The latest research, news, and reviews from the world of Medieval Art History
The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic is delighted to announce a one-day 
conference focusing on saintly miracles and their roles in medieval hagiography. Speakers include Robert Bartlett, Dorothy Ann Bray, Thomas Clancy, Catherine Cubitt, Barry Lewis, Rosalind Love and Christine Rauer.
Find the Conference poster here. For more information and the full programme, visit ‘Mapping Miracles‘.
Seminar at the Anatomy Museum, King’s College, London.
24.03.2014, 18.30-20.30.
Attention is an intense concentration enacted in the body and mind. It is something to be attracted or something we give, generously and with due consideration. In theatre and performance, it is that which unites an audience, who are, with PA Skantze, ‘bound in their attention’ (2003) even as it drifts and returns or might ignite dissent. Our attention can be selective, divided; it occupies space and time; it has breadth and span. We draw attention, and desire it. We, and our productions, are attention-seeking, attention-grabbing. We suffer from an attention deficit.
FAO brings together thinkers from across the fields of theatre and performance studies, literary history, psychotherapy and essay writing to give attention to attention in all its forms. We will ask how attention is cultivated and distributed in criticism and performance. For critics such as Frank Kermode (1985) and Jonathan Crary (1999) and historians like Lorraine Daston (2010) its various conditions powerfully index their historical times: attention determines value and the forms through which we ‘attend’ to works of art and the social world.
This talk will investigate the common ground between two materials widely employed as luxury goods in the later Middle Ages. Focusing on periods of manufacture from the 14th to 16th century, these materials were coveted, fought over, and used for objects which would aid their owners in the most private of devotions, or the most public of spectacles. This talk will address the carving of sculpture, the painting of sculpture and the location, or lack of location for sculpture.
Lloyd de Beer is jointly responsible for the late medieval collections (alongside lead curator Naomi Speakman). His academic background is in English art and literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and he is currently working on the museum’s collection of alabaster sculptures, pilgrim badges and seal matrices. He has a particular interest in medieval architecture, and the role it plays in framing the visual reception of objects and ritual. Prior to joining the department Lloyd held a curatorial internship at the Victoria and Albert Museum and a curatorial fellowship at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. He has recently published on English alabaster sculpture, and has a forthcoming book on the Lacock Cup, co-authored with Naomi Speakman out in 2013.
Naomi Speakman is the curator for Late Medieval Europe at the British Museum. Her current research interests are gothic ivory carving, late medieval metalwork and collecting history. Prior to joining the British Museum Naomi has worked at Bonhams and the V&A, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art on the British Museum’s Gothic Ivory collection. She has contributed to the catalogue for the British Museum exhibition, ‘Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in medieval Europe’ and has a forthcoming publication on the Lacock Cup jco-authored authored with Lloyd de Beer.
Hosted by the Performance Research Group. FAO is convened by Georgina Guy, Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies, and David Russell, Lecturer in English Literature.
With the collaboration and support of the Spain-North Africa Project (SNAP), and Loyola Marymount University, the Mediterranean Seminar/University of California Multi-Campus Research Project invites participants to the Spring 2014 workshop on “Mediterranean Connectivities,” to be held at Loyola Marymount University on Saturday, 3 May, 2014. This event is presented in conjunction and collaboration with the SNAP conference, “Power Relations & Religious Communities,” to be held on Friday, May 2 at LMU. 
Mediterranean Connectivities – Workshop
Saturday, 3 May, 9:30am—5:15pm
A workshop consisting of three pre-circulated papers and a talk by our featured scholar:
• “Commercial Conflict Resolution Across the Religious Divide in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean”, Travis Bruce – History, Wichita State University
• “ Conceptualizing Cultural Interaction in Twelfth-Century Eastern Anatolia”, Sergio La Porta – Armenian Studies, CSU Fresno
• “The Extraterritorial Mediterranean: Consular Courts and Connectivity in Nineteenth-Century Morocco”, Jessica Marglin- Judaic Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Featured scholar: Adam Sabra (History, University of California Santa Barbara): “Mediterranean Connections of a Sixteenth-Century Egyptian `alim”
All interested graduate students and scholars are welcome. Pre-registration for the Saturday workshop is required; attendance is limited so please register soon. UC-and LMU-affiliated scholars may register immediately, others on or after April 1. Lunch will be provided on both days for attendees who register prior to April 15.
