The Summer Symposium will be a hybrid event that will take place in person at Bedford Square and also streamed online for remote participants. The Summer Social will be in person.

This event has been programmed by the Early Career Researchers Network (ECRN) and Doctoral Researchers Network (DRN). All interested parties are welcome to attend. You can find out more about the networks here.

The annual Summer Symposium offers an opportunity for doctoral students and early-career researchers to share their work on topics related to British art and art history, broadly defined. The aim of the day is to showcase the diverse range of new research currently being undertaken in the field, and to reflect on contemporary challenges in researching, teaching and curating British art and art history, with a view to stimulating discussion and developing new ideas. A particular emphasis will be placed on new directions in the field of British visual culture, whether that be related to methodology, topic or another new approach. The symposium presents an opportunity for researchers to develop works in progress and foster new relationships, potentially leading to future collaborations.

The Summer Symposium ends at 6pm and will be followed by the Summer Social, a chance for all of our members to relax and share a drink with their peers.

We are pleased to announce that travel grants are available for DRN and ECRN members travelling to London from within the UK to join us for the day. Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to be considered for a travel grant.

Programme

10:20am–10:30am: Opening Remarks

10:30am–12pm: Writing British Art

Chair: Ama Josephine Budge Johnstone

Emily Cox (Yale University), British art writing, now: Ekphrasis as ethical imperative

Nicholas Dunn-McAfee (University of York) Sonnet youth: Reconstructing D.G. Rossetti's inaugural "double work of art"

Dr Alex Gushurst-Moore (Fitzwilliam Museum/University of York), The evolution of “fantasy” as an art-historical term in modern British art studies

Laura Davidson (Lancaster University), The school of sculpture without objects: Representations of academia in artwriting [presenting virtually]

Break [15 minutes]

12:15pm–1:30pm: New Media and Methods

Chair: Dr Irene Fubara-Manuel

Eliza Goodpasture (University of York), The potential of a relational methodology: Rehabilitating the early work of five women of the Slade

Dr Nick Mols (Cardiff University), Digital reconsiderations of form and decorum in the case of Drumlanrig Castle, ca.1685–92

Rhian Addison McCreanor (University of York), “A voice from a picture”: “Witnessing” the landscape studios of Harriot Gouldsmith

Dr Melissa Gustin (Watts Gallery/Independent Researcher), England’s Michelangelo? G.F. Watts’s female sculptures and the reproduction of the Renaissance

Lunch [one hour]

2:30pm–4pm: Beyond British Borders

Chair: Dr Sarah Victoria Turner

Sophie Rhodes (University of Cambridge), Peter Oliver (c.1589–1647) and the contribution of immigrants to seventeenth-century “British” art

Emma Sharples (University of Cambridge/Tate), “Magical-critical”: Egypt and the occult in Ithell Colquhoun's Blue Anoubis

Dr Robert Wilkes (Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), São Paulo), Charles Landseer in Brazil: A new examination of his Brazilian paintings [presenting virtually]

Break [15 minutes]

4:15pm–5:45pm: Examining Empire

Chair: Hassan Vawda

Thomas Cooper (University of Cambridge), Redefining the arts and crafts movement

Claudia Di Tosto (University of Warwick), Britain at the 1948 Venice Biennale

Jason Cyrus (University of Warwick), Couture and the colonial lens

Dr Lindsay Wells (UCLA), Flowers, race and art for art’s sake [presenting virtually]

5:45pm–6:00pm: Closing Remarks

6:00pm–8:00pm: Summer Social