Medieval Art Research

Conference: Experiencing Death in Byzantium (Newcastle, 29 May 2015)

This single day conference will consider the extent to which we can approach the individual experiences surrounding death in Byzantium and the relevance they have for our knowledge of Byzantine self-understanding. How can we approach experiences that played tangible social roles and yet were so irreducible to literal language and meaning that they remained couched in the language of allegory? To what extent were shared experiences and understandings of death and dying orchestrated for individuals? Can remaining physical and textual evidence reveal such intended experiences to us? This conference seeks to access the personal and contingent experiences surrounding death and dying in Middle Byzantine mortuary practices.

We will consider the affects of the objects, images, literatures and theologies connected to death, dying and the otherworld in Byzantium. In this way, both the material and immaterial aspects of death in Byzantium will be discussed from grave goods and eschatological literature, to the emotions and sensations of death along with images of death, dying and judgement. This conference takes seriously the evident dearth of systematic eschatological doctrine in Byzantium and Byzantine preference for allegorical understandings of death and the otherworld. It seeks to create a space to discuss and integrate the separate, and at times disparate and opaque, bodies of eschatological practice and knowledge across various spheres of Byzantine life. It is hoped that this will reveal to us more profound and fundamental insights into eschatological thought, sentiment and action in Byzantium and their contribution to Byzantine self-understandings.

For further information and to register, please visit: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/historical/research/conferences/ExperiencingDeathinByzantium.htm

Organised by Dr Sophie Moore, Dr Niamh Bhalla and Dr Mark Jackson.

Conference: Princes of the Church and their Palaces (Bishop Auckland, County Durham 30 June – 4 July 2015)

Tuesday 30th of June – Saturday 4th of July

Important developments in research, conservation, and public presentation are currently taking place at Auckland Castle, the Bishop of Durham’s former residence.

In association with them, this conference will consider bishops’ and popes’ palaces from across Britain and Europe, and will stimulate discussion on:

How bishops’ palaces and houses differed from the palaces and houses of secular magnates, in their layout, design, furnishings and functions;
the relationship between bishops’ palaces and houses and their political and cultural context;
their relationship to the landscapes and towns and cities in which they were set, and their relationship to the parks, forests and towns which were planned and designed around them;
the architectural form of bishops’ palaces and houses, and how far they shared common architectural features across England, Wales, Scotland, and indeed across Europe.

Anyone with an interest in Auckland Castle itself or in historical monuments in general is warmly invited to attend and take part in discussions. The conference will be the fullest treatment of bishop’s and popes’ palaces ever undertaken.

Keynote speakers:

Simon Thurley – English Heritage
What is special about bishops’ palaces? (Domestic performance of liturgy, private chapels, cloisters).
Maureen C. Miller – University of California Berkley
Political and cultural significance of the Bishop’s Palace in Medieval Italy
Malcolm Thurlby – York University, Toronto
Bishop Puiset’s Hall at Auckland Castle in relation to later Twelfth-Century episcopal halls in England.

Contributors:

Christopher Ferguson, Jacqueline Sturm, Michael Burger, Julia Barrow, Pippa Hoskin, John Hare, Michael Ashby, Margaret Harvey, Christine Penney, Robert McManners, Graham Jones, Jack Langton, Linda Drury, Andrew Miller, Mark Horton, Tim Tatton-Brown, John Schofield, Stuart Blaylock, Richard Parker, Martin Biddle, Jeremy West, Matthew Reeve, Gottfried Kerscher, Rick Turner, Penny Dransart, Pam Graves, Jane Cunningham, Adrian Green, Richard Pears, John Martin Robinson, Ria Snowdon.

The conference will take place at Bishop Auckland Town Hall and Auckland Castle.

For more information call 01388 743750 or email enquiries@aucklandcastle.org

Full details, including the full programme, booking forms & travel/accomodation information can be found at http://aucklandcastle.org/conferences.

CfP: The Cleric’s Craft: Crossroads of Medieval Spanish Literature and Modern Critique (University of Texas, El Paso, 21-24 Oct 2015)

The thirteenth century was a dynamic time in the Iberian Peninsula, as political and cultural changes were occurring throughout the realms that occupied what is now Spain and Portugal. Much of the literature of this period was learned in nature and composed by clerics, and although the works were read and studied individually from the time of composition, they did not see collective examination until the nineteenth century. It was in 1865 that the Spanish scholar Manuel Milà i Fontanals used the term “mester de clerecía” (the cleric’s craft) for the first time to refer to this learned literary production.

