16TH ANNUAL LAWRENCE J. SCHOENBERG SYMPOSIUM ON MANUSCRIPT STUDIES IN THE DIGITAL AGE: THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK, 16-18 Nov. 2023, In-Person & Online

16th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age

The Image of the Book: Representing the Codex from Antiquity to the Present

16-18 November 2023

Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, the Free Library of Philadelphia
Parkway Central Library, and Online

Free to the Public

To Register: https://libcal.library.upenn.edu/calendar/kislak/image-of-the-book

A great deal of recent research has focused on the objecthood of the pre-modern book and its associated materiality. But only sporadic attempts have been made to understand the role of visual representations of the book in conveying ideas about knowledge. How can our understanding be transformed when the dictum that “a picture is worth a thousand words” is put into practice, when the how of depiction is accorded as much importance as the what of textual content? This symposium will examine the means by which the book, and in particular the manuscript, is described across a wide variety of media, from painting and sculpture to digital media and film. Topics to be addressed include the book as a symbol of authority, wisdom, or piety; the visual archeology of otherwise vanished bookbinding styles, reading practices, and study spaces; and the re-imagining of the physicality of the codex through digital means. The event will also mark the public launch at Penn Libraries of the Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art (BASIRA) project, an innovative, public-access web database of thousands of depictions of books in artwork produced between about 1300 and 1600 CE. The database, like the symposium itself, aims to engage historians of religion, literacy, art, music, language, and private life, as well as book artists, conservators, and interested members of the public. The symposium is organized in partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia (view on map).

The program will begin Thursday evening, November 16, 5:00 pm, at the Free Library of Philadelphia in the Rare Book Department, with a reception and keynote address by Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture, Harvard University. The symposium will continue November 17-18 at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts (view on map).

The symposium will be held in person with an option to join virtually. All are welcome to attend. Use the link above to register.

Program and Speakers

Thursday, November 16, 2023 - Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia, Parkway Central Library, third floor, 5:00 - 7:00 pm

Keynote Address

Avatars of Authorship
Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard University

With opening remarks by Janine Pollock, Free Library of Philadelphia; Sean Quimby, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Penn Libraries; and Nicholas Herman, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries

All registrants are invited to a reception before the lecture. The lecture will begin at 6:00 pm.

Friday, November 17, 2023 - Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, sixth floor

9:30 – 10:00 am: Coffee

10:00 am: Welcome and Introduction

Nicholas Herman, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn Libraries

10:15 - 11:30 am: Meaning

Book History’s Genesis in Exodus: Revisiting the Round Topped Tablets, Sonja Drimmer, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Under Construction: Making and Metaphor in Medieval Images of Book Production, Beatrice Kitzinger, Princeton University

11:30 - 11:45 am: Coffee

11:45 am - 1:00 pm: Making

Representations of Wax Tablets: Codices in Greco-Roman Art and their Importance for Understanding their Making and Use, Georgios Boudalis, Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki

Visual Metaphors: Exploring Bookbinding Structures through Visual Representations, Alberto Campagnolo, University of Udine

1:00 - 2:30 pm: Afternoon Break

A selection of manuscripts real and replica items will be on view during the break.

2:30 – 4:00 pm: Format

Artisanal Books: Ceramic and Lacquer Imitations from the Qing Court, Devin Fitzgerald, Yale University

A Sampling of Blooks: A Foray into the Fascinating World of Book-form Objects, Mindell Dubansky, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This session will conclude with a showcase of book-form objects.

4:00 – 4:15 pm: Coffee

4:15 – 5:00 pm: Official Launch of BASIRA, The Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art Database

Barbara Williams Ellertson, Independent Scholar and SIMS
Nicholas Herman, SIMS

5:30 – 6:30 pm: Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 10th Anniversary Celebration Event

Join us to raise a glass or two of champagne and help us blow out the candles on a cake to celebrate ten years of manuscript studies in the digital age at Penn Libraries!

Sunday, November 18, 2023 - Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, sixth floor

9:30 am: Coffee

10:00 – 11:15 am: Identities

The Image of the Book at the Ottoman Court, Emine Fetvacı, Boston College
Imagining Religious Identity and Difference through Book Formats: Scrolls and Codices in Judaism and Christianity, Thomas Rainer, University of Zurich

11:15 – 11:30 am: Coffee

11:30 am – 12:45 pm: Avatars

Scrolling through Scrolls and Books in Books of Hours, Dominique Stutzmann, Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes

Virtual Manuscripts in Virtual Spaces, Sabina Zonno, University of Southern California

12:45 – 2:15 pm: Afternoon Break

Demonstration: Experience Manuscripts in VR! 

2:15 – 3:30 pm: Icons

The Medieval Book as Gateway: Contemplation, Meditation, and Image Making in the Lives of the Desert Fathers, Denva Gallant, Rice University

Iconic Books in Renaissance Art, James Watts, Syracuse University

3:30 – 3:45 pm: Coffee

3:45 – 5:00: Transformations

Manuscript Images of the Destruction and Salvage of Books, Lucy Freeman Sandler, New York University

Pop Bibliography: Finding Book History in Popular Media, Allie Alvis, Winterthur Library

5:00 – 6:00 pm: Closing Reception

For More Information and Abstracts of the Presentations: https://www.library.upenn.edu/events/lawrence-j-schoenberg/image-book-representing-codex

Lecture Series: Online Mmmonk School Autumn 2023, Mmmonk and Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (UGent), 17 and 24 November and 1 December 2023 (4-6pm CET/10am-12pm ET)

Lecture SEries

Online Mmmonk School, Autumn 2023

Mmmonk and Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (UGent)

17 and 24 November and 1 December 2023 (4:00-6:00pm CET / 10:00am-12:00pm ET)

Mmmonk and Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (UGent) will host the second edition of Mmmonk school in the autumn of 2023. Mmmonk School offers lessons for advanced beginners about the medieval book. It is an interdisciplinary practice-focused programme about medieval Flemish manuscripts. Six experts introduce the main concepts, skills and methods of their given field of expertise. The lessons are online, free and open for everyone.

