‘Illustrating History / Illustrer l’histoire’

Université de Valenciennes

4 Dec, 2015 (Abstracts due 30 June, 2015)

The scholarly research group Illustr4tio, supported by CALHISTE (EA 4343), is pleased to announce a one-day symposium on “Illustrating history/ Illustrer l’histoire” and invites papers on the topic.

Following the first symposium on “The Birth of Images” (Dijon 2014) and the one on
“Literary Illustration Between Texts and Paintings” (Mulhouse/Strasbourg 2015), the event to be held at the university of Valenciennes on 4 December 2015 aims to explore the relationship between history, the visual arts and the act of illustrating. Central to this symposium will be exchanges about the status, form and function of such illustrations in a variety of media, whether early modern prints or contemporary graphic novels. Should we apprehend illustrations to Shakespeare’s history plays differently from engravings in Walter Scott’s or Charles Dickens’ novels?

Questions addressing « illustrating history » may cover the following areas, though not exclusively so :

• Illustrating history and series or cycles as opposed to single pieces (painting, furniture print)

• Illustrating history when one is experiencing the historic moment, for instance, war

diaries, illustrated correspondence

• History’s most frequently illustrated key moments : riots, revolutions, battles

• Historical figures illustrated in their biographies (form and function of such illustrations)

• How does illustrated history convey ideological and institutional discourses through

school textbooks, history books, dictionary entries, encyclopaedia ?

• Illustrations in critical literature on history

• Historians as artists and illustrators

• Illustrating history and illustrating fiction : contact or clash? Symbiosis and hybridation ?

• Material culture and the circulation of objects illustrating history

• How does history apprehend illustration ?

• History in graphic novels

• Illustrating historical fiction (Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Robert Graves, etc)

• Illustrating history as a discourse on memory and contact or clash between several periodicities

We will be happy to listen to word-and-image scholars, historians, artists, and illustrators alike. There is no preferred methodology or theoretical approach but papers that are interdisciplinary and broach the topic from an intercultural angle will be most welcome. For the full CFP see our website Illustr4tio.

Deadline for abstracts (300-400 words): 30 June 2015

Abstracts (English or French) should simultaneously be sent to all members of Illustr4tio, with a short bio and bibliography :

Brigitte Friant Kessler, Brigitte.friant-kessler@univ-valenciennes.fr, and b.friant@free.fr,

Sophie Aymes Stokes, Sophie.Aymes@u-bourgogne.fr,

Nathalie Collé, nathalie.colle@univ-lorraine.fr

Maxime Leroy, maxime.leroy@uha.fr.