Call for papers for session papers on medieval equestrian history at IMC Leeds 2019

‘Your horse won’t eat any oats, nor will he be bled until I get my revenge’ threatens his lady Orgeuilleux de la Lande, making his displeasure evident by abusing the lady’s horse. Horses were vital agents in daily life throughout the medieval period, but with the advent of technology in the twentieth century, they have been somehow marginalized in academic studies. Recently, interest in equine history has surged, but there are still many issues waiting to be tackled by scholars.

chretien's perceval

In this fourth year of thematic horse sessions at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, we invite papers on the following themes:

  • Breeding, training, feeding and curing horses
  • Osteological study of horse remains
  • Equipment for ridden and working horses
  • Horse-related buildings and infrastructure (stables, roads, hyppodromes, markets, etc.)
  • Horses in the East and West – regional peculiarities
  • Imaginary, fantastic and magical horses and equids, including unicorns, centaurs and grotesques, and their relation to real horses
  • Other equids and ridden animals (donkeys, mules, zebras, etc.)

If you would like to propose a theme that does not fit in the above categories, please contact the organizers.

Paper abstracts (up to 500 words) and short biographies (up to 100 words) are to be sent to Dr Anastasija Ropa (Anastasija.Ropa@lspa.lv) and Dr Timothy Dawson (levantia@hotmail.com) by 31 August 2018.

Publication of selected papers is planned.

If you would like to be involved in organizing the sessions or editing or reviewing the publication, please contact the organizers (Anastasija.Ropa@lspa.lv, levantia@hotmail.com).chretien's perceval.png

CFP: New Directions in Carolingian and Ottonian Art: Assessing the Field (I-II) (Kalamazoo, 2019)

54th International Congress on Medieval Studies University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, Michigan May 9-12, 2019

Session Organizers: Joseph Salvatore Ackley (University of Arkansas) and Eliza Garrison (Middlebury College)

Long marginalized in the anglophone tradition of medieval art history, the study of Carolingian and Ottonian art has recently generated, over the last two decades, a striking chain of pathbreaking studies that have shaped and inflected the discipline in decisive ways. If earlier studies of Carolingian and Ottonian material were devoted to questions of dating, attribution, and the localization of workshops, more recent inquiries have considered questions of gender, representation, materiality, religious reform, temporality, and the role of the artist. As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Adam Cohen’s pioneering The Uta Codex: Art, Philosophy, and Reform in Eleventh-Century Germany, which appeared in 2000, the organizers of this double session seek papers from historians of Carolingian and Ottonian art and architecture that display a broad range of innovative methodological approaches to artworks created in all media. Papers that attend to issues of historiography – a particularly charged and complicated conversation for these monuments – and to artworks created and built at the edges of the Carolingian and Ottonian empires are especially welcome.

To propose a paper, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, together with a completed Participant Information Form (https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions), to Joseph Salvatore Ackley (jackley@barnard.edu) and Eliza Garrison (egarriso@middlebury.edu) by September 15, 2018.

CFP: ICMA-sponsored session at 54th ICMS (Kalamazoo, 9-12 May, 2019)

The Other Half of Heaven: Visualizing Female Sanctity in East and West (c. 1200-1500) I-II

An ICMA-sponsored session at the 54th ICMS (International Congress of Medieval Studies) Kalamazoo, 9-12 May 2019

If, according to the well-known Chinese proverb, women hold half the sky, did medieval female saints hold half of heaven? In her book of 1998, Forgetful of their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500-1100, Jane Schulenburg calculated that of over 2200 female and male saints examined, only one in seven (or 15%) were women. Although documentation on medieval women is notably scarce, this gender-based asymmetry in the celestial realm clearly reflected the values and hierarchy of earthly society.

Female saints were exceptional women who gained social status, popular recognition and enhanced visibility through sainthood. Medieval female sanctity is a multi-faceted phenomenon, which has been mainly explored through words. Historians and literary scholars have fruitfully mined historical and hagiographical texts not only to draw ‘facts’ about the lives of female saints but also to elucidate social mentalities and highlight gender issues. Holy women, however, were also represented on a variety of media, most notably on icons, frescoes, manuscript illuminations and other artworks. Nevertheless, despite the wealth of historical and hagiographical scholarship on female saints, their visual representations have been exploited almost exclusively in stylistic or iconographic terms.

