Call for Papers: ‘Experiencing the Sacred – The Role of the Senses in Medieval Liturgies and Rituals’, 1st International Multidisciplinary Conference Series, 21st-23rd September 2022, Deadline: 15th April 2022

 By the Late Middle Ages, the liturgy has become the most important and elaborate ceremonial of Christianity in an already highly ritualised society. Indeed, rituals dominated the everyday life of the faithful, from the Divine Office and the Mass to the individual reading of the Hours; and they accompanied the life of people from their birth to their last breath. Besides, liturgy called for collective involvement and aimed at engaging the faithful by stimulating their senses, in order to trigger emotional and spiritual responses.

Over the past century, much has been said about the liturgy in the Middle Ages. Starting from the historical contribution of Mario Righetti (1946), in the last decades scholars have explored fresh research paths, incorporating notions and tools established by diverse disciplines. Philippe Buc (1997) and Eric Palazzo (2000) have opened up new research opportunities by assimilating sociological concepts, exploring the role of rituals as agents in shaping society and fostering social cohesion. More recently, this field has been fuelled with contributions from numerous disciplines that have started to engage in the study of the past, including neurosciences, performance studies, anthropology (Bull & Mitchell, 2016) and sensory studies (Palazzo, 2014; Neri & Caseau, 2021).

The scientific relevance of these contributions in generating adventurous approaches and opening up new panoramas is unquestionable. Following these fresh pathways, the first conference of the series “Experiencing the Sacred”, established by the SenSArt ERC project, aims to develop the topic further by triangulating the liturgy (broadly intended), the experience of the faithful (understood both as an individual and as social groups) and the sensoria (i.e. the diverse sensory systems that existed in the Middle Ages). In so doing, it aims at showing that the experience of the sacred was not homogeneus and static. On the contrary, it was a multimodal and multisensorial activity, one that bore complex and overlapping layers of meaning, and which was perceived in different ways by the diverse groups and individuals involved.

In order to reach this objective, the conference will consider both the material and the immaterial aspects of the liturgy, and will emphasise the wide range of its sensorial appeal. Images, objects, odours, words, flavours, movement, and sounds all formed part of the liturgical performance that permeated the life of medieval people. And yet, they were exploited and perceived in different terms by the diverse groups involved, such as the religious and lay community, men and women, members of the aristocracy and of the lower social groups.

The meeting will bring together a multi- and interdisciplinary community of scholars with a broad interest in the religious rituals of the late Middle Ages (ca. 1200 to ca. 1500), with particular respect to Art History, History, Musicology and Liturgy, in order to cross-fertilise these perspectives.

Scholars may address the topic with a broad approach but always considering the role of the sensorium in the performance and reception of the rites. This conference will focus specifically on Christian liturgies without geographical restrictions. Paper topics may include, but are by no means limited to: 

Rituals beyond the Mass such as vestments, consecrations, or monastic professions.
Civic rituals mediated by the Church, such as coronations.
Individual liturgical practices: how the rituals enter the everyday.
The materiality of liturgy: the role of objects within different liturgical ceremonies (books, altarpieces, sculptures, paintings, metalworks, vestments, relics). 
Regulations and norms: how was the liturgy orchestrated? How did the church regulate the rituals?
‘Unofficial’ liturgy and subversive rituals: irregularities, contaminations and hybridisations between popular traditions and the Church regulations.
Collective practices: how did different social groups interact with the sacred during the rituals? How were the rituals received and perceived by the faithful, from the clergy to the peasants?

Please send a title and abstract of no longer than 300 words, together with a short CV and personal data (max. 300 words), to the following emails: zuleika.murat@unipd.it; valentina.baradel@unipd.it; sara.carreno@unipd.it
The language of the conference is English. 
Deadline: April 15th, 2022

This conference is organised by the ERC research project SenSArt – The Sensous Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art and Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th century), Grant Agreement ID: 950248, ERC H-2020, PI Zuleika Murat, Università degli Studi di Padova. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/950248

Organising Committee: 
Zuleika Murat (Associate Professor, Università degli Studi di Padova)
Valentina Baradel (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Università degli Studi di Padova)
Sara Carreño (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Università degli Studi di Padova)

Scientific Committee:

Valentina Baradel (Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali – Università degli Studi di Padova)

Sara Carreño (Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali – Università degli Studi di Padova)

Matteo Cesarotto (Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance – Université de Tours)

João Luís Inglês Fontes (Instituto de Estudos Medievais – Universidade NOVA de Lisboa)

Zuleika Murat (Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali – Università degli Studi di Padova)

Salvador Ryan (St Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth)

More information can be found here.

