[Ahs-grads] Fwd: CFP: WashU Graduate Student Art History Symposium 2026

[Iselda Salgado]

Please see call for papers below.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Jason Weems <jweems at ucr.edu>
Date: Wed, Nov 5, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Subject: Fwd: CFP: WashU Graduate Student Art History Symposium 2026
To: Iselda Salgado <iselda.salgado at ucr.edu>


Please share with the grad students.
yours,
Jason


Jason Weems
History of Art Department, Director of Graduate Studies
University of California, Riverside
http://arthistory.ucr.edu

Begin forwarded message:

*From: *A&S GSAHS Committee <gsahs at wustl.edu>
*Subject: **CFP: WashU Graduate Student Art History Symposium 2026*
*Date: *November 5, 2025 at 8:00:00 AM PST
*To: *A&S GSAHS Committee <gsahs at wustl.edu>

Good morning,


We hope this email finds you well and enjoying a productive semester! The
Department of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St.
Louis is seeking papers for its 2026 Graduate Student Art History Symposium
(GSAHS). The theme of the symposium is *"Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups":
Hauntings, Afterlives, and Reawakenings* and the event will be held
in-person on our campus in St. Louis on February 13–14, 2026. The deadline
to submit proposals is Monday, December 8, 2025. Selected speakers will be
notified by Friday, January 2, 2026. Please forward the attached CFP to any
graduate students to whom this topic might be of interest and feel free to
contact gsahs at wustl.edu <GSAHS at wustl.edu> with any questions.


Many thanks,

*Jillian Lepek & Hannah Wier*
GSAHS 2026 Co-chairs
Department of Art History & Archaeology
Washington University in Saint Louis

—————————————————————————————————————————

*2026 Graduate Student Art History Symposium: "Ghost Stories for
Grown-Ups": Hauntings, Afterlives, and Reawakenings*

*Washington University in St. Louis, February 13–14, 2026*
*Deadline: December 8, 2025*


The Department of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in
St. Louis is seeking papers for its 2026 Graduate Student Art History
Symposium (GSAHS). The theme of the symposium is *"Ghost Stories for
Grown-Ups": Hauntings, Afterlives, and Reawakenings* and the event will be
held in-person on our campus in St. Louis on February 13–14, 2026.


While working on the *Mnemosyne Atlas *(1925–1929), Aby Warburg
characterized his art historical practice as a “ghost story for grown-ups.”
As scholars, we are often all too familiar with recurring images, motifs,
and ideas that persist in the canon or emerge from the archive as if of
their own volition. Similarly, many communities have their own traditions
and tales of spirits or spectral encounters that linger in visual culture.
Many studies across the humanities have attended to the culture of the
afterlife, both literally and figuratively. In his book *Specters of Marx*
(1993), Jacques Derrida introduced the theoretical framework of
“hauntology” to consider elements of the social and cultural past that
endure and reappear in a manner of ghostliness. Furthermore, sociologist
Avery Gordon contends that such hauntings are an index of “dispossession,
exploitation, and repression” that reemerge in order to demand being
addressed. This symposium seeks to lift the veil by critically engaging
with hauntings, afterlives, and ghostliness as both cultural phenomena and
a conceptual model for art historical inquiry.

We invite current and recent graduate students in art history, archaeology,
visual culture and related disciplines to submit abstracts for this
symposium. Submissions may explore aspects of this theme as manifested in
any medium, historical period, cultural, and geographical context.

*Keynote Speaker: *Dr. Patrick R. Crowley, Associate Curator of European
Art at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University

*We welcome potential topics from any time period/geographical area that
contend with ghosts, phantoms, spirits, or hauntings, including but not
limited to:*

   - Spirit photography
   - Ghosts, spirits, and demons in historical folk and religious art
   - Spectral images in theatre and cabaret performances
   - Paranormal and horror cinema
   - The afterlives of artworks, motifs, notable figures, or ideas
   - The persistence and/or reemergence of repressed peoples, beliefs, and
   images
   - Art made in the wake of war, genocide, or tragedy
   - Mausoleums, tombs, memorials, or other elements of the built
   environment meant to connect the living with the dead
   - The display of human remains, sacred relics, and objects that house
   spirits in museums, cultural institutions, and tourist attractions


*To apply:*
Submit a 350-word abstract and a CV in a single PDF file by Monday,
December 8, 2025, to Jillian Lepek and Hannah Wier at gsahs at wustl.edu.
Selected speakers will be notified by Friday, January 2. Paper
presentations must not exceed 18 minutes in length and should be
accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation. The symposium will be held
entirely in-person at Washington University in St. Louis. Modest honoraria
will be provided to student speakers to offset the cost of travel and
accommodation.
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