CFP: Souvenirs, Keepsakes and Tokens: Material and Visual Expressions of Personal Memories

The organizing committee of the third EUI Conference in Visual and Material Culture Studies is calling for proposals discussing the trajectory of souvenirs from their creation, distribution and their eventual musealization or destruction, from the twelfth to the twenty-first century. Proposals are due by January 31, 2022.

The conference will be held in Florence, Italy or in a hybrid format on May 16, 2022. This conference seeks to ascertain how individuals, families and communities memorialize their past through the visual and material world. The aim is for this conference to reach beyond the boundaries of historical scholarship. Its organizers welcome papers from other fields including art history, historical anthropology, and archaeology.

Papers are expected to use visual and material evidence. Proposals may include, but are not limited to:

• Religion and pilgrimage
• Ruptures: armed conflicts, revolution, end of regime, wars
• Forms of oppression, slavery, prosecution and forceful confinement
• Gender and sexualities
• Health and pandemics
• Family and life trajectories
• Diasporas and migrations
• Grand tour and modern tourism (e.g., mass-produced souvenirs)
• Collecting practices, displays and performances
• Categorization and administration of objects

To submit a paper, send an abstract (no more than 300 words) and a short biography to [email protected]. Early-career researchers are particularly encouraged to submit.