The Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA, are pleased to invite abstracts for the next Studying East of Byzantium workshop: Studying East of Byzantium IX: Communities.
Studying East of Byzantium IX: Communities is a three-part workshop that intends to bring together doctoral students and very recent PhDs studying the Christian East to reflect on how to reflect on the usefulness of the concept of “Community” in studying the Christian East, to share methodologies, and to discuss their research with workshop respondents, Michael Pifer, University of Michigan, and Salam Rassi, University of Edinburgh. The workshop will meet on November 17, 2023, February 9, 2024, and June 6–7, 2024, on Zoom. The timing of the workshop meetings will be determined when the participant list is finalized.
We invite all graduate students and recent PhDs working in the Christian East whose work considers, or hopes to consider, the theme of communities in their own research to apply.
Participation is limited to 10 students. The full workshop description is available on the East of Byzantium website (https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/). Those interested in attending should submit a C.V. and 200-word abstract through the East of Byzantium website no later than September 13, 2023.
For questions, please contact East of Byzantium organizers, Christina Maranci, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Harvard University, and Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at contact@eastofbyzantium.org.
EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA. It explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire in the late antique and medieval periods.
CFP: “Virgin Mary’s relics – Prestige, Rivalry, Forgery and Reproducibility,” International Congress on Medieval Studies (Online Session), Deadline 15 September 2023
This special online session wishes to analyze the power of the Virgin Mary’s relics as triggers not only to processions and pilgrimages but also to Marian cults competition. The scientific importance of the session lies in understanding how these devotional objects could be perceived as activators of civic prestige. The possession of these relics encouraged a deep local cohesion outside the church. Therefore, how did the custody of a Marian relic interact and enhance rivalry between cities? And finally, how did the forgery and reproducibility of these relics contribute to developing the Marian cult by enhancing the creation of sacred topographies?
The session will encourage an interdisciplinary approach. Civic, political, and religious powers were deeply interconnected to control devotion to Marian relics. For this reason, these aspects will be examined in relation to the instauration of civic identity and religious authority to understand the adaptation of the Virgin’s cult to the local needs. This approach provides the groundwork for new perspectives on Medieval relics’ devotion in general. Moreover, the analysis of case studies will not only aim to highlight specific aspects and general phenomena in Late Medieval Europe but also to define identities and devotees’ experiences about relics.
Scholars are invited to submit a 300-word abstract, excluding references. Proposals should also include name, affiliation, email address, the title of the presentation, 6 keywords, a selective bibliography, and a short CV. Please send the documents to maryandthecity.imc2022@gmail.com by 15 September 2023.
CFP: “Saints in Crisis: Emotional Responses to Sanctity in the Middle Ages,” International Medieval Congress (IMC 2024), University of Leeds, Deadline 12 September 2023
They were frightened and they hit in great pain their heads and hearts– How do people react when they encounter the sanctity of saints? How do they feel? Are they in crisis – crisis for whom? Does crisis change individuals?
The proposed session focuses on the emotional responses of individuals/communities in relation to sanctity. Suggested topics on the emotional reactions of individuals/communities, from any geographic area or time period (between 300-1500), may include, but are not limited to:
- Visual representations of emotions (behavior of the body, gestures, looks);
- Textual sources on emotional reactions (hagiographies, miracle stories, narratives in relation to crisis and sanctity);
- Medical (psychological, neurological, physical, and mental) responses;
- Liturgy and music culture;
- Regions/areas of communities (rural, urban, monastic, ecclesiastic), emotions, and sanctity;
- Living saints, discoveries of saints, relics – reliquaries, icons, and viewership reactions;
- Performance, sanctity, and emotions;
- External crisis/internal crisis, positive/negative emotional reactions, and sanctity;
- Conversion stories/lack of conversion/otherness and emotional reactions;
Submissions from a variety of disciplines are accepted including but not limited to: history, art history, visual culture, social history, cultural history, hagiography, religious studies, cultural studies, textual studies in a transdisciplinary perspective.
