Funded PhD in Medieval Painting and the End of Life, Northeastern University London (NU London), deadline 31 October 2023

PhD Scholarship (Fully Funded) in Art History – Medieval Painting and the End of Life: From the Monumental to the Personal

As part of a major investment, Northeastern University London (NU London) has multiple, fully-funded PhD studentships available to accelerate its interdisciplinary research in the humanities, social sciences, and computing, maths, engineering and natural sciences. Each scholarship is fully-funded for three and a half years (UKRI rates) and includes full course fees, an annual stipend (including an additional London allowance) and associated costs, such as training.

The Project

This research will contribute methodologically to current debates across the humanities concerning the importance of visual and material objects within human experience. The student recruited to the research project will be required to work on medieval visual culture pertaining to the end of life, to demonstrate how imagery held agency in medieval people’s navigation of formative moments in the human lifecycle.

The specific regions and materials of focus will be shaped by the candidate.

More information and how to apply here.

Online Lecture: ‘Zero Hour for Illuminated Manuscripts? The Acquisition and Alienation of Medieval Art in Post-World-War II Nuremberg’, London Society for Medieval Studies,14 November 2023, 5.30-7pm (GMT)

Prof William Diebold, historian of early medieval art at Reed College, will share his latest work at the London Society for Medieval Studies.

Diebold will discuss the decisions regarding two manuscripts made during the 1950s by the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg. The first was to acquire a spectacular Ottonian-era gospel manuscript, a book used in the Christian liturgy. The other was to sell two late medieval haggadahs (the book used by Jews to celebrate Passover) that had been in the collection of the Nuremberg museum for a century. This paper documents these stories, one of acquisition and the other of alienation, and locates them in their post-World-War-II German historical context.

This is part of the ongoing IHR London Society for Medieval Studies seminar series. All welcome – this event is free, but booking is required.

Seminar Abstract

This paper examines two decisions regarding medieval illuminated manuscripts made during the 1950s by the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg. The first was to acquire a spectacular Ottonian-era gospel manuscript, a book used in the Christian liturgy.  The other was to sell two late medieval haggadahs (the book used by Jews to celebrate Passover) that had been in the collection of the Nuremberg museum for a century.

This paper documents these stories, one of acquisition and the other of alienation, and locates them in their post-World-War-II German historical context.  Because the Nazis had so heavily capitalized on the Middle Ages, which they saw as the “First Empire” that was reincarnated in their Third Reich, the status of medieval art was fraught in Germany after 1945.  And nowhere was this more true than in Nuremberg, the city that had been the site both of the Nazi Party’s annual rallies and of the postwar trials of the leading Nazis. To try to deal with this impossibly difficult legacy, many Germans viewed the end of the Second World War as the “Zero Hour,” a moment when their country began entirely anew.  This paper argues, however, that the acquisition of the early medieval gospel book and the alienation of the two haggadah manuscripts show that, assertions of a Zero Hour to the contrary, the legacy of the Nazi era was not an easy one to leave behind. Instead, the acquisition and deaccession policy of the Nuremberg museum instead shows more continuities with Nazi practices than breaks from it.

Register and find out more here.

British Archaeological Association Post-Graduate Online Conference Programme, 29 November 2023, 12.30pm – 17.35pm (GMT)

We are excited to present a diverse conference which includes postgraduates and early career researchers in the fields of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology. The British Archaeological Association postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present their research and exchange ideas.

This year, the conference will take place online via Zoom.

Use this link to register for the conference.