Join us on three consecutive Fridays (4-6pm CET) in November and December!

Programme

17 November (4-6pm CET)

• Elaine Treharne (Stanford University): The human experience as an integral part of the history and identity of a book

• Ann Kelders (KBR Royal Library Belgium): An Introduction to Polyphony Manuscripts in Medieval Flanders and Brabant

24 November (4-6pm CET)

• Élodie Lévêque (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): An Introduction to Biocodicology – The material studies of medieval manuscripts

• Thomas Falmagne (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main): An Introduction to Medieval Cistercian Reading Culture

1 December (4-6pm CET)

• Lisa Demets (Ghent University): An Introduction to Multilingual Manuscripts in Medieval Flanders

• Jeroen Deploige and Wim Verbaal (Ghent University): ‘Spotlight on Mmmonk Research’: Medieval Reading Strategies – The Liber Floridus as a circular enclosure of creation, history and incarnation

To Register: https://brugge.bibliotheek.be/formulier/mmmonk-school-2023

For More Information: https://www.mmmonk.be/en/news/mmmonk-school-2023-programme-and-registration

Call for Proposals: ‘Environmental Narratives and the Eremitic Turn’, Different Visions Journal, Due By 30 November 2023

Call for proposals

‘Environmental Narratives and the Eremitic Turn’

Different Visions Journal

dUE By 30 November 2023

Different Visions invites proposals for contributions to a special issue, “Environmental Narratives and the Eremitic Turn.” This encompasses the locus of eremitic experience, which might be from any religious tradition or geographical location, whether wilderness, mountain, or desert, broadly conceived. It also encompasses the bodies – individual and communal – who chose to inhabit that landscape (as a real or imagined place), and their lived experience. This special issue seeks to explore the diverse ways in which eremitic bodies, ascetic practice, and the landscape of the wilderness, were represented and imagined in visual culture.

We welcome submissions that:

• consider the resonance and meaning of the ascetic tradition across time and space

• investigate the ascetic tradition and its entanglement with notions of the landscape as wilderness and holy mountain

• adopt an environmental or ecocritical approach to the eremitic experience

• explore the tensions between, for example, wilderness and cultivation, inhospitable and fertile landscapes, ascetic practice and the eremitic impulse

• consider the re-imagining or invocation of the historical desert in monastic, mendicant or other contexts

• explore the continuing resonance of the eremitic, in symbolic or ecologic terms, in our contemporary world

• approach the themes above from a global perspective

This special issue engages with urgent contemporary concerns about the impact of human activity on the earth that sustains us. It resonates with recent scholarly interest in the relationship between humanity and nature in the pre- and early modern period, seeking a broad, inclusive, and cross-disciplinary reflection on the visual representation of this interdependence.

Please submit a proposal of no more than 300 words to differentvisionsjournal@gmail.com by Nov 30th. First drafts of accepted essays of no more than 12,000 words will be due August 1, 2024.

For questions please reach out to differentvisionsjournal@gmail.com.

For more information, https://differentvisions.org/calls-for-papers/.

Call for Applications: for Fully-Funded PhD in Art History Project, Medieval Painting and the End of Life: From the Monumental to the Personal, NU London, Due By 31 October 2023

Call for Applications

for Fully-Funded PhD in Art History Project (UK or International Students)

Medieval Painting and the End of Life: From the Monumental to the Personal

Northeastern University London (NU London)

To Start 29 January 2024

Due By 31 October 2023

Supervisors (*lead): Dr Niamh Bhalla* (Northeastern University London) and Dr Emily Guerry (University of Kent)

Northeastern University London

As part of a major investment, Northeastern University London (NU London) has multiple, fully-funded PhD studentships available to accelerate its interdisciplinary research in the humanities, social sciences, and computing, maths, engineering and natural sciences. Each scholarship is fully-funded for three and a half years (UKRI rates) and includes full course fees, an annual stipend (including an additional London allowance) and associated costs, such as training.

NU London is both a UK university governed by UK higher education regulations, and the European campus of Northeastern University – a large, top-tier research intensive, Boston-based institution. Founded in 1898, Northeastern University is known for its high-impact research, aimed at solving problems across the globe. Interdisciplinarity, experiential learning, and connection to partners beyond academia are at the heart of the Northeastern University ethos. Northeastern received $230.7m of external research funding in 2022, and is the recognized leader in experience-driven lifelong learning. It has campuses across the United States and Canada (in Boston; Charlotte, North Carolina; Portland, Maine; Oakland, California; San Francisco; Seattle; Silicon Valley; Arlington, Virginia; the Massachusetts communities of Burlington and Nahant; Toronto and Vancouver). Whilst the PhD will be a UK qualification, students will have the opportunity to engage with and visit the Northeastern University network overseas as part of their London-based doctoral studies, providing a truly unique and highly sought-after dimension to their research training.