Please submit a 250- 400 word proposal (in English) for a 15-20 minute paper. Proposals should have an abstract format and be accompanied by a short CV, of no more than 800 words, including e-mail, institution, and profession. The session is planned to be in-presence. Please submit all relevant documents by 12 September 2023 to the e-mail address: znorovszkyandrea@usal.es
Contact information: Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain (znorovszkyandrea@usal.es)
CFP: New Perspectives on Personifications in Roman, Late Antique and Early Byzantine Art (200-800 AD), deadline 15 September 2023
Paper proposals are invited for the international workshop “New Perspectives on Personifications in Roman, Late Antique and Early Byzantine Art (200-800 AD)” with keynote lecture by Professor Emma Stafford, University of Leeds, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies.
Personifications are some of the most geographically and chronologically widespread phenomena in Art History. From monumental sculpture or floor mosaics to textiles, coins or everyday objects, personifications were represented in all visual media to express and communicate a variety of different ideas, such as natural phenomena, months, seasons or geographical regions, personal qualities or intangible abstractions. While some are easily identifiable via specific attributes, others can only be recognized through name labels; some occur as isolated figures, others as active participants in complex scenes; some exist in countless examples, others survive in a singular image. They may have counterparts in contemporary written sources, or may be purely visual inventions. In addition, a single personification can carry multivalent meanings, which may allow for several layers of interpretation. Over time their ontological status, functions and meanings have undergone various changes. A significant period of transformation is the transition from the ancient to the mediaeval world. While personifications were seen as numinous figures in ancient Mediterranean societies, they may have been rather symbolic or allegorical in mediaeval visual cultures.
The aim of this workshop is to explore the formal patterns, roles and meanings, continuities and innovations in the depictions of personifications of this period to better understand their functions, their relationship to one another and to other iconographic tools, as well as the changes that occur between the second and ninth centuries in the Mediterranean world.
The organizers invite proposals for individual papers from the fields of classics, archaeology, art history, visual studies, numismatics, sigillography and related fields addressing especially, but not exclusively, the following topics:
– New research on individual personifications in all Roman, Late Antique and Byzantine visual media (sculpture, painting, mosaic, coins, seals, textiles, book illumination, jewellery, everyday and/or luxury objects, etc.)
– Methodological and theoretical approaches towards personifications (ontology, polysemy, etc.)
– Reflections on the relationship between text and image in the analysis of personifications
– Functional comparisons between different formats (stand-alone personifications, personifications in groups and/or narrative scenes)
– Chronological and geographical comparisons and iconographical developments in the depictions of personifications
– Relationship between the pictorial representation of personifications and their spatial and/or cultural context
– Relationship between personifications and the patrons, recipients and viewers of objects and works of art that include them
Please submit an abstract of 300 words and a bio of 100 words by 15 September 2023. All proposals should include your name, email address and academic affiliation (if applicable). Please also include a main subject field plus secondary subject field in the application. The participants are expected to deliver a 20-minute talk, followed by a Q&A session. The workshop will take place in-person at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke in Munich on Friday and Saturday, 26-27 January 2024 and will be held in English. For the planned publication German, French and Italian will also be accepted.
The workshop is organized by Institut für Byzantinistik, Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte und Neogräzistik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München with the kind support of Spätantike Archäologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte e.V.
Please send any questions, abstracts, and bios to both:
Charles Wastiau
Cwastiau@uliege.be
Université de Liège
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Prolet Decheva
prolet.decheva@ucdconnect.ie
University College Dublin
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Virtual Conversation: Exhibitions, Museum Collections, and Environment, 27 July 2023
Join Heather Alexis Smith, Assistant Curator at the Pulitzer, and Dr. Julia Perratore, Assistant Curator at The Met Cloisters on Thursday, 27 July 2023 for a conversation about ecology-centered museum practices. Smith will describe the process of organizing the Pulitzer’s spring show The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology, 1100-1550 and will discuss how exhibitions can help us think differently about environments—both past and present. Perratore will detail efforts underway at the Met Cloisters—one of the most comprehensive collections of medieval art in the world—to build more climate-friendly installations and exhibitions.
This program will be hosted on Zoom; Registration is required.