The study of the mester de clerecía is now 150 years old, and an international conference entitled “The Cleric’s Craft: Crossroads of Medieval Spanish Literature and Modern Critique” will be convened in 2015 to mark this important milestone, to reassess this literature and its study, as well as to chart new directions for the field.

The conference will be held over the course of three days in late October of 2015 on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. Twenty-two international experts in the field have been invited to participate in a series of six focus sessions that will revolve around themes of broad interest to the study of thirteenth- (and fourteenth-) century clerical verse. A broader call for papers will be distributed widely a year in advance of the conference to solicit proposals for papers on specific texts, groups of texts, or themes, which will be organized into panels for the conference’s numerous concurrent sessions. A number of special events, including performances, receptions, and banquets have been organized in conjunctions with the academic sessions.

In the beautiful fall weather of the U.S Southwest, scholars from a variety of disciplines and from across the globe will gather at the bilingual campus (Spanish and English) of The University of Texas at El Paso to mark this important milestone, to reassess this literature and its study, as well as to chart new directions for the field.
The organizers seek proposals for 20-minute papers on all aspects of this literature and the context in which it was produced. Papers from related fields (history, musicology, art history, comparative literature, historical linguistics, etc.) are especially welcome.

The focus sessions listed under the “Speakers” section of this website were pre-organized, but the general call for papers for the conference is open and will remain open until June 1, 2015. Please submit an abstract as soon as possible via the form below. If you should experience problems in the submission process, or if you fail to receive a confirmation email about your abstract submission, please contact the organizers at clerecia150@utep.edu, and visit the website at clerecia150.at.utep.edu.

Continuous Page. Scrolls and scrolling from Papyrus to Hypertext (Courtauld Institute, deadline for applications, 17 April 2015)

Great roll of the pipe, National Archives

Continuous Page.

Scrolls and scrolling from Papyrus to Hypertext

UPDATE: Programme

Open to all, free admission, but advance booking required by 21 June:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/continuous-page-scrolls-and-scrolling-from-papyrus-to-hypertext-tickets-17187047923

PROGRAMME

09.30 – 10.00

Registration

10.00 – 10.10

Jack Hartnell (The Courtauld): Welcome

10.10 – 11.10

SESSION 1 – REACTION

Rachel Warriner (University College, Cork): ‘This fragile thing – with bite’: Nancy Spero’s feminist scrolls

Luca Bochichio (University of Genoa): Scrolling the Ephemeral. The revenge of endless paintings in the post-World War II European avant-gardes

11.10 – 11.40
TEA/COFFEE BREAK (provided)

11.40 – 12.40

SESSION 2 – TIME

Yasmine Amaratunga (The Courtauld): The Post-Internet Scroll

Kristopher Kersey (Smithsonian/University of Richmond): The Paginated Scroll Discontinuity, Chronology, and Memory in the Eyeless Sūtras

12.40 – 13.40
LUNCH (provided)

13.40 – 14.40

SESSION 3 – PERFORMANCE

Pika Ghosh (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill): Pleasures of Scrolling. Hand-scrolls, Temple Walls, Graphic Novels and Oil Paintings

Eva Michel (Albertina, Vienna): Scrolling the Emperor’s Life and Triumph

14:40 – 14:50
COMFORT BREAK

14.50 – 15.50

SESSION 4 – JOURNEYS

Michael Hrebeniak (Magdalene College, Cambridge): ‘Literally one damned thing after another with no salvation or cease’: Jack Kerouac’s On the Road as Textual Performance

Stacy Boldrick (Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh): Speaking Scrolls, Death and Remembering

15.50 – 16.20
TEA/COFFEE BREAK (provided)

16.20 – 17.20

SESSION 5 – DIGITAL

Katherine Hindley (Yale University): Prayer Rolls, Birth Girdles, and Indulgences. Scrolls in Medieval Medicine and Religion

Helen Douglas (artist/ Camberwell College of Art) and Beth Williamson (independent scholar): From hand scroll to iPad app

17:20 – 17:50
Closing Discussion

17:50 onwards
RECEPTION

Original call for participants

Scrolls encompass in one sweep the oldest and the most contemporary ideas about images and image-making. On the one hand, some of the most enduring artefacts of the ancient world adopt the scroll form, evoking long-standing associations with the Classical tradition, Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures, theatrical oration, and the word of the law. Yet today, scrolling is also the single most common interaction between people and their digital media: fingers routinely swipe across trackpads and touch-screens through reams of infinite hypertext. In between these two extremes too, we find a plethora of different artists and craftsmen turning and returning to the medium, from medieval medical treatises and Japanese emakimono to 19th-century wallpaper or Jack Kerouac’s continuously-typewritten draft of On The Road.

