CfP: Soirées: socialising knowledge, innovation and material culture, 1837-1924
A one-day conference at the Royal Society, London, 27 April 2018.
This
event aims to explore the purpose, content, audiences and impact of
Victorian and Edwardian soirées from 1837 to the British Empire
Exhibition in 1924. We
invite papers and posters exploring these cultures.
Soirées
developed from eighteenth century salons and society ‘at homes’, and
the term ‘soirée’ was increasingly used interchangeably with
‘conversazione’. By the
mid-nineteenth century a typical social event included exhibitions at a
learned society or civic building with associated talks or lectures.
The
Royal Society’s scientific conversazioni at Burlington House were the
equivalent of the Royal Academy’s displays of art. They were
attended
by ‘literary lions, artistic celebrities, famous lecturers upon
science, distinguished inventors in mechanics, discoverers of planets’
and they foregrounded ‘the very pick of the
best of the most recent inventions’ (The Standard, April 1871).
However, these were not purely scientific gatherings. At the Royal Society,
for
example, William Morris majolica tiles might be displayed alongside
Australian meteorites. Celebrated artists including Gustav Doré and
Lawrence Alma-Tadema showed their work. Around them,
scientists, clergymen, artists and politicians networked in
environments where new technologies – colour and motion photography,
high-speed and novel printing techniques, film and television – held
equal promise for science and the arts. Women too, were present,
as exhibitors and audience.
Scholars have an increasingly good grasp of the public culture of science in this period. However,
the
ephemeral aspects of the social activities of learned and societies,
field clubs and fledgling museums, and the extent to which their
activities supported organisational goals, have not
been systematically researched, nor has their
complex ecology of regional and national material culture, with its
potential for dynamic inter-personal and inter-institutional
relationships.
Contributors might consider some of the following questions:
1.
What were the ambitions behind the evolving design of period soirées at
the Royal Society and at other organisations at home and abroad? Did
such temporary displays
leave a permanent legacy in museum culture?
2.
How were the contents of such displays and demonstrations determined,
and what was the profile and responses of stakeholders and audiences?
3.
What can be learned about how visions of the future were mobilised and
materialised in the ‘pre-disciplinary’ networked cultures of innovation
in soirées? Did
they contribute to the development of new technologies and new
disciplinary specialisms?
4. Is the demise of the soirée associated with the decline of empire? Or is it
in part related to the development of mass media and new communications media?
Important information
This conference is co-organised by Professor Sandra Kemp, V&A and Keith Moore, Royal Society.
Enquiries should be addressed to
keith.moore@royalsociety.org
- Papers - abstract: 300 words (30 minute papers)
- Poster presentations – abstract 300 words
Deadline for abstracts: 31 October 2017
Send abstracts to:
library@royalsociety.org
Authors will be notified by 14 November 2017
It is intended that, with the Editor’s agreement, papers should be included in a special issue of
Notes and Records of the Royal Society.