New Publication: ‘Zoomorphic Incense Burners of Medieval Khurasan: A study of Islamic metalwork’ by Elizabeth C. Kelly

Zoomorphic incense burners were produced in medieval Khurasan between c.441-597/1050-1200. This book examines their role, function and meaning. It includes a database with defined classification criteria that enables them to be contextualised with other contemporaneous metalwork.


Multicultural medieval Khurasan prospered from mercantile activities facilitated by the trade routes. The increased wealth, including middle-class patronage, movement of artisans and goods, along with the resultant transcultural exchanges, all contributed towards a changing aesthetic in artwork that reflect interests and lifestyles. The zoomorphic incense burners that emerged during this time displayed a hybridised iconography of feline and equine characteristics. The analysis indicates they are associated with symbols of power, sovereignty, the military and hunting. Their decorative palmette motifs provide representations of esfand, a plant considered to have talismanic and apotropaic properties known for inducing bravery amongst warriors.

AUTHOR
Elizabeth C. Kelly has a PhD in History of Art and Archaeology and a Master’s in History of Art and Architecture of the Islamic Middle East from SOAS University of London.

REVIEW
‘A richly illustrated and meticulously documented exploration of an intriguing aspect of Islamic art that touches on ancient universal traditions, as well as characteristic Iranian lore and Islamic aesthetics. The book is informative and entertaining.’ Professor (Emerita) Doris Behrens-Abouseif, SOAS University of London

‘This book takes scholarship on medieval Islamic metalwork to a new level: original, thorough, packed with insights, analysis, comparative material, tables and superb visual documentation.’ Professor Robert Hillenbrand, Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews

Find out more here.

CFP: ‘The Living Dead and the Transmission of Otherworldly Knowledge in Medieval Texts and Images’, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds 2025 (deadline 16 September 2024)

Throughout the Middle Ages, narratives circulated in which the dead returned to convey special knowledge to the living, appearing in the form of ghosts, visions, and walking corpses. As intermediaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead, these figures revealed hidden truths, issued dire warnings, and imparted wisdom about the future and the afterlife. This session focuses on representations of the living dead in art and literature throughout the medieval period, with a particular focus on the role of the dead as keepers and transmitters of hidden knowledge.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers on topics relating to the living dead in medieval art and literature, which may include: 

  • Accounts of ghostly apparitions in waking life, dreams, and visions 
  • Descriptions of the afterlife given by the dead as well as visionary encounters with the dead in heaven, hell, and purgatory 
  • Encounters with walking corpses or other corporeal undead 
  • Visual representations of interactions between the living and the undead 
  • Necromancy and magical contact with the spirits of the dead 
  • Warnings and prophecies pronounced by the dead 
  • The living dead as conveyors of moral lessons in exempla and didactic literature 
  • Confessions and revelations of hidden sins in encounters with the living dead 
  • Discussions of commemorative practices between the living and dead 
  • The nature of interactions with ghosts and other revenants, including noise and non-verbal communication

Submit abstracts of up to 250 words to Sam Truman (sat89@case.edu) and James Galvin (james.galvin@keysfamily.co.uk) by Monday, 16 September 2024. Please reach out if you have any questions.

CFP: BAA sponsored sessions at the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds 2025 (deadline 20 September 2024)

The BAA is now welcoming paper proposals for the BAA-sponsored sessions at the International Medieval Congress, which will take place at the University of Leeds (7th-10th July 2025).

The IMC’s research theme for 2025 is ‘Worlds of Learning’ and the IMC’s suggested themes include, but are not limited to:

  • Ideals, practices, and rituals of teaching and learning
  • Gendered ideals of learning and gender in learning
  • Pedagogical techniques for different age groups
  • Technical and artisanal knowledge
  • Oral transmission, practice, and performance in learning processes
  • Medieval epistemologies and systematisations of knowledge
  • Religious conceptualisations and interpretations of learning
  • Forms of learning and/about the self
  • Languages and their role in the acquisition of learning
  • Representations of learning in literature and art
  • Learning materials, including instructional objects, texts, images, and diagrams
  • Schools and universities and their local and regional networks
  • Financial and political networks supporting communities of learning
  • Lieux de savoir and locales of learning, including (permanent or situational) material and spatial arrangements
  • Printing and publishing learned materials
  • Distribution and circulation of knowledge traditions (Digitally) Mapping intellectual networks
  • Cross-cultural and interreligious learning
  • Cultural transfer and cultural appropriation
  • Different national and confessional/religious historiographies of learning, their continuing impact, and their problems

