CFP: The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast (season 6), deadline 15 October 2026

The Medieval Academy of America’s podcast series ‘The Multicultural Middle Ages’ is now accepting episode proposals for its 6th season! The annual episode proposal deadline is 15 October 2026 (see our most recent CFP here). 

New seasons launch each spring, coinciding with the Medieval Academy of America’s Annual Meeting.

Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America (MAA), the MMA is an anthology-style podcast that seeks to continue conversations and generate new avenues of inquiry related to the Middle Ages that emphasize the period’s diversity and the scholarship related to it. We highlight thoughtful reflections on culturally responsible approaches to the study of the Middle Ages (expansive beyond western Europe) and its afterlives.

We invite proposals from individuals and collaborators of all ranks and disciplines, especially graduate students, for single podcast episodes aimed at fellow medievalists and the wider listening public.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following: 

  • innovative methodological/disciplinary approaches to the Middle Ages 
  • the future of medieval studies
  • research on the multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic Middle Ages
  • discussions of recent scholarship
  • archival discoveries
  • academic activism and responses to misappropriations of the Middle Ages
  • pedagogical approaches
  • medievalisms
  • medieval culture in contemporary political and public discourse
  • cultural heritage and approaches to curating exhibitions of the Middle Ages

​​Possible formats may include narrative expositions, interviews, panel discussions, textual and material analyses, and oral performances.

​No previous experience with podcasting is required. The Graduate Student Committee of the MAA has hosted several workshops on podcasting for beginners, which are now available on the MAA YouTube channel, and if accepted, an MMA producer will support you through the episode development and post-production process. We do not turn away contributors due to lack of podcasting expertise!

​​To help us assess the project’s potential, your submission must include a brief description (500 words), noting the following: 

  • chosen topic, its relevance to the podcast, and a working title
  • plan for adapting to the podcast medium (35–45 min. episodes are encouraged, but proposals of shorter or longer durations are also welcome)
  • format (interview, roundtable, etc.) with an outline of anticipated structure
  • assistance needed to realize the episode (note: we handle final editing, but please let us know if you would also need help recording or facilitating an interview, etc.)

Please also include each episode author’s name, CV, and email address.

​Submit your proposals to mmapodcast1@gmail.com by 15 October 2026.

Online Lecture: ‘Antioch as a Center: New Research on a Dispersed Archaeological Legacy’ with Nicole Berlin, 2 October 2026

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Mashtot Chair of Armenian Studies at Harvard University are pleased to announce the first lecture in the 2026–2027 East of Byzantium lecture series.

October 2, 2026 | 12:00 PM (EDT, UTC -5) | Zoom

Antioch as a Center: New Research on a Dispersed Archaeological Legacy

Nicole Berlin, Davis Museum, Wellesley College

Ancient Antioch, located in present-day Antakya, Türkiye, was one of the great urban, artistic, and religious centers of the Roman and Byzantine worlds. This lecture presents new research on artifacts excavated during the 1930s Princeton expeditions and now held in museums across North America. Through provenance research, archival investigation, and close study of the objects themselves, it reconstructs the histories of these dispersed collections and reveals new perspectives on Antioch’s role as a center of artistic production and cultural exchange. The lecture also examines how archaeological objects acquire new meanings as they move from excavation sites into museum collections.

Nicole Berlin is Associate Curator of Collections at the Davis Museum, Wellesley College, where she specializes in ancient Mediterranean art and archaeology.

Advance registration required. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

The Courtauld Institute of Art Medieval Seminars for Autumn 2026

The Courtauld is delighted to announce its Medieval Seminars for Autumn 2026. All events are free to attend, and take place on Wednesdays at 5.30pm at the Courtauld’s Vernon Square campus. They are followed by questions are drinks. Tickets must be booked via The Courtauld’s Research Forum page.

14th October 2026 – Medieval Work-in-Progress

The Bayeux Tapestry on Display, Dr Lloyd de Beer, Dr Millie Horton-Insch and Dr Iñigo Salto Santamaría

21st October 2026 – The CRSBI Annual Lecture for 2026

The Romanesque Sculpture of Norwich Castle Keep, Dr Agata Gomółka & Professor Sandy Heslop

11th November 2026 – The Paul Crossley Memorial Lecture for 2026

The portals of Notre Dame in Paris. Findings from the current construction site, Professor Stephan Albrecht

9th December 2026 – Medieval Work-in-Progress

Singulariter afficitur … ad gloriosissimum lignum crucis: Jean duc de Berry and the Cross, Dr Susannah Kingwill

Image: The Bayeux Tapestry as displayed in August 1908. © Archives du Calvados, Photographies de la famille Levaltier, 103FI/1 (n°55)

