Spaces of the Self in Early Modern Culture

Spaces of the Self in Early Modern Culture, Part 5: Family and Work Space

Friday, April 25 – Saturday, April 26

In William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

A conference at the Clark Library organized by David Sabean and Malina Stefanovska, Center and Clark Professors, 2007-08

Subjectivity is embedded in space, which serves to define, shape, and represent it. Every culture has its own articulation between natural and social places or between material and representational ones, as well as its way of constructing identity and selfhood in relation to space. In the early modern period, sites as diverse as the court, the cabinet of curiosities, or the prayer room were crucial for forming and representing individual identities. This year-long series of conferences, dedicated to five such key places, will explore constructions of selfhood and identity, while reflecting on the cultural differences and historical evolution of space, both as material foundation and as representation of human relationships, hierarchies and values.

In part 5 of this year-long series, we seek to understand the influence on individual identities, of new family and kinship structures, or of emerging work and leisure practices represented in the configuration of the house (reading spaces, craftsman’s workshop, artist’s studio, cabinets of curiosities, material objects of culture, relation of space to memory and work, practices of hospitality, etc.).

Registration Deadline: April 18, 2008

Registration Fees: $25 per person; UC faculty & staff, students with ID: no charge*

*Students should enclose a photocopy of their current ID with the registration form.

Fees are not refundable and apply to full or partial attendance.

To register, please visit:

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/c1718cs/calendar.htm#apr25

Please be aware that space at the Clark is limited and that registration closes when capacity is reached. No confirmation will be sent, but we will contact you if we receive your registration after we reach capacity.

Complimentary lunch and other refreshments are provided to all registrants.

Please call a week ahead to arrange for wheelchair access.

Program Schedule:

Friday, April 25

9:30 A.M. Morning Coffee

10:00 A.M. Peter H. Reill, UCLA

Welcome

Session 1: The Scholar’s Workspace

Gadi Algazi, Tel Aviv University

At the Study: Who Was With Early Modern Scholars When They Were Alone?

Gabriele Jancke, Free University of Berlin

Scholars’ Spaces – Households and the Practices of Hospitality

Anne Vila, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Scholar at Work: Habitus, Habitation, and the Identity of the “Learned” in Eighteenth-Century France

1:00 P.M. Lunch

2:00 P.M. Session 2: The Philosopher Alone and in Public

Carole Martin, Texas State University

Framing the Philosopher’s Work Space: From Chardin’s Philosophe to Diderot’s Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre

Pierre Saint-Amand, Brown University

The Philosopher's Studio

Carol Pal, UCLA Ahmanson-Getty Fellow

Ephemeral Academy: The Hague and the Republic of Letters in the 1630s

5:00 P.M. Reception

Saturday, April 26

9:30 A.M. Morning Coffee

10:00 A.M. Session 3: Household and Social Space

Clorinda Donato, California State University, Long Beach

The Familial and Working Spaces of a Tribade and Her Narrator in Eighteenth-Century Italy

Kimberley Skelton, Tufts University

A Socially Stratified Retreat: The 1650’s English Country House and Household

David Packwood, University of Warwick

Re-Negotiating Social Space in Poussin’s Louvre Self-Portrait of 1649-1650

1:00 P.M. Lunch

2:30 P.M. Session 4: Workshops

Sean Silver, UCLA

Visiting Strawberry Hill

Jorge Tárrago Mingo, University of Navarre

Diffuse Boundaries: The Theatrical Workshop