The Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF) announces two awards to support attendance at its annual meeting, which will take place  in Alexandria, Virginia, May 2 –5, 2018: the Access Award for qualifying first-time attendees, and the Ambassadors Award for groups of students. For more information about the conference visit the VAF conference website.  

Access Awards

In an effort to bring fresh voices to the study of vernacular buildings and landscapes the Access Award supports first-time attendance by scholars and students with limited professional exposure to the fields of architectural history and vernacular studies, as well as by practitioners and independent scholars in the field.

There is no geographic restriction on the award and local practitioners, scholars, and students may apply. Winners are not required to give a paper at the meeting, although they may.

The award will cover the cost of registration for the conference including tours. Winners who live more than 50 miles from the conference site will also receive a stipend of $300 for travel and lodging, to be presented at the conference. Winners, including those giving papers at the meeting, are required to write an article to be published in the VAF’s newsletter, VAN, discussing what they learned as first-time attendees.

Applications are due February 1, 2018. For instructions and more information visit the awards section of the VAF website. 

Ambassadors Awards 

The VAF Ambassadors Awards provide funding for student groups (undergraduate and graduate) from North American institutions, with a faculty sponsor, to
attend VAF's annual conference. We hope through this program to enhance the VAF's recruitment of students, to diversify the membership and interest in the work of the VAF, to provide support to programs that teach vernacular architecture, and to increase the VAF's visibility on campuses.

During the conference, Award recipients are encouraged to use social media to communicate with a broader audience about their experiences as a participant in the conference. Following conference attendance, Award recipients are expected to act as "ambassadors" for the VAF, working to promote the study, documentation, and preservation of ordinary buildings and landscapes.  Each group of Ambassadors must also submit a written summary of its experiences to the fellowship chair.  The summary, as well as a group photograph, will be published in the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s newsletter, VAN. 

 Applications are due February 1, 2018. For instructions and more information visit the awards section of the VAF website.  

Architectural History Defined: Celebrating the Scholarship of Dell Upton
April 13-14, 2018,Spitzer School of Architecture, The City College of New York

This is a symposium honoring the scholarship and teaching of Dell Upton, chair the UCLA Department of Art History.  There will be several panels addressing aspects and themes of Upton’s work, including those on Race, Class, and ethnicity, as well as preservation, public history and activism.   

Register:
https://ssa.ccny.cuny.edu/events/dell-upton-symposium/ 
 
Dell Upton, an award-winning historian of architecture, cultural landscapes, and cities, currently chairs the UCLA Department of Art History. Professor Upton, a pioneer in linking social and architectural history, focuses both on the United States and the global scene, and has had a longstanding interest in the history of African American architecture and material culture. His books include What Can and Can’t Be Said (2015), Another City (2008), Architecture in the United States (1998), and Holy Things and Profane (1986).

Ninth Biennial Conference of the Urban History Association

“Cities at the Crossroads” - October 18-21, 2018, Columbia, SC
www.urbanhistory.org/Columbia2018 

UHA Vernacular Architecture Forum Panel:

“Crossing into the Ordinary”

The Vernacular Architecture Forum invites paper proposals for a VAF-sponsored session at the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Urban History Association, “Cities at the Crossroads,” to be held October 18-21, 2018 in Columbia, SC.

This session will explore how analysis of the physical forms of ordinary built environments contributes to our understanding of cities, reflecting the conference theme of the interdisciplinary nature of the field of urban history.  Students of vernacular architecture use a variety of methods – from art history and cultural geography to anthropology and folklore and beyond – to explore how buildings and landscapes can help us understand the lives of ordinary people.  Scholars of vernacular structures and cultural landscapes have increasingly brought these methods to the analysis of urban development from their original context of rural, preindustrial settings.

Questions to be explored in this session might include

• How might the methods used by scholars of vernacular landscapes improve our understanding of the complex social, economic, and political dynamics of cities?
  
• How does vernacular fieldwork – the careful recording of buildings and their settings – operate within the context of the urban landscape?
  
• Has consideration of “everyday” architecture and environments, based in the work of Lefebvre, Crawford, and others, changed our approach to urban history?

Papers could examine issues from a variety of periods, scales, and locations, and could involve questions of investigative method, theoretical foundations for the application of vernacular approaches to urban situations, or specific building forms.

The session will be structured as a series of short research presentations (10 minutes) that highlight application of vernacular theoretical frameworks to specific subjects, followed by a discussion among paper authors, session organizers, and the audience about the role of vernacular architecture approaches in contemporary urban history.  Panel participants should be prepared to convey their research findings succinctly and then apply them to the larger conversation with other session attendees.

Paper proposals should include should include an abstract of up to 150 words with up to four keywords, along with a one-page CV, including address and email.  These should be submitted as a single PDF file.