A full list of suggested topics and more details can be found here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2025/ 

It is hoped that we can organise several sessions, with similar papers grouped together (either methodologically or by subject). Before submitting a proposal, please ensure you have familiarised yourself with the conference fees and the available bursaries for the IMC, details of which are available here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2025/proposals/bursary 

Proposals should consist of a paper title, your affiliation (if any), your contact details, and a short abstract (50-100 words). Please send paper proposals to Harriet Mahood (hpmahood@gmail.com) by Friday 20th September 2024.

Call for Submissions: Belvedere Research Journal, deadline 30 September 2024

The Belvedere Research Journal (BRJ), a peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal, invites new submissions. We are interested in articles that shed light on the visual culture of the former Habsburg Empire and Central Europe broadly defined from the medieval period to the present. Contributions that position Austrian art practices within a wider international framework are particularly welcome. We value innovative art historical approaches, such as challenging established narratives or exploring transnational exchanges that highlight the interconnected and cross-cultural nature of the art world. The BRJ is also keen to feature work on artists and figures who have been historically underrepresented, with a special emphasis on women. We encourage interdisciplinary research that blends art history with methodologies from other fields, such as digital humanities, social sciences, and cultural economics.

Each issue of the BRJ offers two publication formats: Research Articles (20,000 to 50,000 characters, including endnotes and spaces), which undergo a double-anonymous peer review, and Discoveries (max. 15,000 characters, including endnotes and spaces), which are subject to editorial review. Discoveries allow scholars to share findings and insights on specific works of art, archival materials, or historical documents. We welcome contributions from established scholars as well as early career researchers, including PhD candidates.

The BRJ accepts manuscripts on a rolling basis, with publication in English. The BRJ arranges translation for accepted Research Article manuscripts from common Central European languages and ensures all articles undergo professional copy-editing. Articles are published in an open annual issue immediately after final acceptance, covering the period from January 1 to December 31. The BRJ handles the acquisition of image rights, and no article processing charges (APC) are required.

Accepted submissions will be published under the Creative Commons License CC BY 4.0, with copyright retained by the author(s).

Submission deadline is September 30, 2024.

See the Author Guidelines here: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/brj/about/submissions

The editors welcome informal inquiries about potential proposals. Please send articles and inquiries to: journal@belvedere.at. For more details, visit our journal’s website: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/brj/index.

Editor-in-Chief: Christian Huemer (Belvedere, Vienna)

CFP: Houses of Enlightenment: Scriptoria, Schools, and Madrasas from the Caucasus to India (9th–14th century) (IMC Leeds 2025), deadline 15 September 2024

IMC 2025 – “Worlds of Learning”, July 7–10, 2025

The role played by cultural centers and pedagogical institutions during the premodern period across Eurasia is well recognized since decades. From Armenian and Georgian monasteries on the coast of the Black Sea to Islamic madrasas in Delhi, complex networks of teaching, learning, and creativity were beacons of the diffusion of religious ideas, visual patterns, writing, technologies, and scientific knowledge. Surprisingly, they remain little known in part because they suffered from the compartmentalization between modern disciplines: scholars of manuscripts were interested in the role of monastic scriptoria and madrasas as workshops and places of production, scholars of architecture in the spatial and formal organization of these structures, while historians writ large analyzed cultural exchanges, the circulation of ideas, as well as the history of education and teaching. Furthermore, these spaces of learning have usually been studied exclusively in their respective religious contexts, i.e. Christian or Islamic.

Starting from material culture, these panels seek contributions stemming from a diversity of fields including art history, cultural history, archaeology, manuscript studies, and history of science. The goal is to decompartmentalize and understand the networks of these premodern spaces of learning in the broadest sense to highlight similitudes, exchanges and interactions, as well as their essential role in the production of art and knowledge from ca. the 9th to the 14th century.

We welcome proposals from academics at all career stages, including independent scholars, and particularly welcome proposals from scholars from the region and those from marginalized backgrounds. We will be seeking funding support to assist scholars who need it in attending the IMC.

