Fellowship: Gerda Henkel Fellowship in Digital History 2022-2023, German Historical Institute and Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University (Deadline 15th May 2022)

With the generous support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the German Historical Institute (GHI) and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at the George Mason University (RRCHNM) invite applications from postdoctoral scholars and advanced doctoral students based in Europe for a 12-month fellowship in digital history.

This fellowship aims to connect scholars from Europe to digital history in the United States. The fellowship is intended to support a junior scholar working in the field of digital history or a junior scholar with less experience in digital history but interested in learning new research methods. We welcome applications from scholars who are seeking seed-funding in order to develop an innovative idea into a new project and/or funding proposal as well as from scholars who wish to pursue fully-fledged research projects.

The fellowship provides a unique opportunity for the recipient to work on his or her research project at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) at George Mason University (GMU), one of the most established centers for digital history in the United States with strengths in computational history, spatial history and GIS, public digital history and other methods. The fellow will be in residence for one year. While at the Center, the fellow will also have the opportunity to consult with the RRCHNM’s faculty and staff in order to develop his or her project, join teams working on projects in development at RRCHNM, and to sit in on graduate digital history classes at GMU. Depending upon qualifications and visa status, the fellow could teach or co-teach undergraduate courses involving digital history.

The fellow is also expected to work with the GHI on a regular basis. She/he will participate in the Institute’s scholarly activities and its digital projects. Moreover, the fellow will have the opportunity to connect with other North American centers for digital history or digital humanities and to participate in local digital history initiatives in the Washington, DC region. Depending on funding and approval, the fellow might also have the chance, after completing the fellowship, to be participate in the annual GHI Conference on Digital Humanities and Digital History, which is jointly convened with the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH).

Starting October 1, 2022, the successful applicant will be in residence at the RRCHNM and will also participate in GHI activities, events, and digital projects. Funding will be provided for a 12-month stay for postdoctoral scholars as well as advanced doctoral students, who are currently affiliated with a European research institution.

To apply, visit the application portal here.

Call for Papers: ‘Early Modern Global Political Art’, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 20th-21st October 2022 (Deadline 31st May 2022)

In the early modern period, nations, nobles, corporations, religious groups, and others found dynamic and innovative ways to use the visual arts for a wide range of political purposes. Nations dispatched elaborate diplomatic gifts to initiate and consolidate alliances. Aristocratic powers and individual collectors alike amassed collections to convey and enhance their political and economic power. Courts and cities produced ephemeral decorations to assert and display ideal political relations between nobility and their subjects, and between regional and outside authorities. Broadsheets addressing factional conflicts within and among institutions proliferated with the expansion of affordable print media.

This symposium will investigate visual media that communicated political ideas, arguments, positions, and forms of resistance in the early modern period. Papers addressing any geographic location or medium are welcome; approaches that center on understudied media, artwork that crossed national boarders, or involved cultural exchange are especially of interest.

The event coincides with “Fake News & Lying Pictures: Political Prints in the Dutch Republic” (Aug. 25—Dec. 17,2022), an international-loan exhibition of 100 prints and illustrated books that explores the myriad and complex visual strategies printmakers in the United Provinces used to lionize and demonize domestic and international leaders, memorialize historical events, and form consensus for collective action.

The symposium will be hybrid, blending in person presentations with online presentations via zoom to make the event more equitable and permit international participation.

Keynote Speakers:

Dawn Odell, Lewis & Clark
Odell studies artistic exchange between China and northern Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. She is currently writing a book on Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest: an eighteenth-century Dutch immigrant to the newly formed United States whose travelogues and Chinese porcelain collection were leveraged for social and political power.

Liza Oliver, Wellesley
Oliver ‘s research focuses on 18th- and 19th-century India, Europe, and the West Indies. Her current projects include the book Empire of Hunger: Representing Famine, Land and Labor in Colonial India and work about British prints about abolition and the Haitian Revolution.

Please send an abstract of 300 words or less, a 2-page C.V., and indicate if you prefer your presentation be in person or remote. Email to Maureen Warren, Curator of European and American art, Krannert Art Museum, maureen@illinois.edu by May 31, 2022.