The submission deadline is February 28, 2018.  Proposals and inquiries should be sent to the session chairs: James Buckley at the University of Oregon, Portland (jbuckley@uoregon.edu) and Arijit Sen at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (sena@uwm.edu)

The Material Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association encourages participation in the November 8-11, 2018, Annual Meeting: “States of Emergence” in Atlanta. We welcome scholarly papers and panels that explore an expansive definition of emergence.  This includes all spaces, institutions, objects and technologies that affect the formation of new identities, cultures and social roles.

To read the conference Call for Papers see: https://theasa.net/annual-meeting/years-meeting/next-years-theme

We aim to connect potential presenters with shared interests in material culture topics to encourage the formation of strong material culture-related panels. If you, your colleagues, or doctoral students are considering proposals for the conference, please email us your panel idea or paper abstract and we will attempt to connect you with similar panelists and papers. We are also happy to offer suggestions on complete panel proposals.

In addition to the two scholarly panels that the Caucus may sponsor, we are also developing a proposal for a roundtable on pedagogy. Details about the roundtable follow this list of topics related to the scholarly theme.

• Re-emergent nationalism / supremacy
• Neo-globalism in the 21st century
• Changing Frontiers - geographies, sciences, climate change etc..
• War, displacement and violence as a catalysts for object design
• Evolution of weapons and warfare
• Re-visiting the American heartland
• Objects of resistance
• Memorials, memory and death
• Emergency and crisis shelters
• Utopian thought and communities
• Museums and cultural patrimony
• Broken objects, conservation and recycling
• Spontaneous versus designed futures / planning
• Fashion as a paradigm and process of cultural construction
• Post-industrial manufacturing
• Shifts in cultural hierarchy - kitsch / luxury etc.
• The literary life of things
• Corporeal states of emergence
• The body in feminist theory and practice
• Material culture of motherhood and birth
• Histories of childhood, children and youth
• Non-binary gender
• Colonization / appropriation/ hybridity
• Group formation
• Creolization
• Material  perspectives on ethnicity
• Emergent races / post-racialism
• Materiality and social media

Pedagogy Roundtable

Accompanying the emergence of a material turn in the study of history and society, the materiality of culture and the agency of things in human action are increasingly popular topics in the college classroom. The Material Culture Caucus welcomes brief proposals of topics (including individual submissions) for participation in a roundtable on material-culture-centered teaching across fields and disciplines, including classroom methods, assignments, projects, exhibitions and other forms of outreach or hands-on learning that employ material culture. We particularly welcome topics that are easily transferable to a variety of learning settings and budgets. Potential topics might include: hands-on learning techniques for large and/or survey classes; tools for putting object-based learning at the center of an exhibition; approaches to studying American art and artifacts in and outside of institutional collections; methods for teaching the materiality of the body. The roundtable will feature short-presentations by participants followed by a moderated discussion.

Email your proposals or panel ideas or any questions to mccprogramcommittee@gmail.com as soon as possible (and before January 9, 2018).  Please put either “proposal for scholarly paper/panel” or “proposal for pedagogy roundtable” in the subject line. The MCC will provide its decision on panels and roundtable participants by January 20th. The selected panels and potential participants must provide all data for submission to the MCC by January 27th. Panelists will then be responsible for following all posted instructions and for submitting their own panels or papers in proper ASA format to the ASA by the ASA deadline (February 1, 2018). For more ASA instructions on proposal submission, see: https://www.theasa.net/node/5681

2018 Material Culture Caucus Program Committee

PJ Carlino, Boston University

Sarah Anne Carter, The Chipstone Foundation/UW-Madison

Sarah Jones Weicksel, National Museum of American History

In The Cemeteries of New Orleans, Peter B. Dedek reveals the origins and evolution of the Crescent City’s world-famous necropolises, exploring both their distinctive architecture and their cultural impact. Spanning centuries, this fascinating body of research takes readers from muddy fields of crude burial markers to extravagantly designed cities of the dead, illuminating a vital and vulnerable piece of New Orleans’s identity.

Where many histories of New Orleans cemeteries have revolved around the famous people buried within them, Dedek focuses on the marble cutters, burial society members, journalists, and tourists who shaped these graveyards into internationally recognizable emblems of the city. In addition to these cultural actors, Dedek’s exploration of cemetery architecture reveals the impact of ancient and medieval grave traditions and styles, the city’s geography, and the arrival of trained European tomb designers, such as the French architect J. N. B. de Pouilly in 1833 and Italian artist and architect Pietro Gualdi in 1851. 

