Call for Session at the 64th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, New Orleans

This panel invites papers that address the role that Catholic missionaries played in facilitating artistic and cultural interaction between Europe and overseas contacts in Asia and the Americas, two sites of active missionary activity in the early modern period. In this panel, we will invite a conversation that focuses on how art moved through the global missionary network of the Catholic Church from Europe to the Americas and Asia. We are also interested in papers that demonstrate the role played by missionaries in facilitating direct cross-cultural interaction between Asia and the Americas. Possible paper topics include, but are not limited, to the following:

  • The movement of artists and works of art as facilitated by missionaries 
  • The founding of missionary art schools and the exportation of students’ art works
  • Missionaries as facilitators of intercontinental artistic commissions
  • The transmission of architectural ideas through missionary building projects
  • Missionaries’ involvement in the trade of art objects
  • Artists who were members of missionary orders and were active in Asia and/or the Americas

Please submit your paper proposal by May 20 to Christa Irwin ([email protected]) and Rachel Miller ([email protected]). Proposals must include the following:

  • Name, affiliation, email address
  • Paper title 
  • Abstract (250-word maximum)
  • Keywords
  • CV (1 page)
As per RSA guidelines, proposals must include the following: paper title (15-word maximum), abstract (150-word maximum), keywords, and a very brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum). See http://www.rsa.org/general/custom.asp?page=2018NOLA