Meeting-House
	Visual Studies in Religion -- Meeting-House: An International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Protestant Dissenting Architecture and Culture (School of Art, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 14-16 April 1999)

Introduction

The visual character of the Protestant meeting-house and chapel was influenced by a complex of interrelated factors. These included vernacular building methods and materials, prevailing architectural styles and tastes, the congregations' visual sensibility, practical expedience, theological restrictions, liturgical requirements, economics, social structure, indigenous and prevailing culture, and national, geographical, and historical contexts. This conference gave an account of the visual and religious significance of the meeting-house and chapel informed by a wide-range of disciplines and methodologies, including architectural history and theory, art history, visual and cultural studies, the fine and applied arts, furniture history, ecclesiastical history, theology, biblical and religious studies, hymnology, rhetoric and homiletics, social and political history, social geography, and archive management. In this way, the conference provided a meeting place for scholars and practitioners from different fields to exchange ideas and concerns. The anticipated outcome was a more extensive and multifaceted understanding of the subject than has been possible hitherto. The conference comprised contributions by distinguished invited speakers from Great Britain, the United States of America, and Europe, and from responses to this call for papers; together with hands-on experience of Nonconformist buildings and artefacts. Papers were invited under 9 topics.