Medieval Art Research

CFP: ‘Questioning the Crime of Witchcraft’, International Conference at the EHESS Paris, Deadline: 30 November 2020

In the last decades, the multiplications of works in the field of Witchcraft Studies made it possible to profoundly renew the approaches and the study designs of the repression of witchcraft in the late Middle Ages and in the beginning of the Early Modern Era. Consequently, research has substantially specified the methods and configurations (ideological, political and doctrinal) that contribute to the genesis of the “witch-hunt”. Research also uncovered that the repression of witchcraft could take a number of different forms depending on the contexts, the spaces studied, the sources and the aims they seem to pursue. It underlines the extreme plasticity of the accusation of witchcraft and the categories of such a crime. Hence, the conference aims to focus the discussions on three main areas: the definition of the crime of witchcraft, its different receptions and the question of its reality.

The goal of the conference is also to discuss the crime of witchcraft by highlighting new fields of research and unstudied sources. The variety of definitions, the modalities of reception and the different realities that the crime of witchcraft had undergone in the late Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Early Modern Era (14th-16th centuries) will be addressed and debated.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

– Medieval and Early modern discourses and conceptions on the crime of witchcraft
– Medieval and Early modern representations of the crime of witchcraft
– Theorization of repression
– Forms of resistance against the charge and repression
– Discourses and controversies on the reality and/or veracity of witchcraft
– History and epistemology of the repression of witchcraft

The conference will be in French and in English.

The conference is open to young researchers, PhD students, Post-doctoral researchers as well as advanced graduate students.

Submission:
You are invited to submit a 300-word abstract with key words in either English or French by November 30th, 2020 to the following email address: maxime.perbellini[at]ehess.fr. Please include: a brief résumé, the title of your presentation, as well as your name and your academic affiliation. Please send any additional questions you may have to the aforementioned email address. The presentations will have to be 20 minutes long maximum.

Practical information:
The conference is sponsored by the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS, Paris, France). It will take place on the premises of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS, Paris, France) on May 20th-21st 2021. The conference would start on May 20th at 2pm and would end on May 21st at 5pm.

Conference organizers:
• Maxime Gelly-Perbellini, PhD student at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS, Paris, France) and at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, Research and Teaching Assistant at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardennes, France
• Olivier Silberstein, PhD student at the University of Neufchâtel, Switzerland

For more information, please click here

CFP: Fifteenth Conference of Iconographic Studies “Iconography and Religious Otherness”, Deadline: January 15 2021

University of Rijeka (Croatia), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, June 10 – 11, 2021
Deadline: Jan 15, 2021

The creation of Otherness is a process by which a dominant group (Self, Us) constructs one or more outer groups (Them, Others) by assigning them different features and attributes, real or imagined. This continuous process was not only directed towards the outside, but also towards the inside, that is, towards dissident groups. With the recent political challenges, Otherness has become a highly relevant and frequently discussed topic among scholars from different disciplines, predominantly philosophy, anthropology, sociology, but also including literature (philology), art history and others. The aim of this conference is to put together scholars who would discuss and reconsider the concept of Otherness from an iconographic and iconological point of view. Scholars are invited to present proposals on different topics related to the construction of otherness in iconography i.e. the visualization of the Religious Other throughout all historical periods.

The themes may include, but are not limited to:
– Otherness in Antiquity and in the late antique Mediterranean (4th-9th centuries). This might include the interaction of Christianity with the previous monotheistic and polytheistic religions in the Mediterranean (notably Judaism, Manichaeism, paganism, Zoroastrianism). How did these cults influence the building of images of more recent religions and how did such images fit into their vision of history?
– Visual strategies in Christian-Muslim encounters
– Art and conversion. How were images used as a mechanism for the conversion of the religious Other: the image of the “converso” versus images for conversion
– Sources (textual, iconographic) used to build and represent Otherness, such as exotic, oriental and other distant places
– Images of religious dissent (heresy towards orthodoxy)
– Mental images of the Other
– How did political power participate in the process of building Religious Otherness?
– Otherness and the construction of the concept of race; ethnic and regional diversity and its reception in visual culture
– Monstrosity and deformity as a visual expression of Otherness (mappa mundi)
– Visual evidence of social transgressions: breaking norms and rules in the creation of religious Otherness
– Theoretical approach to the perception of the Other
– Otherness in secular visual culture and marginal iconography
– Otherness in contemporary art and visual culture

