Call for Session Proposals: Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 9-11, 2024 (Deadline 15 May 2023)

To encourage the integration of Byzantine studies within the scholarly community and medieval studies in particular, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 9–11, 2024. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is May 15, 2023.

If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 4 session participants (presenters and moderator) up to $800 maximum for scholars traveling from North America and up to $1400 maximum for those traveling from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement. Participants must participant in the conference in-person to receive funding. The Mary Jaharis Center regrets that it cannot reimburse participants who have last-minute cancellations and are unable to attend the conference.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/59th-icms.

Please contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

New Publication: ‘Imágenes de la liturgia medieval: Planteamientos teóricos, temas visuales y programas iconográficos’, by Ángel Pazos López

The Christian liturgy during the Middle Ages was surrounded by complex signs, ceremonies and gestures that have been formally diluted in today’s rites themselves, as well as in numerous objects of material culture preserved in museums and collections. This book studies the world of images of medieval liturgical ceremonies, preserved mainly in the figurative programmes of more complex works of art (manuscripts, sacred artefacts, liturgical textiles, sculptures, etc.) from the methodological paradigms of art history and visual studies. Approaches are presented that allow us to approach the Christian ritual of the Middle Ages within the framework of the iconological method, as well as monographic studies with proposals for how to read today the images of the Eucharist and the other sacraments that are preserved in the rich medieval plastic arts. The monograph includes some colour illustrations, many of which have not been studied before.

La liturgia cristiana durante la Edad Media estaba rodeada de complejos signos, ceremonias y gestos que llegan hasta nuestros días diluidos formalmente en los propios ritos actuales, así como en numerosos objetos de la cultura material conservados en museos y colecciones. Este libro estudia el mundo de las imágenes sobre ceremonias litúrgicas medievales, conservadas principalmente en programas figurativos de obras de arte más complejas (manuscritos, artefactos sagrados, textiles litúrgicos, esculturas, etc.) desde los paradigmas metodológicos de la historia del arte y los estudios visuales. Se presentan planteamientos que nos permiten abordar el ritual cristiano de la Edad Media en el marco del método iconológico, así como estudios monográficos con propuestas para poder leer hoy en día las imágenes que de la eucaristía y de los restantes sacramentos se conservan en la rica plástica medieval. La monografía incluye algunas ilustraciones a color, muchas de ellas no estudiadas con anterioridad.

Click here to purchase.

New Publication: ‘Eikón/Imago: Imago, ius, religio: Religious Images in Illustrated Legal Manuscripts and Printed Books (9th-20th Centuries)’, ed. Maria Alessandra Bilotta and Gianluca del Monaco

The IUS ILLUMINATUM research team is pleased to announce the publication of the monographic number 12 (2023) of the open access journal “Eikon/Imago” published by the Complutense University of Madrid, on the theme: “Imago, ius, religio. Religious Images in Illustrated Legal Manuscripts and Printed Books (9th-20th Centuries)”, edited by Maria Alessandra Bilotta (IEM-NOVA/FCSH) and Gianluca del Monaco (Alma mater studiorum – Università di Bologna) as “Special Guest Editors”.


The monographic issue is the result of a collaboration of the IUS ILLUMINATUM research team (https://iusilluminata.fcsh.unl.pt) of the Institute for Medieval Studies (IEM) of the NOVA University of Lisbon with the CAPIRE Research Group (Collective for Multidisciplinary Analysis of European religious iconography) of the Complutense University of Madrid.


Some of the scientific results of the research conducted by the IUS ILLUMINATUM research team are published in the monographic issue.


Here is the link from where to download all the contributions published in the journal: https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/EIKO/issue/view/4005

Job: Special Projects Assistant, Medieval Academy of America, deadline 15 May 2023

Special Projects Assistant
Medieval Academy of America
15 hours/wk (hybrid)
$30/hr (no benefits)

The Medieval Academy of America, an educational non-profit organization incorporated as a 501(c)3 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, seeks a Special Projects Assistant to work with the Executive Director, the Editor of Speculum, and other administrative and Speculum staff on various projects, both in the Boston office and remotely. The position is offered for 15 hours per week at $30 per hour, without medical or retirement benefits. Interest in and knowledge about the Middle Ages is ideal, but there are no degree or foreign-language requirements. While many of the position’s responsibilities can be accomplished remotely, easy access to the MAA’s downtown Boston office is necessary as the job will often entail working onsite in collaboration with other staff members.

