Medieval Art Research

CFP: Medieval Narratives (Saint Louis University, 20-21 February 2015)

Call for Papers:
Medieval Narratives
32nd Annual Illinois Medieval Association
Saint Louis University, 20-21 February 2015
Deadline: 21 November 2014

We are pleased to announce the 2015 annual conference of the Illinois Medieval Association, co-sponsored by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University. The conference will take place on Saint Louis University’s campus February 20-21, 2015.
This year’s theme is “Medieval Narratives.” The practice of telling stories is not universal or transparent, and is highly dependent on the medium of transmission and on changing understandings of temporality. What strategies did medieval historians, artists, and storytellers employ to tell narratives? Does storytelling in the Middle Ages always unfold in a linear fashion? How do medievalists today theorize medieval narratives both historically and in the light of new approaches to narrative that are derived from postmedieval technologies (print, film, digital culture)? What different purposes accomplished the (re)telling of narratives? We invite papers from medievalists in all disciplines that consider these and/or other questions related to the representation of narratives in texts and art, including chronicles, historical, legal, scientific, and theological documents, imaginative fiction, and manuscript illuminations.

We encourage proposals that engage with the theme in all aspects of medieval discourse: literature, art, history, and culture. Papers from all disciplines are welcome. Preference is given to submissions closely related to the conference theme, but abstracts on any aspect of medieval studies are welcome. We are also pleased to announce that the 2015 conference proceedings will be published.

The keynote speakers will be Cynthia Robinson of Cornell University and John Van Engen of the University of Notre Dame.

For further information and to apply, see http://ima2015.slu.edu/

CFP: Against Gravity: Building Practices in the Pre-Industrial World (Philadelphia, 20-22 March 2015)

Call for Papers:
Against Gravity: Building Practices in the Pre-Industrial World
Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, 20-22 March 2015
Deadline: 15 November 2014

Following on the success of “Masons at Work” (held in spring 2012, and published as http://www.sas.upenn.edu/ancient/publications.html), the symposium aims to assemble specialists to examine building practices in the pre-industrial world, with an emphasis on Greek, Roman, Byzantine, medieval, and pre-modern Islamic architecture. In addition to invited speakers, we babel 296 are soliciting 20-minute papers that examine the problems which pre-modern masons commonly encountered – and the solutions they developed – in the process of design and construction. Evidence may be drawn from a variety of sources, but we encourage studies based on the analysis of well-preserved buildings.

Those wishing to speak should submit by email a letter to the organizing committee, including name, title, institutional affiliation, paper title, plus a summary of 200 words or fewer. Graduate students should include a note of support from their adviser. Deadline: 15 November 2014. The final program will be announced immediately thereafter. Submit proposals to ancient@sas.upenn.edu with “Against Gravity” in the subject line.

Organizing Committee: Lothar Haselberger, Renata Holod, Robert Ousterhout

CFP: Speculation, Imagination, and Misinterpretation in Art (Tel Aviv, 22-23 March 2015)

Call for Papers:
Speculation, Imagination, and Misinterpretation in Art
Tel Aviv University, Israel, 22 – 23 March 2015
Deadline: 10 November 2014

IMAGO– The Israeli Association for Visual Culture of the Middle Ages,
and the Art History Department, Tel Aviv University

Art history, as we knew it, had changed in the year 1989 with the publication of two major contributions to the field: David Freedberg’s The Power of Images and Hans Belting’s Likeness and Presence. These books redirected our understanding as to the relations between humans
and crafted images, in the context of response, ritual, manifestation, and communication. Image production and consumption became a crossroads of cultural practices and forces, projected upon and through, tempting their users to ascribe to them thought, act, and impact.
Rethinking these seminal works, the IMAGO annual conference seeks to explore the role of imagination, speculation, and misinterpretation of images; it attempts to unravel the processes by which phantasy becomes a res, which, in turn, generates an artistic reality and presence. Do
images simulate a possible reality, one that could have existed, as advocated by Aristotle? A phantasmagoria? Or, do they generate the reproduction of a distorted actuality? Is the power of imagination synthetic, reflexive, passive, or is it imbued with corporeal intercreative forces? If God was genitum non-factum, were images factum, non genitum, and therefore open to continuously changing speculations? If images produce presence in the form of imaginative
actualitas, do they intentionally encourage misinterpretation?

