CFP:  ‘Art Binds Communities in Medieval Europe’, IMC Leeds 2023, deadline 22 September 2022

“L’opera non sta mai da sola, è sempre un rapporto” (The artwork never stays alone, it is always a relationship). This enlightening sentence by the Italian art historian Roberto Longhi (1950) emphasizes how every artwork is embedded in a network of relationships with other artworks and the social context where it is placed.

Since Joachim Wollash (1965), medieval historians have already formulated the category of “Verbände” (associations) or “Verbandsbildung” (creation of associations) for monastic orders. However, art historians can helpfully extend this concept to the relationships between artworks and demonstrate how they materially express and reinforce networks (“Verbände”) not only within monastic orders but in all kinds of communities, both religious and lay.

We aim to organise two sessions intended to investigate how entanglements among medieval artworks, here understood broadly (book illuminations, paintings, sculptures, buildings, etc…) channelled existing social networks within communities, e.g., monastic, and mendicant orders, lay confraternities, guilds and foreigners sharing the same homeland.

Papers will focus on cases that analyse the production, organization, and decoration of either sacred spaces or objects in different areas of Medieval Europe as vehicle for relationships, for reflection of the attachment of people to places and culture, and for the creation of a new shared history that transcends differences.

Papers on any topic regarding these issues in Christian western and eastern areas c. 300–1500 (Late Antiquity to International Gothic) are welcome. The fields where these themes may be addressed may include, but are not limited to:
– Spatial networks, architecture, and liturgical installations
– Patronage
– Artistic practices
– Circulation of objects, models, and artists
– Iconographic and/or stylistic entanglements

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words along with your short CV and the information below (required by IMC) by 22 September 2022 to Gianluca del Monaco (gianluca.delmonaco2@unibo.it), Fabio Massaccesi (fabio.massaccesi3@unibo.it), and Maddalena Vaccaro (mavaccaro@unisa.it).

Information to include with abstract and short CV:
• Full name
• Email address
• Postal address
• Telephone number
• Affiliation details (department, institution)
• Title (e.g. Dr, Ms, Mr, Mx, Professor etc)

Organized by: Gianluca del Monaco (Università di Bologna), Fabio Massaccesi (Università di Bologna), Maddalena Vaccaro (Università degli Studi di Salerno).

Deadlines Extended! CFP: ‘Premodern Parchment’ and ‘Concertina-Fold Books Across Premodern Cultures’, IMC Leeds 2023, deadline 23 September 2022

Call for papers: ‘Premodern Parchment’

Parchment is a familiar medium to medievalists. Animal skin, specially prepared, and employed primarily as a substrate for written communication, it is a substance that many researchers across fields of study regularly scrutinise and handle. There is now no shortage of scholarship that refers to parchment’s experiential qualities—its varied textures, smell, even sound—and its symbolic, especially Christological, significance as skin when bound in books. We seek proposals for papers that build on and move beyond this work, focusing on aspects of the medium that have been somewhat taken for granted including its (quasi) two-dimensionality, sidedness, relative opacity, colour and pliability; and/or delving into the uses of parchment outside the codical context. Our aim is to better understand the perceived possibilities and limitations of parchment in the premodern world and the qualities for which it was valued.

We plan for the session to be in-person and for papers to be 15–20 minutes long. Proposals from individuals in the academic, museum and library sectors; at any stage of their careers and from all disciplines and fields are welcome. If interested, please send an abstract of no more than 250 words along with your CV and the information below (required by IMC) by 23 September 2022 to Megan McNamee: mmcnamee@ed.ac.uk.

  • Full name
  • Email address
  • Postal address
  • Telephone number
  • Affiliation details (department, institution)
  • Title (e.g. Dr, Ms, Mr, Mx, Professor etc)

Call for papers: ‘Concertina-Fold Books Across Premodern Cultures’

Accordion, concertina, pleated, screenfold—scholars use a variety of terms to describe the zig-zag- or ‘fan’-fold book format. Although not identical in structure, books of this type share at least one common feature: they (appear to) comprise a continuous, oblong surface broken by creases. Most are bound in such a way that they can be flipped through like a codex; some can be fully or partially extended to reveal multiple ‘pages’ at once. Just how and even what information was articulated across the surfaces of concertinas, the extent to which the different folded states were meaningfully exploited by premodern people—these are among the questions to be explored in this session.

We seek papers that consider the contents and mechanics of concertinas in various cultural contexts. By taking a comparative approach, we aim to identify commonalities that may signal formal imperatives whilst sharpening our understanding of particularities preserved in different traditions. Proposals by individuals in the academic, museum and library sectors; at any stage of their careers; and from any discipline and field of study are welcome.

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words along with your CV and the information below (required by IMC) by 23 September 2022 to Megan McNamee: mmcnamee@ed.ac.uk. Information to include with abstract and short CV:

  • Full name
  • Email address
  • Postal address
  • Telephone number
  • Affiliation details (department, institution)
  • Title (e.g. Dr, Ms, Mr, Mx, Professor etc)

Organised by Sarah Griffin, Lambeth Palace Library and Megan McNamee, University of Edinburgh

New Publication: The Mineral and the Visual: Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture by Brigitte Buettner

Opulent jeweled objects ranked among the most highly valued works of art in the European Middle Ages. At the same time, precious stones prompted sophisticated reflections on the power of nature and the experience of mineralized beings. Beyond a visual regime that put a premium on brilliant materiality, how can we account for the ubiquity of gems in medieval thought?

In The Mineral and the Visual, art historian Brigitte Buettner examines the social roles, cultural meanings, and active agency of precious stones in secular medieval art. Exploring the layered roles played by gems in aesthetic, ideological, intellectual, and economic practices, Buettner focuses on three significant categories of art: the jeweled crown, the pictorialized lapidary, and the illustrated travel account. The global gem trade brought coveted jewels from the Indies to goldsmiths’ workshops in Paris, fashionable bodies in London, and the crowns of kings across Europe, and Buettner shows that Europe’s literal and metaphorical enrichment was predicated on the importation of gems and ideas from Byzantium, the Islamic world, Persia, and India.

Original, transhistorical, and cross-disciplinary, The Mineral and the Visual engages important methodological questions about the work of culture in its material dimension. It will be especially useful to scholars and students interested in medieval art history, material culture, and medieval history.

Brigitte Buettner is Louise I. Doyle ’34 Professor of Art at Smith College. She is the author of Boccaccio’s “Des cleres et nobles femmes”: Systems of Signification in an Illuminated Manuscript.

You can find The Mineral and the Visual: Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture on the Penn State University Press web site at this URL: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09250-8.html

Take 30% off with code NR22 when you order through psupress.org

Lecture series: British Library Panizzi Lectures – Drawing Conclusions: Diagrams in Medieval Art and Thought with Jeffrey Hamburger

The British Library is delighted to announce the 2022 Panizzi Lecture series which will be given by Jeffrey Hamburger on Drawing Conclusions: Diagrams in Medieval Art and Thought.

Diagrams constitute an omnipresent feature of medieval art and thought. From Antiquity onwards, the forms and procedures of geometric reasoning held a privileged place in the pursuit of truth, the understanding of which remained closely linked to ideals of beauty and perfection.

Drawing on the collections of the British Library, whose holdings provide virtually comprehensive coverage of all ramifications of the diagrammatic tradition, this series of lectures examines the practical, theoretical and aesthetic dimensions of medieval diagrams as matrices of meaning and patterns of thought informing diverse areas of medieval culture.

The lectures will be held in person at the British Library and also live streamed, thanks to the generosity of Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller.

  • Lecture 1 : 24th October 2022. Maps of the Mind: Diagrams Medieval and Modern.
  • Lecture 2 : 27th October 2022. The Codex in the Classroom: Practical Dimensions of Medieval Diagrams.
  • Lecture 3: 1st November 2022. Poetry, Play, Persuasion: The Diagrammatic Imagination in Medieval Art and Thought. Followed by a drinks reception.

Booking is free but required for both in person and online attendance.

For more information and for bookings click here.

2022 Series Introduction – Drawing Conclusions: Diagrams in Medieval Art and Thought

Diagrams constitute an omnipresent feature of medieval art and thought. From Antiquity onwards, the forms and procedures of geometric reasoning held a privileged place in the pursuit of truth, the understanding of which remained closely linked to ideals of beauty and perfection.Drawing on the collections of the British Library, whose holdings provide virtually comprehensive coverage of all ramifications of the diagrammatic tradition, this series of lectures examines the practical, theoretical and aesthetic dimensions of medieval diagrams as matrices of meaning and patterns of thought informing diverse areas of medieval culture.

Jeffrey F. Hamburger’s research focuses on the art of the High and later Middle Ages. He is the Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture at Harvard University. Beginning with his dissertation on the Rothschild Canticles (Yale, 1987), his scholarship has focused on the art of female monasticism, culminating in an international exhibition Krone und Schleier (Crown and Veil), 2005. Professor Hamburger holds a B.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from Yale University. He previously held teaching positions at Oberlin College, University of Toronto and has been a guest professor in Zurich, Paris, Oxford and Fribourg.

CFP: ‘Centers and Peripheries: The Global Premodern’, Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center at Texas Tech University, deadline September 30 2022

The Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center at Texas Tech University invites proposals for papers and sessions for an international conference on “Centers and Peripheries: The Global Premodern.” Recent decades have seen the study of the premodern past expand to include diverse geographies, peoples, objects, and texts, revealing parallels and interconnections across the globe, and challenging people to re-think how the more distant past continues to inform the present. These developments have challenged the assumed centrality of Europe and Western cultural norms in narratives of the premodern past by foregrounding interconnection and exchange with constituencies historically viewed as peripheral or subaltern.

Featuring keynote speakers Jonathan Hsy (George Washington University) and Ulinka Rublack (University of Cambridge), this conference will gather scholars in person from across disciplines and across the world to reconsider the spatial and temporal borders of the premodern past (here understood broadly as the period before approximately 1800 CE). The Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center encourages scholars working on premodern topics in any geographical domain, from any disciplinary perspective, to submit proposals for full panels or individual papers.

Papers are invited on topics including but not limited to:
• the movement of people, things, and ideas across premodern spaces
• intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and dis/ability
• race and religions
• health and the human body
• borders & border-crossings
• materiality & material culture
• travel: pilgrimages or crusades in literature and/or history
• environmental & animal studies
• translation studies
• manuscript studies
• mapping
• public premodern studies: making the distant past speak to the present

For individual papers, please submit a 200-word abstract with name and professional affiliation. For full panels, please submit a 300-word abstract that describes the scope and aims of the complete panel and identifies the titles of the individual papers that constitute the panel, along with names and professional affiliations for each panel participant. Full panel submissions must include at least three papers and no more than four. Panels with four papers must limit papers to 15-minutes.

Submissions should be directed to: mrsc@ttu.edu. We particularly welcome submissions from graduate students, early career scholars, and postgraduate students, as well as collaborative abstract submissions. Please direct any questions to Jacob Baum, Interim Director, TTU Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center [email: jacob.m.baum@ttu.edu.]

The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2022. Acceptance notices will be sent no later than 15 November 2022.

Public Lecture Course with the Paul Mellon Centre: Britain and the World in the Middle Ages: Image and Reality

In the Middle Ages, the ‘British Isles’ were far from insular. These islands were, in fact, places of exchange, where art, ideas, rare materials and people came together from all over the world. This course examines Britain’s sense of place in that world, as well as its actual place in the world – in other words, image, and reality. Each of the course’s lectures considers one of five critical themes in Britain’s global experience and imagination, through the exploration of works of medieval art. This series was convened by Jessica Berenbeim (University of Cambridge) and Lloyd de Beer (British Museum).

Watch all the lectures on the Paul Mellon Centre website here.

CFP: ‘Unfolding the Past: The Materiality and Temporality of Medieval Southern Italy (I & II)’, International Congress on Medieval Studies 2023, deadline 15 September 2022

Southern Italy offers a vast and diverse collection of historical evidence. Since Antiquity, the region has been hosting civilizations committed to a thorough preservation of memory in the forms of both historic narratives and the material legacy of the past. During the Middle Ages, the splitting in separated cultural entities in contrast with each other, prompted the reclamation of the past for specific political agendas.

For instance, Norman rulers reinstalled cults from Paleo-Christian times, displaying a variety of material evidence, such as allegedly recovered bodily remains or supposed burial sites of early martyrs. Manifold are the examples on the architectural scale, such as Naples’s gothic Duomo: its pillars include juxtaposed marble columns likely taken from the early Cathedral complex, thus materially folding Christian Antiquity onto the present and hence strengthening the local episcopal authority fostered by the new Angevin rulers.

This double session aims at collecting study-cases of re-temporalized Past in Medieval Southern Italy. We are primarily interested in material evidence of conceptualizations of time, i.e. embodied by architecture and other works of art, by the use of spolia in various contexts, by collections of objects from different strata of time, by the mise-en-scène of relics and traces, etc. Instead of projecting intellectual constructs such as Antiquarianism back into the past we are interested in the immanence of history in the process of constructing the present. We propose to further explore the range of practices dealing with the folding and unfolding of time in the political and social reality of Medieval cultures.

Paper proposals must include:
• Author’s name, affiliation, and contact information
• Paper Title (15 words max)
• Abstract (300 words max)
• Short description (50 words)

Please submit abstracts no later than September 15, 2022, at the Confex submissions portal https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions#papers

Session Organizers:  Antonino Tranchina, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, Antonino.Tranchina@biblhertz.it, and Adrian Bremenkamp, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, Adrian.Bremenkamp@biblhertz.it

Sessions Sponsored by the Italian Art Society  https://www.italianartsociety.org

Please note: As this is a sponsored panel, all speakers must be (or become) members of the Italian Art Society in 2023. Please note that there are free one-year sospesi memberships available for eligible speakers in IAS sponsored sessions. Information can be found on our website here: https://www.italianartsociety.org/join/

The IAS offers several types of conference travel grants which help support graduate students and junior scholars, as well as scholars who are traveling internationally to present in IAS- Sponsored sessions. Applications for these grants are announced and opened in the late fall.

More information on the various conference travel grants be found on our website: https://www.italianartsociety.org/grants-opportunities/travel-grants/

CFP: Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, Harvard University, 16-18 March 2023, deadline 28 November 2022

We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the 22nd Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, which will be held at Harvard University from March 16–18, 2023!

Vagantes offers an excellent opportunity for junior scholars to share their research. We invite abstracts from current graduate students and recent MA graduates in all disciplines who are working on any topic related to the long Middle Ages. Abstracts of 300 words and a 1-page CV are due by November 28, 2022 to vagantesboard@gmail.com.

CFP: ‘Relics and Reliquaries in Iberia, c. 1000-1400: Stories, Spaces, and Identities’, IMC Leeds 2023, deadline 23 September 2022

The American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS) is pleased to announce the organization of a panel at the 2023 International Medieval Congress in Leeds entitled “Relics and Reliquaries in Iberia, c. 1000-1400: Stories, Places, and Identities”.

This panel, within the world’s leading annual gathering of medieval experts, intends to unravel the overlooked entanglements of relics and reliquaries in the lives of medieval individuals from different social strata. Reliquaries have traditionally been seen by art historians in modern times as mere objects with an aesthetic value – described, categorized, and compared. Yet, reliquaries offer a window into the mindsets of their original audiences. The reading of the saint’s texts, the materiality of the object, and the public performance of both content and container across city streets shaped the lives of vast segments of pious medieval populations and evoked different feelings and socio-political ideologies within given contexts.

Medieval Iberia is largely and remarkably absent from recent reference works on the subject, the objects in general not being extensively studied in Spanish universities as outsiders to the grander art historical canon. The complexities of medieval Iberia in terms of art, conflicting religions, and dynamic territorial realities make the study of relics and reliquaries particularly appealing and prone to major inroads.

Papers on any topic regarding the cult of saints, their material culture, and the socio-religious history of Spain and Portugal c. 1000-1400 are welcome. Topics emphasizing overlooked gender and sexuality issues, multi-religious settings, hybridity, and violence, as well as health and disease, will be particularly appreciated.

Please send an abstract of fewer than 300 words, along with a short bio, to Dr. Jesús Rodríguez Viejo (AARHMS) to j.rodriguez.viejo@rug.nl before September 23, 2022.

CFP: ‘Mnemosyne: Forgetting, Remembering, and Rediscovering Classical Antiquity’, Warburg Institute Postgraduate Symposium, deadline 25 November 2022

The Warburg Institute, in collaboration with the Institute of Classical Studies, is hosting its fourth Postgraduate Symposium, Mnemosyne: Forgetting, Remembering, and Rediscovering Classical Antiquity. This is an in-person event for postgraduate students and early-career researchers held in central London.

The Symposium aims to explore the role of memory in the survival of classical culture across the centuries. Themes include:

  • arts and heritage
  • psychological and religious narratives
  • sites of preservation and transmission

We invite papers from the fields of art history, history of ideas, cultural history, psychology and psychoanalysis, and related disciplines.

Call for Papers Deadline: Friday 25 November 2022

Conference dates: Thursday-Friday 4-5 May 2023

Please send paper proposals to mnemosyneconference@gmail.com. You can find more information in the attached flyer and through the symposium website: https://mnemosyneconferenc.wixsite.com/mnemosyne-conference  

Download the PDF version of the call for papers hereDownload