Online Lecture: ‘Picturing West Lake: The Poetics & Representation of an Iconic Place’ with with Dr Hui-shu Lee, East Asian Studies Program, Princeton University, 11 November 2020, 4:30pm (EST)

Picturing West Lake explores how a pictorial tradition in the representation of an iconic place was emplaced, fashioned, refashioned, transmuted and transmitted over time to convey cultural value, historical memory, political ideology, and artistic expression.   

Adjacent to the historically affluent city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and long celebrated for its natural beauty, West Lake became iconized for its singular role in the expression of art and culture with the establishment of Lin’an (Hangzhou) as the capital for the latter half of the Song dynasty (1127-1279). By the thirteenth century, a unique visual paradigm had evolved and over time the representation of West Lake in words and images proliferated as it was immortalized as a site of memory and culture. This reached an apogee during the eighteenth century of the Qing dynasty, when the representation of the place witnessed a renaissance in myriad forms and media of artistic production.

In my pursuit of the study of West Lake and its visual representation over time, some essential inquires have arisen. Looking beyond its physical charm, what factors were at play to make West Lake a unique cultural space and a locus in the representation of famous place? How was the representational paradigm in the visual depiction of the place established and how was the place iconized to become a site of memory after the downfall of the Southern Song? What insight can an investigation of the evolution of a single site through history – such as its changing representational status in mapped or painted media – provide? How are the salient features of a Chinese famous place like West Lake revealed, represented, emplaced, and “re-implaced” to become iconic? And lastly, how and why could a sustained mode in the pictorial representation of West Lake so prominently persist in the collective Chinese imagination for over six hundred years and beyond?

Focusing on the two quintessential visual modes in the representation of a Chinese place, linear/planimetric maps, tu圖, and painterly/lyrical paintings, hua畫, this talk is an attempt to address some of these inquires. At the same time, I hope to demonstrate the uniqueness of West Lake as a microcosmic site in a multifaceted cultural discourse involved with the poetics of representing place.

Hui-shu Lee is Professor of the Department of Art History at UCLA and a specialist in Chinese art history.  She received her doctorate degree from Yale University in 1994 after first studying at National Taiwan University and working in the National Palace Museum. Her field of specialization is Chinese painting and visual culture, with a particular focus on gender issues.  These include imperial female agency of the Song dynasty (960-1279) and dimensions of shifting gender persona in late imperial China. Other areas of research are the cultural mapping of Hangzhou and the representation of West Lake since the Southern Song (1127-1279), courtesan culture of Ming-Qing dynastic transition, the seventeenth-century individualist painter Bada Shanren (1626 -1705), and a number of modern and contemporary artists. Among her publications are Exquisite Moments: West Lake & Southern Song Art (New York: China Institute, 2001) and Empresses, Art, and Agency in Song Dynasty China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010). Currently, she is working on two book projects: Shifting Gender Persona in Chinese Art and West Lake & the Representation of An Iconic Place (upcoming with Zhejiang University Press). In addition, extended from her research on Song art and culture she has also taken on “Poetics of Song Gardens” as another book plan, as well as a newly initiated research and exhibition project on the cliff inscriptions along the ancient “Shudao, or Roads to Shu.”  

李慧漱，畢業于台灣大學歷史系、台灣大學歷史研究所藝術史組碩士、美國耶魯大學藝術史博士，曾任職於國立故宮博物院、香港科技大學人文學部與美國史丹福大學，目前任職美國加州大學洛杉磯校區藝術史系教授，專長為中國藝術與視覺文化，尤其以宋畫與南宋藝術領域為其研究特長，並對女性議題深入探討。學術論著與出版涉及宋代書畫與園林、南宋杭州與西湖、女性與中國藝術史的建構、性別發聲與跨越, 以及晚明文化與八大山人; 偶亦涉獵現代與當代藝術。代表著作有:

Exquisite Moments: West Lake & Southern Song Art (New York: China Institute, 2001). Empresses, Art, and Agency in Song Dynasty China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010). 目前除了兩部書稿：性別聲音與藝術 （Shifting Gender Persona in Chinese Art ） ，以及《西湖清趣图》与临安胜景图像的再现 (West Lake and the Representation of An Iconic Place)之外； 同時進行的項目有“宋代園林”（Poetics of Song Gardens）， 以及  “蜀道石刻題記與山水”（“ The Roads to Shu: Landscape, Ecology, and Writings in Stone.”）。

Find out more here and register here.

