Branner Forum for Medieval Art

Boundaries, Passages, and the Play of Media: The Painted Screen-Walls of Franciscan Churches in the Italian Alps

Professor Jacqueline Jung

Tuesday, 17 October 2024, 6:15-7:45PM

Stronach Center, Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University, NEw York, NY

Join us for Professor Jacqueline Jung's (Yale University) Branner Forum lecture entitled, “Boundaries, Passages, and the Play of Media: The Painted Screen-Walls of Franciscan Churches in the Italian Alps.” The lecture will take place at Columbia University on Thursday, October 17th at 6:15pm in the Stronach Center (8th floor of Schermerhorn Hall).

For more information, visit https://arthistory.columbia.edu/events/branner-forum-medieval-art-professor-jacqueline-jung

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

AVISTA GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH GRANT

ART & ARCHITECTURES ACROSS BORDERS IN THE MEDIEVAL WORLD

DUE 15 OCTOBER 2024, 5:00PM ET

Our application for the AVISTA Graduate Student Research Grant for the study of art and architecture across borders in the medieval world is now open!

This grant of $500 is intended to support an early-stage graduate student’s research on the theme of art that crosses the borders or peripheries of the medieval world. Funds should support research and/or dissemination of scholarship, which may include expenses for conference travel, site visits, or archive visits. The award includes a one-year gift membership to AVISTA.

We are grateful to Robert E. Jamison, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Clemson University, for underwriting this grant.

The deadline for submitting your application is October 15, 2024, 5:00pm ET.

For the full application instructions and guidelines please see our “Prizes and Grants” page here.

ICMA in Milwaukee
Tour of Material Muses: Medieval Devotional Culture and its Afterlives + Joan of Arc Chapel site visit

Saturday 12 October
2pm CT

Register HERE

ICMA members are warmly invited to an informal gathering at the Haggerty Museum of Art on the campus of Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI on Saturday, October 12th, beginning at 2:00pm to view Material Muses: Medieval Devotional Culture and its Afterlives. The co-curators of the exhibition, Abby Armstrong Check, Claire Kilgore, and Tania Kolarik will give a brief introduction to the exhibition and highlight different objects within the show. Attendees will then be welcome to roam the galleries. At 3:00pm we will walk over as group to the Joan of Arc Chapel on the campus of Marquette University where Abby Armstrong Check will give a short talk about the history of the only consecrated medieval chapel in the United States.

More information about the exhibition: https://www.marquette.edu/haggerty-museum/material-muses.php

Register HERE

Last Conques EU Project Meeting

Conques in the Global World

11 October 2024, 9:30-13:00

Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome, Italy

The last meeting of the Conques EU project will take place in Rome in person--For those who cannot attend, look for a book publication within the year that is full of the newest research on Conques. See: https://conques.eu/outputs for material that has already appeared.

Call for Proposals

Medieval Academy of America's podcast series

Season 4

The Multicultural Middle Ages

Due 11 October 2024

The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast Series welcomes proposals for single episodes to be featured in its fourth season. After three successful seasons, The Multicultural Middle Ages (MMA) will return for its fourth in 2025. Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America, MMA is an anthology-style podcast that welcomes the global turn in Medieval Studies. This podcast series is a platform from which to continue ongoing conversations and generate new and exciting avenues of inquiry related to the Middle Ages that emphasize its diversity. We seek to highlight thoughtful reflections on culturally responsible approaches to the study of the Middle Ages. This is a space from which to speak to fellow medievalists and, more importantly, the wider public to inform our audience about the multicultural reality of the medieval period and the plurality of voices that comprise the fields of medieval studies.

We invite proposals from individuals and collaborators of all ranks and disciplines, including graduate students, for single podcast episodes aimed at fellow medievalists and the wider public.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Innovative methodological and disciplinary approaches to the Middle Ages

• The future of Medieval Studies

• Research on the multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic Middle Ages

• Discussions of recent scholarship

• Archival discoveries

• Academic activism and responses to misappropriations of the Middle Ages

• Pedagogical approaches

• Medievalisms

• Medieval culture in contemporary political discourse

• Cultural heritage and approaches to curating exhibitions of the Middle Ages

Possible formats may include narrative expositions, interviews, textual analysis, visual analysis, oral performances, and panel discussions.

No previous experience with podcasting is required. The Graduate Student Committee of the MAA has hosted several podcasting workshops, which are now available on the MAA YouTube channel. If accepted, an MMA team member will support you through the episode development process and post-production. If you would like our technical assistance to realize your episode, such as facilitating an interview, helping record the episode, or taking care of the audio editing, please make a note of it in your proposal.

Your application should include a brief description (500 words) of your proposed

episode, noting the following:

• the chosen topic and its relevance;

• the plan for adapting the topic to a podcast medium (we encourage 40-50 min. episodes, but also welcome proposals for shorter or longer episodes);

• and the episode format (interview, narrative, etc.) with an overview of its structure a description of the support you’ll need (if any) from the MMA production team.

This information is not binding but will help the committee assess the potential of the project. Please include the name and CV of each author. Submit your proposals and any questions to mmapodcast1@gmail.com and to Loren Lee (lel7qsf@virginia.edu) by October 11, 2024.

For a PDF of the call for papers, click here.

For a JPG of the shortened-version of the call for papers, click here.

The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast Series Production Team

Will Beattie | wbeattie@nd.edu

Jonathan Correa Reyes | jonatcr@clemson.edu

Loren Lee | lel7qsf@virginia.edu

Reed O’Mara | rao44@case.edu

Logan Quigley | quigleylogan@gmail.com

Website: https://multiculturalmiddleages.com/

X: @Podcast_MMA_MAA

Instagram: @MulticulturalMiddleAgesPod

The Courtauld Medieval Work-in-Progress Seminars

Autumn Semester 2024

Christianity Before Conversion

Helen Gittos

Courtauld’s Vernon Square Campus, London

9 October 2024, 5:30-7:00 PM

How did people convert to Christianity in early medieval England? What happens if we prioritise archaeological and art historical sources? In this seminar paper, Helen Gittos will propose a new framework for thinking about how such radical change happened.

Helen Gittos is particularly interested in the history of the church and its rituals in the Middle Ages, and is as keen on buildings, objects and archaeological evidence as on written texts. Her first book was Liturgy, Architecture and Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England (2013); she also co-edited two collections of essays on the topic: The Liturgy of the Late Anglo-Saxon Church (2005) and Understanding Medieval Liturgy (2015). A second strand of her research is about language, and in particular the role and status of English in relation to Latin; with Alban Gautier she co-edited Vernacular Languages in the Long Ninth Century (2021) and is currently writing a book, English in the Liturgy before the Reformation. She also been working on aspects of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and the history of the sixth and seventh centuries in Britain.

