Medieval Art Research

ST STEPHEN’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER: Visual and Political Culture 1292-1941 (19 September, 2016)

ST STEPHEN’S CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER: Visual and Political Culture 1292-1941
This major conference will present the results of a three-year project to explore the history of a building at the heart of the political life of the nation for over 700 years.

Keynote speakers include Professor David Carpenter (King’s College, London) & Dr Paul Seaward (History of Parliament)

The conference will showcase the research undertaken by a team of experts on the transformation of St Stephen’s chapel from medieval chapel to the first House of Commons debating chamber, as well as including academics whose research on the chapel directly complements the project’s findings.

There will be a reception at the Society of Antiquaries with a display of art and artefacts relating to the Chapel. A digital model of St Stephen’s and the Commons chamber, incorporating research from the project, will be on show for the first time.
For any queries, contact the project’s administrative assistant, Jonathan Hanley via email.

WHEN: Monday, 19 September 2016 at 09:00 – Tuesday, 20 September 2016 at 17:30 (BST)
WHERE: Palace of Westminster – London SW1A 0AA, United Kingdom

Info and booking details here.

Study Day: Exploring the Heritage of St Michael and All Angels Church, Great Tew, 18 June 2016

Saturday 18th June 2016 at 2.00pm

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described the village of Great Tew as ‘unforgettable’ and the same can be said of the parish church dedicated to St Michael and All Angels. Much of its medieval fabric remains including the shadows of a Passion cycle of wall paintings in the south aisle and the magnificent funerary brass to the county sheriff, John Wilcotes (d. 1422) and his first wife Alice in the chancel of the church. More recent features of interest include the 19th century sculptured effigy for Mary Anne Boulton (1834) in the north of the chancel.

This fund raising event for the fabric of the church will take place in the church and is intended to celebrate Great Tew’s heritage with a series of four talks from experts in their field.

2.00pm Welcome and introduction
by Ginny Thomas (Vicar of Great Tew)

2.15pm An Introduction to Great Tew Church
by Nicola Coldstream (Past President, British Archaeological Association)

2.45pm Narrating the Passion: the Great Tew Cycle
by Miriam Gill (Lecturer, University of Leicester)

3.15pm The Medieval Brass of John Wilcotes Re-examined
by Nigel Saul (Emeritus Professor, Royal Holloway University of London)

3.45pm Afternoon tea and an opportunity to view the church

4.30pm Sir Francis Chantrey and the Monument to Mary Anne Boulton
by Greg Sullivan (Curator, Tate Britain)

5.00pm A Short Recital of Medieval Vocal Music
by Benjamin Thompson (Fellow and Tutor, Somerville College)

5.45pm Concluding remarks
by Caroline M. Barron (Hon. Fellow, Somerville College)

The church will be open beforehand for ‘early birds’.

To book please complete the form below and return to Patrick Thomas, The Vicarage, New Road, Great Tew, Chipping Norton, OX7 4AG with your payment of £20.00 per person (£25.00 on the day). Please make cheques payable to ‘The Great Tew PCC’ and enclose a S.A.E. for confirmation of booking or include your email address below.

Name: ________________________________________________________________

Address: ________________________________________________________________

Telephone number and email: _______________________________________________

I wish to book ______ place(s) at the Great Tew Day and I enclose my cheque for £_______

IHR Medieval and Tudor London Seminars, Summer Term 2016

Medieval and Tudor London
Sponsored in memory of Dr Elspeth Veale
Convenors: Professor Caroline M.Barron (RHUL), Professor Vanessa Harding (Birkbeck), Dr Julia Merritt (University of Nottingham).

For enquiries relating to this seminar, or you would like to be added to the mailing list, please contact Vanessa Harding: V.Harding@bbk.ac.uk

The Medieval and Tudor London Seminar runs in the summer term only (April-June). We welcome enquiries and offers of papers at any time

Time: Thursday, 5.15pm (except 23 April: 17:30)

Venue: Wolfson Room NB01, Basement, IHR, North block, Senate House unless otherwise stated

