Job: Assistant Professor – Late Antiquity and/or Early Islam, University of Toronto Scarborough, deadline 30 November 2020

The Department of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) invites applications for a full-time tenure-stream position in the area of Late Antiquity and/or Early Islam. The appointment will be at the rank of Assistant Professor, with an expected start date of July 1, 2021, or shortly thereafter. The successful candidate will be joining a vibrant, multi-disciplinary scholarly community at UTSC and in the tri-campus University of Toronto with related regional, temporal, and thematic foci.

Applicants must have a Ph.D. in Classics, Middle East Studies, History, Religion, Art History, Archeology, or another, closely related discipline by the time of appointment or shortly thereafter. They must demonstrate a record of excellence in research and teaching  in the field of Late Antique studies and/or the study of early Islam both conceptually and methodologically. We are particularly interested in scholars with active, interdisciplinary research agendas focusing on one or more of the following thematic areas: Religious history, transnational connections, race, ethnicity, and identity, as well as postcolonial or decolonial approaches to the field. A significant element of applicants’ current and future research must look at Late Antiquity and/or early Islam in any region in the wider area from North and East Africa to the Indian Subcontinent, with evident attention to relevant sources and languages. The successful candidate’s research and teaching interests must complement our department’s strength in the study of mobilities of people, objects, ideas, and practices within and across imperial formations, and will share our commitment to non-Eurocentric, decolonial pedagogy. Candidates must be prepared to teach undergraduate courses in both Classical Studies and at least one other HCS undergraduate program, based on their thematic and/or regional specialization. They also must be able to contribute to one or more of the University of Toronto’s graduate programs, where they will hold a graduate appointment. 

More information can be found here.

New Publication: Icons of Sound: Voice, Architecture, and Imagination in Medieval Art, edited by Bissera V. Pentcheva

Icons of Sound: Voice, Architecture and Imagination in Medieval Art brings together art history and sound studies to offer new perspectives on medieval churches and cathedrals as spaces where the perception of the visual is inherently shaped by sound. The chapters encompass a wide geographic and historical range, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, and from Armenia and Byzantium to Venice, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. Contributors offer nuanced explorations of the importance of intangible sonic aura to these spaces, including the temporal and performative nature of ritual music, as well as the use of digital technology to reconstruct historical aural environments.

Rooted in a decade-long interdisciplinary research project at Stanford University, Icons of Sound expands our understanding of the inherently intertwined relationship between medieval chant and liturgy, the acoustics of architectural spaces, and their visual aesthetics. Together, the contributors provide insights that are relevant across art history, sound studies, musicology, and medieval studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction – Bissera V. Pentcheva

01. Singing Doors: Images, Space, and Sound in the Santa Sabina Narthex – Ivan Foletti, University of Lausanne and University of Brno

02. Sights and Sounds of the Armenian Night Office, As Performed at Ani:
A Collation of the Archaeological, Historical, and Liturgical Evidence – Christina Maranci, Tufts University

03. The Glittering Sound of Hagia Sophia and the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross in Constantinople – Bissera V. Pentcheva, Stanford University

04. Transcendent Visions: Voice and Icon in the Byzantine Imperial Chapels – Bissera V. Pentcheva, Stanford University

05. Echoes and Silences of Liturgy:
Liturgical Inscriptions and the Temporality of Medieval Rituals – Vincent Debiais, Centre de recherches historiques, EHESS-Paris

06. Sound, Space, and Sensory Perception: The Use of Digital Technology in Research into the Liturgy of San Marco, Venice – Deborah Howard, University of Cambridge

07. The Marble Tempest: Material Imagination, the Echoes of Nostos, and the Transfiguration of Myth in Romanesque Sculpture – Francisco Prado-Vilar, Harvard University and Real Colegio Complutense

Epilogue: A Voice from beyond the Grave: Tintoretto and the Art Historians – Alexander Nemerov, Stanford University

Bissera V. Pentcheva is Professor of Art History at Stanford University.

Pre-order the book here.

Tenure-Track Position: Faculty in Art History and Visual Culture, Bard College, deadline 1 December 2020

The Art History and Visual Culture Program at Bard College invites applications for an open field, tenure-track position. Candidates from the fields of art history, visual culture, archaeology, and material culture are encouraged to apply. The successful candidate for this position is dedicated to rethinking art history’s and visual culture’s canons, objects, and sites of inquiry. We especially seek applicants whose research and teaching portfolio approaches visual culture through the critical lens of diasporas, transnational histories, migration, and the legacies of colonialism, to name a few examples. Areas of expertise might include the indigenous cultures of Australia and the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, as well as the ancient and early modern worlds.

