Oct 17, 2025 - 10am–5pm
Hybrid: School of Art and Design, Room 312, or via Zoom, with overflow seating in Auditorium (KAM 62)

This symposium will explore artistic production, practices, and the agency of printed media before 1750 as they intersect with themes of sexuality and gender.

Register here for the Zoom link: https://illinois.zoom.us/meeting/register/KCdQF1CASaCVwKg0dAwpKw#/registration

Conceptions of sexuality and gender underwent profound changes in Europe during the premodern era (roughly 1300–1750) and were an important avenue of exploration for printmakers. In art prints, broadsheets, fashion plates, and anatomies alike, human subjects were fashioned and viewed in conversation with cultural attitudes and beliefs about gender and sexuality. Canonical works such as Albrecht Dürer’s Adam and Eve and Henrick Goltzius’s Farnese Hercules as Seen from Behind not only convey notions of artistic excellence but also their ideas about idealized bodies, gender roles, and sexuality. Additionally, gender and sexuality had profound effects on artistic practices and training. In a time when many women were precluded from traditional apprenticeships and professional guilds, printmaking could present alternative paths to collaboration and network building. Moreover, as an artform linked with the broad circulation of knowledge but also with intimate, private viewing, prints open doors to consider how artists and beholders conceived of their own experiences of gender and sexuality in and outside of social norms.

The event will be hybrid, blending in-person presentations with online presentations via Zoom to make the event more equitable and permit international participation, and will also include a walk-through of the exhibition. The talks will be projected for viewing together at the museum, from 10 am–4 pm, with a tour of the exhibition* to follow.

This symposium is being held in conjunction with Imagination, Faith, and Desire: Art and Agency in European Prints, 1475–1800, curated by Maureen Warren, and on view at Krannert Art Museum from Sep 25, 2025–Feb 26, 2026.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Envisioning Gender and Sexuality in Premodern European Prints
Friday, October 17, 2025
10:00 am – 5:00 pm CDT (USA)

Note about Time Zones: Timings are given for the U.S.A. Central Daylight Time (CDT).
The start time for speaker presentations in different time zones are as follows:
USA Pacific Daylight Time (UTC -7) 8:30 am
USA Eastern Daylight Time (UTC -4) 11:30 am
UK (UTC +1) 4:30 pm
Europe (UTC +2) 5:30 pm


Morning Presentations – 10:30 am – 12 pm
• Jolene Zigarovich, Ph.D., University of Northern Iowa
“ ‘To be seen a most surprising Hermaphrodite’: The Visual Circulation of Intersex Lives and Bodies”

• Darja (Daria) Kocerova, Ph.D. Candidate, The Warburg Institution, London
“Once again about The Images of “Henetaster” and Adultery in Early Modern Europe” (Virtual)

• Sunmin Cha, Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University, New York
“Subverting Eden: Hans Baldung Grien’s Queer Reimagining of Adam and Eve” (Virtual)

Afternoon Presentations – 1:00–2:30 pm
• Saskia Beranek, Ph.D., Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, Illinois State University
“Bearing Fruit: Female Portraits and Collective Identity in Dutch Maps”

• Kendra Grimmett, Ph.D., Ball State University
“His Little Death: Danger, Intimacy, and Power in Barthel Beham’s Judith Seated on the Body of Holofernes”

• Tatiana C. String, Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“The Fine Line between Pleasure and Pain: Homoerotic Performance in Bartel Beham’s Battle for the Banner”

Keynote Address – 2:30–3:30 pm
• Nicole Cook, Ph.D., Museum of Fine Art, Boston
“Nightwalking and Nightwatching: Navigating Gender at Night in Early Modern Dutch Works on Paper”