Seminar: Visualising the Bible in the Nineteenth Century

Thursday 13th June 2013, CRASSH, University of Cambridge, 9.30am – 5.30pm

Speakers:, Michaela Giebelhausen (Essex), Colin Cruise (Aberystwyth), Ayla Lepine (Yale/Courtauld), Claire Jones (York )

What is the artist’s role – and responsibility – in visually interpreting the Bible? How did this change in nineteenth-century Britain, when the stability of scripture was increasingly uncertain? How do sacred texts in particular pose problems for the relationship between the verbal and the visual? This one day colloquium will consider how religious belief, form, function, medium, gender, and sexuality figured in representations of Biblical narrative, spanning textiles, painting, drawing and sculpture.

Conference: The End of an Era? New Perspectives on Edwardian Art

Friday, May 10, 2013, 5:30 pm–7:30 pm, and Saturday, May 11, 2013, 9:30 am–5:45 pm
, Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven

Keynote Lecture: The Rhythm of Time in the Arts of Edwardian Britain, Angus Trumble, Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, Yale Center for British Art

This international symposium coincides with the Center’s major exhibition Edwardian Opulence: British Art at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, curated by Angus Trumble, Senior Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, Yale Center for British Art, and Andrea Wolk Rager, Visiting Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University. Although King Edward VII reigned for only nine years, he gave his name to an era remarkable for its opulence and its contradictions. This symposium will offer a forum for considering the state of the field of interdisciplinary studies of the Edwardian period. Presenting a series of position papers in response to key themes, speakers will examine why the Edwardian era continues to exert a powerful afterlife and provide new interpretations of the art of the period. Participants will also have the opportunity to tour the exhibition with the curators. Speakers include: Cassandra Albinson (Yale Center for British Art), Tim Barringer (Yale University), Grace Brockington (University of Bristol), Michael Hatt (University of Warwick), Linda Ferber (New-York Historical Society), Pamela Fletcher (Bowdoin College), Barbara Gallati (Independent Curator), Morna O’Neill (Wake Forest University), Susan Sidlauskas (Rutgers University), Sarah Turner (University of York), and Alison Inglis (University of Melbourne).

The symposium is free and open to the public. Advance registration is recommended. Register online through May 8. On-site registration will begin at 9:00 am on May 11. For further information, please contact Research (ycba.research@yale.edu).

 

Tate Britain: Looking at the View

Until 2 June 2013

This thematic display looks at continuities in the way artists have framed our vision of the landscape over the last 300 years. Coinciding with the re-opening of all Tate Britain’s galleries, the selection finds surprising coincidences and remarkable affinities in the way we look at the view, whether near or afar, high or low, from inside or out. Over seventy works by more than fifty artists are included, including familiar names such as J.M.W. Turner and Tracey Emin as well as lesser-known figures of British art history. The exhibition consists entirely of works from the Tate collection and is part of the BP British Art Displays.

Symposium – Neo-Victorian Villainy: Adaptation and Reinvention on Page, Stage and Screen

Department of Theatre, Film and Television: University of York, Saturday May 25^th 2013

Registration is now open for this one-day symposium. The event aims to facilitate cross-disciplinary discussion between scholars in Film, Theatre, Television, Neo-Victorian Studies, Literature, Adaptation Studies, and Fan and Popular Culture Studies. At its heart is the research question: In what ways do modern representations of the villain in popular culture draw on the narratives and iconic villains of the Victorian period? The symposium will feature papers on, among other subjects: Neo-Victorian ghosts and vampires, writing and adapting the neo-Victorian villainess, Dickens adaptations, neo-Victorian espionage, melodrama, Batman, Ripper Street, and representations of spirit mediums. Keynote speakers include Guy Barefoot (University of Leicester), Eckart Voigts (Technische Universität, Braunschweig) and Richard Hand (University of Glamorgan). The symposium will also feature a creative practitioners’ panel, including author Ann Featherstone (Walking in Pimlico, The Newgate Jig) and playwrights Michael Punter and Laura Turner. The symposium will also mark the launch of a call for proposals for an edited book collection on Neo-Victorian Villains, with chapters drawing on the themes and issues raised on the day.

Conference: Visual Culture in Crisis – Britain c.1800 – Present

Friday 10th – Saturday 11th May 2013, Bowland Auditorium, Berrick Saul Building, University of York.

Keynote Speakers: Professor Christopher Pinney (UCL), Dr Eric Stryker (Southern Methodist University), Dr. Chad Elias (University of York), and Corinne Silver (artist).

‘European mastery is always in crisis – and it is this same crisis that defines European modernity’ – Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri

The word ‘crisis’ is frequently invoked to assess Britain’s current place in the world: crises in finance, journalism, politics and geopolitics dominate the media, all of which see the term used both to reflect, and manipulate, a sense of uncertainty and confusion on personal, national, and global levels. Taking its cue from Hardt and Negri’s location of ‘crisis’ as central to European modernity, this conference seeks to explore how visual cultures from the 19th century to the present have simultaneously responded to – and emerged from – such successive crises. Crisis might signify avant-garde break-through and embrace of modernity. It might impel artistic breakdown or flight from modernity, anarchic celebration, or resistance in the form of protest. Crisis in visual culture could above all be emblematic of the contingent nature of personal and political identities. As both a product and a precipitant of the inter-state and inter-subjective networks that have emerged in conjunction with imperialism and economic globalisation, crisis can articulate a disharmony between metropole and colony, centre and periphery, state and individual, working constantly to disrupt the geographical, cultural and class boundaries of peoples and nations.

