Res Publica / Public Thing
2016 Art History Graduate Students Association Interdisciplinary Symposium, University of Illinois at Chicago, April 28, 2016

Keynote speakers: Lane Relyea, Art Theory and Practice, Northwestern University, and Eric Santner, Chair, Department of Germanic Studies, The University of Chicago

In the decade since Bruno Latour published “From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik: Or how to make things public,” his call for a politics that is “no longer limited to humans,” that is radically inclusive, that shatters subject object binaries and welcomes the horizontalizing moment when “objects become things” has gained renewed traction. This symposium takes Latour’s move from object to thing as its point of departure in order to investigate the consequences as well as the potential of this shift for the discipline of art history and the humanities more broadly. To this end, we ask: what arises when objects, specifically art-objects, are conflated with the things of everyday life? What does a turn toward the expansive diversity of things and away from political actors, entrenched institutions, the state or the concept of res publica allow for? What does it foreclose? We welcome proposals from across the humanities and from sub-disciplines within the history of art that not only add geographic and historical depth to our theme of Res Publica/Public Thing but also consider what this shift means for art history and criticism today.

Please submit a proposal of no more than 300 words and a CV to ahgsauicgmail.com. Graduate student presenters are eligible for a limited number of travel awards from AHGSA and the School of Art and Art History. Applicants who would like to be considered for the award, should include along with the proposal and CV a brief statement of 250 words or less stipulating the level of support available from their home institution and the amount needed to attend the symposium.

The deadline for submissions is Thursday, January 5, 2017. Selected speakers will be notified by January 15, 2017. Presentations should be 20 minutes in length and will be followed by a question and answer session.