New Working Group: ‘Medieval Manuscripts Working Group’, Merton College, Oxford University

Hilary Term 2024 | Fridays 5 pm (the Weston Library Visit is at 2 pm) | Merton College, Oxford University

This is a new seminar series whose goal is to foster a community at Oxford University, and beyond, of those who study medieval manuscripts. With a particular focus on illuminated manuscripts, we will be discussing the most exciting recent research in this field; sharing our own projects and ideas in a supportive and friendly environment; learning from seminars given by experienced colleagues; and examining medieval manuscripts together during library visits.

To subscribe to our mailing list, participate in library visits, propose a presentation of your research for work in progress meetings, or submit any queries, please write to: elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk 

Week 1, 19 January 2024 (Hawkins Room)

Reading and discussion of Elina Gertsman, The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021)
All welcome. Write to the email below if you cannot access this book’s online version.

Week 3, 2 February 2024 (The Weston Library Visit)

Study and discussion of illuminated manuscripts.
Limited spaces. Please write to the email above by 21/01/2024
First come, first served basis.

Week 5, 16 February 2024 (Hawkins Room)

Work in Progress Meeting

Presentation and discussion of articles, thesis chapters, conference papers in progress that concern medieval manuscripts. We are still accepting applications. If you like to present your work in progress and receive our feedback, write to the email above by 1/02/2024.

Week 7, 1 March 2024 (Mure Room)

Peter Kidd, Independent Researcher: ‘Provenance and Medieval Manuscripts’
Drinks reception and dinner at Gino’s. All welcome

Lecture Series: Medieval Visual Culture Seminar, University of Oxford, Hilary Term 2024

St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Arumugam Building  |   Thursdays 5pm (GMT)  |   All welcome

Convenors: Elena Lichmanova (elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk), Gervase Rosser, Martin Kauffmann, Hannah Skoda

Sacred Space

Week 2, Thursday 25 January 2024: Emily Guerry (University of Kent), Diplomacy and Devotion in the Gothic Wall Paintings of Angers Cathedral

Week 4, Thursday 8 February 2024: Jacopo Gnisci (University College London), Sacred Space and Imperial Authority in ‘Medieval’ Ethiopia: The Portrait of Yekunno Amlak in Gannata Maryam

Week 6, Thursday 22 February 2024: Paul Binski (University of Cambridge), Henry III’s Bed: Peace and Sacred Space at Westminster

Exhibition: Ethiopia at the Crossroads, The Walters Art Museum, 3 December 2023– 3 March 2024

Find out more about the exhibition here.

The Walters Art Museum presents an extraordinary exhibition celebrating the artistic traditions of Ethiopia from their origins to the present day. Ethiopia at the Crossroads is the first major art exhibition in America to examine an array of Ethiopian cultural and artistic traditions from their origins to the present day and to chart the ways in which engaging with surrounding cultures manifested in Ethiopian artistic practices. Featuring more than 220 objects drawn from the Walters’ world-renowned collection of Ethiopian art and augmented with loans from American, European, and Ethiopian lenders, the exhibition spans 1,750 years of Ethiopia’s proud artistic, cultural, and religious history.

Seated in the Horn of Africa between Europe and the Middle East, Ethiopia is an intersection of diverse climates, religions, and cultures. Home to over 80 different ethnicities and religious groups, a large portion of the historic artistic production in Ethiopia supported one of the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), all of which have early roots in Ethiopia. As one of the oldest Christian kingdoms, Ethiopian artists produced icons, wall paintings, crosses of various scales, and illuminated manuscripts to support this religious tradition and its liturgy.

Ethiopia at the Crossroads examines Ethiopian art as representative of the nation’s notable history, including its status as an early adopter of Christianity and the only African nation that was never colonized, and demonstrates the enormous cultural significance of this often-overlooked African nation through the themes of cross-cultural exchange and the human role in the creation and movement of art objects. In particular, the exhibition traces the creation and movement of art objects, styles, and materials into and out of Ethiopia, whether across the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean, or within the African continent, especially up the Nile River.