Conference Programme

Wednesday 29th November 2023

12:30 pm (GMT) Welcome

Panel 1: Approaches to Overlooked Elements in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Architecture

12.40 – 14.30 pm (GMT)

  • Bryony Wilde (University of Warwick, UK), ‘Decoding Medieval Roof Bosses’
  • Mats Dijkdrent (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium), ‘Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics as a lieu for Architectural Thinking’ 
  • Nils Hausmann (University of Cologne, Germany), ‘Naming and Meaning – On the Survival and Reuse of Early and High Medieval Book Cases’
  • Sophia Feist (University of Cambridge, UK), ‘Extravagant Violations and Visual Tropes: Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Semiotic use of Dress in the Budapest Martyrdom of Saint Catherine’

14.30 – 14.45 pm (GMT) – Break

Panel 2: Intersections of Materiality and Identity: Unpacking the Medieval Landscape and Space

14.45 – 16.05 pm (GMT)

  • Theodore Muscillo (Independent Researcher), ‘Jugs, mugs and aquamaniles: pottery and networks on the east coast of England, 1250-1500’
  • Sercan Batum (Middle East Technical University, Turkey), ‘Christianization of Urban Topography in Late Antique Histria’
  • Eleanor Townsend (University of Oxford, UK), ‘‘All the werkemanship and masonry crafte of a frounte Innying to the Awter of our lady’: the problem of the Jesse reredos in St Cuthbert’s, Wells’

16.05 pm – 16.15 pm (GMT) – Break

Panel 3: Stones and Stories: Interrogating the Art and Gender Dynamics in Religious Commemoration Across Medieval Europe

16.15 pm – 17.25 pm (GMT)

  • Nicola Lowe (Independent Researcher), ‘Tears at the Graveside’
  • Philip Muijtjens (University of Cambridge, UK), ‘Tombs as Sensory Experiences in Fifteenth-Century Italy’
  • Arica Roberts (University of Reading, UK), ‘Gender in Early Medieval Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales c. 410-1150 CE’

5:35 pm (GMT) Closing remarks

Register for the conference.

Lecture: ‘Byzantine Tradition in Africa: Art and Culture in Northern and Eastern Africa’ with Dr Andrea Achi, Friday 13 October 2023, 6:30–7:30pm, The Met Fifth Avenue, New York City

Join a Met expert to learn about the profound artistic contributions of North Africa, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and other powerful African kingdoms whose pivotal interactions with Byzantium had a lasting impact on the Mediterranean world. Highlighting artworks rarely or never before seen in public, the talk sheds new light on the staggering artistic achievements of medieval Africa. Hear an overview of Byzantine art in Africa and take a deeper look at fifth-century Nubian (Sudanese) chests that shift perceptions about Byzantine art production and sources.

Andrea Achi, Mary and Michael Jaharis Associate Curator of Byzantine Art, Department of Medieval Art, The Met

Find out more information here.

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Africa and Byzantium.

Free, though advance registration is required. Please note: Space is limited; first come, first served.

Use the street-level Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education entrance at Fifth Avenue and 81st Street.

Online Lecture: ‘Emblems of the Past: saints, stained glass and early medieval antiquities’, Dr Martin Crampin, 12 October 2023, 5.00pm (BST)

Focussing mainly on the nineteenth- and twentieth-century imagery of saints in Wales, the talk will look at ways in which artists and designers, mainly working in stained glass, attempted to provide the early saints of Wales and Ireland with an authentically Celtic appearance. These images sometimes included specific references to early medieval metalwork and other kinds of historical artefacts.

Follow the link to join through Zoom:
https://uwtsd-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/91815254511

Martin Crampin is an artist, photographer and designer based at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies in Aberystwyth. He has been researching ecclesiastical art, the visual culture of Medievalism and the Celtic Revival in Wales for around twenty years, and has contributed to a series of research projects including ‘The Visual Culture of Wales’, ‘Imaging the Bible in Wales’, ‘The Cult of Saints in Wales’ and ‘Ports, Past and Present’. Publications include Stained Glass from Welsh Churches (2014), Depicting St David (2020) and Welsh Saints from Welsh Churches (2023).

Lecture: ‘Medieval and Medical: Developing The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in the 1940s’, Lauren Rozenberg, University of East Anglia, 11 October, 5pm (BST)

It is our immense pleasure to invite you to the first of this year’s World Art Research Seminars, coming up on Wednesday 11th October at 5pm in the SCVA Lecture Theatre (01.10).

