Tag Archives: Birkbeck

Call for Papers: ‘Who Shall Deliver Me?’ Christina Rossetti and the Illustrated Poetry Book

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Organised between the Birkbeck Centre for Nineteenth–Century Studies and Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village, this two-day symposium will include an opportunity to tour the exhibition ‘Christina Rosetti: Vision and Verse’ at Watts Gallery and a launch of the new digital edition of Goblin Market edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra and Anthony Harrison.

Keynote
Professor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra (Ryerson University) and Professor Antony H. Harrison (North Carolina State University): ‘Visualizing Christina Rossetti’s Poetry in Print, Pigment, and Pixel’

Christina Rossetti’s (1830-1894) poetry has inspired visual artists since it first began to be published in the 1840s. Artists who made designs to accompany her poetry in illustrated books include her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frederick Sandys, Arthur Hughes, Laurence Housman and later Florence Harrison, Lucien Pissarro and Charles Ricketts. Those who engraved these designs include the prolific Dalziel Brothers firm and Joseph Swain.

This Autumn Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village will hold the exhibition ‘Christina Rossetti: Vision and Verse’, which is accompanied by a new publication Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art (edited by Dr Susan Owens and Dr Nicholas Tromans, Yale University Press). To coincide with the exhibition, this two-day symposium will bring together established and emerging scholars in the field to examine Rossetti’s work in the context of the mid-nineteenth-century illustrated poetry book. How did poets collaborate with publishers and artists in the production of illustrated poetry books? What role does ornament play in the formation of meaning? How did women poets work with illustrators and publishers?

We welcome proposals for papers and will be particularly interested in the following topics:
• The Pre-Raphaelite Illustrated Poetry Book
• The Illustrated Decadent Book
• The Illustrated Poetry Book in the Digital Age
• In the engravers’ workshop: The Dalziel Brothers and the Illustrated Poetry Book
• Ornament, Colour, and Lines: the Visual Culture of Poetry
• Poetry as Collaboration
• Women Poets and Women Illustrators
• Christina Rossetti as a visual artist
• Christina Rossetti and the Ut Pictura Poesis Tradition
• Christina Rossetti, Illustrated.

Abstracts of 350 words and biographies of no more than 100 words should be sent to Tessa Kilgarriff at assistantcurator@wattsgallery.org.uk by Monday 1 October 2018. Papers should be 20 minutes in length.

Postgraduate bursaries
Four postgraduate bursaries are available. Each bursary will cover registration for both days and up to £60 towards travel expenses. To apply for a bursary please send a two-page CV and a 300 word supporting statement in addition to your abstract and biography. In the 300 word statement, applicants should explain the reasons why they are seeking financial sponsorship and how attendance at Rossetti and the Illustrated Poetry Book conference will contribute to their research and professional development. All application materials should be sent to assistantcurator@wattsgallery.org.uk with ‘Rossetti bursary application’ under the subject line by Monday 1 October 2018. Any enquiries should be similarly addressed.

For more information, please click here.

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership: Fully-funded PhD studentship

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AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership: Fully-funded PhD studentship

Modern Mistresses on the Old Masters: nineteenth-century women writers on western European art – their networks and influence

Birkbeck, University of London (School of Arts)

The National Gallery, London

Application Deadline: 12 noon, 22nd April 2016.

Applications are invited for an AHRC-funded PhD studentship on the role of women as disseminators of knowledge about the Old Masters, focusing especially on those who induced a greater interest in the collection at Trafalgar Square. It explores the social and cultural history of the Gallery’s present-day efforts to democratize access to its collections and reach new audiences by examining the understudied critical and art-historical writings of nineteenth-century women, which typically had a more popular reach than that of their male counterparts while also speaking to specialists, then and now.

This studentship is one of a number awarded to the National Gallery, as part of the AHRC’s new Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Scheme.

The supervisors of the project have identified the following issues for research, although the student has the scope to develop both the topic and approach, in conjunction with the supervisors.

What contribution did Victorian women writers make to scholarship on the Old Masters in the National Gallery’s collection? Did women tend to write about particular artists and periods, and if so why? Did their work affect the canon? How was their work received, and what was its reputation? What has been the subsequent fortuna critica? How might it speak to modern audiences?