28 April: Working together apart. Maynard Buckwith, William Whittell and the network of London-based wardrobe suppliers to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester
(Tracey Wedge)
5 May: Medieval London almshouses (Sarah Lennard-Brown, Birkbeck) Meeting the Monks: visitors to the London Charterhouse 1405 (David Harrap, QMUL)
12 May: Henry Yevele and the Building of London Bridge Chapel (Christopher Wilson, UCL)
19 May: Gogmagog and Corineus: from the West Country to the New Troy, Trojans and Giants on the sea-coast of Totnes (John Clark, Museum of London)
Gogmagog come(s) to London (Alixe Bovey, Courtauld Institute of Art)
26 May: The pre-Fire church of St Botolph Billingsgate (Stephen Freeth, venue for this lecture is Bedford Room G37, South Block, Senate House)
2 June: Westminster’s wanton wives: whore and their communal ties in early modern England (Olivia Benowitz, Berkeley)
The lesser-known resident aliens of fifteenth century London and its hinterland (Jessica Lutkin, York)
9 June: Building Henry VII’s Savoy Hospital, 1505-1520 (Charlotte A Stanford, Brigham Young University)
16 June: Murder in St. Paul’s Churchyard, Crime, Sanctuary, and Politics in 1539 (Shannon McSheffrey, Concordia University)
23 June: Gadding and Girding in the early modern Blackfriars (Christopher Highley, Ohio State University)
30 June: Medieval London viewed from the waterfront (Maryanne Kowaleski, Fordham University)

http://www.history.ac.uk/events/seminars/133

Medieval Materials Matter Research Day at University of Warwick (18 July 2016)

This one-day interdisciplinary research day aims to cultivate research links between medievalist postgraduate communities, and the conference will be a free public event. The theme of the event – Medieval Material Matters – has been chosen as a means of focusing discussion. A plenary lecture by an international established academic working on questions of materiality, will be delivered in the morning. In order to maximise opportunities for exploratory conversation following the plenary, there will be 2 sessions for short presentations (10-15 minutes) based on pre-circulated papers in the morning and afternoon, followed by a session discussing a piece of secondary reading in seminar format. The final part of the day will be used to think about future collaboration.

Keynote Speaker: Professor Catherine Brown, University of Michigan.
Abstract submission
The conference will seek to address the following questions:

How might ‘materiality’ be understood – and critiqued – in medieval contexts? How does textual materiality fit into this understanding? What is the role of objects (material or otherwise) within this context?

What perspectives can research in Medieval Studies offer on discussions/theorisations of materiality in other periods?
How might the digital environment in which medieval research increasingly takes place affect our thinking about the materiality of cultural artefacts, objects, and spaces?

Abstracts of 200 words are welcomed from postgraduate medievalist students working within any department. Please submit these to medievalmaterialmatters@gmail.com by 1st May 2016. It is anticipated that the final papers of between 3000 – 3500 words will subsequently be submitted to the organisers by the deadline of 18th June 2016, for pre-circulation to registered delegates. Speakers will then be expected to present a summary of their paper, lasting 10-15 minutes, on the day, before discussion of their paper begins.
To send us an abstract, please send your word or PDF file to medievalmaterialmatters@gmail.com.

The deadline is 1st May 2016.

Please visit the website here.

CFP: Warburg Institute Postgraduate Symposium (17 November 2016)

Cultural Encounters:

Tensions and Polarities of Transmission from the Late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment

17 November 2016

The Warburg Institute will host its first Postgraduate Symposium on 17 November 2016. It will explore the concept of cultural encounters and focus particularly on their productive outcomes. We are interested, above all, in the dynamics of cultural change across time and space. The Symposium will be multidisciplinary, and will cover topics that fall into the unique classification system of the Warburg Library: Image, Word, Orientation and Action.

The aim of the Symposium will be to map the diverse and intricate forces which have driven cultural encounters in the past and which also help define contemporary societies. Amongst the questions that we hope to address are: the degree to which productive outcomes can be seen as a conscious reception and reformulation of external ideas and models; resistances to exchange and in what form; the long-term implications of such encounters and their outcomes.

The Symposium is intended for postgraduate students and early career researchers. It will bring together speakers from different backgrounds in the humanities and draw on a variety of disciplinary tools and methodologies. Submissions are invited across a wide range of topics represented by the global cultural interests of the Warburg Institute, including but not limited to:

* Artistic creations: forms, models, styles;

* Literary productions and transmission of texts: translations, adaptations, copies;

* Philosophy, rhetoric and transmission of ideas;

* Personal encounters: Academies, universities and epistolary exchanges;

* Encounters with the ancient past: reception, interpretation, visualisation;

* Religious encounters, propaganda and politics;

* Geographical discoveries: new continents, new cultures and animal species, etc.