The Project

This research will contribute methodologically to current debates across the humanities concerning the importance of visual and material objects within human experience. The student recruited to the research project will be required to work on medieval visual culture pertaining to the end of life, to demonstrate how imagery held agency in medieval people’s navigation of formative moments in the human lifecycle.

The specific regions and materials of focus will be shaped by the candidate.

Areas identified as being of particular interest by the supervisors are:

• The monumental: Medieval wall paintings concerning death and judgement in Europe – an area of great interest that is currently underdeveloped in scholarship. A comparative approach concerning wall paintings of judgement in eastern and western Europe from the tenth to the fourteenth century may be beneficial to exploring the movement of people and the exchange of ideas in the Middle Ages, specifically shared understandings and uses of images that were implicated in the end-of-life process across various regions.

• The personal: Images pertaining to death and the afterlife in manuscripts and on other portable objects where the encounter with the imagery was more personal and the theological treatment of death sometimes different to that of public images. Again, a culturally comparative approach between East and West would be encouraged in this regard. Preference should be given to objects that facilitate access to the experiences of persons often omitted from mainstream historical record.

The research will involve the usual methodological apparatus pertaining to art history, including direct empirical engagement with primary visual and material sources such as paintings and/or illuminated manuscripts, the interrogation of relevant primary written sources pertaining to the topic, regions and artefacts under study, and the application of the critical theoretical apparatus that informs the humanities more generally. This research will lend itself naturally to an interdisciplinary approach touching on gender studies, anthropology, philosophy and theology.

The successful candidates will:

• Have a proven, strong educational background in art history or a related subject (see eligibility criteria)

• Be excited and inspired by the proposed project area

• Be a self-starter

• Have great communication skills

• Have an inquiring mind and be willing to challenge themselves

The successful candidates will benefit from a brand new campus on the banks of the River Thames next to Tower Bridge. This is an interdisciplinary, vibrant research environment with international collaboration and networking opportunities and dedicated research space. It will form the hub of a highly experienced, multi-institution supervisory team from NU London, Northeastern University and the University of Kent. In addition, successful candidates will benefit from the unique connection to the wider Northeastern University network in North America, providing a range of additional research opportunities and learning resources.

Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed in November. Candidates are welcome to contact the NU London supervisor with informal enquiries before the application deadline: niamh.bhalla@nulondon.ac.uk

Eligibility:

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant subject - 2:1 or 1st (essential)

• Master’s degree in a relevant subject (optional)

English Language requirements:

If applicable – IELTS 7 overall (with a score of at least 6.5 in each individual component) or equivalent.

Nationality:

Applications are open to UK and international students. Please indicate if you are likely to require a visa on your application. We are unable to support visa costs.

Funding:

This scholarship covers the full cost of tuition fees, an annual stipend and an additional London allowance (set at UKRI rates) for 3.5 years. For the 2023/2024 academic year the annual stipend is £20,622. Annual increments will be in line with UKRI rates.

International travel:

Students will have the opportunity to optionally travel to Northeastern University in North America to further their research training and experience.

How to Apply:

Please send a CV and a Covering Letter stating how you meet the requirements and why you are interested in the proposed research project via the 'Apply' button above on the website below. Please reference your application “PHDM1023”

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DDF025/phd-scholarship-fully-funded-in-art-history-medieval-painting-and-the-end-of-life-from-the-monumental-to-the-personal

Online Lecture: Zero Hour for Illuminated Manuscripts? The Acquisition and Alienation of Medieval Art in Post-World-War II Nuremberg, William Diebold, 14 Nov. 2023 (5:30-7:00 PM GMT), Zoom

institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London
London Society for Medieval Studies

Zero Hour for Illuminated Manuscripts? The Acquisition and Alienation of Medieval Art in Post-World-War II Nuremberg

William Diebold (Reed College)

14 November 2023, 5:30-7:00PM GMT

Online - Zoom

This event is free, but registration in advance is required.

This paper examines two decisions regarding medieval illuminated manuscripts made during the 1950s by the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg. The first was to acquire a spectacular Ottonian-era gospel manuscript, a book used in the Christian liturgy.  The other was to sell two late medieval haggadahs (the book used by Jews to celebrate Passover) that had been in the collection of the Nuremberg museum for a century.

This paper documents these stories, one of acquisition and the other of alienation, and locates them in their post-World-War-II German historical context.  Because the Nazis had so heavily capitalized on the Middle Ages, which they saw as the “First Empire” that was reincarnated in their Third Reich, the status of medieval art was fraught in Germany after 1945.  And nowhere was this more true than in Nuremberg, the city that had been the site both of the Nazi Party’s annual rallies and of the postwar trials of the leading Nazis. To try to deal with this impossibly difficult legacy, many Germans viewed the end of the Second World War as the “Zero Hour,” a moment when their country began entirely anew.  This paper argues, however, that the acquisition of the early medieval gospel book and the alienation of the two haggadah manuscripts show that, assertions of a Zero Hour to the contrary, the legacy of the Nazi era was not an easy one to leave behind. Instead, the acquisition and deaccession policy of the Nuremberg museum instead shows more continuities with Nazi practices than breaks from it.