CFP: ‘Transforming the Urban Sacred: Christianization and the Reconfiguration of Public Spaces in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’, deadline 30 September 2026

Deadline: 30 September 2026

Dates: 19th-21st January 2027

Location: The Danish and Norwegian Institutes in Rome

This interdisciplinary workshop explores the dynamic processes by which traditional Roman public spaces were reimagined, adapted, and transformed to accommodate emerging Christian identities and practices from the 4th to the 8th centuries CE. In this context, the ‘urban sacred’ is understood as a dynamic dimension of urban space, constructed through the interaction of ritual practice, social imaginaries, and material markers. It refers not only to formally consecrated places such as temples, churches, or shrines, but equally to streets, houses, workshops, cemeteries, and other civic arenas, where sacredness was experienced and redefined. Codes and signs, whether permanent, like built monuments, or ephemeral, like gestures, sounds, and ritual performances, inscribed the divine into the city, shaping boundaries between sacred and profane. The ‘urban sacred’ therefore draws attention to how religiousness, understood as both individual and collective, was embedded in the lived city, transforming it into a mosaic of sacred and profane spaces that mediated identity, hierarchy, memory, and power.

Key notes and confirmed speakers:

  • Prof. P. Liverani (University of Florence)
  • Prof. T. Myrup Kristensen (Aarhus University)
  • Prof. B. Ward-Perkins (University of Oxford)
  • Prof. C. Machado (University of St. Andrews)
  • Prof. S. Malmberg (University of Bergen)
  • Dr. C. Videbech (University of Bergen)

Bridging archaeology, epigraphy, art history, the study of religion, history and literary studies, the workshop investigates how these traditionally non-Christian spaces were gradually and sometimes radically converted into spaces fitting for the Christian cityscape. We aim to highlight the complexity of these transformations, focusing not only on imperial, aristocratic, or episcopal initiatives but also on the roles of local communities, pilgrims, and non-elite groups in claiming and shaping public environments.

The workshop encourages contributions that leverage a wide range of evidence: archaeological remains, iconography, inscriptions (especially graffiti), architectural modifications, and written sources to shed new light on how the Christian cityscape emerged from and overlaid the traditional Roman urban fabric. Innovative digital approaches, such as GIS mapping, 3D reconstruction, and digital epigraphy, are especially welcome for their potential to visualize and reinterpret these transitions.

The aim of the workshop is to offer a unique forum for interdisciplinary dialogue on the transformation of Mediterranean cities through Christianization, with special attention to the interplay between elite and popular agency and the creative use of digital methodologies.

We welcome proposals that engage with the following, or related, themes:

  • The role of Christian graffiti and inscriptions in appropriating and reconfiguring traditional public spaces.
  • Non-elite agency and popular expressions of faith within the urban fabric of cities within the former Roman Empire.
  • Interactions between ecclesiastical authorities and popular Christian communities in shaping the city’s sacred topography 
  • Transformation of civic and non-Christian buildings for Christian liturgical or communal uses
  • Graffiti and epigraphic evidence as markers of Christian presence and appropriation of public spaces
  • The interplay between pagan memory and Christian innovation in urban topography
  • Pilgrimage and the sacred geography of public spaces in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
  • Comparative perspectives on the transformation of public spaces across the Late Antique and Early Medieval Mediterranean
  • • Christian and pagan coexistence and interactions in archaeological and textual records
  • Everyday Christian practices and the creation of sacred space beyond monumental churches
  • Interactions between popular devotion, martyr cults, and urban topography
  • Comparative analyses of elite and non-elite roles in Christianization processes

Submission Guidelines:

Please submit a 300-word abstract along with a short academic CV by 30th of September 2026. 

Abstracts should demonstrate how they engage with the workshop themes, with particular attention to interdisciplinary perspectives and/or the use of digital methods. 

We especially encourage submissions from early-career scholars. Selected contributions will be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed edited volume or a special journal issue; if you wish to be considered, please indicate this in your proposal. Send proposals to: Christina.videbech@uib.no

CFP: ‘Visual Cultures of Surveillance in the Medieval World’, ICMA Sponsored panel at IMC Leeds 2027, deadline 23 September 2026

Medieval communities were subject to, and themselves produced, forms of surveillance. Among other forms of coercion — corporal punishment, rents and taxation, patriarchal authority, banishment — surveillance reinforced social and political power imbalances and shaped behavior both within and between communities. Social, bureaucratic, and carceral structures facilitating surveillance commonly marked the production of works of art: scribes and illuminators labored in Italian prisons, courts dictated the terms under which artists worked, and late-medieval artisans were legally required to shape their wares before open windows. Art was also often understood to possess its own powers of surveillance: oversize figural monuments presided over marketplaces, badges made legible their bearers’ political allegiances, and multiple miracle stories imagine the eyes of an icon tracking its devotees. 