Participants are sought to take part in a collaborative investigation into the intriguing format of the scroll and the act of scrolling across different cultures and periods, considering both the timeless material object and its infinite conceptual space. Participants are sought from any field or discipline, and are likely to be academics (at all stages of their careers), museum professionals, or practicing artists.

Meetings and Outputs

The project is formed of two parts. The first is a pair of two-day workshops based at The Courtauld Institute of Art, including keynote lectures, handling sessions in London museums, and fifteen-minute papers from participants on their research. Papers might consider – but are by no means limited to – the following ideas:

Workshop 1- ‘Scroll as Object’

(22-23 June, 2015)

Dead Sea Scrolls, Egyptian papyrus, Torah
Medieval genealogical rolls, legal rolls, medical rolls
Japanese Emakimono, Chinese handscrolls
Fabric rolls, wallpaper, other decorative rolls
Newspapers, type-written rolls, and other production line objects
Canvas rolls, 70s cut-to-order painting
Hypertext, online scrolling, Internet art

Workshop 2 – ‘Scroll as Idea’

(21-22 September, 2015)

Continuous page, continuous narrative, continuous text
History, law, authority
Papyrus, paper, pixel
Infinity, digital, touchscreen
Speech, theatre, oration
Mass creation, production lines, rolling type

The second element of the project will be the creation of an online exhibition to be launched in December 2015 entitled Continuous Page, presenting a series of digitised scrolls from a variety of places and periods. Drawing on the research and expertise of the workshop participants, the exhibition will be a critical online resource and lasting record of the project, showcasing the potential for combining new media practices and digital ‘scrolling’ with the continuous page of the material scroll. Over the course of the workshops we will also be developing plans for a publication to coincide with the project.

Interested participants should send a short statement of interest in the project (no longer than one page) outlining your current research and the ways it aligns with the project’s themes, workshops, and outcomes, as well as a full academic CV, to jack.hartnell@courtauld.ac.uk (Project convenor, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow) by Friday 17 April 2015.

Limited funds may be available to support participation from scholars based outside the UK.

London International Palaeography Summer School (15-19 June 2015, Senate House, London)

Folio 283 Verso of the 'Eadwine Psalter,' ca. 1160 - 1170 — Folio 283 Verso of the ‘Eadwine Psalter,’ ca. 1160 – 1170

Applications are open for the London International Palaeography Summer School (LIPSS), running 15 – 19 June 2015.

The London Palaeography Summer School is a series of intensive courses in palaeography and manuscript studies, held at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London. Courses range from one to two days and are given by experts in their respective fields, from a wide variety of institutions.

Full-day course fee: £90.

Half-day course fee: £55

Block bookings discounts and discounts for full-time MA/PhD students available.

Monday 15 June

Early Modern English Palaeography

Introduction to Greek Palaeography I

Introduction to the Insular System of Scripts to AD 900

Vernacular Editing: Chaucer and his Contemporaries

Tuesday 16 June

Approaches to the Art of Insular Manuscripts

European Palaeography to AD 900

How Medieval Manuscripts Were Made

Introduction to Greek Palaeography II

Reading and Editing Renaissance English Manuscripts I

Wednesday 17 June

Codicology and the Cataloguing of Manuscripts I

German Palaeography

Liturgical and Devotional Manuscripts I

Quills and Calligraphy

Reading and Editing Renaissance English Manuscripts II

Thursday 18 June

Codicology and Cataloguing of Medieval Manuscripts II

Intermediate Old English Palaeography

Introduction to Keyboard Music Manuscripts from 16^th – 18^th Centuries (half-day)

Introduction to Latin Palaeography

Latin Gospel Incipits, 7^th – 9^th Centuries

Liturgical and Devotional Manuscripts II

Friday 19 June
Intermediate Latin Palaeography

Middle English Palaeography

Transcribing and Editing Manuscripts: Palaeography After 1700 (half-day)

Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layouts in Context

Study Day: Monumental Brass Society at Battle, East Sussex, 28 March 2015

The church of St Mary the Virgin, Battle, was established by Abbot Ralph c. 1115 on the battlefield of 1066. The church includes a magnificent transitional nave, a rare wall painting of St Margaret of Antioch of c.1300 and the gilded and painted alabaster tomb of Sir Anthony Browne (1548) who acquired the abbey at the Dissolution. The earliest surviving brass is for Sir John Lowe (1426) with a distinctive memento mori inscription

Brasses for the deans of Battle; Robert Clere, engraved c.1430, and John Wythines, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Dean of Battle for 42 years, who died in 1615 are to be found north and south area of the sanctuary respectively.

This meeting, on Saturday 28th March 2015, is free for members and non-members of the Society.

