Seeking researcher with excellent reading knowledge of Polish and fluency in English
deadline: March 15, 2008
Dr Leslie Topp of Birkbeck College, University of London, is writing a monograph on a series of psychiatric institutions built in the Habsburg Empire between 1890 and 1914, with a particular focus on their planning and architecture. This research is part of the research project "Madness and Modernity: Art, Architecture and Mental Illness in Vienna and the Habsburg Empire, 1890-1914", funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain.
One of the institutions studied in the monograph is the psychiatric hospital at Kobierzyn, outside of Krakow (built 1910-13). Dr Topp and Dr Sabine Wieber, the project's post-doctoral research associate, have done initial research on the institution in Krakow, and identified the main archival and library sources there. There is also a very important archive of relevant Polish-language material in L'viv, Ukraine.
What we need now is a researcher who can spend time in Krakow and also in L'viv (if possible), looking through the Polish-language material we have identified, and provide summaries of the material in English, and, in some cases, translate passages from Polish into English.
The person should ideally be an English native speaker (or fluent in English) with an excellent reading knowledge of Polish and enough Polish-speaking ability to be comfortable with day-to-day interactions in archives and libraries in Krakow. Someone with archival research experience, especially in Krakow, would be best suited. It would be ideal to have a person who is based in Krakow already, perhaps for their dissertation research, though this is not absolutely necessary.
The person could start any time in the next few months, and the work could be done in stages over a number of months, or all at once, depending on the circumstances. Pay (generous) to be negotiated depending on qualifications.
Please send your c.v. and a letter outlining your suitability for the job, by e-mail, by 15 March 2008 to:
Dr Leslie Topp
Faculty of Lifelong Learning
Birkbeck, University of London
l.topp@bbk.ac.uk
For further information on the project, please see: www.bbk.ac.uk/madness
For further information on the post, please contact Dr Topp by e-mail: l.topp@bbk.ac.uk
Dr Leslie Topp
Lecturer in History of Art and Architecture
Faculty of Lifelong Learning
Birkbeck, University of London
26 Russell Square
London WC1B 5DQ
phone: ++44 (0)20 7679 1050
fax: ++44 (0)20 7679 1044
www.bbk.ac.uk/ce/about_staff/academic_staff/topp/
Director, AHRC Madness and Modernity project
www.bbk.ac.uk/madness
Call for Papers: Anthology on Expressionist Art History
deadline for paper proposals: April 4, 2008
Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in the history of art history as a discipline, particularly in the work of German-speaking founders such as Alois Riegl. There is now a solid corpus of scholarship in which the texts of Riegl, Erwin Panofsky, and members of the Vienna School of art history have been thoughtfully considered both on their own terms and in relation to the subsequent development of the discipline. Occasionally in the literature, one finds passing references to a so-called expressionist art history tradition, evidenced in certain German language art historical texts published between approximately 1905 and 1925. While the rationale behind this descriptor is rarely pursued, the term seems to be used to indicate the explicitly subjective stance found in such writing.
However, whereas we are familiar with the heightened emotions and formal liberties taken by expressionist painting, poetry, and theater during this period, the notion of an expressionist scholarship remains unfamiliar to most, particularly those working in the English language. Art historians such as Max Dvorák, Fritz Burger, Ernst Heidrich, Friedrich Rintelen and Wilhelm Worringer worked at a moment in which the foundations of art history as a discipline were laid by intellectuals working in German and Austrian academies. Yet even though the "expressionists" were active during this crucial formative period, and all had successful academic careers with positions in respected art history programs, their work has been virtually ignored by current scholars interested in art history's own history. The exception is Worringer, who has received quite a bit of attention, yet even he is usually regarded as a deviant figure, of interest more because of the impact his writing had on contemporary artists than for any value inherent to his scholarship itself. Rintelen, Burger, and Heidrich have never been translated and are unknown to most English-speaking art historians. Even Dvorák, who played such a significant role in the Vienna School, has, with one or two exceptions, hardly registered in recent historiographic accounts.
This oversight remains puzzling, if only because historiography has become such a popular subject of study in recent years. Perhaps this neglect stems from a sense that the expressionists' analyses seem too personal and effusive to be considered legitimate examples of art history. We ignore these texts to our own detriment, however, in part because they seem to derive their methods from many of the same sources which informed more normative practices of art history, and thus this marginalized branch of art history has something to teach us about the development of the discipline and its defining ideologies. This projected anthology intends to enrich our understanding of art history's development as a discipline, by including translations by all five authors which have never before appeared in English, and accompanying these primary texts with critical analyses of each scholar's work. In addition, the goal of the anthology is to function in the tradition of the best historiographic analyses which, by investigating the history of art history, encourage us to reflect thoughtfully on its practice today. It is also hoped that this project will open up new perspectives on the general intellectual history of the period as well. Close analysis of these authors' writings within their historical and theoretical contexts will likely reveal that expressionist art history texts register key conceptual trends of the era and, thus, lend insight into the intellectual preoccupations of Central Europe before and after World War I.