* Scientific innovation: findings, theories, inner contradictions, etc.

Proposals for papers should be sent to warburg.postgrad(at)gmail.com by 31 May 2016:

* Maximum 300-word abstract, in English, for a 20-minute paper, in PDF or Word format.

* One-page CV, including full name, affiliation, contact information.

All candidates will be notified by 31 July 2016. Limited funding to help cover travel expenses is available. Attendance is free of charge.

For more information and news about The Warburg Institute Postgraduate Symposium 2016 visit https://warburgpostgrad.wordpress.com/

Organisers: Desirée Cappa, Maria Teresa Chicote Pompanin, James Christie, Lorenza Gay, Hanna Gentili, Federica Gigante, Finn Schulze-Feldmann.

Conference: Nearness|Rift: Art and Time in the Textiles of Medieval Britain, University of Chicago, 16 April 2016

Nearness | Rift: Art and Time in the Textiles of Medieval Britain will gather a multidisciplinary group of scholars to address a range of historiographical and methodological problems implicit in the study of textiles, and to discuss new case studies from medieval Britain.

The colloquium will take place during the morning and afternoon of April 16, 2016 in Cochrane-Woods 157 on the University of Chicago campus. (Please enter the building through the north doors rather than through the Smart Museum courtyard.)

9:30 – 10:00 AM: Coffee.

10:00 – 10:15 AM: Introduction by Luke A. Fidler (Doctoral Student, Department of Art History, University of Chicago).

10:15 – 11:15 AM: Keynote lecture by Thomas E. A. Dale (Professor of Art History, University of Wisconsin-Madison): “Materiality, Metaphor and the Senses: Elite Textile Cultures of Medieval England in their Global Contexts.”

11:30 AM – 12:15 PM: Valerie Garver (Associate Professor of History, Northern Illinois University): “Garments as Means of Communication Between Anglo-Saxon England and the Carolingian World.”

Respondent: Tristan Sharp (Doctoral Student, Department of History, University of Chicago).

12:15 – 1:30 PM: Lunch.

1:30 – 2:15 PM: Christina Normore (Assistant Professor of Art History, Northwestern University): “The Outlier as Exemplar: The ‘Bayeux Tapestry’ in English Textile History.”

Respondent: Carly B. Boxer (Doctoral Student, Department of Art History, University of Chicago).

2:30 – 3:15 PM: Claire Jenson (Doctoral Candidate, Department of Art History, University of Chicago): “Exeter’s Vesture: John Grandisson on Vestments in the Liturgy.”

Respondent: Karin Krause (Assistant Professor of Byzantine Theology and Visual Culture, University of Chicago).

3:15 – 3:30 PM: Coffee.

3:45 – 4:15 PM: Nancy Feldman (Lecturer in Art History, Theory, and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago): “Cultural Politics and the Term Opus Anglicanum in Late Medieval England.”

Respondent: Julie Orlemanski (Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, University of Chicago).

4:15 – 5:00 PM: Closing remarks by Aden Kumler (Associate Professor of Art History, University of Chicago) and final discussion.

Call for Session Proposals for Kalamazoo: Italian Art Society

Kalamazoo, May 11 – 14, 2017
Deadline: Apr 15, 2016

The 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies takes place May
11-14, 2017.

Each year, the Italian Art Society (http://www.italianartsociety.org) sponsors three linked sessions at the annual meeting of the International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS). The Congress is an annual gathering of more than 3,000 scholars interested in medieval studies, broadly defined. The IAS seeks session proposals that cover Italian art from the fourth through the fifteenth centuries. The annual deadline is April 15. See our submission guidelines
(http://italianartsociety.org/conferences-lectures/ias-conference-submission-guidelines/) for eligibility requirements to propose a session for IAS at Kalamazoo.
Please send abstracts of 250 words together with a 1 page cv to programs@italianartsociety.org.

Lecture Series: Murray Seminars at Birkbeck, Summer 2016

All seminars are held at 5pm in the Keynes Library at Birkbeck’s School of Arts (Room 114, 43, Gordon Sq., London, WC1H OPD). A break at 5.50pm is followed by discussion and refreshments.

