Grants: Association for Art History, deadline 30 September 2020

To further our mission to advance the study and practice of art history, the Association for Art History offer grants of up to £1,000 which provide support to aid scholarly research, to develop professional practice and to further the teaching and learning of art history at all education levels.

We are delighted to announce our first round of recipients of grants for art history.

What we fund

Grants to aid scholarly research include support for:

-Organisation of symposia, conferences and workshops
-Travel to libraries, archives and collections
-Delivery of research findings at conferences
-Catalogues and public engagement programmes for exhibitions
-Access to images controlled by third party rights holders

Grants to develop professional practice within art history include:

-Participation in museum and gallery training programmes in curatorial and public engagement areas

Grants to support the teaching and learning of art history in schools include:

-Teachers’ continuing professional development

-Formal and informal learning opportunities for students

Bursaries

Alongside our grants programme, the Association awards bursaries for doctoral students and early career researchers to attend our Annual Conference.

These competitive bursary tickets are available to those who would benefit from attending our Annual Conference. Information on how to apply for bursaries for the 2020 conference will be available online from November 2019.

Priorities

Within our grants categories, we look particularly favourably on:

-Projects from a wide geographic distribution throughout the UK and those that will reach broad audiences
-Projects that promote the participation of diverse audiences and encourage new perspectives within art and art history
-Supporting research and practice where the applicant is without institutional affiliation or the access to funding that such association would provide

Outcomes

We expect that the outcomes of projects we fund will include:

-Expanding the knowledge base of art history
-Enabling more researchers and professionals in the field, particularly those who do not have other means of support, to access essential career development opportunities
-Helping art historians and those in related professions to build and extend their networks to facilitate their work and professional development
-Introducing wider audiences to art history through exhibitions, publications and other public programming
-Facilitating the teaching and learning of art history in secondary schools and thereby increasing the engagement of students at all levels with the subject

Eligibility

Grants are open to members of the Association who may be:

-Academics
-Students
-Independent researchers
-Teachers
-Museum and gallery professionals
-Artists

If you are not a member of the Association for Art History and would like further information on member benefits and how to join us, please see here for details.

What we do not fund

Grants from the Association for Art History cannot fund further or higher education (university fees, course books etc), student living expenses or unpaid internships.

Staff members and trustees of the Association for Art History and their relatives and partners are not eligible for our grants.

Criteria

Research grants will be assessed according to their contribution to scholarship in art history, their academic rigour, and the relevance and need for the research in the specific area described.

Practice grants should demonstrate how the skills and experience obtained will contribute to professional development and, ultimately, to the public understanding of art history.

For all grants, the demonstrable financial need of the applicant as well as the availability of other grants to support the project or activity applied for will be considered.

Grants which leverage and help to attract additional funding are encouraged.

Find out more information here.

New Publication: Funerary Portraiture in Greater Roman Syria, edited by Michael Blömer and Rubina Raja

This volume provides a unique survey of locally produced funerary representations from across regions of ancient Syria, exploring material ranging from reliefs and statues in the round, to busts, mosaics, and paintings in order to offer a new and holistic approach to our understanding of ancient funerary portraiture. Up to now, relatively little attention has been paid to the way in which local and regional production of material in this area formed part of a broader pattern of sculptural and iconographical development across the Roman Near East. By drawing on material from an area encompassing modern Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey, as well as Egypt and Achaia, the contributions in this book make it possible for the first time to take a wider perspective on the importance of funerary portraiture within Greater Roman Syria, and in doing so, to identify influences, connections, and iconographical analogies present throughout the region, as well as local differences, larger-scale boundaries, and ruptures in traditions that occurred across time and place.

Table of Contents

Michael Blömer & Rubina Raja, Funerary Portraits in Roman Greater Syria – Time for a Reappreciation

Michael Blömer & Rubina Raja, Shifting the Paradigms: Towards a New Agenda in the Study of the Funerary Portraiture of Greater Roman Syria

Andrea U. De Giorgi, ‘Til Death Do Us Part: Commemoration, Civic Pride, and Seriality in the Funerary Stelai of Antioch on the Orontes

Michael Blömer, The Diversity of Funerary Portraiture in Roman Commagene and Cyrrhestice

Jutta Rumscheid, Different from the Others: Female Dress in Northern Syria Based on Examples from Zeugma and Hierapolis

Michael A. Speidel, Roman Soldiers’ Gravestones in Greater Syria: Thoughts on Designs, Imports, and Impact

Rubina Raja, Funerary Portraiture in Palmyra: Portrait Habit at a Crossroads or a Signifier of Local Identity?