Organised by Dr Tom Nickson (The Courtauld) as part of the Medieval Work-in-Progress Series.

Seminars are free and open to all. They are held in the Research Forum of The Courtauld Institute of Art’s Vernon Square campus,  starting at 5.30pm on Wednesdays.

Booking Opens at the end of September.

For more information, visit here.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS

DR. GÜNTHER FINDEL-STIFTUNG / ROLF UND URSULA SCHNEIDER-STIFTUNG

HERZOG-AUGUST-BIBLIOTHEK, WOLFENBÜTTEL, GERMANY

ANNUAL APPLICATION DEADLINES: APRIL 1 AND OCTOBER 1.

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 (€ 550) to help finance their stay in Wolfenbüttel.

New: Thanks to generous financial support by the Anna Vorwerk-Stiftung, the monthly fellowship will be increased by € 150 per month until further notice.

Please request an application form, which details all the documents that need to be submitted, at ed.bah@gnuhcsrof. 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.

For more information about the fellowship and other funding, visit here.

CALL FOR PAPERS

GENDER, IDENTITY, AND AUTHORITY IN LATE ANTIQUITY

UNIVERSITY OF TULSA, MARCH 20-23, 2025

DUE BY 1 OCTOBER 2024

The Society for Late Antiquity is pleased to announce the sixteenth biennial meeting of Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, which will be held at The University of Tulsa, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We encourage papers that investigate issues and aspects of gender, identity, and/or authority within the broader late antique world, either in relation to one another or on their own. This thematic scope is intentionally broad, allowing for many different approaches and from a host of disciplines and methodologies. Gender, for example, might include the impact of religion or other factors on ideas of the family, sex, and sexuality, understandings of the nature of gender differences, or conceptions of identity and authority in relationship to the gendered or genderless self or other. Likewise, identity might focus on its self-perception or ascription by others, its potential to be malleable, situational, or contested, or its various components, like ethnicity, political allegiance, religious affiliation, or class. Finally, authority might interrogate its attribution to or expectation for a particular person (e.g., an empress or saint), place (e.g., Rome), or thing (e.g., a text or creed), the mechanisms for its attainment or rejection, such as tradition, merit, or force, or its realization of lack thereof, either as an actual fact or ideal.

Abstracts (no more than 500 words) for papers presenting original scholarship should be submitted for consideration no later than October 1, 2024.

Conference email: shiftingfrontiersxvi@gmail.com

For more information, https://sites.utulsa.edu/shiftingfrontiersxvi/

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR FIELD SEMINAR

UNRULY ICONOGRAPHIES / ICONOGRAFIE INDISCIPLINATE: EXCEPTIONS OR NEW PATTERNS?

CENTER FOR THE ART AND ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF PORT CITIES “LA CAPRAIA”, MUSEO E REAL BOSCO DI CAPODIMONTE, NAPLES
12-13 JUNE 2025

DUE BY 1 OCTOBER 2024

Art history’s recent turn toward what the field has long considered Europe’s peripheries and border zones has brought to the fore countless examples of seemingly strange, unusual, and unique iconographic motifs, which complicate the relationship between an artwork’s iconography and its place in space and time. Until now, the dominant model has presupposed standard iconographies and their adaptations, exceptions, and deviations, which are often understood within historiographic paradigms such as tradition and invention, center and periphery, urban and rural, elite and non-elite. This approach falls short, however, especially in places like southern Italy, where the abundance of exceptions brings into question the rule itself. Merely extending these historiographic paradigms to encompass “unruly iconographies” or "iconografie indisciplinate" only reperforms their marginalization. This state of play challenges us to explore the nexus between place and iconographic rules and exceptions, not by modifying the traditional framework to include peripheries and border zones, but by examining how case studies invite us to trace new art historical patterns and build new methodological models.

In November 2024, the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University will convene "Unruly Iconographies?", a one-day conference dedicated to rethinking historiographic paradigms that have shaped how we understand iconographic motifs that don’t follow the rules. (Please find the Call for Papers for the Index conference at https://ima.princeton.edu/2024/02/15/call-for-papers-unruly-iconographies-examining-the-unexpected-in-medieval-art/ and a preliminary program at https://ima.princeton.edu/2024/05/16/save-the-date-for-the-fall-index-conference-unruly-iconography-examining-the-unexpected-in-medieval-art-on-november-9-2024/.)

In a linked event hosted by the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” in June 2025, "Unruly Iconographies / Iconografie Indisciplinate: Exceptions or New Patterns?" will take medieval Naples and southern Italy as a laboratory for exploring relationships between iconography and place within a geographically expanded Middle Ages.

We invite proposals that take individual case studies from medieval Naples and southern Italy as points of departure for investigating questions including so-called exceptions, hapaxes, mistakes, and lost originals; dynamics between “center” and “periphery”; challenges of chronology and dating in so-called peripheries and border zones; circulations of iconographies through polycentric cultural networks; translations of motifs across mediums, formats, functional contexts, and audiences; the legibility and illegibility of iconographies across cultures; mechanisms of transfer including mobile artworks, artists, and patrons; interplays between royal, non-royal elite, and non-elite patronage; and the limitations of previous models of iconography when confronted with cases in medieval Naples and southern Italy. We welcome in particular proposals that locate southern Italy within broader Mediterranean worlds, at the convergence of multiple cultural and religious currents including Latin and Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

"Unruly Iconographies / Iconografie Indisciplinate" is designed as a field seminar. Contributions may take the form of a seminar-style presentation with slides, or an on-site presentation with an artwork in Naples. (For presentations on site, we will print hand-outs with comparative images.) Presentations may be made in English or Italian, and should run no longer than 20 minutes, followed by 15-20 minutes of discussion.

La Capraia will cover the cost of lodging in Naples for three nights, lunch and dinner on the two days of the conference, admission to collections and sites, and transport to site visits as necessary. The organizing committee will award one graduate student among selected participants to receive an honorarium (disbursed immediately after the field seminar) to cover costs of travel up to $750.

Proposals should include a curriculum vitae, a brief narrative biography (max. 150 words), and an abstract (max. 350 words), and may be in Italian or English. The abstract should also indicate whether the proposed contribution would take the form of a seminar-style presentation or an on-site presentation. Please combine these materials in a single PDF document with Lastname_Firstname as the title, and send to La Capraia’s Center Coordinator Francesca Santamaria (lacapraia@gmail.com) by 1 October 2024. Selected participants will be notified in early November 2024.