For more information: https://www.history.ac.uk/events/zero-hour-illuminated-manuscripts-acquisition-and-alienation-medieval-art-post-world-war-ii

British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Online Conference, 29 November 2023 12:30PM-17:35PM GMT, Zoom

British Archaeological Association

PostGraduate Online Conference

29 November 2023, 12:30-17:35pm GMT/ 7:30AM-12:35PM ET

On Zoom

We are excited to present a diverse conference which includes postgraduates and early career researchers in the fields of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology. The British Archaeological Association postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present their research and exchange ideas.

Use this link to register for the conference.

Conference Programme

Wednesday 29th November 2022

12:30 pm (GMT) Welcome

Panel 1: Approaches to Overlooked Elements in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Architecture

12.40 – 14.30 pm (GMT)

• Bryony Wilde (University of Warwick, UK), ‘Decoding Medieval Roof Bosses’

• Mats Dijkdrent (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium), ‘Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics as a lieu for Architectural Thinking’ 

• Nils Hausmann (University of Cologne, Germany), ‘Naming and Meaning – On the Survival and Reuse of Early and High Medieval Book Cases’

• Sophia Feist (University of Cambridge, UK), ‘Extravagant Violations and Visual Tropes: Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Semiotic use of Dress in the Budapest Martyrdom of Saint Catherine’

14.30 – 14.45 pm (GMT) – Break

Panel 2: Intersections of Materiality and Identity: Unpacking the Medieval Landscape and Space

14.45 – 16.05 pm (GMT)

• Theodore Muscillo (Independent Researcher), ‘Jugs, mugs and aquamaniles: pottery and networks on the east coast of England, 1250-1500’

• Sercan Batum (Middle East Technical University, Turkey), ‘Christianization of Urban Topography in Late Antique Histria’

• Eleanor Townsend (University of Oxford, UK), ‘‘All the werkemanship and masonry crafte of a frounte Innying to the Awter of our lady’: the problem of the Jesse reredos in St Cuthbert’s, Wells’

16.05 pm – 16.15 pm (GMT) – Break

Panel 3: Stones and Stories: Interrogating the Art and Gender Dynamics in Religious Commemoration Across Medieval Europe

16.15 pm – 17.25 pm (GMT)

• Nicola Lowe (Independent Researcher), ‘Tears at the Graveside’

• Philip Muijtjens (University of Cambridge, UK), ‘Tombs as Sensory Experiences in Fifteenth-Century Italy’

• Arica Roberts (University of Reading, UK), ‘Gender in Early Medieval Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales c. 410-1150 CE’

5:35 pm (GMT) Closing remarks

Call for Papers: The Fifth Quadrennial Symposium on Crusade Studies, Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus (3-5 October 2024), Due By 31 March 2024

Call for Papers

The Fifth Quadrennial Symposium on Crusade Studies

October 3-5, 2024, Madrid, Spain
Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus

Due By 31 March 2024

Plenary Speakers
Thomas Asbridge
Queen Mary University of London

Helen Nicholson
Cardiff University

The Symposium on Crusade Studies is a quadrennial conference sponsored by the Crusades Studies Forum of Saint Louis University. The Symposium invites proposals for scholarly papers, complete sessions, and roundtables on all topics related to the crusading movement. Papers are normally twenty minutes each and sessions are scheduled for ninety minutes.

Abstracts of 250 words and session proposals should be submitted online at http://www.crusadestudies.org/symposium-on-crusade-studies.html. The deadline for all submissions is March 31, 2024. Late submissions will be considered if space is available. Decisions will be made by the end of April and the program will be published in June.

For a PDF of the Call for Papers, click here.

Job Posting! Assistant Professor of Art/Architecture of the Middle East, North Africa, and Iberia, 600-1500 CE, Northwestern University Due By 15 November 2023

Job Opening

Assistant Professor of Art/Architecture of the Middle East, North Africa, and Iberia, 600-1500 CE

Northwestern University

Due by 15 November 2023

The Department of Art History at Northwestern University invites applications for a tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level in the art or architecture of the Middle East, North Africa, and Iberia, from 600–1500 CE. The geographical and temporal fields of specialization within these parameters are open. We particularly welcome scholars whose work engages with transregional and intercultural contexts within and beyond the Islamic world; visual and material culture; architecture, urbanism, and the environment; archaeology, heritage, and preservation; or technical art history. This position is meant to complement areas of departmental strength in ancient, early modern, and modern art of the Middle East and North Africa; the art of Africa and the African Diaspora; Indo-Islamic and Mughal South Asia; and medieval and early modern Europe. The ideal candidate would also complement faculty in other Northwestern departments, including History and Religious Studies, and programs such as Middle East and North African Studies, African Studies, Medieval Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts. Our department is firmly committed to racial justice and equity, here and across the world, and we welcome candidates whose interests and experiences align with these values.

The successful candidate will teach four courses annually over the course of three academic quarters, at both undergraduate and graduate levels; share in departmental service; and contribute to the vibrant intellectual community within and beyond the department. Applicants must have earned a Ph.D. in art history or an adjacent field by the time of appointment, or shortly thereafter. This is a full-time position starting September 1, 2024.

To apply, please submit 1) a letter of application explaining your research accomplishments and goals, and your teaching ideals, commitments, and strengths; 2) a statement describing how your research and pedagogy contribute to Northwestern’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; 3) a current CV; 4) one sample course syllabus from within your field; 5) the names of three references, with contact information. Letters of recommendation will not be requested until after the application deadline. Candidates who advance in the search will be asked to submit a writing sample of no more than 10,000 words. Application materials must be submitted electronically at https://facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu/apply/MTkzNw== by November 15, 2023.