This panel asks how surveillance shaped the making of medieval art and how objects and images attest to, enact, or even expose medieval modes of surveillance. Attending to such intersections of the visual and the carceral, this panel seeks contributions that interrogate the liberatory assumptions that often underwrite the equation of art with

community.

Topics might include:

  • Medieval “surveillance technologies”
  • Coercive patronage
  • Guilds and licensing organizations
  • Medieval theories of privacy
  • Works depicting surveillance
  • Architecture and control
  • Theories of optics and perception in their social contexts
  • Mobility and its restrictions
  • Strategies of occlusion
  • Connections between medieval visual culture and contemporary activist artists

We are seeking proposals for papers 15 – 20 minutes in length. Please send an abstract (max. 300 words) and current CV to Luke Fidler (lfidler@usc.edu) and C.B.Boxer (c.boxer@bucknell.edu) by 23 September 2026.

CFP: ‘Unfinished, Damaged, Reimagined: Rethinking the Fragment’, Kalamazoo IMCS 2027, deadline 15 September 2026

AVISTA is pleased to invite submissions to its sponsored hybrid session, Unfinished, Damaged, Reimagined: Rethinking the Fragment, at the 2027 International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI, 13–15 May 2027)

Rarely do material traces of the premodern world survive without damage or alteration. In response, the fragment has emerged in recent years as a productive theoretical framework for understanding the present condition of medieval objects, buildings, and archives. AVISTA’s emphasis has long been on the intersection of medieval art, craft, and technology. In line with this focus, this session seeks papers which present new case studies of the fragment. This includes medieval objects or buildings which have either been reconstructed or, in their current state, are incomplete or damaged. We also seek to broaden discussion of the medieval fragment to include works abandoned in process, or those which were not finished following their original plan. While this concept has gained traction in manuscript studies, the notion of the unfinished has been less discussed in architecture, even though there are many prominent examples (the cathedrals of Beauvais, Narbonne, and Siena to name a few). We invite interdisciplinary papers, representing all disciplines and geographies, to take up unfinished, damaged, or reimagined medieval objects.

Speakers may discuss, for example, repaired or transformed objects, architecture that was never completed or has since been lost, as well as medieval and modern efforts to complete the fragment. Objects, topics, and methodologies may include but are not limited to:

– Digital twins and reconstructions of lost objects and buildings

– Repair techniques and materials (such as lead, mortar, etc.)

– Abandoned or incomplete building campaigns

– Objects which incorporate found material, such as cameos, gems, or crystals

– Relics or their traces, such as relic labels or scraps of textile

– Manuscript fragmentology

– Case studies of building damage caused by fire, natural disasters, or structural collapse

– Spolia or other objects removed from their original context

– Examination of polychromy

– Reuse of building materials, such as stone, timber, or lead

– Broken and/or repaired sculpture

– Archeological finds including pieces of textile, metalwork, or ceramic

For additional information, including selected bibliography, please see the AVISTA website. All abstracts must be submitted by September 15, 2027 through the ICMS Confex portal: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2027/prelim.cgi/Session/8645. Interested presenters should email the organizers, Tori Schmitt (torischmitt@ucla.edu) and Gabriela Chitwood (gabriela.chitwood@gmail.com), if questions arise.

More information can be found on this website.

CFP: ‘Living with the Otherworldly: Feelings, Journeys, and Dialogues in the British Isles, ca. 1300–1550,’ International Medieval Congress, Leeds 2027 (deadline 18 September 2026)

While the OED defines ‘otherworldly’ as spiritual, unworldly, fictitious, and immaterial, medieval encounters with the otherworldly often took remarkably palpable, mobile, and transmissible forms within material worlds. Beyond this definition, this session invites a more conceptual interpretation, exploring how otherworldly communities interacted with and were imagined within communities of the living in the late medieval British Isles.

Taking feelings, journeys, and dialogues as central modes of encounter, this session looks into the relationships between earthly and otherworldly communities. We ask how boundaries between them were defined, negotiated, or traversed within and beyond institutionalised settings across the British Isles.

We welcome papers that attend to the questions, including but not limited to:

  • In what ways was the otherworldly apprehended and articulated through emotions?
  • How did physical, spiritual, and imaginative journeys that are present in pilgrim records and (fictional) travelogues connect communities with otherworldly beings and spaces? How did such journeys contribute to the (re)shaping of (other)worldly landscapes?
  • What forms of dialogue became visible through prayer, intercession, and ritual practices—among the living, the dead and the saintly, and between humans and supernatural beings? Accordingly, how did those communications conform to or transform the understanding and practice of commemoration and memory?
  • How were those encounters materialised in manuscripts, objects, architecture, and performance, making knowledge of and experiences with the otherworldly portable and transmissible?
  • How might such encounters reshape our understanding of belonging, social bonds, and communities?