Proposals for talks may refer (but are not limited) to the following topics:

1.    Imagination and representation as a dimension of history
2.    Misinterpretations as artistic invention / misunderstanding as
creative force
3.    Moving images (Imago movens)
4.    Living images (lebendes Bild)
5.    Collective and individual phantasy
6.    Canonization of misinterpretation / of phantasy
7.    Magical objects
8.    Miraculous images in legendae and hagiography
9.    Disappointing images
10.    Somaticism as artistic experience
11.    Spectacle and interactive spectatorship
12.    Images as self-projection
13.    Images as speculation

Keynotes Speakers:
Professor Hans Belting, Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe
Professor David Freedberg, Columbia University
Professor Stephen Perkinson, Bowdoin College, Brunswick

Please send English abstracts of up to 250 words to the conference organizers to tau.art2015@gmail.com before 10.11.2014. Abstracts should include the applicant’s name, professional affiliation, and a short CV. Each paper should be limited to a 20 minute presentation, followed by discussion and questions. All applicants will be notified regarding
acceptance of their proposal by November 30, 2014.

For more information or any further inquiries please contact the Conference Chair; Assaf Pinkus at tau.art2015@gmail.com

Conference: Sacred Art in Sacred Collections (Florence, 3 October 14)

Conference:
Sacred Art in Sacred Collections
Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici – San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini
Via Faenza 43, Florence
3 October 2014

For the second event of our Forum on Museums and Religion, we propose a study day that addresses the particular issues associated with the conservation and display of collections of objects historically belonging to religious institutions—a natural segue from our first conference about religious institutions which are themselves visited as museums. Museums associated with religious institutions have a special mandate to maintain the profile of their institution as a whole and speak to members of their communities; yet, they frequently possess objects of great historical and aesthetic value which are of interest to a broader and possibly non-religious public. In some cases, these collections are overseen by non-religious institutions. As custodians of sacred objects of different natures and religious status’, are such institutions responsible for reinforcing the holy nature of their collections to their publics? If so, how can this best be done so as to invite deep a understanding of spiritual messages without appearing to proselytize? This study day investigates the means and difficulties in guaranteeing the survival and deep appreciation of such collections in the Florentine area though a series of talks and a roundtable discussion.

OGGETTI SACRI IN COLLEZIONI SACRE
I Musei delle Istituzioni Religiose di Firenze ed il loro Pubblico

Dopo il primo Forum sui Musei e la Religione, il 20 & 21 aprile 2012, l’Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici ospita il secondo evento intitolato “Oggetti Sacri in Collezioni Sacre”.

Questa giornata di studio affronta le problematiche specifiche connesse alla conservazione e all’esposizione di collezioni di oggetti storicamente appartenenti a istituzioni religiose – un naturale seguito al precedente convegno del Forum sulle chiese, templi, e moschee, che a
loro volta sono visitate come musei. I musei associati alle istituzioni religiose hanno un mandato speciale per mantenere il profilo della loro istituzione nel suo insieme e parlare ai membri delle loro comunità; tuttavia, spesso possiedono oggetti di grande valore storico ed estetico, che sono di interesse per pubblico un più ampio e non necessariamente religioso.

In alcuni casi queste collezioni sono gestite da istituzioni non-religiose (o non più religiose). Come custodi di oggetti sacri di diversa natura e tipologia, fino a che punto tali istituzioni si devono sentire responsabili della trasmissione del carattere sacro delle loro collezioni al loro pubblico? Qual’è il modo migliore per stimolare una comprensione profonda dei messaggi spirituali, senza che questo intento possa essere scambiato per proselitismo? Questa giornata di studio vuole invitare tutti partecipanti ad un dibattito su queste tematiche per cercare di garantire la sopravvivenza e l’apprezzamento di tali raccolte nella zona fiorentina, con una serie di colloqui e una tavola rotonda.