As Dedek shows, the nineteenth century was a particularly critical era in the city’s cemetery design. Notably, the cemeteries embodied traditional French and Spanish precedents, until the first garden cemetery—the Metairie Cemetery—was built on the site of an old racetrack in 1872. Like the older walled cemeteries, this iconic venue served as a lavish expression of fraternal and ethnic unity, a backdrop to exuberant social celebrations, and a destination for sightseeing excursions. During this time, cultural and religious practices, such as the celebration of All Saints’ Day and the practice of Voodoo rituals, flourished within the spatial bounds of these resting places. Over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, however, episodes of neglect and destruction gave rise to groups that aimed to preserve the historic cemeteries of New Orleans—an endeavor, which, according to Dedek, is still wanting for resources and political will. 

Containing ample primary source material, abundant illustrations, appendices on both tomb styles and the history of each of the city’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cemeteries,The Cemeteries of New Orleans offers a comprehensive and intriguing resource on these fascinating historic sites.

Countering the widespread misconception that slavery existed only on plantations, and that urban areas were immune from its impacts, Slavery in the City is the first volume to deal exclusively with the impact of North American slavery on urban design and city life during the antebellum period. This groundbreaking collection of essays brings together studies from diverse disciplines, including architectural history, historical archaeology, geography, and American studies. The contributors analyze urban sites and landscapes that are likewise varied, from the back lots of nineteenth-century Charleston townhouses to movements of enslaved workers through the streets of a small Tennessee town. These essays not only highlight the diversity of the slave experience in the antebellum city and town but also clearly articulate the common experience of conflict inherent in relationships based on power, resistance, and adaptation. Slavery in the City makes significant contributions to our understanding of American slavery and offers an essential guide to any study of slavery and the built environment.

Compiled and Submitted by Zachary Violette and Ian Stevenson

Alexander, Gül Neşe Doğusan. “Caught between Aspiration and Actuality: The Etiler Housing Cooperative and the Production of Housing in Turkey.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 3 (September 2017): 349–366.

Bago, Ivana. “The City as a Space of Plastic Happening: From Grand Proposals to Exceptional Gestures in the Art of the 1970s in Zagreb.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 26–53.

Beisaw, April M., and Jane Eva Baxter. “America’s One-Room Schools: Sites of Regional Authority and Symbols of Local Autonomy, after 1850.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 21, no. 4 (December 1, 2017): 806–26

Bluestone, Daniel. “Framing Landscape While Building Density: Chicago Courtyard Apartments, 1891–1929.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 4 (December 2017): 506–531.

Bocharnikova, Daria and Steven E. Harris. “Second World Urbanity: Infrastructures of Utopia and Really Existing Socialism.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 3–8.

Bricker, Lauren Weiss. “Architect O’Neil Ford’s Exploration of the Solar House in Texas.” APT: The Journal of Preservation Technology XLVIII, no. 2–3 (2017): 21–28.

Bruzelius, Caroline. “Digital Technologies and New Evidence in Architectural History.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 4 (December 2017): 436–439.

Carstairs, Philip. “Soup and Reform: Improving the Poor and Reforming Immigrants through Soup Kitchens 1870–1910.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 21, no. 4 (December 1, 2017): 901–36

Catron, Staci L., and Mary Ann Eaddy. Seeking Eden: A Collection of Georgia’s Historic Gardens. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Chee, Lilian. “Keeping Cats, Hoarding Things: Domestic Situations in the Public Spaces of the Singaporean Housing Block.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 6 (August 18, 2017): 1041–65.

Chee, Lilian, and Eunice Seng. “Dwelling in Asia: Translations between Dwelling, Housing and Domesticity.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 6 (August 18, 2017): 993–1000.

Chronopoulos, Themis. “The Rebuilding of the South Bronx after the Fiscal Crisis.” Journal of Urban History 43, no. 6 (November 1, 2017): 932–59.

Chu, Cecilia L. “Constructing a New Domestic Discourse: The Modern Home in Architectural Journals and Mass-Market Texts in Early Twentieth-Century China.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 6 (August 18, 2017): 1066–91.

Colombo, Luciana Fornari. “What Is Life? Exploring Mies van Der Rohe’s Concept of Architecture as a Life Process.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 8 (November 17, 2017): 1267–86.

Crawford, Christina E.  “From Tractors to Territory: Socialist Urbanization through Standardization.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 54–77.

Eisenberg, Ariel “‘A Shelter Can Tip the Scales Sometimes’: Disinvestment, Gentrification, and the Neighborhood Politics of Homelessness in 1980s New York City.” Journal of Urban History 43, no. 6 (November 1, 2017): 915–31.

Elefante, Carl. “Changing World, Evolving Value: Historic Preservation toward 2050.” APT: The Journal of Preservation Technology XLVIII, no. 2–3 (2017): 9–12.

Goodwin, David J. Left Bank of the Hudson Jersey City and the Artists of 111 1st Street. Bronx: Fordham University Press, 2017.