Visitors will see painted Christian icons, church wall paintings, healing scrolls, bronze processional crosses, colorful basketry, ancient stone and 20th-century wood sculpture, contemporary artworks, and more. Some of the earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts from Ethiopia are on view along with secular objects produced and utilized by Ethiopians, including coins minted by generations of Aksumite rulers and textiles used for manuscript bindings and garments.

Works by contemporary Ethiopian artists—such as Wax and Gold X (2014) by Wosene Worke Kosrof, a painting utilizing graphic, abstracted forms of Amharic script, the Semitic language widely spoken in Ethiopia and descended from Gəʿəz, an ancient written system indigenous to Africa, and All in One (2016) by Aïda Muluneh, featuring a woman wearing body paint inspired by traditions of African body art and a composition reminiscent of Ethiopian church paintings of the Virgin Mary—are juxtaposed with the historic works to help visitors comprehend and connect with the multiplicity of cultures and histories presented.

Tsedaye Makonnen, guest curator of contemporary art for the exhibition and an Ethiopian American multidisciplinary artist in her own right, will share in-gallery insights about the tangible effect the historic artworks have on these artists, who frequently incorporate their themes, motifs, and stylistic features in varying degrees.

This exhibition is co-organized by the Walters Art Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, and the Toledo Museum of Art. The exhibition will travel to the Peabody Essex Museum April 13–July 7, 2024, and to the Toledo Museum of Art August 17–November 10, 2024.

New Publication: ‘Phenomenology of the Icon: Mediating God through the Image’ by Stephanie Rumpza

How can something finite mediate an infinite God? Weaving patristics, theology, art history, aesthetics, and religious practice with the hermeneutic phenomenology of Hans-George Gadamer and Jean-Luc Marion, Stephanie Rumpza proposes a new answer to this paradox by offering a fresh and original approach to the Byzantine icon. She demonstrates the power and relevance of the phenomenological method to integrate hermeneutic aesthetics and divine transcendence, notably how the material and visual dimensions of the icon are illuminated by traditional practices of prayer. Rumpza’s study targets a problem that is a major fault line in the continental philosophy of religion – the integrity of finite beings I relation to a God that transcends them. For philosophers, her book demonstrates the relevance of a cherished religious practice of Eastern Christianity. For art historians, she proposes a novel philosophical paradigm for understanding the icon as it is approached in practice.

Find out more about the book here.

About the author

Stephanie Rumpza, Sorbonne Université, Paris
Stephanie Rumpza is a researcher in Philosophy at Sorbonne Université (Paris IV). Her research focuses on the mediation of image, word, and expression and the relation between phenomenological and theological thinking.

PhD Position: Project ‘Holy Networks: Locating, Shaping, and Experiencing Palestinian Loca Sancta (1187-1852)’, University of Fribourg, deadline 15 December 2023

The SNSF Advanced Grant Project ‘Holy Networks: Locating, Shaping, and Experiencing Palestinian Loca Sancta (1187-1852)’, coordinated by Prof. Michele Bacci (Chair of Medieval Art History, University of Fribourg, Switzerland), offers a four-year doctoral position with a focus on the multireligious holy sites in the Jerusalem. The specific topic which the doctoral student will deal with is “The Cenacle Complex on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion as a Multireligious Locus Sanctus”. She/he will be fully responsible for the designated subproject and maintain constant dialogue with the team members and the project’s PI.

The doctoral student will be responsible for the specific research subproject aimed to providing a historical and art historical analysis of the Cenacle Complex, focusing on the dynamics whereby sitebound holiness came to be shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Her/his specific tasks will include the examination of available textual, visual, and material evidence, database feeding, the writing of the thesis, active collaboration with the other team members, the organization of events and workshops and participation in scientific events.

