CONFERENCE DATES: June 19-20, 2020

We solicit papers that address printed images in relation to their early modern and modern contexts in the broadest sense. We hope to include papers that cover the full span of the history of prints, and the range of disciplines in which print is now studied, from art history, the history of the book and print culture studies, to the history of science and ideas.

We open up the terms ‘place’ or ‘context’ to include a variety of approaches to the study of prints and of print. To look at prints in their place might concern the relation between prints and their place of production—how did the spaces and formats of artists’ workshops shape their creative process and affect the prints produced? How did the entrepreneurship of print producers in workshops and publishing houses affect the print materials that were bought by their customers? How were the places in which cheap prints were sold—on the street, in the piazza, the book fair, the market table—reflected in their format, imagery, and functions? Equally rich contexts include the places in which printed materials were collected, stored, and used: how did the formats and conventions for looking at prints, pamphlets and books, in libraries, kunstkammer, galleries, chapels, schools, kitchens, laboratories, bedrooms, coffee shops and salons, affect the way prints were made as well as what they portrayed? More broadly, when print shops and book shops were clustered into certain streets or districts in the city, and/or when a locality became associated with the print trade, what effects did the character of this site have on the culture of print in that place? We also encourage topics that consider gender as well as women artists—Were these places gendered? Did women cultivate their own spaces of print production? When and where did women actors navigate the spaces above? What was the place of print, literally or figuratively, for aspiring or established women artists or publishers? The places for prints might also be considered as metaphoric or imagined spaces, such as the international arena for news and political debate. Finally, we invite studies of such real or imagined places for prints that extend beyond western Europe.

If you are interested in presenting a paper at this conference, please send a proposal with your name and institutional affiliation (if you have one), your paper’s title, an abstract of no more than 200 words, and a brief cv, to sheila.mctighe@courtauld.ac.uk. Deadline for submissions is 15 January 2020.