Online Lecture: Picturing Medieval Myths & History: Making ‘Storyland’ & Visualising Becket’s Shrine, with Dr Amy Jeffs & Dr John Jenkins, University of Kent MEMS, 12 November 2020, 6pm (GMT)

Join the Centre of Medieval and Early Modern Studies for this week’s seminar: Picturing Medieval Myths & History: Making ‘Storyland’ & Visualising Becket’s Shrine with Dr Amy Jeffs & Dr John Jenkins.

This seminar will showcase the groundbreaking work of two early career scholars, who are applying their expertise in medieval myths / history to their development of new creative projects and didactic, digital visualisations. 

You can access the seminar using this link.

Dr Amy Jeffs, who has worked as an assistant curator at the British Museum, contributed to the Polonsky Project at the British Library, and helped to shape the Paul Mellon-funded Digital Pilgrim interface, recently completed her PhD from the University of Cambridge, working with Prof Paul Binski. Her doctoral research examined c1330–40s English illustrated manuscripts of histories and romance. She is now finishing her first book, Storyland, which will retell English medieval myths alongside her own evocative linocut illustrations.

Dr John Jenkins, who obtained his PhD from Oxford, is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of York, based in the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture. He is one of the key developers of the Becket 2020 anniversary commemorations, leading the AHRC-funded ‘Becket Story’ activities. He has worked extensively on the history of devotion to Thomas Becket (in Canterbury, London, York and beyond) and his recent article, published on the 800th anniversary of Becket’s ‘translatio’ (on 7 July 2020) includes the first-ever digital reconstruction of the lost shrine in the Trinity Chapel.

Cambridge Medieval Art Seminar Series, 2020-2021

The University of Cambridge Seminar in Medieval Art meets every other week during full term, attracting an impressive range of speakers from home and abroad. All seminars will take place online. Further details, including registration, to follow. 

Seminars take place at 5pm (17.00) UK time. 

Michaelmas:


Monday 16th November (Wk 6): Dr Heather Badamo (University of California Santa Barbara), ‘Beyond Iconoclasm: Sacred Images and Christian-Muslim Exchange in Medieval Egypt’ (Register here)

Monday 30th November (Wk 8): Professor Jeremy Johns (University of Oxford) and Dr Elise Morero (University of Oxford), ‘Industry not Dynasty: A Different Approach to Medieval Islamic Rock Crystal Objects’ (Register here)


Lent

Monday 1st February (Wk 2): Dr Pamela Patton (Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University) ‘What Did Medieval Slavery Look Like? Colour, Race, and Unfreedom in Late Medieval Iberia’


Monday 1st March (Wk 6): Dr Maria Lidova (Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence): ‘Christ, Fire, Gospels: Images of Theophany in the Chapel of Galla Placidia in Ravenna’

Organisers: Dr Laura Slater and Dr Donal Cooper. Please email Dr Laura Slater at lss33@cam.ac.uk with any queries.
 

