Contested Views:
Visual Culture and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Confirmed Plenary Speakers: Mary Favret, Gillian Russell, Susan
Siegfried, Paul White

In July 2012, in advance of commemoration of the bicentenary of the
Battle of Waterloo, Tate Britain is to host a two-day conference
exploring the impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars on
world-wide visual culture, from the outbreak of the pan-European
conflict with France in 1792 to the present day. Centred on themed
panels, plenary lectures and workshops, this cross-disciplinary
conference will promote knowledge and understanding of the range of
ways in which the ‘First Total War’ has been mediated in visual
cultures, not only in Britain and continental Europe but throughout the
world.

The organisers are keen to receive proposals for papers that present
new research and/or methodological approaches. In particular we would
like to encourage proposals from scholars from different disciplines
who wish to work in collaboration with each other.

We welcome papers that address, but are not limited to, the following
topics:
- the impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars on cultural and
national identities
- the condition of exile as an effect/affect of war
- the roles that institutions play in mediating the public
understanding of war (The Royal Academy, Westminster Abbey, The
British Museum)
- the representation (or unrepresentablity) of pervasive violence
- medical arts
- architecture and sculpture
- panoramas, dioramas, illuminations and other spectacular displays
- the significance of ruins, both real and imagined
- the importance of guide books, diagrams and maps
- art works made by serving soldiers and prisoners of war
- the emotional and psychic effects of war
- games, toys and children’s materials
- the formation of memory through visual culture
- the representation of melancholy and mourning
- military fashions
- theatre and re-enactments
- photography and film

Please send abstracts of 250 words to Phil Shaw (ps14le.ac.uk) by
Friday 16 December 2011.

Organised by Martin Myrone (Tate Britain), Satish Padiyar (The
Courtauld Institute of Art), Phil Shaw (University of Leicester), and
Philippa Simpson (National Maritime Museum)

This event is supported by The Courtauld Institute of Art Research
Forum, Tate Britain, and AHRC