Conference: ‘God is in the Details: The Art of Detail in the Middle Ages’, 27th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium, The Courtauld Institute of Art, 29th April 2022

The Courtauld’s 27th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium considers the significance of details. For Aby Warburg, God was in the details, while for others they could conceal the devil. From manuscript miniatures to carved altarpieces or richly decorated muqarnas, detail was highly valued in the Middle Ages. The deployment of detail displays, disguises and depends upon the materiality of objects, and our programme reflects the material diversity of detail, from architectural sculpture to multi-media textiles, from manuscript paintings to stained glass. The production of detail was also demanding, often requiring fine materials, masterful skill, hours of time and technical innovation. The intensive requirements of detail enabled them to speak of power and dignity, yet they could also half-conceal subversive subtexts and present subtle suggestions, which only the most perceptive viewers would appreciate.  

Close observation of apparently insignificant details lay at the heart of the connoisseurial, attribution-focused art history of the nineteenth century. More recently scholars have examined the cultural significance of detail, from Necipoğlu’s explication of the ‘scrutinizing gaze’ in Islamic art to Geertz’s notion of ‘cognitive stickiness’. Others have closely engaged with detail in relation to craft, such as Margaret Graves’ theory of the ‘intellect of the hand’ and Paul Binski’s explorations of the ‘human “poetics” of materials’. Our varied programme will challenge the marginality of detail, proposing art historical approaches to material which seems fragmentary, incidental, or merely ornamental. As such, this colloquium foregrounds potential meanings which arise from the deployment of details, whether as devices of persuasion, indicators of temporality or pointers to religious dimensions beyond the everyday. Do join us in person, or via Livestream, for this opportunity to delve into detail, in all its complex material, cultural and academic dimensions. 

Programme: ‘God is in the Details’ – The Art of Detail in the Middle Ages

10:00 – Registration – Front Hall

10:30 – Welcome – Rachel Alban and Jamie Haskell (The Courtauld)

10:40 – SESSION 1: Marginal, Fragmentary, Isolated: Giving Minutiae Centre Stage

Aidan Valente (University of Cambridge) – Marginalia in Stone: The Evolution of Allegory and Classicism on the Fonte Gaia

Lydia Fisher (University of Exeter) – A Window into Faith: The Value of Studying Stained Glass Fragments

Jessica Gasson (The Courtauld Institute of Art) – Woven Complexities: Untangling the Uses of Silk, Gold and Wool in the V&A Passion Tapestry

Questions and Discussion

12:00 – Comfort Break

12:20 – SESSION 2: Miniscule Details: Motives and Meanings

Danielle Omesi Moisa (Tel Aviv University) – Romanesque Horror Vacui: Ornamental Density in Architectural Sculpture as an Expression of Fear of the Absence of Creation and Creator

Jordan Booker (University of York) – It’s All in the Details: Tracing Temporality in Early Netherlandish Painted Settings

Rachel Alban (The Courtauld) – Framing in Detail: Small-scale Illumination Design as Cognitive Framing in late Timurid and early Safavid Literary Manuscripts

Questions and Discussion

13:40 – Lunch Break (Lunch provided for speakers only)

13.50 – Handling Session (TBC)

14:30 – SESSION 3: Rhetorical Flourishes: The Persuasive Power of Details

Sommer Halquist (University of Cambridge) – Authority is in the Details: Illuminating Apocrypha in the Late Middle Ages

Chloe Kellow (The Courtauld) – From Contemplation to Self-Aggrandisement: Detail as Narrative Device in Plaques from the Lives of Christ and Saint James, The Altar of Saint James in Pistoia (1316-1371)

Michela Young (University of Cambridge) – Saint John Gualbert and the Cross: details of a conversion story in creating the cult of a saint

Questions and Discussion

15:50 – Afternoon break Tea and Coffee Break

16:30 – SESSION 4: Transcendental/ Transformational Power of Detail

Dagmar Thielen (Catholic University of Leuven) – Multum in Parvo: The Intermedial Gothic Detail within the Symbolic Networks of the Ghent Altarpiece (1432)

Adela Foo (Yale University) – Reflections of an Intermediary World: Considering the Mirror as a Threshold into Another World

Juliette Brack (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) – God is in Textile Patterns: Meditation on the Virgin’s Cloth of Honour in Italian Devotional Panels

Questions and Discussion

17:50 – Closing Remarks – Tom Nickson (The Courtauld)

18:00 – Reception

Book here.