To register and receive the workshop papers prior to April, 1, please contact Sharon Kinoshita (sakinosh@ucsc.edu); on or after April 1, please contact Courtney Mahaney (cmahaney@ucsc.edu) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. UC-affiliated faculty and graduate students will be eligible for up to $350 for travel expenses; non-UC participants may apply but support will granted as available (contingent on availability and attendance at both events).
Limited accommodation is available through the workshop at a rate of approximately $125/night; those who register on or before April 1 should indicate if they are interested.
Power Relations & Religious Communities – Conference
Friday, 2 May, 9am—7:30pm
9:00-09:30 Registration
Registration on site: $15 for public, $10 for students, free for members of LMU community. Pre-register athttp://bit.ly/1isAGME
9:30-09:50 Opening Remarks
Welcome: Andrew Devereux (Loyola Marymount University)
Dean Michael O’Sullivan (BCLA, Loyola Marymount University)
Opening Remarks: Sharon Kinoshita and Brian Catlos, co-directors
UC Mediterranean Studies Multicampus Research Project (MRP)
Yuen-Gen Liang (Wheaton College, Massachusetts)
9:50-11:50 WORKSHOP: The Consolidation of Identity on the Margins in North Africa
Moderator: Paul Sidelko (Metropolitan State University of Denver)
Mohamad Ballan (University of Chicago), “‘They shall come to you from the West with God’s religion’: Ibāḍī Doctrine and Berber Identity in Ibn Sallām’s Kitāb (ca. 875)”
Commentator: Paul Love (University of Michigan)
Manuela Ceballos (Emory University), “Power and Vulnerability in the Biography of a Sixteenth-Century Moroccan Saint”
Commentator: Emily Gottreich (University of California, Berkeley)
11:50-13:00 LUNCH
13:00-15:15 PANEL: Expressions of Power
Chair: Najwa al-Qattan (Loyola Marymount University)
Discussants: Abigail Krasner Balbale (Bard Graduate Center) & Camilo Gómez-Rivas (The American University in Cairo)
Yoshihiko Ito (Tokyo University of Science), “New Power, Old Territory, and Renewed Architecture in the 10th-Century Kingdom of León”
Thomas Devaney (University of Rochester), “From Tension to Violence: Inciting a Riot in Fifteenth-Century Castile”
Marya T. Green-Mercado (University of Michigan), “Prophecy as Diplomacy: Morisco Prophecies of Henry IV of France”
Sasha Pack (University of Buffalo), “Francisco Merry y Colom and the Ambivalent Spanish Encounter with Moroccan Jewery, 1860-1864”
15:15-15:30 COFFEE BREAK
15:30-18:00 TALKING ARTIFACTS: Geographies of Power
Chair: Yuen-Gen Liang (Wheaton College, Massachusetts) Discussant: Audience
Josie Hendrickson (University of Alberta), “Power and Pilgrimage: al-Burzulī (d. 1438) on Sailing with Christians”
Karen Pinto (Gettysburg College), “Islamic Maps as Maghrib/Mediterranean Artifacts”
Gil Klein (Loyola Marymount University), “Subverting Cities: Roman Land and Rabbinic Assumption of Imperial Power in the Eastern Mediterranean”
18:00-19:30 RECEPTION
Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art is pleased to announce the publication of its 2014 issue, entitled “Active Objects.” Arising out sessions at the 2012 International Congress of Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI, these five essays and one review examine the complex and responsive materiality of medieval art.
