Medieval Art Research

CFP: Memorializing the Middle Classes (Edited volume)

CFP: Memorializing the Middle Classes (Edited volume)
Deadline: 30 June 2014

Building on the session “Memorials for Merchants: The Funerary Culture of Late Medieval Europe’s New Elite” (College Art Association Annual Meeting, 2014), this edited volume offers papers that investigate the habits and strategies of patrons of commemorative art ca. 1300-1700, while considering what relationship, if any, existed between patronal strategies and choices and location in societal hierarchy. The rising fortunes of merchants, lawyers, and other professionals allowed middle-class patrons to commission private tombs in numbers not seen since Roman times.

While historians and anthropologists have looked broadly at European commemorative practices of the later Middles Ages and Renaissance, art historians have tended to focus on individual patrons, monuments, artists, or institutions. Memorializing the Middle Classes begins with an overview of Roman, Early Christian, and Byzantine precedent, offering a long view of continental commemorative culture. Essays by an international group of scholars follow to provide comparative analysis of the socio-cultural significance of memorialization both within particular cities and regions and across Europe. Papers that explore issues of social networks, the privatization of communal spaces, individual and corporate identities, personal and public memories, the relationships between the living and the dead, and other questions regarding commemoration, the use of space, and the patronage and reception of tombs and other memorials.

To submit a proposal, please send the following to
annecleader@gmail.com no later than 30 June 2014:

author’s name/affiliation
chapter title (15 words max.)
abstract (300 words max.)
selected bibliography
estimated number of illustrations and type (photo, chart/graph, map)
or a working list of illustrations
scholars (including contact information) who could serve as a peer reviewer for the book proposal
list of books that complement/compete with proposed volume and the target audience for your essay
cv
short biography in prose (100 words max.)

Please direct all questions to the editor, Anne Leader, at annecleader@gmail.com

CFP: Meanings of Erasure (Kalamazoo, 14-17 May 2015)

CFP: Meanings of Erasure
Session at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Kalamazoo, 14-17 May 2015
Deadline: 15 September 2015

Recent scholarly interest in whiteness, emptiness, and material destruction that pervade medieval visual culture demonstrate a shift in focus: where art historians have historically focused on figuration, they now turn to the instances of material absence. This session will explore the notion of erasure and its function in transforming the object being partially or completely defaced, expunged, rubbed out. How does erasure augment and subvert the meanings of the original image? What does it tell us about the process of engagement with medieval material culture? Does erasure ever equal silence, or does it announce itself as a loud presence on manuscript pages, stone exteriors, and wood and canvas surfaces? And what of the erased word: how does that compromise or transmute the complex text-image relationships? Submissions from scholars in any discipline are welcomed.

Please send your abstract, along with the paper proposal form (which can be found here: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html), to Elina Gertsman at exg152@case.edu, by September 15, 2014.

Conference: Colour (London, 26 June 2014)

Conference: Colour
Warburg Institute, London, 26 June 2014
Registration deadline: 22 June 2014

This colloquium is being organised by the Warburg Institute and the National Gallery in conjunction with the exhibition on “Making Colour” at the National Gallery and will include an early morning viewing of the exhibition from 9.00 to 10.00 a.m.

The conference is organised by Caroline Campbell (National Gallery) and Peter Mack (Warburg Institute).

Programme

9.00
Viewing of Colour Exhibition at the National Gallery

10.00
Leave National Gallery

10.20
Registration and coffee at the Warburg Institute (Common Room)

10.45
Introduction and Welcome

Chair: Peter Mack (Warburg Institute)

Paul Smith (Warwick)
Coloured Shadows: constancy, contrast, and conceptual confusion

12.00
Hannah Smithson (Pembroke College, Oxford)
All the colours of the rainbow: A bridge between medieval and modern colour science

12.50
Lunch (Common Room)

Chair: Caroline Campbell (National Gallery)

1.50
Jim Harris (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
Colour and Sculpture: Painting in Three dimensions