Job Opportunity: Director, Institute for Medieval Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences (Deadline 18th April 2022)

The Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW), Austria’s central non-university research and science
institution, seeks to appoint a new Director (F*M) with tenure at the Institute for Medieval Research.

The Institute for Medieval Research in Vienna is a vibrant and productive hub for medieval research. IMAFO pursues innovative and cutting-edge approaches to medieval history through cultural and social studies as well as through the interpretation of the medieval heritage of Europe and Byzantium. Further research foci are on Digital Humanities, Historical Auxiliary Sciences, and source studies.

The new Director will complement and further enhance the institute’s outstanding research profile by
supporting interdisciplinarity. The successful candidate will be open to new ideas and be abreast of the latest international developments and new directions in medieval research, thereby fostering conditions that will allow excellent medieval research to flourish. The IMAFO is part of the vibrant local research environment comprising the numerous historical, archaeological and humanities institutes of OeAW and other research institutions in Vienna.

The OeAW is looking for a strong and ambitious person with innovative research ideas and an outstanding academic track record, including success in winning major research grants. The ideal candidate will be a creative scholar with strong leadership and management skills who is well connected within the international scholarly community. The OeAW seeks to appoint a Director who is enthusiastic about pursuing his or her own research within IMAFO while also enhancing and encouraging the research of existing IMAFO staff. Recruiting outstanding talent to fill new appointments will be among the Director’s key responsibilities.

Qualified candidates are invited to apply and submit a detailed application to President Anton Zeilinger and Vice President Arnold Suppan at IMAFO.search.director@oeaw.ac.at, containing the following:
− Research concept and proposal for the strategic development of the IMAFO (maximum 4 pages)
− Curriculum vitae including an overview of recent research activities and funding (maximum 5 pages)
− A list of publications, with pdf files of the four most important publications

See full brief here.

PhD Fellowship: eikones Graduate School, Center for the Theory and History of the Image, University of Basel (Deadline 17th April 2022)

The eikones Graduate School at the Center for the Theory and History of the Image at the University of Basel invites applications for two positions for doctoral study on the theory and history of the image for four years beginning September 1, 2022. Candidates in the fields of history, art history, musicology, philosophy, German literature, architectural history, English, media studies, and Egyptology are encouraged to apply.

Since 2005, eikones has served as a center for research on images from systematic and historical perspectives. The international and interdisciplinary center investigates the meanings, functions and effects of images in cultures since Antiquity and in our contemporary society. It aims at foundational image theory and at a historical investigation of images as instruments of human knowledge and cultural practices.

The eikones graduate school offers excellent students of the humanities who would like to pursue a doctorate in the  history and theory of the image a structured program of graduate study distinguished by dedicated advising, an internationality, interdisciplinary, regular dialogue with guest scholars, and professional opportunities. The goal of the doctoral program is the successful completion of the degree within the duration of the fellowship.

Application / Contact
Please submit your application in German or English as a single pdf by April 17, 2022 using the online portal provided by the University of Basel. The application should include:

  • Cover Letter
  • CV
  • Copies of Degree Certificates
  • Contact details for two references
  • Project description (at most 10 pages) and bibliography
  • Writing sample (at most 20 pages)

Full description and application can be found here.

Online Lecture: ‘The Gold of Banjska’, by Dr. Ivan Drpić, Dumbarton Oaks, 24th March 2022 16:00 EST

Midway through the quick succession of brief biographical notes about Serbian monarchs and potentates that comprise the so-called Genealogy of Karlovci, a fifteenth-century text, the reader comes across a passage of considerable art historical import. Writing about the great works of royal and clerical patronage, the anonymous author declares that “the pavement of the church at Prizren, the church of Dečani, the narthex of Peć, the gold of Banjska, and the paintings of Resava are to be found nowhere else.” This lecture takes the peculiar reference to “the gold of Banjska” as the point of entry into an exploration of a little-studied phenomenon—the extensive use of gilding in medieval Serbian wall painting. Drpić uses the results of recently conducted technical analyses to illuminate this phenomenon and clarify its significance for finding Serbia’s place on the artistic map of the later Middle Ages.