Address any questions about this position to Mel Keiser mel.keiser@northwestern.edu.

NEW VIDEO: ICMA VIEWPOINTS BOOK LAUNCH, Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? Toward a Critical Historiography, edited by Benjamin Anderson and Mirela Ivanova

New Video

ICMA Viewpoints Book Launch

Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? Toward a Critical Historiography, edited by Benjamin Anderson and Mirela Ivanova

Online, 15 September 2023, 12:00-1:00 pm ET

with Benjamin Anderson, Mirela Ivanova, Roland Betancourt, Eleanor Goodman, Nicholas S. M. Matheou, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, and Alexandra Vukovich 

Is Byzantine Studies a colonialist discipline? Rather than provide a definitive answer to this question, this book defines the parameters of the debate and proposes ways of thinking about what it would mean to engage seriously with the field’s political and intellectual genealogies, hierarchies, and forms of exclusion. In this volume, scholars of art, history, and literature address the entanglements, past and present, among the academic discipline of Byzantine Studies and the practice and legacies of European colonialism. Starting with the premise that Byzantium and the field of Byzantine studies are simultaneously colonial and colonized, the chapters address topics ranging from the material basis of philological scholarship and its uses in modern politics to the colonial plunder of art and its consequences for curatorial practice in the present. The book concludes with a bibliography that serves as a foundation for a coherent and systematic critical historiography. Bringing together insights from scholars working in different disciplines, regions, and institutions, Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? urges practitioners to reckon with the discipline’s colonialist, imperialist, and white supremacist history. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Andrea Myers Achi, Nathanael Aschenbrenner, Bahattin Bayram, Averil Cameron, Stephanie R. Caruso, Şebnem Dönbekci, Hugh G. Jeffery, Anthony Kaldellis, Matthew Kinloch, Nicholas S. M. Matheou, Maria Mavroudi, Zeynep Olgun, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Jake Ransohoff, Alexandra Vukovich, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, and Arielle Winnik. ICMA Books | Viewpoints aims to engage with and instigate new conversations, debates, and perspectives not only about medieval art and visual-material culture, but also in relation to the critical practices employed by medieval art historians. Books will typically be data-rich, issue-driven, and even polemical. The range of potential subjects is broad and varied, and each title will tackle a significant and timely problem in the field of medieval art and visual-material culture. The Viewpoints series is interdisciplinary and actively involved in providing a forum for current critical developments in art historical methodology, the structure of scholarly writing, and/or the use of evidence. Eleanor Goodman is the Executive Editor at Penn State University Press, and Roland Betancourt is the Series Editor.

The video is available to watch on the Special Online Lectures page.

The Courtauld 2023-2024 Medieval Lecture and Seminar Series, Vernon Square Campus, 25 October 2023 to 15 May 2024

The Courtauld

2023-2024 Medieval Lecture and Seminar Series

Vernon Square Campus, The Courtauld

The Medieval and Renaissance cluster brings together students and researchers interested in art and architecture made between c. 300 and 1500. Although our activities primarily focus on art from Europe (including Byzantium) and the Mediterranean basin, we are committed to expanding the geographic horizons of scholarship in our period, with current projects on art in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caucasus, as well as the interaction between religions and cultures across the medieval world. We seek to share interests and stimulate connections — whether expected or unexpected, whether relating to materials or methods. Our members include faculty, MA students and doctoral students, interested researchers from other UK and overseas institutions, including universities, museums, libraries and heritage sector.

The Medieval Lecture and Seminar series is kindly supported by Sam Fogg. 

25 October 2023: Tom Nickson (The Courtauld): Towers, Travel, and Architectural Habits

15 November 2023: Niamh Bhalla (Northeastern University): Birth, Death and Protective Imagery in a Rock-hewn Church from Tenth-Century Cappadocia

6 December 2023: Assaf Pinkus (Tel Aviv University): Experiencing the Gigantic in Late Medieval Art: Schloss Runkelstein

17 January 2024: Katrin Kogman-Appel (Muenster University): Entanglement in Shared Cultural Spaces: Hebrew Book Art in Iberia, c. 1300

7 February 2024: ICMA lecture: Nina Rowe (Fordham): Dancing in the Streets (and the Courts and the Choirs) of Fifteenth-Century Austria

6 March 2024: Elena Paulino Montero (UNED, Madrid): Architecture in Fourteenth-Century Castile (TBC)

1 May 2024: Margaret Crosland (Washington University & St Louis Art Museum): (TBC)

15 May 2024: Paul Crossley Memorial Lecture: Merlijn Hurx (KU Leuven): Keldermans on Horseback. Five Star Architects in the Medieval Low Countries

Online EAST OF BYZANTIUM Lecture: Daughter, Healer, Soldier, Spy: Finding Communities in the Medieval Middle Eastern Countryside, Reyhan Durmaz, 17 Oct. 2023 12:00 PM EDT, Zoom

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University

Daughter, Healer, Soldier, Spy: Finding Communities in the Medieval Middle Eastern Countryside

Reyhan Durmaz, University of Pennsylvania

Tuesday, October 17, 2023 | 12:00 PM EDT | 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 2023–2024 East of Byzantium lecture series.