Paper proposals should be submitted electronically to cis@ffri.hr by January 15, 2021.
A paper proposal should contain:
1. Short CV with full name, institution, affiliation, address, phone number, e-mail address
2. Title
3. Abstract (maximum 2 pages – 500 words)

Final results and the invitations to participate will be sent out by email before February 15, 2021.

In case of Covid-19 pandemic the conference will be organized online!

There is NO registration fee. Administration and organizational costs, working materials, lunch and coffee breaks during conference, closing dinner as well as all organized visits are covered by the organizers.

The presented papers will be published in the thematic issue of IKON – journal of iconographic studies in May 2022.

Fellowship: 2021–2022 Metropolitan Museum of Art Fellowship in History of Art and Visual Culture, Deadline: November 6 2020

Fellowships at the Met are awarded to scholars in the fields of art history, archaeology, museum education, conservation, and related sciences, as well as scholars in other disciplines, whose dynamic and interdisciplinary projects require close study of objects in The Met collection. Fellowships at The Met are an opportunity for scholars from around the world to use the Museum as a place for exchange, research, and professional advancement.

Fellows are fully integrated into the life of the Museum and are given unique access to the inner workings of The Met through a rich program of tours, roundtable discussions, and workshops. Fellows are given a workspace and access to libraries, collections, research facilities, labs, and the time and space to think.

Met fellowships are awarded to junior scholars, postdoctoral and senior academics, and museum professionals for independent study or research.

All fellows, with the one exception of Theodore Rousseau Fellows, must be in residence at The Met during the fellowship period. Fellowships are 12 months in length, beginning on September 1 following the application deadline and ending August 31 of the following calendar year.

Eligibility

PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, and senior scholars are eligible to apply.
Predoctoral fellows are those applicants who are currently working on their PhD; senior fellows are those who hold a PhD on the date of application and/or are well-established scholars.
Applicants submit a specific research proposal that makes use of the Museum’s collection and/or resources, and accepted fellows spend the majority of their time working on that project.

See the link below for more information and application guidance:

https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/fellowships

Online Conference: Jewish Romance in the Middle Ages: Literature, Piety, and Cultural Translation, October 25, 2020 – 11:00am to 2:00pm (EST)

In the late Middle Ages, Jewish authors engaged with non-Jewish, vernacular literature to create new texts for Jewish audiences in a style that resembles medieval romance. Drawing on the popular vernacular stories of King Arthur, Alexander the Great, and heroic knights, some Jewish authors employed a variety of techniques to make these texts appropriate for Jewish audiences, including references to biblical events or replacement of non-Jewish words with ones relating to the practice of Judaism. Other Jewish authors, however, avoided biblical or pious language when crafting their new versions, putting into question the common assumption of an inextricable link between medieval Jewish piety and culture.

The contribution of medieval Jews and their participation in the narration and transmission of courtly non-religious literature has been largely overlooked in the past. Only in the past few decades have scholars focused on texts that can be considered part of a corpus of Jewish romance.
This conference brings together scholars working on medieval Jewish literature from varied perspectives to enable a cross-disciplinary, trans-institutional, and international dialogue that aims to highlight understudied voices in medieval literature and their significance. This approach allows conversations between Jewish texts globally, rather than traditional distinctions between geographical regions. Our participants have affiliations in diverse university departments, including German Studies, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, English, and Medieval Studies, in addition to Jewish Studies. Their papers explore not only the role of cultural transmission and literary creativity in these Jewish texts but also the idea of narrative universality more broadly.

More information can be found here. This event is free, but you must register in advance.

