How are the Middle Ages remembered? In recent years the Middle Ages have set the scene for a variety of popular TV series; contemporary identity is often connected to a medieval past; and medieval history has even been appropriated to justify the horrific actions of extremist groups. As scholars we know that popular views of the Middle Ages are often absurdly and dangerously misrepresented, but if a false vision of the Middle Ages is accepted as true on screen, in objects, or architecture, what effect does that have on the psyche of viewers today?

This session invites papers from diverse fields to interrogate how memory, legacy, and myths of the Middle Ages live on today, in tangible or intangible ways. Possible topics may include neo-Gothic revivals, the endurance of religious expression for faith communities today, as well as 19th-century and fantasy medievalisms from Tolkien to Game of Thrones. In light of the content thread recommended by CAA for 2021 –social justice— we specifically encourage submissions that consider race, gender equality, sexuality, including queer pre-modern identities, and justice for Indigenous communities in the Americas. For example, potential topics might examine the appropriation of medieval symbols in contemporary hate groups or how medieval women are portrayed on screen. At a time when popular culture has renewed attention on the Middle Ages, it is critical to reflect not just on medieval attitudes towards their own material culture and visual arts, but how our own perspectives are shaped by their real and imagined legacies.

Please submit abstracts directly to the chair by September 16th. More specific submission instructions can be found at the CAA Annual Conference website here.

The art and architecture of the fourteenth century reflect the social changes and political upheavals that defined the period in Europe. Scholars have increasingly employed the materiality of art—its physical features and characteristics—to critically investigate expanding trade networks, modes of production, and the relationship between artist, patron, and viewer. This session builds on this momentum to explore the social and cultural function of art and architecture in the fourteenth century. Submissions are invited to examine the materiality of art and architecture from any disciplinary and theoretical perspective; interdisciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged. Potential papers might comprise, but are not limited to, investigations of the relationship between an object’s material and form; examinations on shifts in artistic production; applications of visual and formal analysis; or considerations of the ritual, political, and economic significance of objects and their materials. This session invites submissions on all forms of art and architecture including from Latin, Byzantine, and Islamic contexts.

This session is the second of three panels sponsored by the 14th Century Society centered on the discussion of materiality during the fourteenth century. Please submit paper proposals by September 15th through the ICMS Confex website (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2022am/cfp.cgi). Please contact Gabriela Chitwood (gchitwoo@uoregon.edu) with any questions and concerns.

In many parts of the world, medieval monuments, sites, and artifacts are facing a threat of devastation, either due to political crises resulting in armed conflicts or acts of vandalism, or deteriorating climate effects, inadequate conservation practices, as well as other adverse natural or social circumstances. Access to some of them is restricted on account of these conditions- a problem that became worldwide during the ongoing pandemic. For all the above-mentioned reasons, digital preservation of material cultural heritage has become a matter of utmost necessity and urgency.

This session aims to present various methods in digital recording and presentation of medieval visual culture that has been recently developed and implemented, as well as to highlight the importance of digitization in certain groups of monuments or objects particularly vulnerable at the present moment.

Blago Fund, which is sponsoring the session, is an organization devoted to the preservation and promotion of Serbian cultural heritage, primarily through the creation of online digital collections that preserve detailed visual records of architectural elements, interior decoration, and the surroundings of churches and monasteries built on the territories of the Serbian medieval state. Owing to the efforts of volunteers and experts from the fields of photography, art history, and internet technologies, all the material created is readily available on the Blago Fund website under a CC license.

The session seeks proposals that will address some of the issues related to practices in digital humanities used in the preservation of the material heritage of the Middle Ages- technical advancements created or employed in digitization, innovative approaches taken, and particular obstacles faced in the process. The organisers also invite scholars and professionals to present their insights and experiences working with digital visual databases in studying and teaching the Middle Ages.

Please submit abstracts no later than 15 September through the ICMS Confex website (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2022am/cfp.cgi). For any questions or concerns, please contact Ida Sinkevic (sinkevic@lafayette.edu) or Ivana Lemcool (ivana.lemcool@blagofund.org).

Traditionally, the history of medicine in early modern Italy was a field divided sharply into the study of theory and the study of practice, yet this separation was neither equal nor historically justified. Whereas serious attention was given early on to the intellectual foundations of the discipline, far less attention was directed to the consideration of how and when this body of knowledge was translated into practical expressions such as recipes, cures, procedures, and public measures (and vice-versa). A corrective to this imbalance has emerged in the past decades, with scholars adopting, for instance, patient-centered perspectives an exploration of the role of the body, emotions and gender, and the full range of formal and informal practitioners. Further opportunities for understanding the practice of medicine have arisen whenever historians of medicine have engaged with other disciplines, including art and architectural history, religious studies, environmental history, book history, and economic history.

The aim of this conference is to redress the historiographic bifurcation of studies of medical theory and studies of medical practice. We seek papers that reveal the entangled interrelationship between these two realms in a period that was characterized by the rise of empirical experimentation, as well as the growing need to incorporate novel drugs and unfamiliar diseases into the hoary paradigms of professional medicine. The following are examples of the questions that animate interest in this topic: Did physicians’ casebooks make reference to either the utility and/or limitations of medical theory? In what contexts do we encounter recipes that indicate implementation and modification of a theory, such as Galenic humoral medicine or Paracelsian iatrochemistry? What were the challenges and impact on theory and practice of the importation of new medicines through the growth in global trade? What consequences did the academic debate around the influence of Arabic writings have for medical practice? To what degree did an understanding of medical theory matter in the licensing of apothecaries? With the emergence of the printing industry, did the tension between practice and theory expand or shrink? Did prevailing medical theories facilitate or hamper the integration of new discoveries in anatomy and medical botany into the physician’s practice? To what degree was penning a theoretical treatise a catalyst to a lucrative career as a court physician? Did empiricists and quacks ever find it beneficial to adopt the language and concepts of medical theory? Did religious reforms make their impact felt differently in theory versus practice? To what degree could a prince-practitioner eschew theory yet maintain credibility in elite circles?

The conference organizers (John Henderson, Sheila Barker and Rose Byfleet) invite proposals for 25-minute unpublished papers in English or Italian that address the tensions and interplay of practice and theory in medicine, with reference to a wide range of early modern actors and contexts:

• Botanical Gardens
• Court physicians
• Nurses, barber surgeons, wet nurses, midwives, etc
• Domestic Medicine
• Apothecaries
• Recipe Books
• Hospitals
• Monasteries and convents
• Medical Guilds and licensing boards
• Hippocratic non-naturals and manuals on healthy living
• Cosmetics and cosmeceuticals
• Lapidaries and the historical use of gemstones

Confirmed participants: Evelyn Welch, David Gentilcore, Sandra Cavallo, Paolo Savoia, Lavinia Maddaluno, and Sharon Strocchia (pending Covid-19 university policy regulations).

To apply: please prepare a single .pdf document that contains the following items in this sequence: your name, contact information, and institutional affiliation; a one-page summary of your presentation topic; and a maximum of a one-page CV that highlights relevant publications or conference papers. Please send this to education@medici.org by 16 September 2021.

For complete information, visit https://www.medici.org/theoryandpractice/