This two-day conference, generously supported the British Art Research School at the University of York and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, aims to begin unpacking some of these issues.  See below for a full timetable of the event, or visit our website for more information: http://visualcultureincrisis.wordpress.com/

All welcome – there is no fee.  Please register by emailing visualcultureincrisis@gmail.com

Call for Papers – Modern British History since 1750

Conference on Modern British History: Society, Culture, Politics and Religion since 1750. University of Edinburgh, 10-11 June 2013. Proposals due by 6 May 2013

Following the success of the conferences held at Strathclyde (2007-2009), at St Andrews in 2010, at Dundee in 2011, and at Stirling in 2012, the Modern British History Network will host a seventh major Conference on Modern British History at New College, University of Edinburgh, on 10-11 June 2013. The event is particularly aimed at members of the Scottish universities and the northern English universities although all historians are very welcome. Previous conferences have attracted delegates from across the UK and from overseas. Proposals for papers or registration to attend the event are now invited from researchers working on all aspects of modern British history. The conference aims to represent work covering the whole period since the late eighteenth century with topics in social, cultural, political and religious history. Proposals should be submitted by 6 May 2013 to Dr Juliette Pattinson (juliette.pattinson@strath.ac.uk). Over two days there will be three main papers from senior academics and short papers by other academics and postgraduates, who are equally welcome to speak.

Exhibition – Close to the Heart: British Miniatures

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, until 5 May 2013

17th- to 19th-Century British Miniatures from UK Private Collections. Small masterpieces of British portraiture from two celebrated UK private collections – including a tiny portrait mounted on a finger-ring, of 18th-century British actor impresario David Garrick – are displayed in this exhibition, some for the first time ever. The exhibits range in date from about 1600 to 1850, and include exquisite examples by such leading names in the field as Nicholas Hilliard, Isaac and Peter Oliver, George Engleheart, Richard Cosway, John Smart and Sir William Ross. Together they will provide one of the finest displays of miniatures to be seen anywhere in the UK outside London. This exhibition is curated by Robert Wenley, and has been made possible thanks to the generous support of Bonhams.

Call for Papers – Legacy: Mythology and Authenticity in the Humanities

De Montfort University: A postgraduate conference 28th June 2013. Proposal Deadline April 16th

This conference focuses on the influence of cultural ‘legacies’ within current humanities research.  By highlighting the work of postgraduates and early career researchers, this interdisciplinary conference will examine the various ways in which ‘legacies’ are created, restructured, perpetuated and even rejected.  It will also question whether newer disciplines respond to cultural mythologies by establishing their own ‘legacy’ as a means of achieving academic authentication. The recent confirmed identity of Richard the III, Faber’s choice of cover illustration for its anniversary issue of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, and the recent film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit are just a few of the numerous examples that demonstrate how cultural legacies evolve within academic research and the public forum. These inherited cultural legacies are continually being redefined, rebranded and reevaluated, creating a cyclical pattern that challenges the ways in which we approach and define them.  This brings into question the social and political significance of ‘legacy’ and its relevance within the humanities, both as a research theme and as a lens by which to view the progression of our respective disciplines. The conference will conclude with a roundtable discussion with Professor Dominic Shellard the Vice-Chancellor of De Montfort University, Dr Will Buckingham of the School of Humanities at De Montfort University, and Mr Sam Causer of the Leicester School of Architecture.

Next Meeting of the British Art Discussion Group

Tuesday 9th April, Tate Britain, 4.30pm

The British Art Discussion Group is a forum of graduate British art researchers who meet to share and discuss current research on modern and contemporary British art. The next meeting of the British Art Discussion Group will take place on Tuesday 9th April at Tate Britain at a new time of 4.30pm. Claire Yearwood, a doctoral student at the University of Bristol, will open the discussion with a presentation on ‘The Pre-Raphaelite Mirror’.

The meeting will be held in one of the Tate’s meeting rooms, and so attendees will need to meet once more as a group beforehand and go to the room together – as a result, those interested in coming should congregate outside the Manton entrance to the gallery at 4.15pm and go from there. The organisers would appreciate it if you could email them if you plan to attend so that a security pass can be prepared for each attendee. If you are interested in attending, please contact Greg Salter (G.Salter@uea.ac.uk) or Kate Aspinall (K.Aspinall@uea.ac.uk).

Call for Papers: Collaborators – The Role of Collectors, Critics and Curators in Artistic Practice c. 1780-1914

Honoré Daumier, The Print Collectors, c.1863–5. Photo c. V&A

Conference: 26 June 2013, Humanities Research Centre, University of York; Call for Papers Deadline: Friday 26th April

In May 1884 the art critic Marion Harry Spielmann wrote in defence of the often criticised profession of art criticism: “The critic – (I am not now referring to the mere notice writer of daily journalism) – spends his life in devotion not only to art but to artists: and, so far as public recognition is concerned, he reaps his reward in sneers and ‘chaff’: sneers from painters, thoughtless and irresponsible, like Mr Whistler; indifference from others less splenetic and querulous.” Spielmann, a prolific author, editor and arts administrator, was an advocate for and close friend of numerous contemporary artists. Along with the collectors and curators whom he frequently worked with and wrote about, he was an active and influential participant in contemporary art practice in late-Victorian London.