Ivan Drpić is associate professor of history of art at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in the art, architecture, and material culture of Byzantium and its Slavic neighbors in Southeastern Europe.

This event is organized by Dumbarton Oaks in collaboration with North of Byzantium and the American Institute for Southeast European Studies.

Advance registration required.

Call for Papers: ‘Utopia’, 2022 NYU MARGIN Graduate Symposium (Deadline 11th April 2022)


The Medieval and Renaissance Graduate Interdisciplinary Network (MARGIN) is pleased to announce a call for papers for the 2022 MARGIN Symposium on Friday, May 6th, to be held virtually (via Zoom). The theme of this year’s symposium is UTOPIA, and our keynote speaker will be Dr. Karma Lochrie, Provost Professor of English at Indiana University and author of Nowhere in the Middle Ages. 

We invite graduate students to submit papers that participate in a larger discussion of utopian (and dystopian) thinking in medieval and Renaissance cultures. The theme is intended to encourage wide-ranging papers from a multitude of universities and departments, including those that have been underrepresented in medieval and Renaissance studies. We especially welcome topics with a focus on non-European or non-Western material from the fifth to seventeenth century. 

Submissions may focus on topics including, but not limited to:

  • The relationship between utopia and dystopia in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
  • Sacred geography, cartography, and the unmappable
  • Social utopias (monastic, political, etc)
  • Conceptual utopias (Szforzinda, Cockaigne, etc)
  • The Garden of Eden in art and literature
  • Creation, apocalypse and time outside of time
  • Theologies of heaven and hell
  • Journeys to the otherworld and mental pilgrimage
  • Islamic conceptions of jannah in art and poetry
  • Medieval and Renaissance cosmology and cosmography
  • Manuscripts, utopias, voids, and other unexpected spaces
  • Visualizing utopia and utopian/dystopian spaces
  • Modern responses to medieval/early-modern concepts of utopia/dystopia

Please submit a 250-word abstract with a 50-word bio to nyumargin@gmail.com with “Symposium submission” in the subject line by April 4th. Applicants will be notified by April 11th.

If you do not currently have a paper related to Utopia, but do have another project that you would like to present or workshop, please note that there is still an open Call for Papers for MARGIN’s Works-In-Progress series. 

Fellowship: Doctoral and Young Scholars Fellowship, Herzog August Bibliothek (Next Deadline 1st April 2022)

Thanks to the initiatives by private foundations (Dr. Günther Findel-Stiftung/Rolf und Ursula Schneider-Stiftung) fellowships programmes for doctoral candidates have been established at the Herzog August Bibliothek. These programmes are open to applicants from Germany and abroad and from all disciplines.

Applicants may apply for a fellowship of between 2 and 10 months, if research on their dissertation topic necessitates the use of the Wolfenbüttel holdings. The fellowship is € 1.300 per month. Fellowship holders are housed in library accommodation for the duration of the fellowship and pay the rent from their fellowship. There is also an allowance of € 100 per month to cover costs of copying, reproductions etc. Candidates can apply for a travel allowance if no funds are available to them from other sources.

Candidates who already hold fellowships (eg. state or college awards or grants from Graduiertenkollegs) or are employed can apply for a rent subsidy to help finance their stay in Wolfenbüttel.

Please request an application form, which details all the documents that need to be submitted, at forschung@hab.de. Reviewers will be appointed to evaluate the applications. The Board of Trustees of the foundations will decide on the award.

Application deadlines: October 1st or April 1st. The Board holds its selection meetings in February and July. Successful applicants can take up the award from April 1st or October 1st onwards each year.

If you send your applications by mail, please submit only unstapled documents and no folders.

You can find more information about the foundation here.

