CALL FOR PAPERS: The Future of the Antique: Interpreting the Sculptural Canon
The University of Buckingham, the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), the Warburg Institute, and the Institute of Classical Studies (University of London) are organising an interdisciplinary conference to celebrate the publication of the new edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny’s seminal work Taste and the Antique (Harvey Miller/Brepols, December 2024).
Please submit your title and abstract of no more than 200 words, along with a short biography (about 100 words—please do not send CVs) by noon (BST), 15 May 2025.
The conference aims to assess the current state of research, rethinking established methodologies and exploring possible future directions in the field. Its primary goal is to foster discussion among different generations of scholars whose research outputs are often separated by language and methodological barriers. We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers on interrelated topics such as the following, outlined by the book or extending beyond it. Priority will be given to innovative papers focusing on the legacy of antique sculptural models in European/Colonial art and culture since the Renaissance:
- Academy and Canon — examining their establishment, radical alteration, and dissolution in the modern era.
- New Canons — the antique in modern and postmodern theoretical frameworks and practices.
- Antique / Modern Bodies — classical statuary’s influence on human anatomical study; proportioned and disproportioned body concepts; the representation of the male and female body; physiognomy; conceptions of race and ethnicity.
- Empire and its Enemies — political and racial implications of the antique.
- Priorities and Display — the antique within modern museum contexts.
- Restorations and Forgery — reconfigurations of the antique and notions of authenticity.
- Narrative Patterns — the classical language of gesture, story-telling/narrative.