CFP
The Global North: Medieval Scandinavia on the Borders of Europe

An ICMA-sponsored session at International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, 8-11 May 2020

The field of medieval studies recently denounced White Nationalism’s misuse and misappropriation of Scandinavian Norse mythology and the Viking era as a constructed ideal of a (white) medieval Europe. Indeed, premodern Scandinavia was a global enterprise dependent on the interactions, transactions, and mobility of many cultures and religions. This panel seeks to examine the cross-regional and -cultural connections of premodern Scandinavian art and architecture in a global context.

Not only is understanding medieval Scandinavian art important for addressing such outstanding misrepresentations today, but extant Scandinavian objects can provide valuable information about the medieval world broadly. For example, there remains a rich corpus of painted altar frontals and sculptures preserved in modern-day Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, despite the fact that such extant objects from medieval Scandinavia remain on the margins of scholarship. In this panel we aim to explore how medieval Scandinavian art and architecture contribute to our wider knowledge of the medieval world. We are especially keen on papers that promote interregional artistic relationships, as well as issues of race and identity in Scandinavia in the Middle Ages.

We conceive of Scandinavia broadly, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, as well as the Baltic and North Sea areas, and we define the Middle Ages in Scandinavia from the Viking Age through the sixteenth century. We welcome papers across geographic, temporal, and material contexts that address Scandinavian artistic and visual cultures in the Middle Ages. Materials may include, but are not limited to: architecture, sculpture, maps, manuscripts, woodcuts, and the visual arts of liturgy and pilgrimage.

Participants in ICMA-sponsored sessions must be ICMA members and may also be eligible to receive travel funds, generously provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. For more information please see: http://www.medievalart.org/kress-travel-grant.

Please send paper proposals of 300 words to the Chair of the ICMA Programs Committee, Beth Williamson (beth.williamson@bristol.ac.uk), and the co-organizers Ingrid Lunnan Nødseth (Ingrid.nodseth@ntnu.no) and Laura Tillery (laura.tillery@ntnu.no) by 3 September 2019, together with a short C.V., and a completed Participant Information Form, to be found at the following address: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions#papers.

Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract.

All abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to the Congress administration for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.