Medieval Art Research

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

CFP: RSA-Session ‘Arts in Quattrocento Pisa I-II’ (Berlin, 26-28 March 2015)

RSA-Session ‘Arts in Quattrocento Pisa I-II’
Berlin, 26-28 March 2015
Deadline: 12 June 2014

The Quattrocento was a dramatic century for Pisa. The Tuscan town, formerly a leading “Maritime Republic” and one of the wealthiest and most splendid Mediterranean centers in the Middle Ages, lost its independence in 1406 and fell under the dominion of Florence. The
political, economic and social crisis reached its apex in the first half of the century: thousands of people, both locals and foreigners, migrated elsewhere. Despite this, many of the foremost artists of the period were present in town, personally or through their works, from the International Gothic champs Lorenzo Monaco and Gentile da Fabriano to the founders of the early Renaissance revolution, Masaccio, Donatello (with Michelozzo), Fra Angelico. Their influence can be seen in the locally active painter Borghese di Piero and in the prolific
sculptor Andrea Guardi.

In the second half of the Quattrocento the archbishop Filippo de’ Medici and Lorenzo il Magnifico himself patronised notable architectural and artistic commissions (such as the Archbishop’s and the Sapienza University Palaces). The Opera del Duomo promoted the
completion of the fresco decoration of the Camposanto, which was entrusted to Benozzo Gozzoli who prevailed over such competitors as Andrea Mantegna, Vincenzo Foppa and the Lucchese Michele Ciampanti. Other notable painters, all of them Florentine, active in Pisa in those decades were Paolo Schiavo, Alesso Baldovinetti, Cosimo Rosselli, Domenico Ghirlandaio; not to say of the Flemish presences (e.g. the Master of the Legend of St. Lucy), or of the glazed-terracotta creations of the Della Robbia and Buglioni workshops. The only local talent, emerging in the last years of the century, was Niccolò di Bartolomeo dell’Abbrugia, better known as Niccolò Pisano, who then moved to Ferrara.

The century ended with the descent of French King Charles VIII in 1494: Pisa regained its liberty for fifteen years, rediscovering an ephemeral but intense civic pride in the profoundly changing assets of Italy and Europe.

The two sessions aim to give a proper critical and historical consideration to this still fragmentary and little studied chapter of Italian Quattrocento Art. Please send paper proposals – in English, Italian, or French – of 150 words (with keywords) and a cv of 300 words by June 12, 2014, to < gerardo.desimone@gmail.com > https://accademiadinapoli.academia.edu/GerardodeSimone

Making Sense of Manuscripts – Saturday 14 June 2014, UCL History Department

A workshop introducing students to the study of medieval documents.
Saturday 14 June 2014, UCL History Department
Diplomatic is the formal term for the study and analysis of documents in medieval
manuscripts. Diplomatic encompasses a broad range of documents from the Middle
Ages (royal charters, papal bulls, diplomas, legal writs, contracts, judicial records,
treaties, etc.) and requires a number of technical skills. But it is more than a merely
antiquarian pastime. The careful use of documents is essential for writing the
political, institutional, religious, social, economic and intellectual history of the Middle
Ages.
Despite its importance, provision for introducing British students to the study of
Medieval Diplomatic remains limited. This one-day workshop at UCL will fill that gap.
Led by Professor David d’Avray the workshop will provide an introduction to some of
the technical skills necessary for analysing different types of British and continental
documents. Equally importantly, it will demonstrate how Diplomatic can help answer
a range of historical questions about secular governance, the papacy, monasteries
and social power, and medieval rationality.
The workshop is open to all students and will be of particular benefit to those
considering graduate work in medieval history.
Attendance is free and no knowledge of Latin is required. Lunch and refreshments
will be provided.
To register or find out more information, please contact the course organiser by
email (z.mistry@ucl.ac.uk) with your name and details. Please note that priority will
be given to undergraduates.
For more information about the UCL Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
visit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mars.

Call For Chapters – The Material Culture of Magic

Medieval woodcut by Ulrich Molitor (1493)

Book project, ed. by Dr Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie and Dr Leo Ruickbie

Magic is a wide field of research comprising what we might call the occult, paranormal events, anomalous experience, spirituality and other phenomena throughout human history. However, research has often been focused more narrowly on the historical analysis of written sources, or the anthropology and occasionally sociology of practitioners and their communities, for example. What is often overlooked are the physical artefacts of magic themselves.
In all areas of research, ‘material culture’ is becoming increasingly important – the ‘material turn’ as it has been labelled. This is particularly the case for disciplines that traditionally have not focused on object studies but on theory such as historical or social sciences. However, it is self-evident that the objects emerging from a culture provide valuable information on societies and their history. This is also and particularly the case for magic and related phenomena. Magic, especially, became divorced from its concrete expressions as academic study focused on problems of rationality and functionalist explanation.
When studying magic it is crucial to look at the objects that have been produced and what purpose they had, who made them and in what period, whether they represent only a certain historical period or are a long-lasting phenomenon, etc. This volume hence aims to ‘re-materialise’ magic, to re-anchor it in the physical things that constitute ‘magic’ and recover the social lives, even biographies, of these things.
The envisaged academic book aims to cover a wide range of subjects, periods, geographical areas, as well as methods: firstly, because an interdisciplinary approach is essential to adequately encompass the subject; secondly, to investigate whether similar objects were used in different cultures in parallel or over a long period; and thirdly, to serve as a starting point for future research. This will be the first book on the material culture of magic and consequently has the potential to become a foundational text.
Therefore, we invite contributors from different disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, art history, ethnology, folklore, parapsychology, religious studies, sociology and others. Subjects could be, for example, case studies focusing on particular objects, museum collections, or mass market items labelled as magical; analysis of classes of embodied magical functions, such as charms, amulets, talismans, magical jewellery, icons, relics, poppets (Voodoo dolls), etc.; consideration of classes of materials, such as bone, wood, metal, precious and semi-precious stones, etc. In addition, it is important to understand people-object relations, spatial-temporal aspects of magical objects, the dialectics of transference (projection and introjection), the role of narratives and social performance, cultural trajectories, and the processes of commodification and fetishisation (reification). These can be addressed in a variety of contexts from traditional religion to popular culture, and historically situated anywhere from prehistory to the present day.
Any physical representation of magical ideation or anything imbued with supernatural meanings by its creator, such as found objects, animal/human parts, and man-made artefacts, can be considered in this context. What matters is a central focus on the physicality of the magical object; its material existence.
The volume will present an overview of current research in this field. It will comprise approximately 20 of the best and most relevant contributions on this subject. Contributors will be asked to submit a finished chapter of around 6,000 words (inc. references) with publication planned for 2015.
In the first instance, an abstract of no more than 300 words should be sent, together with a brief biography, to the editors before 1 August 2014 at Bosselmann-Ruickbie@uni-mainz.de. We are also happy to answer any questions.

***
Dr Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie is a lecturer in the Department for Christian Archaeology and Byzantine Art History, Institute for Art History and Musicology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.
Dr Leo Ruickbie is the published author of several books, as well as the editor of the Paranormal Review, the magazine of the Society for Psychical Research, and a Committee Member of the Gesellschaft für Anomalistik (Society for Anomalistics).