Programma

9.00
Benvenuto – Il forum sui musei e la religione
Prof. Maia Wellington Gahtan, Istituto Lorenzo de’ Medici
Prof. Anna Benvenuti, Università degli Studi di Firenze
Prof. Rita Capurro, Università Politecnico di Milano

Keynote Mons. Timothy Verdon, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo – Grande Museo del Duomo.

10.15
Tavola rotonda Moderatore: Don Alfredo Jacopozzi, Responsabile culturale della diocesi

11.15
Caffè

11.30
Dott. Licia Bertani, Museo Diocesano di Santo Stefano al Ponte

12.00
Dott. Silvia Colucci, Museo Comunale di Santa Maria Novella & Santa Maria del Carmine

12.30
Mons. Fabrizio Porcinai, Museo del Tesoro di San Lorenzo

13.00
Pranzo

14.30
Dott. Giuseppe De Micheli, Museo di Santa Croce

15.00
Dott. Fausta Navarro, Museo di San Salvi

15.30
Dott. Antonio Godoli, Orsanmichele

16.00
Dott. Eleonora Mazzocchi, Istituto degli Innocenti

Further information:
tel. 055 287360 | www.ldminstitute.com | myra.stals@lorenzodemedici.it
Forum on museums and religion | Forum sui musei e la religione

CFP: Imagery in Medieval Herbals (Kalamazoo 2015)

Call for Papers
Imagery in Medieval Herbals
International Congress on Medieval Studies,
Kalamazoo, 14-17 May 2015
Deadline: 15 September 2014

Medieval herbals have attracted interesting investigations in the last decades, but are a still scarcely analyzed topic. However, investigations focused on printed herbals produced at the end of the 15th century and onwards (The interesting herbals catalogue by Minta Collins, Medieval Herbals). The Illustrative Traditions should be understood as an excellent departing point for further examinations. Many and new efforts have been made for the digitization of herbals thus allowing a better understanding of the worldwide corpus of herbal imagery.

Herbal images must be perceived as symptoms of new visualizing methods of botanic knowledge, situated within a wider context of “scientific” preoccupations. “Natural science” may not be the right term to designate the domain of these activities, as research of the history of sciences has repeatedly pointed out over the last decades. The disciplines of natural sciences do crystallize from the 16th century onwards. However, the purpose of exchanging common data inside a scholar community of specialists as well as the effort of data systemizing become obvious as early as the 15th century. In the transitional period from medieval manuscripts to printed books herbals employ visualizing techniques used before in older herbal imagery: for instance choosing details in order to represent the whole plant, emphasizing the profile and frontal view, organizing the herb around a central axis. Simultaneously, concerns of depicting recognizable features and lifelikeness become increasingly manifest. Several methods are employed in order to ensure proximity to the actual plants: copying pictures supposed to represent the reality, dressing sketches in front of the plant, distancing oneself from plants of alchemistic or legendary traditions, including nature prints. These aspects raise questions concerning the capacity of artists: Was an artist really capable of “objectively” depicting a herb? Therefore it is a productive research method to compare herbals produced in the period after Antiquity and before the New Modern Period.

In later medieval times, naturalistic paintings in herbals as well as aesthetically motivated efforts stress the involvement of the herbals’ producers with nature studies and theories on realistic painting. Hence a mutual influence between the pictures inside herbals and plant pictures belonging to the artistic domain outside plant books is plausible. Situated at the threshold of nature studies, like the aquarelles produced in Dürer’s sphere of influence, and next to herbal imagery of the Italian Middle Ages, the plant pictures in herbals show diverse ways of encompassing reality, facts and art. Older herbal imagery is more closely linked to traditional schemes of representation. However not much is known on how these herbals have been used and if the employed imagery did help the readers in identifying the plants.

In addition, herbal imagery is part of the medical world of the Middle Ages, since herbals were intended to list the curative effects of the mentioned plants. The pictures must therefore be understood as being related to pharmacological and medical practices. Although the focus of the session is on the period of the later Middle Ages, it aims to bring together scholars specialized on diverse time periods and examining herbal imagery from perspectives of diverse disciplines.

Paper proposals are still accepted for the Special Session: “Imagery in Medieval Herbals“ at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 14-17, 2015), The Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI 49008-5432 USA.

