The Convulsive Nursey Surrealism and Childhood Sexuality

Monday May 10th 2010, 10.00-5.00pm (6.00-7.30 keynote)
The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester

Queer studies and childhood studies have become increasingly intertwined
over the last decade. Interest has been concentrated on the late
nineteenth century as age of consent legislation coincided with the
psychoanalytic investigation of childhood sexuality in the work of Sigmund
Freud and others. The neglect of the study of childhood within the history
of Surrealism is striking - despite André Breton's assertion, in the first
manifesto, that childhood memory was the easiest route into the marvelous.
In works by artists and writers as diverse as Hans Bellmer and Dorothea
Tanning, Toyen and Max Ernst, or Michel Leiris and Nelly Kaplan - the
child is a focus point for a discussion of anxiety, sexuality and the
formation of subjectivity itself. This conference will bring together a
number of speakers to discuss the issue of childhood and sexuality within
both surrealist works and practice that might be seen as part of its
legacy.

Co-sponsored by the AHRC funded Centre for the Study of Surrealism and Its
Legacies and CIDRA

Introduction: 10.00am
Dr James Boaden (University of York)
The Convulsive Nursery: Surrealism and Childhood Sexuality

10.50pm
Prof. David Lomas, (University of Manchester)
Family Secrets

11.40pm

Prof. David Hopkins, (University of Glasgow)
Childhood and Ferocity: Toys and Entertainment in Recent Art

12.30-1.30 LUNCH

1.30pm
Prof. Mignon Nixon, (Courtauld Institute of Art, London)
Maman

2.20pm
Prof. Michael Moon, (Institute of the Liberal Arts, Emory University,
Atlanta)
Henry Darger and the Brontes: Little Girls, Adult Juvenilia, and Homemade
Surrealisms and Post-Surrealisms

3.10 - 3.30pm COFFEE

3.30pm
Prof. Carol Mavor, (University of Manchester)
Tragic Candy Time: Minou Drouet and the Photograph

4.20-5.00pm DISCUSSION

Keynote Lecture
6.00pm
Arts Lecture Theatre, Samuel Alexander Building, University of Manchester
(This lecture is free and open to all)
Prof. James R. Kincaid (University of Southern California)
"Surrealism will usher you into death": Childhood, the Imagination, and
Nothingness

Co-sponsored by the AHRC funded Centre for the Study of Surrealism and Its
Legacies and CIDRA

Conference programme at: http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/

Tickets: GBP15.00 (GBP 5.00 students and unwaged) - tickets can be paid
for onsite but must be booked in advance - please contact Silvia Loreti at
silvia.loretimanchester.ac.uk