Signe Krag, Palmyrene Funerary Female Portraits: Portrait Tradition and Change

Achim Lichtenberger & Rubina Raja, Portrait Habit and the Funerary Portraiture of the Decapolis

Karl-Uwe Mahler, Funerary Portraiture from the Coastal Region of Roman Syria

Bilal Annan, Petrified Memories: On Some Funerary Portraits from Roman Phoenicia

C. H. Hallett, Mummies with Painted Portraits from Roman Egypt and Personal Commemoration at the Tomb

Sheila Dillon, Attic Funerary Portraiture in the Roman Period

Order the book here.

New Publication: Les stratégies de la narration dans la peinture medieval: La représentation de l’Ancien Testament aux IVe-XIIe siècles, edited by Marcello Angheben

Depuis les débuts de l’art chrétien, l’Ancien Testament a reçu une place singulière dans le décor des églises comme dans l’illustration des manuscrits. Certaines formules conçues aux IVe-Ve siècles se sont imposées durant tout le Moyen Âge, comme celles de Saint-Pierre de Rome, et une influence encore plus large a longtemps été attribuée à la Genèse Cotton ou à son modèle. Les oeuvres médiévales ne reproduisent toutefois presque jamais servilement celles qui les ont précédées. Les concepteurs les ont constamment réélaborées pour des raisons probablement multiples : adapter la composition au cadre imposé par l’architecture ou le découpage du folio, optimiser les ressorts de la narration pour en faciliter la lecture ou toucher plus efficacement la sensibilité du spectateur, enchaîner les scènes pour entraîner le regard dans le sens de la lecture ou relier sémantiquement deux épisodes voisins, induire un sens spécifique inspiré par la théologie ou la liturgie, ou encore exprimer visuellement des ambitions institutionnelles voire politiques. Les quinze articles réunis dans cet ouvrage développent ces questionnements en les appliquant à des ensembles peints ou en mosaïque représentatifs de la période envisagée : les oeuvres conservées ou perdues des premiers siècles, Saint-Pierre de Rome, Saint-Paul-hors-les-Murs et leurs avatars médiévaux, les bibles carolingiennes de Tours et celles de Ripoll, Galliano, les autres ensembles lombards, Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, Château-Gontier, Palerme et Monreale. Pour enrichir cette réflexion, le champ d’investigation a été étendu aux cycles néotestamentaires des églises médiobyzantines et aux mosaïques de Saint-Marc de Venise. Dans la conclusion, Herbert Kessler propose en effet une mise au point stimulante sur la délicate question de la Genèse Cotton en nuançant son influence sur le cycle vénitien. L’ouvrage offre ainsi un panorama très complet de la représentation de l’Ancien Testament et une réflexion foisonnante sur les stratégies de la narration.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Marcello Angheben, Les stratégies de la narration dans la peinture médiévale. Problématiques et perspectives

I. Des premiers siècles au Moyen Âge central

Jean-Michel Spieser, Les cycles paléochrétiens dits narratifs

Anne-Orange Poilpré, Figurer l’Ancien Testament dans la Bible chrétienne à l’époque carolingienne. (Re)composer l’histoire

Manuel Antonio Castiñeiras Gonzalez, Les Bibles de Ripoll et de Rodes et les ivoires de Salerne. La narration biblique sur des supports variés : modèles, adaptions et discours

Judith Soria, Temporalité et causalité narratives dans les décors médiobyzantins

II. Les traditions romaine et lombarde

Serena Romano, San Pietro, San Paolo, e la narrazione cristiana. Riflessioni su una possibile storia

Irene Quadri, Dipingere all’ombra di prototipi illustri. La narrazione veterotestamentaria nei cicli tipologici di XI e XII secolo in Italia centrale

Marco Rossi, Les cycles de l’Ancien Testament à Galliano et dans la peinture lombarde du XIesiècle

Fabio Scirea, La représentation de l’histoire d’Adam et Ève dans les milieux ambrosiens aux XIe-XIIe siècles

III. Saint-savin et la peinture « septentrionale »

Søren Kaspersen, Genesis Cycles: Tradition, Theology and Politics. From Cotton Genesis to Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe

Christian Davy, Les peintures murales de Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Château-Gontier et de Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe. De la similitude à la dissemblance

Kai Christian Ghattas, Reanimating the Scripture: Movement and Body Memory in the Paintings of Saint-Savin

IV. Les mosaïques siciliennes

Giulia Arcidiacono, Le storie della Genesi nella Cappella Palatina di Palermo. Qualche osservazione sulle fonti iconografiche e sulle strategie narrative

Tancredi Bella, Le récit de la Genèse dans les mosaïques de la cahtédrale de Monreale

Herbert L. Kessler, Conclusion. La Genèse Cotton est morte

Planches

Order the book here.

