Conference: Objects of Affection: Towards a Materiology of Emotions

May 4-6, 2011
Program in Russian and Eurasian Studies
Princton University


In the first issue of the journal Veshch-Objet-Gegenstand, which appeared 90 years ago in Berlin, the avant-gardist El Lissitsky placed the object at the center of the artistic and social concerns of the day: “We have called our review Object because for us art means the creation of new ‘objects.’ … Every organized work—be it a house, a poem or a picture—is an object with a purpose; it is not meant to lead people away from life but to help them to organize it. ... Abandon declarations and refutations as soon as possible,
make objects!”


Taking the Russian avant-garde’s concern with the material life of emotions as our starting point, the conference organizers seek to assemble an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars working at the intersection between studies of affect and studies of material culture. In the last decade, these two crucial strands of social inquiry have shifted the focus of analytic attention away from the individual or collective subject towards emotional states and material substances. These interests in the affective and the tangible as such have helped to foreground processes, conditions, and phenomena that are relatively autonomous from the individuals or social groups that originally produced them. Thus interrogating traditional notions of subjective agency, various scholars have drawn our attention to “a conative nature” of things (Jane Bennet), to “affective intensities” (Brian Massumi), or to textural perception (Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) – to name just a few of these interventions – in order to pose questions that fall outside of dominant frameworks for understanding the epistemology of power. Despite their growing importance, however, these diverse methods and concepts for mapping the emotive biographies of things have not yet been in a direct dialogue with one another. By focusing on the material dimensions of affect and, conversely, the emotional components of object formation, this conference aims to bridge this gap.


We invite submissions from scholars in a range of disciplines including history, anthropology, sociology, religion, politics, law, psychology, history of medicine, science studies, art, film, media and literary criticism, who are interested in exploring types of affective responses, protocols of emotional attachment, and regimes of perception that are encoded into and sustained by material substances. We welcome theoretically rigorous proposals that draw attention to new configurations of object relations as well as submissions that examine historically and culturally specific forms of affective networks built around instances of inorganic life across the world.

Please send your abstract (300 words) and a short CV to Serguei Oushakine, the Chair of the Program Committee (oushakin@princeton.edu) by February 1, 2012.

Final papers will be due no later than April 15, and they will be posted on the conference's website.

Conference: Knowledge in a Box: Mundane Things Shape Knowledge Production

July 26-29, 2012
Kavala, Greece

The topic:
We invite proposals from scholars in the history of science, technology, and medicine, science and technology studies, the humanities, visual and performing arts, museum and cultural studies and other related disciplines for a workshop on the uses and meanings of mundane things such as boxes, packages, bottles, and vials in shaping knowledge production. In keeping with the conference theme, we are asking contributors to include specific references to the ways in which boxes have played a role—commercial, epistemic or otherwise—in their own particular disciplinary frameworks.

Boxes have always supported the significance of the objects they contained, allowing specific activities to arise. In the hands of natural historians and collectors, boxes functioned as a means of organizing their knowledge throughout the eighteenth century. They formed the material bases of the cabinet or established collection and accompanied the collector from the initial gathering of natural specimens to their final display. As “knowledge chests” or “magazining tools” the history of box-like containers also go back to book printing and the typographical culture. The artists’ boxes of the early nineteenth century were used to store the paraphernalia of a new fashionable trend. In the late nineteenth century the box became the pharmacist’s laboratory and a device for standardizing and controlling dosage of oral remedies. In the twentieth century radiotherapy the box was elevated to a multifunctional tool working as a memory aid to forgetful patients or as “knowledge package” that predetermined dosages, included equipment, and ready-made radium applicators.

Focusing on medicine, boxes have played a crucial role since the eighteenth century when doctors ought to bring instruments to their patient’s house for surgical or obstetrical interventions. In modern operating rooms boxes organize the workflow and build an essential part of the aseptical regime. Late twentieth century biomedical scientists store tissue samples in large-scale biobanks, where samples contained in straws are placed in vials, then the vials in boxes which in turn are stacked up in "elevators". This storage system facilitates retrieval with barcodes, indexing each individual sample so that additional variables can be retrieved from a database. Thus the container and its content are tied up in a close epistemic and material relationship.

We welcome innovative understandings of the role that boxes and containers have played historically and continue to play in technology, medicine, and science. We see the workshop as contributing to an ongoing interest in science and technology studies on the importance of mundane things in scientific practice and technological innovations.

Submission guidelines:
Deadline for proposals: January 15, 2012 Please submit a 300-words abstract along with your name, institutional affiliation, email and phone number as a word or pdf attachment to the organizers of the conference

Proposals will be reviewed and notification of the outcome will be made in February 15, 2012. We are pursuing publication outlets for selected papers from the workshop. Therefore we expect full papers from those that will participate by May 30, 2012. Details will be provided after notification.

