Conference: ‘Meta, Matrix, Mater. Renaissance Metaphors of the Matrix’, Paris and Online, 13 June 2022

The female sex has become the core of an increasing number of early modern studies since the rise of a gender-sensitive feminist viewpoint in art history. Many have dealt with images of a hairless and polished vulva, sometimes ostensibly eroticized. Pending this approach, the 2022 CHAR Workshop, Meta, Matrix, Mater. Renaissance Metaphors of the Matrix, wishes to re-explore the imaginary of the female sex from within and focus on the metaphors of the matrix in images and material culture in the Renaissance.

Free entrance within the limit of the number of places available. Please note there will be a live stream to allow those outside Paris access to the event. Communications in French and in English.

PROGRAM

09h45 Présentation de la journée
Fiammetta Campagnoli, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Florence Larcher, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

10h00 Conférence inaugurale
Concetta Pennuto, Université François Rabelais – Tours

10h45 Discussion

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SESSION 1
THE POWER OF THE MATRIX IN (PRO)CREATION
Chair: Baptiste Tochon-Danguy, École Pratique des Hautes Études

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11h00 Womb, Print, Imprint: Early Modern Birth Figures and their Uses
Rebecca Whiteley, University of Manchester

11h30 Michelangelo’s Matrix: The Childbirth Metaphor in Italian Renaissance Art Theory
Jordan Troeller, Freie Universität Berlin

12h00 Discussion

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SESSION 2
FROM MATERIAL TO MATERIALITY, FROM MINERAL TO VEGETAL
Chair: Florence Larcher, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

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14h30 Madder, Matter and Matrix: Stained Ivory Virgins from the Fourteenth Century
Marian Bleeke, Cleveland State University

15h00 Au-delà de l’humain. La matrice et ses images végétales (XVIe-XVIIIe s.)
Sara Petrella, Université de Neuchâtel

15h30 Le monde de Cérès : allégorie de la matrice végétale et humaine aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles
Cassandre Herbert, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

16h Discussion and break

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SESSION 3
BETWEEN THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER
Chair: Fiammetta Campagnoli, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

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17h00 La matrice de Dieu le Père : la mandorle comme lieu de filiation
Clémence Légoux, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

17h30 Begotten, not Made: Authenticity inside the Body of the Virgin Mary
Melissa Katz, Independent Scholar

18h00 Discussion and conclusion

Free Registration at https://vu.fr/atelierduchar2022

Call for Participants: ‘Revoicing Medieval Poetry’, Online, May-June 2022

Revoicing Medieval Poetry will offer a workshop-conversation space for researchers, artists and practitioners who are engaged in exploring how, why, and to what effects medieval poetry is translated, reused, and resourced in twentieth- and twenty-first-century creative practices.

This summer, we are hosting four workshops for practitioners and researchers who are interested in the ‘revoicing’ of early medieval literature in all its creative forms.

The first three workshops will be hosted online by the University of Reading, King’s College London, and the University of York and will see invited speakers collaborate with a host researcher (Fran Allfrey, Carl Kears, and Fran Brooks) to lead the session. In the fourth and final online session we will hear from Professor Clare Lees on her wealth of experience in devising and developing collaborative, creative-critical projects, before turning the space over to participants to share works-in-progress.

Although participants won’t be asked to prepare anything in advance, the workshops are designed to be generative for ongoing research and practice: you might be a researcher working on medieval/modern literary and/or visual culture, or you might be a writer or an artist with an interest in reworking medieval materials.

We hope that the online format will make these workshops accessible to researchers and practitioners from across the world, but ask that prospective participants send a short expression of interest to sign-up for the limited workshop places. Although you are welcome to join us for any one of the sessions, we hope that many will return to develop the conversation with us across all four events.

All events bookable at https://tinyurl.com/medievalrevoicing 

View more details and the full programme of events here/ in the attached PDF https://medievalmodernscrapbook.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/revoicing-medieval-poetry-cfp.pdf

Call for Papers: ‘Women, Agency, and Architecture in the Premodern World’, 78th Annual Meeting of SECAC, 26th-29th October 2022 (Deadline 19th May 2022)

The Maryland Institute College of Art is excited to act as the institutional host for the 78th annual meeting of SECAC in Baltimore, MD, from October 26-29, 2022. Based at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel and informed by the theme Watershed, the conference seeks to foster thoughtful analyses of the myriad intersections between art, art history, education, and social and environmental justice. All submissions must be made through the SECAC submission portal: https://secac.secure-platform.com/a

This session invites proposals taking a panoramic view of women and architecture prior to the eighteenth century, and welcomes work on a broad range of geographies and temporalities. Although current scholarship continues to reveal the nuanced ways in which premodern women across socioeconomic strata engaged with architecture and the built environment, many critical facets of their engagement remain unstudied. The papers in this session move beyond updating the art historical canon to expanding our knowledge of how premodern women meaningfully contributed to their physical environments, from rural to urban and suburban. Topics of interest may include: women as architects or contributors to architectural design, women as patrons and benefactors of architecture, and women’s administration of architecture and communal spaces. Bringing these and related topics into conversation will further establish the significant role of women in shaping their surroundings across time and space.

