Call for papers

Sculpture in Arcadia: gardens, parks and woodlands as settings for
sculptural encounters from the 18th to 21st century.

26 February 2007
University of Reading

This one day symposium will ask about the characteristics of sculpture
planned for Arcadian and pastoral settings. What is the nature of the
sculptural encounter when sculpture is viewed outside the museum or urban
setting, and what are the sculptural meanings generated in such contexts?
How have gardens and sculpture trails been planned so as to propose
scripts for the visitor's viewing experience? What kinds of audiences have
been imagined for such works? What connections can be traced between
eighteenth-century garden sculpture and their modern equivalents? How have
the uses of terms such as 'pastoral' and 'arcadian' changed? What kinds of
connotations - gendered, aesthetic, political - are invoked when 'nature'
and 'sculpture' are brought into juxtaposition? We are interested in the
settings for sculpture including architectural structures such as
pavilions and plinths, and formal and informal planting in gardens, parks
and managed woodland. While eighteenth- century gardens and modern
sculptures have been studied extensively in the context of their
particular periods, this symposium aims to trace the connections,
continuities and discontinuities between the earlier period and
contemporary pastoral settings for sculpture, including the contemporary
preservation and re-presentation of eighteenth-century sculpture for
modern audiences.

This symposium takes place at the University of Reading, close to some of
the most celebrated eighteenth-century gardens in Europe, Stowe and
Rousham, but we invite papers from all periods from the eighteenth century
to the present day and in all European and North American contexts.

Please submit proposals for papers along with a 300-word abstract to
Dr Sue Malvern, Dr Eckart Marchand and Dr. Gerhard Bissell by 8th
October 2006.

Department of History of Art and Architecture
School of Humanities
The University of Reading
Whiteknights
PO Box 218
Reading RG6 6AA
U.K.

Fax: ++44 / (0)118 / 378 89 18
Email: arthistoryreading.ac.uk