"Unruly Iconographies / Iconografie Indisciplinate" is organized by Maria Harvey (James Madison University), Sarah K. Kozlowski (The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History / Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia”), Ali Alibhai (The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History), Francesca Santamaria (Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia”), with the collaboration of the Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University.

The Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” is a partnership between the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas, the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Franklin University Switzerland, and the Amici di Capodimonte.

Learn more about La Capraia at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/ and follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lacapraia/.

CALL FOR PAPERS

WORLDS OF LEARNING

INTERNATIONAL MEDIEVAL CONGRESS 2025

PAPER PROPOSAL DEADLINE: SATURDAY 31 AUGUST 2024
SESSION PROPOSAL DEADLINE: MONDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 2024

PROPOSALS ARE NOW OPEN FOR IMC 2025.

The IMC provides an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of all aspects of Medieval Studies. Proposals on any topic related to the Middle Ages are welcome, while every year the IMC also chooses a special thematic focus. In 2025 this is 'Worlds of Learning'.

Histories of learning have transformed fundamentally over the last generation: older research mainly investigated educational institutions or specific intellectual traditions, typically privileging forms of learning which could be connected to modern Western institutions and disciplines. More recent scholarship takes a broader approach, historicising the production and circulation of different forms of knowledge, including many non-Western cultural traditions, as well as practical knowledge, oral traditions, and types of technical or artisanal expertise not represented in the modern canon. As a result, new interdisciplinary research fields have broadened the thematic and geographical scopes of investigation and developed new comparative frameworks.

Perhaps most importantly, different cultural traditions and historiographies of learning across the globe are increasingly discussed in relation to each other or on the basis of interdisciplinary exchange on methodologies. The increasingly global scope of academic exchange enables us to think more productively towards connected histories of learning, whether global or regional in scope, and including non-elite and non-traditional forms of learning.

Processes of learning and resulting written traditions have also been re-situated in their social and material contexts, deepening our understanding of the cultural embeddedness of knowledge. Various recent approaches question the meaning of institutional descriptors like ‘schools’ and challenge the dividing lines between ‘scholarly’/’expert’ or ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ cultures. Frameworks discussing ‘communities of learning’, ‘communities of interpretation’, or ‘communities of practice’ highlight the role of exchange and conflict between different communities and social strata in the production of knowledge. They also allow for a much broader integration of different forms of practice, performance, and oral communication into the study of intellectual production.

On a methodological plane, our understanding of the use, distribution, and long-term differentiation of specific bodies of knowledge profits greatly from a greater appreciation of their mediality and materiality, with new approaches to genre, communicative uses, and the circulation of manuscripts and printed books, but also to a variety of images, objects, and (architectural) landscapes. A growing toolkit of digital approaches has proved to be both a boon and a challenge, as the gathering, analysis, and visualisation of relevant data promises innovative new insights, but also raises questions about standardisation and access to costly infrastructures.

Against this background, IMC 2025 invites a plurality of viewpoints investigating the manifold social, intellectual, and geographical ‘worlds of learning’ shaping pre-modern societies. Seeking to stabilise the trend of the previous years, the strand particularly encourages sessions focusing on non-European worlds of learning. It also invites sessions which address the challenges inherent in the highly diverse disciplinary landscape and the asymmetries shaping extant historiographies of learning, which come from both different global regions and separate disciplines with different emphases.

Themes to be addressed may include, but are not limited to:

• Ideals, practices, and rituals of teaching and learning

• Gendered ideals of learning and gender in learning

• Pedagogical techniques for different age groups

• Technical and artisanal knowledge

• Oral transmission, practice, and performance in learning processes

• Medieval epistemologies and systematisations of knowledge

• Religious conceptualisations and interpretations of learning

• Forms of learning and/about the self

• Languages and their role in the acquisition of learning

• Representations of learning in literature and art

• Learning materials, including instructional objects, texts, images, and diagrams

• Schools and universities and their local and regional networks

• Financial and political networks supporting communities of learning

• Lieux de savoir and locales of learning, including (permanent or situational) material and spatial arrangements

• Printing and publishing learned materials

• Distribution and circulation of knowledge traditions

• (Digitally) Mapping intellectual networks

• Cross-cultural and inter-religious learning

• Cultural transfer and cultural appropriation

• Different national and confessional/religious historiographies of learning, their continuing impact, and their problems

The IMC welcomes session and paper proposals submitted in all major languages.

The Special Thematic Strand 'Worlds of Learning' will be co-ordinated by Sita Steckel (Historisches Seminar, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt).

For more information, visit https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2025/

CALL FOR ACADEMIC ARTICLES

BELVEDERE RESEARCH JOURNAL, NEW ISSUE

DUE 30 SEPTEMBER 2024

The Belvedere Research Journal (BRJ), a peer-reviewed, open-access e-journal, invites new submissions. We are interested in articles that shed light on the visual culture of the former Habsburg Empire and Central Europe broadly defined from the medieval period to the present. Contributions that position Austrian art practices within a wider international framework are particularly welcome. We value innovative art historical approaches, such as challenging established narratives or exploring transnational exchanges that highlight the interconnected and cross-cultural nature of the art world. The BRJ is also keen to feature work on artists and figures who have been historically underrepresented, with a special emphasis on women. We encourage interdisciplinary research that blends art history with methodologies from other fields, such as digital humanities, social sciences, and cultural economics.

Each issue of the BRJ offers two publication formats: Research Articles (20,000 to 50,000 characters, including endnotes and spaces), which undergo a double-anonymous peer review, and Discoveries (max. 15,000 characters, including endnotes and spaces), which are subject to editorial review. Discoveries allow scholars to share findings and insights on specific works of art, archival materials, or historical documents. We welcome contributions from established scholars as well as early career researchers, including PhD candidates.

The BRJ accepts manuscripts on a rolling basis, with publication in English. The BRJ arranges translation for accepted manuscripts from common Central European languages and ensures all articles undergo professional copy-editing. Articles are published in an open annual issue immediately after final acceptance, covering the period from January 1 to December 31. The BRJ handles the acquisition of image rights, and no article processing charges (APC) are required.

Accepted submissions will be published under the Creative Commons License CC BY 4.0, with copyright retained by the author(s).

Submission deadline is September 30, 2024.

See the Author Guidelines here: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/brj/about/submissions

The editors welcome informal inquiries about potential proposals. Please send articles and inquiries to: journal@belvedere.at. For more details, visit our journal’s website: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/brj/index.

