Deadline for submissions: March 15, 2017
Full name / name of organization: American Philosophical Society
Contact email: ashelton@amphilsoc.org
The tumult and transformations resulting from the Age of Revolutions (1770s-1840s) created a trans-Atlantic body of art and material culture that reflected and inspired new ideas and actions. Inspired by Curious Revolutionaries: The Peales of Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society’s 2017 exhibition on the legacy of the patriot portraitist Charles Willson Peale and his artistic family from the eighteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA)’s forthcoming publication of The Art of the Peales: Adaptations and Innovations, along with a series of other Peale-centric events happening in Philadelphia, the APS and PMA will co-sponsor a scholarly conference on October 19-21, 2017 that explores the role of imagery in influencing and giving meaning to the political revolutions that defined the late-18th and early-19th centuries.

The conference is especially interested in papers covering the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Circum-Caribbean Revolutions, and the Revolutions of 1848.

Potential topics include:

  • the work of individual artists or artistic movements,
  • the role and influence of those who reproduced artwork for the public, such as printers or engravers,
  • the ways in which works were received by audiences, and
  • the function of art in shaping public perceptions both at the time of revolutionary events and through historic memory.

 

We hope the chronological scope and transatlantic breadth of the conference will stimulate an interdisciplinary dialogue that crosses traditional geographic barriers and transcends the limitations of strict periodization.

Applicants should submit a title and 250-word proposal along with a C.V. by March 15, 2017 to: conferences@amphilsoc.org. Decisions will be made by the summer of 2017. All presenters will receive travel subsidies and hotel accommodations. Accepted papers will be due a month before the conference and pre-circulated to registered attendees. Papers should be no longer than 15-double spaced pages. Presenters may also have the opportunity to publish revised papers in the APS’s Proceedings, one of the longest running scholarly journals in America.