Requested profile:

  • Applicants should have obtained a MA in art history, history, or literature, and possess linguistic competencies enabling access to sources written in Latin and major Western European languages
  • A good knowledge of the cultural traditions associated with the Holy Land, as well as familiarity with the historical analysis of holy sites and/or with Medieval and early modern pilgrims’ travelogues will be strongly appreciate.

The application should consist of a cover letter and a detailed CV. The documents should be submitted before December 15th, 2023, via the website of the State of Fribourg: https://jobs.fr.ch/job/Fribourg-CH-PhD-Position-Sari/782792902

Contact person: Prof. Michele Bacci, University of Fribourg, michele.bacci@unifr.ch

For more information, see: https://www.academia.edu/109666380/Job_Announcement_PhD_position_1 and https://www.academia.edu/109666050/Job_Announcement_PhD_position_2

Graduate Position: ‘Notre-Dame in Color’, University of Alabama, deadline 15 December 2023

We seek a graduate student to assist with our NEH funded project to digitally visualize layers of polychrome that once enlivened the sculptures of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris. The ideal candidate will have research interests in premodern artistic practices, the meanings of color in premodern societies, and be able to apply new approaches to digital cultural heritage documentation. 

Desired technical skills include digital scanning and photogrammetry techniques, digital rendering, and use of SketchFab, WordPress, AgiSoft Metashape, Blender, Adobe Substance Painter, and AutoCAD/Revit or similar platforms. 

The assistant will dedicate 20hrs per week to the Notre-Dame in Color project during fall/spring semesters of 2024-2026 and be enrolled in the Interdisciplinary Studies MA, which will include graduate-level coursework in Anthropology, Art History, and Digital Art, culminating in a non-thesis Capstone Project or thesis. Advanced applicants may be considered for entry into the Interdisciplinary Studies PhD. 

Available funding: Academic year 1 is valued at $51,876 (inclusive of out-of-state tuition waiver, course fees, health insurance, and stipend of $15,840). The NEH funded graduate assistantship is renewable for a 2nd consecutive academic year upon satisfactory annual review. Academic year 2 is valued at least at the amount of the previous year—the stipend may increase if rates are increased by the university. The MA is a 2yr degree program. If an applicant is eligible for admission to the PhD track, additional funding support may be available.

To verify eligibility, please notify project director, Dr. Jennifer Feltman, jmfeltman@ua.edu and co-director, Dr. Alexandre Tokovinine, atokovinine@ua.edu no later than December 15, 2023.  Review of applications will begin on January 15, 2024.

For more info on the Notre-Dame in Color project is available here.

Minimum requirements for regular admission:

  • MA: 3.0 undergraduate GPA (or equivalent)
  • PhD: MA in anthropology, art history, or related field with 3.0 GPA (or equivalent)

Application Documents:

  • Transcripts
  • Statement of Purpose 2 double-spaced pages outlining relevant research experience and the necessity of interdisciplinary research for the applicant’s specific research and career goals.
  • CV/Résumé
  • Writing Sample
  • 3 Letters of Recommendation
  • Optional: Sample of Previous Digital Work

Online Conference: ‘New Perspectives on Personifications in Roman, Late Antique and Early Byzantine Art’, LMU Munich, 26-27 January 2024

An international conference on ‘New Perspectives on Personifications in Roman, Late Antique and Early Byzantine Art (200-800 AD)’ takes place at LMU Munich on January 26th and 27th, 2024. We are pleased to be able to support the initiative of Prolet Decheva and Charles Wastiau.

The conference takes place in Katharina-von-Bora-Str. 10 in the large lecture hall (R. 242). The lectures can also be followed via live stream. All times are according to CET.

Find out more here.

Download the conference program here.


To attend online, please register in advance:
Day 1 and Day 2.

The conference is organised by Institut für Byzantinistik, Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte und Neogräzistik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München with the kind support of Spätantike Archäologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte e.V and LMU Münchner Zentrum für Antike Welten.