This position welcomes scholars committed to reimagining art history’s and visual culture’s methods and techniques, including approaches to research, fieldwork, and scholarly analysis. Preferred candidates will be ready to take advantage of Bard’s interdisciplinary matrix and liberal arts tradition in order to form connections with the Human Rights Program, the Experimental Humanities concentration, and the emerging Open Society University Network (OSUN).

Find out more information.

Online Lecture: Visions of Heaven and Hell: Byzantine Apocalyptic in the Seventh Century and Beyond, by Bronwen Neil (Macquarie University), November 4th 2020, 10:00–11:30 am (UK)

Bronwen Neil is is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University and member of the Macquarie University Ancient Cultures Research Centre.

The Byzantine Worlds Seminar provides a venue for exploring the material and intellectual entanglements between the medieval worlds of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. It is supported by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies (SPBS).

Advance registration required. Please click here to register.

Fellowships: Fields of the Future Fellowships, 2021–22, Bard Graduate Center, deadline 15 November 2020

Bard Graduate Center (BGC) is pleased to announce its annual Fields of the Future fellowship and mentorship program, which aims to help promote diversity and inclusion in the advanced study of the material world. It reflects our commitment to explore and expand the sources, techniques, voices, perspectives, and questions of interdisciplinary humanities scholarship. BGC studies the past in its own terms in order to better understand where the future has come from. We invite applicants to submit projects that they think map the fields of the future. In an effort to promote necessary diversity and inclusion in the fields of decorative arts, design history, and material culture, we particularly wish to encourage applicants from historically underrepresented groups and/or projects of related thematic focus.

BGC invites scholars from university, museum, and independent backgrounds with a PhD or equivalent professional experience to apply for these funded research fellowships. Doctoral students of exceptional promise are also encouraged to apply. The fellowships are intended to fund collections-based research at Bard Graduate Center or elsewhere in New York City, as well as writing or reading projects in which being part of our dynamic research environment is intellectually valuable. Fellows will be paired with BGC faculty and research librarians to connect with human and material resources.

Bard Graduate Center is a graduate research institute devoted to the study of the decorative arts, design history, and material culture, drawing on methodologies and approaches from art history, economic and cultural history, history of technology, material culture studies, philosophy, anthropology, and archaeology. 

More information can be found here.

Online Lecture: ‘Fragmentology: what, why and where next?’ Lisa Fagin Davis & Christoph Flueler, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, 3 November 2020, 5.30pm (GMT)

Lisa Fagin Davis (Medieval Academy of America) and Christoph Flueler (University of Fribourg, Director, Fragmentarium project)

This session brings together two leading experts in the field of fragment studies. Prof Davis will focus on the historical context of manuscript fragments, both chronological (i.e. the timeline for binding fragments vs. initial cuttings vs. leaf sets) and geographical (the development of the corpus of fragments in Europe vs. North America). Prof Flueler will ask `part of what?’ How do we work with fragments? How do descriptions of manuscripts differ from descriptions of fragments? What is the subject and working methods of fragmentology? What are the limits of this new discipline? This will be followed by a roundtable discussion allowing you to provide your insights.

Organisers: Julia Crick, King’s College London, and David Rundle, University of Kent

This lecture will be delivered via Zoom. Please follow the guidance here to register.

Find out more information here.

Postdoctoral Fellowships: University of Southern California Society of Fellows in the Humanities, 2021–2023, deadline 13 Nov 2020

The University of Southern California Society of Fellows in the Humanities invites applications for our 2021-2023 cohort of postdoctoral fellows.

The USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities supports advanced research by postdoctoral fellows and faculty members by promoting intellectual exchange and interdisciplinary approaches to research and teaching in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

The USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities is an interdisciplinary community of postdoctoral scholars and faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Fellows meet regularly in formal and informal settings to present and discuss advanced scholarly research. Postdoctoral fellows are affiliated with the Society as well as with a USC department of their choice, and have faculty mentors in both. Postdoctoral fellows in the humanities engage with each other as well as humanities departments, institutes, and centers at USC and in the broader Los Angeles area.

Each year the Society admits up to five postdoctoral fellows, who are appointed for two-year terms during which they pursue research and teach three courses over four semesters, with one semester for full-time research. They are expected to reside in the Los Angeles area during the academic year and to participate in the scholarly life of the Society, the host department, and the university.

Eligibility
To apply for the 2021–2023 cohort, candidates must have received their Ph.D. no earlier than July 1, 2017 and must have completed their doctoral degree by July 1, 2021. Scholars who received their doctorates from the University of Southern California are not eligible to apply. Non U.S. citizens are eligible to apply for this program. Applicants’ research and teaching must be in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Find out more here.