New Publication: ‘Visual Translation: Illuminated Manuscripts and the First French Humanists’ by Anne D. Hedeman, Notre Dame Press

Hedeman explores how visual translation works in a series of unusually densely illuminated manuscripts associated with Laurent and Lebègue circa 1404–45. These manuscripts cover both Latin texts, such as Statius’s Thebiad and Achilleid, Terence’s Comedies, and Sallust’s Conspiracy of Cataline and Jurguthine War, and French translations, including Cicero’s De senectute, Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium and Decameron, and Bruni’s De bello Punico primo. Illuminations constitute a significant part of these manuscripts’s textual apparatus, which helped shape access to and interpretation of the texts for a French audience. Hedeman considers them as a group and reveals Laurent’s and Lebègue’s growing understanding of visual rhetoric and its ability to visually translate texts originating in a culture removed in time or geography for medieval readers who sought to understand them. The book discusses what happens when the visual cycles so carefully devised in collaboration with libraries and artists by Laurent and Lebègue escaped their control in a process of normalization. With over 180 color images, this major reference book will appeal to students and scholars of French, comparative literature, art history, history of the book, and translation studies.

Order here.

Call for Papers: ‘The History and Historiography of Fashion(s)’, Perspective: Actualité en histoire de l’art (Deadline 16th May 2022)

Exploring fashion as a plural phenomenon that manifests itself in objects and images, influences artistic practices and maintains close ties with their history means understanding the formation of a body of fashion literature within the history of art. It also means attempting to grasp what art history has to gain from addressing this omnipresent yet unresolved subject that questions the discipline’s borders and hierarchies.

Two complementary definitions of fashion emerge and these underlie the two approaches that this issue of Perspective seeks to develop: the first aims to determine formal changes in dress and variations in the laws of appearances, while the second conceives of a single, cyclical renewal of taste that inspires customs and thus goes far beyond items of clothing and their accessories.

This is the twofold interest of the forthcoming issue of Perspective, and more generally, of research in the history of fashion today: a return to the foundations of a relatively recent field of investigation combined with methodological innovations taking place in art history and related disciplines and the new research perspectives they offer.

Please submit your proposal ( 2,000-3,000-character / 350 to 500-word summary, with a provisional title, a short bibliography on the topic, and a 2-3 line biography) to the editorial address (revue-perspective@inha.fr) by May 16th, 2022.


Authors of selected articles will be informed of the committee’s decision by the end of July 2022. Full texts of accepted contributions will need to be sent by December 15, 2022. These will be definitively accepted after the journal’s anonymous peer-review process.

Call for Papers: ‘Material Religion Through the Sacred Interior’, 76th Annual International Conference, Society of Architectural Historians, 12th-16th April 2023 (Deadline 7th June 2022)

The Society of Architectural Historians is now accepting abstracts for its 76th Annual International Conference in Montréal, Canada, April 12–16, 2023 and virtually September 20–22, 2023. Please submit an abstract no later than 11:59 p.m. CDT on June 7, 2022. SAH encourages submissions from architectural, landscape, and urban historians; museum curators; preservationists; independent scholars; architects; scholars in related fields; and members of SAH chapters, Affiliate Groups and partner organizations. Please be aware that all abstracts must be submitted through the SAH website portal. You can fine more information here: https://www.sah.org/2023/call-for-papers

Material Religion Through the Sacred Interior (Montréal)
Following the Protestant Reformation, clerics and church officials stripped the interior spaces of many western medieval churches of their polychromy, textiles, choir screens, side altars, and sculptures, fundamentally changing the sensorial experience of worship for both clergy and laity. These changes had an impact on how scholars approached medieval church interiors, causing some to overlook the presence of furniture and other portable furnishings. Instead, art and architectural historians have emphasized architectural structure, frescos, and painted altarpieces. Other scholars analyze aspects of the liturgy that engage with select objects, but there is much more to be said about items long since removed.

This session invites papers that investigate how sacred interiors were furnished with items such as—though not limited to—textiles, side altars, altar cloths, and choir screens. How did these material objects influence the experience of the worshipper in this holy space? How have museums’ categorization of furniture as part of the decorative arts impeded the study of these items? Is the term “furniture” the correct or relevant term to use for items such as altars and choir stalls, and can this be clarified by writers? What role did textiles play in creating movable temporary spaces within the larger building? Investigations of these themes in relation to sacred spaces from all eras and places are welcome. Differences in experiences of the sacred interior based upon gender, socio-economic class, and race are encouraged. As art historian and religious studies scholar David Morgan observes in his recent book, “The Thing about Religion,” material objects are the “things…[that] make religions happen.” This session seeks to explore the medieval western church interior (c.500–1500) as a space where material objects have been employed to make religion happen.