Online Lecture: ‘The Red Monastery Church (Upper Egypt): Its Significance and Conservation’ with Elizabeth S. Bolman, 10 November 2020, 7:00 pm (Greece)

The Red Monastery Church (Upper Egypt): Its Significance and Conservation, webinar with Elizabeth S. Bolman (Case Western Reserve University), American School of Classical Studies at Athens via Zoom, November 10, 2020, 7:00 pm (Greece)/12:00 pm (EDT)

The remarkable Red Monastery Church, located in the Egyptian desert, surprises us. It is not in a city, or even near one. What is it doing, in its isolated environment? The church is a monumental basilica with an elaborate tri-lobed sanctuary, which belongs to a tradition of elite urban architecture. The interior of the eastern end includes the best preserved example of architectural polychromy in paint – tempera and encaustic on architectural elements – that survives on a large scale from the Greek, Roman and early Byzantine periods. This talk will elucidate the significance of the monument and its location, and use it as a means of exploring how we think about the creation of culture in the early Byzantine world. The remarkable conservation project that took well over a decade will also be discussed.

Elizabeth S. Bolman engages with the visual culture of the eastern Mediterranean in the late antique and Byzantine periods. Best known for her work in Egypt, she has demonstrated the vitality of Christian Egyptian art and presented new understandings of the nature of artistic production in the early Byzantine and Medieval periods. She edited and was the principal contributor to the award-winning Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea (Yale University Press and the American Research Center in Egypt, 2002) and to The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt (2016). She was appointed Elsie B. Smith Professor in the Liberal Arts and Chair of the Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University in August 2017. She is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright program, National Endowment for the Humanities, Dumbarton Oaks, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the United States Agency for International Development, among others.

Presented by the Byzantine Dialogues from the Gennadius Library

Advance registration required.

Find out more information here.

Post Doc: Universitat Hamburg, deadline 30 November 2020

The Center for Advanced Study “RomanIslam Center for Comparative Empire and Transcultural Studies” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), invites applications for Resident fellowships (Post Doc) (starting 2021, duration between 1 and 12 months)

The Center for Advanced Study brings together scholars from a wide range of disciplines
working on Romanization and Islamication in Late Antiquity with a focus but not exclusively on
the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa during the first millennium CE. The overall aim of the
Center is to explore new approaches to Romanization and Islamication in this period and to set
the scholarly debate in the field on a new footing. The second year theme is ‘Imperial Religions
and Local Beliefs’, i.e. the relationship between state authority and religion. Which forms of
local religious practice remained in place, despite the dominance of eastern salvation religions,
and which forms changed as a result thereof?


Fellowships are available for scholars at all stages of their academic career who have
completed their doctoral degree and established an independent research profile. Applicants
should be engaged in a research project in any relevant discipline that is related to the Center’s
interests in Romanization and Islamication in the period and area in question. The Center also
welcomes applications from scholars working on comparative empire and transcultural studies
in a broader historical (or contemporary) perspective whose research has a strong focus on
theoretical and methodological issues.


Fellows are required to reside in Hamburg, where they pursue their own research project while
also participating in the colloquia held at the Center. For the duration of their stay fellows
receive a remuneration covering accommodation, travel, and living expenses in accordance
with their needs and the pertinent regulations of Hamburg University and the DFG.


Applications should be in English, including a CV, a research proposal for the project pursued at
Hamburg, including the project’s relation to the topic (2000 words), and an indication of the
months the applicant wants to spend at the Center and the kind of financial support they
require. All materials should be sent in a single pdf document to Dr. Rocco Selvaggi
romanislam@uni-hamburg.de by November 30, 2020.


Should you have any questions pertaining to the details of the fellowship program or the
application, please contact the organizers: Sabine Panzram (sabine.panzram@unihamburg.de) and Stefan Heidemann (stefan.heidemann@uni-hamburg.de).



Find out more here.

Virtual Conference: Medieval Heraldry, London Medieval Society, 21 November 2020

Join London Medieval Society for a one-day colloquium exploring heraldry in the medieval period. 21 November 2020 via Zoom.

The London Medieval Society is proud to announce our first online colloquium, where we will be discussing all things heraldic.

Programme (GMT)

10.15: Alfred Hiatt – Welcome and Introduction

10.30: Alan V. Murray (University of Leeds) – The Origins of Heraldry: Where, When, and Above All, Why?