In this opening session, we’ll be welcoming Dr Lauren Rozenberg, currently a Leverhulme Fellow in the Department, who will be sharing her fascinating research on the unusual formation of Henry Wellcome’s Medical Museum in the 1940s, a project that draws together her expertise on medical curating, medieval healing, and both modern and premodern visual culture.

As ever, WARS sessions are free and followed by a glass of wine – all are welcome, so please do pass on the details to interested friends, colleagues, and students!

For more information on the series please contact j.hartnell@uea.ac.uk.

Location: Department of Art History & World Art Studies, UEA (SCVA Lecture Theatre (01.10))

Online Lecture: ‘Reconstructing Bury St Edmunds Abbey’, with Steven Brindle, British Archaeological Association, Wednesday 4 October 2023, 5pm (BST)

This month’s British Archaeological Association Lecture will take place via Zoom (sign up link here). Tune in to hear Dr Steven Brindle from English Heritage present on ‘Reconstructing Bury St Edmunds Abbey’.

Grants: American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Research Grants, deadline 1 December 2023

The American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Research Grants support the cost of research leading to publication in all areas of knowledge. The Franklin program is particularly designed to help meet the costs of travel to libraries and archives for research purposes; the purchase of microfilm, photocopies, or equivalent research materials; the costs associated with fieldwork; or laboratory research expenses. The Society is particularly interested in supporting the work of young scholars who have recently received the Ph.D.

Award: up to $6,000

Web: https://www.amphilsoc.org/grants/franklin-research-grants (for information and access to application portal)

Lecture series: Medieval Work-in-Progress Seminars at The Courtauld 2023-2024

All seminars are held on Wednesdays at The Courtauld’s Vernon Square campus, and begin at 5.30pm. Talks usually last approx. 45-60 minutes, followed by questions and drinks. Events are free and open to all, but please book your place via https://myaccount.courtauld.ac.uk/overview/11300

25 October: Tom Nickson (The Courtauld): Towers, Travel, and Architectural Habits

15 November: Niamh Bhalla (Northeastern University): Birth, Death and Protective Imagery in a Rock-hewn Church from Tenth-Century Cappadocia [moved from 4 October to avoid train & tube strikes]

6 December: Assaf Pinkus (Tel Aviv University): Experiencing the Gigantic in Late Medieval Art: Schloss Runkelstein

17 January 2024: Katrin Kogman-Appel (Muenster University): Entanglement in Shared Cultural Spaces: Hebrew Book Art in Iberia, c. 1300

7 February, ICMA lecture: Nina Rowe (Fordham): Dancing in the Streets (and the Courts and the Choirs) of Fifteenth-Century Austria

6 March: Elena Paulino Montero (UNED, Madrid): Architecture in Fourteenth-Century Castile (TBC)

1 May: Margaret Crosland (Washington University & St Louis Art Museum): (TBC)

15 May, Paul Crossley Memorial Lecture: Merlijn Hurx (KU Leuven): Keldermans on Horseback. Five Star Architects in the Medieval Low Countries

Scholarship: Index of Medieval Art Student Travel Grant, deadline 1 October 2023

For the second year, the Index of Medieval Art is pleased to offer a student travel grant to attend this year’s Index conference, Whose East? Defining, Challenging, and Exploring Eastern Christian Art, on November 11, 2023.

The grant will support attendance by one non-Princeton student who wishes to attend the conference but lacks the financial resources to do so. Up to $500 will be offered in reimbursement for travel and accommodations. Preference will be given to students whose institutions do not offer travel funding, who are not currently supported by a research fellowship, and who would be traveling from outside a 120-mile radius of Princeton. The grantee will be invited to participate in all aspects of the conference, including the speaker lunch, and to pursue research at the Index if their visit schedule permits.

Find out more information here.