As a discipline based on the study of the visible, art history has necessarily to engage with what is illuminated and can be seen. But the opposition of light and shade, in its physical as well as in its symbolic dimensions, also structures human thought. Many myths of creation begin with the emergence of light; banishing darkness is the first step for the development of life and society. Subsequent developments in philosophy and the human sciences—the Enlightenment comes to mind in particular—continue to make the division between light and dark a framework of thought of decisive importance. Thus, consciously or in spite of ourselves, from our origin myths to contemporary positivism, from biblical narratives to the constitution of human sciences as academic disciplines, we are the heirs of a polarisation between darkness and light. Brightness becomes a virtue: clarity, lucidity, brilliance, carry a positive charge while their opposites are associated with negative qualities of obscurity and even evil.

For this issue, coordinated with the Indian art historian Kavita Singh, the journal Perspective turns towards darkness as a theme to question our largely habitual and reflexive association of light with knowledge, positivity, clarity, and, on the other hand, of darkness with non-knowledge, negativity, obscurity. It invites reflections on the discipline of art history through the prism of shadows.

Please submit your proposal (2,000–3,000-character 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 December 13, 2021. Authors of selected articles will be informed of the committee’s decision in February 2022. Full texts of accepted contributions will need to be sent by June 1st, 2022. These will be definitively accepted after the journal’s anonymous peer-review process.

The 21st Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies invites abstracts from current graduate students and recently graduated Masters students from all disciplines on any topic that is related to the long Middle Ages. The organisers encourage proposals for innovative presentations (20 minutes) and lecture-performances (25 minutes) on the global medieval, non-Eurocentric geographies, and medievalism(s). 

The conference will take place in-person at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio from March 24th–26th, 2022. The event will be moved online pending Covid-19 pandemic conditions. 

Vagantes is a multidisciplinary conference, therefore please provide a clear summary of your proposed paper using language that is accessible to non-specialists. Anonymized submissions will be reviewed by a panel of graduate students. 

An award(s) will be given for the best paper(s)! Papers must be submitted in advance to be considered for the prize. For more information see: vagantesconference.org/conference-information-2021/paper-prize. 

Abstracts of 300 words with paper title and a 1–2 page CV (including applicant’s preferred name and pronouns) in one PDF are due Monday, November 29th, 2021 to vagantesboard@gmail.com. 

In response to the abrupt and largely unforeseen way in which the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown our world and everyday life into uncertainty since early 2020, the theme of the 7th International Conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean (SMM) is Interruptions and Disruptions. Scholars are invited to explore and challenge meanings and experiences of interruptions and to reflect upon whether and to what extent interruptions prompted change or acted as ‘turning points’ in the medieval Mediterranean.

The conference invites papers that examine the theme of interruptions from different disciplinary perspectives, including History, Archaeology, Literature, Linguistics, Art History, Religious Studies/Theology, and any other disciplines focusing on the medieval Mediterranean. We welcome research papers that, through the analysis of diverse types of sources, apply innovative approaches and stimulate debates to reflect upon individual and collective perceptions and experiences of interruptions.

The following list of possible topics of discussion is indicative and by no means exclusive:

• Crisis and recovery
• Epidemics and natural catastrophes
• War, invasion, conquest
• Dynastic change
• Social unrest and rebellion
• Disruption of social, religious and/or cultural systems
• Political interruptions
• Material evidence of interruptions
• Integration and segregation
• Geographical interruptions: insularity, land and sea, mountain and plain
• Displacement and mobility
• Lived experience of interruptions
• Interruptions and historiography
• Apocalypticism

Applicants are encouraged to submit proposals for panels of three 20-minute papers each for 1.5 hour sessions, and should nominate a chair. We will do our best to accommodate applications for individual papers but panels will be prioritised.

Papers must be delivered in English. 

Proposals, in the form of a session title, session abstract (150–200 words), and 3 paper titles with short abstracts (100–150 words) as well as the name of a nominated chair where there is a preference should be submitted to smm2022crete@ia.uoc.gr by 30 November 2021.

Western medieval civilization was a highly intertwined society. Following the 12th century, which saw the flourishing and the peak of a powerful civic and mercantile bourgeoisie, and the progressive increase of the laity’s training needs, various phenomena extended and increased the communications networks and routes that linked different territories of Western Europe. This included the proliferation of religious movements, the birth and development of the universities, and the appearance and consolidation of the mendicant orders. At the same time, power relations were reframed, economic, political, and military expansion projects promoted, and contacts with non-Christian communities and with other religious and cultural spaces intensified.

This congress seeks to take an interdisciplinary approach to a specific aspect of mobility: the relationship between the geographical routes and itineraries taken by texts, books, artworks, and, in their wake, cultural ideas and tendencies. It will give special consideration to the Occitan-Catalan area as the starting, middle, and final points of these journeys. To investigate this topic, the focus will be on figures who are often left on the margins of study: the intermediaries and agents responsible for the transfer culture. Oral accounts, music, written texts, and artworks were all physically and intellectually transported by agents who were often under the cover of anonymity; this includes scribes, translators, minstrels, cantors, artists, and patrons or promoters, but also other figures such as pilgrims, students, clerks, diplomats, and merchants. These all played a fundamental role in developing, disseminating, and circulating ideas, and encouraged cultural and intellectual mobility in Europe. 

The congress aims to explore questions including, but not limited to, the following:

• Which were the roads and routes followed by intermediaries? How did they travel and with whom? 
• Which were the cultural places (courts, monasteries and convents, schools, notarial offices, artistic and scribal workshops, etc.) through which these intermediaries passed? And how did these places evolve?
• Can we define tendencies in the relation between the circulation of a certain kind of cultural product and existing routes?
• What impact did the mobility and activities of different cultural agents have on these products? 
• Which contacts were established with cultural agents of different religions? 

To explore and discuss these questions invited lectures, a round table with specialists from different disciplines, and paper sessions are planned.

You are invited to submit a 20-minute-long paper in any Romance language or in English. Proposals must be emailed to the address congres.mobgic2022@gmail.com by the 23rd of December 2021, and must include:

• Author’s full name and institution
• Email address
• Paper title
• Abstract (maximum 2000 characters and 5 keywords)

The proposals will be evaluated by the scientific committee. The outcome will be notified by the organizing committee by the 30th of January 2022. 

The congress will be held on-site taking into account the health situation. If some of the participants are not able to assist due to restrictions on mobility to prevent the spread of the pandemic, they will be able to deliver their paper on-line.