Inquiries into the Image: Art History, Visual Studies, Bildwissenschaft

Athens, Greece, November 14, 2026
ACG – The American College of Greece

Keynote Speaker

Emmanuel Alloa

Emmanuel Alloa is Full Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art at the University of Fribourg since 2019. He studied philosophy, history and art history in Freiburg, Padua, Berlin and Paris. In 2009, he received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Paris I-Panthéon and the Free University of Berlin with a binational dissertation. He taught at the Département d’arts plastiques of Paris 8, as well as at the Collège international de Philosophie, held a postdoc position at the NCCR Image Criticism eikones (Basel), and worked as assistant professor of philosophy at the University of St. Gallen. Various visiting professorships and fellowships have taken him to diverse international institutions such as the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University (New York), Universidad San Nicolás de Hidalgo (Mexico), UFMG Belo Horizonte (Brazil), IKKM at Bauhaus University Weimar, University of Vienna, Torino, UC Berkeley and Yale. His work has received several awards, including the 2016 Latsis Prize and the 2019 Aby Warburg Wissenschaftspreis.
Emmanuel Alloa currently serves as Deputy President of the German Society for Aesthetics.

Call for papers

Recent debates in image theory and the historiography of art history point to a growing awareness of the disciplinary, epistemological, and institutional forces that shape the study of the visual. Art History, considered the founding discipline of image study, is thought to have been challenged and expanded by Visual Studies in the Anglophone cultural sphere and by Bildwissenschaft in the German-speaking world. Theoretical discussion has focused on the nature of these new directions, and more specifically their departure from art history. Anglophone Visual Studies are thought to constitute a decisive break from traditional Art History, while German Bildwissenschaft is thought to represent an autonomous or competing response. As hierarchies and narratives of disciplinary supersession or canonicity are being created, all three discourses continue to co-exist, however, as an integral part of the image theory continuum.

This one-day international conference proposes a reevaluation of the above dominant narrative, through the acknowledgement of the current synchronicity of these discourses. Instead of focusing on rupture, replacement, or competition, it identifies a need to explore their conceptual entanglements, methodological affinities, and shared inter- and transdisciplinary horizons. It proposes to situate these fields within broader histories of institutional formation, new research practices, academic knowledge production, and the evolving status of the image.

We invite contributions that investigate the historical continuities, theoretical intersections, and institutional convergences across Art History, Visual Studies, and Bildwissenschaft. We welcome theoretical, historiographic, or case-based studies, as well as papers that combine visual analysis with philosophical or methodological reflection. Historical scope is deliberately open, with an emphasis on the ongoing evolution and present conditions of the fields in question.

Indicative topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Iconic, pictorial, and sensory turns: methodological reconsiderations and historiographic critiques
• Histories of interdisciplinarity in Art History: transdisciplinary knowledge formations; relationships to anthropology, philosophy, psychology, classics, media studies, or science studies
• Visual Studies and Bildwissenschaft as institutional narratives: dialogue, conflict, and syncretism; disciplinary self-fashioning; the authority of academic canons
• Synergies or commoning: between sponsored mega-projects and collective creation in Art History
• The globalization of visual theory: Anglophone dominance, German traditions, and emerging perspectives outside Euro-American frameworks
• Rethinking the autonomy of disciplines: hybrid methodologies, institutional crossovers, translation, and shared epistemic tools
• Re-evaluation of the legacy of key thinkers, including Warburg, Panofsky, Riegl, Wickhoff, Wölfflin, Mitchell, Boehm, Belting, and others to examine how their approaches continue to inform contemporary scholarship

Selected papers will be published in an edited volume which aims to illuminate how the study of the image—far from being fragmented or superseded—remains anchored in a dynamic and enduring inter- and transdisciplinarity. Through comparative, critical, and synthetic perspectives, it seeks to question the assumption of discontinuity between Art History, Visual Studies, and Bildwissenschaft, and to offer new insights into the institutional tenacity and adaptive coherence of image-oriented scholarship today.

Submission Guidelines
Please submit an abstract of 300 words and a 2 page CV to the email vcclab@uth.gr

Deadline for abstracts: May 11, 2026

The language of the Conference is English.

Conference date: November 14, 2026
Venue: Alba Graduate Business School, The American College of Greece, 6-8 Xenias Street, 11528 Athens, Greece

Scientific and Organizing Committee:
Angeliki Pollali, Professor, Deree–The American College of Greece
Lia Yoka, Associate Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Sotirios Bahtsetzis, Associate Professor, University of Thessaly

Organized by
Frances Rich School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Deree–The American College of Greece
Visual Culture and Curating Lab, University of Thessaly
Semiotics Laboratory-SemioLab, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki