ASECS is excited to announce five complimentary pre-conference opportunities. Registration is required and space is limited. 
 

Pre-Conference Visit to the Saint Louis Art Museum: Wednesday, March 8, 1:00–4:45pm

(registration is required and limited to 100 people) 

The Saint Louis Art Museum welcomes you to explore its 18th-century collections. Make your way to the Museum anytime between 1:00pm and 4:00pm, drop off your luggage (if needed), and pick up a map of 18th-century highlights from across its global collections. Spend time visiting these galleries at your own pace, while keeping an eye out for SLAM curators and conservators ready to engage in conversations about these paintings, sculptures, furniture, ceramics, metalworks, textiles, and more from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. The Prints and Drawings Study Room will also be open to share standout works on paper. At 4:00pm, we will plan to gather for a coffee/tea break, an official welcome, and a chance to discuss the objects and installations you’ve just encountered. Open to all, but limited to the first 100 registrants. Transportation will not be provided between the museum and the conference hotel, but suggestions will be shared as the time approaches.

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Can’t make it to the Museum on Wednesday? The Museum will be open during the conference, from 10am–5pm on Thursday and Saturday and 10am–9pm on Friday, and is free to all. The map of 18th-century highlights will be posted on the ASECS website in February 2023. Amy Torbert, SLAM’s assistant curator of American art and an ASECS member, would also be delighted to help arrange viewing of any works in the collection that are not currently on view; feel free to write her, at least three weeks in advance, at amy.torbert@slam.org to inquire about how your interests might intersect with the collection (much of which is not yet available through the online database).

 

JUST ADDED

Pre-Conference Visit to the Cahokia Mounds Outing [organized by the Science Studies Caucus] Wednesday, March 8 3:00pm - 6:00pm (no registration required) 

Meet in Hotel Lobby at 3:00pm. 

Ccontact Helen Thompson hthompson@northwestern.edu for details

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Pre-Conference Workshop: Antiracist Solidarities in an “Anti-CRT” Age: A Teach-In Wednesday, March 8, 3:30–6:00pm

(registration is required and limited to 30 people)  Made possible through support from the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College" 

In the past two years, a chilling number of bills have been put forward to—and many of them passed by—US state legislatures to limit and ban the teaching of what is being called “Critical Race Theory,” a misnomer for what amounts to a wide range of historical and cultural materials that decenter whiteness and analyze the ways white supremacy has informed the sociopolitical project of the American nation state. These intensifying efforts to suppress critical approaches to US race relations intersect with simultaneous efforts to suppress LGBTQ+ content in public educational institutions from kindergarten through college, as well as a general resurgence of anti-intellectual and anti-historical positions being staked in public discourses. This is not an emergency limited to the classroom, but a political initiative that weaves public pedagogical space into ongoing systemic violence against racialized and queer people, especially through antiblack police structures and legislative attempts to eliminate care for transgender people. As educators, how do we cultivate the solidarities necessary to continue our work in, through, and against such hostile initiatives? This workshop is made possible through support from the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College.

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JUST ADDED

Pre-Conference Open House at the Missouri Historical Society, Wednesday, March 8, 4:00pm - 6:00pm (registration required) 

The Missouri Historical Society invites you to visit their recently renovated Reading Room and explore highlights from their 18th-century St. Louis collections of manuscripts, archives, and fine and decorative arts. Their curators, librarians, and archivists will be on hand between 4:00pm and 6:00pm for a drop-in open house.

Email Amy Torbert (amy.torbert@slam.org) for more information and to register and receive directions.

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Pre-conference Session: Staged Reading, hosted by the Theatre and Performance Studies Caucus Wednesday, March 8 starting at 8:00pm (registration is required) 

Join us for a night of frivolity starring luminaries of the ASECS firmament!

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