2.40
David Brafmann (Getty Centre)
Tincture and Tenebrism: Alchemical Rainbows in the Neapolitan Baroque

3.30
Tea (Classroom 2)

Chair: Paul Hills (Courtauld Institute)

4.00
Ulrike Kern (Frankfurt)
Cartesian Optics in Dutch Art: A Problem of Light and Pigment

4.50
Ashok Roy (National Gallery)
Colour Change in Old Master Paintings: Where does light come in?

5.40
Concluding Discussion and Reception (Common Room)

6.30
Conference Ends

Fees and Registration
The fees for this conference are £30.00 standard price (and £15.50 concessionary rate for full-time students/retired) which includes entrance to the National Gallery, lunch and refreshments. We provide a range of meat/fish and vegetarian rolls/sandwiches for lunch. If you have other dietary requirements please email warburg(at)sas.ac.uk at least ten days before the conference so that we can try to cater for your needs.

Registering and paying for a conference/course. Please note that in order to attend the conference and guided tour you must register and pay online in advance. Registration for this conference closes at 12.00 pm on 22 June. Instructions about entrance to the National Gallery will be emailed to you by 24 June.

CLICK ON LINK BELOW TO REGISTER ONLINE
http://store.london.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=5&catid=38&prodid=687

For further information, see here.

CFP: The Afterlife of Cicero (London, 7-8 May 2015)

Call for Papers:
The Afterlife of Cicero
London, The Warburg Institute, 7-8 May 2015
Deadline: 11 July 2014

The Warburg Institute, the Institute of Classical Studies and the Department of Greek and Latin at University College London will be hosting an international conference on the afterlife of Cicero in London on 7–8 May 2015, organised by Peter Mack, Gesine Manuwald, John North and Maria Wyke.

We invite 40-minute papers about the impact of Cicero’s writings and personality on intellectual and cultural history, on the visual arts, philosophy, politics, rhetoric and literature. Since so much of Cicero’s writings is extant, they cover a wide variety of genres and topics, and we are also able to get a glimpse of his personality from his letters, Cicero has had an enormous influence on western culture. By examining a diverse series of significant case studies, the conference aims to make a contribution to assessing Cicero’s impact more fully. Papers dealing with any period between late antiquity and 1900 will be especially welcome. Aspects of particular interest include Cicero’s role for early Christian writers, in the middle Ages, in the Ciceronian debate, for the American founding fathers and the French revolution, for the development of modern democracies and political rhetoric and in (early-)modern literature.

The conference will take place in the Warburg Institute; the proceedings will be jointly published by the two Institutes as Supplements to the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. We shall ask the authors for publishable versions of the papers three months after the conference. If you have a suggestion for a paper that you would like us to consider, please submit a title, an abstract (of up to 300 words) and a brief CV (up to one page) by 11 July 2014 to Jane Ferguson, The Warburg Institute, Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB or warburg(at)sas.ac.uk.

For further information, see also the Warburg Institute Website.

CFP: Foldable Pictures. Implications of Mediality (Zürich, 21-22 November 2014)

Call for Papers:
Foldable Pictures. Implications of Mediality
Conference, University of Zürich, 21-22 November 2014
Deadline: 4 July 2014

Book pages, diptychs, and triptychs were popular formats for the presentation of images in the medieval and early modern periods. In addition to their ubiquity, these objects also share one essential material feature: the supports that carry the images are movable. The most obvious consequence of the mobile presentation is the consecutive progression of different views.

Only in recent years did scholars begin to consider the processes of transformation that the opening and closing of pictured surfaces generate, for example the strategies of layering or folding images and the production of tacit knowledge caused by such formats. Using foldable pictures leads to a metaphorical coding of entire object classes (being understood as the body or the tablets of the heart), but also to a semantization of specific object areas (the dichotomy of inside and outside as, for example, “secular” versus “sacred”, or “accessible” versus “secret”). Furthermore, also structural features such as borders or thresholds, hinges, and cleavages play a decisive role in these processes. Thanks to the viewer’s memory, images “hidden” beneath other images begin to “gleam through” and become virtually present nonetheless. Movability also creates multiple lines of vision or additional moments of contact between represented persons.