Publication: ‘Notre Dame Cathedral: Nine Centuries of History’, Dany Sandron and Andrew Tallon, Translated by Andrew Tallon and Lindsay Cook

Since its construction, Notre Dame Cathedral has played a central role in French cultural identity. In the wake of the tragic fire of 2019, questions of how to restore the fabric of this quintessential French monument are once more at the forefront. This all-too-prescient book, first published in French in 2013, takes a central place in the conversation. 

The Gothic cathedral par excellence, Notre Dame set the architectural bar in the competitive years of the third quarter of the twelfth century and dazzled the architects and aesthetes of the Enlightenment with its structural ingenuity. In the nineteenth century, the cathedral became the touchstone of a movement to restore medieval patrimony to its rightful place at the cultural heart of France: it was transformed into a colossal laboratory in which architects Jean-Baptiste Lassus and Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc anatomized structures, dismembered them, put them back, or built them anew—all the while documenting their work with scientific precision.

Taking as their point of departure a three-dimensional laser scan of the cathedral created in 2010, architectural historians Dany Sandron and the late Andrew Tallon tell the story of the construction and reconstruction of Notre Dame in visual terms. With over a billion points of data, the scan supplies a highly accurate spatial map of the building, which is anatomized and rebuilt virtually. Fourteen double-page images represent the cathedral at specific points in time, while the accompanying text sets out the history of the building, addressing key topics such as the fundraising campaign, the construction of the vaults, and the liturgical function of the choir. 

Featuring 170 full-color illustrations and elegantly translated by Andrew Tallon and Lindsay Cook, Notre Dame Cathedral is an enlightening history of one of the world’s most treasured architectural achievements.

“Smaller, more concise, and more streamlined than a traditional monograph, it emphasizes a series of graphics developed from Tallon’s 3D-scan data, which together purport to show the development of Notre-Dame over the nine centuries of its history. In this way it helps to make the fruits of recent research on the cathedral’s history readily accessible to nonspecialist readers. The new translation undertaken by Lindsay Cook, who studied with both Murray and Tallon and whose own research considers parish churches constructed in the orbit of Notre-Dame, now effectively expands that mission to anglophone audiences.”—Robert Bork, caa.reviews

Dany Sandron is Professor of Art and Archaeology at Sorbonne Université.

Andrew Tallon (1969–2018) was Associate Professor of Art at Vassar College.

Lindsay Cook is Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Vassar College.

This volume is currently available on sale here.

Contents:

1163: Planning the Cathedral

The Bishop

The Cathedral Chapter

The Fabric

Resources

Episcopal Donations

Capitular Donations

Lay Donations

1170: Building the Cathedral

The Materials

The Master Mason

The Design

The Construction

1177: Constructing the Vaults

The Vaults

Technical Aspects of Vault Construction

The Space of the Choir

1182: Liturgical Choir and Sanctuary

The Liturgical Choir

Staging the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy

The Medieval Sanctuary

1208: Form and Meaning

The Choir

The Nave

1220: Portals and the Gallery of Kings

1225: Changing Tastes

A Radical Transformation

The Changes

Instability of the West Front

1245: Towers and Bells, Marking Time at the Cathedral

The Casting of a Bell

1265: Relics and Processions

Relics and Reliquaries

Stational Liturgy and Processions

1300: Pious Foundations and Tombs

The Choir: Preserve of Prelates and Princes

The Chapels

Confraternities at Notre Dame

1350: A Point of Reference

The Architects

Directing the Works

1780: Baroque Transformations

1860: The Major Restoration of Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc

Notre Dame in Peril

The Invention of French Cultural Heritage

The Competition

The Project

The Restoration

The Rational Cathedral

The Cathedral Today

Conclusion

Plan of Notre Dame

Glossary

Selected Bibliography

Credits

Call for Papers: ‘The Itinerant Shrine: Art, History and the Multiple Geographies of the Holy House of Loreto’, The Courtauld Institute, 30th June-1st July 2022, Deadline: 15th March 2022

