CALL FOR PAPERS
XVI JORNADAS COMPLUTENSES DE ARTE MEDIEVAL
EN FEMENINO: ART AND WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE AGES
MADRID, OCTOBER 19TH- 20TH, 2023
ABSTRACTS DUE 30 APRIL 2023
During the last decades, references to women's participation in medieval artistic processes have ceased to be the story of an absence. Similarly, studies of medieval female iconography have transcended their mere representation as wives, mothers, lovers, sinners and sin-inducers, or nuns. Throughout the Middle Ages, women projected, enjoyed and created art; there is no doubt about it. An increasing number of works focus on female patronage, sometimes shared with her husband but often practised autonomously and with incalculable value as a self-affirmation mechanism. Other proposals highlight female identities hidden among the list of male practitioners of any of the arts or give names to faces represented in sacred and profane episodes. Through the testimonies of material and visual culture linked to women, social realities different from the power relations established in those times are being outlined more straightforwardly and precisely. Even so, artistic studies still lag behind those focused on other disciplines such as history, philosophy or literature.
In its sixteenth edition, the Conference will be devoted to highlighting the role of Women in medieval artistic creation. This role will be understood in the broadest possible way: from patronage to creation and reception, as a channel for power strategies, a transmitter of science or a generator of specific iconographic types, regardless of their active or passive role in all this creative dynamic. Women and Gender will serve as the priority vectors to articulate the scientific content of Conference sessions.
We invite the academic community to submit abstracts in Spanish, English, Italian and French consisting of a 500 words summary highlighting the innovative nature of the paper together with the chosen session and a brief curriculum vitae (max. 300 words) before the 30th of April 2023 to the following address: enfemenino@ucm.es
Proposed topics:
● Women and artistic creation: artists, trades, textiles
● Depictions and portraits, identity
● Female spaces and architecture
● Art and female spirituality
● Patronage and Memory management
● Costume and textile trade
● Cross-cutting gender issues: prostitution, transsexuality, marginalisation,
otherness, old-age
● Science, techné, art and women
Confirmed keynote speakers: Verónica Abenza (UCM), Jessica Barker (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Bárbara Boloix (Universidad de Granada), Irene González (UCM), Jitske Jasperse (CCHS-CSIC), Elizabeth L’Estrange (University of Birmingham), Diana Lucía (UCM), Therese Martin (CCHS- CSIC), Ana Maria Rodrigues (Universidade de Lisboa), and Marta Poza (UCM).
The organising committee shall acknowledge receipt of submissions and select those considered most closely aligned with the meeting objectives, responding before the 25th of May. Following peer review, these will be published in a monograph.
Scientific-organising Committee: Marta Poza, Elena Paulino, Laura Rodríguez, Alexandra Uscatescu, Irene González, Diana Lucía, Diana Olivares, Verónica Abenza, Ángel Fuentes and Alba García-Monteavaro.
For more information, https://www.ucm.es/historiadelarte/en-femenino
A PDF of the Call for Papers can be read in Spanish and English.