CFP: 3 sponsored sessions by DISTAFF, International Congress on Medieval Studies (13-15 May 2021), deadline 15 September 2020

DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion) was founded in 1997 by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Robin Netherton to bring together participants at the major medieval congresses who are interested in medieval dress and textiles. DISTAFF are hosting three sponsored sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (13-15 May 2021).

Paper proposals and inquiries can be sent to robin@netherton.net by September 15, 2020.

Object Lessons: Presenting History Through Artifacts

Scholars from multiple disciplines are increasingly examining and presenting medieval artifacts in ways that go beyond traditional catalog descriptions, focusing instead on how surviving items, individually or collectively, illuminate their cultural and social contexts. While DISTAFF is centered on study of clothing and textiles, the interdisciplinary approaches used to “read” surviving artifacts in this field apply to other areas of material culture. Roundtable participants will describe the approaches they took in compiling and presenting collections of such artifacts, including what they learned along the way and how their experiences might inform other researchers’ interpretation of medieval objects.

Dress and Textiles I: Rank and Signifiers

This session coincides with the release of an important new book in our field — a massive compilation of documentary references on Scottish court clothing — whose author will present additional findings from that research, focusing on the use of dress to express rank. In keeping with our ongoing emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches, any scholarly approach to medieval or early modern textiles and clothing is welcome, including but not limited to art history, archival research, archaeology, social history, language/literature, economics, trade, and gender studies.

Dress and Textiles II: Curious Descriptions and Depictions

A great deal of current work in clothing and textile study involves explaining puzzling dress or textile references in art, historical documents, and literature, in turn aiding in the overall interpretation of
those sources. This session brings together papers in which scholars have deciphered confusing images or written passages about clothing and textiles, or dress/textile artifacts with odd or confusing elements.

Online Workshop: Virtual Methodologies: Medieval and Early Modern European Collections, Wellcome Collection, 29 July 2020, 15:00 – 17:00

Virtual Methodologies for Early Career Researchers

Book your place here.

Are you an MA or PhD student or a postdoctoral researcher re-evaluating your research goals this summer? Join experienced researchers and staff from Wellcome Collection as we expand our horizons of actionable methodologies in the face of restricted travel and temporary closures.

During this online workshop you will hear from three research groups based in Europe and the UK working with manuscripts, early printed books, and visual material. Sharing methodological perspectives on digitally accessible collections, our first hour will include presentations and discussion centring a proactive approach to our current challenges. After a short break we will re-convene to learn from Wellcome Collection’s in-house collections specialists about creative ways to navigate and discover the collections that are accessible during COVID-19 closures. Come with your questions and research quandaries!

We encourage participants who are new to Wellcome Collection and those already conducting research with our collections to attend. Collection materials discussed will be in European vernaculars and Latin, however no specific language skills are required for participation. The spoken language of the workshop is English.

Reserve your virtual seat at the table, space is limited. You will receive a joining link 24 hours ahead of the workshop. The workshop will be convened through BlueJeans (no download required) and closed captions are available.

Participating Researchers:

  • Dr. Hannah Murphy, Renaissance Skin, King’s College London
  • Dr. Oscar Seip, Visualizing Science in Media Revolutions, Bibliotheca Hertziana Rome
  • Dr. Kathleen Walker-Meikle, Renaissance Skin, King’s College London
  • Dr. Claire Weeda, University of Leiden & Premodern Healthscaping, University of Amsterdam
  • Jess Bailey, UC Berkeley, Wellcome Collection
  • Dr. Elma Brenner, Wellcome Collection
  • Julia Nurse, Wellcome Collection
  • William Schupbach, Wellcome Collection

Book your place here.

Online Lecture: The King, His Hall and a Scandal: Accounts of Eadwig in the Tenth Century, Katherine Weikert, (SAHGB Seminar) 23 July 2020 17:00-18:00

Thursday, 23 July 2020, 5:00pm  – 6:00 pm

In 955, King Eadwig came to the West Saxon throne in a time of internal strife between delegates for the crown. Only fifteen at the time, his short-lived reign became synonymous with lechery, debouchery and ill-council. This paper will examine one of the stories that made this reputation: at his coronation feast, Eadwig left the celebrations in order to cavort with his consort, Ælfgifu (and, in some texts, her mother.) The sexual elements of this story are to some degree typical of medieval defamation, and doubly so as as the tale partly survives in a selection of saints’ vitae. However, beyond the stereotype of a lecherous king, the narrative has particular meaning for elite buildings in the tenth century. Not only was this episode used to indicate a weak king, but the terms used to name particular rooms in this story were specifically chosen to condemn the political power of Eadwig and Ælfgifu. This paper will examine these accounts with comparatives of contemporary elite halls to demonstrate how a clever combination of place and text were were used to damn the king and his wife.

