Appel à communications : Self-care in Early Modern Art, RSA, date limite le 1er août 2022

As we begin to recover from a global pandemic, making time for self-care—actions that improve our physical and psychological well-being—has become increasingly critical. Though this discourse of self-care is considered a modern one, according to Michel Foucault, ancient Greeks understood the term epimeleia heautou, or care for the self, as developing self-awareness with the goal of becoming a more ethical being. This session probes early modern notions of self-care explored in any medium. It considers how artists created, and users consumed, images and objects focused on aspects of body, mind, and soul toward a form of self-care in art during a period in which modern notions of self-hood and artistic identity were still forming. Building on recent interest in ‘therapeutic’ images (where therapeia encompasses healing and care, but also ‘attention’), such as Dürer’s Melencolia I engraving, we seek renewed discussion of all manners of early modern notions of self-care and the role of material objects or images in defining those practices, spaces, or remedies of care. One might consider the role of print—its imagery, materiality, mobility, and centrality in the history of privacy and subjectivity—or other types of media in prescribing attention to the well-being of the self. Papers might consider the healing potentia of images of the Crucifix and blood of Christ, the curative power of landscape, the role of print in contemplation, meditation, or healing, but also the restorative potential of memory and imagination, sleeping and dreaming, food and nutrition, emotion, mental stimulation, or ethics. This session encourages proposals that cross disciplinary and geographic boundaries.

Please send the following materials to both session organizers, Ashley West (ashley.west@temple.edu) and Suzanne Willever (suzanne.willever@temple.edu) by August 1, 2022 (notification of acceptance by August 8th):
· paper title (15-word maximum)
· paper abstract (150-word maximum)
· short resume (.pdf or .doc upload)
· PhD or other terminal degree completion year (past or expected)
· full name, current affiliation, and email address
· primary discipline ( list of RSA disciplines)

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