Responsibilities will include (but will not be limited to):

Remote:

  • processing and assembling grant application dossiers (throughout the year) using the MAA’s backend content management system (YourMembership) as well as Adobe, Excel, and Word;
  • assisting with logistical support for the Annual Meeting and the International Congress on Medieval Studies (as necessary);
  • other administrative tasks as assigned by the Executive

Onsite:

  • processing and shipping books submitted for prize consideration (annually in November);
  • managing mass mailings (approximately four times per year);
  • Digitizing MAA archival material (on an ad hoc basis);
  • Assisting the Speculum mailing operation by recording and organizing incoming books submitted for review and mailing copies to reviewers (approx. 1.5 hours/wk).

To apply, please forward a CV and cover letter stating experience, qualifications, and interest to Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org by MAY 15. Position to begin on or around June 15.

Find out more here.

Call for Papers: Arabic Pasts 2023, 6-7 October 2023 (Deadline 12 May 2023)

Co-hosted by the Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations and SOAS, University of London

This annual exploratory and informal workshop offers the opportunity to reflect on methodologies, research agendas, and case studies for investigating history writing in Arabic in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond in any period from the seventh century to the present.

We are interested in papers that consider the practical and conceptual challenges of working on history writing in Arabic. Papers might elucidate the following sorts of questions:

How did adherents of different confessional or juristic traditions, men and women, and members of different social classes within societies that became “Islamic” imagine the shape and meaning of their specific societies’ own pasts, and their relation to the universal history of the Islamic community? Which ways of writing, remembering, or commemorating did they develop?

How can we broaden our scope beyond just textual historiography?

How can marginalised communities and varieties of Arabic be given due attention?

How can works of fiction contribute to our understanding of the past?

How can we explore the past algorithmically? Can digital methods enhance our understanding of the past? Can they also limit or even alter it? Which new digital tools are being developed? What seem to be particularly promising approaches? What is lacking?

In what ways do educational institutions, museums, media organisations and proponents of heritage use history writing to shape loyalties and senses of belonging in society?

How is the past used in creative arts, re-enactment, games, and augmented reality?

Contributions are invited from scholars at all career levels, addressing any period and any part of the Middle East and North Africa, broadly defined. This year we anticipate running the workshop from the Aga Khan Centre in London, with the possibility to have an online component featuring participants who are unable to travel to the UK. As in past years, there is a small budget to provide some travel assistance for scholars outside of London.

Arabic Pasts is co-organized by Hugh Kennedy (SOAS), James McDougall (Oxford), Lorenz Nigst (AKU-ISMC), and Sarah Bowen Savant (AKU-ISMC).

Please submit an abstract of 300 words or less in word document by Friday, 12 May 2023 to ArabicPastsConf@aku.edu.

Hybrid Symposium: Consortium Medievalists: ‘Sensory Experiences Across Medieval Communities’, Fordham University, New York, Saturday 6 May 2023

The Consortium Medievalists is excited to invite you to our 2023 symposium, Sensory Experiences Across Medieval Communities, on May 6! Find the flyer below for the full list of panels, talks, and performances. This year’s symposium will be held hybridly at Fordham University Lincoln Center Campus, and via Zoom.  Please R.S.V.P here.


Questions may be directed to consortium.medievalists@gmail.com, and more information may be found on our website, 

www.consortiummedievalists.com

Lecture: ‘Reflections on the Cushion Capital’ with Dr Richard Plant, Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland (CRSBI) Annual Lecture, Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square Campus, 24th April 2023, 6.30pm-8.30pm (BST)

The cushion capital, in its simple form a cubing of the sphere, is a feature found in a number of areas of Europe. While the focus of this talk will be on England, the early development of this feature in the Holy Roman Empire will be addressed, as well as its broader geographical distribution, to parts of Italy as well as the British Isles. The means and reasons for this spread will be considered, as well as the question of the date of the first appearance of the capital in the British Isles. The way in which the capital was modified, through the addition of carving, stucco or paint, and the transformation of the capital into scalloped capitals and other variants will form the concluding part of the talk.

Dr Richard Plant is an architectural historian and lecturer specialising primarily in the Middle Ages He has taught at a number of institutions, and was Deputy Academic Director at Christie’s Education. He has published on English and German medieval architecture, and co-edited a number of volumes in the British Archaeological Association’s Romanesque series.

The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland is an internationally recognised project engaged in recording all the Romanesque sculpture produced and still surviving in these islands, making scholarly descriptions and photographs freely available on the web. It was founded as the initiative of former Courtauld Deputy Director George Zarnecki with the help and support of former Director Peter Lasko, its first chairman. It is supported by The British Academy.  Find out more: https://www.crsbi.ac.uk

Organised by the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, and by Dr Xavier Dectot, Dr Ron Baxter, and Dr Rose Walker. 

Find out more here and book your ticket using this link.

Hybrid Lecture: ‘Maintenance Work & the Long Life of Materials in Medieval Art’ with Dr Jessica Barker, University of York, King’s Manor, Tuesday 9 May 2023, 5.30pm (BST)

Find out more here.

Dr Jessica Barker (The Courtauld Institute)

Historians have rarely worried about the maintenance of things and materials, leaving this apparently mundane problem to conservators. This overlooks the simple fact that, just as we are surrounded by objects that are scuffed, scratched, dirty, or worn, so people in the past were required to confront the gradual material deterioration of the things they encountered in their everyday life.

Works of art are not necessarily any less subject to the processes of physical decay than more prosaic objects, although their pristine presentation in museums today masks such material vulnerability.

Then, as now, slowing this process of deterioration could only be achieved through protective measures and regular maintenance. But whereas today this work typically takes place in the relative seclusion of the conservation studio, in the Middle Ages maintenance work often occurred in full public view, within the space of the church and sometimes even integrated into religious rituals.

In this lecture Dr Jessica Barker (The Courtauld Institute) will explore an extraordinarily detailed set of maintenance instructions set down by an early sixteenth-century English bishop which offer a remarkable window onto the practicalities of historical conservation procedures, as well as metaphysical ideas about the transience of the material world.

Drawing out some of the key themes from this maintenance program (its ritual performance, its analogies with medicine, its philosophical stakes) and placing them in dialogue with surviving artworks, Dr Barker argue that maintenance work offers an instructive new perspective from which to consider the material turn, as well as a deeper point of connection between history, art history and conservation.

Further information about our speaker Dr Jessica Barker

Registration details

Location: Philip Rahtz Lecture Theatre, K/133, King’s Manor

Admission: Hybrid event – free lecture via eventbrite ticket or zoom registration.

Email: cms-office@york.ac.uk

Job: Full Professor of History of Art and Architecture (500-1500), Radboud University, deadline 2 May 2023

Are you an innovative, experienced and inspiring scholar in the field of the history of art and architecture between 500-1500? Do your research and teaching explore cross-cultural connections and expand or complicate the geographical and cultural boundaries of the ‘medieval’? As a full professor at Radboud University, you will join and lead a diverse group of dedicated scholars, shape the field of art and architectural history, and flourish in a friendly and vibrant academic community.

We warmly invite you to browse our vacancy and apply! You would preferably begin employment between 1 September 2023 and 1 January 2024.

Find out more and apply here.

Colloquium: Revisiting the Cloisters Cross: A One-day Colloquium, Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square, London, Friday 12th May 2023, 10.30am-6.30pm (BST)

The Cloisters Cross is widely recognised as a masterpiece of late Romanesque art. Carved of walrus ivory, it appeared after World War II in a private collection and was subsequently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The earliest scholarly publications identified it as English, and that probably remains the majority opinion. However, over the years, other attributions have been suggested. What has become clear in the process is that the Cross merits study in the broad intellectual and artistic context of northern Europe, from the Ile de France up to Scandinavia, and England across to Germany.

This one-day colloquium, jointly held by the British Archaeological Association and The Courtauld, will review and extend the debates about the origins and history of the Cloisters Cross. Speakers include Charles T. Little, Sabrina Harcourt-Smith, Robyn Barrow, Miri Rubin, Neil Stratford, Cecily Hennessy and Sandy Heslop.

Organised by Cecily Hennessy and Sandy Heslop on behalf of the British Archaeological Association.

Registration cost includes lunch and refreshment

More information can be found here.

Purchase your tickets here.

Programme

10.30 to 11.00 Coffee and registration (Reception and Research Forum Seminar Room)

11.00-11.10 Welcome: John McNeill and Tom Nickson (Lecture Theatre 2) 

11.10-12.40 Session 1, Chair: Lloyd de Beer

Charles T. Little: ‘Through a glass darkly’: Seventy Years of Understanding and Misunderstanding the Cloisters Cross

Sabrina Harcourt-Smith: Reflections on the Cloisters Cross in a preaching context

12.40—1.40 Lunch (provided – Research Forum Seminar Room)

1.40-3.20 Session 2, Chair: Jessica Barker

Robyn Barrow: Split Tooth: The Cloisters Cross and the Walrus Tusk

Neil Stratford: The British Museum and the Cloisters Cross

Miri Rubin: ‘Synagoga, agnus dei’ and the Cloisters Cross

3.20-3.40 Tea break (Research Forum Seminar Room)

3.40-5.10 Session 3: Chair: Richard Plant

Cecily Hennessy: The Cloisters Cross and the Sphere of Henry the Lion and Matilda of England

Sandy Heslop: The Oslo Corpus and the Cloisters Cross Revisited

5.10-5:40 Final Discussion

5.40-6.30 Drinks (Research Forum Seminar Room – generously supported by Sam Fogg)