Editor-in-Chief: Christian Huemer (Belvedere, Vienna)

CALL FOR PAPERS

IBERSHINCS

MAKING AND REMAKING SAINTS IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA AND BEYOND DURING THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD C. 600 - 1600

IBERSANCOS

CREAR Y RECREAR LOS SANTOS EN LA PENINSULA IBÉRICA Y ATRÁS DURANTE LA EDAD MEDIA Y EL PERÍODO MODERNO CEMPRANO C. 600 - 1600

SALAMANCA (SPAIN), 24 - 26 MARCH 2025

ABSTRACTS DUE: 30 SEPTEMBER 2024

NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE: 31 OCTOBER 2024

We kindly invite paper and poster proposals for an in-person international conference hosted by the University of Salamanca in collaboration with the Museum of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain.

This international conference seeks to explore the means of constructing and reconstructing saints in and beyond the Iberian Peninsula with particular emphasis on:

• the import of new saints into the Iberian Peninsula from the Holy Land, neighboring territories, occupied territories, etc.:

• the export of saints from the Iberian Peninsula to Europe, Latin America. etc.:

• the re/creation of saints in the Iberian Peninsula e.g. martyrdom narratives:

The conference approaches this process of saintly re/construction mostly, but not exclusively. from the perspective of:

CRANSITION AND TRANSFER

• known or lesser-known saints transferred and adapted in geographic areas which require further exploration such as Latin America in the Early Modern Period contributing to a global perspective on the creation and recreation of saints;

• Saints at crossroads of land and sea and patterns of transfer: between the Mediterranean, the Atlantic Ocean. etc.;

• Cultural transfer and material culture of sanctity;

• Transitional periods and saints from the Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages: the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period;

INTERACTION

• Adaptation to new cultural contexts and new peoples through religious discourses, hagiographic narratives, and de/construction of images:

• Local/regional incorporations, interactions, and adaptations:

• Interactions with images, transfers) and circulation(s) of iconographies;

• Local/regional. personal/collective devotional developments and practices:

PRODUCTION

• Re/creation of saints and various media (statues, reliefs, panel paintings, manuscript illuminations, frescoes, stained glass, metalwork, mosaics, textiles, etc.):

• Re creation of saints in relation architecture:

• Production of (vernacular) religious/secular literature: sermons, hymns. (private/public) devotional prayers. miracle stories, visions, and conversion stories:

• Relics, reliquaries, miracle-working images, devotional/religious objects;

We welcome original submissions. from a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to: history, art history, visual culture, social history, cultural history. hagiography. religious studies, textual studies, archaeology. in a transdisciplinary perspective. Panel proposals are also welcome.

The paper presentations are addressed to early career researchers. faculty or research staff at any level, independent researchers. etc.: while the poster presentations are primarily addressed to PhD candidates particularly from, but not limited to, Spain. Certificates of 30 horas presenciales will be provided to PhDs.

Accommodation, meals, and travel are covered by participants. There is not registration fee and participation is open to all speakers.

Contextually, the participants will be invited to submit their papers and poster contents for the publication of an edited volume. The language of publication is English.

Please submit all relevant documents as PDF files and/or Word doc to the e-mail address: znorovskyandrea@usal.es no later than 30 September, 2024.

FOR PAPER PRESENTATIONS (SALA DE GRADOS. FACULTY OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF SALAMANCA):

• A 350 - 400 words abstract, in English, clearly underlying the main argument and the potential outcomes of the paper. The abstract should also include a bibliographic list of 5 - 8 references.

• A short 500 - 700 words CV. in English, including e-mail, current affiliation, affiliation address, academic position, publications, etc. CVs should have the standard CV format: narrative bio formats are not accepted.

• The presentations are 15-20 minutes and the language of delivery is English.

FOR POSTER PRESENTATIONS (MUSEUM OF SALAMANCA):

• A 350 - 400 words abstract, in Spanish, clearly underlying the main argument and the potential outcomes of the research. The abstract should also include a bibliographic list of 5 - 8 references.

• A short 500 - 700 words CV. in Spanish, including e-mail, current affiliation, affiliation address, awards, prizes, etc. CVs should have the standard CV format: narrative bio formats are not accepted.

• The presentations are c. 5 minutes and the language of delivery is Spanish

For qurstions, contact Andrea-Bianka Znorovsky (University of Salamanca, Salamanca), znorovskyandrea@usal.es

For more information, visit http://eventos.usal.es/event_detail/118344/detail/ibersantos-crear-y-recrear-los-santos-en-la-peninsula-iberica-y-atras-durante-la-edad-media-y-el-pe.html

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sktodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101034371.

Online Lecture

Sing to Him a New Song! Liturgical Hymns from Medieval Nubia

Agata Deptuła, University of Warsaw

Friday, September 27, 2024 | 12:00 PM (EDT, UTC -4) | Zoom

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University are pleased to announce the first lecture in the 2024–2025 East of Byzantium lecture series.

Three Nubian kingdoms (Nobadia, Makuria, and Alwa), located in the Middle Nile Valley, became part of the Christian oikumene in the middle of the sixth century, receiving from Byzantium not only the faith, but also its setting, including Greek as the principal liturgical language and a set of texts used during liturgical celebrations. Singing was an integral and significant component of the Eastern Church ritual, and it is not surprising that hymns also gained popularity in Nubia.

Texts at our disposal are mostly fragmentary, preserved in the form of parts of manuscript leaves, faded wooden tablets, or inscriptions written on the walls of cult buildings. Despite their fragmentary state, Nubian hymns exhibit a richness of forms and themes. There are troparia belonging to the oldest layer of Greek liturgical poetry and witnesses of the original Greek versions of the hymns by Severus of Antioch, known so far only through their Syriac translations. Longer compositions are also found, with the canon—a structured liturgical hymn composed of nine odes related to the nine biblical canticles—seemingly enjoying particular popularity.

These compositions span the spectrum of feast days as well as fixed celebrations, and also praise saints, especially Archangel Michael and Theotokos. Attestations of the usage of individual hymn verses in inscriptions left by visitors in churches indicate that singing to praise the Lord was widespread among the faithful. As a result, hymns are the largest and richest group of liturgica known from the area, shedding light on local liturgical practices. Additionally, the fact that some hymns are not preserved in their original form outside Nubia demonstrates that the material can contribute to unraveling the development of hymnography in Eastern Christianity at large.

Agata Deptuła is an archaeologist at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw, where she specializes in medieval Nubia and epigraphy.

Advance registration required. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

Call for Participants

Studying East of Byzantium XI: Ritual

Three-Part Workshop

Due By 23 September 2024

The Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA, are pleased to invite abstracts for the next Studying East of Byzantium workshop: Studying East of Byzantium XI: Ritual.

