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.

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

The Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society (LAMPS) at the University of Edinburgh is hosting a one-day conference with the theme ‘Working from Home: Labour and worship in the domestic sphere’, taking place virtually on Blackboard Collaborate on the provisional date of Saturday June 25th. This conference seeks to explore texts, events, and ideas that exist between and beyond traditional boundaries, and to further our understanding of a complex Late Antique and Medieval period that cannot be easily categorised and contained. It also aims to strengthen interdisciplinary connections within and outside of the University of Edinburgh, including but not limited to the fields of Archaeology, History, Classics, History of Art, Literature, Language Studies, Islamic Studies, and Theology.

LAMPS welcome submissions for papers on the theme of ‘Working from Home: Labour and worship in the domestic sphere’ and hope to engage with a wider audience by providing a forum for postgraduate and early career scholars to present their research. Submissions for abstracts may include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Family and community
• Local law and order
• The domestic environment
• Superstition and storytelling
• Personal and community worship
• Monastic labour and lifestyles
• Social history
• Labour and revolution
• Heresy and degeneracy

Early career scholars and postgraduate students are invited to submit abstracts of up to 200 words for a twenty-minute paper, as well as a short biography of up to 100 words to lampsedinburgh@gmail.com by 29 April, 2022.