Medieval Art Research

Call for Papers: ‘New Research on Medieval Parish Church Art & Architecture I & II’, ICMS Kalamazoo, 9-14 May 2022, (Deadline 15 September 2021)

Parish churches were a fundamental feature of the cities, towns, and villages of medieval Europe. Founded to serve the spiritual needs of local populations, these buildings quickly became epicenters of public life, accommodating functions that ranged from religious services, processions, and pageants to secular assemblies, tax collection, and alms distribution. Surviving examples, which number in the tens of thousands, are home to countless works of architecture, sculpture, stained glass, wall painting, and liturgical furniture–much of it vastly understudied. These sessions seek to explore this extensive corpus of material from a range of temporal, regional, disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological perspectives. Especially welcome are contributions that reflect on how evolving research on the art and architecture of the parish church broadens, deepens, and transforms our understanding of medieval society.

For further information, please contact Zachary Stewart (zstewart@arch.tamu.edu). Proposals should be submitted online at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call. The deadline to submit is 15 September 2021.

Post-Doctoral Fellowship: Research Fellowship in the History and Culture of the Countries of the Silk Roads, 2022-2026, King’s College, Cambridge (Deadline 6 September 2021)

Through a generous donation, King’s College Cambridge is able to invite applications for a four-year Research Fellowship from those who are completing or have recently completed a doctorate and who intend to pursue a research project on some aspect of the Silk Road countries, societies, and cultures of Asia from the Western borders of China to the Mediterranean Sea, as well as their relationships with China in the East and Europe in the West. The research project’s discipline may address, amongst other issues, Environmental History, Religion, Art, Maritime History, China before 1911, Ottoman Empire, and Russian Central Asia, but applicants should not feel constrained by this list.

This Research Fellowship is part of a broader programme of studies of the countries of the Silk Roads, which includes lectures, seminars and conferences, as well as graduate scholarships and further Research Fellowships. As well as pursuing their own research project, the successful candidate will be expected to play an active role in developing the programme and in organizing academic activity concerned with the countries of the Silk Road.

This post-doctoral Fellowship is intended to encourage research into the Silk Roads and the countries of the Silk Roads by enabling the successful candidate to complete a substantial research project on their own choosing. Projects may concern any aspect of the countries, societies, and cultures of the Silk Roads, from the Western borders of China to the Mediterranean Sea, and of the Silk Roads themselves, that is to studies of relationships and the movement of materials, knowledge, and technologies between China and the Mediterranean, at any period to the present day.

The ideal candidate for this Research Fellowship will have a strong background in a relevant discipline and be completing or have completed an outstanding doctoral thesis. It is not a requirement that the candidate’s doctoral studies or the work that they submit in support of their application should have concerned questions of the Silk Roads specifically, but candidates will be expected to show in their applications both how their future work relates to the work that they have already done. The successful candidate will be expected to engage broadly with the whole college community.

Graduates of any university are eligible. Candidates will usually have completed their PhD but must not have undertaken more than 3 years of postdoctoral work by 1 October 2022 (i.e. your PhD cannot have been granted before 30 September 2019).

For complete information and instructions on how to apply, visit https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/research/research-fellowships

Call for Papers: The Dynamics of Media and Technology: From the Middle Ages to the Modern Classroom (Deadline 1 September 2021)

As the digital age has shaped our ways of viewing ourselves, society, and culture is has also reframed and revealed new perspectives on viewership and ritual. We invite proposals for an edited volume that seeks to explore the effects of this digital age on Medieval and Early modern studies. This collection of essays aims to engage in both the examination of medieval media, mediation, and technology from a theoretical framework. The second grouping of essays aims to explore how the digital humanities have shaped Medieval and Early Modern studies today.

We seek papers that explore these topics. Among others, we encourage submissions that are concerned with issues of technological and material manipulation, as well as mnemonic devices, perception, tech methodology, and pedagogy. Essays should be 5000-7000 words. Authors are responsible for securing copyrights to all images, diagrams, graphs, etc.

We welcome all aspects of Medieval and Early Modern studies (musicology, art history, history, literature, language, philosophy, science, religion, law, history of the church, etc.) Trans-European, visual culture, global medievalism, modern medievalism, and interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome.

Submissions: To apply, please submit two abstracts : 1 ) 400-500 words; and 2) about 100 words. a short biographical note of no more than 100 words, and your institutional affiliation (if any), to Katharine.d.Scherff@ttu.edu. Deadline extended 1 Sept 2021.