Through what networks were these women connected with the National Gallery? How important to their success were such networks and relationships? To what extent did these women’s writings affect acquisition and collecting behaviours at the National Gallery and in the private sphere? Were their opinions taken seriously by the institutional art world? What forms did the work of women writers take, and to what audiences was it was addressed? What was the effect of their cross over between different genres and media? What was the role of the penny press in widening access to the Old Masters in the mid nineteenth century? Were women writers interested in the role of the National Gallery and other art institutions as places of advocacy for mass education?

This project will be supervised by Professor Hilary Fraser, Geoffrey Tillotson Chair in Nineteenth-Century Studies and Dean of Arts at Birkbeck, University of London, whose recent work focuses on women writers and the emergence of art history in the nineteenth century, and Dr Susanna Avery-Quash, Senior Research Curator in the History of Collecting at the National Gallery, whose research interests encompass the history of important private and public art collections.

This studentship will provide the student with invaluable academic skills and experience of working in a major national art museum, as well as deep understanding of women and nineteenth-century approaches to the Old Masters. It will involve the student in a range of interdisciplinary research activities, drawing on archival and primary textual material, various types of art collections and the resources of the National Gallery and Birkbeck.

In addition to working directly on the PhD thesis, it is envisaged that the student will also be engaged in a range of related activities, such as the delivery of research papers, assisting with conference organization, and contributing to a Room 1/Sunley Room exhibition at the National Gallery. She or he will also be expected to play a full role in the research cultures of both institutions.

For application details, please visit:
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/research-bursaries-studentships-funding/ahrc-collaborative-doctoral-award-fully-funded-phd-studentship

Birkbeck 19th C Forum: Tuesday 26 January, ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: New Discoveries’ with Marta Weiss and Colin Ford

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Birkbeck Forum for Nineteenth-Century Studies
Spring 2016 Programme

The first event of the spring term for the Birkbeck Forum for Nineteenth-Century Studies will feature Marta Weiss (Victoria & Albert Museum) presenting on ‘Julia Margaret Cameron: New Discoveries’ with Colin Ford (Former head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television) responding. This event is presented in collaboration with the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre at Birkbeck, and will take place Tuesday 26 January 2016 from 6.00pm to 8.00pm in the Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD.

This seminar will explore the new material Martha Weiss discovered while researching the current must-see exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, marking the bicentenary of the birth of Julia Margaret Cameron, 150 years after she first exhibited her work there. Colin Ford has worked extensively on this important photographer, most notably in the comprehensive catalogue Julia Margaret Cameron: Complete Photos (Getty, 2002).

The session is free and all are welcome, but since the venue has limited space it will be first come, first seated.

For further information on the exhibition, see: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/julia-margaret-cameron/about-the-exhibition/

Download Julia Margaret Cameron: Complete Photos (Getty, 2002) here: http://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/0892366818.html

For further information on the History and Theory of Photography Research Centre, see: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/research/photography

For further information on the Birkbeck Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies, see: http://www.cncs.bbk.ac.uk/

Audio Recordings of Keynote Lectures from ‘The Arts and Feeling in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture’

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From the Birkbeck 19th C Forum website:

‘We are pleased to announce that audio recordings of Keynote Lectures are now available for ‘The Arts and Feeling in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture’, a major international conference which took place at Birkbeck, University of London, 16-18 July 2015.

The conference explored the ways in which nineteenth-century authors, artists, sculptors and musicians imagined and represented emotion and how writers and critics conceptualised the emotional aspects of aesthetic response. It aimed to map the state of the field in this growing area of interest for nineteenth-century scholars by locating recent interdisciplinary work on sentimentality and art and writing and the senses within wider debates about the relationship between psychology and aesthetics in the long-nineteenth century.

Speakers investigated the physiology and psychology of aesthetic perception and the mind/body interactions at play in the experience of a wide range of arts. Key questions included: How did Victorian artists represent feeling and how were these feelings aestheticised? What rhetorical strategies did Victorian writers use to figure aesthetic response? What expressive codes and conventions were familiar to the Victorians? Which nineteenth-century scientific developments affected artistic production and what impact did these have on affective reactions?’

