Call for papers

Re-reading Rembrandt

Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam

Conference date: December 2nd, 2006

Deadline for proposals: July 15th, 2006

Keynote speakers:
Mieke Bal (Academy Professor, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences/ University of Amsterdam)
Harry berger Jr. (Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz)

2006, the year of Rembrandt's 400th birthday, was declared Rembrandtjaar
(Rembrandt year) in the Netherlands and is being celebrated elsewhere in the
world of art history and museology. It seems, however, that a real
contemporary approach, one that crosses disciplinary boundaries and that
sees this year as an opportunity to analyse Rembrandt’s art as a cultural
object, has been so far singularly neglected. Indeed, the celebrations seem
concentrated on questions of attribution - i.e. the exact delimitation of
the "real" Rembrandt corpus - and of anecdotal biography - that is, the
"life and works" all-too-familiar schema recounting who the dear son of
Holland's golden Age actually was.

ASCA, as an institute devoted to the study of culture in a contemporary
context, and to the constant questioning of accepted ideas, is organising a
one-day conference to coincide with the end of the Rembrandtjaar. In it, we
propose to consider Rembrandt as both a historical figure and as a general
name for a group of artefacts with which our own time is yet to come to
terms. We welcome proposals that will challenge, among others, ideas of
authenticity, of homogeneous cultural context, of the Dutch 17th century as
an undisputed "golden Age", and of Rembrandt’s paintings as vehicles of
coherent, transparent narrativity. Contributions may come from specialists
of art history and theory, but also from any discipline for which
reconsidering Rembrandt can be of relevance.

The conference coincides with the 15th anniversary, and the long-awaited
reprinting, of Mieke Bal’s groundbreaking Reading Rembrandt. We wish
therefore, to include in some of the presentations a reconsideration of this
work, and a continuation of the interaction it initiated between art
history, narratology, psychoanalysis, gender studies, semiotics and other
fields of study. Rembrandt's corpus of works being as rich and vast as it
is, "Reading Rembrandt" is a never-ending process, and we would like to
engage in another re-reading from the vantage point of 2006.

Please email abstracts (max. 300 words) for a 20-minute talk, as well as a
short CV, to Itay Sapir, i.sapiruva.nl.

Deadline: July 15th, 2006.