The medieval Middle Eastern countryside was a dynamic space populated by groups uniting around powerful patrons, distinct religious practices, and a variety of languages. These groups, contrary to our expectations of a “community”, were often destabilized, negotiated, dismantled, and reconfigured. As a way to capture this dynamism, in light of literature and epigraphy, this talk explores a group of demographic categories that are often sidelined in our conventional taxonomies of the medieval Middle Eastern society – such as rulers and subjects, clergy and lay people, elite and non-elite.

Reyhan Durmaz is an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the history of religion, especially Christianity, in the late antique and medieval Middle East.

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.

An East of Byzantium lecture. EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

ONLINE EVENT! MEDIEVAL MATTERS: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR ACCESS AND DISCOVERABILITY, 20 OCTOBER 2023, REGISTER TODAY!

Medieval Matters: Digital Technologies for Access and Discoverability

Friday 20 October 2023
12pm ET
Online via Zoom

Register HERE

In conjunction with the exhibition Illuminating the Medieval and the Modern through Cultural Heritage Imaging: A Brief History of Innovation and Collaboration at Rochester Institute of Technology, this event offers examples and use cases of low barrier-to-entry technology to facilitate access and discoverability for research, exhibition development, and visitor engagement. Join facilitator Tory Schendel-Vyvoda, Visiting Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at Harlaxton College, and Juilee Decker, Professor of Museum Studies, as they discuss innovative practices developed at RIT, working in collaboration with humanities scholars and museum practitioners, that can foster new knowledge about cultural heritage collections, including medieval manuscripts.

Particular attention will be drawn to the involvement of undergraduate students in the museum studies program at RIT who have been working on the development of a low-cost, multispectral imaging system. After a brief demo of the system, attendees will learn how they can access this technology for use on their own collections. In the second part of the session, attention will turn to the use of technology for digital access such as 3D capture to develop interactive, digital exhibitions using freely-available tools. Attention will turn, in the final third of the session, to the audience for a conversation and brainstorming about what digital methods ICMA members are using to advance access to collections and to provide opportunities for greater discoverability. These use cases will illuminate how digital technologies can enhance our understanding of cultural heritage collections and help make the case that medieval matters.

Registration Required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/medieval-matters-digital-technologies-for-access-and-discoverability-tickets-717253924797

Juilee Decker, Ph.D. is professor of history at Rochester Institute of Technology where she directs the Museum Studies/Public History program. She earned her Ph.D. from the joint program in art history and museum studies at Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Museum of Art. She serves as editor of the peer-reviewed journal, Collections (SAGE).

Tory Schendel-Vyvoda is a Visiting Professor of Art and History and Museum Studies at Harlaxton College as well as the curator of the Evansville African American Museum and director of the Lamasco Microgallery. She is pursuing her PhD at the Institute of Doctoral Studies in Visual Art.
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Sponsored by the ICMA, the Museum Studies Program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology 

More information about the exhibition, on view in Rochester, NY until 28 October 2023: https://www.rit.edu/universitygallery/exhibitions/current-exhibitions

Illuminating the Medieval and the Modern through Cultural Heritage Imaging: A Brief History of Innovation and Collaboration is the recipient of the 2022 ICMA-Kress Exhibition Development Grant. 

Early European Puppetry Studies Conference, Yale University, 13-14 October 2023

Early European Puppetry Studies Conference

13-14 October 2023

Yale University, New Haven, CT

Join us at Yale University on October 13-14 for an interdisciplinary conference to launch the field of Early European Puppetry Studies. Scholars from across North America and Europe will explore a wide range of performing objects to locate fruitful avenues for using puppetry as a framework to analyze art, literature, culture, and performance traditions in late medieval and early modern Europe. Sessions include puppetry's intersection with children, dolls, transgression, death and violence, bodies and materiality, articulated Christ sculptures, records and reconstructions, and cover various regions including England, Spain, the Mediterranean, and more.

For more information and the full schedule, see: earlyeuropeanpuppetrystudies.com/conference

For a copy of the event flyer, click here.

Call For Papers: The Medieval in Museums, IMC Leeds 2024 Session, Due 18 September 2023

Call for Papers for IMC Leeds 2024 Session

The Medieval In Museums

Due 18 September 2023

Proposals are invited for 15-minute papers examining presentations of the medieval in museum and heritage contexts. We invite interrogation of the social, political, historical, and cultural effects of museum and heritage work, including: 

• practices of acquisition, curation, display, and interpretation

• archives, record-keeping, and databases

• education and community projects

• digital presences

• outreach or knowledge exchange activities run by field archaeologists or academics

• performances or reenactments

• artworks or events commissioned as part of museum or heritage programming

Catherine Karkov (2020), Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand (2021), and Karen Jolly (2022) have argued that museums reflect and construct national and local identities, which, intentionally or unintentionally, may prop up myths of ethnogenesis or ethnonationalism. Joshua Davies (2018), Clare Lees and Gillian Overing (2019), and Beth Whalley (2023) have directed attention to the workings of creative medieval heritage broadly conceived. We invite a similarly expansive approach to the medieval and to museums.

We encourage reflection on the stakes of representing the medieval at a time of increased public awareness of how museums and heritage are entangled with histories of European imperialism, calls for decolonisation, and matters of social justice. 

We also encourage attention to written medieval sources (histories, poems, or other texts): how manuscripts are displayed or interpreted in conjunction with other visual or material culture, places, or landscapes.