We welcome papers on subjects underrepresented in existing scholarship and contributions that foster cross-disciplinary conversations, including literary studies, liturgical and religious studies, art history, manuscript studies, and material anthropology.

Paper proposals (please use this form) for a 15–20-minute paper should be submitted to the Session Convenors, Se Jin Park (sejin.park@yale.edu) and Hanting Niu (hn367@cam.ac.uk), no later than 18 September 2026. For more information or questions, please contact the Session Convenors.

CFP: ‘From the Heavens to the Earth: Honoring Danielle B. Joyner’ ICMS 2027 Session (deadline 15 September 2026)

These sessions will honor the late Danielle B. Joyner, who died suddenly in March 2026. Danielle once described her research trajectory as moving “from the heavens to the earth,” and we seek papers that pay tribute to her broad interests and high intellectual ambitions. Papers on temporality, the elements, female monasticism, eco-criticism, medieval ecologies, and animal studies are welcome, particularly the study of birds, a topic Danielle was pursuing at the time of her passing. Friends, collaborators, and students of Danielle are especially encouraged to apply, but all proposals will be assessed equally, in keeping with her welcoming spirit.

‘From the Heavens to the Earth’ sessions are organised by Elina Gertsman, Case Western University; Megan McNamee, University of Edinburgh; and Ben Tilghman, Washington College.

The 62nd International Congress on Medieval Studies is hosted by Western Michigan University’s Medieval Institute Thursday through Saturday, 13–15 May 2027. Subsidised registration and Travel Awards (competitive) are available to Participants. See the ‘Awards’ section of the ICMS website for details.

Enquiries about these sessions can be sent to Megan McNamee (mmcnamee[at]ed.ac.uk).

https://icms.confex.com/icms/2027/prelim.cgi/Session/8203

CFP: ‘Going Green: turning an ecological lens on medieval art and architecture’, Leeds IMC, deadline 17 September 2026

 Call for papers to form part of a session at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, 5-8 July 2027, on the theme of ‘Communities’. 

‘Going Green: turning an ecological lens on medieval art and architecture’

Communities are often understood in social terms, but they may also be defined by shared environments, and the opportunities and challenges those environments present at local, regional and global scales. This session explores how medieval communities – and the art and architecture produced by or for them – were shaped by their environment, and how in turn environments were determined by medieval art and architecture and/or their use and production. Papers might explore depictions of flora, fauna, and/or the built environment; relationships between topography and the built environment or between available natural resources and artistic materials; effects of climate change on art and architecture; or other questions that centre on the interactions between human communities and their larger environments in the production or use of art and architecture. Case studies that offer avenues for broader methodological reflection are especially welcome. Through these papers, the panel seeks to promote and facilitate greater engagement with ecologically-informed approaches to the study of medieval art and architecture, drawing in new audiences, students and scholars who are driven in part by concerns about the current climate emergency. 

Papers should be 15-20 minutes in length, delivered in English. If feasible, we are hoping for a fully in-person session, requiring attendance at the IMC Leeds in July 2027. Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words along with your CV to Kate Gerry (kgerry@smith.edu) and Tom Nickson (tom.nickson@courtauld.ac.uk).

Deadline for submission: Thursday, 17 September 2026

New Publication: ‘Art, Nature and the Body in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland’, by Heather Pulliam

New Publication: ‘Art, Nature and the Body in Early Medieval Britain and Ireland’, by Heather Pulliam

How did the living world – bodies, time, motion, and natural environment – frame the art of early medieval Britain and Ireland? This study investigates how the early medieval objects and monuments produced in Britain and Ireland enabled Christian audiences to unite with and be ‘dissolved’ in an intangible divinity. Using phenomenological and eco-critical methodologies, she probes intersections between art objects, the living world, and the embodied eye. 

Pulliam analyses a range of objects that vary in scale, form, and function, including book shrines, brooches worn on the body, and reliquaries suspended in satchels. Today, such objects are discussed, displayed, and illustrated as static rather than mobile objects that human bodies wore and that accompanied them as they travelled through landscapes animated by changing weather, seasons, and time. Using the frame as a heuristic device, she questions how art historical studies approach medieval art and offers a new paradigm for understanding the role of sacred objects in popular devotion.

Find out more about the book on the Cambridge University Press website.

About the Author

Heather Pulliam is Professor of Art History at the University of Edinburgh. She has published in The Art Bulletin, Gesta, and Studies in Iconography and is author of Word and Image in the Book of Kells (2005). Co-Editor of Irish and Scottish Art, c. 900–1900: Survivals and Revivals (2024), she served on the curatorial team of Celts: Art and Identity, an exhibition held at the British Museum.