and delivering a conference paper, it was the first time I had spoken in front of a specialist early modern audience. Unlike the first paper I gave at a conference, which came at the beginning of my candidature, this paper was drawn from the deep depths of the final chapter of my thesis; therefore, in preparing my paper, I faced the (new) challenge of having to adapt detailed work I had done into an accessible twenty-minute talk. What, for example, were the “key terms” of my paper? What could I assume people would know? And, how could I (temporarily) bundle together the spindly threads of a Deleuzian approach, while making sure that this bundle was loose enough to allow people to thread its strands into their own lines of thinking? I was so grateful for the audience’s receptiveness to my post-structural reading of Shakespeare’s Lucrece, and the questions I was asked were refreshing. The audience also helped me to develop my thinking about the early modern materials which informed my talk. I would like to especially thank Karin Sellberg for her positivity, and for being so forthcoming with her questions and feedback. The greatest lesson I will take away from this conference is to have confidence in myself and my work—developing this will help me to manage the nerves of facing the “unknown” in the post-paper question time.

Thank you once again to ANZAMEMS for organising such a lively conference, and to the bursaries committee for your continued support of postgraduates. Congratulations to everyone who attended the 2015 ANZAMEMS conference; you made it an event I will remember for its diversity, energy, and “buzz.”

Healing the Body and Soul From the Middle Ages to the Modern Day – Call For Papers

Healing the Body and Soul From the Middle Ages to the Modern Day
Birkbeck, University of London
15-16 July, 2016

Conference Website

Convenors: Katherine Harvey, John Henderson and Carmen Mangion

In the contemporary Western world, religion and medicine are increasingly separated, but through much of history they have been closely interrelated. This relationship has been characterised by some conflict, but also by a great deal of cooperation. Religious perspectives have informed both the understanding of and approaches to health and sickness, whilst religious personnel have frequently been at the forefront of medical provision. Religious organisations were, moreover, often at the heart of the response to medical emergencies, and provided key healing environments, such as hospitals and pilgrimage sites.

This conference will explore the relationship between religion and medicine in the historic past, ranging over a long chronological framework and a wide geographical span. The conference focus will be primarily historical, and we welcome contributions which take an interdisciplinary approach to this topic.

Four main themes will provide the focus of the conference. The sub-themes are not prescriptive, but are suggested as potential subjects for consideration:

1) Healing the Body and Healing the Soul

  • Medical traditions: the non-natural environment and the ‘Passions of the Soul’.
  • Religious traditions (for example, the Church Fathers, sermons and devotional literature).

2) The Religious and Medicine

  • Medical knowledge and practice of religious personnel, including secular and regular clergy.
  • Nurses and nursing.
  • Medical practitioners, religious authorities and the regulation of medical activity and practice.

3) Religious Responses

  • Religious responses to epidemics, from leprosy to plague to pox and cholera.
  • Medical missions in Europe and the wider world.
  • Religion, humanitarianism and medical care.

4) Healing Environments and Religion

  • Religious healing/ miracles/ pilgrimage.
  • Institutional medical care (including hospitals, dispensaries and convalescent homes).

Proposals, consisting of a paper abstract (no more than 300 words) and a short biography (no more than 400 words), should be submitted to religionandmedicineconference@gmail.com by 30 October, 2015. We will to respond to proposals by early December. For more information please visit our website, at https://religionandmedicine.wordpress.com/, and follow us on Twitter @RelMedConf2016

Project Manager for ‘Living With Feeling’ – Call For Applications

The Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University of London seeks to appoint a Project Manager to co-ordinate the activities of a new Wellcome Trust Humanities and Social Science five-year Collaborative Award: ‘Living With Feeling: Emotional Health in History, Philosophy, and Experience’. The award will support an ambitious programme of inter-disciplinary research and public engagement into the history and meanings of ‘emotional health’. An announcement of the new award was made recently on the QMUL website.

The successful applicant will hold an undergraduate degree and will have experience of organizing large events, managing complex projects, and supporting public engagement activities in the arts, sciences, or both. The post might suit an early career academic with an interest in public engagement, or alternatively a candidate with significant experience in administration, media, or arts management.

The post will start on 2 November 2015, or as soon as possible thereafter. Starting salary will be in the range of £31,735 – 35,319 per annum inclusive of London Allowance subject to experience. The post is full time (1.0 fte or 5 days a week), however flexible working and part time candidates will be considered (please state preference in application).

Benefits include 30 days annual leave, a defined benefits pension scheme and an interest-free season ticket loan.

Candidates must be able to demonstrate their eligibility to work in the UK in accordance with the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. Where required this may include entry clearance or continued leave to remain under the Points Based Immigration Scheme.

Further details are available in the Project Manager job profile [PDF].