Please send your one page proposal together with a completed Participant Information Form until September 15, 2014, to olariu@staff.uni-marburg.de

You may download the Participant Information Form on the Congress website: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#Paper

Dr. Dominic Olariu
Kunstgeschichtliches Institut
Philipps-Universität Marburg
Biegenstrasse 11
Marburg 35037
Germany

Phone: +49-6421-28-24323
Fax: +49-6421-28-24286
olariu@staff.uni-marburg.de

CFP: Gaming the Medieval: Medievalism in Modern Board Game Culture, IMC Leeds 2015, deadline 15 September 2014

Since the early 1980s, the medieval has proven to be a fertile source of narrative concept, artwork and play structure in popular board and card game culture. In recent years, games with medieval subject matter such as Carcassonne, Dominion and Shadows Over Camelot have increasingly graced the top of European and American board game award tables.

Yet the ‘Middle Ages’ of the game world is a broadly defined concept. Games taking a historical approach might chart the economical and political landscape of Medieval Europe during a set period of time, while others base their play around a specific event or series of events. In other cases, the medieval operates as a flexible cultural genre for games set in otherwise indeterminate times and places. Although board and card games frequently engage with concepts of medieval warfare, conquest and expansion, they also hold the ability to promote a rich understanding of medieval cultural, literary and social practices such as courtly love and chivalric narrative, Arthurian legend, guild, mercantile and political hierarchy, and alchemical motifs such as the magic circle.

While the role of the game in medieval society and literature commands a strong critical legacy (for example, in the works of Clopper, Huizinga and Vale), this session aims to evaluate what happens when the medieval is made present within modern game culture. This is an area that has been largely neglected by studies of medievalism, which have tended to chiefly focus on the use of the medieval in computer gaming. This session therefore intends to expand the cultural medievalism debate by drawing attention to the ways in which the materiality of board and card games produces new methods of intersecting with the medieval past.

Possible themes might include:

• What is a ‘medieval’ board game?
• Courts, cities, fields, monasteries
• Chivalry, courtly love and other ‘medieval’ ideals
• Materiality and play, medieval artwork, and the game as artefact
• Gender, power and characterisation
• Performance, roleplay, and crossplaying
• Narrative and playing structures
• Place, space and time
• Games and pedagogy – using games to teach ‘medieval’ concepts
• Figuring the medieval ‘orient’ in game culture

Please send abstracts of 250 words to Daisy Black at D.Black@hull.ac.uk and James Howard at jwhowa2@emory.edu before the 15th September 2014.

CFP: Vagantes 2015 Medieval Graduate Student Conference (University of Florida, February 2015)

Call for Papers:
Vagantes 2015 Medieval Graduate Student Conference
Gainesville University, Florida, February 19-21, 2015
Deadline: 3 November 2014

Vagantes, North America’s largest graduate student conference for medieval studies, is seeking submissions for its 2015 meeting at the University of Florida, February 19-21.

Since its founding in 2002, Vagantes has nurtured a lively community of junior scholars from across the disciplines. Every conference features thirty papers on any aspect of medieval studies, allowing for exciting interdisciplinary conversation and the creation of new professional relationships between future colleagues. Vagantes travels to a new university every year, highlighting the unique resources of the host institution through keynote lectures, exhibitions, and special events. Out of consideration for graduate students’ limited budgets, Vagantes never charges a registration fee.

The 2015 conference will feature exciting keynotes. Dr. Linda Neagley, of Rice University, will open the conference with: ‘Architectural counterpoint: Juxtaposition & opposition as a visual strategy in the Late Middle Ages.’ Dr. Nina Caputo of the University of Florida will close with a discussion of the unique challenge of transforming medieval history into a graphic novel. The conference will also feature an exhibition of medieval bestiaries: ‘The Beast in the Book,’ presented by Dr. Rebecca Jefferson of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica, and a roundtable session with University of Florida faculty on teaching the middle ages from a global perspective.

Several travel awards will be granted to the best papers in Jewish, Byzantine, and women’s studies. See the Vagantes website for further details: www.vagantesconference.org/travel-awards.

