July 28-30 2011, University College, The University of Melbourne
How do the emotions shape and structure human interactions with stone? Do these emotions change over time and in different cultural topographies? How can stone help us write the history of emotions?
This interdisciplinary collaboratory interrogates the history of European and Indigenous Australian relationships with stone. It will feature wide-ranging discussion about continuities and discontinuities in emotional expression and feeling, from medieval Europe to contemporary Australia, in a range of artistic, geographic, architectural and other cultural contexts. Stone is a powerful marker of time and memory, a still point through changing temporalities. It has the capacity to help us think — and feel — about time.
Stone in Australia carries a complex set of emotional associations with English and European cultural heritage, especially around religious, civic and educational institutions. How does a settler culture translate those associations into a new, local landscape? How do ideas about landscape, nation and home change, in new and radically different topographies? Can we compare European and Indigenous Australian relationships with stone?
The conference will begin with a free public lecture by Jeffrey J. Cohen, 'Feeling Stone', in the Elisabeth Murdoch Theatre, 6:00, Thursday July 28.
Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar
The collaboratory will be followed on Sunday July 31 by a Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar on "Medievalism, Historicism, Temporalities".