The aim of this session is to consider female sanctity in visual terms both in Western Europe and the Byzantine East. By exploring representations of women saints and their changing iconography, it aspires to shed light on their status and experience in late medieval society. It will examine images of holy women as embodiments of cultural models and explore the social and religious environment that shaped their visual constructions. In the highly symbolic world of the Middle Ages, representations of female saints can become a vehicle for multiple interpretations, including social status, gender, identity, ethnicity and collective memory.

Some of the issues to be addressed include but are not restricted to:

  • Visual narratives and iconographic attributes defining female sanctity
  • The corporeality of female saints and the representation of the holy body
  • The iconography of transvestite holy women
  • Out of sight, out of mind: forgotten saints and newcomers
  • The relation between female holy images and text in illuminated manuscripts
  • The influence of mendicant literature on picturing female sanctity
  • One saint, many images: changes in iconography and meaning
  • Iconographic variations of the Virgin in East and West

 

Participants in ICMA-sponsored sessions are eligible to receive travel funds, generously provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. The Kress funds are allocated for travel and hotel only. Speakers will be refunded only after the conference, against travel receipts.

Please send paper proposals of 300 words to the Chair of the ICMA Programs Committee, Beth Williamson (beth.williamson@bristol.ac.uk) by September 1, 2018, together with a completed Participant Information Form, to be found at the following address: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions#papers 

Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. All abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to the Congress administration for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.

CFP: Intersectional Medievalisms (54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, 9-12 May 2019)

Intersectional Medievalisms

54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 9 to 12, 2019

Organizers: Bryan C. Keene (The J. Paul Getty Museum) and Benjamin C. Tilghman (Washington College)

Sponsored by The J. Paul Getty Museum

The close ties between medieval revivalism and the construction of cultural identities have long been recognized. The appropriation of the medieval past by white supremacist and nationalist groups has especially attracted comment over the past two years, and many scholars of medieval studies have traced those appropriations and highlighted the myths and misconceptions upon which they are built. The association of medievalism with the construction of normative (white, heterosexual, cisgender, Christian) identity has come to be so strong that it is often assumed that those who fall outside such identity groups would (or even should) have little or no interest in the Middle Ages. That this belief, which can troublingly be found in in the scholarly community just as much as the general public, is patently false could readily be seen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2018 “Heavenly Bodies” Gala. But similar to the invocation of the medieval past by such artists as Kehinde Wiley and Ron Athey, the medievalism of the Met Gala was treated somewhat superficially, with more concern for the glamor of the event than the complex coding of the fashion and its wearers. These sessions will consider the important, if often unmentioned, intersectional practice of medievalism in contemporary culture through papers and discussion about the use of medieval motifs and themes in contemporary works in any media by writers, performers, musicians, and artists of color and by queer and trans-identifying creators. As such, these sessions seek to be a first step towards a fuller consideration of medievalisms that range outside the customary assumptions about to whom the Middle Ages presents a usable past.

Intersectional Medievalisms I: Creators of Color

Even as medievalists have become much more attuned to the presence of people of color in medieval Europe, they have yet to fully consider the presence of the Middle Ages in the art, poetry, music, and other cultural expressions of contemporary people of color. While the references to medieval (and early modern) culture in such works as Kehinde Wiley’s paintings and Jay-Z’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail have been widely recognized, the arguably more complex reworkings of medieval culture by Rashaad Newsome, RAMMΣLLZΣΣ, and Derrick Austin have thus far gained little notice. What is the medieval in the work of these artists? A contested source of oppression? A tool for cultural renegotiation and redefinition? A seductive space of myth and beauty? Must their use of the medieval past be understood necessarily as a pointed appropriation, or can it be seen as the mining of just another source of raw cultural material? Speakers are encouraged to consider not only the stakes of medievalism in this particular cultural moment, but also other aspects of these creators’ intellectual projects, such as the explorations of semiotics, phenomenology, intermedia creation, ornament and surface, and temporality that run through many of these works.

