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If a call for papers on pleasure in Early Modern art exists, what specific research themes or questions is it likely addressing?

Even if I can't find a specific CFP, understanding the current scholarly conversation would help me frame my own research. What are art historians currently debating or exploring under the broad umbrella of "pleasure" in the 16th-18th centuries?

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By Vishal Answered 1 year ago

Based on current trends, such a CFP would likely invite explorations beyond mere representation. Key themes would include: sensory and embodied viewing experiences, examining how art engaged touch, smell, and sound. The transgressive or illicit pleasures associated with erotic or grotesque imagery. Gendered and queer pleasures in the construction of the gaze. The political economy of pleasure, linking luxury objects to trade, colonialism, and status. And finally, the moral and theological debates about aesthetic delight versus sin. I've seen scholarship increasingly frame pleasure not as a simple emotion, but as a complex cultural practice mediated through objects, making these interdisciplinary angles highly pertinent.

 

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