Summer School, Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg

 

Summer School, Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg

July 13 to 16, 2009

Objects on the Move – Circulation, Social Practice and Transcultural Intersections

 

The summer school takes at its starting point the premise that objects are seldom mere objects – inert, mute or purely utilitarian. Rooted within human and social contexts, they animate the worlds of societies, past and present, and transmit a gamut of meanings. When on the move, they are subject to appropriation, display and reuse, causing their meanings to undergo radical changes. Not infrequently objects become the site of contesting interpretations, conflicts or productive dissonances born out of the space they occupy at the intersection of cultures. The study of manifold transactions centred on things has attracted practitioners of a range of disciplines – from economic to religious and art history, branching out into material culture, museum studies, anthropology and psychoanalysis. Eminent representatives of many of these areas will lecture and conduct seminar sessions during the summer school. A central concern of the themes to be discussed is the transcultural mobility of objects with a view to understanding the entanglement of local and global power structures and the working of a complex economy of relationships across national and cultural boundaries.

The Summer School is addressed to an international and multidisciplinary constituency of graduate students. It will be organised around lectures and seminars with readings, a museum visit, excursions and a final round table.

The Keynote Address will be delivered by Richard H. Davis (New York) whose book Lives of Indian Images was awarded the prestigious Ananda Coomaraswamy Prize.

For a detailed programme, application procedures and organisational matters see:

 http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/Plone/summer-school-2009

Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Monica Juneja, Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies, University of Heidelberg.

Programme

Sunday July 12

Arrival of participants

18-00-20.00

Welcome Dinner, Karl Jaspers Centre

 

Monday July 13

Morning session: 9.30 – 12.30

9.30-10.30

Welcome (Acting Director of Cluster)

A few words about the summer school

Introduction of participants

10.30-11.00

Coffee break

11.00-12.30

Keynote lecture

Richard Davis (New York)

12.30-13.30

Lunch

Afternoon session: 13.30-17.00

Commodities in global context – networks, consumption and local cultures

13.30- 15.00

Kim Siebenhüner (Basel)

Jewels on the move – global connections, local agents

15.00-15.30

Coffee break

15.30-17.00

Anne Goldgar (London)

Tulipmania  - profit, desire and legend

Evening Programme

Walk through historic town of Heidelberg

 

Tuesday July 14 

Morning session: 9.00 -12.30

Gifting, exchange and hybrid modernities

9.00-10.30

Natasha Eaton (London)

Gift and the circulation of charisma in India

10.30-11.00

Coffee Break

11.00-12.30

Melanie Trede (Heidelberg)

Banknotes as the Battlefield of Gender Politics and National Representation in Meiji Japan

12.30-13.30

Lunch

Afternoon session: 13.30-17.00

Collecting, display and curatorial practice

13.30-15.00

Christoph Lind (Mannheim)

Can the object speak – if so, to whom?

15.00-15.30

Coffee Break

15.30-17.00

Nic Leonhardt (Heidelberg)

Moving objects – objects on the move. Waxwork displays and anatomical cabinets in European Panoptika of the 19th century.

Evening programme

Visit to a wine cellar

 

Wednesday July 15

Morning session: 9.00-12.30

Translating object into image – exotic goods, visual practice and the shaping of art history

9.00 – 10.30

Matthias Bruhn (Berlin)

Species, prints and property: changing concepts of the „image“ in European visual history.

10.30-11.00

Coffee Break

11.00-12.30

Lothar Ledderose (Heidelberg) response awaited

12.30-13.30

Lunch

Afternoon session: 13.30 -17.30

Visit to Museum für angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt a. Main

 

Thursday July 16

Coordination: Martin Gieselmann and Nic Leonhardt (Heidelberg)

Morning session: 9.00-12.30(with a coffee break of 30 minutes)

The participants work in two groups and try to connect their own research areas with the methodological impulses provided by the sessions.

12.30-13.30

Lunch

Afternoon session: 13.30-17.00

13.30-15.00

Presentation of group work in a plenary session

15.00-15.30

Coffee break

15.30-17.00

Concluding Discussion, Evaluation of Summer School

 

Evening

Farewell party on the Neckar

 

Friday July 17

Departure of participants