Intersectional Medievalisms II: Queering the Medieval

The scholarly approach of “queering” the past has revealed otherwise invisible, erased, or censored facets of medieval identity and relationships. This methodology also disrupts the cisgender and heteronormative binaries that all-too-often remain pervasive in the academy and in the popularly imagined Middle Ages. LGBTQ+ artists have also addressed these issues, at times turning to broadly-conceived medievalisms. Ron Athey, Gabriel Garcia Roman, and others evoke the cult of saints in their work, a poignant commentary about acceptance by the Catholic (and broader Christian) community. The relationship between medieval chant and the vocal performances of Meredith Monk and Oblivia deserves greater attention, as does the architectural and advertising medievalism of queer clubs, lounges, and Pride events (a project begun by the late Michael Camille). By focusing on the relationship between a creators’ identity and their conception of the medieval, we encourage speakers to consider how medievalism is practiced in contemporary culture and how to open the academy or museum as spaces of greater inclusion and dialogue.

While the two sessions will be split to allow for a sharper focus on the role of race and of gender and sexual identity in contemporary creative medievalism, the aim of these sessions is for all the work presented to be resolutely intersectional, looking to trace and illuminate connections rather than delineating borders.

To propose a paper, please send a one-page abstract and a completed Participant Information Form (available via the Congress website) by September 15 to Bryan C.Keene (BKeene@getty.edu) and Benjamin C. Tilghman (btilghman2@washcoll.edu). More information about the Congress can be found here: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress

CFP: Panel Swiss history day (Zurich, 5-7 June 2019)

— German —

Zürich. Fünfte Schweizerische Geschichtstage, 5.-7. Juni 2019, 05. – 07.06.2019
Deadline: Aug 31, 2018

Teuer – teurer – unbezahlbar: Kommunaler Kirchenbau im späteren Mittelalter

Kommunale Kirchenbauten des späteren Mittelalters prägen bis heute das Bild mitteleuropäischer Städte. Die ressourcenverbrauchenden Bauprojekte wurden vor allem von den jeweiligen Bürgerschaften getragen, da die Einnahmen aus kirchlichen Abgaben bei weitem nicht ausgereicht hätten. Dieses bürgerliche Engagement erklärt sich vor allem damit, dass die prosperierenden Kommunen im Kirchenbau gewissermassen eine Hülle für städtische Selbstdarstellung erkannt hatten. Man verfolgte in Abgrenzung und in Konkurrenz zu anderen Städten repräsentative Visualisierungsstrategien. Ab dem 14. Jahrhundert entstand eine neue – immer teurere – Formensprache am Baukörper, die aber letztlich dazu führte, dass nur die allerwenigsten Bauprojekte abgeschlossen werden konnten – erst das historisierende 19. Jahrhundert vollendete die gotischen Architekturträume: Köln, Ulm, Bern, Regensburg usw. Doch spielte neben der wirtschaftlichen Überspannung auch der abrupte Umbruch ethischer und ästhetischer Vorstellungen durch die Reformation eine erhebliche Rolle für den Einsatz der Ressourcen.

Ein zweites strukturelles Phänomen prägte indes die Bauentwicklung. Durch das kommunale Engagement und die Übernahme wichtiger bauplanerischer Entscheidungen, die bislang beim Klerus lagen, lässt sich eine legitimierende Praktik der Kommunalpolitik nachweisen, steht doch außer Zweifel, dass die Bürger das mehrschichtige Potential einer gezielt städtisch konnotierten Kunstpolitik erkannten und auch entsprechend zu akzentuieren wussten. Jene bisweilen übertriebenen Kirchenbaupläne wurden durch die Kirchenfabriken vorangetrieben, die mit den kommunalen Vertretungen, in der Regel dem Rat, eng verzahnt waren. Zu fragen ist daher, ob von spezifischen „Kunstregeln“ ausgegangen werden kann, die durch die Auftraggeber vorgegeben wurden. Neben der Frage nach einem kommunalen „Kunstwissen“, das für die Darstellung von Prosperität und Reichtum eine bedeutende Rolle spielte, ist zudem nach dem vorhandenen „Finanzwissen“ zu fragen, mit dem die Abwicklung der komplexen Kirchenbauprojekte erfolgte.

Das Panel sucht aus der Perspektive von Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte sowie aus der Kunstgeschichte die Phänomene von interkommunalem und innerstädtischem Wettbewerb und dem Städtischen Kunst- und Verwaltungswissen mit der Frage nach den überbordenden Stilentwicklungen der Epoche in Verbindung zu bringen.

