CFP: Session at EAHN: S11 – Women Making Space in South America, c.1400-1900
DEADLINE: 08 SEPTEMBER 2023
Wed 19 Jun—Sun 23 Jun 2024
European Architectural History Network (EAHN) 2024 Conference Athens
Challenging linear Euro-American architectural narratives of styles imported to the supposed new world, we invite contributions exploring the role of women in shaping public and private spaces in the Andean territories – from home and convent to street and plaza. Practices to be examined for female space-making opportunities could include, for example, building, homemaking, designing, writing, patronage, financing, teaching, lobbying, gardening, or farming, even mothering. Contributions should explore questions emerging from the triangle between gender, architectures, and South America as a contact zone. What are the spatial categories most useful when exploring women ‘making space’ in the period and region (Matrix, 1984)? Does the public-private dichotomy of separate spheres serve here? What sources provide evidence how women made space? Which writing techniques yield the best results, from archival tracing to historical fiction? How can we fill gaps when there are few traces (Hartman, 2021)?
Besides a methodological appeal for new approaches, the session also queries key terminologies of architectural history: Who is the space-maker during this period? What is the relationship between space-making and the architect? Did the professionalisation of architecture during the 19th century further the exclusion of women from space-making practices? Was there a period of increased access colonial or institutional transitions closed doors to women? Are there comparable developments in other regions?
This session hopes to facilitate a pivotal change to how we look at the formation of architectural cultures in the past through the eyes of women and their lived experiences, considering questions of race, class, or religion, besides those of gender. As scholarship in the field of Latin American architectural history has so far often been dominated by isolated time periods defined by the male coloniser – such as pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial, modernism – the proposed period between c. 1400 and 1900 invites cross-readings based on dynamic approaches to historical moments, places, and protagonists.
Information about the session can be found here: http://eahn2024.arch.ntua.gr/index.php/call-for-papers/#S11
Abstracts are invited by September 8, 2023, and should consist of no more than 300 words. Submit at eahn2024@gmail.com along with the applicant’s name, email address, professional affiliation, address, telephone number and a short curriculum vitae, all included in one single .pdf file. The file must be named as follows: session or round table number, hyphen, surname e.g. S05-Tsiambaos.pdf, RT02-Tournikiotis.pdf, etc.
Please submit your proposal following the instructions on the conference website (http://eahn2024.arch.ntua.gr/index.php/call-for-papers/)
Anne Hultzsch and Dr Sol Pérez Martínez, ETH Zurich