Medieval Art Research

Call for papers: Commemoration of the Dead: New Approaches, New Perspectives, New Material; London

Brass_of_Simon_de_Felbrigge_and_wife_St_Margaret's_Church_Felbrigg_Norfolk

Call for Papers for Commemoration of the Dead: New Approaches, New Perspectives, New Material conference to be held 10.00- 17.00, Saturday 15 November 2014 at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

Proposals are invited for papers to be presented at a one-day conference, jointly sponsored by the Monumental Brass Society and the Church Monuments Society. The aim of this event is to showcase the developments in research techniques and approaches that have led to new insights into monumental brasses.

This follows a conference, ‘Fifty Years after Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture: New Approaches, New Perspectives, New Materials’ to be held at the Courtauld Institute of Art on 21 June 2014. Panofsky, in his lavishly illustrated Tomb Sculpture, included the illustration of only a single brass (Pl. 212), that of the hand-holding Sir Edward Cerne and Lady Elyne Cerne, Draycott Cerne, Wilts. The ‘Commemoration of the Dead’ conference will address this imbalance by examining the significance of monumental brasses within the broader context of funerary art, especially the connections and divergences between brasses and other forms of tomb sculpture.

The core period covered by the conference will be Medieval to Early Modern, but papers up to the current day will be considered. The core geographic focus will be Europe.

Papers are invited on a wider range of topics arising from the study of monumental brasses, and could include:

• Individual brasses – style, location, patronage, production

• Groups of brasses united by a common theme

• Materials and their symbolic importance

• Function of brasses- prospective/retrospective, devotional, legal, etc.

• Audience and reception

• Brasses and the liturgy

• Inscriptions, epitaphs, heraldry

• Technical investigation

Logistics:

• Length of paper: 20 minutes

• Expenses: limited funds are available to cover speakers’ expenses

This is an opportunity for doctoral and early post-doctoral students to share their research. It is intended (subject to quality and peer review) to publish a joint collection of edited essays from the two conferences.

Please send proposals of no more than 250 words and a brief biography to

tombsculpture@gmail.com by 18 May.

Organised by: Christian Steer, Hon. Secretary, Monumental Brass Society, Ann Adams & Jessica Barker, PhD Candidates, The Courtauld Institute of Art.

Journal: The Medieval Globe

Announcing The Medieval Globe. Connectivity~Communication~Exchange, a new biannual academic journal. The Medieval Globe (TMG) is a peer-reviewed journal to be launched in 2014, published in both print and digital formats. It is based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and sponsored by CARMEN, the Worldwide Medieval Network. It is dedicated to exploring the modes of communication, materials of exchange, and myriad interconnections among regions, communities, and individuals in an era central to human history.

The Medieval Globe promotes scholarship in three related areas of study:

the direct and indirect means by which peoples, goods, and ideas came into contact,
the deep roots of global developments,
the ways in which perceptions of “the medieval” have been (and are) constructed around the world.

Contributions to a global understanding of the medieval period need not encompass the globe in any territorial sense. The Medieval Globe advances a new theory and praxis of medieval studies by bringing into view phenomena that have been rendered practically or conceptually invisible by anachronistic boundaries, categories, and expectations: these include networks, communities, bodies of knowledge, forms of movement, varieties of interaction, and identities. It invites submissions that analyze actual or potential connections, trace trajectories and currents, address topics of broad interest, or pioneer portable methodologies.

For more information, please visit: http://www.arc-humanities.org/the-medieval-globe.html

Conference: Misericordia International Conference (León, 29th May – 1st June 2014)

Misericordia International Conference
Choir Stalls in Architecture and Architecture in Choir Stalls
León, 29th May – 1st June 2014

Misericordia International was founded by Elaine C. Block (1925-2008) as an association dedicated to the research, awareness and study of choir stalls, and their relationship to other artistic expressions during the Middle Ages. Since its creation, it has promoted the celebration of a biannual international conference as a place for scientific exchange among those members of the research community interested in this topic, from a multidisciplinary point of view. Previous editions, celebrated in Cologne, Barcelona, Amiens, Angers, Sheffield, Rouen, Basel, Paris, Nijmegen and Gdansk, have provided a space to delve into the study of choir stalls from different points of view.

This next edition, under the title “Choir Stalls in Architecture and Architecture in Choir Stalls”, wants to highlight the importance of choir stalls in the spatial conception of cathedrals, and how sculptors used them to rehearse motifs, models and solutions of a formal, stylistic and constructive character, which would later be employed in architectural solutions.