To apply: please send an abstract of no more than 150 words explaining your approach to the medieval and museums and/or heritage to Fran Allfrey and Maia Blumberg, fran.allfrey@york.ac.uk and m.blumberg@qmul.ac.uk .

Deadline: 18 September 2023. The session organisers will submit the complete session by 29 September 2023. 

Please include the following: 

• details of your academic affiliation (if appropriate), email, and postal address. 

• a short abstract for the paper of no more than 150 words, in the language in which you want to present your paper. 

• Select relevant index terms for your paper (see https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-index-terms/). 

• Indicate any special equipment you will need (each IMC session room is equipped with data projector and PC as standard – find out more about session equipment and setup at the IMC here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/proposals/equipment-and-setup/). 

• Indicate any accessibility needs you have, such as wheelchair access, assistive listening devices, or information in alternative formats such as Braille or large print.

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture: A Song of Theology and Emotion: Romanos the Melodist’s Hymn on Pentecost, Andrew Mellas, 6 October 2023 12:00-1:30 PM EDT, Zoom

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture

A Song of Theology and Emotion: Romanos the Melodist’s Hymn on Pentecost

Andrew Mellas, University of Sydney

6 October 2023, 12:00-1:30 PM EDT, Zoom

Romanos the Melodist and the Theotokos, Menologion of Basil II. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. gr. 1613

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the second lecture in our 2023–2024 lecture series: A Song of Theology and Emotion: Romanos the Melodist’s Hymn on Pentecost, with Andrew Mellas, St Andrew's Theological College and University of Sydney, Friday, October 6, 2023, at 12:00 PM EDT on Zoom.

While Romanos the Melodist composed hymns rather than theological treatises, the theology of his poetry echoed the festal orations of the fourth-century Cappadocian, Gregory the Theologian. Articulating the mystery of the Trinity through the performance of his hymn for the feast of Pentecost, Romanos wove together sacred song and theology, retelling the scriptural stories that defined the Byzantines, and shaping an emotional and liturgical community in Constantinople. Poetry and music showed forth the hidden fears and desires of scriptural characters amidst the overarching narrative of Pentecost, inviting the faithful to become part of the biblical narrative unfolding before them and experience the mystery of the Trinity. This paper will explore how Romanos the Melodist reimagined the events narrated in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, amplifying the biblical story, echoing the theology of Gregory’s oration on Pentecost and providing an affective script for his audience.

Andrew Mellas is a Senior Lecturer at St Andrew's Theological College and an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney's Medieval and Early Modern Centre.

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/a-song-of-theology-and-emotion

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture: Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society, Rebecca Darley, 28 September 2023 12:00-1:30PM EDT, Zoom

Mary Jaharis Center for ByZantine ARt and Culture

Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society

Rebecca Darley, University of Leeds

Thursday, 28 September 2023, 12:00 PM EDT Zoom

Obverse and reverse of an imitation Byzantine coin, c. 7th century, made in India, double-pierced and with a quarter removed, Weepangandla hoard. State Archaeological Museum, Hyderabad (Telangana)

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the first lecture in our 2023–2024 lecture series: Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society, with Rebecca Darley, University of Leeds, Thursday, September 28, 2023, at 12:00 PM EDT on Zoom.

Much of the current move towards global history is focussed on connections. Viewed from this perspective, there is no very good reason for seeing Byzantium in the first millennium CE as an Indian Ocean society. Its direct contact with the Indian Ocean was attenuated in comparison with earlier Roman contact and increasingly mediated by others, most notably from the seventh century onwards, citizens of the Umayyad then Abbasid Caliphates. There are other ways to think about both Byzantium and global history, though. This paper examines Byzantium not as a player in an Indian Ocean defined by mercantile networks, but as one of many societies around the Indian Ocean littoral, shaped by common forces. Between the fourth and the ninth centuries, understanding Byzantium as an Indian Ocean society, in direct comparison with complex states from the Horn of Africa to peninsular South Asia provides a new insight into the development of governmental structures, state religion and economic practices that all affected the lives of millions of people in profound and sometimes unpredictable ways.

Rebecca Darley is a scholar of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Indian Ocean in the first millennium. She is currently employed as Associate Professor of Global History, 500-1500 CE at the University of Leeds.

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/byzantium-as-an-indian-ocean-society

ICMA VIEWPOINTS OFFICIAL BOOK LAUNCH - IS BYZANTINE STUDIES A COLONIALIST DISCIPLINE? 15 SEPTEMBER 2023 12PM ET - REGISTER NOW!

ICMA VIEWPOINTS BOOK LAUNCH

IS BYZANTINE STUDIES A COLONIALIST DISCIPLINE? TOWARD A CRITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

EDITED BY BENJAMIN ANDERSON AND MIRELA IVANOVA

FRIDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2023
12PM ET, ONLINE

REGISTER HERE

We are delighted to invite you to a virtual event celebrating the publication of the second volume of the ICMA Viewpoints book series, sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art and Penn State University Press! Please join us!

WITH
BENJAMIN ANDERSON • MIRELA IVANOVA • ROLAND BETANCOURT • ELEANOR GOODMAN • NICHOLAS S. M. MATHEOU • ELIZABETH DOSPĚL WILLIAMS • ALEXANDRA VUKOVICH  

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Is Byzantine Studies a colonialist discipline? Rather than provide a definitive answer to this question, this book defines the parameters of the debate and proposes ways of thinking about what it would mean to engage seriously with the field’s political and intellectual genealogies, hierarchies, and forms of exclusion.