Contact info:
For further information please contact the organizers: Susanne Bauer sbauer@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de Maria Rentetzi mrentetz@vt.edu Martina Schlünder m.schluender@gmx.de

Workshop: Certain Museums of Uncertain Pasts

Hosted by the European Association of Social Anthropologists Conference 2012
Nanterre University, France, 10/07/2012 – 13/07/2012

Deadline: 28 November 2011

Museums always seem to provide their visitors with definite and confident narratives about the past, thus making strong claims towards ordering the present and the future. However, the past life of objects, collections and of museums themselves is full of uncertainties, contradictions and unrest. Although much debated by scholars, these issues rarely make their way into exhibitions and displays.

On the other hand, war, revolution or social unrest impact directly on the life of museums. Their buildings are destroyed, looted or occupied temporarily, their collections affected. Such events usually provide opportunities for new representations of the past. Examples range from classical ethnographic exhibitions to the memorial museums of anti-communism in Eastern Europe, or the newly opened impressive spectacle
buildings of museums in the field of art.

This panel invites papers that engage with the way such institutions reflect or come to terms with the traumatic events and contested moments in their past and that of the societies they claim to represent. How do they effectively deal with the inherent uncertainty and continuous social unrest? Can uncertainty be socially accepted and exhibited? Papers are welcome across the whole range of museums from anthropological or historical institutions to military or scientific ones. We also encourage discussions on other forms of visual representations (e.g. performances, photography exhibitions, installations, and events). Presenters could also focus on the life of particular objects or collections that leave or enter museums in times of historical rupture or engage with the social practices affecting their collections.

How to apply:
Proposals should consist of a paper title, a (very) short abstract of <300 characters, and an abstract of 250 words. Proposals can only be submitted online.

Online application form: http://www.easaonline.org/membership.htm.

Fellowship Opportunity: Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library Research Position

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library is pleased to announce its Research Fellowship Program for 2012-13.

Winterthur offers an extensive program of short- and long-term fellowships open to academic, independent, and museum scholars, including advanced graduate students, to support research in material culture, architecture, decorative arts, design, consumer culture, garden and landscape studies, Shaker studies, travel and tourism, the Atlantic World, childhood, literary culture, and many other areas of social and cultural history.

Fellowships include 4-9 month NEH fellowships, 1-2 semester dissertation fellowships, and 1-2 month short-term fellowships. Fellows have access to library collections of more than 87,000 volumes and one-half million manuscripts and images. Resources for the 17th to the early 20th centuries include period trade catalogues, auction and exhibition catalogues, an extensive reference photograph collection of decorative arts, printed books, and ephemera, searchable online at winterthur.org. Fellows may also conduct research in the museum's collections, which include 85,000 artifacts and works of art made or used in the colonies or young U.S. republic to 1860. Fellowship applications are due January 15, 2012. For more details and to apply, visit winterthur.org

http://winterthur.org/research/fellowship.asp fellowship or e-mail Rosemary
Krill at rkrill@winterthur.org.
http://www.winterthur.org/

Material Matters Material Culture Symposium

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Saturday, April 14, 2012

The Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware invites submissions for papers to be given at the Tenth Annual Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars.

Focus: Object-based research has the potential to expand and even reinvent our understanding of culture and history. In honor of the tenth anniversary of the MCSES, we seek a broad range of papers from emerging material culture scholars. Whether exploring the latest theories, viewing existing material through a new lens, or reinterpreting standing historical conversations with an object-based focus, proposed papers should exemplify the possibilities in material culture research. In exploring these material matters, we hope to promote an interdisciplinary discussion on the state of material culture studies today.

Submissions: The proposal should be no more than 300 words and should clearly indicate the focus of your object-based research, the critical approach you take toward that research, and the significance of your
research beyond the academy. While the audience for the symposium consists mainly of university and college faculty and graduate students, we encourage broader participation. In evaluating proposals, we will give preference to those papers that keep a more diverse audience in mind.

Send your proposal, with a current c.v. of no more than two pages, to emerging.scholars@gmail.com.

Deadline: Proposals must be received by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, November 16, 2011. Speakers will be notified of the vetting committee’s decision in January 2012.

Employment Opportunity: Kohler Arts Center Spring 2012 Curatorial Intern

The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is seeking an Exhibitions & Collections Curatorial Intern for the spring semester, January – May, 2012.

The Arts Center's curatorial team mounts 12-16 original exhibitions annually. The curatorial intern works closely with the curatorial team and other exhibitions staff to research and support all exhibitions and assists with germane research projects and administrative responsibilities as assigned. Intern may also assist with collections projects, cataloging, and departmental correspondence. Applicants should submit writing samples with application and describe any special interests or skills s/he might bring to the position. Interns are expected to dedicate 20-40 hours weekly to the work of the internship, a minimum of 10 of which must be executed on-site.

Application Instructions: Please submit cover letter, resume, and writing samples to Janine Chesebro, jchesebro@jmkac.org