To access the recordings and abstracts, click here.

Registration open: Artist and Empire: New Dynamics, Tate, 24-6 Nov. 2015

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International conference
Artist and Empire: New Dynamics: 1790 to the present day

Tate Britain, Clore Auditorium
24 – 26 November 2015

We are pleased to announce that Tate is holding a major conference in collaboration with Birkbeck, University of London and Culture at King’s College London, to mark the opening of the exhibition Artist and Empire. Scholars, curators and artists from around Britain and the world will consider art created under the conditions of the British Empire, its aftermath, and its future in museum and gallery displays. Scholarship has expanded over the last two decades across a span of disciplines and locations. This conference takes the historic opportunity of the exhibition, featuring diverse artists from the sixteenth century to the present day, to bring together people to meet and share the latest research being developed around this subject. The papers, roundtables and audience discussions will consider the cosmopolitan character of objects and images, and the way geographical, cultural and chronological dislocations have in many instances obscured, changed or suppressed their history, significance and aesthetics. We will also explore how approaches to contemporary art, archives, curation and collecting can help develop new ways to look at them now.

24 November – Exhibition preview and Keynote Lecture
25 November, Day One – Artist & Empire: The Long Nineteenth Century
26 November, Day Two – Artist & Empire: Curating in a Transnational Context

For further information please contact the conference administrator, Jessica Knights, at jessica.knights@tate.org.uk

Artist and Empire: New Dynamics is convened by Tate, Birkbeck and Culture at King’s College London. The conference has been generously supported by Culture at King’s College London, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Birkbeck School of Arts, The British Association of Victorian Studies, The Association of Art Historians, Creative Victoria and the Australia Council for the Arts. ’Parallel Perspectives: Curating in London’s transnational contexts’ is a Culture at King’s College London project in collaboration with the British Library, Tate and V&A Museum.

Full program details will be announced shortly. Book now to secure your place: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/conference/artist-and-empire-new-dynamics

Sincerely,
Birkbeck Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies

REGISTRATION OPEN: The Arts And Feeling in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Birkbeck, University of London, 16-18 July 2015

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The Arts And Feeling in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Birkbeck, University of London, 16-18 July 2015

Keynote Speakers: Caroline Arscott, Tim Barringer, Meaghan Clarke, Kate Flint, Hilary Fraser, Michael Hatt, Lynda Nead, Jonah Siegel, Alison Smith

This conference will explore the ways in which nineteenth-century authors, artists, sculptors and musicians imagined and represented emotion and how writers and critics conceptualised the emotional aspects of aesthetic response. It aims to map the state of the field in this growing area of interest for nineteenth-century scholars by locating recent interdisciplinary work on sentimentality and art and writing and the senses within wider debates about the relationship between psychology and aesthetics in the long-nineteenth century.

Speakers will investigate the physiology and psychology of aesthetic perception and the mind/body interactions at play in the experience of a wide range of arts. Key questions include: How did Victorian artists represent feeling and how were these feelings aestheticised? What rhetorical strategies did Victorian writers use to figure aesthetic response? What expressive codes and conventions were familiar to the Victorians? Which nineteenth-century scientific developments affected artistic production and what impact did these have on affective reactions?

Registration is now open for the main conference. To register, please visit: https://www2.bbk.ac.uk/artsandfeeling/

For more information, please visit the conference website: http://www.artsandfeeling.com/

Birkbeck Arts Week Starts: Monday, 18 May

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Birkbeck Arts Week Starts: Monday, 18 May

We start on Monday 18 May with sessions on Curiosity (with Marina Warner and others), Coffee and Commonwealth, illustrator and caricaturist Chris Riddell‘s reflecting on Gulliver’s Travels and Diderot on Monday, to discussions of Ruins, productions of S.T.Coleridge‘s Ancient Mariner and Blake‘s Illuminated manuscript Vala or the Four Zoas, Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner with members of the film team, and we end on Friday with sessions on the enlightenment art of Shadow Portraits and a Magic Lantern Show. And this is just a couple of examples.