Kontakt Für weitere Auskünfte steht Ihnen Barbara Holler, Koordinatorin der Schweizerischen Geschichtstage 2019, unter der Mailadresse 2019@geschichtstage.ch gerne zur Verfügung

 

— English Translation —

(CFP: Panel Swiss history day (Zurich, 5-7 June 19))

Zurich. Fifth Swiss history days, 5th-7th June 2019, 05 – 07.06.2019
Deadline: August 31, 2018

Expensive – more expensive – Priceless: Local church in the later Middle Ages

Local churches of the later Middle Ages still shape the image of Central European cities. The resource-consuming construction projects were mainly driven by the respective citizenships since the income from church taxes were not sufficient by far. This civic engagement is primarily explained with the fact that the prosperous municipalities had to some extent recognized a shell for urban self-representation in church. They hunt in contrast and in competition with other cities representative visualization strategies. increasingly expensive – – design language to the structure, but which ultimately led to only very few construction projects were completed – From the 14th century a new developed only the historicist 19th century completed the gothic architecture dreams: Cologne, Ulm, Bern, Regensburg, etc. . But in addition to the economic surge and the abrupt break ethical and aesthetic ideas of the Reformation played a significant role in the use of resources.

however, a second structural phenomenon dominated the architectural development. By the municipal commitment and the acquisition of important bauplanerischer decisions that were previously the clergy, this can prove a legitimizing practice of local politics, you can read it beyond doubt that the citizens recognized the multi-layer potential of a specific urban connotations art policy and knew how to accentuate accordingly. Those sometimes exaggerated church building plans were driven by church councils, which were closely linked with the municipal representatives, usually the Council. The question is therefore whether it can be considered specific “rules of art” that were dictated by the client. Besides the question of a local “art knowledge”, which played an important role in the appearance of prosperity and wealth, is also to question the existing “Financial Education”, which took place the handling of complex construction projects church.

The panel examined from the perspective of social and economic history as well as art history phenomena of interkommunalem and bring inner-city competition and the Municipal Art and management knowledge with the question of the exuberant style developments of the period in connection.

 

Contact

Coordinator of the Swiss History Days 2019
Barbara Holler

History Department
University of Zurich
Office KO2 H361
Karl Schmid-Strasse 4
CH-8006 Zurich

Tel: +41 44 634 38 58
Mail: 2019@geschichtstage.ch

CFP: NUME Research Group on Latin Middle Ages Florence, Italy (June 3-4, 2019)

1. NUME, Research Group on Latin Middle Ages, organizes the V Cycle of Medieval Studies, June 2019.

2. The goal is to offer a broad overview of the current situation of Italian and international medievalist studies. Issues which are related to many different aspects of the medieval period (V-XV century) can be addressed: history, philosophy, politics, literature, art, archeology, material culture, new technologies applied to medieval studies and so on;

2.1 Contributions with two or more speakers are accepted;
2.2 Contributions already structured in panels and leaded by 1 coordinator are accepted;
2.3 All contributions will be structured in specific panels.

3. The conference will be held from 3rd to 4th June 2019 at the ex Convento Il Fuligno, Florence, via Faenza 48n.

4. Participation proposals must have abstract format, written on a single pdf file in english, not exceeding 300 words. Furthermore, 5 keywords identifying the topic will have to be reported in the same file. Proposals must be accompanied by a short CV (no more than 1000 words), and sent by October 1st, 2018 to the e-mail address:

info@nuovomedioevo.it

4.1 In the case of panels, the proposal must include a general title with a general presentation not exceeding 300 words, followed by abstracts of all the interventions (presented as in point 4.)

5. Proposals will be evaluated by the Review Board on the basis of quality, interest and originality. The judgment of the Commission will be unquestionable.

6. The Commission will notify the convocation for the speakers considered suitable by November 15th, 2018. The previous membership of the NUME Association does not necessarily imply the convocation.

7. The selected speakers will be asked to prepare an oral intervention, accompanied by any images or videos, not exceeding 15 minutes (+5’ discussion time). Contextually, they will be asked to send a paper of their contribution for the Conference Proceedings by February 1st, 2019.

8. The selected speakers will be required a registration fee as follows:

– NUME members (enrolled before June 29th, 2018): 80 EURO each
– Other speakers: 100 EURO (+20 EURO of membership) each

The participation will entitle to 1 free copy of the Conference Proceedings.

