Appel à communication : « New Approaches to Collecting (1400-1600) » (10-12 avril 2014, AAH, Londres)

London, Royal College of Art, April 10 – 12, 2014
Deadline: Nov 11, 2013

CFP for the annual Association of Art Historians conference, 2014 at
the Royal College of Art, London

New Approaches to Collecting (1400-1600)
Session Convenor: Leah Clark

This panel seeks submissions that address new approaches to collecting in the early modern world. Scholars have long been attentive to the emergence of the studiolo in the Italian Renaissance and its relationship to humanism and the revival of classical culture, pursuing connections between art, antiquity, politics, knowledge, and power. Traditional approaches to collecting have tended to concentrate on collectors’ tastes within larger patronage studies, analysing inventories as lists of static objects, or by examining the iconographic programmes of studioli. Recent interests in materiality, the domestic interior, and anthropological considerations of the social life of things, however, have broadened possibilities in approaches to collecting. This panel seeks submissions that consider collecting from a new standpoint, and encourages theoretically engaged papers that examine the movement of collectibles across geographical boundaries, locate collecting within larger cross-cultural exchanges of circulation and consumption, contribute to or respond to exchange theory, and/or consider the shifting and unstable meanings of objects as they changed hands across time and space. The panel aims to open up new approaches to collecting by complicating assumptions about the relationship between gifts, collecting practices, commodity exchange, and the circulation of goods.

Possible questions include: In what ways did the collection, replication, and imitation of new styles, objects, and materials play a role in disseminating knowledge and narratives? How did the exchange of collectibles function as initiators of associations? How did the notion of collecting change over time and did the categories of objects collected inform this process of transformation?

For more information on the conference and details on how to submit an abstract, please see the AAH website:  http://www.aah.org.uk/annual-conference/2014-conference

Please submit abstracts for consideration to Dr Leah Clark  (The Open University): leah.clark@mail.mcgill.ca by November 11, 2013.