Those interested in contributing an essay on one of the five expressionist art historians considered in this project are encouraged to submit 500 word proposals, along with a curriculum vitae and brief bio. Please also include a cover letter explaining your interest in the project and your background in this subject. Ideally, each essay will in some way address the accompanying translated pieces, so essays are especially encouraged which either focus on or include references to the following texts:
Fritz Burger, Einführung in die moderne Kunst (1913)
Max Dvorák, "Tintoretto," in Studien zur Kunstgeschichte
Ernst Heidrich, Vlämische Malerei (1913)
Friedrich Rintelen, Giotto und die Giotto-apokryphen (1912)
Wilhelm Worringer, Die altdeutsche Buchillustration (1912)
Abstracts in English and German are welcome, but all final contributions will be translated into English. Due date for proposals: April 4, 2008. Notification of inclusion in anthology: April 25, 2008. Completed papers of 5,000-8,0000 words due January 16, 2009. Initial inquiries are welcome. Abstracts may be sent by email or as hard copies. Please direct questions and all materials to:
Kimberly A. Smith
Associate Professor of Art History
Southwestern University
Sarofim School of Fine Arts
1001 E. University Avenue
Georgetown, TX 78626
+1 512 863 1349 tel
College Art Association (CAA) 97th Annual Conference
Los Angeles, California, February 25–28, 2009
HGCEA Session: Forging California Modernism: Central European Emigres on the West Coast between 1920 and 1945
chaired by Isabel Wünsche
deadline for paper proposals: May 9, 2008
At the beginning of the twentieth century, California was a cultural melting pot where the local traditions of Native American, Hispanic, and Asian cultures mixed with the diverse influences of European modernism. Particularly strong among these was the impact of Central European art, which artists brought with them from the East Coast and from Europe. This session will discuss the contribution artists and intellectuals from Germany, the former Habsburg Empire and the region between the Baltic Sea and the Balkans made to the emergence of modernism in California. Proposals from a variety of fields, including art and architectural history, photography and film theory, musicology and cultural studies, are invited to further and enrich the discourse on the originality and diversity of California modernism.
Please send proposals as e-mail attachments by May 9, 2008 to
i.wunsche@jacobs-university.de
A complete proposal includes:
1. Session participation proposal form, located at
http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/CallforParticipation2008.pdf. (It is page
27 of this PDF document.)
2. Abstract of one to two double-spaced, typed pages.
3. Letter explaining speaker's interest, expertise in the topic, and CAA
membership status.
4. CV with home and office mailing addresses, e-mail address, and phone
and fax numbers. Include summer address and telephone number, if
applicable.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Isabel Wünsche
i.wunsche@jacobs-university.de
National Humanities Center Fellow, 2007-2008
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
Tel: 919-549-0668 ext. 209
Fax: 919-549-9001
Detailed information on all the 120 Sessions on Art History at the
CAA 2009 and their respective call for papers can be found at:
http://conference.collegeart.org/2009/
http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/CallforParticipation2008.pdf
Deadline for CFPs of all sessions is May 9, 2008.
Call
for Midwest Exhibition Reviewers for caa.reviews
deadline: ongoing
Dear HGCEA members;
I am the field editor for Midwest
exhibitions for caa.reviews, an online publication sponsored by
the College Art Association. I am looking for HGCEA members interested
in writing reviews of exhibitions in the Midwest. We are interested
in reviews of exhibitions at both large and small museums and arts
centers, as well as and especially university or college museums,
and are open to a wide range of subjects in the history of art,
design, and culture, ancient to contemporary. CAA considers the
Midwest to extend from Michigan to Montana and down to Kansas, including
Manitoba and Saskatchewan. You can peruse the website and already
published reviews at http://www.caareviews.org.
At the present, I am looking for a scholar in the
Chicago area to review the exhibition on German Modernism at the
Smart Museum at the University of Chicago, on view through September
16, 2007.
Reviews typically run 1,500 words
and ideally appear while the exhibition is still on view. Submission
guidelines can be found at http://www.caareviews.org/about/submissions.
Currently caa.reviews does not have the ability to compensate our
reviewers. However, like the other affiliated CAA journals, Art
Journal and Art Bulletin, reviews for caa.reviews are part of the
academic rewards system whereby unpaid publications count toward
jobs and tenure. In addition, in most cases exhibition reviewers
can receive a free copy of any accompanying exhibition catalogue.
If anyone is interested in reviewing the above
exhibition or has another exhibition in the Midwest you would like
to propose for review, please contact me at kmakholm@mcad.edu. I
look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Kristin Makholm,
Ph.D.
Minneapolis College of Art and Design
612/874-3667
kmakholm@mcad.edu
HGCEA member