Male Bonds is an international two-day conference organized by Ghent University & the European Society for Nineteenth-Century Art (ESNA), in cooperation with the University of Antwerp & the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, with the support of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). It will probe, challenge and expand upon the academic narrative of nineteenth-century male homosociality through the lens of art history.

Registrations are open now, via the conference website: http://www.malebonds.ugent.be/registration

The full program:

DAY 1 - TUESDAY 15 MAY

09.00-09.30 Registration / Coffee & tea

09.30-09.45
Welcome by Johan De Smet (Museum of Fine Arts Ghent)
Introduction by Marjan Sterckx (Ghent University)

09.45-10.45
"Patriarchy, masculinity, and homosocial relations: Mapping the territories"
- Abigail Solomon-Godeau (UC Santa Barbara)

10.45-12.20
Session 1: Fraternal bonds: Mediating masculine intimacy. Chair: Jan Dirk Baetens (Radboud University Nijmegen)

"Brothers-in-law of the brush: The domestic dramas of Édouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel"
- Rachel Sloan (Courtauld Gallery)
"The relationship between Gauguin and Laval: A re-evaluation"
- Joost van der Hoeven (Van Gogh Museum)
"Asher Durand's Kindred Spirits and the homoerotics of transcendentalism"
- Alexis Monroe (New York University)
"Brothers in arts: The strategies of Joseph, Alfred and Arthur Stevens"
- Tom Verschaffel (KU Leuven)

12.20-13.45 Lunch + optional visit of the Medardo Rosso exhibition

13.45-15.20
Session 2: Coercive bonds: Disciplining the male body. Chair: Katharina Pewny (Ghent University)

"Undressing the army: Health and hygiene on display in Eugène Chaperon's La douche au Régiment"
- Sean Kramer (University of Michigan)
"Western art and same-gender sexual abuse of enslaved men"
- Thomas A. Foster (Howard University)
"Bazille, painter-Zouave: Homosociality and hypermasculinity at the dawn of the Franco-Prussian war"
- Mary Manning (independent scholar)
"An alliance of virtue: Masculinity, self-reformation, and public actors in Hungary in the Reform Age"
- Éva Bicskei (Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

15.20-15.45 Coffee + tea

15.45-17.00
Session 3: Imperial bonds: Othering and the formation of masculine identities. Chair: Jenny Reynaerts (Rijksmuseum)

"'Un être essentiellement sculptural': Black manhood and nudity in the sculpture of Arsène Matton"
- Thijs Dekeukeleire (Ghent University & University of Antwerp)
"Mystical Manhood: Whirling dervishes in the orientalist imaginary"
- Brigid Boyle (Rutgers University)
"Lions in the tigers' den: Rival masculinities in the jungles of British India"
- Siddhartha V. Shah (Columbia University)

DAY 2 - WEDNESDAY 16 MAY

08.30-9.00 Registration / Coffee & tea

09.00-09.05
Welcome by Thijs Dekeukeleire (Ghent University & University of Antwerp)

9.05-10.05
"Zahrtmann's Symposium: Ancient Greek desire in a modern Danish scandal"
- Michael Hatt (University of Warwick)

10.05-11.20
Session 4: Covert bonds: Queering the nineteenth-century man. Chair: Stefan Dudink (Radboud University Nijmegen)

"Binding and unbinding bodies: Simeon Solomon"
- Jongwoo Jeremy Kim (University of Louisville)
"Raphael, Jonah, and Antinoüs: Problems of male beauty and sexuality on the Grand Tour"
- Crawford Alexander Mann III (Smithsonian American Art Museum)
"Aesthetic of the closet: Robert de Montesquiou and the art of collecting"
- Damien Delille (Lumière University Lyon 2)

11.20-12.20
"Male bonding on the motif: Landscape painting and the formation of modern masculinities"
- Anthea Callen (University of Nottingham & Australian National University)

12.20-14.00 Lunch + optional visit of the Medardo Rosso exhibition

14.00-15.35
Session 5: Forged bonds: Competing for each other's attention. Chair: Marjan Sterckx (Ghent University)

"Strong, loyal, male: Artists as hunters"
- Maurice Saß (University of Hamburg)
"'The heart is like many instruments': Technology, engineering, and invention in the circle of Edgar Degas"
- Michelle Foa (Tulane University)
"Everybody's darling: A male artist society grasping for Loïe Fuller"
- Thomas Moser (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)
"Difference and similitude: Gustave Caillebotte and the homosociality of stamps and yachts"
- Samuel Raybone (University of Essex)

15.35-16.00 Coffee + tea

16.00-16.30
Concluding remarks
- Henk de Smaele (University of Antwerp)

16.30-17.00
Discussion. Chair: Rachel Esner (University of Amsterdam)