Subjective Objects

CALL FOR PAPERS

Subjective Objects:
The Aesthetics of the Object in Symbolist Art and Writing

Gustav Kahn's famous invocation to ‘objectify the subjective' invites a consideration of the intersection between Symbolist subjectivity and material objects. Symbolist aesthetes were discerning collectors of spiritual and deviant objects. Both Paul Gauguin and Joséphin Sâr Péladan insisted upon the ‘decorative' as the ideal Symbolist art form and fin-de-siècle designers claimed suggestive meanings for their creations. Perhaps more than animate protagonists, objects inhabit pivotal manifestations of Symbolist poetry, theatre and prose. Symbolist texts themselves are complex visual artefacts, both in the typography and arrangement of the page and in the totality of the artistic book, from illustration to binding.

It is hoped that the conference will attract interdisciplinary and internationalist contributions from scholars in the fields of art and design history, literary studies, musicology and aesthetics.

Please send abstracts of 300 words by 31 May 2007 to:

Dr Claire I R O'Mahony, claire.omahony@conted.ox.ac.uk
University Lecturer, Fellow of Kellogg College
Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford
Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JA

The conference will be held at Rewley House on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 December 2007. A publication will be sought.