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Of3jrjg_RaSn3dYzhXjoyg#/registration
Questions? Contact programs@pulitzerarts.org.
New Publication: L’abbazia di San Leone a Bitonto. Un monumento nel tempo. by Marcello Mignozzi
This volume traces the history of the Abbey of San Leone in Bitonto, from its medieval origins to the current days. The fortunes of the monastery, first Benedictine, then Olivetan and finally Franciscan, are linked to those of its famous fair, even mentioned in Boccaccio’s Decameron. In-depth documentary analyses allow critical gaps to be filled, and then intertwine with the reading of artworks. The different building phases, the sculptural repertoire, restorative interventions and pictorial evidence are examined with extreme care. The most substantial part of the work is dedicated to the fourteenth-century frescoes in the choir, analyzed wall by wall and investigated under the stylistic-formal and iconographic-iconological aspects. Great attention is then given to bitontine monumental attestations from the Angevin period and to the numerous pictorial testimonies preserved, the examination of which allows us to draw valuable information on Apulian art between the 13th and 15th centuries. A fundamental scholarly text for the study of Art History in Apulia between the Middle Ages and the contemporary age.
CFP: “Landscapes of Sanctity,” Leeds International Medieval Congress 2024, Deadline 31 July 2023
The AHRC-funded project “Liturgical and Literary Landscapes” welcomes applications from Early Career Researchers to participate in panels on ‘Landscapes of Sanctity’ to be put forward for the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2024. The four successful applicants will each be given a bursary of £450 towards the costs of attending the conference.
‘Liturgical and Literary Landscapes’, led by Johanna Dale (UCL) and Sarah Bowden (King’s College
London) brings together historical approaches with those from literary studies to reassess the
transmission of the cult of St Oswald, and, more broadly, uses multi-disciplinary approaches to place,
space and landscapes to explore new ways of thinking about the transnational cults of saints. The organizers plan to propose two or three interlinked panels to the Leeds IMC 2024, with contributions from the project leads, a couple of established experts, and new ECR voices. In these panels, which will be brought together under the framework ‘Landscapes of Sanctity’, the organizers would like to explore the ways in which the cults of saints are connected to the landscape, both as physical reality and as experienced and constructed in the cultural memory and imagination. Papers might consider the ways in which cults change as they move, and how these movements can be traced through texts or material artefacts; or how cults leaves traces on landscapes through time (e.g. buildings or settlements) and how these traces and connections are manifest today, both physically and in the cultural imagination. They might explore the role and construction of landscape in lives of saints, or offer ecocritical readings; alternatively they might think about ways in which saintly cults are anchored across time in place, i.e. through liturgy.
Paper proposals are welcome from ECR researchers from a range of disciplines, including (but not
limited to): History, Literatures, Art History, Archaeology, Musicology, Theology. Those interested in
offering a paper and applying for a bursary should send an abstract and a short CV (one side) to Sarah
Bowden (sarah.bowden@kcl.ac.uk) by 31 July 2023. The organizers will prioritize applicants with no (or limited) access to funding for conference attendance, so please indicate whether or not other sources may be available to you.
Resource Update: Index of Medieval Art Open Access
The Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University is delighted to announce that as of July 1, 2023, its online database is free to all users. This change has been made possible by a generous bridge grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the ongoing support of Princeton’s Department of Art & Archaeology. The database can be consulted at https://theindex.princeton.edu/.
The Index of Medieval Art looks forward to sharing resources with students and scholars at all levels and with public learners seeking reliable information about medieval art and culture. In the coming months several online training sessions will introduce the database to those who may be unfamiliar with it, the schedule and signups for which will be publicized on the Index of Medieval Art blog (https://ima.princeton.edu/) and through the Index social media accounts. The first session will be held on August 3, 2023 from 10:00 to 11:00am EDT; further information and registration can be found at this link: https://ima.princeton.edu/index_online_workshop_august_2023/. Index staff also remain available for researcher questions via our online form at https://ima.princeton.edu/research-inquiries/.
Call for Submissions: Metropolitan Museum Journal, Deadline 15 September 2023
The Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works of art in the Museum’s collection.
