CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Apprehending the Material World in Early Modern Britain and America
May 20-21, 2004, Huntington Library - San Marino, California

The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture invites
proposals for participation in a workshop, "Object Relations in Early
North America," on the material world in early North America (to 1820).
This workshop will be held at the Huntington Library, May 20-21, 2004
in conjunction with a symposium, "Gender, Taste, and Material Culture
in Britain and America in the Long Eighteenth Century," sponsored by
the Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior.

Workshop participants will be asked to think about how object-driven
studies can address important historical questions. Moving through
the analyzed object to larger arguments about life in the past, workshop
sessions might address such topics as:
Aesthetic apprehension
The experience of the perceiving individual, and the collective construction
of meaning
How objects structure experience
The production, circulation, consumption, representativeness, and symbolic
character of objects
How recovering the context of an object can change our understanding of the
historical moment
The methodological interdependency of data-, text-, and object-based analyses

Pre-circulated papers by the convener of each session will focus an
intensive discussion of an object or an image (or the representation of
either in a text) and invite alternative explanations for its larger
significance.

Proposals should include
a description of the object or image (or collection of related objects or
images)
an explanation of how the analysis will speak to important historical issues
* curricula vitae for the session convener (or conveners) and 3-4 discussants

Discussants will be expected not only to respond to the pre-circulated paper
but also to include in their comments questions and insights about the object
and its broader contexts.

We welcome alternatives to the standard conference paper, including an
organized discussion based on questions, observations, and revelations made
possible by object analysis.

The deadline for workshop proposals is Oct. 1, 2003. Proposals should be
addressed to the Workshop Co-Chairs, Christopher Grasso and Karin Wulf, OIEAHC,
P.O. Box 8781, Williamsburg, VA, 23187-8781. Questions may be addressed to
cdgraswm.edu or wmqbrwm.ed

The Arts and Humanities Research Board Centre for the Study of the Domestic
Interior is sponsored by the Royal College of Art, Victoria and Albert Museum,
and Bedford Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London. The Omohundro
Institute of Early American History and Culture is sponsored by the College
of William and Mary and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.