Organized by the SAH Historic Interiors Affiliate Group.
Session Chair: Tania Kolarik, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Conference: ‘Transitions 2022’, Centre for Medieval Studies Postgraduate Conference, University of Bristol, 29th-30th April 2022

After the success of the 2021 ‘Rules and Regulations’ and ‘Disruption’ Conference, the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Bristol invites you to yet another highly topical conference in the longest standing medievalist PGR conference series: the 2022 Transitions Conference.

The principle of transition management in our global pandemic has become a highly relevant approach aiming to facilitate and accelerate sustainable transitions affecting workplace, politics, social interactions, and health.

How are such principles of transitions to be observed in the manifold institutions, organisations, cultures, etc., in medieval Britain, Europe, and beyond? How are those transitions represented in the many disciplines related to medieval studies from Musicology, History, Art History, Religion and Theology, Linguistics, Literature, to Law and Medicine, and how can our society profit from those observations today?

Key speakers:
Professor Simon Horobin (Magdalen College, Oxford)
Dr Jessica Barker (The Courtauld Institute of Art)
Dr Andy King (University of Southampton)

Refreshments served throughout conference thanks to the generous funding of the SWW DTP, Centre for Medieval Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of English, Bristol Doctoral College.

Registration is now open.

Fellowships: 2022-2023 Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies Visiting Research Fellowships, University of Pennsylvania (Deadline 15th May 2022)

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries is accepting applications for the 2022-2023 Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) Visiting Research Fellowship program. Guided by the vision of its founders, Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, SIMS aims to bring manuscript culture, modern technology, and people together to provide access to and understanding of our shared intellectual heritage. Part of the Penn Libraries, SIMS oversees an extensive collection of premodern manuscripts from around the world, with a special focus on the history of philosophy and science, and creates open-access digital content to support the study of its collections. SIMS also hosts the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts and the annual Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age.

The SIMS Visiting Research Fellowships have been established to encourage research relating to the premodern manuscript collections at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, including the Schoenberg Collection. Affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, located near other manuscript-rich research collections (the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Science History Institute, and the Rosenbach Museum and Library, among many others), and linked to the local and international scholarly communities, SIMS offers fellows a network of resources and opportunities for collaboration. Fellows will be encouraged to interact with SIMS staff, Penn faculty, and other medieval and early modern scholars in the Philadelphia area. Fellows will also be expected to present their research at Penn Libraries either during the term of the fellowship or on a selected date following the completion of the term.

Applicants can apply to spend 1 month (minimum of 4 work weeks) at SIMS between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023. Project proposals should demonstrate that the Libraries’ premodern manuscript resources are integral to proposed research topics. Up to 3 fellowships will be awarded this year.

Recipients will be expected to conduct their research at SIMS, with the exception of short research trips in support of the proposed project to nearby institutions. Proposals with a digital component are encouraged though not required.

Fellowships are open to all scholars living outside of the greater Philadelphia area. Applicants must have completed a Ph.D. or an equivalent professional degree by the time the fellowship begins. Independent scholars with a substantial record of achievement are encouraged to apply. Applicants who have not completed a Ph.D. at the time of application must have a letter from their dissertation advisor(s) stating that the degree will be completed prior to the applicant’s proposed dates of the fellowship.

Application Process
To be considered, applicants must submit the following by May 15, 2022:

  • A 2-3 page summary of the project that clearly states a) the relationship of Penn Libraries’ manuscript collections to the project, b) the project’s significance to manuscript studies, and c) a workplan for the duration of the fellowship. The proposal should include name of applicant(s), title of project, preferred dates of the fellowship.
  • A cv.
  • Two letters of support from scholars who can speak to the merits of the project. Letters should address the project’s potential for contributing to the advancement of the understanding of the material and its impact on its related field(s) of study. Letters may be included in the application or sent separately by the referee if preferred.

Applications should be sent by email to lransom@upenn.edu, preferably as a single pdf, or by post to:

Lynn Ransom
Curator, SIMS Programs
Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies
University of Pennsylvania Libraries
3420 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Call for Submissions: Authenticity Studies, International Journal of Archaeology and Art (Deadline 15th July 2022)

 Authenticity Studies-International Journal of Archaeology and Art is an international and independent journal, based on a peer review system and dedicated to the study of the methods of attribution and authentication of archaeological and art-historical artifacts.


Founded by Monica Salvadori (Editor in Chief), Federica Toniolo, Andrea Tomezzoli, Marta Nezzo, Monica Baggio and Luca Zamparo, Authenticity Studies is a journal of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Padua and is published by Padova University Press. Authenticity Studies is an open access electronic journal (with ISSN). It is based on an anonymous and international double peer review system.

Authenticity Studies accepts original and unpublished contributions focused on three main research lines:

1 – Theory and method of art-historical and archaeological attribution
2 – Investigations on the phenomenon of falsification: history, philosophy, methods and society
3 – Provenance Studies

In this way, Authenticity Studies intends to analyze the methods of study and analysis, as well as the philology, for the attribution and authentication of archaeological and artistic manufacts, to propose new attributions or verify the authenticity of the same, as well as to study the revival of taste and tradition in modern and contemporary society.

Furthermore, Authenticity Studies intends to propose a complete analysis of the phenomenon of falsification, verifying the material results and the economic, social, legal, philosophical and ethical implications. Authenticity Studies analyzes the authentication techniques and methods (humanistic and technological-scientific), the connections with the art market, and the history of collecting, thus also investigating historical fakes and those inserted, over time, in the field museum public and private.

Finally, Authenticity Studies wants to be the forum for discussion and reflection around studies on the provenance and on the reconstruction of the original context of archaeological and art-historical heritage, and the place for discussion on protection practices and on the actions to be taken for the conservation and the safeguarding of authentic Cultural Heritage.

Authors submitting a contribution to Authenticity Studies guarantee the originality of their works, the intellectual property of the contribution and the absence of conflicts of interest or economic interests arising from the publication of the attribution/authentication.

Authenticity Studies does not accept: attribution or authentication researches of objects of uncertain or incorrectly reconstructed provenance (and/or ownership); attributions or authentication of items offered for sale.

Authenticity Studies. International Journal of Archaeology and Art is published annualy.
The publication of the next volume is scheduled for March 2023.

The deadline for articles submissions is July 15th, 2022.

Publication is free of charge.

Submissions should be sent to: authenticity.studies.dbc@unipd.it

Info: luca.zamparo@unipd.it (Managing Editor)

Lecture: ‘Image, Pattern, Repetition: The Craft of Romanesque Sculpture in Southwest England’, by Dr Alex Woodcock, The Courtauld Institute of Art, 21st April 2022, 18:00 GMT

Repetition is a crucial aspect of the Romanesque sculptural repertoire. Geometric patterns are a good example, both visually arresting and highly flexible, able to be used across all manner of architectural features from fonts to doorways to individual carved stones. Their ubiquity, however, coupled with a broader legacy of understanding the decorative as secondary to figurative works, has, perhaps, left a lingering cloud of under-appreciation. Drawing upon material from Devon and Cornwall, English counties rich in daisywheel, palmette, star and many other motifs, this lecture explores how we might consider the nuances of repeated forms and their production. Combined with insights taken from craft processes and working stone it will consider just what repetition – in both process and output – might be able to reveal about the Romanesque southwest and its sculpture, along the way seeking new contexts for little-known works, their producers and patrons.

Dr Alex Woodcock is a writer, tutor and former cathedral stonemason. Following his PhD in medieval sculpture he spent six years working at Exeter Cathedral during which time he contributed to major projects including the conservation of its west front. His written work includes academic articles as well as books aimed at a general readership such as Gargoyles and Grotesques (Bloomsbury, 2011), Of Sirens and Centaurs (Impress, 2013) and King of Dust (Little Toller, 2019). In 2015 his essay on the Romanesque sculpture of Cornwall won the Cardew-Rendle history prize. He teaches on the Cathedrals’ Workshop Fellowship degree and is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Organised by Dr Rose Walker (The Courtauld) and the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland.

Register here.