The Santa Casa, or Holy House of the Virgin Mary, is a relic in constant motion. Legend holds that at the end of the thirteenth century, a company of angels flew Mary’s small brick house—the site of the Annunciation and Jesus’s childhood home—out of Nazareth before eventually depositing it in Loreto, a remote hill town in the Marches region of Central Italy. Over the ensuing centuries, the House prompted the movement of people to the sanctuary that grew up around it: migrant communities that had been excluded from other Italian cities came to settle in Loreto just as a growing number Christians set out on pilgrimage in order to visit the miraculous incorporation of the Holy Land into Europe. As the site grew in prominence, it attracted artists from multiple centres who produced opulent votive adornments in painting and sculpture. At the same time, the sanctuary became a point of transmission for devotional memorabilia, including prints, statuettes, ceramics, and tattoos. As a result of this proliferation of media, architectural reproductions of the Holy House emerged throughout Europe and as far afield as the Amazon Basin and modern-day Canada. Through contact with the original relic or one of its surrogates located across the globe, Loreto has continued to inspire devotional and artistic responses into the present day.

Building upon scholarly interest in the cult of the Holy House, this conference endeavours to serve as an important milestone for international academic discourse on Loreto. Responding to the humanities’ recent global turn, it will investigate how a small town in the Italian hinterland became a central node in an expansive geographic network.

Topics covered might include:
– The cult of Loreto, from its medieval foundations through the twenty-first century
– The Holy House of Nazareth and its various permutations (i.e., Walsingham, Sossau)
– Broader themes of mobility, migration and cultural contact
– The Santa Casa as an instrument of symbolic domination, religious conversion and colonisation
– Lay and religious patronage pertaining to the Loretan cult
– Iconographic and spatial reproduction of the sanctuary of Loreto, or the Santa Casa itself
– The sacred and political economies of pilgrimage

This conference welcomes proposals from early and mid-career scholars working in a variety of disciplines and employing diverse methodological approaches. Proposals of maximum 250 words and a brief CV must be sent by 15 March 2022 to ecgiffin@icloud.com and matteo.chirumbolo@courtauld.ac.uk. The main language of the workshop will be English. Speakers will be notified by 1 April 2022. Some expenses (i.e., travel costs and accommodation in London) will be covered.

Organised by Matteo Chirumbolo, Erin Giffin, and Antongiulio Sorgini.

Clive’s conference is kindly supported by Dr Nicholas Murray and Mr William Sharp in loving memory of Mr Clive Davies.

Recorded Lecture: ‘A Material World – Revealing the Coventry Tapestry through Conservation’, Alison Lister, The Warburg Institute

The process of conserving a historic artefact provides opportunities to gather data on its composition and condition that can inform its future interpretation, presentation, and preservation. In this seminar, Alison Lister (Textile Conservation Limited) will describe and illustrate the initial results of a detailed examination and assessment of the late 15th/early 16th century tapestry from St Mary’s Guildhall, Coventry. This 9m long by 3m high tapestry, woven in wool and silk, was made specifically for the building and is believed to depict King Henry VI and his wife Margaret of Anjou. As part of a major refurbishment of the Guildhall, the tapestry is undergoing conservation to prepare it for redisplay, providing a rare opportunity to record key features of its materials, structure, design, and alterations that can then be made available to the public.

Presented by Alison Lister (Textile Conservation Limited)

This event is part of the A Material World, which brings together academics and heritage professionals from a wide range of disciplines to discuss issues concerning historical objects, their materials, forms, and functions, as well as their conservation, presentation, display, and reconstruction. https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/whats-on/material-world.

This event took place on 3 December 2021.

Online Lecture: ‘Sumatran Camphor in Medieval Afro-Eurasia,’ Alex West, Silk Roads Programme at King’s College, University of Cambridge, Zoom, 25th February 2022, 14:00 (GMT)

Alex West is a lecturer at the Institute for Area Studies, University of Leiden. Specialising in the Indo-Malaysian archipelago in the fifteenth century before the arrival of the Portuguese and the Islamisation of Sunda, his translations and research have revealed the presence of commodities sourced from places as far apart as the Levant and New Guinea.

Join to hear more about how Sumatran camphor in medieval Afro-Eurasia, and what this reveals about global medieval trade networks.

To join the Zoom meeting, please click here.

Everyone is very welcome to join and participate in the events hosted by the King’s College Silk Roads Programme, please add your details here to join our mailing list or get in touch. We do not record the seminars or mini-conferences as you will be hearing about brand- new, often unpublished research and we hope to facilitate questions and discussion between the audience and speakers.