9. The Conference program will be published by April 30th, 2019.

10. The deadlines set out in this call must be strictly observed, otherwise the contribution will be excluded from the call.

CFP: Re-defining the Monster (ICMS 9-12 May 2019), deadline 15 September 2018

Call for Papers for Special Session at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS 9-12 May 2019), Western Michigan University

The proposed session will discuss and debate on the various definitions of the concept of the “monster.” Defining the monster is a challenge. Monsters and monstrosity-related aspects have been topics of academic research either connected to identity or cross-cultural encounters, explored as ‘others’ in the context of voyages (real-imagined), as heritage from Antiquity, as races reflected in travellers’ reports inserted into Western art, philosophy, and theology.

Continue reading “CFP: Re-defining the Monster (ICMS 9-12 May 2019), deadline 15 September 2018”

CFP: Visualizing Women in the Apocrypha

poster_apocrypha_01.jpg

Call for Papers for Special Session at the

International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS 2019)

May 9 to 12, 2019

Western Michigan University

The proposed session is devoted to the construction and visualization of women as reflected in apocryphal sources with the aim of bringing into attention this generally neglected topic/sources which seem to be underrepresented. The existent literature, in the general field of apocrypha, indicates that there is space for debate on issues connected to gender in these sources.

Continue reading “CFP: Visualizing Women in the Apocrypha”

New Publication: L’iconographie du Livre du Cœur d’amour épris de René d’Anjou, by Rose-Marie Ferré

Informations pratiques :

Rose-Marie Ferré, L’iconographie du Livre du Cœur d’amour épris de René d’Anjou, Turnhout, Brepols, 2018 (Répertoire Iconographique de la Littérature du Moyen Age, 6).

145 p., 70 colour ill., 156 x 234 mm, 2018
ISBN: 978-2-503-58002-9

Prix: EUR 60, 00

Le cycle iconographique quasiment complet du Livre du Cœeur d’amour épris est ici envisagé de concert avec le texte, en révèlant ainsi toute sa richesse et sa singularité.

Ce volume est consacré à l’une des œuvres majeures de René d’Anjou conservée aujourd’hui dans le manuscrit français 24399 de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. En un songe allégorique qui est aussi quête chevaleresque, le Cœur personnifié veut rejoindre l’aimée. Les enluminures, par une mise en image efficace et dynamique du texte, rendent surtout la profonde mélancolie, en cette fin du Moyen Âge, d’un sentiment amoureux qui affronte de multiples épreuves.

Comme dans le Mortifiement de Vaine Plaisance, composé deux ans plus tôt et premier volet de ce diptyque littéraire, le cœur (organe supplicié pour le Mortifiement ou Chevalier dépité dans le roman de 1457) n’aura d’autre choix que le renoncement final et la douleur. À cet égard, animé d’un vrai souci spirituel, René d’Anjou fait édifier à la même époque, aux Cordeliers d’Angers, une chapelle dédiée à saint Bernardin de Sienne (1453), pensée comme tombeau pour son cœur. Les sujets évoqués dans le traité de théologie morale ou dans les péripéties sentimentales du chevalier Cœur ne sont pas ainsi sans rappeler les sujets exprimés et représentés dans le petit sanctuaire, échos d’une réflexion sur la Passion du Christ, la rédemption, la Vaine Gloire et le salut de l’âme.

Continue reading “New Publication: L’iconographie du Livre du Cœur d’amour épris de René d’Anjou, by Rose-Marie Ferré”

CFP: Rutgers Art Review Volume 36

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Deadline: Sep 15, 2018
RU_SHIELD_SIG_SAS
Call for Papers and Digital Projects

Rutgers Art Review, a journal of graduate research in art history, hereby invites all current graduate students, as well as professionals who have completed their doctoral degree within the past year, to submit papers for its 36th edition.

Papers may address all topics and historical periods within the history of art and architecture, visual and material culture, art theory and criticism, aesthetics, film, and photography. Interdisciplinary studies concerning art and architecture written by students in other fields are also welcome. To be considered for publication, submissions must present original contributions to existing scholarship and conform to our submission guidelines. We encourage authors to ask a faculty member to review their paper before submission.
Continue reading “CFP: Rutgers Art Review Volume 36”