New Publication: Color in Cusanus, by Jeffrey F. Hamburger

The great scholar, theologian, and church politician of the 15th century, Nikolaus von Kues (Nicholas of Cusa), was convinced that diagrams can help convey the highest and divine truth. That is why he himself had colored graphics for symbolization in the center of his De Coniecturis. During the implementation of the early printing process – a quantum leap for the distribution of the works – this dimension of meaning was lost with the reduction to black and white representation. Research, too, has so far completely overlooked their relevance. For Nikolaus, and like the panel painting of his time, color represents the penetration of space with and through light: light and dark gripping in Cusanus, and God’s recognizability and concealment in one another, were the two central axioms of his theology. The color in the diagrams is, as Jeffrey Hamburger deciphers for the first time, an invitation to the viewer to search for the same truth that the symbols exemplify.

Jeffrey F. Hamburger is the Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture at Harvard University and an internationally renowned expert on sacred art of the high and late Middle Ages, in particular on the function of images in theology, mysticism and piety, as well as for manuscript illumination.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Thinking Through Diagrams
Chapter 2: Color as Vector
Chapter 3: Cusan Speculation
Chapter 4: Diagrams in Action
Chapter 5: Color in De coniecturis
Chapter 6: An Orb in the Hand of God
Color Plates
Manuscript Index
Subject Index

For complete information and to purchase this title, please visit Hiersemann Verlag: https://www.hiersemann.de/color-in-cusanus-9783777221212#.

Symposium: ‘The Medieval Wall Paintings at St. Mary’s, Chalgrove, Oxfordshire’, 16 October 2021, 10am–5pm (BST)

This day-long event will provide attendees with the unique opportunity to hear new information concerning the medieval wall paintings at Chalgrove Church in the presence of the paintings themselves. Aspects of the scheme’s content, dating, patronage, and connection to contemporary works will be explored by notable scholars.

Speakers:

Professor Paul Binski (Professor Emeritus of the History of Medieval Art, University of Cambridge & Fellow Librarian, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge)
Professor Miri Rubin (Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History, Queen Mary University of London)
Dr. Ellie Pridgeon (Director of Consultant Archivist & Associate Lecturer, Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, & Leicester)
Sommer Hallquist (PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge)
Madeleine Katkov (Wall Paintings Conservator)
Bob Heath-Whyte (Specialist, Chalgrove wall paintings & St. Mary’s Lay Minister)

Members of the Chalgrove Local History Group

Date: Saturday, 16th October, 2021, 10am – 5pm

Location: Church Lane, Chalgrove, Oxford OX44 7SD

Registration fee: £20 (Includes on-site lunch) | Proceeds fund the parish & their continued upkeep of the wall paintings

*Concessions for students & parish members. To receive a discount code, please email ChalgroveSymposium@gmail.com.

Questions about the event? Please email ChalgroveSymposium@gmail.com.

Follow us on Twitter & Facebook! @ChalgroveSympo1

Website for St. Mary’s, Chalgrove: https://chalgrovechurch.org/

This symposium is organized by Sommer Hallquist, Madeleine Katkov, and Bob Heath-Whyte.

Find out more and get your tickets here.

Call for Papers: Reusing Medieval Sculpture: Ideology, Meaning, and Aesthetics of a Process over Time, ICMS Kalamazoo (9-14 May 2022) (Deadline 15 September 2021)

Historical sites, as palimpsests of material and symbolic elements, are characterized by the re-functioning of spaces and buildings and also by the re-use of artistic materials. The session aims to analyse cases of reuse of medieval sculpture in modern contexts (roughly 15th-18th centuries) inspired not by practical and material purposes but by the need to communicate messages of high symbolic value. Papers will focus on episodes that allow to recover the “long life” of medieval sculptures over the centuries, in contexts similar or, on the contrary, completely different to the original ones and related phenomena of re-working and re-functionalization. The session is part of the activities of the two-years MemId (Memory and Identity. Reuse, rework and rearrangement of the Medieval sculpture in the Modern Age, between historical research and new technologies) project funded by the Italian Ministry for University and Research, led by Clario Di Fabio, Laura Cavazzini and Paola Vitolo, which is conducting in various regions of Italy a systematic and in-depth study of the topic, with a team of young researchers. The session will be an opportunity to discuss the topic with a wide range of international scholars of different geographical and cultural areas.

Please submit abstracts no later than 15 September through the ICMS Confex site at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2022am/cfp.cgi. Please direct all questions or concerns to paola.vitolo@unina.it

Call for Papers: Mary-Anne: Iconographies and Layers of Meaning (Deadline 10 October 2021)

The proposed volume concentrates on representations of the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne in the Middle Ages by bringing into discussion new approaches on their iconographies. In certain instances, Mary’s life incorporates episodes of Saint Anne’s allowing, thus, multiple readings and multiple layers of meaning in the same (visual) representation.

