[1] Digital Humanities Sessions
From: Angela Dressen (adressenitatti.harvard.edu)
Date: 13 July 2021
Deadline: August 2, 2021

As the Discipline Representative for Digital Humanities at the RSA I am organizing once again papers, panels and roundtables for the upcoming conference. I welcome suggestions and proposals by the community. Please submit a paper title, an abstract (150-word max.) and a short CV by 2 August. I will organize panels and roundtable around specific topics, but will also leave space for single contributions in open panels.

Of particular interest this time are
- Data sustainability: Where do we go with our projects?
- Beyond Linked Data: Data querying services through API and SPARQL
- Any topics for open panels

Please submit your proposal by August 2 to Angela Dressen (adressenitatti.harvard.edu)
Presenters must be members of the RSA in the year of the conference. Please check for conference requirements on the RSA website https://www.rsa.org/page/RSADublin2022

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[2] Globalizing Early Modern Eastern European Art
From: Tomasz Grusiecki (tomaszgrusieckiboisestate.edu)
Date: 13 July 2021
Deadline: 2 August 2021

In recent years, global approaches to the study of art and material culture have gained momentum, particularly in Anglo-American academia. An increasing number of scholars of eastern Europe are embracing this newly expanded purview by integrating comparative and transcultural methods into their research and teaching. The new approach is nonetheless still awaiting wider recognition from the incipient field of eastern European Art History, particularly for histories of the early modern period. Elsewhere, the global turn led to new transgeographical perspectives which have begun to challenge the once-dominant national paradigm in various art-historical traditions. The question remains, however, how to meaningfully include eastern Europe in the discipline’s ongoing explorations of cultural heterogeneity and global circulations of artefacts, and—more importantly—whether other scholars have anything new to learn about these processes from the study of the region. This panel, therefore, seeks case studies that interrogate the transcultural potential of eastern Europe’s past.

Please send a 150-word abstract, a curriculum vitae no longer than 5 pages, and the PhD completion date (as per the RSA guidelines) to Robyn Radway (RadwayRceu.edu) and Tomasz Grusiecki (tomaszgrusieckiboisestate.edu) before Monday, 2 August 2021. Presenters will have to be active RSA members.

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[3] Revisiting Collecting Antiquities
From: Adriana Turpiin (sochistcollgmail.com)
Date: 14 July 2021
Deadline: 6 August 2021

The Society for the History of Collecting

The significance of owning and displaying antiquities for the Renaissance collector has never been doubted and the importance of surviving antique works of art for both collectors and artists is well understood. Recent research has shown that the meaning of these works for collectors, that underpinned their acquisition and display, is more nuanced than previously thought, often reflecting market forces as much as the reputation or scholarship of the individual owner. In light of the revived interest in the world of the Renaissance collector, his/her relationship to the market and in questions of connoisseurship and authenticity, the Society for the History of Collecting invites new research and new interpretations of these topics. Areas of particular interest include: the consideration of new types of collectors, such as women and merchants, as well as courtiers; artists’ collections and their importance in the artist’s practice; antique collections outside of Italy; questions of fakes, copies and authenticity and the language of connoisseurship.

As an Associate Organization of RSA, the Society for the History of Collecting can sponsor up to four sessions. Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers. They must include a title, abstract of no more than 150 words, keywords, a one-page CV and a short summary biography, with PhD completion year or expected completion as of spring 2022. Speakers will need to be members of RSA and members of the Society for the History of Collecting at the time of the conference.

Proposals should be sent to Adriana Turpin at sochistcollgmail.com with the heading “RSA Proposal” by 6 August, 2021. Selected papers will be grouped thematically in the case of holding more than one session.

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[4] Facciati Dipinti e Parlante: New Investigations of the Frescoed Façade in Italy
From: Alexis Culotta (aculotta1tulane.edu)
Date: 15 July 2021
Deadline: 1 August 2021

Though its remains are vanishing rapidly, the frescoed façade tradition of the Italian peninsula has enjoyed a recent resurgence in interest among scholars for the variety and ingenuity these painted faces revealed. From desires to root structures in antiquity to simply dressing one’s dwelling to make a humble space more imposing or on trend, these facades tell their own stories of artistic innovation, symbolic meaning, and visual presence among the bustling streets of many Italian urban centers. This session welcomes papers that explore frescoed facades from various perspectives. Areas of inquiry might include the investigation of specific visual legacies; the probing of modes of artistic exchange among artists who specialized in frescoed or sgraffitoed design; the interplay between textual inscriptions and visual imagery; or the connections between urban centers within the Italian peninsula and beyond.

Those interested in contributing to this session should email the following to session organizer Alexis Culotta (aculotta1tulane.edu) by 1 August 2021:

- paper title (15-word maximum)
- paper abstract (150-word maximum)
- short resume (.pdf or .doc upload)
- PhD or other terminal degree completion year (past or expected)
- full name, current affiliation, and email address
- primary discipline (list of RSA disciplines for 2021-22: shorturl.at/bjmzL)

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[5] Alterations/Alterity: The Figure of the Tailor in the Early Modern Hispanic World
From: Rebecca Teresi (rebecca.teresigmail.com)
Date: 14 July 2021
Deadline: 3 August 2021

In the early modern Hispanic world, the tailor was a profoundly multivalent and unsettling figure whose traces can be found in the archive, on the stage, and in works of art. In his Sueños y discursos, Francisco de Quevedo warns of the deceptions of those who earn their keep as tailors but dress themselves as noblemen. Meanwhile, in Los cigarrales de Toledo, Tirso de Molina defends contemporary theater by likening its mixing of literary registers to the actions of humankind’s “primer sastre” sewing together animal skins for Adam and Eve. These contradictory images point to the anxiety this figure could produce: who was the tailor—fraud or God?

By virtue of his ability to transform a person’s appearance through his craft, the tailor presented a threat to the established social order. The tailor’s art contributed materially to increasing, unauthorized social mobility: given the right clothes, anyone could pass as anything. This was not his only potential offense. Both historical tailors and those who appear in visual and textual representations are repeatedly implicated in a variety of sexual and gender-based transgressions because of their unique access to their clients’ bodies and domestic spaces.

Though tailors were subject to suspicion across early modern Europe, in Spain, the threat took on specific urgency due to the unique structure of society and its multiconfessional past. Enduring concerns about blood purity and anxieties over the social mobility of outsiders were caught up in the figure of the tailor. The profession had strong associations with Spain’s others, particularly conversos, and metaphors related to tailoring and textiles are frequently invoked to describe Black Hispanic subjects. As the seventeenth century progressed, increasing enforcement of sumptuary laws and anxieties about decorum in dress are some of the most visible legacies of these issues, seen everywhere from the concern that fashion could hide sinful behavior (the guardainfantes hiding illicit pregnancies) to luxurious garments posing a threat to proper devotion (in the dressing, for example, of imágenes de vestir). What is more, the very materials fashion depended on were contingent upon empire and global trade networks, and the specificities of Spanish dress were tailored to and altered by local contexts throughout the Hispanic world.

We welcome papers in English or Spanish that approach these issues from a variety of disciplines and perspectives. Studies might address historical tailors and figures in the textile industry, literary renditions of tailors and their work or metaphors about them, art historical depictions of clothing and the transgressive properties of dress, and explorations of the material cultures associated with tailoring in the early modern Hispanic world.

Please submit abstracts (no more than 250 words) and a short bio or CV to Amy Sheeran (sheeran1otterbein.edu) and Rebecca Quinn Teresi (rquinn10jhu.edu) by August 3.