Virtual Tour: Center for the Study of Material & Visual Cultures of Religion, Mosque of Christ of the Light, Toledo with Dr Tom Nickson

MAVCOR – the Center for the Study of Material & Visual Cultures of Religion – is delighted to announce the first in a series of virtual tours of buildings around the world.

The tour of the remarkable mosque of Christ of the Light in Toledo, Spain, is freely accessible at https://mavcor.yale.edu/material-objects/giga-project/christ-light-mosque-toledo. Users can explore the building in three dimensions, with additional texts, images and commentaries by Dr Tom Nickson.

For images of the site, click here.

New Publication: Bridging the Past – Life in Medieval and Post-Medieval Southwark: Excavations along the route of Thameslink Borough Viaduct and at London Bridge Station by Amelia Fairman, Steven Teague and Jonathan Butler

Excavations for the Thameslink project at Borough Viaduct and London Bridge Station have provided important new insights into the development of Southwark from the Saxon period up to the 19th century. The landscape of islands and waterways that characterised Roman Southwark was transformed through the 1st and 2nd millennia AD, as new areas were reclaimed for settlement. Lower-lying zones nonetheless remained prone to flooding through much of the medieval period, and the management of drainage channels was clearly a significant concern. A substantial ditch at Borough Market may have related to Southwark’s Saxon burh defences, and other late Saxon features lay within the probable limits of the burh. Occupation evidence in the form of building foundations and pits increased in the medieval period and into the post-medieval period. Dynamic development over time of the network of property boundaries, streets and alleys was revealed. Substantial assemblages of artefacts and environmental remains were retrieved, revealing differences in living standards between wealthier and poorer households. Southwark was historically a focus for craft and industry, and evidence was recovered for a range of occupations including bone working, tanning, leather working, pin making and clay pipe making. The large collections of timbers reused in the revetments of channels beneath London Bridge Station provide evidence of woodworking techniques used in timber-framed housing from the 12th century to the 18th century, and also include numerous fragments of medieval and post-medieval boats. Evidence relating to institutions such as almshouses and St Thomas’s Hospital was also encountered.

New Publication: The Matter of Piety – Zoutleeuw’s Church of Saint Leonard and Religious Material Culture in the Low Countries (c. 1450-1620) by Ruben Suykerbuyk

Studies in Netherlandish Art and Cultural History, Volume: 16

The Matter of Piety provides the first in-depth study of Zoutleeuw’s exceptionally well-preserved pilgrimage church in a comparative perspective, and revaluates religious art and material culture in Netherlandish piety from the late Middle Ages through the crisis of iconoclasm and the Reformation to Catholic restoration. Analyzing the changing functions, outlooks, and meanings of devotional objects – monumental sacrament houses, cult statues and altarpieces, and small votive offerings or relics – Ruben Suykerbuyk revises dominant narratives about Catholic culture and patronage in the Low Countries. Rather than being a paralyzing force, the Reformation incited engaged counterinitiatives, and the vitality of late medieval devotion served as the fertile ground from which the Counter-Reformation organically grew under Protestant impulses.

To download the PDF, or to purchase a Hardback copy, please follow the link below:

https://brill.com/view/title/54729

Online Seminar: ‘Merchants and Diaspora Round Table’, Miri Rubin (QMUL), Serena Ferente (KCL) and Kate Franklin (Birkbeck), Thursday 15th October 17.30

_{Image: Master of the Dresden Prayer Book (Flemish, active about 1480 – 1515) The Temperate and the Intemperate, about 1475–1480, Tempera colors and ink on parchment. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 43, recto.}

The IHR European History 1150-1550 seminar cycle for 2020 presents a lecture titled ‘Merchants and Diaspora Round Table’ for its second week. To attend the seminar, please book via this link.