Green, Christopher T. “A Stage Set for Assimilation: The Model Indian School at the World’s Columbian Exposition.” Winterthur Portfolio 51, no. 2/3 (June 1, 2017): 95–133.

Harley, Joseph. “Consumption and Poverty in the Homes of the English Poor, c. 1670–1834.” Social History 43, no. 1 (January 2, 2018): 81–104.

Hess, Christian. “Sino-Soviet City: Dalian between Socialist Worlds, 1945-1955.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 9–25.

Hirsh, Max. “Redefinitions of Dwelling and the Transnational Production of Temporary Housing in Asian Cities.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 6 (August 18, 2017): 1137–53.

Holtzman, Benjamin. “‘I Am Not Co-Op!’: The Struggle over Middle-Class Housing in 1970s New York.” Journal of Urban History 43, no. 6 (November 1, 2017): 864–85.

Hutterer, Maile. “Architectural Design as an Expression of Religious Tolerance: The Case of Sainte-Madeleine in Montargis.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 3 (September 2017): 281–301.

Jackson, Mike. “Modernism on Main Street: The Dilemma of the Half- Modern Building.” APT: The Journal of Preservation Technology XLVIII, no. 2–3 (2017): 29–36.

Kapsch, Robert J. Building Washington: Engineering and Construction of the New Federal City, 1790−1840. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Kinney, Rebecca J. “Detroit Is Closer than You Think.” Radical History Review 129 (October 2017): 164–176.

Lee, Brian D., Daniel I. Carey, and Alice L. Jones, eds. Water in Kentucky: Natural History, Communities, and Conservation. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018.

Lupkin, Paula, and Penny Sparke, eds. Shaping the American Interior: Structures, Contexts and Practices. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Mumford, Eric. Designing the Modern City: Urbanism Since 1850. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.

Nye, David E. American Illuminations: Urban Lighting, 1800–1920. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2018.

Park, Melany Sun-Min. “The Paradox of Excess: Kim Swoo-Geun’s Môt and His Economical Architecture.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 6 (August 18, 2017): 1021–40.

Pelton, Tom. The Chesapeake in Focus: Transforming the Natural World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Rausch, Christoph. “Maisons Tropicales/Maisons Coloniales: Contesting Technologies of Authenticity and Value in Niamey, Brazzaville, Paris, New York and Venice.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 24, no. 1 (January 2, 2018): 83–100.

Rousset, Isabel. “The Berlin Room.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 7 (October 3, 2017): 1202–29

Sammartino, Annemarie “The New Socialist Man in the Plattenbau: The East German Housing Program and the Development of the Socialist Way of Life.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 78–94.

Sammons, Tania June. The Andrew Low House. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Schlichting, Kurt C. Waterfront Manhattan: From Henry Hudson to the High Line. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Seng, Eunice. “Temporary Domesticities: The Southeast Asian Hotel as (Re)Presentation of Modernity, 1968–1973.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 6 (August 18, 2017): 1092–1136.

Siddiqi, Anooradha Iyer. “Crafting the Archive: Minnette De Silva, Architecture, and History.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 8 (November 17, 2017): 1299–1336.

Slavishak, Edward. Proving Ground: Expertise and Appalachian Landscapes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

Spencer-Wood, Suzanne M., and Renée M. Blackburn. “The Creation of the American Playground Movement by Reform Women, 1885–1930: A Feminist Analysis of Materialized Ideological Transformations in Gender Identities and Power Dynamics.” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 21, no. 4 (December 1, 2017): 937–77.

Sutter, Paul S., and Paul M. Pressly, eds. Coastal Nature, Coastal Culture: Environmental Histories of the Georgia Coast. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Unlu, T., and Y. Bas. “Morphological Processes and the Making of Residential Forms: Morphogenetic Types in Turkish Cities.” Journal of Urban Morphology 21, no. 2 (2017).

Way, Thaisa, ed. River Cities, City Rivers. Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2018.

Wilson, Jason. “Seeds of History: Century-Old Orchards Yield Rare Fruits and a Link to California’s Vanishing Past.” Preservation 69, no. 4 (2017): 20–27.

Wright, Will. “Geophysical Agency in the Anthropocene: Engineering a Road and River to Rocky Mountain National Park.” Environmental History 22, no. 4 (October 2017): 668–695.

Yu, Shuishan. “Courtyard in Conflict: The Transformation of Beijing’s Siheyuan during Revolution and Gentrification.” The Journal of Architecture 22, no. 8 (November 17, 2017): 1337–65.

Zarecor, Kimberly Elman. “What Was So Socialist about the Socialist City? Second World Urbanity in Europe.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 95–117.

Zipf, Catherine W. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater: American Architecture in the Depression Era. New York: Routledge, 2018.