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

When:
Saturday, November 14, 2026 | 09:30 – 20:00

Where:
Alba Ground Floor Amphitheater, Alba Graduate Business School, The American College of Greece | 6-8 Xenias Street, Athens, Greece

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

KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Emmanuel Alloa
Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art at the University of Fribourg

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About the conference:

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

The conference is open to the public.

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Program

9:30–10:00 | Welcome Remarks
Helena Maragou
Dean, Frances Rich School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences,
Deree – The American College of Greece

10:00–11:00 | Keynote Lecture
Emmanuel Alloa, University of Fribourg
From Optics to Stochastics: Images in the Age of AI

11:20–11:40 | Discussion

11:20–11:40 | Break

11:40 – 13:00 | Session I
Chair: Sotirios Bahtsetzis, University of Thessaly

11:40 – Gabriele Rossi, Experimental filmmaker
The Expected Image: Absence, Evidence, and the Conditions of Visual Recognition

12:00 – Dimitrios Angelis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
The discourse about the historicity of vision: From art history to visual culture studies, the sensory turn and the case of Jonathan Crary

12:20 – Dario Vuger, J.J.Strossmayer University in Osijek
From mie to moe towards the post-pictorial – on database visuality of Japanese modernity

12:40 | Discussion

13:00–14:00 | Lunch Break

14:00-15:40 | Session II
Chair: Angeliki Pollali, Deree – The American College of Greece

14:00 – Vanessa R. Schwartz, University of Southern California
On the Mobility of the Image and Viewer: Visual Studies and the Jet Age Aesthetic

14:20 – Yixuan Liu, University of Fribourg
The Image among Images as a Relation of Relations: A Relational-Ontological Reading of Aby Warburg’s Iconology of the Interval

14:40 – Vangelis Athanasopoulos, Athens School of Fine Arts
The image between its disciplines

15:00 – Annette Haug, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Historicizing Image Theory from Antiquity: Fragile Images between Bildwissenschaft and Art History

15:20 | Discussion

15:40–16:00 | Break

16:00-17:20 | Session III
Chair: Nikos Pegioudis, Technical University of Crete

16:00 – Katharina Wuchner, Hessian State Palaces and Gardens
Between Observation and Imagination: Constructing Bodily Alterity in Burgkmair’s “African” Warriors and the Neue Welt Broadsheet (1505)

16:20 – Kasper Lægring, Aarhus University
Beyond the Pause of Participation: Quasi-Perception, Empathy and the Affective Life of Images

16:40 – Dora Derado Giljanović, Independent Curator
The Social History of Art as Methodological Necessity in the Study of Appropriation Strategies in Croatian Contemporary Art (1959–1989)

17:00 | Discussion

17:20–17:40 | Break

17:40-19:00 | Session IV
Chair: Lia Yoka, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

17:40 – Rowan Ashraf Aly, Institute of Mediterranean Studies (IMS-FORTH)
Visual Regimes of Inequality: Images, Environment, And Urban Knowledge in Egypt’s New Capital

18:00 – Konstantinos Michos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
The effect of style on scientific images: The case of Artemis II mission photography

18:20 – Marianna Tsionki, Leeds Arts University
Extractive Afterlives: Post-Mining Visuality and the Entanglement of Image Theory – politicizing ecological imagery

18:40 | Discussion

19:00–20:00 | General Discussion/Closing Remarks

You can also view/download the program here.