For the foreseeable future the SAHGB Seminars will be virtual events via Zoom. We will circulate joining instructions via email the morning of the scheduled event. Please complete the form to register.

Register here.

New Publication: Seeking Transparency: Rock Crystals Across the Medieval Mediterranean, Edited by Cynthia Hahn and Avinoam Shalem

Like the sea, and the watery medium with which rock crystal is identified in the Middle Ages, the history of its production during the Middle Ages ebbs and flows. From Late Antiquity to the age of the great Portuguese expansion, specific knowledge about carving the hard material, was kept a closely guarded secret in just a few centers of production.

All the while, royal courts and wealthy churches were eager patrons for the luxurious objects given that rock crystal was valued as one of the most desirable and precious of all materials, ascribed mysterious origins and powers, and renowned for both rarity and clarity. This collection of essays reveals the global and cross-cultural histories of rock-crystal production in and even beyond the lands of the Mediterranean Sea. It investigates many objects and varied aspects of rock crystal such as: the physical nature and legendary as well as actual origins of the material; its manufacturing techniques and affiliations to other luxurious objects, such as cut glass and carved precious stones; legends and traditions associated with its aesthetic qualities; as well as issues concerning its varied functions and historiography. 

The editors:

  • Cynthia Hahn is Professor in Art History at Hunter College, CUNY.
  • Avinoam Shalem is Riggio Professor of the History of the Arts of Islam at Columbia University, New York.

With contributions from:

Zainab Bahrani, Isabelle Bardiès, Farid Benfeghoul, Brigitte Buettner, Patrick R. Crowley, Beate Fricke, Marisa Galvez, Stefania Gerevini, Cynthia Hahn, Jeremy Johns, Genevra Kornbluth, Jens Kröger, Ingeborg Krueger, Elise Morero, Bissera V. Pentcheva, Marcus Pilz, Stéphane Pradines, Venetia Porter, Hara Procopiou, Avinoam Shalem, Gia Toussaint, Roberto Vargiolu und Hassan Zahouani.

Order the book here.

Online Course: How Images Mean: An Introduction to Iconographic Theory, 27-31 July 2020

Course tutor: Paul Taylor (Curator, Warburg Institute Photographic Collection) 

Ever since Gombrich’s Art and Illusion and Goodman’s Languages of Art, the theory of images has been a lively and growing subject. And yet in all the many publications in the field, only a handful mention an approach which has been important in art history for centuries – iconography, ‘that branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art’, as Erwin Panofsky put it. There are good reasons for this: much recent work has been devoted to theories of resemblance, rather than what images can be taken to mean. And at the same time, iconography has seemed like a limited phenomenon. Panofsky, whose ‘Iconography and Iconology’ is still the most widely read statement of iconographic theory, argued that landscapes, still lifes and genre paintings did not have iconographical meanings. For him, iconography was a matter of decoding the attributes, stories and allegories of traditional art. So to those interested in images per se rather than high art, iconography has looked like a topic they can afford to ignore.

This lecture course will argue that images of all sorts, including photographs, can be said to have meanings, and that Panofsky was wrong to limit the scope of iconography. It will also try to show that the ways in which images acquire meanings vary, and require the careful analysis that linguists and philosophers are used to applying to language. Rather than confining itself to traditional attributes, stories and allegories, it will be concerned with works from around the world, including ancestor figures from Africa and Oceania, idols from Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica, European altarpieces and histories, and modern photographs and advertisements.

The course will be taught across five x two hour classes. After an introductory lecture devoted to basic terms, the course will go on to examine four principal kinds of ‘iconographic device’, the mechanism by which meaning comes to be attached to images: stipulation, attributes, narrative and illusion. Each session will have time for discussion.

Reading lists will be made available to registered students.

SCHEDULE: 
Mon-Fri 27-31 July 2020, 15:00-17:00

Registration and payment: 
Standard: £100 
Warburg staff & fellows/external students/unwaged: £90 
SAS/LAHP students: £80 
Warburg students: £50


If you are interested in booking a place but are unable to pay the fee, please contact warburg@sas.ac.uk. 

Find out more here.