Studying East of Byzantium XI: Ritual is a three-part workshop that intends to bring together doctoral students and very recent PhDs studying the Christian East to reflect on how to reflect on the usefulness of the concept of “Ritual” in studying the Christian East, to share methodologies, and to discuss their research with workshop respondents, Emma Loosley Leeming, University of Exeter, and Lev Weitz, The Catholic University of America. The workshop will meet on November 18, 2024, February 14, 2025, and June 5–6, 2025, on Zoom. The timing of the workshop meetings will be determined when the participant list is finalized.

We invite all graduate students and recent PhDs working in the Christian East whose work considers, or hopes to consider, the theme of ritual in their own research to apply.

Participation is limited to 10 students. The full workshop description is available on the East of Byzantium website (https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/studying-east-of-byzantium-xi-ritual/). Those interested in attending should submit a C.V. and 200-word abstract through the East of Byzantium website no later than September 23, 2024.

For questions, please contact East of Byzantium organizers, Christina Maranci, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Harvard University, and Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at contact@eastofbyzantium.org.

EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA. It explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

Study day

XXV. STUDIENTAG KUNST DES MITTELALTERS – XXVth STUDY DAY MEDIEVAL ART 

For the exhibition World Heritage of the Middle Ages - 1300 Years of the Monastic Island of Reichenau

22-23 September 2024

Konstanz and Reichenau-Mittelzell, Germany 

An invitation from our friends at Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft

Der nächste Studientag Kunst des Mittelalters findet anlässlich der Ausstellung „Welterbe des Mittelalters - 1300 Jahre Klosterinsel Reichenau“. Wir haben wieder die Möglichkeit, die Präsentation an einem Schließtag zu besichtigen. Sll jene, die etwas frueher anreisen, koennen die neu gestaltete Schatzkammer des Muenster in Reichenau-Mittelzell besichtigen.

Für weitere Informationen besuchen Sie: https://www.ausstellung-reichenau.de/

The next Study Day Medieval Art will take place on the occasion of the exhibition "World Heritage of the Middle Ages - 1300 Years of the Reichenau monastery island". We will again have the opportunity to visit the presentation on a closing day. Those who arrive a little earlier can visit the newly designed treasury of the monastery in Reichenau-Mittelzell.

For more information, visit https://www.ausstellung-reichenau.de/en/

Vorläufiges Programm / Preliminary program

SUN 22.09.2024
Optional: 
15.00:  Reichenau-Mittelzell; Schatzkammer im Münster St. Maria und Markus / Treasury in the Minster of St. Mary and St. Mark
Gemeinsames Abendessen / optional dinner
MON 23.09.2024 
Ausstellungsbesuch / Exhibition visit

Weitere Details werden noch rechtzeitig bekanntgegeben / Further details will be announced in due time 

Anmeldung bitte an:
StudientagMittelalter@gmail.com
Please send your registration  to: 
medievalstudyday@gmail.com

Upcoming Exhibition

Corvey Unddas Erbeder Antike: Kaiser, Kloster under Kulturtransfer im Mittelalter

Diözesanmuseum Paderborn, Germany

21.9.2024-26.1.2025

A think tank of the Middle Ages marks the starting point of the exhibition in the Paderborn Diocesan Museum; formerly the Corvey Monastery that was founded 1,200 years ago and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site for the last 10 years. Back then, it was monasteries that preserved the ancient knowledge that still shapes us today. The numerous fasinating exhibits in the exhibition vividly show how ancient cultural techniques - especially reading and writing - and ideas about politics, law, art and science were transmitted in the Middle Ages. Monks reproduced ancient documents, craftsmen reworked ancient originals or integrated them into their own works. Captrued and shaped by the spirit of the times, such treasures reveal narratives that continue to puzzle us even today.

More than 120 fascinating artefacts on loan from European museums, libraries and archives will be on display on Paderborn, accompanied by insights into the work of the curators and research scholars who are preserving our ancient heritage today. The calligrapher and artist Brody Beuenschwander will also bring the diversity of writing cultures to life in impressive visual interventions. A richly illustrated catalogue will be published and there will be an extensive programme of events.

The exhibition is under the patronage of the Federal President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

For more information, go to https://www.erbe-der-antike.de/en/

Call for Papers

BAA sponsored sessions

International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds 2025

Due By 20 September 2024

The BAA is now welcoming paper proposals for the BAA-sponsored sessions at the International Medieval Congress, which will take place at the University of Leeds (7th-10th July 2025).

The IMC’s research theme for 2025 is ‘Worlds of Learning’ and the IMC’s suggested themes include, but are not limited to:

• Ideals, practices, and rituals of teaching and learning

• Gendered ideals of learning and gender in learning

• Pedagogical techniques for different age groups

• Technical and artisanal knowledge

• Oral transmission, practice, and performance in learning processes

• Medieval epistemologies and systematisations of knowledge

• Religious conceptualisations and interpretations of learning

• Forms of learning and/about the self

• Languages and their role in the acquisition of learning

• Representations of learning in literature and art

• Learning materials, including instructional objects, texts, images, and diagrams

• Schools and universities and their local and regional networks

• Financial and political networks supporting communities of learning

• Lieux de savoir and locales of learning, including (permanent or situational) material and spatial arrangements

• Printing and publishing learned materials

• Distribution and circulation of knowledge traditions (Digitally) Mapping intellectual networks

• Cross-cultural and interreligious learning

• Cultural transfer and cultural appropriation

• Different national and confessional/religious historiographies of learning, their continuing impact, and their problems

A full list of suggested topics and more details can be found here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2025/ 

It is hoped that we can organise several sessions, with similar papers grouped together (either methodologically or by subject). Before submitting a proposal, please ensure you have familiarised yourself with the conference fees and the available bursaries for the IMC, details of which are available here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2025/proposals/bursary 

Proposals should consist of a paper title, your affiliation (if any), your contact details, and a short abstract (50-100 words). Please send paper proposals to Harriet Mahood (hpmahood@gmail.com) by Friday 20th September 2024.

CONFERENCE

FORUM ZUM BRITISCH-IRISCHEN MITTELALTER 2024

UNIVERSITÄT ZU KÖLN & HYBRID

16 SEPTEMBER 2024

Das Programm für das diesjährige Forum zum britisch-irischen Mittelalter steht fest. Wer digital teilnehmen möchte, kann sich unter mail@fobim.de bei uns melden. Eine Teilnahme in Präsenz ist ohne Anmeldung möglich. Alle weiteren Informationen finden sich auf der Seite zum FobiM 2024.

Gäste sind herzlich willkommen. Falls Sie digital teilnehmen möchten, melden Sie sich bitte bis zum 12.9.2024 unter mail@fobim.de an.

9:00–10:15 Uhr

Christina Marinidis (Wuppertal): Morgan le Fay: Eine Antagonistin?