22 April
Bernd Nicolai: Modes of Artistic Expression and Representation. The facade of Bern Minster and fifteenth-century church building programmes in imperial cities

Bernd Nicolai examines the late-gothic west facade of Bern Minster and its extraordinary sculpted portal featuring scenes of the Last Judgement, considering the power of change in this and other church-building programmes in imperial cities during the fifteenth century.

1 June
Clare Vernon: Pseudo-Arabic in Medieval Southern Italy
Pseudo-Arabic script appears in both Islamic and Christian Mediterranean art in the central Middle Ages. Clare Vernon examines the use of pseudo-Arabic motifs in the region of Puglia in southeast Italy over the course of the eleventh century. Focussing attention on the mysterious pavement in the basilica of San Nicola in Bari she explores how the script-like motif relates to Bari’s role as capital of the Byzantine provinces in Italy.

29 June
Laura Slater: Talking Back to Power? Art and Political Opinion in Early Fourteenth-Century England.

‘Spin’ and reputation management were an established part of medieval politics. Laura Slater explores the role of art and architecture in challenging political ideas and opinions in early fourteenth-century England, focussing on the activities of Queen Isabella of France during the 1320s. Successful in invading England, deposing her husband Edward II and establishing herself as de facto regent in place of her teenaged son, Edward III, Isabella managed to use art and architecture to present herself as a loving, loyal and virtuous wife. Yet the queen’s subjects may still have ‘talked back to her’ responding to these PR efforts in a similarly public and permanent setting.

Conference: Window on a Parish: The Stained Glass of St Laurence, Ludlow, 25 June 2016

Speakers:
Dr Jasmine Allen, The Stained Glass Museum, Ely
Professor Tim Ayers, University of York
Sarah Brown, The York Glaziers Trust
Bridget Cherry, Independent Scholar
Dr Christian Liddy, University of Durham
Emma Woolfrey, University of York

Tickets including refreshments and lunch:
standard £50
members of supporting organisations £45
local residents £45
Ludlow Palmers £40

Book at http://ludlowglass.eventbrite.co.uk or send a cheque made out to CTSLL to Ludlow Palmers, 2 College St, Ludlow SY8 1AN

Enquiries to info@ludlowpalmers.uk

CFP: After Chichele: Intellectual and Cultural Dynamics of the English Church, 1443-1517

St. Anne’s College, Oxford, 28-30 June 2017

An international conference organised by the Faculty of English, University of Oxford, this event builds on the success of the 2009 Oxford conference, After Arundel: Religious Writing in Fifteenth-Century England, which resulted in a book of essays (ed. by Vincent Gillespie and Kantik Ghosh) that vigorously interrogated the nature of religious and intellectual culture in England in the long fifteenth century. After Chichele adopts a similar investigative and interdisciplinary approach. The period has been chosen precisely because the inner workings of English intellectual and religious life during these years have proved challengingly resistant to the formation of grand critical narratives. What are the chief currents driving the intellectual and cultural life of the church in England during this period? What happened to intellectual questioning during the period, and where did the Church’s cultural life express itself most vividly? What significant parochial, regional, national and international influences were brought to bear on English literate practices? In order to address these questions, the conference will adopt an interdisciplinary focus, inviting contributions from historians, literary scholars, and scholars working on the theology, ecclesiastical history, music and art of the period, and it is expected that a wide range of literary and cultural artefacts will be considered, from single-authored works to manuscript compilations, from translations to original works, and from liturgy to art and architecture, with no constraints as to the conference’s likely outcomes and conclusions. It is intended that the conference should generate a volume of essays similar to After Arundel in scope, ambition and quality.

Plenary speakers: David Carlson, Mary Erler, Sheila Lindenbaum, Julian Luxford, David Rundle, Cathy Shrank.

Possible topics for discussion:
Religious writing and the English Church; the emergence of humanism and the fate of scholasticism; literature and the law; cultural and ecclesiastical patronage; developments in art and architecture; the liturgical life of the Church; the impact of the international book trade and of print; palaeography and codicology; the Church’s role in education, colleges and chantries; the impact of travel and pilgrimage.

Please send 500 word abstracts (for proposed 20-minute papers) by Friday, 12th August 2016 to Vincent Gillespie, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford OX2 6QA (vincent.gillespie@ell.ox.ac.uk).