Contact:

Conference Program

Friday, 26 January 2024

13:15 – 13:30 Introduction

13:30 – 14:00 Anna-Laura Honikel, Goethe University Frankfurt a.M.:
Personifications on Mosaics of the Province Lusitania

14:00 – 14:30 Sarah Hollaender, University of Graz:
Visualizing ‘Manliness’: The Goddess Virtus and Her Transformations in Late Antiquity

14:30 – 15:00 Giovanna Ferri, University of Sassari:
Seasons Personifications in the Decorative Programs of Roman Catacombs and Privately-Owned Hypogea in Late Antiquity: Felicitas Temporum and Heavenly Aeternitas

15:00 – 15:30 Break

15:30 – 16:00 Caroline Bridel, University of Bern:
The Use of Personifications in Late Antique Jewish Spaces: Establishing a Cultural Frame?

16:00 – 16:30 Amélie Belleli, INRAP/University of Limoges:
Late Roman Empresses as Allegorical Figures

16:30 – 17:00 Prolet Decheva, University College Dublin:
Personifications of Abstract Ideas and Proper Names

18:00 – 19:00 KEYNOTE LECTURE: Emma Stafford, University of Leeds:
Nemesis: A Greek Personification in the Later Roman World

Saturday, 27 January 2024

09:00 – 09:30 Annegret Klünker, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin:
Coining Embodied Conditions: The Severan Era as Synopsis for the Visual Emergence of Personifications in Rome

09:30 – 10:00 Charles Wastiau, University of Liège/University of Bonn:
The End of the „Divine Qualities“ on Late Roman Coins

10:00 – 10:30 Pavla Gkantzios Drápelová, Czech Academy of Sciences:
The Last Echoes of Tyche Poleos on Byzantine Coins: Several Cases from the 6th Century

10:30 – 11:00 Break

11:00 – 11:30 Amel Bouder, Freie Universität Berlin/Deutsches Archäologisches Institut:
The Multiple Personifications of Saturnus the African God and his Assessors: an Allegory between the River God and the Master of the Universe

11:30 – 12:00 Julian Hollaender, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg:
Greetings from the Jordan River: The Anthropomorphic River in Early Christian Baptismal Representations

12:00 – 12:30 Natalia Turabelidze, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University:
Classical Prototypes in Medieval Georgian Mural Painting: The Evidence of Ateni Sioni Murals

12:30 Conclusions

New Publication: ‘ Représenter et nommer la Grèce et les Grecs (XIVe-XVIe siècle)’, edited by Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas

The first collective volume of the ERC AGRELITA, Representing and naming Greece and the Greeks (14th-16th centuries) , edited by Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, has just been published by Brepols.

What do Greece and the Greeks represent for authors and artists of the 14th to 16th centuries in Western Europe? This volume explores this question from the perspective of spatial and geographic perception and imagination. It thus concerns the representations of Greek space, ancient and “modern” from the 14th to 16th century.

By favouring Latin, French and Italian works, written mainly in Italy, France, the Burgundian Netherlands and Greece, it studies how authors and artists represent textually and visually the geography of Greece / space or Greek spaces(s). The difficulties in defining, naming and representing Greece as a territorial entity were numerous during these centuries, marked by very profound upheavals, with the collapse of the Byzantine Empire on the Greek side and, on the Western European side, numerous developments in geographical, historical and also linguistic knowledge, as well as in textual and iconographic forms of expression. The perception of a spatial, geographical identity of Greece is all the more delicate as several temporalities are at stake: that of ancient Greece, that of Greece contemporary to the authors, and that of medieval Greece before the 14th century. The studies brought together question the different perceptions and representations of Greek space, in its unity and/or its diversity, which are expressed and renewed during these three centuries, as well as on the naming of Greek places and the Greece who accompany them.

Find out more about the book and order here.