‘Our seminar is now 15 years old and is as buoyant as ever. It schedules research-based papers and occasional themed panels for discussion of the later centuries of the medieval period spanning continental Europe and the British Isles. Our programme reflects the broad array of approaches and sources used by innovative scholars who come to us from UK universities and abroad. The seminar is convened by historians from the University of London’s and other London research institutes, and attracts academics at all stages of their careers, visitors on sabbaticals, scholars from libraries and archives, and interested members of the public. We treasure our doctoral students, who have the opportunity to present their advanced research at dedicated sessions. On occasion we combine with other seminars in planning joint sessions, reflecting our convergent interest. The presentations are followed by lively discussion, drinks in the IHR Common Room, and an informal and convivial supper.’

Miri Rubin’s research has ranged across the period 1100-1600, through the exploration of themes in the religious culture of Europe. Her latest book, ‘Cities of Strangers: Making Lives in Medieval Europe was published in March at Cambridge University Press.

Serena Ferente’s primary research interests lie in the political history of late medieval and Renaissance Italy. She has published widely on parties, partisan identities and supra-regional political networks in fifteenth-century Italy, with a particular focus on city-states and actors resisting processes of state-building. She is currently working on the Genoese diaspora in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Kate Franklin has been working on collaborative projects in the Republic of Armenia for a decade, exploring the ways that local politics and Silk Road culture were tangled together in landscape and space-time. Her work at the moment at the moment is concerned with world-making as a locus of politics, with material culture as a mediator of spatio-temporal distances, and with the interpenetration of literary and ‘real’ landscapes in archaeological work.

For further information, please email enquiries to ihr.events@sas.ac.uk

Fellowship: Swenson Family Fellowships in Eastern Christian Manuscript Studies, HMML, Winter/Spring 2021, Deadline: October 15 2020

The purpose of the Swenson Family Fellowships in Eastern Christian Manuscript Studies for Junior Scholars is to support residencies at HMML for graduate students or postdoctoral scholars with demonstrated expertise in the languages and cultures of Eastern Christianity. Awardees must be undertaking research on some aspect of Eastern Christian studies requiring use of the digital or microfilm manuscript collections at HMML. The program is specifically designed to aid new scholars in establishing themselves through research focused on manuscripts available through HMML. Postdoctoral scholars are understood to be those who at the time of application are within three years of being awarded a doctoral degree.

Awards will range from $2,500 – $5,000, based on project proposal and length of residency (two to six weeks). Funds may be applied toward travel to and from Collegeville, housing and meals at Saint John’s University, and costs related to duplication of HMML’s microfilm or digital resources. The Fellowship may be supplemented by other sources of funding but may not be held simultaneously with another HMML fellowship. Holders of the Fellowship must wait at least two years before applying again.

Applications must be submitted by October 15 for residencies between January and June of the following year.

The Swenson Family Fellowship in Eastern Christian Manuscript Studies, established in 2012, will be awarded semi-annually. The Fellowship was established by Dr. Gregory T. and Jeannette Swenson, with their son Nicholas Swenson.

For more information, see the link below:

https://hmml.org/research/swenson/

Virtual Exhibition: Les Enluminures at Frieze Viewing Room – October 9 – 16, 2020

Les Enluminures have collaborated with Frieze to create a virtual showcase of selected medieval and early modern manuscripts and jewellery.

Their public statement is detailed below:

‘Les Enluminures is delighted to participate in Frieze Viewing Room, which opens to the general public at 12pm BST this Friday October 9. Our Viewing Room will showcase a curated selection of illuminated manuscripts, leaves and historic jewelry.

Frieze Viewing Room is a new mobile app and web-based platform, giving collectors the opportunity to explore and acquire art from the world’s leading galleries. This edition showcases galleries selected to participate in Frieze London & Frieze Masters 2020.

In addition, we are thrilled thatSir Norman Rosenthal (Independent Curator), has selected one of our artworks for a special display called Forever within the Frieze Masters section of Frieze Viewing Room. This specially curated group of thirty-six artworks will explore the premise that great art is forever, selecting works that have stood – and in the curator’s mind will stand- the test of time.’

To register, please follow this link: https://viewingroom.frieze.com/?_ga=2.83279764.369259909.1602256998-1461121774.1602256998

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