Informal enquiries should be addressed to Thomas Dixon at t.m.dixon@qmul.ac.uk.

For full details and to apply, please visit: https://webapps2.is.qmul.ac.uk/jobs/job.action?jobRef=QMUL6995

Columbia University: MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies – Call For Applications

The MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies provides the opportunity to undertake graduate level work in any relevant field of interest. Students have the flexibility to take a variety of courses in art history, religion, history, philosophy, literature or other relevant fields offered by departments in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. This flexibility offers the opportunity to concentrate in one area while also exploring other aspects of the life, thought, and culture of the Middle Ages and/or the Early Modern Period. Through this unique interdisciplinary and cross-period approach, students gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the periods.

The program is appropriate for students who will go on to apply to PhD programs as well as for those who wish to complete a terminal MA. In addition to choosing from a wide range of courses, students develop their skills in relevant languages, and are introduced to the study of manuscripts and early printed books. The MA culminates in a final thesis in which students develop an original research project. Students have the option to pursue the degree full time or part-time. The deadline for spring admission is November 1st. For more information, please visit: http://medren.columbia.edu/programs/academic/admissions-information/.

Professor Jonas Liliequist, UWA PMRG/CMEMS Public Lecture

“‘To be unable to dissimulate is to be unable to live’: The ‘Body Politic’ and Gender Trouble of a Swedish Queen”, by Professor Jonas Liliequist (CHE/Umeå University)

Date: Wednesday, 7 October, 2015
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: Arts Lecture Room 5 (G.61, Ground Floor, Arts Building), UWA.
RSVP: All Welcome! No need to RSVP – just come along.

‘In her day, Queen Christina (1626-89) was regarded as exceptional and scandalous by turns, from her unfeminine demeanor and libertine ideals to her refusal to marry, abdication of the throne and conversion to Catholicism in 1654. At the same time, Christina was also very much a child of her time. Starting with learned discussions and doctrines about female rulers, this presentation takes a closer look at Christina in the broader light of central themes in popular and scholarly culture, including crossdressing and role-playing, dissimulation and imposture, hermaphroditism and female masculinity.’

Professor Liliequist is an International Partner Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions. His research focuses on love, sexuality, honour and shame in early modern Europe; and includes the dynamics of family emotions in 17th-18th century Sweden. For more info, see: http://www.umu.se/sok/english/staff-directory/?uid=joli0002&guise=anst2

Professor Yasmin Haskell, UWA Institute of Advanced Studies Free Public Lecture

“The Spice of Faith: Jesuits and the Arts and Emotions of ‘Accommodation'”, Professor Yasmin Haskell (Cassamarca Foundation Chair of Latin Humanism at The University of Western Australia; Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: 1100-1800)

Date: Thursday 12 November 2015
Time: 6:15pm – 7:15pm
Venue: Art Gallery of Western Australia Theatrette, Perth WA
Cost: Event is free but RSVP required

The Society of Jesus, a Catholic Reformation order founded in the 16th century by Ignatius of Loyola, earned a formidable and paradoxical reputation in the early modern period. The Pope’s ‘crack troops’ were deployed from Paris to Paraguay to Peking, converting souls, educating the élites of Catholic Europe and her overseas colonies, conducting diplomatic business and scientific research, producing music and drama, poems and pyrotechnics, art and architecture. Jesuits were active in mission fields through Asia, Africa and the Americas from the 16th -18th centuries and wrote extensively about their experiences. These were mined, in turn, by their brothers in Europe for poems, dramas, and other literature for education and edification. Jesuits were famous for their efforts to cross language barriers (writing dictionaries, translating, acting as diplomats and brokers) and for their chameleon-like ability to adapt to local circumstances. Some, like the Italian Matteo Ricci in China, seem to have enjoyed close friendships with new Christians from cultures radically different from their own.To what extent did early modern Jesuits evince what we might call ‘transcultural empathy’ for the non- European peoples they encountered in the overseas missions?

Was there anything in the Jesuits’ training and ‘way of proceeding’ that rendered them especially receptive to different cultures, or that encouraged them to see through others’ eyes? And what emotional work did ‘exotic’ arts, crafts, and other cultural products – some beautiful examples are on display in the ‘Treasure Ships’ exhibition – perform as tools for conversion and in fortifying Jesuits’ sense of their global, corporate identity?

Professor Yasmin Haskell, FAHA, is Cassamarca Foundation Chair of Latin Humanism at The University of Western Australia and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: 1100-1800, where she leads team projects on ‘Jesuit Emotions’ and ‘Passions for Learning’. Her research interests span poetry and science, history of the Jesuits, and history of emotions and psychiatry.

Before coming to Perth, Yasmin was a research fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge (1995-2002). She has also been a visiting fellow at Christ Church and All Souls Colleges, Oxford, and a visiting fellow commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge.