Medieval Art Research

Call for Papers: The Potential of Prosopography for Historical and Art Historical Studies on the Charterhouses and the Carthusian Order, Ljubljana on August 23-25, 2023. (Deadline: 30 September 2022)

The Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (France Stele Institute of Art History), the University of Vienna and the University Jean-Monnet in Saint-Étienne cordially invite you to submit your proposals for the international conference “The Potential of Prosopography for Historical and Art Historical Studies on the Charterhouses and the Carthusian Order”. The conference will be held in-person in Ljubljana on August 23-25, 2023.

Please send your proposals for papers that can be presented in about 30 minutes maximum in English, German, French, Spanish or Italian. The proposals should include the following: the title, an abstract of about 250 words, and a short CV of no more than a single page. Please submit your proposals to the conference e-mail address – cfp.uifs@zrc-sazu.si – by 30 September 2022.

The selection of papers will be completed by 30 November 2022. Conference participants’ accommodation expenses and a visit to the Slovenian Charterhouses will be covered, though the participants will need to meet their own transport costs. After the conference the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, France Stele Institute of Art History will coordinate the publication of an edited monograph of papers presented at the conference.

Click here for a downloadable CFP. For more information, please visit: https://uifs.zrc-sazu.si/en/novice/the-potential-of-prosopography-for-historical-and-art-historical-studies-on-the

Organisers:

Asst. Prof. Mija Oter Gorenčič, PhD, ZRC SAZU, France Stele Institute of Art History, Ljubljana, and University of Maribor, Faculty of Arts
Prof. Meta Niederkorn, PhD, Department of History, University of Vienna
Sylvain Excoffon, PhD, Lecturer in Medieval History, Université Jean-Monnet, Saint-Étienne, UMR CNRS 8584 LEM-CERCOR, France (for CERCOR and co-editors of the Analecta Cartusiana)

Job Opportunity: Research Associate, Institute of Art History, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Deadline: 15 August 2022)

The Institute of Art History at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen has a vacancy for the position of a research assistant (m/f/d; salary group 13 TV-L, 100 %) to be filled. The position is assigned to the Chair of Medieval Art History (Prof. Dr. Andrea Worm). It is initially limited to three years (with the option of extension for a further three years). Requirements are an outstanding doctorate in art history and a focus on the art of the Middle Ages.

The duties of the post holder include teaching to the extent of 4 SWS. The willingness to habilitate/write a second book is a prerequisite; the successful candidate should have a knowledge of German or the willingness to learn the language (courses are available).

The University of Tübingen aims to increase the proportion of women in research and teaching and therefore invites applications from suitably qualified female academics. Disabled persons with equal qualifications will be given preferential consideration.

Please send your application with the usual documents (cover letter, curriculum vitae in table form, certificates, list of publications) as well as a short synopsis of the habilitation project, if possible in electronic form, to the secretariat of the Institute of Art History (bettina.meier@uni-tuebingen.de), Bursagasse 1, 72070 Tübingen by 15 August 2022. Recruitment is carried out by the central administration.

If you have any questions, please contact Prof. Dr. Andrea Worm directly (andrea.worm@uni-tuebingen.de).

Online Course: Religious Cultural Heritage: Concepts and Issues in the Modern Middle East (14 & 21 October 2022)

This is a two-day introductory course on the theme of religious cultural heritage (RCH) in the Middle East. It aims to contextualise RCH as the living cultural heritage of its community of users. In addition, the course attempts to present RCH as a contemporary construct of its socio-political and religious context through its connections to ethnicity, gender, nationalism, as much as religion. Read and download course structure: https://fal.cn/3lcRS

Learning Objectives
Following the course, participants will be able:

To identify religious cultural heritage as one constituent of the community’s broader cultural heritage;
To address the challenges that religious cultural heritage faces in its cultural, religious and socio-political context;
To examine the process of constructing relationship between people and their religious cultural heritage and its changes over time;
To appreciate religious cultural heritage through the community’s values and their various processes of meaning making rather than the intrinsic values of the religious cultural heritage site itself.

Convenors
Professor Dick Douwes holds the chair of Global History at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He studied Languages and Cultures of the Middle East at Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. From 1994 to 1998 he was coordinator of the programme Indonesian-Netherlands’ Cooperation in Islamic Studies (INIS) at Leiden University. From 1998 onwards, he was academic coordinator – later executive director – of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) and editor of the ISIM Newsletter/Review and ISIM Paper Series. He has published on late Ottoman history in Syria and on religious plurality in the Middle East, as well as on Muslims in Western Europe. Currently, he researches changes in shrine culture and politics in Syria and Lebanon, including the destruction of shrines.

Mohamad Meqdad is a PhD student at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam. His main research focuses on religious cultural heritage at times of crisis. In 2006, Mohamad received his BA in Archaeology and Museum Studies from Aleppo University, Syria. He also took part in several national and international archaeological expeditions in Syria (2002-2008), where he worked on discovering its rich cultural heritage and preserving it for future generations. In 2010, Mohamad received an MA in Muslim Cultures from the Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, London, with focus on researching the display of Muslim material culture in international museums, specifically at the British Museum’s John Addis Islamic Gallery. Between 2011-2019, he was the Arabic editor, and later the acting manager, of the Muslim Civilisations Abstracts Project (MCA) at AKU-ISMC.

Date and Time
14 October (13:15 – 16:00) and 21 October (13:30 – 16:00) 2022, UTC/GMT+1. The course will be delivered via Zoom, and will not be recorded. Readings and further details will be provided later upon registration.

Tickets and Booking
£75 professionals | £45 students, AKU alumni and staff. Book soon: https://fal.cn/3lcRV

Organiser
The Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC), London.

More information can be found here.

Call for Journal Submissions: Metropolitan Museum Journal (Deadline: 15 September 2022)

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 external scholars.

Articles and Research Notes in the Journal appear both in print and online, and are accessible via MetPublications and the Journal’s home page on the University of Chicago Press site. The Editorial Board invites submissions which draw inspiration from the museum’s collection.

The deadline for submissions for Volume 58 (2023) is September 15, 2022. Please send submission materials to: journalsubmissions@metmuseum.org. Submission guidelines can be found here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/met/instruct.

Online Roundtable: Ukraine Lecture Series Roundtable: Endangered Monuments (28 July 2022)

The monuments and rich cultural heritage of Kyivan Rus are currently endangered due to the ongoing war. This roundtable discussion engages with cultural heritage and its intangible aspects in times of conflict, underscoring key aspects of early Rus architecture and its development in a broader context, and the important monastic complex of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

Speakers:
Alina Kondratiuk (Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra), “The Early Modern Role of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Painting School in the Formation of Ukrainian National Art”
Özlem Eren (University of Wisconsin-Madison), “Oldest Churches in Rus’ and Destruction of Cultural Memory”

Respondent:
Robert G. Ousterhout (University of Pennsylvania), “Intangible Heritage, Multiple Narratives”

The lecture will begin at Thursday 28 July at 12:00 PM (EST, UTC/GMT-4). To register for the event, please click here.

This event is co-organized by Dumbarton Oaks in collaboration with North of Byzantium and Connected Central European Worlds, 1500-1700.

Sponsors and Endorsers: Dumbarton Oaks | Princeton University | Boise State University | Tufts University College Art Association (CAA) | Byzantine Studies Association of North America (BSANA) | Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) | Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, University of Kent | Historians of German, Scandinavian, and Central European Art (HGSCEA) | British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) | International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) | Renaissance Society of America (RSA)

Call for Papers: Pray and Play with Mary: From Processions and Pilgrimages to Performances (Deadline: 13 September 2022)

This special session wishes to analyze the multiple sources and multimedia of Marian processions and pilgrimages. The scientific importance of the session lies in understanding how these devotional practices could be perceived as a form of theatrical performance. The polysensoriality of these ephemeral events encouraged liturgical unity outside the church. Therefore, how did the civic environment interact and participate in these religious rituals? And finally, how did processions and pilgrimages contribute to developing an urban Marian cult by enhancing a deep local cohesion?

The session will encourage an interdisciplinary approach. Liturgy, music, drama, and visual arts were deeply interconnected with the expression of Marian devotions. For this reason, these elements will be examined in relation to processions and pilgrimages to understand the dramatization of the Virgin’s cult. This multimedia approach provides the groundwork for new perspectives on Medieval performance 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 in the reality of processional performance.

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. The panel is expected to take place as part of the 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies, which will be in a hybrid format, Thursday, May 11, through Saturday, May 13, 2023. Please send the documents to maryandthecity.imc2022@gmail.com by September 13, 2022.

Summer School: FORMA, FUNZIONE, TECNICA E MATERIA. GENESI E SVILUPPO DEL POLITTICO GOTICO A SIENA (26-30 September 2022)

The Università per Stranieri of Siena, in partnership with the Opera della Metropolitana of Siena, is organizing a Summer School in Higher Education dedicated to the genesis and development of the Gothic polyptych in Siena. Conceived as a seminar, the course combines lectures and visits to the complex of the Opera della Metropolitana, to public and private city collections and to places normally difficult to access. Siena and the complex of the Opera della Metropolitana are an ideal setting for studying this important subject. Thanks to Duccio’s activity the city performed a decisive role in the genesis and success of the polyptych with several registers, in open dialogue with other cities, above all Giottoesque Florence. It is no coincidence that the leading characters of early 14th century Sienese painting, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti, both implemented Duccio’s experimentations around 1320. The course will examine extensively their inspiring role, the relentless success of these complex microarchitectures in Siena and outside Siena, and their increasingly complicated development between the 14th and 15th century. Issues regarding conservation and fruition of Gothic polyptychs, often housed in museums following traumatic alterations and dismemberment, will also be discussed. A philological and multidisciplinary approach is indispensable for the reconstruction of their original layout.

The course, lasting five days and divided into 30 hours, will be held in Siena from 26 to 30 September 2022 and is aimed at young graduates, postgraduates, university doctoral students and other professionals within the cultural sector. The deadline to apply is 15 July 2022. Please send applications to corsiOPA@unistrasi.it.

For more information, please visit: https://www.unistrasi.it/1/10/7222/Prima_Summer_School_Conoscere_e_conservare.htm

Call for Papers: Wastework at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History (15-17 March 2023)

Art students today know the rules: no solvents in the trash, no clay down the drain, and don’t forget to cure that resin before you toss it! Early modern craftsmen had their own rituals of disposal, too – albeit ones driven more by economies of thrift than by environmental regulation or fire safety. This international, interdisciplinary conference invites papers on the materiality, spatiality, and processing of waste in the early modern workshop, broadly conceived. It proposes to examine acts of disposal, displacement, removal, and abeyance – in short, the getting rid of unwanted things – and the consequences these carry for the study of early modern material culture.

Marble dust, scrap metal, broken glass, dried oil… How did the apparent formlessness of this discarded matter – the residues, the shavings, the piles – generate new ideas for forms or find new life through changes in state engendered by slaking, burning, distilling or casting? Who were the actors trading in workshop waste, and how can we map their networks, both local and global? How were materials stored and recycled between artistic acts? What disposal flows led household waste – egg shells, stale bread, stove ash – to enter the space of the studio as artistic material or cleaning product? How did the presence, accumulation and containment of waste – its conduits and repositories – condition the environment and location of the workshop? In research today, how can waste pits be used as sources for both the footprints and layouts of workshops and for the information they provide on technological and stylistic change? More broadly, how is waste archived, and are all archives just waste heaps of history?

We welcome papers that respond to these questions with historical case studies, wider-reaching theorisations, or methodological reflections. While our focus is on practices and spaces of art-making, we also seek contributions from beyond the history of art. Building on the home-economics framework of Simon Werrett’s Thrifty Science (2019); the emerging field of Discard Studies; and histories of pre-industrial recycling by Reinhold Reith and of medieval waste by Susan S. Morrison, this conference will serve as a forum for generating new narratives of waste, thrift, and re-use in the early modern arts that go beyond the well-researched category of spoliation. We foreground waste as the material expression of practices of ordering and classification by which people adjudicated between collection and disposal, wanted and unwanted, salvation and loss. In reimagining the discarded past we intend to test the usefulness of contemporary formulations – secondary product cycles, material fatigue, metabolic flows, sustainability, recycling – while also proposing new typologies and categories. A series of pre-conference visits to local workshops and heritage collections will launch the event. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered for speakers.

This conference is organized by Dr. Ruth Ezra and Dr. Francesca Borgo within the framework of the Lise Meitner Research Group “Decay, Loss, and Conservation in Art History” at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History.

Please send your CV (including current position and affiliation), a 250-word abstract and paper title to john.rattray@biblhertz.it by September 15, 2022. Proposals will be considered for inclusion in a planned special journal issue on waste in the early modern workshop.

For more information see our webpage: https://www.biblhertz.it/3272322/research-group-borgo

Lecture Series: Between Invisibility and Autonomy: Negotiating Gender Roles in Manuscript Cultures (Universität Hamburg)

Organized by Professor Dr Eike Grossmann & Dr Johanna Seibert.

Mondays, 6:00 – 8:00 PM (UTC+1) ; hybrid format (Universität Hamburg Pavilion CSMC; Zoom)

Women’s contributions to the production and use of written artefacts have been neglected or even made invisible in many manuscript cultures. Their agency being written out is only one of the numerous blind spots when pursuing a gender perspective in the study of manuscript cultures. The aim of this lecture series is to explore precisely these blind spots by raising questions which enable us to grasp the multiple roles women have in manuscript cultures. At the center of each lecture lies the question of how women contribute to the production, circulation, and dissemination of manuscripts, inscriptions, graffiti, and other written artefacts. Did they function as patrons or scribes? If they were allowed to write in the first place, what kind of artefacts were they expected to produce? In which ways did female production of written artefacts subvert the existing order and modes of gendered dominance? Or did their actions possibly contribute to supporting, stabilizing, and perpetuating their own disadvantage? How was their exclusion then rationalized and explained in cases where they were denied active (and passive) participation in manuscript cultures?

It is through perspectives such as these that women’s roles in historic and contemporary manuscript cultures become visible. Exploring a range of materials—liturgic, devotional, biographic, among many others, from ancient Assyria and Egypt to medieval Japan and Central Europe and on to today’s Thailand and Northern Africa—the speakers shed light on new findings, give unique insights into their fields, and discuss methodological considerations.

The lectures will be held in a hybrid format and are open to all who wish to attend. Zoom links will be distributed in September 2022. For more information regarding the lecture series, please visit: https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de

Click here to view the lecture schedule

24 October 2022
“Gender Studies and Manuscript Cultures: The Case of Assyriology”
Professor Dr Dr h.c. Cécile Michel
Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Nanterre / Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures,
Universität Hamburg

31 October 2022
“In Her Own Voice: Asserting Autonomy Through Liturgy at Klosterneuburg”
Michael L. Norton, Associate Professor Emeritus
James Madison University (Virginia, US)

07 November 2022
“Women in Thai-Lao Manuscript Cultures: Alternative Worship of Text(ile) in Compensation of Monkhood”
Dr Silpsupa Jaengsawang
Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Universität Hamburg

21 November 2022
“Women as Scribes: Materials, Methods, and Motives in Medieval Italy and Beyond”
Dr Melissa Moreton, Research Associate
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

28 November 2022
“Women and Their Multiple Roles in Manuscript Production in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries”
Dr Patricia Stoop
Institute for the Study of Literature in the Netherlands (ISLN) / Ruusbroecgenootschap, Universiteit Antwerpen

12 December 2022
“Women as Scribes in Jewish Manuscript Cultures”
Dr Michael Kohs
Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Universität Hamburg

19 December 2022
“Patrons of Paper and Clay: Methods for Studying Women’s Religiosity in Ancient Japan”
Dr Bryan Lowe, Assistant Professor
Princeton University

09 January 2023
“Nuns, Domestic Virgins, and Female Devotees in Late Antique Egypt: Evidence From Greek and Coptic Graffiti, Papyri, and Other Written Artefacts”
Leah Mascia, MA
Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, Universität Hamburg

16 January 2023
“Vanished from the Pages: The Female Scribe in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis and the Transformation of Mexican Manuscript Cultures in the Early Colonial Period”
Dr Anna Boroffka
KEK, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin / Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures,
Universität Hamburg

23 January 2023
“Female Contributions to Islamic Text Production and Circulation”
Professor Dr Britta Frede
Islamic Studies / Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, Universität Bayreuth

New Publication: ‘Saint Cecilia in the Renaissance: The Emergence of a Musical Icon’ by John A. Rice

This study uncovers how Saint Cecilia came to be closely associated with music and musicians.

Until the fifteenth century, Saint Cecilia was not connected with music. She was perceived as one of many virgin martyrs, with no obvious musical skills or interests. During the next two centuries, however, she inspired many musical works written in her honor and a vast number of paintings that depicted her singing or playing an instrument.

In this book, John A. Rice argues that Cecilia’s association with music came about in several stages, involving Christian liturgy, visual arts, and music. It was fostered by interactions between artists, musicians, and their patrons and the transfer of visual and musical traditions from northern Europe to Italy. Saint Cecilia in the Renaissance explores the cult of the saint in Medieval times and through the sixteenth century when musicians’ guilds in the Low Countries and France first chose Cecilia as their patron. The book then turns to music and the explosion of polyphonic vocal works written in Cecilia’s honor by some of the most celebrated composers in Europe. Finally, the book examines the wealth of visual representations of Cecilia especially during the Italian Renaissance, among which Raphael’s 1515 painting, The Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia, is but the most famous example. Thoroughly researched and beautifully illustrated in color, Saint Cecilia in the Renaissance is the definitive portrait of Saint Cecilia as a figure of musical and artistic inspiration.

More information can be found here.