Call for Papers: Conference: The Lives of Objects
Call for Papers: Conference: The Lives of Objects
The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW) exists to
encourage practice and research in life-writing in all forms, from biography to
autobiography, diaries to blogs, letters to memoirs. It is directed by renowned
biographer Professor Hermione Lee, associate-directed by eminent colonial
scholar Professor Elleke Boehmer, administered by literary historian Dr Rachel
Hewitt, and is based at Wolfson College, Oxford. From 20-22 September 2013,
OCLW will hold its first major triennial conference, on the subject of ‘The
Lives of Objects’.
The application of life-writing to objects lies at the
heart of many recently published biographies, memoirs and histories, including
Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects (2010), Edmund De Waal’s
The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance (2010), Steven Connor’s
Paraphernalia: The Curious Lives of Magical Things
(2011), Mark Kurlansky’s Salt: A World History (2003) and Lorraine Daston’s
Biographies of Scientific Objects (2000). Biographies of objects raise
important methodological issues pertinent to life-writing, regarding narrative,
structure and chronology; the representation of change and improvement; and the
influence of objects in human lives, communities and material history. The
study of ‘object biographies’ continues to generate fruitful areas of academic
research, including Bill Brown’s work on ‘thing theory’
(2001); Chris Gosden and Yvonne Marshall’s 1999 study of
‘the cultural biography of objects’ (in relation to archaeology); and
explorations of value and exchange of objects in cultural and material history,
such as the essays included in Arjun Appadurai’s edited volume The Social Life
of
Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1986).
The ‘Lives of Objects’ conference will be an
interdisciplinary, international event, inviting 20-minute papers from a wide
range of backgrounds. Papers may offer biographical accounts of particular
objects (including, but not limited to, portraits, sculpture, scientific
instruments, archaeological finds, domestic artefacts and items of clothing).
The organisers also invite papers that reflect on the methodology of object
biographies or outline existent projects concerned with objects’ lives; papers
considering the influence of life-writing on material history and/or
archaeology; papers exploring the relationship between curating and
auto/biography; the history of the book; the history of museums; and any other
facets of the conference theme. The organisers also invite submissions for an
informal workshop, in which delegates will present and discuss the lives and
meanings of individual objects.
The conference will comprise panels of 20-minute papers,
four plenary lectures, visits to the Ashmolean Museum and other museums in
Oxford, and the objects workshop. A number of postgraduate bursaries will be
provided to help contribute towards the costs of the conference registration,
accommodation and travel (tbc).
Confirmed plenary speakers include Jenny Uglow and Edmund
De Waal.
Please submit a 200-word abstract of your conference
paper or poster session (making it clear which format your submission will
take) by 31 January 2013 to OCLW’s Research Fellow and Administrator, Dr Rachel
Hewitt (rachel.hewitt@wolfson.ox.ac.uk).
Please provide details of your contact details and institutional affiliation,
if any. You will be informed by email by Friday 15 March 2013 whether your
paper or submission has been accepted. Registration for the conference will
open shortly afterwards.