Table of Contents

Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Explorer la réception de la Grèce ancienne sous l’angle de la représentation de l’éspace

I. Connaissances savantes et expériences personnelles

Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Les savoirs hérités sur les espaces grecs : les autorités antiques connues dans l’Europe occidentale médiévale

Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Images du monde, encyclopédies et traités en langue française (XIIIe -XIVe siècle) : reprises et renouvellements des représentations de l’éspace grec

Emmanuelle Vagnon, Cristoforo Buondelmonti et ses sources dans sa représentation de la Grèce

Constantin Bobas, Imaginaire occidental et réalités orientales de l’espace grec : en voyageant à Rhodes aux XVe et XVIe siècles

Edith Karagiannis-Mazeaud, Géographie du Péloponnèse, aperçu par Belon, Thevet et Nicolay, voyageurs français du XVIe siècle

II. Géographie et histoire grecques

Marilynn R. Desmond, Topographie troyenne dans la Grèce franque du XIIIe siècle

Valeria Russo, Le continuum historique des espaces grecs : les représentations géographiques dans la Fleur des histoires de Jean Mansel  (version courte)

Valeria Russo, Retrouver la Grèce dans le temps et dans l’espace : la Mer des histoires face à la création d’un passé antique

Gilles Grivaud, La Chorograffia d’Etienne de Lusignan : sources et propositions

III. Écritures fictionnelles

Corinne Jouanno, Quelle place pour la Grèce dans la littérature romanesque byzantine (XIIe-XVe siècle) ?

Daisy Delogu, Paysages palimpsestes : les espaces imaginaires grecs dans l’églogue du XIVe siècle

Pascale Mounier, La Grèce de Thésée d’après la Teseida de Boccace et ses adaptations françaises

Clarisse Évrard, « Ancrer sa galee » en Grèce : stratégies textuelles et dispositifs visuels dans l’Histoire de Jason et le Recueil des histoires de Troie de Raoul Lefèvre

IV. Figurations visuelles

Ilaria Molteni,  Imaginer et représenter l’espace grec en Italie au Moyen Âge : le laboratoire de l’Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César

Ilaria Molteni, L’espace grec à la cour de France (1380-1422) : de l’Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César à l’Épître Othéa

Clarisse Evrard, Représenter la Grèce et les Grecs par le prisme flamand : le cas des manuscrits enluminés de la bibliothèque de Louis de Bruges

Marie Jacob-Yapi, L’usage du costume byzantin dans les manuscrits parisiens de matière antique au début du XVe siècle

New Publication: ‘Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Medieval Art’, Edited by Pamela A. Patton and Maria Alessia Rossi

Pamela A. Patton, and Maria Alessia Rossi, eds. Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Medieval Art. Signa: Papers of the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University. Penn State University Press, 2023.

Find out more and buy the book here.

Where are the limits of medieval art as a field of study? What happens when conventionally trained art historians disregard the chronological, geographical, or cultural parameters that both direct and protect their scholarship? Beginning with Thelma K. Thomas and Alicia Walker’s acute assessment of the need for a “medieval art history for now,” the essays in Out of Bounds ask what happens when the study of medieval art disregards boundaries that it once obeyed. The volume focuses on questions surrounding the production of knowledge and on how scholarly investigation beyond the conventional thematic boundaries of medieval art history is changing, demonstrating how the field can address the ethics of scholarship today by positing a global turn in response to growing demands for socially responsible medieval studies. Collectively, the contributors demonstrate how “going out of bounds” can transform modern understanding of the people, traditions, and relationships that gave rise to medieval works. As such, this book argues for the necessity of reshaping scholarly discourse about the nature and significance of medieval art and generates fresh scholarly interpretations and important new critical tools for teaching and researching the Middle Ages.

The contributors to this volume are Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Michele Bacci, Jill Caskey, Eva Frojmovic, Sarah M. Guérin, Christina Maranci, Alice Isabella Sullivan, Thelma K. Thomas, Michele Tomasi, and Alicia Walker.

“Out of Bounds is a timely and valuable contribution to the growing body of works on global perspectives for the study of art history and on the place of medieval art in this global discourse. It is a welcome addition to the category of anthologies, which are among the most useful resources enabling us to grasp the expanded and reconfigured landscape of the field of medieval art.”

