Theories of the Object in the Art of the Americas
A Session at SECAC, Pittsburg, October 21-24, 2015
Paper Proposals Due April 20, 2015. Paper proposal instructions at
<http://bit.ly/latamobjecthood>

The arts of the Americas confront the researcher with objects of wide-ranging functions, materials and identities over five millennia of object production. While art historians draw upon a variety of methodologies to address this multiplicity, these methodologies are rarely examined in a holistic, comparative framework.
This session proposes to examine the multiple positions that the object may occupy in our analytical strategies.
Contributions that question the place of the object and objecthood from all periods of the art of the Americas, from Pre-Columbian to contemporary, are welcome. We are interested in exemplary life histories of objects, the exploration of objects as forms of extended personhood, transcultural dialogs across time, materiality, craft, design, and indigeneity's objecthoods, among other approaches that renew our sense of interest in the object. Historiographic studies that examine how these methodologies have evolved over time are also welcome.

Session chairs:
Rex Koontz, University of Houston, and Luis Castañeda, Syracuse University.
Contact with questions (proposals should go directly to SECAC at http://bit.ly/latamobjecthood): rkoontzCentral.UH