Post-Doctoral Fellowship: Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Art History Leadership, Deadline: 21st March 2022

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) and the Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) recognize that the growth of visionary and effective museum and academic leaders does not stop at graduation. Indeed, critical skills such as project management, effective administration, goal-setting, and professional accountability are often not integrated into graduate experiences. The Mellon Foundation is generously supporting a Postdoctoral Fellowship. Through this position, the Joint Program between the CMA and CWRU will help to create a more holistic continuum of education that better prepares future academic and museum administrative leaders early in their careers. By working closely with leadership, staff, and faculty at the CMA and CWRU, the postdoctoral fellow will learn the academic and administrative intricacies of both museum and academic environments.

The fellow will play a key role as a member of the joint CMA/CWRU team planning the biennial Keithley symposium, named in honor of Nancy and Joe Keithley; assist faculty, curators, and students to develop CMA collections-based projects related to their Mellon coursework at CWRU; and coordinate the new short-term Mellon Visiting Fellowship for artists, scholars, or other thought leaders at CMA, among other activities. Work will include engagement with communities of color and other groups who may feel less connected to art museums from a public humanities viewpoint, according to which the agency and authority of the community is acknowledged.

The fellowship is designed to help the fellow to craft plans for personal and professional development and growth, including through executive leadership coaching from the CWRU Weatherhead School of Management. Through these experiences, the postdoctoral fellow will play a significant role in shaping the future of the CMA/CWRU partnership and obtain grounding for a successful career in museums and/or academic institutions. The fellow will report to both the Curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, who serves on the Joint Program Committee and the Keithley Symposium Planning Committee, and to the Chair, Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University. They may also work with curators, educators, and faculty in other areas of specialization, pending mutual interest.

Applicants should be recent PhD graduates who received their PhD no earlier than five years prior to the application deadline in art history or a related field, with demonstrated interests in the intersections of museums and academic institutions. Applications should include a cover letter explaining the applicant’s interest and qualifications for this fellowship, together with a CV, a writing sample, and contact information for three academic or professional references. The one-year fellowship will provide a salary of $45,000 per year, plus benefits. The fellowship has the potential to be extended by a second year.  Candidates must be eligible to legally work in the USA. Applications received by March 21, 2022 will receive full consideration, but applications received later may also be considered. The fellowship will begin in either summer or autumn 2022.

In employment, as in education, Case Western Reserve University along with The Cleveland Museum of Art are committed to Equal Opportunity and Diversity. Women, veterans, members of underrepresented minority groups, and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply. Case Western Reserve University and The Cleveland Museum of Art provides reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process should contact the Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity at 216.368.8877 to request a reasonable accommodation. Determinations as to granting reasonable accommodations for any applicant will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Call for Papers: ‘Steppe Medicine: Data, History, Applications, Concepts and Terms’, Al-Farabi Kaznu, Kazakhstan, 4th-5th October 2022, Deadline: 25th May 2022

AL-FARABI KAZNU

FACULTY OF ORIENTAL STUDIES

RESEARCH CENTER

“WRITTEN MONUMENTS AND SPIRITUAL HERITAGE”

October 4-5, 2022

Within the framework of the research project, the Research Center “Written Monuments and Spiritual Heritage” of the Turksoy Department of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Al-Farabi KazNU invites scientists, researchers, teachers and doctoral students to take part in the international scientific and practical conference.

“STEPPE MEDICINE: DATA, HISTORY, APPLICATIONS, CONCEPTS AND TERMS “.

In medieval written sources, the great steppe of Central Asia, also known as Desht-i-Kipchak, was a land where various beliefs were intertwined, where several sedentary, nomadic peoples exchanged culture and art. Ethnomedicine of nomadic peoples was also formed at the junction of the interweaving of cultures and art. The main aspects of the formation of ethnomedicine, such as: methods of treatment and means used in the everyday life of the population, concepts of the cause and consequences of the disease, methods of making medicines, etc., were first spread orally, and later began to be fixed in writing and reflected in the form handwritten medical treatises of the era. Medical treatises written on the territory of Central Asia were first written in Arabic, which, in turn, correspond to the period of development of the scientific potential of the Arabic language due to the numerous scientific discoveries of scientists from the Muslim world. Since the XII century, together with the Arabic language, they began to write in Persian. The above theories raise the question, from what period exactly did medical works begin to be written in the Turkic language (Chagatai dialect or in the old Kipchak script)?