—Eva R. Hoffman, Tufts University, Emerita

“Out of Bounds is a compelling body of essays providing access to new concepts on the breadth of the medieval world in time and place and ways to study it in global, non-Eurocentric terms. Patton and Rossi stress the importance of what can be learned from regions and peoples that were once considered the nearly irrelevant periphery and recognize the challenges in seeking such new understandings.”

—Helen C. Evans, Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator for Byzantine Art Emerita, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Table of Contents

1. Shifting Boundaries: Medieval Art History for Now, Thelma K. Thomas and Alicia Walker

2. On Account of the Rotundity of the Earth: Steps Toward an Inclusive Medieval Art, Jill Caskey

3. Medieval Masks? Meditations on Method Out of Bounds, Sarah M. Guérin

4. Along the Art-Historical Margins of the Medieval Mediterranean, Michele Bacci

5. Looking at the “Center” from the “Border”: An Exchange of Franco-Ottoman Gifts and the Perception of Art Around 1400, Michele Tomasi

6. Alexander the Great’s Encounters with the Sacred in Medieval History Writing: From the Shahnameh to the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César, Suzanne Conklin Akbari

7. Fashioning the Gendered, Classed, and White Self: A Sephardi Cultural Project, Eva Frojmovic

8. Beyond Traditional Boundaries: Medieval Art and Architecture in Eastern Europe, Alice Isabella Sullivan

9. “The Summit of the Earth”: What Armenian Texts Can Do for the History of Medieval Art and Beyond, Christina Maranci

Biography of editors

Pamela A. Patton is Director of the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University. She is the author of Art of Estrangement: Redefining Jews in Reconquest Spain and coeditor of The Lives and Afterlives of Medieval Iconography, both published by Penn State University Press.

Maria Alessia Rossi is Art History Specialist at the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University. She is the coeditor of Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages and Late Byzantium Reconsidered: The Arts of the Palaiologan Era in the Mediterranean.

CFP: ‘Wisdom as Purpose: Ways of Learning, Skill Acquisition, and Knowledge Visualisation in the Middle Ages’, deadline 31 January 2024

6th ARDIT International Congress (15th-17th May 2024, Barcelona University, Barcelona)

With its many ways of expression, knowledge has led, since the dawn of humanity, to the transformation of society. Discovering, understanding and trying to reconstruct, from a broad and diverse perspective, the way in which individual and collective learning situations occurred in the Middle Ages is the purpose of this meeting. In this sense, it aims to become an opportunity to find answers and to learn new points of view on fundamental questions such as who were the transmitters of knowledge, how and where this transmission took place, or who were the receptors.

Starting from these wide conceptions of knowledge and learning, on this occasion, we consider the presentation of proposals related to the following thematic clusters:

  • Studies about the institutions involved in the dissemination of knowledge in the Middle Ages
  • Research regarding the organization of regulated and/or secular learning
  • Education in the Muslim world and in Hebrew communities
  • Tools and methodologies for measuring knowledge
  • Literacy and illiteracy in society
  • Issuers and receivers of knowledge
  • Materials and ways of knowledge
  • Educational training of women

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

We welcome all researchers interested in the various ways of manifesting knowledge and learning during the Middle Ages to take part in the 6th edition of the ARDIT International Congress. Those who wish to participate need to indicate their target thematic cluster, send a 250-word-limited summary of their proposal, and a short curriculum vitae not exceeding 100 words before January 31st, 2024. All proposals for papers should be sent to the following email address: arditcongress2024@gmail.com.

Contributions will be sent in Catalan, Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese will be accepted. Feedback on abstracts will be communicated by the Organizing Committee to all participants before the 29th February 2024.

Find more information here.

Organizing Committee:

  • Anahí Álvarez Aguado
  • Helena Casas Perpinyà
  • Tamar Mejías Guillén
  • Carlos Prieto Espinosa