Lecture: ‘Orality – Literacy – Digitality: Medieval Perspectives on the Digital Age’, IHR Europe 1150-1550 Seminar, 5th May 2022, 17:30 GMT

The Institute of Historical Research is delighted to invite you for the final seminar of this academic year. Professor Torsten Hiltmann will speak on ‘Orality – Literacy – Digitality: Medieval Perspectives on the Digital Age’. Join us in person or online on Thursday 5th May at 5.30pm. The in-person lecture takes place in our usual venue: LT2, Cruciform Building, UCL, on Gower Street. The Zoom link will be sent to online participants on registration

This talk argues that, rather than the invention of the printing-press, the processes of digitalisation in the present resemble the rise of the written word in the Middle Ages, which reshaped all aspects of society, from institutions and law to education and trade. Our knowledge of this medieval transition allows us to better understand our own, modern-day engagement with digital media. Intermediary steps such as recording and emulating the spoken word in the medium of text show how new media remained initially tied to customary ways, but would soon enable entirely new practices of use that alter culture and society irrevocably.

Please note that there is a limited capacity on campus. If you have not selected an ‘in-person ticket’ please do not go to UCL, but join online. You are requested to wear masks at UCL.

Book here.

Conference: ‘Death and Dying’, Harlaxton Medieval Symposium 2022, 15th-18th August 2022

The Harlaxton Symposium is an interdisciplinary gathering of academics, students and enthusiasts which meets annually to celebrate medieval history, art, literature and architecture through a programme of papers selected around a chosen theme. This year’s symposium will be convened by Dr Christian Steer and Dr Jenny Stratford.

Speakers will focus on death in the later Middle Ages in both its practical and devotional aspects. Among themes to be explored are the ways in which death occurs (sickness, accident and murder), preparations for death (wills, testaments and executors’ papers), and devotional practices in lifetime and after death. Rituals and ceremonies associated with the moment of death and its aftermath will include funeral practices, chantries, monuments and monumental sculpture. Papers will relate both to England and to Continental Europe before the Reformation.

Speakers are: Ann Adams, Amy Appleford, Richard Asquith, Julia Boffey, Jane Bridgeman, Clive Burgess, Trevor Dean, Tony Edwards, Nicholas Flory, Lydia Hansell, Andrew Kirkman, Julian Luxford, Michael Michael, Lisa Monnas, Ann Payne, Henry Summerson, Linda Voigts and Nicholas Watson. This year’s Pamela Tudor-Craig Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Julian Gardner.

Please see our website for details, including a provisional programme and booking form.

We are also pleased to continue our commitment to encouraging scholars in the early stages of their careers with two Dobson Scholarships available to PGRs or ECRs (within two years of completing a PhD) to cover conference costs. Awards will be made based on the academic excellence of applicants and the relevance of the symposium theme to their research. The application form can be downloaded on our website and the deadline for applications is 31st May 2022, to allow unsuccessful applicants the opportunity to source funding from elsewhere.

We will also be continuing our annual postgraduate poster competition, to allow PGRs and ECRs to share aspects of their research with delegates at the symposium. This has been a great success in previous years, allowing for the exchange of ideas in a friendly and academically-rigorous environment. Posters can relate to any area of Medieval Studies and do not necessarily have to connect to the theme of the symposium. Awards of the Dobson Scholarship are contingent upon presenting a poster, but we urge all PGRs and ECRs attending the symposium to take this opportunity. Again, further details are available on our website.

We look forward to welcoming you back to the beautiful Harlaxton Manor in August for what promises to be an excellent week of scholarly discussion on all things relating to medieval death and dying.

New Publication: ‘Riemenschneider in Rothenburg: Sacred Space and Civic Identity in the Late Medieval City’, by Katherine M. Boivin, PSU Press

The concept of the medieval city is fixed in the modern imagination, conjuring visions of fortified walls, towering churches, and winding streets. In Riemenschneider in Rothenburg, Katherine M. Boivininvestigates how medieval urban planning and artistic programming worked together to form dynamic environments, demonstrating the agency of objects, styles, and spaces in mapping the late medieval city.

Using altarpieces by the famed medieval artist Tilman Riemenschneider as touchstones for her argument, Boivin explores how artwork in Germany’s preeminent medieval city, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, deliberately propagated civic ideals. She argues that the numerous artistic pieces commissioned by the city’s elected council over the course of two centuries built upon one another, creating a cohesive structural network that attracted religious pilgrims and furthered the theological ideals of the parish church. By contextualizing some of Rothenburg’s most significant architectural and artistic works, such as St. James’s Church and Riemenschneider’s Altarpiece of the Holy Blood, Boivin shows how the city government employed these works to establish a local aesthetic that awed visitors, raising Rothenburg’s profile and putting it on the pilgrimage map of Europe.

Carefully documented and convincingly argued, this book sheds important new light on the history of one of Germany’s major tourist destinations. It will be of considerable interest to medieval art historians and scholars working in the fields of cultural and urban history.

Click here to order.

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.