Do visit the Birkbeck Arts Week’s webpage, choose your events, and book seats. It’s all free. And please spread the word.
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/arts/about-us/events/arts-week 

CFP: ‘The Arts and Feeling in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture’, Birkbeck College, University of London, 16-18 July 2015

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CFP: The Arts and Feeling in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

Birkbeck College, University of London, 16-18 July 2015

Keynote Speakers: Professor Caroline Arscott (Courtauld Institute of Art, London); Professor Tim Barringer (Yale University); Meaghan Clarke (University of Sussex); Professor Kate Flint (University of Southern California); Professor Michael Hatt (University of Warwick); Professor Jonah Siegel (Rutgers); Alison Smith (Tate Britain)

“She saw no, not saw, but felt through and through a picture; she bestowed upon it all the warmth and richness of a woman’s sympathy; not by any intellectual effort, but by this strength of heart, and this guiding light of sympathy…” (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun, 1860)

This conference will explore the ways in which nineteenth-century authors, artists, sculptors, musicians and composers imagined and represented emotion and how writers and critics conceptualised the emotional aspects of aesthetic response. How did Victorian artists represent feeling and how were these feelings aestheticised? What rhetorical strategies did Victorian writers use to figure aesthetic response? What expressive codes and conventions were familiar to the Victorians? Which nineteenth-century scientific developments affected artistic production and what impact did these have on affective reactions?

The conference will consider the historically specific ways in which feeling is discussed in aesthetic discourse. It will also, however, encourage reflection about the limits of an historicist approach for understanding the emotions at play in nineteenth-century aesthetic response and the possibility of alternative methodologies for understanding the relation between feeling and the arts.

Proposals of up to 400 words should be sent to Dr. Vicky Mills at artsandfeeling@gmail.com by 9 January 2015. Please also attach a brief biographical note. Proposals for panels of three papers are also welcome, and should be accompanied by a brief (one-page) panel justification.

Possible topics might include:

  • Languages of emotion (affect; feeling; sympathy; empathy; sentimentality)
  • Theories of feeling (psychologists; art critics; philosophers; authors)
  • The arousal of specific emotions (pain; joy; anger; grief; tenderness; anxiety; disgust) and the aestheticisation of the emotions
  • The physiology and psychology of aesthetic perception (Physiological aesthetics; empathy; the nervous system; head v. heart)
  • The arts and religious feeling (biblical painting; sacred music)
  • Artists, museum visitors and concert-goers in fiction
  • The gendering of aesthetic response
  • The codification of artistic expression
  • Museum Feelings (boredom; fatigue; the museum as a site of affect; the regulation of feeling)
  • Curating feeling
  • The ‘art of feeling’ (how to feel the right thing in response to music, art, sculpture)
  • Feeling and touch
  • The role of emotion in ekphrasis; translating feeling

The conference is organised by The Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

Podcasts available: RIN 3, ‘The Literary Galleries’, February 2015, Tate

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Podcasts of our third event ‘The Literary Galleries: Entrepreneurship and Public Art’, held at the Tate on February 27th 2015, are now available to listen to and to download on Vimeo here.

The programme for the symposium is downloadable from https://romanticillustrationnetwork.wordpress.com/events/, but the speakers were:

1) Rosie Dias (Warwick), ‘Viewers, Patrons, Readers, Consumers? John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery and its Public’

2) Ian Haywood (Roehampton), ‘Macklin’s Poets Gallery and the age of Terror’

3) Luisa Calè (Birkbeck), ‘The Hours’

4) Frederick Burwick (UCLA), ‘Painting and Performance: Tableaux Vivants on the London Stage’

5) Martin Myrone (Tate), ‘Blake and the Limits of Illustration’

Birkbeck History and Theory of Photography Research Centre Events

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History and Theory of Photography Research Centre

Events are free and open to all, at 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD.

Upcoming:
Tuesday 10 March, 6:00-8:00pm
Keynes Library (room 114)
Seminar:

Carol Jacobi (Tate Britain) and Hope Kingsley (Wilson Centre for Photography)

‘Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840-1860’

Carol Jacobi and Hope Kingsley will be talking about the aesthetics and reception of salted paper prints in the nineteenth-century, and the experience of curating an exhibition of these rare early photographs in the twenty-first.

For other events see the website.