HECAA@30: ENVIRONMENTS, MATERIALS, AND FUTURES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
October 12 in Cambridge and Boston / October 13th in Cambridge and Boston / October 14th in Providence
On the land of the Massachusetts and neighboring Wampanoag and Nipmuc peoples, Boston developed in the eighteenth century as a major colonized and colonizing site. Its status today as a cultural and intellectual hub is shaped by that context, making it a critical location to trace the cultural legacies of racism and social injustice between the eighteenth century and today. For whom is “eighteenth-century art and architecture” a useful category? What eighteenth-century materials, spaces, and images offer tools or concepts for shaping our collective futures?
In considering these questions, the Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture (HECAA) aim to be deliberate about expanding the group's traditional focus on Western European art and architecture and specifically encourage proposals from scholars working on Asia, Africa and the African diaspora, Indigenous cultures, and the Islamic world. This conference marks our 30th year as a scholarly society dedicated to facilitating communication and collaboration among scholars of eighteenth-century art to expand and promote knowledge of all aspects of the period’s visual culture.