Renate Bierman (Köln): The Identity of Queen Emma of Normandy (c.980–1052 CE). On the prospects of concepts such as Identity and Selbstzeugnisse in (Early) Medieval texts

10:45–12:00 Uhr

Roman Tymoshevskyi (Wien): Constructing Authority in the Kings’ Deposition in Fourteenth-Century England

Amelie Paulsen (Köln): Singulis mihi dominis homagium regium facientibus, et fidem michi prestantibus … Heinrich VI. und die Yorkisten in John Blacmans Collectarium

13:15–14:00 Uhr

Ronja Edelhäuser (Innsbruck): Untersuchungen zu Gesellschaf, Wirtschaf und Militär im römischen Britannien der severischen Zeit

14:15–15:30 Uhr

Isabel Blumenroth (Aachen): Die Rolle englischer Zisterzienser im Alexandrinischen Schisma

Eva Schaten (Münster): Theological Innovation in the 1410s: The Manuscripts of Katillus Thorberni

16:30–17:30 Uhr

Besuch der Basilika St. Gereon (mit Führung)

18:30

Gemeinsames Abendessen

https://fobim.hypotheses.org/

EXHIBITION

CONOSCENZA E LIBERTÀ. ARTE ISLAMICA AL MUSEO CIVICO MEDIEVALE DI BOLOGNA

MUSEO CIVICO MEDIEVALE, BOLOGNA, 20 APRIL – 15 SEPTEMBER 2024

CURATED BY ANNA CONTADINI (SOAS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON)

The wonderful objects in this exhibition are designed to display the Museum’s outstanding collection of Islamic objects, which includes some undisputed masterpieces. They are the fruit of targeted collecting which includes that of Bolognese collectors and scholars Ferdinando Cospi in the XVII, Luigi Ferdinando Marsili in the XVIII and Pelagio Palagi in the XIX century. Knowledge of them allows us to comprehend the contribution made by the cultures that produced them to European art and thought, and frees us from prejudices and stereotypes. The themes of the exhibition, in fact, reveal the transmission of scientific knowledge, of techniques of manufacturing and decoration and of the appropriation of ornamental repertoires that will become part of a global artistic vocabulary. The objects on display come from a wide swathe of the Islamic world, extending from Iraq to Spain, and cover a broad chronological span, from the beginning of the 13th to the 18th century. They are representative of the artistic production of the Abbasid, Zangid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman dynasties, and include Spanish examples of Islamic inspiration from the 15th and 16th centuries. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of the same title.

For more information, see http://informa.comune.bologna.it/iperbole/media/files/arte_islamica.pdf or visit https://www.museibologna.it/medievale/schede/conoscenza-e-liberta-arte-islamica-al-museo-civico-medievale-di-bologna-1535/.

ALL FOR PAPERS FOR PANEL

DEVIANT IMAGES: TEXT/IMAGE RELATIONSHIPS IN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS

AN IN-PERSON SESSION

60TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES, KALAMAZOO, 8-10 MAY 2025

DUE 15 SEPTEMBER 2024

Sponsor: Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Organizers: Cortney Anne Berg, cberg@gradcenter.cuny.edu

This panel provides a space to examine the ways that images and texts work together (or against each other) in medieval manuscripts. Scholars who study manuscripts often treat the images and the texts as separate phenomena without considering how a medieval reader would have interacted with the holistic object. Many studies of manuscripts treat the images as mere illustrations of the text, and this panel invites all scholars of manuscripts to explore the ways in which images work or do not work with the accompanying text.

Very rarely do images and texts provide the same information, and very rarely are images just illustrations to the text they accompany. Therefore, how can contemporary viewers understand the relationship between medieval images and the texts they accompany?

This panel invites 20 minute papers that explore medieval manuscripts and how their images deviate from or conform to the text. We encourage inquiries that describe the important intersections between text and image, and attempt to reconstruct the relationship between the two, particularly as these relationships may or may not map to lived conditions. We also encourage inquiries that reveal interesting information about manuscript culture writ large. Although this panel seeks papers that deal directly with images not just as aids to the text or reading, any methodological approach from literature, anthropology, history, religious studies, art history, or any other discipline that can make interesting connections between text and image would be a welcome addition to this panel.

Deadline: 15 September 2024

Please submit a 300-word abstract through the conference website: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=5977

CALL FOR PAPERS FROM INDEPENDENT MEDIEVAL SCHOLARS

THE MODERN INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR IN THE MEDIEVAL RESEARCH WORLD: BECOMING A DIGITAL DETECTIVE

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES (8-10 MAY 2025)

VIRTUAL PAPER SESSION

DUE BY 15 SEPTEMBER 2024

Have you conducted your own independent research on any medieval matter by using digital resources? Perhaps researching for a book in progess? Would you like to share your experience with like minded independent researchers and authors? We'd love to hear from you at our upcoming virtual paper session at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, from May 8-10, 2025. Papers may focus on any matter related to your personal research using digital platforms.

The importance of access to digitized medieval manuscripts by researchers cannot be overemphasized. Usually, that access occurs through an academic institution. To those independent medieval scholars with limited or no access to such institutional resources, alternative gateways to digitized material become critical. This session will explore materials available in various open-access libraries, such as those offered by the Digital Bodleian or the Digital Biblioteca Vaticana and their effect upon the scholarly work of independent medievalists. We will also consider the various ways to access and use increasingly available online manuscripts.

We will consider papers providing practical ways that independent scholars have used to access and explore the increasing availability of online digitized medieval manuscripts housed in strong institutions such as the Digital Bodleian or Digital Vatican. We are also looking for papers that will guide the beginning independent researcher through the gatekeeping steps of such institutions and ways to become comfortable working with open-access medieval manuscripts. Furthermore, we encourage papers that explore collaboration and communication among independent researchers, all to the purpose of fostering open dialogue and peer support that nurture valuable contributions to future medieval scholarship.

THIS PAPER SESSION IS VIRTUAL ONLY AND PRESENTED THROUGH ZOOM.

To submit a short proposal by September 15, 2024, here is the official ICMS link to our session: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=5857

For any questions, please contact Barbara Prescott at both bprescott125@gmail.com and barbprescott@alumni.stanford.edu. Sponsoring Organization: American Society of Dorothy L. Sayers Studies

Call for Papers

Manuscripts Before the Year 1000

ICMS Kalamazoo 2025 (8-10 May 2025)

Due By 15 September 2024

This special session solicits research on any aspects of manuscript study from late Classical through the Early Medieval era, notably palaeography and codicology, but also study of mise-en-page, transmission, and editing. Discussion of manuscripts from all eras and global origins before the year 1000 is welcomed, especially papers which may deal with cross-cultural exchange and movement of manuscripts across the medieval world conceived broadly (China, India, the Near East, Africa just as much as Europe and the Mediterranean).