Lecture: ‘Entrepots, Networks and Kinetic Empire in Byzantium and Neighbouring worlds, 950-1100’, by Catherine Holmes, GCMS Seminar, University of Reading, 17 March 2022, 16:30 GMT

The final University of Reading GCMS seminar will be this Thursday 17th March at 4:30 pm BST, when Professor Catherine Holmes (University of Oxford) will be delivering a lecture entitled ‘Entrepots, Networks and Kinetic Empire in Byzantium and neighbouring worlds, 950-1100’.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82778262433?pwd=R2lDb29aUkZkT0lFRlQ2cUlWUmYvUT09

Lecture: ‘Muslims and military orders in the medieval Iberian Peninsula: a multifaceted relationship’, by Clara Almagro-Vidal, 16 March 2022, 13:00 GMT

The seminar will be hybrid, in person in the Ramsden room, St Catharine’s College Cambridge and on Zoom (if you would like to receive the link, please email Prof N Berend nb213@cam.ac.uk). If you attend in person, please wear a mask.

Call for Papers: ‘Community & Identity, Unity & Diversity in Medieval Europe (c. 700-1300)’, Aberystwyth Medieval Conference, 29 June – 1 July 2022 (Deadline 21 March 2022)

Students of medieval identity have long been preoccupied with questions about how communities were brought together. The strategies deployed by medieval writers when devising a history for their communities, or when distinguishing them from others, can reveal much about their visions of identity.

The fifth Aberystwyth Medieval Conference will explore strategies for uniting and dividing medieval communities, how those writing about the past helped to construct – or to overcome – borders between communities, and how their visions of communal identities may have shaped, and may in turn have been shaped by, the construction of medieval polities.

The workshop will take place from 29th June to 1st July 2022. We anticipate that it will take place in-person. We warmly welcome proposals for 20-minute papers from postgraduates, early career & established scholars working on any aspect of the high medieval past (c.700-1300).  Perspectives from any discipline are welcome, including but not limited to history, literary studies, art history, philosophy, archaeology, and palaeography.

Keynote speakers:

Michal Biran (Jerusalem)

Gerd Lubich (Bochum)

Hugh M. Thomas (Miami)

Alex Woolf (St Andrews)

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

Borders and identity

The construction of networks

Relations between the “centre” and “periphery”

Disputing/dispute settlement

Belonging and exclusion.

Divisions between lay and spiritual

Ideas of “the other”

Please submit proposals to aberystwythmedievalists@gmail.com

Seminar: Summer Seminars in Paleography and Archival Studies (Deadline 1st June 2022)

The Medici Archive Project is pleased to announce the dates for the upcoming 2022 Summer Seminars in Paleography and Archival Studies which will take place in Florence on 20-25 June 2022 and 27 June – 2 July 2022.

The principal aim of this seminar is to provide an introduction to Italian archives (with particular emphasis on Florentine archival collections); to examine in depth various documentary typologies; to read diverse early modern scripts; and to to assist in planning research in Italian archives and libraries. Especially relevant for graduate students, university faculty, and museum curators working on Renaissance and early modern topics, this seminar is taught by a team of current and former MAP scholars, as well as university professors and other MAP-affiliated researchers.

Seminar lecturers include: Maurizio Arfaioli, Alessio Assonitis, Sheila Barker, Davide Boerio, Pasquale Focarile, Piergabriele Mancuso, Luciano Piffanelli, Oscar Schiavone, Marcello Simonetta, and Lorenzo Vigotti.

Teaching will take place at MAP head offices at Palazzo Alberti in Via de’ Benci 10 and on-site, in public and private archives in Florence.

The seminar week is composed of lectures on archival practice and paleography sessions, lasting between 1 ½ to 2 ½ hours, for a total of 6-7 hours a day.

A working knowledge of Italian is recommended. No previous archival and paleographic experience is required. Teaching will be in English.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, availability is limited to 10 spaces per session.

Participants will be encouraged to develop their research with archival approaches, meet with instructors individually in order to strategize future archival research in Italy, network with scholars in their field, and gain access to archives and libraries resources pertinent to their research.

Prospective applicants should send to education@medici.org:

– a one-page CV
– a brief statement explaining how this course will benefit the applicant’s current research
– Your preferred session

The same email address should also be used for queries on administrative details, course tuition and general information.

Deadline: 1 June 2022

Tuition for one session is Euro 1000 (which includes six lunches and other cultural activities)

For further information: education@medici.org