To answer this question, first of all, we need to pay attention to the medical written sources of the era, examine samples of oral literature, while not losing sight of new research and ideas. In order to study and familiarize with new scientific discoveries and ideas in the medical field, within the framework of the research project AR09259326 “Dastur al-‘iladzh” – as a source of steppe medicine”, an international scientific and practical conference “Steppe medicine: data, history, application, concepts and terms”.

The conference assumes, first of all, a broad consideration of the origins of medicine of nomadic peoples, focusing on medical concepts and scientific ideas and experience in Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, shamanic traditions, which in certain periods had a strong influence on the “steppe” medicine. In this regard, articles in the Kazakh, Russian, English, Turkish languages ​​about various studies, written relics, translations and studies related to the topic, which were considered in the context of the Turkic, Persian, Arabic, Mongolian, Chinese, Slavic peoples, are accepted into the collection of conference materials. practitioners of folk medicine, medical products, tools, knowledge and beliefs, traditions, transcultural, philosophical and religious knowledge.

The purpose of the conference: a broad analysis of the historical and cultural significance of medieval medicine, the study of the process of formation, development, distribution of folk healing culture, consideration of the level of knowledge, problems, drawing attention to the study of written exhibits of modern medical topics. 

Topics and directions of the conference :

–        terminological meaning, features, historical origins of ethnomedicine;

–        the manifestation of traditional medicine in the socio-economic, ritual, religious and cult and other aspects of ethnic culture;

–        medieval written artifacts, research, personnel in the field of medicine;

–        healing culture of the Turkic peoples;

–        intersection of cultures and sciences in the field of traditional medicine.

Important dates:

–        May 25, 2022: Abstracts of the article (at least 700 words) are accepted in Kazakh, Russian, English, Turkish;

–        May 26, 2022: notification of authors, accepted abstracts, as well as sending the full text of the article;

–        September 25, 2022: Deadline for submission of full-text articles by contributors;

–        October 4-5, 2022: conference will be held on the ZOOM platform online and offline as well.

Place, time:

The conference will be held in the building of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of Al-Farabi KazNU (Karasay Batyr Street, 95, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan) October 4-5, 2022 from 14:00 to 17:30 (Nur-Sultan time). 25 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion.

A collection of papers submitted to the conference will be published. The organizer reserves the right to select materials in accordance with the topics of the conference and research project. Article publication is FREE.

Prepared articles (in Word or PDF format) should be sent to the e-mail of the organizers: desturalilaj@gmail.com .

Requirements for the preparation of materials:

Format – A4, editor – WORD, font size – 12 (abstract, keywords, literature – 11, table text – 9-11), Times New Roman, alignment – full page width text, line spacing – 1.15, free margin – 1 cm, edges: top and bottom – 2 cm, left and right – 2 cm.

Pictures, tables, graphs, diagrams, etc. numbered and given a name (for example, figure 1 – the name of the figure). The number of figures, tables, graphs and diagrams should not exceed 50% of the total volume of the article.

Article structure:

The title of the article (Title). The title should be short and contain no more than 12 words. The title of the article is given in bold, lowercase letters, in the middle of the alignment.

Author(s) of the article Name, surname, place of work (affiliated place), city, country, e-mail. Information about the authors is given in the usual font in lowercase letters with alignment in the middle.

Abstract (200-500 words in English along with the language of the article).

Keywords (5-7 words).

The text of the article begins on a new page and should consist of an introduction, main body and conclusion. No more than 7000 words.

Links are provided at the end of the article. Reference, bibliography or reference list in APA style (https://apastyle.apa.org/)10 should not be less than 10 titles.

The authors of the article bear full responsibility for the accuracy and reliability of the information, references, citations and bibliography.

Responsible: Kairanbayeva N.N., Abdrakhanov D.M.

Contact phone: +7 777 300 69 92, +7 708 190 38 23.

Lecture Series: ‘Representing and Naming Greece from the 14th to the 16th Century’, Université de Lille, November 22nd 2021- June 13th 2022

The ERC AGRELITA team is delighted to present the program of its seminar, dedicated, throughout 2021-2022, to: “Representing and naming Greece and the Greek space, from the 14th to the 16th Century”, organised by Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas (University of Lille, France).

