CALL FOR PAPERS

Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting
19-21 March 2009
Los Angeles
UCLA & Getty Museum

Session: Towards an Iconology of the Textile

The fabrication of textiles is one of the oldest cultural technologies.
Nevertheless, relatively little art historical research is being done on
textiles. The objective of the proposed RSA session is to investigate the
historical meanings and functions of the textile medium in early modern
art and architecture. The exploration of this specific medium is meant as
to contribution to a historical theory or iconology of the textile. The
interdisciplinary study of such a textile discourse may touch on:

the myths of the origins of the textile (Arachne etc.),
the textuality and narrativity of the textile (the metaphor of the textus,
narrative structures in tapestry cycles etc.),
the transmediality of the textile (painted or sculpted textiles etc.),
the textile constructions of space (ephemeral textile architectures etc.),
the sacred textiles (liturgical functions of textiles, the idea of the
veil, etc.),
the genders of the textile (female virtues associated to the craft etc.),
and the modernity of the textile arts (a critical history of textile
studies).

Scholars of any discipline interested in a historical reflection on the
textile are invited to submit a paper title, a 150 words abstract, and a
short CV to Tristan Weddigen (weddigengmx.ch) by 15 May 2008.
Speakers must be members of RSA at the time of the Conference.

--