The David B. Warren Symposium on American Material Culture and the Texas Experience

The 2015 David B. Warren Symposium
on American Material Culture
and the Texas Experience

“Creators and Consumers:
Women and Material Culture and Visual Art
in 19th-Century Texas, the Lower South,
and the Southwest”

October 23–25, 2015
Presented by Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Bayou Bend is accepting proposals for papers on women’s experience of material culture and visual art in pre-1900 Texas, the Lower South and the Southwest, to be presented at the fifth biennial David B. Warren Symposium in 2015. This symposium explores women’s contributions to material culture and visual arts of the 19th century through making, decorating, choosing, arranging, or using functional or artistic objects. Subjects of interest include traditional arts and crafts produced by women, participation in or support of traditionally male creative activities, and women’s influence through their choices and consumption. Proposals focusing on Texas and those presenting previously unpublished research receive particular consideration. Papers are published in the proceedings of the symposium in 2016.

Participants are invited to submit a 300-word abstract proposal for a paper to be presented as an illustrated oral lecture 25 or 50 minutes in length. The abstract should be accompanied by a current C.V. Please indicate presentation length in proposal. In general, 25-minute lectures are more appropriate for emerging scholars, while 50-minute lectures are  appropriate for senior scholars. Paper proposals are due to Bayou Bend by January 15, 2015. Acceptances are  announced by March 1, 2015.

The overall theme of the symposium series is “American Material Culture and the Texas Experience,” with the goal of providing an ongoing forum that examines pre-1900 Texas (as well as the lower South and Southwest) through the lens of American material culture. The symposium is named in honor of David B. Warren, the founding director emeritus of Bayou Bend.

Those whose papers are accepted receive transportation expenses, an honorarium for speaking, and a fee for preparing their manuscript for publication.