Eco Art History
Fri May 04, 2018
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Doe Library
Nuclear disasters. Acid rain. The mass extinction of animal and plant species. The devastating environmental crisis that the planet faces today has fundamentally transformed the way we perceive human interaction with the natural environment. New forms of thinking such as postcolonial ecophilosophy, actor-network theory, new materialisms, evolutionary-developmental aesthetics, and posthumanism have challenged Enlightenment distinctions between natural and human history. Can art history, a discipline primarily engaged in the study of human creativity, also breach the natural/human history binary? What would such a history of art and architecture look like? Inescapably located in deep time, the ecological is omnidirectional and rhizomatic in its scalarity. Therefore, rather than focusing on specific sites or temporal periods, the conference seeks to explore the interconnected ecologies of planetary systems and art and architecture practices across a longue durée. It aims to bring forth the genealogies, methodologies, practices, and horizons of ecologically-oriented art, architecture, and visual histories.
Speakers:
Lamia Balafrej (University of California, Los Angeles), Elisabeth de Bièvre (University of East Anglia), Whitney Davis (University of California, Berkeley), Natasha Eaton (University College London), Anthony Grudin (University of Vermont), Meredith Hoy (Arizona State University), Monica Juneja (Universität Heidelberg), Gregory Levine (University of California, Berkeley), Sugata Ray (University of California, Berkeley), Ivonne del Valle (University of California, Berkeley), Riad Kherdeen (University of California, Berkeley), Ramón De Santiago (University of California, Berkeley), Shivani Sud.
Organizers: Sugata Ray and Whitney Davis, Department of History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
Program
May 4
10:00-10:15 Whitney Davis and Sugata Ray, Introductory Comments
10:15-10:30 Coffee Break
10:30-11:15 Ivonne del Valle, Water in Mexico: From a General Economy to Infrastructure Run Amok
11:15-12:00 Elisabeth de Bièvre, The Ubiquity of Aesthetics: Dutch Urban Cultures, 1200-1700
12:00-1:00 Lunch Break
1:00-1:45 Sugata Ray, How to Live with Plants: Towards an Eco Art History of the Eighteenth Century
1:45-2:30 Whitney Davis, History in Petroglyphs at the Second Cataract of the Nile
2:30-2:45 Coffee Break
2:45-5:00 Graduate Student Panel
Ramón De Santiago, Hurricanes on my Mind: Global Flows and Environmental Pressure
Shivani Sud, On Materiality and Other Matters: Photographing the Third Plague Pandemic in Bombay, 1896-97
Riad Kherdeen, Radiating Waves: Eco-Poiesis and the Paintings of Mohammed Melehi
May 5
10:00-10:45 Lamia Balafrej, Mining and the Desert 10:45-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-11:45 Natasha Eaton, Ecogold
11:45-12:45 Lunch Break
12:45-1:30 Anthony Grudin, Warhols Vanishing and Endangered Animals 1:30-2:15 Meredith Hoy, paper title tbd
2:15-2:30 Coffee Break
2:30-3:15 Gregory Levine, Thinking of Ecocentric Art History
3:15-4:00 Monica Juneja, The Hunter and the Squirrel: Writing Art History in a Post-Anthropocentric Mode 4:00-5:00 Final Discussion
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PARKING INFORMATION
Please note that parking is not always easily available in Berkeley. Take public transportation if possible or arrive early to secure your spot.