It appears that artists have paid much more attention to these issues as has been hitherto recognized. It may also be noted that this is not a phenomenon restricted to artistic problems. In religious images, such effects were harnessed to draw attention to other functions, such as
didactic or mnemonic purposes.

This conference will explore the range of recently observed phenomena, and discuss their implications for the concept of the image in medieval and early modern period. This may lead to a critical revision of the finestra aperta paradigm as well as to a redefinition of the relationship between images and their contexts, especially in the case of the religious sphere. From a religious point of view, the action of opening and closing increases the aura of a work of art and also has implications for the practical use and control of images in the religious cult. Especially a consideration of the virtual presence of encased images bears potential to shed new light on neglected functions of images or the workings of memory versus visuality. Considering these and other aspects of foldable pictures, will have an impact on our understanding of the overall tension between presence and absence and the anagogic qualities of images.

Organizers:
David Ganz (University of Zürich)
Marius Rimmele (NCCR Mediality, University of Zürich)

Please submit your proposal of no more than 300 words and a CV to
david.ganz@uzh.ch and marius.rimmele@uzh.ch by July 4, 2014.

Event: Puerta Vilchez lecture at the V&A (London, 19 June 2014)

Puerta Vilchez lecture at the V&A:
Evening Lecture and Reception

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez
Qurtuba/Córdoba: Monumentality and artistic sensibility in al-Andalus
Thursday 19 June 2014, 7pm
Seminar Room Three, Learning Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The patronage of the Umayyad caliphs of al-Andalus (Muslim-ruled Spain) created one of the highpoints of classical Islam. The splendour of their court culture outshone the rest of Europe in the 10th century. Exceptional objects and buildings survive as bearers of a deep artisanal wisdom, profoundly significant on a conceptual and iconographic level. This lecture will focus on the high level of aesthetic self-awareness in the contemporary Arabic sources and among the masters, patrons and craftsmen of these works of art.

José Miguel Puerta Vílchez is Professor of the Theory and History of Islamic Art and Architecture at the University of Granada. The lecture will be introduced by Eduardo López Busquets, Director General of Casa Árabe. Please note this lecture will be in Spanish with simultaneous translation.

Admission is free but booking is required. To reserve a place please email
asia.events@vam.ac.uk.

Doors open at 18.30 and the lecture is followed by a reception.

Please enter the Museum by the Secretariat Gate. You will be escorted through the building to the Seminar Room.

Wheelchair access: please contact 020 7942 2324 in advance
Enquiries: 020 7942 2324

This lecture is organised in collaboration with Casa Árabe.

Event: historyLab Plus – History within the Academy: Ask the Experts (London, 27 June 2014)

History within the Academy: Ask the Experts
Friday, 27 June 2014 from 09:15 to 13:30
London, Institute of Historical Research

This half day workshop is organised jointly with the Royal Historical Society & History Lab Plus. The workshop is aimed at early career historians and anyone seeking an academic post in history. Those who have recently completed or are about to submit a PhD are particularly welcome.

The event will be informal, with plenty of time to ask questions and to meet the speakers. The discussion will focus on the academic job market, public engagement, open access and looking ahead to REF2020. There will also be chance to raise any other questions or concerns relating to building an academic career in History.