There are four scheduled sessions:
Session I: Space, liturgy and architectural conception
Session II: Symbolism and Iconography
Session III: Study of prominent examples
Session IV: Destructions, interventions and Restorations

For more information, please visit the following website: misericordialeon2014

Call for papers: Exhibiting the Renaissance

Exhibiting art objects has certainly increased over the past decades. There are more and more large scale exhibitions, some of which able to attract masses of people. What is the driving force behind this multitude of exhibitions? Does Renaissance, once a classical topic, still play a significant role? In order to understand the outreach of the Renaissance in public view, we would like to have insides on how museums are dealing with their Renaissance departments. A museum is seldom build of objects just of one single period, but collections and their curators are competing over permanent exhibition space and temporary exhibitions.

We would like to invite papers with reflections on the value of
Renaissance objects in the perception of museum strategies, competing
collections, possibilities of exhibition, etc. The value and perception
of the collection might vary because the museum strategy values the
Renaissance highly, because the curator is a successful promoter,
because the civic surroundings are especially open to Renaissance
topics, because the permanent collection already contains widely known
Renaissance objects, or because the exhibition projects focus on topics
which attract a mass of people.

A thematic issue on “Exhibiting the Renaissance” is projected with the
open access online journal Kunsttexte (www.kunsttexte.de) for the first
half of 2015. We invite papers (in German, English, French, Italian,
Spanish) for a deadline in October 2014. Please feel free to contact
the editors of the section Renaissance with any questions.

Send your proposals to both editors of Kunsttexte (Sektion Renaissance)
Angela Dressen (adressen@itatti.harvard.edu)
Susanne Gramatzki (gramatz@uni-wuppertal.de)

Deadline: 31 October 2014

Call for proposals: Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500), CAA 2015

Moving Women, Moving Objects (300-1500)
Call for Proposals for a Session sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art at the College Art Association Annual Conference
February 11-14, 2015, New York City

As we examine medieval works of art like manuscripts, reliquaries, and jewels, today anchored and spotlighted in their museum vitrines, it is easy to imagine these sumptuous objects at rest in the hands of their original owners. But, in truth, they were in constant motion, and women were especially responsible for the movement of these works of art. This panel seeks to enrich the discussion of women and their relationships with their objects that, in the area of non-book arts, remains relatively unexplored. Luscious objects were gifts that traveled lesser and greater distances, some imported in brides’ nuptial coffers and many more commissioned and used to unite women separated by their politically advantageous marriages. Sisters and mothers, grandmothers and aunts, daughters and cousins, as well as friends and allies, all exchanged works of art with shared stories and iconographies. These pieces were the tokens that served as tribute, the centerpieces of rituals and ceremonies, the precious keepsakes enjoyed in intimate places, and the markers of architectural spaces often also founded or endowed by these women.
Theories of feminism, anthropology, sociology, and geography, among others, can all aid in the interpretation of the movement of works of art by women. New technologies such as GIS mapping and digital modeling enable us to visualize the international trajectories of works of art, as well as the movement and placement of them within architectural space. Proposals for this panel could include papers concerning women living between 300-1500. While proposals discussing European examples are anticipated, those analyzing any culture are encouraged. Papers might discuss women moving their objects in ritual space; the international, cross-cultural fertilization of the arts resulting from women’s gifts; the mapping of women’s identity through placement of objects; or class and women’s movement of their objects.

Please email the session chairs the attached Session Participation Proposal Submission form, a preliminary abstract of your proposal, a letter of interest, CV, and supporting materials.

Proposals due: May 9; Abstracts due: Aug. 8; Full text of papers due: Dec. 1, 2014.

Contact: Tracy Chapman Hamilton, Sweet Briar College, thamilton@sbc.edu; Mariah Proctor-Tiffany, California State University, Long Beach, mariah.proctor@csulb.edu

Publication: Speculum, Vol. 89, issue 2 (April 2014)

Speculum, published quarterly since 1926, was the first scholarly journal in North America devoted exclusively to the Middle Ages, a period ranging from 500 to 1500. It is open to contributions in all fields studying this era. Its primary emphasis is on Western Europe, but Arabic, Byzantine, Hebrew, and Slavic studies are also included. The journal publishes over a thousand pages a year of articles and book reviews, reaches an international audience, and is the most widely distributed journal of medieval studies.