Please email your proposal to Cassandre Lejosne (cassandre.lejosne@unil.ch) and Adrien Palladino (adrien.palladino@phil.muni.cz) by no later than 15 September 2024, with an abstract of no more than 250 words and a CV.

Seminar Series: The Courtauld Medieval Work-in-Progress Seminars, Autumn Semester 2024

Seminars are free and open to all. They are held in the Research Forum of The Courtauld Institute of Art’s Vernon Square campus,  starting at 5.30pm on Wednesdays.

Autumn Seminar Programme:

  • 9th October 2024: Helen Gittos (Oxford), ‘Christianity before Conversion’ 
  • 23rd October 2024: Professor Antony Eastmond (Courtauld), ‘Byzantine Enamels: status, diplomacy and markets in the twelfth century‘
  • 20th November: Evelin Wetter (Abegg-Stiftung):  ‘“Material Illusionism”: On the oeuvre of Hans Plock,  court embroider to Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg’ 

Spring talks will be advertised in the Autumn. Booking opens at the end of September: https://courtauld.ac.uk/research/whats on-research-forum-events/ 

AVISTA Graduate Student Research Grant, Deadline 15 October 2024 (5pm ET)

The application for the AVISTA Graduate Student Research Grant for the study of art and architecture across borders in the medieval world is now open!

This grant of $500 is intended to support an early-stage graduate student’s research on the theme of art that crosses the borders or peripheries of the medieval world. Funds should support research and/or dissemination of scholarship, which may include expenses for conference travel, site visits, or archive visits. The award includes a one-year gift membership to AVISTA.

We are grateful to Robert E. Jamison, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Clemson University, for underwriting this grant.

The deadline for submitting your application is October 15, 2024, 5:00pm ET.

For the full application instructions and guidelines please see the link below:
https://www.avista.org/opportunities-prizes-and-grants

CFP: Purgatory To Paradise – Visualizing the Iter Salvationis in Medieval Art (ICMS Kalamazoo 2025), deadline 14 September 2024

This special session wishes to analyze the representations of souls in Purgatory and their journey toward Paradise. The exempla employed in medieval texts and sermons featured vividly impactful imagery designed to engage the audience and leave a lasting impression. In medieval visual art, how are themes of sin, punishment, and, importantly, the possibility of salvation portrayed? Additionally, what is the significance of depicting souls in purgatory as naked? How this symbolism can be interpreted in conveying theological truths about redemption and renewal?

The session will encourage an interdisciplinary approach. Liturgy, sermons, drama, and visual arts were deeply interconnected with the expression of iter salvationis. For this reason, these elements will be examined in relation to pilgrimages and indulgences to understand the dramatization of the after-life. The scientific importance of the session lies in understanding how these devotional images served not only as reminders of mortality, akin to memento mori, but also as catalysts for the pursuit of indulgences. Moreover, the analysis of case studies will not only aim to highlight specific aspects and general phenomena in Late Medieval Europe, but also to define identities and devotees’ experiences in their life and after-life journey of purification.
Scholars are invited to submit a 300-word abstract, excluding references. Proposals should also include name, affiliation, email address, the title of the presentation, 6 keywords, a selective bibliography, and a short CV. Please send the documents to maryandthecity.imc2022@gmail.com by September 14, 2024.

Call for submissions: Metropolitan Museum Journal, deadline 15 September 2024

The Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works of art in the Museum’s collection.

The Journal publishes Articles and Research Notes. Works of art from The Met collection should be central to the discussion. Articles contribute extensive and thoroughly argued scholarship—art historical, technical, and scientific—whereas Research Notes are narrower in scope, focusing on a specific aspect of new research or presenting a significant finding from technical analysis, for example. The maximum length for articles is 8,000 words (including endnotes) and 10–12 images, and for research notes 4,000 words (including endnotes) and 4–6 images.

The process of peer review is double-anonymous. Manuscripts are reviewed by the Journal Editorial Board, composed of members of the curatorial, conservation, and scientific departments, as well as scholars from the broader academic community.

Articles and Research Notes in the Journal appear in print and online, and are accessible in JStor on the University of Chicago Press website.

The deadline for submissions for Volume 60 (2025) is September 15, 2024.