Registration is free but places are strictly limited. Early booking is required. http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/history-within-the-academy-ask-the-experts-tickets-11584755315

For further information, see:
Web: www.history.ac.uk/historylab
Email: ihrhistorylab@googlemail.com
Blog: http://the-history-lab.blogspot.com

CFP: Object Fantasies. Forms & Fictions (Munich, 7-9 October 2015)

CFP: Object Fantasies. Forms & Fictions (Munich, 7-9 Oct 15)

Munich, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität,
7 – 9 October 2015
Deadline: 31 July 2014

Interdisciplinary Conference of the Junior Research Group “Premodern Objects. An Archaeology of Experience“ (Elite Network of Bavaria / Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich)

In modern understanding, the word “object” signifies something material, spatially defined and functionally determined. These notions are accentuated by the word objectivity, which defines an ideal, systematic mode of grasping objects as “subjects” that presumably operate neutrally and scientifically. In contrast, the Latin word “fantasia” has, since antiquity, signified an apparition or the ability to imagine something that can equally be an image, a concept or, also, an object.

The conference takes the latter alternative meaning, that is, the non-objective experience of objects as well as recent positions of thing studies as the basis for inquiry into the creative act in the reception and construction of objects. How, for instance, do the object fantasies let the borders between object categories or objects and creatures blur? What role do they – equally nourished by illusion and experience – play in the perception and handling of material objects? To what degree do perceptions of and references to objects have a lasting effect on the conception and creation of other material objects or fictional objects in images and texts? And finally: What correlation exists between the creative handling of the objectual, the self-perception of subjects and the concrete and imaginary conditions of their social lives?

The conference will pursue these as well as other lines of questioning of different formal as well as fictional possibilities in the creation of objects. Welcome are papers from all fields of human sciences on individual objects, object categories and systems, objects in images and texts, objects with images and script as well as object theories.

The travel and accommodation costs of the speakers will be covered. The conference serves as a preparation for an anthology on the same topic. Working languages are English, German, French and Italian. Please send a one page abstract and a short CV by July 31, 2014 to objektfantasien@kunstgeschichte.uni-muenchen.de.

For more information:
http://www.kunstgeschichte.uni-muenchen.de/forschung/forsch_projekte/objekte/index.html

CFP: RSA-Session ‘Artists in Habits’ (Berlin, 26-28 March 2015)

RSA-Session ‘Artists in Habits’
Berlin, 26-28 March 2015
Deadline: 10 June 2014

This panel seeks papers that explore the dual identities of artists who were members of a religious order. More than fifteen years since seminal studies on the “frate-dipintore” by William Hood and Megan Holmes, on Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi respectively, we ask how scholarship on monastic-artistic occupations has evolved.

Are we closer to understanding if, and if so how, these artist’s personal piety or theological training informed their painterly approach? Did their allegiance to a specific order give rise to iconographies reflecting the spirituality of that order? Is there evidence that they were sought by patrons specifically because of their spiritual ‘purity’? Did their status allow access to religious spaces that ordinary artists could not enter? How did religious institutions make use of the talents of their artist members? And overall, is this even a valid area of enquiry?

The panel invites proposals from scholars wishing to re-address canonical monastic artists as well as those who hope to shine a light on lesser known monk/friar/nun artists.

Please send an abstract (150 words) and a CV (1 page) by June 10 to Joost Joustra (Courtauld Institute of Art, joost.joustra@courtauld.ac.uk) and Laura Llewellyn (Courtauld Institute of Art, laura.llewellyn@courtauld.ac.uk)

New Publication: Special Issue of Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies on ‘Women’s Creativity’

New Publication:
Special Issue of Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (vol. 6, no. 1, 2014)

Julie A. Harris (ed)
Women’s Creativity and the Three Faiths of Iberia / Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture

Julie A. Harris
Finding a place for women’s creativity in medieval Iberia and modern scholarship

Glaire Anderson
Sign of the Cross: contexts for the Ivory Cross of San Millán de la Cogolla

Sarah Ifft Decker
Conversion, marriage, and creative manipulation of law in thirteenth-century responsa literature

Jeffrey A. Bowman
Countesses in court: elite women, creativity, and power in northern Iberia, 900–1200

Anna Rich Abad
Able and available: Jewish women in medieval Barcelona and their economic activities

Sharon Koren
The symbol of Rebekah in the Zohar

Noelia Silva Santa-Cruz
Ivory gifts for women in caliphal Córdoba: marriage, maternity and sensuality