In-person.

Organizer: Dr. Bruce Gilchrist bruce.gilchrist@concordia.ca

Send proposals by September 15 to: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6018

Call for Papers

Houses of Enlightenment: Scriptoria, Schools, and Madrasas from the Caucasus to India (9th–14th century)

International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 7-10 July 2025

“Worlds of Learning”

Due By 15 September 2024

The role played by cultural centers and pedagogical institutions during the premodern period across Eurasia is well recognized since decades. From Armenian and Georgian monasteries on the coast of the Black Sea to Islamic madrasas in Delhi, complex networks of teaching, learning, and creativity were beacons of the diffusion of religious ideas, visual patterns, writing, technologies, and scientific knowledge. Surprisingly, they remain little known in part because they suffered from the compartmentalization between modern disciplines: scholars of manuscripts were interested in the role of monastic scriptoria and madrasas as workshops and places of production, scholars of architecture in the spatial and formal organization of these structures, while historians writ large analyzed cultural exchanges, the circulation of ideas, as well as the history of education and teaching. Furthermore, these spaces of learning have usually been studied exclusively in their respective religious contexts, i.e. Christian or Islamic.

Starting from material culture, these panels seek contributions stemming from a diversity of fields including art history, cultural history, archaeology, manuscript studies, and history of science. The goal is to decompartmentalize and understand the networks of these premodern spaces of learning in the broadest sense to highlight similitudes, exchanges and interactions, as well as their essential role in the production of art and knowledge from ca. the 9th to the 14th century.

We welcome proposals from academics at all career stages, including independent scholars, and particularly welcome proposals from scholars from the region and those from marginalized backgrounds. We will be seeking funding support to assist scholars who need it in attending the IMC.

Please email your proposal to Cassandre Lejosne (cassandre.lejosne@unil.ch) and Adrien Palladino (adrien.palladino@phil.muni.cz) by no later than 15 September 2024, with an abstract of no more than 250 words and a CV.

A PDF of the call for papers is available here.

CALL FOR PAPERS

THE INDEX OF MEDIEVAL ART SPONSORED SESSION

BREAKING THE MIRROR: NEW APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF MEDIEVAL IMAGES

60TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES, WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY, KALAMAZOO

DUE 15 SEPTEMBER 2024

Everyone wants something from medieval images: a sense of story, a corroborated argument, a witness to medieval realities. Although the methods by which scholars seek these answers have evolved considerably, their work remains dominated by the conception of the medieval image as mirror, one that reflects either explicitly or indirectly the truths of the historical past. This session challenges this tendency by asking what we can really expect to learn from medieval images. How does their potential to go beyond illustration—to aspire, deceive, and even fantasize—complicate what and how scholars can learn from them?

We invite papers from researchers at all levels and especially encourage submissions from early-career scholars. The session’s hybrid format can accommodate up to two remote participants. Conference details and a full call for papers can be found at this link.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Medieval Iberia in a Connected World: The Raw-Materials Record

International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, 8-10 May 2025

Due 15 September 2024

This session aims to contribute to the production of knowledge about the Global Middle Ages by analyzing the role that the Iberian Peninsula played in the trade of raw materials. On the one hand, the goal is to advance the knowledge of the Iberian Peninsula as a point of arrival/departure of raw materials relative to extra-peninsular and/or extra-European territories. In addition, papers may address the representations and symbolism those raw materials acquired in Iberian contexts.

This session will create a space for methodological reflection. It thus aims to bring together researchers from very different disciplinary perspectives, including not only the Humanities but also scholars from the Experimental and Natural Sciences. This session will highlight the need for cross-cultural approaches for a more comprehensive approach to medieval Iberia.

Papers may delve into issues of short-, medium-, and long-distance trade; the subsequent use of these raw materials in the production of objects, artifacts, or buildings; and the significance assigned to them in visual and literary culture. Proposals for papers will be accepted through September 15 and need to be submitted at:

https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6341

Delivery Mode: Hybrid session

Organizers: Erika Loic (eloic@fsu.edu); Alicia Miguélez (amiguelez@fcsh.unl.pt)

Sponsoring Organization: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, Univ. NOVA de Lisboa

Keywords: Medieval Iberia, Global Middle Ages, Raw Materials, Trade, Reception and Symbolism

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR PANEL

BIRDERS WITHOUT BORDERS: HOW REPRESENTATIONS OF BIRDS INTERRUPT GENDER/SPECIES/GENRE/PERIOD CATEGORIES

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES, KALAMAZOO, 8-10 MAY 2025

DUE BY 15 SEPTEMBER 2024

In medieval and early modern literature and visual art, birds flit in the background and they bring main character energy; they are human companions, human proxies, or they ignore humans altogether; they are represented allegorically, metaphorically, and literally, sometimes all in the same text. Behind and informing birds’ textual ubiquity, medieval and early modern people interacted with birds in wild and domestic spaces in and across urban and rural zones.

This bird-forward in-person panel thus considers how the use of birds in literary and scientific texts intersect in medieval and early modern literature, challenging traditional understandings of birds as mere tropes, symbols, or textual ornamentation. Instead, this panel invites new arguments and insights into their broader literary and cultural implications. This panel offers ample room for conversations across many rapidly evolving fields: gender studies, eco-critical studies, animal studies.

Submissions might consider these questions in their proposals:

- How do representations of birds enable the crossing of all kinds of boundaries-- species, genre, gender, periodization?

- What kinds of arguments arise when we consider the overlap or cross-disciplinarity of literary texts and scientific texts?

- What do birds potentiate in these texts that other animals do not?

- What can we do with ostensibly scientific or ornithological texts besides use them as expository background to explain esoteric birdy references?

Contact Sara Petrosillo (sp220@evansville.edu) or Lexi Toufas (atoufas@unc.edu) with any questions.

Please submit 300-word abstracts by September 15, 2024 to: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6106

CALL FOR ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM JOURNAL

SPONSORED BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

DUE BY 15 SEPTEMBER 2024

The Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works in the Museum’s collection. Beginning with Volume 52 (2017), there will be two sections: Full-length Articles and Research Notes. Full-length Articles contribute extensive and thoroughly argued scholarship. Research Notes typically present a concise, neatly bounded aspect of ongoing study, such as the presentation of a new acquisition or attribution, or a specific, resonant finding from technical analysis. All texts must take works of art in the collection as the point of departure.

We look forward to receiving your submission, whether a first-time investigation or a critical reassessment from the Museum's vast holdings.