11.30: Break

11.45: James Lloyd (College of Arms) – The Mercian Saltire

12.30pm: Sheri Chriqui (Royal Holloway) – Lionized Fields in Medieval Heraldry

1.15pm: Lunch Break (provided by your fridge)

2.00pm: Marcus Meer (German Historical Institute): A Herald’s Worst Nightmare: Merchants’ Marks, Heraldry, and Urban Identity in Sixteenth-Century Germany

2.45pm: Round Table (all speakers)

3.30pm: End of Event

Tickets are free of charge.

A link to the Zoom meeting will be sent via email. Get your tickets here.

Job: Assistant Director for Archaeology at British School at Rome, deadline 23 November 2020

We are seeking to appoint an Assistant Director for Archaeology to join us in Rome, to play a vital role in the delivery of the BSR’s Research Strategy and Strategic Plan. Applicants must hold a doctorate, and must have an excellent knowledge and understanding of the UK’s Higher Education and research environment and/or museums sector.


This is a residential position, based at the BSR in Rome, for a fixed term (1 January 2021 [or as soon as possible thereafter] to 31 December 2022 in the first instance). Further information, including the key responsibilities of the role, the person specifications, the terms and conditions, and the application procedure can be found here.


Closing date for applications: noon on Monday 23 November 2020

Find out more here.

CFP: Animals and Humans on the Move, Viator Essay Cluster, Deadline: 16th November 2020

The relationship between humans and their nonhuman traveling companions changed over time, and over the distances they traveled. Who would Don Quixote be without Rocinante, or Alexander without Bucephalus? This cluster of short essays proposes to look at moving/traveling animals and animals as the companions of traveling/moving humans in the Middle Ages and early modernity. To move or travel might encompass physical travel in its various forms, such as pilgrimage, military campaigns, or travel for commercial or diplomatic reasons, or more conceptual travel across cultures and periods. Contributions might also consider texts that describe animals on the move, including ekphrastic works (such as Byzantine hunting ekphrases), an outsider’s (or traveler’s) perspective on autochthonic animals as recorded in travel accounts, or more abstract texts describing travels and adventures of animals.

This cluster aims to offer cross-cultural perspective; papers exploring Byzantine, Arabic, Turkish, Jewish, Persian and other non-Western cultures are particularly welcome.

  • Animals as “companion species” in travel, war, pilgrimage, commerce, or politics
  • Traveling menageries, circuses, and animals shows
  • Journeys in search of real or imaginary animals
  • Ekphrastic texts depicting traveling animals
  • The dissemination and reception of texts about animals across languages, cultures, and time periods

Essays should be short, focused interventions (2000–3500 words). Contributions from early-stage scholars are especially welcome, including graduate students, postdocs, independent scholars, and members of the precariat.

Short abstracts of around 200 words should be emailed to przemyslaw.marciniak@us.edu.pl by November 16, 2020, with essays to be submitted by January 15, 2021.

CFP: ‘Remarkable women’: Female patronage of religious institutions, 1300-1550, Courtauld Institute of Art, deadline 27 November 2020

This conference seeks to explore the ways in which women patronised and interacted with monasteries and religious houses during the late Middle Ages, how they commissioned devotional and commemorative art for monastic settings, and the ways in which these donations were received and understood by their intended audiences. The artistic donations of lay patrons to religious institutions has become a fruitful area of study in recent years, but the specific role played by women in these networks of patronage has been subject to less thorough scrutiny. Similarly too, the interests of female patrons have often been considered separately from the contexts of the places to which they made their donations, without a thorough consideration of their very different status from their male counterparts and how this shaped their pursuit for commemoration and memorial after death and their reception as patrons by monastic houses and religious institutions.

