[aaus-list] CfP: National Romanticism, Glasgow 15.-17.4.10 (9.11.09)

[Andreas Umland]

*Rethinking National Romanticism*
Session at the Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, Glasgow,
15-17 April 2010.

“Until this powerful movement is recognized and demystified, we will not
fully understand the intellectual and cultural climate of
turn-of-the-century Europe.”

Michelle Facos, "Nationalism and the Nordic Imagination: Swedish Art of the
1890s", Berkley and Los Angeles, 1998, 2-3.

Although linked to the re-evaluation of the legacy of Art Nouveau in the
1960s and 1970s, the term National Romanticism came into wider art
historical use in the 1980s and 1990s in relation to growing interest in the cultures of the so-called ‘peripheral’ nations of Europe; first in the
Nordic region and then the post-Eastern Bloc countries.  In this context,
National Romanticism facilitated the integration of these new regions into
the sphere of Western art history, but its continued currency can now be
seen to limit the scope of understanding of these cultures in a larger
pan-European context.

This session intends to provide an international platform for a critical
re-assessment of National Romanticism that challenges some of the art
historical assumptions and expectations called up by this term. At the turn
of the last century, artists and designers crossed boundaries between
disciplines and between social, political and aesthetic concerns, making it
difficult to maintain ideological and formal categories and posing a real
challenge to the historian of this period. And yet, the works and objects
understood as National Romantic and their relationship to the wider culture
of the period offer an intriguing challenge to the lingering influence of a
Modernist emphasis on a linear, progressive reading of history.

Paper proposals of 250 word max. should be sent to Dr Charlotte Ashby (
charlotte.ashby at rca.ac.uk) or Dr Sabine Wieber (S.Wieber at roehampton.ac.uk)
by 9th November 2009.
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Dr Charlotte Ashby
Research Fellow
Royal College of Art
Kensington Gore
London, Sw7 2EU

(part-time) +44 (0)20 7590 4193