Click here to view inspiration from the Collection

Click here for the call for submissions

View the Journal here
View the instructions for authors 

To be considered for the following year’s volume, an article must be submitted, complete including illustrations, by September 15. 

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR PANEL

JEWISH WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES

IN-PERSON SESSION

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES, KALAMAZOO, 8-10 MAY 2025

DUE 15 SEPTEMBER 2024

The contributions of Jewish women are often absent from broader discussions on Jewish-Christian relations, the production and use of Hebrew manuscripts, and representations of Jews in the art and artifacts of the Middle Ages. This session aims to highlight the active role of Jewish women in the Middle Ages. We welcome proposals for 20-minute original papers that address any aspect of the lives of Jewish women in Ashkenaz, Sepharad, or Italy. Topics may include, but are not limited to, Jewish women as patrons, merchants, collectors, readers, scribes, authors, and artisans. Papers dealing with understudied topics, such as Jewish women in pre-expulsion England, are especially encouraged.

Submissions are due 15 September 2024 through the ICMS conference portal. For inquiries, please email Reed O'Mara at rao44@case.edu and Laura Feigen at c1801872@courtauld.ac.uk.

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR TWO SESSIONS

ASSOCIATION VILLARD DE HONNECOURT FOR THE INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF MEDIEVAL TECHNOLOGY, SCIENCE, AND ART

TREE TO TRUSS

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES, KALAMAZOO, MI (8-10 MAY 2025)

DUE 15 SEPTEMBER 2024

AVISTA invites paper proposals for its two sponsored in-person sessions at the next International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan (May 8-10, 2025).

1. From Tree to Truss: Wood in Medieval Building(s)

The 2019 Notre-Dame fire laid bare vast quantities of a building material ubiquitous throughout the medieval world, yet sometimes concealed from view: wood. Despite their practical, structural, and even symbolic importance, the wooden elements of medieval buildings often go unheralded in scholarship or are treated in isolation from building materials like earth, brick, and stone rather than in concert with them. This session welcomes papers that take a range of approaches to the use of wood in medieval construction (e.g. as formwork or scaffolding) and/or in the finished structures themselves (e.g. as roof trusses or vaults).

Submit your paper proposal here: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6440

2. From Tree to Truss (2): Woodcarving in Medieval Architecture

The 2019 Notre-Dame fire laid bare vast quantities of a building material ubiquitous throughout the medieval world, yet sometimes hidden in plain sight: wood. As a pendant to our session about the place of heavy timber in medieval building(s), this session will focus on the works of woodcarvers, woodturners, and joiners within medieval architectural spaces. To that end, we welcome papers that take material, technical, or intermedial approaches to more intricate forms of woodwork, including but not limited to wooden altarpieces, bemas, canopies, ciboria, iconostases, lecterns, maqsuras, minbars, screens, stalls, templons, Torah arks, and beyond.

Submit your paper proposal here: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6443

Proposals are due at the links above on September 15, 2024. Please direct any questions to session co-organizer Lindsay Cook (lsc5353@psu.edu).

Call for Papers

ICMA Sponsored Session

Images of Dancing Women in the Middle Ages: Joy and Sorrow 

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES, KALAMAZOO 2025 (8-10 MAY 2025)

Due Sunday 15 September 2024

Organizer:
Licia Buttà, Rovira i Virgili University licia.butta@urv.cat

This session focuses on the close relationship that has been established since antiquity between the female body and choreographic movements. The iconography of dance has gained increasing ground in studies on the Middle Ages. Since the pioneering work of musicologist Tilman Seebass and art historian Jonathan J.G. Alexander, it has been clear that dance images, like the texts describing choreographic performances, are an exceptional means to deal with the history of the conception of the body and the centrality of religious and secular rituals, as well as a vehicle for interpreting exegetical approaches to sacred texts. Whatever the dance scenario, the importance of the dancing female body is evident both in the sacred sphere, with dance and celestial choruses of exaltation and praise to God, and in the imagination that stages idolatry, diabolical rites, or the perverse use of the body in earthly performances.

The tale of the young Muse, who converts the wholly worldly joy of dance into a prayer, becoming part of the choir of saints following the Virgin, or the dance of uncontainable joy of Miriam, sister of Moses, who celebrates the crossing of the Red Sea, are just two examples in which the joy that springs from movement deeply modifies the scenario and the protagonists of the narrative. In many medieval exempla, female dance turns into pain and suffering at the exact moment at which the female body is possessed by the devil. Literary, allegorical, and even historical dancing women reflect the medieval conception of the body and embody the dichotomy of joy and sorrow, which is expressed in the narrative capacity of gestures. Through the study of the representations of dance, the aim of this session is to investigate the emotions linked to choreographic narratives. The objects of study could include the enjoyment of the celestial dance and its earthly mirror: the courtly dance, narratives of death and diabolical torments, ecstasy and possessions. Allegorical-courtly literature offers countless examples of dances of joy, as in the Roman de la Rose. Moreover, Islamic and Sasanian art left traces of the importance of dance in court ceremonials, as well as rituals, as in the case of the frescoes of Qusayr Amra or the several Sasanian silver bowls and ewers. In the production of material culture, objects also introduce the tactile dimension, in addition to sight and hearing, as the choreomusical scenes depicted on a plate, a jar or a gemellion were observed but also manipulated, understood and experienced in accordance with the rites in which they were displayed.
  
This session seeks to investigate the emotions generated by dance and music both in the performer and in those who observe the dance. The proposal is developed in the field of cultural history and the visual culture of dance in medieval Europe, Byzantium, Islam and beyond, and aims to provide a new vision of the role of the woman as dancing body, as a key element for investigating the history of emotions in the Middle Ages. The session will focus on approaches that take into account a methodology of image analysis with an anthropological and sociological dimension.

Delivery Mode:
In-Person (The ICMA offers small travel subventions for the participants in this session)

Keyword:
Biblical Studies, Cultural History, History of Emotions, Iconography of Dance, Medieval Performance and Medieval Visual Culture

Proposals for papers will be accepted through September 15 and need to be submitted at: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6333

A NOTE ABOUT KRESS TRAVEL GRANTS

Thanks to a generous grant from the Kress Foundation, funds may be available to defray travel costs of speakers in ICMA sponsored sessions up to a maximum of $600 for domestic travel and of $1200 for overseas travel. If available, the Kress funds are allocated for travel and hotel only. Speakers in ICMA sponsored sessions will be refunded only after the conference, against travel receipts.  In addition to speakers, session organizers delivering papers as an integral part of the session (i.e. with a specific title listed in the program) are now also eligible to receive travel funding. 

Click here for more information.