Applicants are encouraged to consider these issues and to think about the placement of objects and works of art commissioned by women within religious buildings, the devotional practices and beliefs of various religious orders, the physical materials of donations, and the ways in which female patrons situated themselves within monastic spaces. Was there a dialogue between these benefactors and the religious institutions they patronised? What can such donations tell us about the role and position of women in late medieval society and the ways in which they used religious patronage to articulate their own status? By examining a category of patrons that was clearly highly aware of a variety of devotional and commemorative practices, this conference seeks to gain a better understanding of art commissioned for monasteries by female lay donors, and how this more broadly reflects the position of women in late-medieval Europe.

Proposals are encouraged to address these issues throughout Europe between circa 1300 to 1550. Topics might include, but are not limited to considerations of:

  • Issues of access and entry for women into religious spaces
  • The agency of women in donating to monastic orders
  • The significance of widowhood
  • How women made themselves present, either in images or burial, in spaces often unavailable to them in life.
  • The relationships between a female patron and a male religious institution.
  • The role of materials in articulating identity or expressing specific aims, ideas or associations
  • The differences in donations, and their reception, between male and female patrons
  • The positioning of chapels, memorials or objects within monastic spaces
  • How concepts of death and the afterlife may have been expressed in visual terms, and the ways in which this may have been gendered.
  • The political nature of female patronage, and the ways in which women contributed to dynastic or familial ambitions through their donations
  • How different monastic orders may have received and understood female patronage
  • The types of object given by female donors to monastic audiences
  • The types of object owned by women which reflect their interaction with monastic influences

Proposals are welcome from postgraduate, early-career and established researchers working in all relevant disciplines. The conference will be held online on 29 January 2021. Please send a title and an abstract of no more than 300 words for a 20-minute paper, together with a short CV and 100-word biography, to Nicholas.Flory@courtauld.ac.uk by 27 November 2020.

Find out more here.

Online Conference: E-Quadrivium: Researching remotely– Libraries, archives, & digital resourcing, Friday 27 – Saturday 28 November 2020

E-Quadrivium is an online webinar for postgraduate researchers exploring means of accessing and analysing pre-modern primary materials.

Quadrivium is an annual research, careers, and skills training event for postgraduates and early career researchers of medieval and early modern textual studies. The initiative was founded in 2004 where it was supported by AHRC funding. It is run by leading academics who form a network known as the Medieval Manuscripts Research Consortium (MMRC), from the Universities of Glasgow, York, Birmingham, St Andrews, Leicester, De Montfort, Queen’s University Belfast, Sheffield, Kent, Cambridge, and Newcastle.

Conference Programme


Friday 27th November

3.00-3.15pm – Welcome and Introductory Comments

3.15-4.00pm – Visualising manuscripts remotely- University of Glasgow, Special Collections Library – with Dr Johanna Green and Dr Diane Scott (facilitator, Professor Jeremy Smith)

4.00-4.15pm – Break

4.15-5.30pm – Using Libraries and Archives in a time of pandemic: Discussion and Q&A with Dr Paul Dryburgh (The National Archives), Dr Alison Ray (Canterbury Cathedral Archives) and a member of the British Library’s Reader Services team (facilitator, Professor Andrew Prescott)

5.30-5.45pm – Break

5.45-6.30pm – Introducing MEMSLib – A postgraduate-led response to the pandemic in the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent (facilitator, Dr David Rundle)

6.30-6.45pm – Friday’s concluding comments

Saturday 28th November

3.00-3.15pm – Welcome to day 2

3.30-4.45pm – Working with Manuscripts – Professors Linne Mooney and Wendy Scase (facilitator, Dr Orietta Da Rold)

4.45-5.15pm – Break

5.15pm-6.45pm – Digital Futures in Manuscript Studies: Big Data, Open Access and Computational Analysis– Professors Elaine Treharne, Jukka Tyrkkö, and Mike Kestemont (facilitator, Dr Ryan Perry)

6.45-7.00pm – Break

7.00-7.30pm – Concluding comments and discussion

Register here.