Graduate students in all disciplines are invited to submit a 300-word abstract on any medieval topic along with a 1-2 page C.V. to organizers@vagantesconference.org by November 3, 2014.

For further information, please visit the conference website.

CFP: Nunneries in Medieval Europe: New Historiographical and Methodological Approaches (Kalamazoo 2015)

Call for Papers:
Nunneries in Medieval Europe: New Historiographical and Methodological Approaches
Special Sessions at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Kalamazoo,Michigan, 14-17 May 2015
Deadline: 15 September 2014

Although in the last two decades a large amount of research has pointed out different significant issues regarding female monasticism in Europe, partly overcoming the previous lack of studies, many of them still rely on preconceptions, with a lack of both critical reading and revision and a gender perspective.

In these sessions we aim to address different issues of recent scholarship on female monasticism, questioning some oversimplified and idealised interpretations given by traditional historiography, and redefining some particular points. We will cover a wide timeframe, from the High to the Late Middle Ages (950-1500ca), and this will allow us to consider the evolution and changes in spirituality and liturgy, the gender roles, the relationships of nunneries with their environment, and the consequences of all this in art and architecture.

The greater regulation of monasticism and Treaties and Councils of Central and Late Middle Ages involved outstanding alterations in the roles of religious women, as they tried to undermine women authority and independence, imposing a more strict control over the administration and religious life. Likewise, the reform of the religious orders at the end of the Middle Ages insisted also in these restrictions. Nevertheless, we will discuss how religious women managed to overcome this gender limitations, and affirmed their authority taking control over the administration, legislation, liturgy, relationship with the environment and also the artistic production and commission.

Papers dealing with all these issues are welcome.

Please send your title and abstract (250 words), together with a short CV, to Mercedes Pérez Vidal mercedespvidal@gmail.com and/or Laura Cayrol Bernardo laura.cayrolbernardo@ehess.fr by September 15, 2014.

CFP: Sharing the Holy Land: Perceptions of Shared Sacred Spaces (London, June 12-13 & Leeds, July 6-9, 2015)

Call for Papers:
Sharing the Holy Land: Perceptions of Shared Sacred Spaces
International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 6-9 July 2015
Deadline: 12 September 2014

A symposium, Sharing the Holy Land: Perceptions of Shared Sacred Space in the Medieval and Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean will be held at The Warburg Institute, in London on 12-13 June 2015, featuring keynote speakers, Prof. Bernard Hamilton, Prof. Benjamin Kedar, and Prof. Ora Limor. See http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/events/colloquia-2014-15/sharing-the-holy-land/ for information.

Following on this, three sessions are being organized for the International Medieval Conference to be held at Leeds on 6-9 July, 2015. The three sessions seek to address how both Western pilgrims, and the indigenous Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Levantine populations perceived the sharing of religious shrines with other faiths. Of particular interest is how this sharing was described and explained in contemporary accounts and how this influenced the knowledge of other faiths among the Semitic religions. These sessions will focus on the period from c.1000 to c.1500, addressing the changing political context in the Levant and its influence on the sharing of sacred space.

Please send proposals for papers (title & 100 words abstract) to Jan Vandeburie at sharingtheholyland2015@gmail.com before 12 September 2014.

Lecture Series: British Archaeological Association Annual Lecture Series, London, Autumn 2014

1 October 2014*
Friary biographies, urban fabric and the excavation legacy in England and Wales
Deirdre O’Sullivan, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester

The lecture will be preceded by the Association’s Annual General Meeting. It will be followed by a reception to launch the latest publication in the BAA Conference Transactions series – Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology in Cracow and Lesser Poland.

5 November 2014
Please note: Teas will be served and the meeting will take place at the Linnean Society in Burlington House

Reginald Tayolor essay medal lecture
The Function and Iconography of the Minstrels’ Gallery at Exeter Cathedral
Dr Gabriel Byng, Cathedral and Church Buildings Division, Church of England

3 December 2014*
‘Barbarous rude things.’ Paintings in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London: some new observations
Bernard Nurse FSA, Dr Pamela Tudor-Craig FSA and Dr Jill A Franklin FSA