[1] Imagining the Heretic: Visual Narratives

Lara Langer
l-langernga.gov

Religious and social strife in the Early Modern period gave rise to a host of “heretics,” including significant thinkers like Savonarola, Luther, Campanella, or Bruno and commoners accused of heretical acts. The religious reshaping of Europe led to massive groups of people being indiscriminately labelled “heretics” according to faith despite instances of nicodemism. While the famous cases got reasonable exposure, the lesser known examples could serve to further understand this multifaceted “geography of the heretic” in Early Modern Europe. This panel is interested in the process of historicizing, memorializing, and imagining the heretic. Papers may address issues related to images of heretics as incriminating, exonerating, or ambiguous statements of one’s orthodoxy. What does art tell us about the life, death, and burial practices of a heretic? How could a heretic navigate the tensions between group and individual identity? How was the notion of “heretic” contextualized beyond its European borders?

Please send an abstract of 150 words maximum and a brief CV of 300 words maximum to Silvia Tita at s-titanga.gov and to Lara Langer at l-langernga.gov by May 30, 2017.

-----

[2] Renaissance Medals

Tanja L. Jones
tljones10as.ua.edu

Proposals are invited for a session or sessions dedicated to Renaissance medals to be held at the annual Renaissance Society of America meeting in New Orleans, March 22-March 24, 2018. All proposals are welcome, but papers which deal with imagery on medals, and the political and social aspects of the creation, collection, and exchange of these objects are particularly encouraged. Please submit proposals to Arne Flaten [arflatenbsu.edu] and/or Tanja Jones [tljonesas.ua.edu] by May 20, 2017.

-----

[3] New Approaches to the Art of Spanish Naples

Jesse Locker
lockerpdx.edu

Long overshadowed by Florence, Rome, Venice, and Bologna, in recent years, scholars have come to recognize that Naples—the largest city in early modern Italy—was a vibrant crossroads of cultural exchange that attracted artists, patrons, collectors, and connoisseurs from Madrid, Valencia, Palermo, Genoa, and Antwerp. However, scholarship on Neapolitan art still lags behind that of other Italian capitals, often bogged down by thorny issues of attribution, documentation, and chronology. This session aims to explore the artistic and architectural heritage of the city in light of its position as an international capital, situated between the Papal States and the broader Hispanic and Mediterranean worlds. New methodologies, innovative approaches to old problems, and interdisciplinary perspectives on Neapolitan art are especially encouraged.

Proposals for a 20-minute paper should include a preliminary title, an abstract of 150 words, a very brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum), and keywords. Please send to Jesse Locker, lockerpdx.edu, by Monday, May 22, 2017.

-----

[4] Revolution française? Celebrating the anniversaries of Damisch’s The Origin of Perspective and Marin’s To Destroy Painting

Itay Sapir
sapir.itayuqam.ca

Revolution française? Celebrating the anniversaries of Damisch’s The Origin of Perspective and Marin’s To Destroy Painting

As RSA is heading to La Nouvelle Orléans, this panel aims to take stock of two groundbreaking French art history texts currently celebrating, respectively, their 40th and 30th anniversary. Louis Marin’s To Destroy Painting and The Origin of Perspective by Hubert Damisch were both translated into English and other languages, and had considerable impact on art historical discussions around their topics.
The books address very different periods and questions – Damisch’s objects are situated close to RSA’s earlier chronological limit, whereas Marin’s study analyzes art from the last century of our Society’s temporal spectrum. Both, however, invented methods and ways of speaking about art that have been highly influential across early modern art historical scholarship. And both originated in the same scholarly milieu among whose heirs are prominent art historians such as Daniel Arasse, Georges Didi-Huberman and Giovani Careri, among many others.
For this panel, we seek papers discussing one of these seminal books – or indeed both together – and the legacy of Damisch’s and Marin’s contributions to the discipline.
Please send abstracts (up to 250 words) and short biographical notes to Itay Sapir, sapir.itayuqam.ca, by May 20, 2017.