CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

European Society for Nineteenth Century Art founded, call for papers

The European Society for Nineteenth Century Art (‘ESNA’) is a working group of scholars, graduate students, and museum professionals based in the Netherlands whose research focuses on European art of the long nineteenth century. ESNA’s aim is to provide a forum that promotes the exchange of ideas in this field, to support and encourage graduate research, and to enhance networking opportunities for participants. ESNA seeks to contribute to, and foster debate on, nineteenth-century art through its organization of an annual symposium, the invitation of visiting speakers, and co-ordination with other organizations and groups devoted to the study of the nineteenth century. ESNA is a working group formed under the auspices of the Dutch Research School for Art History (Onderzoekschool Kunstgeschiedenis).

ESNA is holding a one-day symposium in Amsterdam on 23rd May, 2013 and you are warmly invited to submit a proposal for a 20 minute paper. The topic of the symposium is ‘Uneasy Alliances: Boundaries and Bargains in Nineteenth-Century Art’, and we welcome a broad range of proposals on this theme. The call for papers is set out below.

If you would like to join the mailing list of ESNA and to become further involved in the activities of the working group, please send an email to k.j.brown@tilburguniversity.edu.

Call for Papers: A one-day symposium organized by the European Society for Nineteenth-Century Art (a working group of the Dutch Postgraduate School for Art History).

Uneasy Alliances: Boundaries and Bargains in Nineteenth-Century Art

This one-day symposium explores ways in which nineteenth-century European art gave expression to the tensions, possibilities, and limitations attaching to the formation and breaking of alliances. Having regard to family relations, artistic encounters, commercial exchanges, and the shaping of geo-political boundaries, the symposium seeks to explore the nineteenth-century artworld as a space of personal, pictorial, and political bargaining. Regard will be given to ways in which alliances (or their rupture) were depicted in, or symbolized by, the content, production, and transfer of art objects. Whether a reinforcement of strength or an imposition of boundaries, the combining of interests is examined as a fertile terrain for aesthetic and social negotiation. Participants are also invited to reflect on recent methodological and disciplinary ‘alliances’ that shape our reading or re-reading of nineteenth-century art history, its art markets, and exhibition practices.

Please send a proposal for a 20 minute paper to Kathryn Brown (k.j.brown@tilburguniversity.edu) and Alba Campo (alba@albacampo.com). Proposals should include an abstract (max 250 words) and details of the presenter’s institutional affiliation. Proposals should be received by no later than 28th February. Presentations will be in English.