The volume is dedicated to the iconography of the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne, generally speaking, from any geographic area. This implies that any aspect of Marian or Saint Anne’s iconography is accepted, starting with general or particular episodes of Mary’s/Anne’s life, development(s) of iconographic details or specific iconographies.

The volume aims at approaching such representations in a comparative manner either by focusing on the visual-textual relationship or by highlighting influences and movements of iconographies from one geographic area to the other.

Please submit a 600-800 word abstract celarly underlying the main argument and potential outcomes of the essay. Proposals should have an abstract format written either in a PDF file or Word document and be accompanied by a short CV, including email, current affiliation, rank and title/name. Please submit all relevant documents by 10 October 2021 to Andrea-Bianka Znorovsky, Ca’Foscari University, Venice, Italy, andrea.znorovsky@unive.it.

From the organiser:

While some of the abstracts have been secured, I am still looking for ones that address the below topic for a volume being considered for publication with Brepols Publishers.

I am looking for very clear, specific case studies (not a general view on a topic). This can be either iconographic or textual study (or text and image, etc.) which does not rephrase previous research, but rather presents new aspects, new interpretations, other perspectives/approaches. Please, clearly underline the main argument and potential outcomes of the essay.

Call for Papers: ‘Restoring Medieval Art and Architecture I, II, III: Technology in Documentation and Research; Technology and Concepts of Authenticity; Technology and Access’, ICMS Kalamazoo (Deadline 15 September 2021)

“Restoring Medieval Art and Architecture I, II, III: Technology in Documentation and Research; Technology and Concepts of Authenticity; Technology and Access” (AVISTA sessions at ICMS Kalamazoo, 9th-14th May 2022)

Critical discourse surrounding the conservation and restoration of Notre-Dame of Paris following the disastrous 2019 fire indicates the continued existence of a nostalgic desire to experience medieval buildings “as they were.” Paradoxically, to conserve or restore medieval buildings and objects “authentically,” cultural heritage practitioners increasingly rely on contemporary technological tools. Such tools, long recognized for their scholarly and pedagogical value, have become crucial for engagement with medieval sites and objects in a time of enforced distance. AVISTA’s sessions at ICMS 2022 will explore the uses and impacts of technology emerging from the contexts of restoration and conservation campaigns; examine ties between technology and concepts of authenticity as they intersect with the conservation or restoration of medieval art and architecture; and consider how technology connects to accessibility and how access may in turn alter our understanding of medieval cultural heritage.

Topics to be considered might include, but are not limited to, the use of contemporary technologies to document, investigate, conserve, and/or restore medieval structures and objects, the use of medieval technologies in contemporary conservation or restoration practice, technology as a means of crossing geographical and/or chronological boundaries between medieval objects and contemporary audiences, and technology and the accessibility of medieval cultural heritage in relation to issues of economics or geographical or cultural dissemination.

Please contact Sarah Thompson (setfaa@rit.edu) for further information, and submit proposals through the Congress’s website:
https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call

The deadline to submit is 15th September 2021.

Call for Papers: Ninth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 20-22 June 2022 (Deadline 31 December 2021)

The Ninth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies (20-22 June 2022) is a convenient summer venue in North America for scholars to present papers, organize sessions, participate in roundtables, and engage in interdisciplinary discussion. The goal of the Symposium is to promote serious scholarly investigation into all topics and in all disciplines of medieval and early modern studies.

The plenary speakers for this year will be David Abulafia, of Cambridge University, and Barbara Rosenwein, of Loyal University, Chicago.

The Symposium is held annually on the beautiful midtown campus of Saint Louis University. On campus housing options include affordable, air-conditioned apartments as well as a luxurious boutique hotel. Inexpensive meal plans are also available, although there is a wealth of restaurants, bars, and cultural venues within easy walking distance of campus.

While attending the Symposium participants are free to use the Vatican Film Library, the Rare Book and Manuscripts Collection, and the general collection at Saint Louis University’s Pius XII Memorial Library.

The Ninth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies invites proposals for papers, complete sessions, and roundtables. Any topics regarding the scholarly investigation of the medieval and early modern world are welcome. Papers are normally twenty minutes each and sessions are scheduled for ninety minutes. Scholarly organizations are especially encouraged to sponsor proposals for complete sessions. The deadline to submit is 31 December 2021. You should submit a title and abstract of no more than 250 words.

For more information and to submit a paper, session, or roundtable, visit https://www.smrs-slu.org/.

Call for Papers: The Red Sea as a Space In-Between the Wider Afro-Eurasian World (deadline 31 August 2021)

For a special issue of the The Medieval Globe, to be published in December of 2023 in digital and print versions, we invite proposals for articles on topics related to “Trade, Travels and Transformations: The Red Sea as a Space In-Between the Wider Afro-Eurasian World.”