Online Conference: ‘(Re)Conceptualizing Communities’, First Annual Symposium Hosted by the Consortium Medievalists, 2nd April 2022, 10:00 – 18:00 EST

The First Annual Symposium Hosted by the Consortium Medievalists: (Re)Conceptualizing Communities will take place on Saturday, April 2nd, 2022 via Zoom. The link to register can be found after the full programme listed below:

10:00-10:15 AM (EST): Virtual Coffee and Welcome

Introduction by Dr. Hal Momma with The Consortium Medievalists

10:15-11:15 AM (EST): (Re)Conceptualizing Medieval Studies

Moderator: Katie Clark (NYU)

Dr. Afrodesia McCannon (NYU): Everyone in the Pool: Thinking about Race and Medieval Studies

Dr. Sierra Lomuto (Rowan University): Forthcoming

12:00-1:30 PM (EST): (Re)Conceptualizing Disability in the Middle Ages

Moderator: Margaret McCurry (NYU)

Dr. Tory Pearman (Miami University): Disability and the Chivalric Community in Malory’s Morte Darthur

Dr. Kisha Tracy (Fitchburg State University): Saint Dymphna of Geel and Communities of Mental Health

Dr. Edward Wheatley (Emeritus, Loyola University, Chicago): Communities of People with Disabilities

2:00-3:00 PM (EST): (Re)Conceptualizing Professionalization

Community Discussion Open to All

Moderators: Alice Grissom (Fordham) and E.G. Asher (NYU)

How might the pandemic transform the trajectory of graduate student research and teaching, as well as undergraduate education? What is the assumed role of individuals and of communities in professionalization? Please join us as we consider these questions among others in a lively discussion open to all.

3:30-4:30 PM (EST): (Re)Thinking Medieval Community: A Perspective from Early Career Academics

Moderator: Alina Shubina (Columbia)

Dr. Ali Gibran Siddiqui (Princeton): Epistolary Spaces and Sacred Networks: A Reappraisal of the Ahrari Naqshbandi Tariqa

Dr. Tamar Rotman (Columbia): Envisioning Identities and Communities in Early Medieval Hagiographies

Dr. Hiba Abid (NYU): Forthcoming

5:00-6:00 PM (EST): Keynote Lecture

Moderator: Ariela Algaze (NYU)

Dr. Asa Mittman (CSU Chico): “Cast Them Out”: Building English Identity through Jewish Exclusion

The Consortium Medievalists are a group of graduate scholars from Columbia, CUNY, Fordham, NYU, Princeton, Rutgers, Stony Brook, and Yale. We would like to kindly thank our sponsors: NYU Critical Theory and Medievalisms Forum, NYU Center for Disability Studies, Columbia Medieval Literature Colloquium, Fordham GSA and Medieval Studies, and an anonymous donor from NYU.

To R.S.V.P., click here.

Online conference: British Archaeological Association’s Romanesque conference: ‘Image & Narrative in Romanesque Art’, 28–30 March 2022

The seventh in the British Archaeological Association’s Romanesque conference series, Image and Narrative, is taking place at the British School at Rome. It will be available on Zoom. Times for the conference are in Italian (not UK) time

Please click the link to join the webinar which is for each of the days. (Passcode: 886218)

Conference programme

Monday 28 March 2022

Session 1: Chair: Grazia Fachechi

9.30 am Welcome and Introduction

9.45am Serena Romano, Image and Narrative in Rome during the ‘Romanesque’ period: A focus on San Crisogono

10.30am Questions

10.45am Break

11.15am Claudia Quattrocchi, Before Narrative: A multifocal method for mapping mural decoration in Central Italy

11.45am Marcello Angheben, Polysemy and multifunctionality in the apse mosaic at San Clemente: Gregorian reform, liturgy and devotion

12.15pm Questions

13.00pm Break

Session 2: Chair: Alison Perchuk

14.30pm Armin Bergmeier, Linear Time and Narrative in the Anagni Crypt Frescoes

15.00pm Andrea Worm, Narrative and Argument: The Emergence of Typological Cycles in the Twelfth Century

15.30pm Questions

15.45pm Break

Session 3: Chair: Béla Zsolt Szakács

16.15pm Kristin B. Aavitsland, Microarchitecture and Storytelling in Twelfth-Century Scandinavia

16.45pm Bella Arcidiacono, Stories from Genesis at the Palatine Chapel in Palermo and the Cathedral of Monreale: Relations, Interactions, Strategies

17.15pm Questions

Tuesday 29 March 2022

Session 4: Chair: Lindy Grant

9.30am Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, The Commissioning and Politics of Images in Twelfth-Century Northern Italy: From the Investiture Controversy to the Fight against Heresy