– Gold Coinage and Its Use in the Post-Roman West, Rory Naismith

– “Knowledge Will Be Manifold”: Daniel 12.4 and the Idea of Intellectual Progress in the Middle Ages, J.R. Webb

– Early-Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs and the Maternal Language of Clerical Authority, Hannah W. Mattis

– In Praise of the Too-Clement Emperor: The Problem of Forgiveness in the Astronomer’s Vita Hludowici imperatoris, Andrew J. Romig

– Neither Bewitched nor Beguiled: Philip Augustus’s Alleged Impotence and Innocent III’s Response, Constance M. Rousseau

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=SPC

Lecture: Deserts, Rivers and Mountains: Nature and Divinity in Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, Brookline, MA

Dr. Anastasia Drandaki (Benaki Museum) considers the role of natural landscape in Byzantine pilgrimage art. A pilgrimage was born of the believer’s longing to be in a locus sanctus (holy place), to see and touch and imitate holy persons, treading in their very footsteps. Pilgrims themselves express this in their journals, describing step by step with emotion how they followed the episodes in scripture or accounts of the lives. They need to be sure that they are in exactly the right place, on the particular spot where the sacred events took place. It is as if eradicating the geographical distance might also circumvent the distance in time, bringing them as close as possible to the presence of the holy persons and their acts. Moreover, the natural formation of the holy place often plays a decisive role in texts related to shrines, and the pilgrims’ contact with the particular landscape of any given pilgrimage affects their religious experience. But is the relation between landscape and holy place reflected in any way in Byzantine pilgrimage art? Does the natural landscape of the loca sancta project in art and artefacts related to holy sites, offering a potential exception to the familiar and much debated sketchy presence of physical space in Byzantine religious scenes? This lecture will explore how the natural, physical environment of the locus sanctus is depicted and participate in the art and artefacts that completed the pilgrimage experience.

Conference: London Medieval Society ‘Postgraduates Present’ 2014

You are warmly invited to our ‘postgraduates present’ colloquium on 10 May 2014 – this is a chance to hear the latest research from PhD candidates on important and on-trend aspects of medieval culture and history. Our friendly learned society is open to academics and non-academics. The event is free for members of the Society and you may join on the day (annual membership is £20/£10 concessions).

http://www.the-lms.org/colloquia.html

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/the-london-medieval-society-2707281234

Call for papers: Latinate Nuns and Liturgical Commentary: The Graduals from Paradies bei Soest, c.1360-1425, Leuven

Professor Jeffrey H. Hamburger (Harvard University) is the holder of the 2014 LECTIO Chair. Aside his public lecture on Tuesday 27 May entitled “The Autonomy of Images: The Prayer Book of Ursula Begerin and Late Medieval Picture Books”, he will give on 28 May a Doctoral Seminar “Latinate Nuns and Liturgical Commentary: The Graduals from Paradies bei Soest, ca. 1360-1425”.

On the occasion of this seminar, a selection of early-stage scholars (PhD students and postdocs) are given the opportunity to present their research during a paper session and to discuss it with the chair holder, the scientific committee and other colleagues.
Three domains have been selected: (1) ‘Hearing as viewing, viewing as sensing’. The medieval book and manuscript as synesthetic medium; (2) ‘Nuns as artists’ revisited after the material turn; and (3) ‘Word & Image’. Methodological challenges for interdisciplinary studies.

We invite early-stage researchers to submit proposals for papers in one of the aforementioned domains. We especially welcome interdisciplinary and innovative scholarly case studies that document these topics, from fields as diverse as philosophy, history, history of art, theology and religion, musicology, manuscript studies, gender studies, and hagiography. Selected researchers are expected to give a brief 10-minutes presentation in English.

A single page description of the proposed poster and a short CV should be submitted no later than 21 April 2014 to lectio@kuleuven.be.
Scholars who want to attend the seminar without presenting a poster are also asked to express their interest before that date.

Lecture: Romanesque Sculpture: Contexts and Perceptions from Lincoln and Pavia to Moissac and Saint-Genis-des-Fontaines, Courtauld

The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland requests the pleasure of your company at its Annual Lecture on Tuesday 29th April 2014 at 5.30 p.m. at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

The lecture is divided into two parts, concerning form and content respectively. The first discusses what is special about Romanesque sculpture and how it could have arisen, with particular reference to its relationship to the buildings it adorns. This section also examines the theory that architectural sculpture was developed out of church furniture.

The section on content considers a number of examples, including capitals in the cloister at Moissac, carvings on the façade of San Michele in Pavia, and a relief on the Puerta de las Platerias at Santiago de Compostela.

Professor Eric Fernie has held the posts of Professor of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Courtauld Institute of the University of London. He is a fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Society of Antiquaries of London (of which he has been President), and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

His books include The Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons (1983), An Architectural History of Norwich Cathedral (1993), Art History and its Methods(1995), and The Architecture of Norman England (2000). He has also published some seventy chapters in books and papers in refereed journals.