Provided by H-net Announcements

The Boston University Symposium on the History of Art
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Call for Papers Deadline: 2002-12-09
Date Submitted: 2002-10-14

The Boston University Symposium on the History of Art
At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Saturday 29 March 2003

Boston University, in conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is
pleased to announce the nineteenth annual graduate student Symposium on the
History of Art. This year's symposium carries the theme "The Unruly Object of
Art History."

Our idea of the "unruly object" is meant to evoke both the material and
methodological aspects of writing Art History. That is to say, we want to
foreground the critical centrality of the physical object to our discipline
while exploring the complex set of issues that inevitably arise as we decide
how
to engage it in the production of history.

Some questions we would like to consider include: How do art historians
reconstruct the past when they interpret objects? How are our understandings
of
society and social change constituted through our interpretation of material
culture? In what ways do contemporary needs mediate our approach to the past
at
any given moment? How might we rethink the writing of Art History and History
and the traditional grounds of their separation?

These are just a few of the possible ways the theme might be
approached. Imaginative responses that tie these methodological concerns to
analysis of a specific object or group of objects are strongly encouraged. We
welcome submissions from fields other than Art History that specifically
address
the relationship between visual culture and the writing of history.

Students interested in participating should send a one-page abstract (250
words)
and a cover letter, including your name, academic affiliation and address to
the
address below. The deadline for submissions is December 9, 2002.

Contact information:
Mari Dumett
Boston University
Department of Art History
725 Commonwealth Avenue, room 302
Boston, MA 02215

Email: dumettbu.edu