The Journal publishes Articles and Research Notes. All texts must take works of art in the collection as the point of departure. Articles contribute extensive and thoroughly argued scholarship, whereas research notes are often smaller in scope, focusing on a specific aspect of new research or presenting a significant finding from technical analysis. The maximum length for articles is 8,000 words (including endnotes) and 10–12 images, and for research notes 4,000 words with 4–6 images.
The process of peer review is double-anonymous. Manuscripts are reviewed by the Journal Editorial Board, composed of members of the curatorial, conservation, and scientific departments, as well as scholars from the broader academic community.
Articles and Research Notes in the Journal appear in print and online, and are accessible in JStor on the University of Chicago Press website.
The deadline for submissions for Volume 59 (2024) is September 15, 2023.
Submission guidelines: www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/met/instruct
Please send materials to: journalsubmissions@metmuseum.org
Questions? Write to Elizabeth.Block@metmuseum.org
Inspiration from the Collection: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection
View the Journal: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/loi/met
CFP: “Superficies – Surfaces, Skins and Textures,” deadline 30 September 2023
The research group “Textures of Sacred Scripture. Materials and Semantics of Sacred Book Ornament” (https://textures-of-scripture.ch) and the Chair of Medieval Art History at the University of Zurich invite paper proposals for an international conference on “Superficies – Surfaces, Skins, and Textures. Sensory encounters with books and related multi-layered objects”. The conference, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, is scheduled to take place at the Institute of Art History of the University of Zurich on 18-20 January 2024.
Surfaces are boundaries that mediate our sensory interactions with objects. Surfaces reveal, but they also conceal. In traditional aesthetic discourse, their multiple tactile and visual qualities are often contrasted with depth, and in a pejorative sense, superficiality is opposed to inner virtue and an intellectual understanding of things. This stark opposition between outer surface and inner core is put to the test by multi-layered objects such as books. Here, surfaces abound. Once opened, books in codex format display a multitude of layered skins and textures that are essential for the visual and haptic experience of the object in space and time. Perhaps more than other objects, books tangibly embody the complex relationship between surface and depth, through their composition and spatial structure as multi-layered objects. While the surfaces of sculpture and architecture have recently come to the attention of art historians, the surfacescapes – to use an expression coined by the art historian Jonathan Hay – of books and other multi-layered objects have been far less examined.
The conference aims to take a fresh look at the diversity of surface landscapes in books and other multi-layered objects. From the highly valuable vestments that clothe the exteriors of precious books to the parchment skins of their interiors, all layers are the product of diverse surface treatments. Techniques such as coating, polishing, tooling, and engraving determine the visual and haptic qualities of bindings and pages, and are reflected in their textures and sensory qualities.
We welcome proposals that consider the various surfaces of books and related multi-layered objects, such as handheld foldable objects, albums of prints and papers, multi-layered clothing, accoutrements, and containers. Paper topics may range from antiquity through the Middle Ages and beyond, in all cultures; transcultural studies as well as broader theoretical approaches are also welcome. Discussions across disciplinary boundaries are encouraged. Topics of particular interest are:
– Surfaces and the multi-layered spatiality and temporality of books and related objects.
– Ornament as surface and surface as ornament.
– Surface and ground.
– The textures, multi-materiality, and sensory qualities of surfaces.
– The preparation of surfaces to receive writing or painting, and the production processes concerning surfaces.
– The material traces of use, damage, and reworking that become inscribed into the surfaces of objects.
– Surfaces and transparency.
– The rough and the smooth: tactile dimensions of surfaces.
– Surfaces in relationship to the human body and its skin.
– Surfaces and the critique of superficiality.
Speaking time for each paper should not exceed 30 minutes and will be followed by a discussion. The conference languages are English, German, French, and Italian. Submissions should include the title and an abstract (max. 300 words), as well as the name, contact information, and a short CV of the speaker. Proposals should be submitted to the organizers Simon Breitenmoser, David Ganz, and Thomas Rainer by 30 September 2023. Please use the email address thomas.rainer@uzh.ch. The conference is planned as an in-person event. Travel expenses and on-site accommodation of all speakers will be covered.
Medieval Art Research 