Call for Contributions: ‘The Italian South: Transcultural Perspectives 400-1500,’ CONVIVIUM. Exchanges and Interactions in the Arts of Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean, special issue edited by Elisabetta Scirocco (Bibliotheca Hertziana – MPI) and Gerhard Wolf (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – MPI), published March 2018
Deadline for proposals: 20 September 2017
Deadline for article submission: 30 November 2017

This thematic issue of the journal Convivium is dedicated to the Italian South from the 5th to the 15th century. It seeks papers that engage with the specific transcultural dynamics of a geographical and historical area containing highly diverse political, social, and religious entities, as well as with the multi-layered connectivities that can be traced in the Italian South, across the Mediterranean, and beyond.

We invite contributions from Art History, Archaeology, History, Anthropology, Paleography, and related disciplines that deal with the cultural diversity of Late Antique and medieval Southern Italy with special attention to sites, monuments, landscapes, images, and objects, as well as to the visual and aesthetic spheres in general. We are primarily interested in exploring horizontal and vertical dynamics, in terms of time (synchronicity/diachronicity) and space (global/Mediterranean/local scales). Papers with a theoretical and historiographical approach are particularly welcome.

Main topics to be addressed might include:

-Artistic contacts and interactions in the Italian South, in a transregional and global perspective
-Centripetal and centrifugal paths of exchange, transmission, and appropriation
-Cross-cultural migration of objects, images, and techniques among spaces, contexts, and media: practices of reuse, appropriation, and interpretation
-Sites, places, and spaces of cultural interactions, such as cities and courts
-Religious interactions in sacred space and rituals
-Local persistence and reinterpretation of the (antique) past in different political and/or cultural scenarios
-The fascination of the (medieval) Italian South, from the 18th century to the present day
-The notion of “Southern Italian”, as it relates to the study of medieval art, and its historiographical consequences

Proposals of max. 1 page should be sent by 20​ ​September 2017 to the editors: escirocco@gmail.com and dirwolf@khi.fi.it. The deadline for the submission of articles is 30 November 2017.

Convivium V/1 will be published in March 2018.

Articles Submission:
Contributions (30,000-40,000 characters including spaces, and up to 15 full-color illustrations) must be sent by 30 November 2017 to Karolina Foletti, executive editor of the journal: karolina.foletti@gmail.com.
Languages accepted: English, French, German, Italian.
Each article will be evaluated through a double-blind peer-review process.

For the Style Guide, please see: http://www.earlymedievalstudies.com/convivium.html