Contents:
“Active Objects: An Introduction” by Karen Eileen Overbey & Benjamin C. Tilghman
“Copper-Alloy Substrates in Precious-Metal Treasury Objects: Concealed and Yet Excessive”
by Joseph Salvatore Ackley
“On the Enigmatic Nature of Things in Anglo-Saxon Art” by Benjamin C. Tilghman
“Active Optics: Carolingian Rock Crystal on Medieval Reliquaries” by Genevra Kornbluth
“Materia Meditandi: Haptic Perception and Some Parisian Ivories of the Virgin and Child, ca. 1300” by Alexa Sand
“The Instrumental Cross and the Use of the Gospel Book Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale MS 960” by Beatrice Kitzinger
“Of Liturgical Straws and Spiritual Breadboxes: a review of Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality and Mary Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages” by Anne F. Harris
All articles may be viewed and downloaded athttp://differentvisions.org/issue-four/
Different Visions is a web-based, open-access, peer-reviewed annual, devoted to progressive scholarship on medieval art. Information on submissions can be found at http://differentvisions.org/submissions/.
Special Guest Lecture being held in the Senate House *tomorrow* (in collaboration with UCL and KCL
Prof. Joan Breton Connelly (New York University) Acropolis and Parthenon: Genealogical Myth, Boundary Catastrophes and Local Memory
When: Wednesday 19th March 2014, 17:15 – 18:45
Where: Senate House (WC1E 7HU ), South Block, Room G22/26
The Parthenon’s sculptural program is steeped in genealogical myth beckoning ever backward across imagined aeons. Cosmic and epic narratives, and the great boundary catastrophes that separated the ages, established temporal and topographic frameworks through which Athenians understood who they were and where they came from. By taking the long view from the Archaic Acropolis through to the fifth century, the power of architectural sculpture in creating and communicating a shared memory of Athenian origins and identity is revealed. For a culture without media, and without a sacred text, the centrality of great architectural sculptures in forging this solidarity cannot be overstated.
The event will be followed by a reception sponsored by Head of Zeus publications.
This is an open and public event: all are very warmly invited.
For more information, please visit http://events.sas.ac.uk/icls/events/view/16003 .
Currently, there are a number of shows airing on television and available online that feature medieval art and architecture:
The 2nd edition of the International Conference “Medieval Europe in Motion” will take place in Lisbon, 4-6th March 2015.
The conference’s main scientific goal is to analyse the phenomenon of circulation, motion and mobility of people, forms and ideas during the Middle Ages.
This time the focus will be on the illuminated manuscripts. This three-day Conference aims thus to conduct a critical and constructive revision of research on Iberian Book Illumination in the Middle Ages, proposing new questions to be discussed. 
The organisers invite abstracts for papers (20-minutes in length) along the following themes:
Proposals in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian are welcome. Please, send a 300-word abstract and a short CV to medinmotion2015@gmail.com by June 30th, 2014. Accepted proposals will be confirmed by September 15th, 2014.
Fees:
Participation with paper: 50 €
Attendance: 30 €
The London Society for Medieval Studies is hosting a lecture on Tuesday evening, March 18th, at 7.00 in the Torrington Room (104), First Floor, Senate House (located on Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU) by:
Professor Julia Crick (King’s College London) who will be speaking on ‘Script Imitation: the Shock of the Old’.
All those who are interested in Medieval Studies are very welcome to attend the lecture. All attendees are also invited to join the Committee and the Speaker for dinner directly after the lecture and questions.
The Society is entirely funded by its members and support from the Institute for Historical Research. We suggest a small donation of £6.00 per year if you would like to become a member or, alternatively, £2.00 per lecture. Please contact Sarah (sw544@cam.ac.uk) if you would like more information.
Wiley-Blackwell is offering unlimited concurrent electronic access to Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita’s A Companion to Mediterranean History for those institutions that purchase a hard copy for their library collection.
For product details, see http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470659017.html
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