CALL FOR PAPERS
Deadline 15 March 2010

"Useful & Beautiful: The Transatlantic Arts of William Morris and the
Pre-Raphaelites"

University of Delaware
Winterthur Museum and Country Estate
Delaware Art Museum

7-9 October 2010

"Useful and Beautiful: The Transatlantic Arts of William Morris and the
Pre-Raphaelites" will be the subject of a conference and related
exhibitions to be held 7-9 October 2010 at the University of Delaware
(Newark, DE) and at the Delaware Art Museum and the Winterthur Museum and
Country Estate (Wilmington, DE). Organized with the assistance of the
William Morris Society, "Useful and Beautiful" will highlight the
strengths of the University of Delaware's rare books, art, and
manuscripts collections; Winterthur's important holdings in American
decorative arts; and the Delaware Art Museum's superlative Pre-Raphaelite
collection (the largest outside Britain). All events will focus on the
multitude of transatlantic exchanges that involved Morris, the
Pre-Raphaelites, and the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetic movements of the
late nineteenth century.

We seek 250- to 500-word proposals for short papers (15 minutes reading
time, maximum) that explore relationships and influences--whether
personal, intellectual, political, or aesthetic--connecting William
Morris, his friends, associates, and followers in Britain and Europe with
their contemporaries and successors in the Americas. The "arts" will
include not merely those at which Morris himself excelled--i.e.,
literature, design, and printing--but also painting, illustration,
architecture, performance, and anything related to print culture in
general. Papers that examine transatlantic politics, social movements, and
environmental issues in light of Morrisian, Pre-Raphaelite, and Arts and
Crafts perspectives are also welcome.

Possible topic areas include:
William Morris's Influence in and on the Americas . The American
Ruskinians . Transatlantic Arts and Crafts Architecture . British
Connections to the American Aesthetic Movement . Designers Traveling, East
to West or West to East . Arts and Crafts Places, Real and/or Imaginary .
British Aesthetic Ideals and American Domestic Interiors . The Kelmscott
Press and Transatlantic Print Culture . Aesthetic Periodicals and/or
Little Magazines Crossing the Atlantic . Publishing the Pre-Raphaelites in
the Americas . American Book Illustrators and Pre-Raphaelite Influences .
The Transatlantic Poster Craze . Exhibiting the Pre-Raphaelites in the
Americas . Americans Collecting Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites . Selling
Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts Goods Across the Atlantic . Pre-Raphaelite
Imagery and American Advertising . The Morris Chair as a Transatlantic
Object . Morris and American Needlework . American Dress Reform and
Pre-Raphaelite Influence . The Pre-Raphaelites and the Literature of the
Americas . Oscar Wilde Visits America . Whitman and the Pre-Raphaelites .
Morris and American Socialism . Morris & Co. Stained Glass in the Americas
. American Drama and Pre-Raphaelite Figures . Pre-Raphaelitism and
American Art Education . Photography and the Circulation of Pre-Raphaelite
Images . Pre-Raphaelitism and American Music

The deadline for 250- to 500-word proposals is 15 March 2010. Please
forward electronic submissions to: Mark Samuels Lasner, marksludel.edu.

Limited funding may be available for speakers whose papers focus
specifically on William Morris and who are in need of financial
assistance. To be considered for support, explain your circumstances when
submitting your paper proposal.

In addition to conference sessions, there will be a keynote lecture,
demonstrations by leading practitioners who make and design Arts and
Crafts objects, special exhibitions, and related film, theater, and
musical performances. The following exhibitions are anticipated at the
time of the conference: Delaware Art Museum ("May Morris," also
permanent display of the Samuel and Mary Bancroft Pre-Raphaelite
collection); University of Delaware Library (American literature,
1870-1916 exhibition and "William Morris"); University Gallery,
University of Delaware ("Ethel Reed: Transatlantic Artist of the
1890s"); Winterthur (Arts and Crafts archival resources); and Delaware
Center for the Contemporary Arts ("David Mabb: The Morris Kitsch
Archive").

For more information go to www.morrissociety.org or contact Mark Samuels
Lasner, (302) 831-3250, marksludel.edu.

"Useful and Beautiful" is supported by the Delaware Art Museum,
Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, the William Morris Society in the
United States, the William Morris Society (UK), and the following
University of Delaware departments and programs: College of Arts and
Sciences, the University of Delaware Library, Art, Art Conservation, Art
History, English, History, and Material Culture Studies.