CFP: ‘Ecologies of Visual Culture in the Global Middle Ages’, Association for Art History 2024 Annual Conference, University of Bristol, deadline 10 November 2023

2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Association for Art History. We are delighted to announce that next year’s conference will be held in collaboration with the History of Art department at the University of Bristol.

Proposals are invited for the conference session ‘Ecologies of Visual Culture in the Global Middle Ages’.

The study of medieval art and visual culture has recently seen a flourishing of ecocritical and environmental approaches that invite us to explore new ways of thinking about objects, buildings and landscapes. Drawing on the material, spatial, and post-human turns in humanities research, these have highlighted the complex ways in which human creativity and acts of making are entangled with non-human processes and agency. One aspect emphasises the landscape as integral to sacred space, placing built structures within their topographical and ecological contexts, and attending to other kinds of material intervention. Another focuses on materiality, the ‘stuff’ of the natural world from which both buildings and objects were crafted, to better understand their making and meaning. Across the globe, such interactions were inflected by different environments and cultural frameworks. This panel thus aims to bring together new research on visual cultures of the natural world, as these relate to any medium and geographic region, c.500-1500.

Proposals for papers are invited on topics including, but not limited to: visual representations and perceptions of the natural world; the materiality of objects and buildings, whether animal, vegetable or mineral in origin; the impact of cultivating and extracting such materials on landscapes and ecosystems; lasting interventions in the natural world, from free-standing buildings and monuments to rock-cut structures and gardens; ephemeral engagement with natural environments, through ritual and performance, mobile objects and temporary creations; the relationship between the non-human world and the human body, including sensory experience; intersections between environmental science and visual culture. We welcome submissions that together represent a variety of methodologies and perspectives, and a range of cultural contexts.

To offer a paper:

• Please email your paper proposals direct to the session convenor(s).
• You will need to provide a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 20-minute paper, your name and institutional affiliation (if any).
• Deadline for submissions: 10 November 2023

Session convenors:

• Peter Dent, University of Bristol, peter.dent@bristol.ac.uk
• Lucy Donkin, University of Bristol, lucy.donkin@bristol.ac.uk
• Sophie Kelly, University of Bristol, sophie.kelly@bristol.ac.uk
• Naomi Speakman, British Museum, nspeakman@britishmuseum.org
• Beth Williamson, University of Bristol, beth.williamson@bristol.ac.uk