AAH New Voices Postgraduate Symposium
University of Cambridge, Newnham College
1st November 2008
Art and Authenticity
Call for Papers

Deadline: 1st September 2008

"The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of
authenticity," writes Walter Benjamin in The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction. Questions of authenticity dominate art history,
from verification of an artwork's claims to legitimacy, to rethinking, in
the wake of rapidly evolving information technologies, the very concept of
authenticity. This conference seeks to offers a platform for the
exploration of the ways in which authenticity can serve to validate and
verify, how it relates to historical truth, but also how faith in the power
of authentication makes manipulation and falsification dangerously easy.

New Voices postgraduate symposium, now in its sixth year, is organised by
the Student Members' Committee of the Association of Art Historians (AAH).
This one-day conference offers an opportunity for postgraduate students to
present their research in an informal, supportive and stimulating
atmosphere. We seek proposals for papers that examine the notion of
authenticity in all historical periods and critical perspectives, across
all mediums. Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to:

. Uniqueness and originality of artwork vs reproduction, multiples and copy
. Fakes and forgery: ethics and legality
. Connoisseurship, attribution, authentication and conservation
. Document and archive as evidence
. Photography's power to document and authenticate
. Questions of authorship and authenticity
. Appropriation: borrowing and stealing?
. New possibilities offered by the technologies to authenticate but also to
manipulate the image

We welcome proposals of 250 words for 20 minute papers from postgraduate
students of all levels. Please send abstracts, including the full title of
the paper, your name, institutional affiliation and contact details to Olga
Smith (os243cam.ac.uk) and Louise Hughes (lh1873bristol.ac.uk) by 1st
September 2008.