In this volume, scholars of art, history, and literature address the entanglements, past and present, among the academic discipline of Byzantine Studies and the practice and legacies of European colonialism. Starting with the premise that Byzantium and the field of Byzantine studies are simultaneously colonial and colonized, the chapters address topics ranging from the material basis of philological scholarship and its uses in modern politics to the colonial plunder of art and its consequences for curatorial practice in the present. The book concludes with a bibliography that serves as a foundation for a coherent and systematic critical historiography. Bringing together insights from scholars working in different disciplines, regions, and institutions, Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? urges practitioners to reckon with the discipline’s colonialist, imperialist, and white supremacist history.

In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Andrea Myers Achi, Nathanael Aschenbrenner, Bahattin Bayram, Averil Cameron, Stephanie R. Caruso, Şebnem Dönbekci, Hugh G. Jeffery, Anthony Kaldellis, Matthew Kinloch, Nicholas S. M. Matheou, Maria Mavroudi, Zeynep Olgun, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Jake Ransohoff, Alexandra Vukovich, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, and Arielle Winnik.

Call for Applications: Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Various Fellowships Due Either 21 September 2023, 15 October 2023, or 15 November 2023

Call for Applications

Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

Various Fellowships Due Either 21 September 2023, 15 October 2023, or 15 November 2023

The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art is a research institute that fosters the study of the production, use, and cultural meaning of art, artifacts, architecture, and urbanism, from prehistoric times to the present. The resident community of scholars includes the Kress-Beinecke Professor, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor, the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, and the A.W. Mellon Lecturer in the Fine Arts as well as approximately 18 fellows at any one time, including pre- and postdoctoral fellows, senior and visiting senior fellows, and research associates.

The Center is now welcoming applications for the following fellowships:

Visiting Senior Fellowships
Award period: One two-month period between March 1 and August 15, 2024
Applications due September 21, 2023

Senior Fellowships
Award period: Academic year 2024–2025, or a single semester therein
Applications due October 15, 2023

A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship
Award period: September 2024–August 2026
Applications due October 15, 2023

Center/YCBA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Award period: September 2024–August 2026
Applications due October 15, 2023

Predoctoral Dissertation Fellowships
Award period: One to three years beginning September 2024
Applications due November 15, 2023

Fellows have access to the notable resources represented by the art collections, the library, and the image collections of the National Gallery of Art, as well as other specialized research libraries and collections in the Washington, DC, area.

For more information, please visit the Center’s website or email us at thecenter@nga.gov.

Call for Papers: Queer(ing) Medieval Art, 2 Sessions at ICMS Kalamazoo 2024, Due By 15 September 2023

Call for Papers

Queer(ing) Medieval Art

2 Sessions at ICMS Kalamazoo 2024

Due by 15 September 2023

This session seeks papers that bring queer methodologies to the study of medieval visual culture. Case studies from across the medieval globe are welcome as are a broad range of approaches. Among the questions for consideration are the following: Under what circumstances does queerness become apprehensible within the visual field? What contextual factors allow it to be sensed, consciously or unconsciously? And once queerness is found to reside within the medieval artwork, does it then have some kind of agency? Instead of addressing accusations of anachronism, the papers in this session look to the past for new directions in queer scholarship. These contributions not only disrupt prevailing assumptions about the Middle Ages, but also highlight what medieval visual and material culture can teach us about more fluid or expansive perspectives on gender, sexuality, masculinity, and femininity.

Proposals for papers are due by September 15, 2023 and must be submitted through the Kalamazoo website. Go to https://icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi and scroll to the bottom of the page to choose “Sponsored and Special Sessions of Papers.”

Questions can be directed to Gerry Guest (geraldbguest@gmail.com). General information about the Kalamazoo conference can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress.

Job Posting! Associate/Full Professor, Medieval Studies, Yale University, Due 10 October 2023

Call for Applications

Associate/Full Professor, Medieval Studies

Yale University

Due By 10 October 2023, Due to Start 1 July 2024

Yale's Department of Italian Studies is seeking a senior colleague at the full or associate professor level with a strong research and teaching record in medieval studies, as well as administrative experience at the departmental and/or university level. The appointment will begin on July 1, 2024.

While continued focus on the inaugural figures of Italian culture such as Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Giotto, Catherine of Siena, etc. is central to the department, our curriculum is equally engaged with critical and theoretical issues that have shaped Italian culture and history broadly conceived. The successful applicant will be expected to teach courses on some of these core figures while expanding the traditional canon of medieval studies. Insofar as transnationalism has become increasingly important for Italian Studies, we encourage applications from colleagues committed to working with other programs and departments at Yale and to thinking about Italy’s role in larger, comparative frameworks relevant for the understanding of art, religion, politics, ethnicity, and society. We thus welcome scholars working in areas such as narrative and poetry, philosophical and critical theory, art history, history, gender and sexuality studies, race and migration studies, religious studies, and translation.

Candidates must have met the requirements for a Ph.D. or its international equivalent at time of hire.
Curriculum vitae and cover letter need to be submitted by October 10, 2023 to ensure consideration.

Please contact Jane Tylus, Chair of Italian Studies (jane.tylus@yale.edu) with any questions.
Application submission portal URL: http://apply.interfolio.com/129066.

Yale University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. Yale values diversity among its students, staff, and faculty and strongly welcomes applications from women, persons with disabilities, protected veterans, and underrepresented minorities.