Submission guidelines: www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/met/instruct

Please send materials to: journalsubmissions@metmuseum.org
Questions? Write to Elizabeth.Block@metmuseum.org

Conference: Objects of Law in the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds (Universität Bern, 29-30 August 204)

Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Universität Bern, Mittelstrasse 43, 3012 Bern, Room 120

The international conference “Objects of Law in the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds” proposes to reflect on the artistic practices that shaped the materiality, iconography, and texts of legal objects in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. What forms did these objects take? How did they confer authenticity and legal authority? What education and knowledge are evident in the objects? The conference seeks an interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars from art history, legal history, history, archaeology, and related disciplines who engage with legal objects.

Organized by Corinne Mühlemann (University of Bern) and Fatima Quraishi (University of California, Riverside).

  • For registration, please contact: janina.ammon@unibe.ch
    The conference will be held in person.

Conference Programme

Thursday 29 August 2024

9:00-9:30: ARRIVAL | COFFEE

9:30-10.15: Introduction by Fatima Quraishi and Corinne Mühlemann

PANEL 1 | FORMATIONS OF AUTHORITY

10:30-12:00
Moderated by Omar Anchassi, University of Bern, SNSF Project “Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies”

  • Zahir Bhalloo (University of Hamburg), Social and Spatial Dynamics of Bukharan Fatwas as Written Artefacts
  • Stella Wisgrill (University of Cambridge), Testing Virtue, Forging Nobility: Emperor Frederick III’s 1462 Augmentation of Arms for the Margravate of Moravia and the Performance of Legal Authority

12:00-13:30: Lunch

PANEL 2 | CIRCULATION AND FORMATION OF LEGAL KNOWLEDGE

13:30-15:00

Moderated by Irina Dudar, Institute of Art History, University of Bern

  • Phillipa Byrne (Trinity College, Dublin), The Materiality of Medieval Judicial Ordines
  • Niko Munz (Oxford University), Bildnisrecht: Legal Aspects of Early Portraiture

15:00-15:30: Coffee Break

PANEL 3 | MULTIPLE MATERIALITIES

15:30-17:30
Moderated by Corinne Mühlemann, Institute of Art History, University of Bern

  • Subah Dayal (New York University), To Attest, Fold, and Copy in the Islamic Port-City: Safavid Seals and Mughal Envelopes across the VOC Archive
  • Masha Goldin (University of Basel), Weapon of Justice? Medieval Swords as Objects and Images
  • Nino Zchomeldise (John Hopkins University), Aesthetics of Illusion and Authenticity in Ottonian Legal Documents

19:00: Dinner

Friday 30 August 2024

PANEL 4 | LEGAL PERFORMANCE

8:30-10:30
Moderated by Fatima Quraishi, University of California, Riverside

  • Shounak Ghosh (Vanderbilt University), Epistolary Texts as Legal Objects: Querying the Mughal Farmān in Diplomatic Contexts
  • Daniela Maldonado Castaneda (University of Toronto), Between Sacred and Script: Examining Legal Objects in Promises, Vows, and Oaths as Defined by Alfonso X in The Seven-Partidas
  • Jordan Skinner (Princeton University), The Medieval Curfew Bell: Sonority and the Voice of Law

10:30-11:00: Coffee Break


PANEL 5 | LONGUE-DURÉE STUDIES
11:00-12:30

Moderation TBA

  • Krisztina Ilko (Queens College / University of Cambridge), The Chess-Knight Seal
  • Heba Mostafa (University of Toronto), “God Protect us from One Finger under Twenty!” The Abbasid Nilometer Column as a Legal Object

12:30-14:00: Lunch

PANEL 6 | EVERYDAY LAW


14:00-15:30

Moderated by Moïra Dato, Institute of Art History, University of Bern

  • Gül Kale (Carleton University, Toronto), The Material and Social Implications of Measuring Tools in Ottoman Legal History
  • Lorenzo Paveggio (University of Padua), What Does a Bribe Look Like? Carolingian munera in Literary Texts

15:30-16:00: Coffee Break

PANEL 7 | OBJECTS IN COURT

16:00-17:30

Moderated by Carlos Rojas Cocoma, Institute of Art History, University of Bern

  • Nathalie Miraval (Yale University), The Sacred Suspended: Martha, Law, and Image in the Early Modern Spanish Atlantic
  • Linda Mueller (Bibliotheca Hertziana Rome/Harvard University), Drawings, Courtroom Practices, and Juridical Decision-Making at the Edges of the Spanish Empire

17:30-18:00: CLOSING REMARKS