Check out the Academic Blog of the project: https://agrelita.hypotheses.org/471

For Zoom link, please register at the following address: caroline.crepiat@univ-lille.fr

22 novembre 2021 (14-16 h, Université de Lille, Campus Pont de Bois : salle A2.703) 
Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas (Université de Lille) : « L’espace grec dans la Bouquechardière de Jean de Courcy (1416-1422) : centralité et expansion »

14 décembre 2021 (14-17 h, Université de Lille, Campus Pont de Bois : salle A2.705) : 
Ilaria Molteni (Université de Lille) : « Représenter les grecs et l’espace grec entre France et Italie : le laboratoire de l’Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César »
Cléo Rager (Université de Lille) : « Des lieux communs aux lieux de mémoire : les représentations de l’espace grec au prisme de l’Antiquité dans les récits de voyage et de pèlerinage en langue française de la fin du Moyen Âge »

31 janvier 2022 (14-17 h, Université de Lille, Campus Pont de Bois : salle A2.703) : 
Clarisse Évrard-Guilbert (Université de Lille) : « L’espace grec dans l’Histoire de Jason et le Recueil des histoires de Troie de Raoul Lefèvre : choix textuels et traductions visuelles »
Valeria Russo (Université de Lille) : « La Grèce mythologique et la Grèce historique dans la Fleur des Histoires de Jean Mansel : encyclopédisme et fiction des représentations géographiques »

25 avril 2022 (14h-17h30, MESHS, 2 Rue des Canonniers, Lille : salle 2) : 
Gilles Grivaud (Université de Rouen) : « La Chorografia d’Etienne de Lusignan : sources et propositions »
Alice Colantuoni (Université de Florence) : « Imaginaires, toponymies : l’espace grec dans l’historiographie française de la quatrième croisade »

2 mai 2022 (14h-17h30, Sciences Po Lille, 9 Rue Auguste Angellier, Lille : salle 244) : 
Marie Jacob-Yapi (Université Rennes 2) : « “Ces Grecs, en 1500 ans voire plus, n’ont jamais changé leur manière de s’habiller” : le regard des Occidentaux sur le vêtement des Grecs anciens et modernes au XVe siècle »
Michele Campopiano (Université d’York) : « Un intermédiaire peu connu du monde antique : l’espace grec dans le Liber Guidonis et quelques observations sur sa fortune »
Clarisse Évrard-Guilbert (Université de Lille) : « Représenter la Grèce et les Grecs par le prisme flamand : le cas des enluminures des manuscrits français de la cour de Bourgogne »

9 mai 2022 (14h-17h30, MESHS, 2 Rue des Canonniers, Lille : salle 2) : 
Daisy Delogu (Université de Chicago) : « Paysages palimpsestes : les espaces imaginaires grecs dans l’églogue du XIVe siècle »
Constantin Bobas (Université de Lille) : « En voyageant à Rhodes aux XVe et XVIe siècles. Imagination occidentale et réalité orientale d’un espace grec »
Valeria Russo (Université de Lille) : « Retrouver la Grèce dans le temps et dans l’espace : la Mer des histoires face à la création d’un passé antique »

13 juin 2022 (14h-17h30, MESHS, 2 Rue des Canonniers, Lille : salle 2) : 
Corinne Jouanno (Université de Caen Normandie) : « Quelle place pour la Grèce dans la littérature romanesque byzantine (XIIe-XVe s.) ? » 
Ilaria Molteni (Université de Lille) : « L’espace grec à la cour de France (1364-1422): genres littéraires, projets d’édition, programmes d’illustration »
Cléo Rager (Université de Lille) : « L’espace grec dans les récits des voyageurs du XVIe siècle »

Funding Opportunity: Heckman Stipends, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, Minnesota (Deadline: 15th March 2022)

For scholars who have not yet established themselves professionally and whose research cannot progress satisfactorily without consulting materials to be found in HMML’s collections. The program welcomes international applicants, but does not sponsor J visas.