10.00am Deborah Kahn, Promoting Conformity: The Role of the Church in the Revival of Sculpture

10.30pm Questions

10.45pm Break

Session 5: Chair: Richard Plant

11.15am Jessica Berenbeim, Letter Forms and Literary Meaning: Script and Inscriptions c.1100

11.45am Robert Maxwell, The Narrative Time of Dreams

12.15pm Manuel Castiñeiras, Narrative Strategies, the Senses and ‘Iter’ at Pilgrimage Sites: Conques, Compostela and Bethlehem

12.45pm Questions

13.15pm Break

Session 6: Chair: Rose Walker

14.30pm Irene Caracciolo, A Comparative Analysis of the ‘tecnica mista’ panel portraits inserted into certain wall paintings in Romanesque Italy

15.00pm Mina Miyamoto, A Problem of Identification in Folio 1v. of the Salzburg Pericopes

15.30pm Questions

15.45pm Break

Session 7: Chair: Barbara Franzé

16.15pm Gaetano Curzi, Nature, Landscape and Hagiography on the façade of San Clemente a Casauria

16.45pm Claude Andrault-Schmit, An Unusual Scenography in the Service of Popular Devotion. The Deathbed Scene at Saint-Hilaire-de-la-Celle in Poitiers

17.15pm Questions

Wednesday 30 March 2022

Session 8: Chair: Manuel Castiñeiras

9.30am Wilfried Keil, The Narrative Frieze of Saint Domninus on the Façade of Fidenza Cathedral

10.00am Carles Sanchez, A Roman Saint in Catalonia: Sant Llorenc Dosmunts and the Shaping of Devotional Images through Romanesque Altar Frontals

10.30am Questions

10.45am Break

11.30am John McNeill, A Narrative of Intercession in the Cloister of Saint-Aubin at Angers

12.00pm Barbara Franzé, Image and Narrative in the Cloister at Moissac in the light of the Consecration Ritual

12.30pm Questions

12.45pm Break

Session 9: Chair: John McNeill

14.30pm Béla Zsolt Szakács, From Rome to Somogyvár: Transforming the Spinario

15.00pm Yael Barash, From Sin to Redemption: Narratives, Abstract Conclusions, and  Composition in Hildegard of Bingen’s Illustrations

15.30pm Questions

15.45pm Break

16.15pm Alison Perchuk, Narrative Sequences of the Apocalypse in Romanesque Italy: Location, Function, Structure, Meaning

16.45pm Rose Walker, Old Testament Images in Navarre and Aragon in the Middle of the Twelfth Century: Sites of Theological and Social Tension

17.15pm Questions

Funding and Scholarships: ARTES Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Prize and CEEH Scholarships (Deadline 31st March 2022)

Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Prize

ARTES invites submissions for the Juan Facundo Riaño Essay Prize for the best art-historical essay on a Spanish theme. The deadline is 31st March 2022 and full details are available at https://artes-uk.org/2014/01/02/the-juan-facundo-riano-essay-medal/   

Scholarships

Thanks to the generous support of CEEH (Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica), ARTES also awards a number of scholarships to students working on any aspect of Spanish visual culture before 1900. The deadline for all scholarship applications is also 31st March 2022 and there are further guidelines below. 

Travel scholarships 

Final year undergraduates and postgraduate students registered for a full or part-time degree course at a UK university may apply for up to £1000 towards the costs of travel to Spain for research purposes (which may include field work, attendance at a conference, or other recognised forms of research). 

£3000 scholarship for PhD students or post-doctoral scholars in Spain who wish to conduct research in the UK 

Doctoral students or those who received their doctorate less than four years before the application deadline may apply for this scholarship provided that they were or are registered for doctoral study at a university in Spain. 

£3000 scholarship for PhD students at a UK university 

ARTES offers one scholarship each year to a student registered for a full- or part-time doctoral degree at a UK university. The scholarship is intended to contribute towards the costs of tuition, living and/or research, and therefore students with full funding are not eligible. 

Seminar: Round Table, ‘Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantium and the Islamic World’, IHR Seminar Europe 1150-1550, 24th March 2022, 17:30 GMT

The IHR Europe 1150-1550 seminar returns this Thursday 24th March 5.30 pm. Catherine Holmes (Oxford), Jonathan Shepard (Oxford), Jo Van Steenbergen (Ghent) and Björn Weiler (Aberystwyth) will present their book Political Culture in the Latin West, Byzantium and the Islamic World, c.700-c.1500: A Framework for Comparing Three Spheres. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

This seminar will take place online only. Please register online here.

Please send any enquiries to Andrew.Jotischky@rhul.ac.uk or emily.corran@ucl.ac.uk

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.