COMIC. Comissió d'Instruments Científics

Objects in Revolt
Winterthur Museum & Country Estate
Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware invites submissions for papers to be given at the Ninth Annual Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars.

Focus: Objects order the social body and mediate cultural interactions. Yet, at the same time, objects can be deployed against established structures. Whether designed to effect change or repurposed to undermine normative practices, objects often revolt against social, cultural, intellectual, economic and political systems. This conference seeks papers that explore the creation, use and manipulation of things as they reorder our world.

Travel grants of up to $300 will be available for presenters. Disciplines represented at past symposia include American studies, anthropology, archaeology, consumer studies, English, gender studies, history, museum studies and the histories of art, architecture, design and technology.

Format: The symposium will consist of nine presentations divided into three panels. Each presentation is limited to twenty minutes, and each panel is followed by comments from established scholars in the field. There will be two morning sessions and one afternoon session, with breaks for discussion following each session and during lunch. Participants will also have the opportunity to tour Winterthur's unparalleled collection of early American decorative arts.

Submissions: The proposal should be no more than 300 words and should clearly indicate the focus of your object-based research, the critical approach you take toward that research, and the significance of your research beyond the academy. While the audience for the symposium consists mainly of university and college faculty and graduate students, we encourage broader participation. In evaluating proposals, we will give preference to those papers that keep a more diverse audience in mind. Send your proposal, along with a current c.v. (no more than two pages), to emerging.scholars@gmail.com.

Deadline: Proposals must be received by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, November 24, 2010. Speakers will be notified of the vetting committee's decision in January 2011.

Confirmed speakers will be asked to provide symposium organizers with digital images for use in publicity and are required to submit a final draft of their papers by March 4, 2011.

2011 Emerging Scholars Co-chairs


Virginia Garnett, Department of English
Theodore Triandos, Department of Art History
Alessandra Wood, Department of History, American Civilization University of Delaware

Virginia Garnett, Theodore Triandos and Alessandra Wood
University of Delaware
213 Memorial Hall
Newark, DE 19716

Email: emerging.scholars@gmail.com
Visit the website at http://www.udel.edu/materialculture/ess_call.html