Online Lecture Series: A Material World: Devotion, The Warburg Institute

A Material World is a new events series hosted by the Warburg Institute which focuses on the reconstruction of life in the past through objects and materials, the people who made them and the people who used them. Combining public lectures, student seminars and live object-based presentations across three terms, the series brings together academics and heritage professionals from a wide range of disciplines including history, art history, cultural history, archaeology, anthropology, history of religion and museum studies. The series will discuss issues concerning historical objects, their materials, forms, and functions, as well as their conservation, presentation, display, and reconstruction. It offers a broad social perspective, being concerned not only with the highest strata of society, but also with marginalised peoples and their habits concerning the production and consumption of everyday items.

The three combined lecture-seminar sessions of 2020-21 will be on the theme of Devotion.

Photo: ©️ Gordon Plumb

Find out more information here.

Autumn 2020 Programmme

The Oxburgh Hall Finds

Thursday 26 November, 5.30pm – 7pm | Presented by Anna Forrest (National Trust)

Anna Forrest examines how the recent discoveries at Oxburgh Hall shed light on the vibrant material culture of recusant Catholics at a time of persecution. As the Oxburgh Hall project is still in its early stages, this lecture presents a key opportunity to discover how curators go about analysing objects, and start to formulate conclusions, while a project is still evolving. 

Book here.

Daily life and popular piety

Friday 27 November, 3pm – 4.30pm | Presented by Meriel Jeter (Museum of London)

Meriel Jeter, Museum of London curator and contributor to the new book, The Art of the Poor, will present some of the museum’s rich holdings of medieval pilgrims’ souvenirs in this object-based session, live from the Museum of London via Zoom. Meriel will address the manufacture and use of these objects, as well as issues involved in their conservation and curation, and how curators use material culture findings to help reconstruct aspects of life from the past.

This seminar is designed for postgraduates at MA and research level studying art history, cultural history, archaeology, anthropology, history of religion, museum studies and related fields.

Book here.

Online Research Course: European Diploma in Medieval Studies with Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Mediévales, deadline 15 December 2020

Given the global Covid-19 outbreak, for the academic year 2020-2021 FIDEM has exceptionally decided to provide only a modular, online DEEM program.

Participants can choose between the Modules C (Medieval Latin I-II, Palaeography I-II, Codicology I-II, Textual Editing I-II) and D (Palaeography I-II, Codicology I-II, Textual Editing I-II, Diplomatique I-II)

All the courses will be held online in Italian, English, or French.

Classes will start on January 11, 2021 (Module C) and February 1 (Module D), and end on May 7 (Module C) and 28 (Module D).

The courses will mainly follow last year’s timetable (https://fidemweb.org/project/deem-2019-2020/), except that this academic year there will be offered lectures, exercises and personal reading-courses on extra study materials prepared by the lecturers. Both Modules are included in the Erasmus + project, and are credited 30 ECTS each.

Students coming from universities with an Erasmus + agreement with FIDEM via LUMSA (erasmuslumsa@lumsa.it) do not have to pay any enrolment fee.

Non-Erasmus + students should pay an enrolment fee of € 400.

The prerequisite for admission to these programs is a bachelor’s degree in one of the humanities.

At the end of the course a certificate of participation will be issued on request.

This certificate of participation is not equivalent to the Diploma. To receive the Diploma, the full annual program must be completed and a final essay written. The certificate of participation, however, will be accepted as partial fulfilment of the next academic year’s course for the Diploma.

Deadline for applications:  December 15, 2020

Application form: https://fidemweb.org/application-form-2020-2021-f-online/ 

General coordination is by Doctor Massimiliano Lenzi (Sapienza, Università di Roma: deem@fidemweb.org).

Find out more information here: https://fidemweb.org/

New Publication: The Illuminated World Chronicle: Tales from the Late Medieval City by Nina Rowe

A look into an enchanting, underexplored genre of illustrated manuscripts that reveals new insights into urban life in the Middle Ages

In this innovative study, Nina Rowe examines a curious genre of illustrated book that gained popularity among the newly emergent middle class of late medieval cities. These illuminated World Chronicles, produced in the Bavarian and Austrian regions from around 1330 to 1430, were the popular histories of their day, telling tales from the Bible, ancient mythology, and the lives of emperors in animated, vernacular verse, enhanced by dynamic images. Rowe’s appraisal of these understudied books presents a rich world of storytelling modes, offering unprecedented insight into the non-noble social strata in a transformative epoch. Beautifully illustrated and backed by abundant and accessible analyses of social, economic, and political conditions, this book highlights the engaging character of secular literature during the late medieval era and the relationship of illustrated books to a socially diverse and vibrant urban sphere.

Nina Rowe is professor of art history at Fordham University, New York.

Pre-order the book here.

Publishing November 2020220 pp.148 colour illustrations
£50.00 | €60.00 | $65.00