  • Funder – Established in 1991, Heckman Stipends are made possible by the A.A. Heckman Endowed Fund
  • Awarded – Semi-annually
  • Number – Up to 10 stipends annually
  • Amount – Up to $2,000

Use of funds

  • Funds may be applied toward travel to and from Collegeville, housing and meals at Saint John’s University, and costs related to duplication of HMML’s microfilm or digital resources (up to $250)
  • The Stipend may be supplemented by other sources of funding but may not be held simultaneously with another HMML Stipend or Fellowship
  • Stipend holders must wait at least two years before re-applying

Application deadline

  • March 15 for residencies between July and December of the same year
  • October 15 for residencies between January and June of the following year

Application submission

  • Letter of application with current applicant contact information, the title of the project, length of the proposed residency at HMML and its projected dates, and the amount requested (up to $2,000)
  • Description of the project to be pursued, with an explanation of how HMML’s resources are essential to the successful completion of the project; applicants are advised to be as specific as possible about which resources will be needed (maximum length: 1,000 words). Use the online Reading Room and contact the curator in charge of your subject area to shape your project proposal. Though priority will be given to applicants who demonstrate the necessity for accessing microfilm and uncataloged digital materials that are exclusively available on site, all applications are welcome
  • Updated curriculum vitae
  • Confidential letter of recommendation by an adviser, thesis director, mentor, or, in the case of post-doctoral candidates, a colleague who is a good judge of the applicant’s work

Applicants

  • Send all materials as email attachments to fellowships@hmml.org
  • Add “Heckman Stipend” in the subject line

Letter of recommendation authors

  • Send letter directly as email attachment to fellowships@hmml.org
  • Add “Heckman Stipend + applicant’s name” in the subject line

Questions

Send any questions to fellowships@hmml.org

Note on health insurance

Applicants planning to stay on the Saint John’s University campus or at the College of Saint Benedict must purchase health insurance in advance of the visit, and will be asked to show proof of coverage. Insurance plans for travelers to the United States are available from numerous online providers at reasonable cost.

New Publication: ‘The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books’ by Elina Gertsman

Winner of the 2022 Charles Rufus Morey Award from the College Art Association

Guided by Aristotelian theories, medieval philosophers believed that nature abhors a vacuum. Medieval art, according to modern scholars, abhors the same. The notion of horror vacui—the fear of empty space—is thus often construed as a definitive feature of Gothic material culture. In The Absent Image, Elina Gertsman argues that Gothic art, in its attempts to grapple with the unrepresentability of the invisible, actively engages emptiness, voids, gaps, holes, and erasures.

Exploring complex conversations among medieval philosophy, physics, mathematics, piety, and image-making, Gertsman considers the concept of nothingness in concert with the imaginary, revealing profoundly inventive approaches to emptiness in late medieval visual culture, from ingenious images of the world’s creation ex nihilo to figurations of absence as a replacement for the invisible forces of conception and death.

Innovative and challenging, this book will find its primary audience with students and scholars of art, religion, physics, philosophy, and mathematics. It will be particularly welcomed by those interested in phenomenological and cross-disciplinary approaches to the visual culture of the later Middle Ages.

Elina Gertsman is Professor of Art History and Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor in Catholic Studies II at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of the award-winning Worlds Within: Opening the Medieval Shrine Madonna, also published by Penn State University Press.

Contents

Introduction Nothing Is the Matter

Chapter 1 Imaginary Realms

Chapter 2 Phantoms of Emptiness

Chapter 3 Traces of Touch

Chapter 4 Penetrating the Parchment

Coda Absences

“Gertsman makes a convincing argument, and at times shows a wonderful novelistic sensibility in describing the micro-dramas on display.”Times Literary Supplement

“This is an intellectually ambitious, rigorously argued, and erudite book that explores visual strategies and their theoretical underpinnings of ‘empty spaces’ in medieval manuscripts. A must-read for scholars of medieval and northern Renaissance art and intellectual history.”—Nino Zchomelidse, author of Art, Ritual, and Civic Identity in Medieval Southern Italy

“This is one of the most original books I have read—original in its conception and subject, in the materials studied and illustrated, in the numerous questions posed, and in its compelling conclusions. It is a potentially paradigm-shifting work that will affect how we perceive illustrated manuscripts and that should finally put to rest for art historians the ‘intentional fallacy’ long rejected by literary historians.”—Richard K. Emmerson, author of Apocalypse Illuminated: The Visual Exegesis of Revelation in Medieval Illustrated Manuscripts

“Elina Gertsman’s The Absent Image is a rarefied treat for connoisseurs – a kind of apophatic art history. She explores a phenomenon that is seldom studied: the voids, gaps and empty frames that manuscript artists used to represent the unrepresentable.”—Barbara Newman, London Review of Book