This international workshop addresses the importance, significance and value of images for contemporary historical and archaeological research and the study of cultural heritage (1880-1980), focusing both on the positive insights that might be garnered from visual material as well as on the possible difficulties.
Photographs, posters, drawings, comic book illustrations et cetera will be examined on different levels: the author and his/her intentions, the representation of a reality, the construction of identities, rights and inequalities and the reception of images.
The workshop aims at debating and evaluating various methodological and theoretical approaches to using images as historical sources and interpret the images as valuable historical evidence that is equal to and supplements other sources available to historians, archaeologists and researchers in the field of cultural heritage.

The morning session consists of a masterclass, conducted by dr. Anne Cronin (Department of Sociology, University of Lancaster, UK), and a lecture by dr. Marga Altena (Working group Visual Culture) (under reserve). In the afternoon, dr. Kees Ribbens (historian, The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation) will talk about his experience in the field of popular culture and cultural heritage and about how visual sources determine our vision of the past. Thereafter, PhD and Master students and other researchers are invited to present their research.

We invite paper submissions on a range of topics related to the use of images as historical evidence and encourage papers on the following themes:

• aspects of everyday life (e.g. housing)
• material culture and the cultural life of objects
• advertising
• the impact of visual sources on our vision of the past
• cultural and representational issues (gender, ethnicity, sexuality, power)
• consumer culture
• methodological approaches to visual sources
• images as cultural heritage

The format is a 20 minute paper presentation followed by 10 minutes of questions and discussion. PhD and Master students and other young researchers are particularly encouraged to respond. The language of communication is English.
A selection of the papers will be published (in English) in a special issue of the Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire.

Abstracts and papers
Interested students and researchers are expected to submit a short curriculum and an abstract in English of approximately 300 words in electronic form to: c-him@vub.ac.be by 20 Octobre 2008. Submission should inlcude the author’s name, affiliation, address, phone number and e-mail.

Succesful applicants will be notified by 25 Octobre 2008 and are asked to submit a paper of approximately 6000 words in electronic form to the same address by 4 March 2009.

For further information, please check the website

Joeri Januarius / Nelleke Teughels, PhD Students, Faculty of History, Faculty of Art History and Archaeology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels), Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium, Phone: +32 (0) 629 12 77, e-mail: c-him@vub.ac.be