Call for Papers
Ephemera: Art and Obsolescence

Panel at the 2011 Association of Art Historians Annual Conference
31 March - 2 April, University of Warwick

Ephemera index a category of things the endurance of which was not
envisaged, things that in principle history would never know. Ephemera
address themselves to the present, live for the moment, take shape,
arguably, in performance and primarily engage the senses. Less concerned
with the category of "ephemera", with the definitions by which instances, in
defiance of their nature, are accessioned in the archive, this session will
explore the time, space and modalities of the ephemeral. It will raise
questions about the relationship between the ephemeral and modernity (is
there a pre-modern ephemeral?), about the ephemeral and Western culture (is
the ephemeral a meaningful category outside the West?), about the
phenomenology of ephemera (does it privilege sound or touch rather than
vision?) and about the ephemeral and the aesthetic (is rubbish art?). How do
ephemera help us make sense of the relation between past, present and future
time? How are we to take account of the impact of seemingly insignificant,
fleeting or infinitesimally small events or objects on much wider processes
of historical change? We welcome proposals for papers that consider these
issues from a range of historical and geographical perspectives.

Please send your paper proposal (250 words) to the session convenors by 8
November 2010:
Katie Scott, The Courtauld Institute of Art, katie.scottcourtauld.ac.uk
Richard Taws, University College London, richardtawsgmail.com

More details are available at: http://www.aah.org.uk/page/3234