Programme:

2.00p.m. Welcome
by Martin Stuchfield, President of the Monumental Brass Society

2.05p.m. St Mary’s Church Battle
by Clifford Braybrooke

2.30p.m. The Brasses of Battle Church
by Robert Hutchinson

3.00p.m. The Monument to Sir Anthony Browne and his wife, Alice Gage
by Nigel Llewellyn

3.30p.m. Tour of the church and viewing of the brasses and monuments led by Pat Roberts

4.15 Tea

The Church will be open prior to the meeting.

St Mary’s Church is located in Upper Lake in the centre of Battle with ample parking in the vicinity. The postcode for satellite navigation is TN33 0AN. The nearest station is Battle (served from London: London Bridge).

Myths of Medieval Spain. Symposium, Research Forum, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2-6.30, Weds 11 March 2015.

LAST MINUTE SPACES NOW AVAILABLE!

Myths of Medieval Spain. Symposium, Research Forum, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2-6.30, Weds 11 March 2015.

Four papers offer new ideas on a group of well-known sculptures and manuscripts from twelfth- and thirteenth-century Spain, exploring tensions between local and international concerns.

2: Introductory remarks, Tom Nickson (Courtauld Institute of Art)

2.10: Rose Walker (Courtauld Institute of Art)

Beatus manuscripts during the reign of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Leonor of England: a response to the fall of Jerusalem?

2.40: Rosa Rodríguez Porto (University of York)

Tvrpinus Domini gratia archiepiscopus: Notes on the Codex Calixtinus

3.10: James D’Emilio (University of South Florida)

The West Portals at Compostela and the Book of St. James: Artistic Eclecticism at a Cosmopolitan Shrine

3.40: discussion

4.15-5.15: tea

5.30-6.30:

Javier Martínez de Aguirre (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

The voices and the echoes: Saint James, Gregory the Great and Diego Gelmírez in Santiago de Compostela’s Puerta de Platerías

6.30: drinks reception

Conference: Reconsidering the Origins of Portraiture (Krakow, 16-18 April 2015)

Programme of the Conference co-organized by: The Institute of Art History of the Jagiellonian University and The Princes Czartoryski Foundation

16-18 April, 2015, Grodzka 53, Cracow

Entrance is free, all are welcome.

16 April, 2015

14.00-14.40 Welcome, Prof. Marek Walczak & Dr Mateusz Grzęda

Portraying the Sovereign in the 13th and 14th Centuries

14.40-15.05 Dr Pierre-Yves Le Pogam, Musée du Louvre, The features of St Louis

15.05-15.30 Katharina Weiger, PhD candidate, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, The portraits of Robert of Anjou: self-presentation as political instrument?

15.30-15.55 Dr Mateusz Grzęda, Jagiellonian University, Representing the Archbishop of Trier: Portraits of Kuno von Falkenstein

15.55-16.20 Discussion

16.20-16.45 Coffee break

Portraiture and Memoria in the Late Middle Ages

16.45-17.10 Prof. Javier Martínez de Aguirre, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Pride and memory: the development of individualised sculptural representations in Castile and Navarre around 1400

17.10-17.35 Jakov Đorđević, PhD candidate, Belgrade University, Made in the Skull’s Likeness: Of Transi Tombs, Identity and Memento Mori

17.35-18.00 Prof. Marek Walczak, Jagiellonian University & Krzysztof Czyżewski, Wawel Royal Castle, Picturing Continuity. The beginnings of the portrait gallery of Cracow bishops in the cloister of Franciscan Friars in Cracow

18.00-18.25 Discussion

17 April, 2015

Ambiguities of Late Medieval and Renaissance Portraiture

9.30-9.55 Dr Alexander Lee, St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, Petrarch, Simone Martini and the Ambiguities of Fourteenth-Century Portraiture

9.55-10.20 Dr Alice Cavinato, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, “By his own hand and of his own will”. Portraits of scribes and writers as visual signatures

10.20-10.45 Prof. Philipp Zitzlsperger, Hochschule Fresenius/Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Renaissance Self-portraits and the moral judgement of taste

10.45-11.10 Discussion

11.10-11.30 Coffee break

Portraiture at the Threshold of the Early Modern Period

11.30-11.55 Agnieszka Smołucha-Sładkowska, PhD candidate, Jagiellonian University, What is, and What is not all’antica in Portraits on Early-Renaissance Italian Portrait Medals

11.55-12.20 Albert J. Godycki, PhD candidate, The Courtauld Institute of Art, What did Jan van Scorel do for Netherlandish Portraiture? Some Considerations on his Impact