Dissertation Prize: Association for Art History Dissertation Prizes 2020, deadline 1 October 2020 & 1 December 2020

Call for Undergraduate Dissertation Prize nominations

Have you written or marked a brilliant dissertation this year? If so why not consider nominating it for our Dissertation Prize.

This prize is for undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations in art history or visual culture.

The Association for Art History Dissertation Prize is awarded each year. There are two awards: one for undergraduate dissertations and one for postgraduate (Master’s-level) dissertations. The 2020 prize is for dissertations written during the 2019-20 academic year. The authors of the winning entry will receive:
• £50 worth of book tokens
• Association for Art History student membership for one year
• Complimentary ticket to the 2021 Annual Conference in Birmingham
• Publication of a 300-word abstract of the winning entry online and in newsletter
• Your prize will be formally awarded at the Annual Conference

We support a broad and inclusive art history, and therefore particularly welcome submissions from Fine Art and Design students, as well as students undertaking degrees in Museums and Gallery Studies or Curating.

You can download the guidelines and entry forms below (if you have already submitted using the previous forms that’s fine, you do not need to resubmit).

Dissertation Prize 2020  entry form
Dissertation Prize 2020 nomination form
Dissertation Prize 2020 guidelines

Call for Postgraduate Dissertation Prize applications

If you would like to apply or nominate a student, the details for this year’s application periods please email us your completed forms by the deadlines shown below.

Undergraduate submission deadline: 1 October 2020
Postgraduate submission deadline: 1 December 2020
Dissertation Prizes are assessed and shortlisted by our Doctoral and Early Career Research (DECR) committee. The shortlisted and winning essays will be announced in February 2021.

See here for more information.

Postdoctoral Job: Postdoctoral Research Associate, School of English, University of Kent, deadline 16 August 2020

Fixed Term – 36 Months

Closing Date: 23.59 hours BST on Sunday 16 August 2020  (unless otherwise stated)

Salary: £34,804 to £40,322 per annum (Grade 7). Appointment is likely to be made at £34,804 pa due to funding restrictions.

Do you have a PhD or equivalent and experience in late medieval literary studies? Are you looking for research role that will put to use your knowledge, experience and interest in this area?

The University of Kent and Queen’s University Belfast are embarking upon a three-year project funded by the Leverhulme Trust to investigate the theory that London citizens created new programmes of religious education for both the City’s clergy and for literate lay communities that have hitherto gone largely unnoticed by scholarship. Led by Dr Ryan Perry (Kent) and Dr Stephen Kelly (Queen’s), the project aims to radically complicate understanding of fifteenth-century literary culture in the capital and beyond, and the team is now looking to appoint two Research Associates to join them, one based at each University.

These roles will see you completing codicological assessments of the project’s manuscript corpus, preparing textual transcriptions for the research anthology, utilising a range of digital humanities tools and data, preparing your analysis for publication and disseminating findings in conference presentations. You will therefore need to demonstrate experience in codicological analysis and palaeographical skills in a range of C14-C15 book hands, as well as a keen desire to contribute to the research and intellectual culture of the relevant university.

As Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) for this project you will:

  • plan and manage research activity and undertake research for the project
  • produce publishable research
  • communicate closely with the other PDRA and present progress reports
  • disseminate and publicise research findings and co-organise a conference

The PDRA based at the University of Kent will work with Dr Ryan Perry on the codicological assessment of the project’s corpus with a view to identifying codices the project team believe were either produced or copied from exemplars originally held at the London Guildhall Library.

The PDRA based at Queen’s University Belfast will be responsible for producing diplomatic transcriptions of the project’s textual corpus and undertake preparatory work on the anthology.

To be successful in either role you will need:

  • a PhD (or be near to completing one), or equivalent, in a relevant are of late medieval literary studies (eg. late medieval English Studies, late medieval English religious History, medieval Book History)
  • experience of undertaking codicological analysis
  • knowledge of fourteenth and fifteenth century English religious literature and culture
  • experience in writing and publishing in high quality academic publications

To apply for the University of Kent post, click on ‘Apply Online’ below. Further details about the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies and working at Kent can be found in the Additional Information document also available below. For further information regarding the application process, contact The Resourcing Team at jobs@kent.ac.uk 

For more information on the post based at Queen’s University Belfast, please email Dr Stephen Kelly. A link for applications to that post will be posted here shortly.

Please note – Applications must be made via the University’s online application system. CVs or details sent directly to the department or via email cannot be considered.

The University of Kent values diversity and promotes equality at all levels

Due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, all interviews will take place remotely. Our processes will evolve as the Government advice is updated.

More information can be found here.