12.20-12.45 Dr Annick Born, Ghent University, Portraying the Sultan

12.45-13.10 Anna Wyszyńska, PhD candidate, Jagiellonian University, Power-dressing of the Chancellor’s Family. On Depictions of Dress in „Liber geneseos illustris familiae Schidlovicie”

13.10-13.35 Discussion

13.35-16.30 Lunch

Reconsidering the Origins of Crypto-Portraiture

16.30-16.55 Annamaria Ersek, PhD candidate, University Paris-Sorbonne, The Crypto-portrait and its Place in the Emergence of Portraiture

16.55-17.20 Ilaria Bernocchi, Postgraduate independent researcher /formerly The Warburg Institute, The Origins of Allegorical Portraits. A ‘Defeat of Likeness’?

17.20-17.45 Masza Sitek, PhD candidate, Jagiellonian University, Just what is it that makes identification-portrait hypotheses so appealing? On why Hans Süss von Kulmbach ‘must’ have portrayed Jan Boner

17.45-18.10 Discussion

18 April, 2015

Approaches to Early Portraiture

9.30-9.55 Dr Mary Hogan Camp, Courtauld Institute of Art, “Weaving a Tangled Web”: The use and interpretations of the banderole in Pontormo’s ‘Portrait of Cosimo il Vecchio’

9.55-10.20 Prof. Nathalie Delbard, University of Lille 3, The divergent look in the Flemish portrait as a sign of dysfunction of the traditional conception of representation in the Renaissance

10.20-10.45 Charlotta Krispinsson, PhD candidate, Stockholm University, The Concept of Iconography in Portrait Research prior to Panofsky

10.45-11.20 Discussion

11.20 End of Conference

Conference: British Archeological Association Romanesque conference: Saints, Shrines and Pilgrimage, Oxford, 4-6 April 2016

UPDATE: BOOKING NOW AVAILABLE.

The British Archaeological Association will hold its fourth biennial International Romanesque conference in Oxford on 4-6 April, 2016. The theme is Romanesque: Saints, Shrines and Pilgrimage, and the aim is to examine the material culture of sanctity over the period c.950-c.1200. The Conference will be held at Rewley House in Oxford from 4-6 April, 2016, with the opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque buildings on 7-8 April.

We wish to encourage contributions on a number of broad themes, which we have provisionally grouped under three headings.

The Geographies of Sanctity. This covers architecture and archaeology, but in addition to the development of spaces for reliquary display and studies of individual sites, we would be interested in papers concerned with the provision of accommodation for pilgrims, saints as protectors of cities, and the phenomenon of substitute holy places and vicarious pilgrimage.

Cults and Reliquaries. How were cults promoted through reliquaries, and how might reliquaries be designed to draw attention to the particular attributes, virtues or miracle-working character of individual saints? We would be interested in papers on sites where objects help to define a cult, and papers that discuss how the promotion of a cult through manuscripts, monumental painting or sculpture may have changed during the period.

New Saints and New Orders. We would welcome papers on the new saints of the 11th and 12th centuries, and papers that touch on the attitudes of the new monastic orders towards saints and pilgrimage, as well as the infrastructure that these provide (particularly the Templars and Hospitallers), the sanctification of their founders, and the revival of earlier cults.

Proposals for papers of up to 30 minutes in length should be sent to the conference convenors, John McNeill and Richard Plant, at jsmcneill@btinternet.com, by 15 May

Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at NYC Byzantine Studies conference

As part of its ongoing commitment to Byzantine studies, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 41st Annual Byzantine Studies Conference to be held in New York City, October 22–25, 2015. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website site (http://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/41st-annual-byzantine-studies-conference/). The deadline for submission is March 20, 2015. Proposals should include:

•Proposed session title
•CV of session organizer
•300-word session summary, which includes a summary of the overall topic, the format for the panel (such as a debate, papers followed by a discussion, or a traditional session of papers), and the reasons for covering the topic as a prearranged, whole session
•Session chair and academic affiliation
•Information about the four papers to be presented in the session. For each paper: name of presenter and academic affiliation, proposed paper title, and 500-word abstract. Please note: Presenters must be members of BSANA in good standing.

Session organizers may present a paper in the session. Session chairs cannot present a paper in the session.

Applicants will be notified by March 25, 2015 if their proposal has been selected. The session organizer is responsible for submitting the session to the BSC by April 1, 2015. Instructions for submitting the panel proposal are included in the BSC Call for Papers (http://www.bsana.net/conference/CFP_2015.pdf).

If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse session participants (presenters and chair, if the proposed chair is selected by the BSC program committee) up to $500 maximum for US residents and up to $1000 maximum for those coming from abroad. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement.

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