Lecture: Byzanz an der Spree. Das Ravennatische Mosaik aus San Michele in Africisco „revisited“, Michail Chatzidakis, HU-Hauptgebäude, 4 Feb. 2026 14:15-15:45 UHR

Lecture

Byzanz an der Spree. Das Ravennatische Mosaik aus San Michele in Africisco „revisited“

Michail Chatzidakis

4 Februrary 2026

Mittwochs, 14:15-15:45 Uhr

HU-Hauptgebäude, HS 3075, Unter den Linden 6

Eine Veranstaltung des Instituts für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte

Bildnachweis: Educational specimen box, ca. 1850, (e) V&A Museum, London.

Lecture Series

The Latin word ‘objectum,’ root of the modern English object or German Objekt, means that which is thrown before, which stands in the way, which objects ; it is that on which thought stumbles but also that on which thought rests and to which it refers. In focusing on objects, understood both abstractly as ‘objects of study’ and concretely as things in the world, we point to one of the basic questions of research in the humanities : what is the relationship of the general to the singular ? How can we be true to the experience, motivations, and choices of individuals while also understanding broader currents of historical change?

A focus on individual objects in their materiality both results from and results in object-centered museum collections and exhibits. It is part and parcel of the history of art-historical method, already present in the establishment of art history as an academic discipline in the nineteenth century. Then, the object served as a necessary but problematic locus for the attempt to reconcile the criticism of style with the study of historical context. Today, art history is characterized by a great methodological plurality, which can be said to respond to the insurmountable resistance of objects to complete mental appropriations: since objects can never be fully grasped by the mind, some aspects always fall away or fade to the background, needing to be recovered by a new approach. Among these, the material turn has contributed to recentering objects and their materiality in art-historical inquiry. Within the Ringvorlesung, or lecture series, ‘One-Object Lessons,’ lecturers and researchers at the Institut für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte present case studies around individual objects — from the large-scale and monumental to the smallest and most fragile — and reflect over their methodological approaches. Each object — textile, mosaic, building, paper, painting or sculpture — enables its interlocutor (among other issues) to illuminate different aspects of a specific historical context ; each object also throws up its own methodological challenges.
The talks and dicussions will be held in German or English.

RVL_One-Object_Lessons_Programm_final

For more information, visit https://www.kunstgeschichte.hu-berlin.de/2025/09/ringvorlesung-one-object-lessons-ws-2025-26/

Exhibition: Fastnacht: Dance and Games at the Nuremberg Carnival, Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg, 11 Nov. 2025 – 15 Feb. 2026

Exhibition

Fastnacht: Dance and Games at the Nuremberg Carnival

Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg, Germany

11.11.2025 – 15.02.2026

What is known in Germany as the ‘fifth season’ has brought joy to people for centuries. Nuremberg became a carnival hotspot in the Late Middle Ages, based on customs steeped in the liturgical year.

On the occasion of the city’s 975th anniversary, the special exhibition ‘Fastnacht: Dance and Games at the Nuremberg Carnival’ presents the fascinating history of Nuremberg’s nearly 600-year-old carnival tradition.

In addition to the many popular Fastnachtsspiele (carnival plays) that are performed in taverns and homes to this day, the people of Nuremberg started celebrating the so-called Schembartlauf (‘bearded-mask’ parade) in the early 15th century. Participants dressed in colorful costumes paraded through the city center, enacting a ‘topsy-turvy world’ and handing out sweetmeats. Within a few decades, the patriciate had transformed the Schembartlauf into an extravagant procession with increasingly elaborate costumes.

The starting point of the exhibition are the precious Schembart books, which were produced in large numbers after the arrival of the Reformation. They found their way around the world and continue to provide insight into the history of the Nuremberg Fastnacht.

What does a closer look at these books reveal? It becomes clear that those involved had political motives and a hunger for power and prestige. What was the Nuremberg Fastnacht really like, beyond the crafted image conveyed in such depictions? The exhibition invites you to embark on a journey through history and explore the Nuremberg Fastnacht through interactive exhibits and a stimulating educational and events program for young and old.

To buy tickets, visit https://onlineshop.gnm.de/de/tickets/eintrittskarte.

Free admission on Wednesdays from 17.30

For more information, visit https://www.gnm.de/your-museum-in-nuremberg/dont-miss/special-exhibitions/carnival.

Call for Papers: Religious Identities and Funerary Landscapes in Late Antiquity, EABS Annual Conference, Leuven, Belgium (20-23 July 2026), Due by 31 Jan. 2026

Call for Papers

EABS Annual Conference 2026

Religious Identities and Funerary Landscapes in Late Antiquity: Mortuary Practices and Social Aspects among Christians, Jews, and Pagans

20th-23rd July 2026, Leuven, Belgium

Due by 31 January 2026

University Library @ Herbert Hooverplein © Filip Van Loock.

Research Unit: Jews, Christians, and the Materiality of Mortuary Rituals in Late Antiquity

In the third and final year of the research unit 'Jews, Christians, and the Materiality of Mortuary Rituals in Late Antiquity', we will focus on mortuary space, namely, on the placement of burials of Jews and Christians in their funerary contexts and in the mortuary landscape in Late Antiquity.

We will discuss the social aspects related to the communities performing mortuary rituals, and the idea that these practices seem to be directed towards the ongoing social personhood of the deceased. We will also discuss how different religious identities (Christian, Jewish and 'pagan') fuse and blend into a more general late antique group identity, depending on the regional or social context.

Furthermore, the panel will address the complex interplay between different religious traditions Christian, Jewish, and 'pagan'— and the ways in which these traditions could be both distinct and intertwined. We will consider how regional variations, urban versus rural contexts, and socio-political factors influenced the extent to which these religious groups maintained separate burial practices or integrated their funerary customs, sometimes resulting in shared mortuary traditions.

Our aim is to combine archaeological evidence, epigraphic sources, and historical texts, employing interdisciplinary methodologies including spatial analysis, material culture studies, and social theory. We will also consider the impact of legal regulations, economic factors, and urban planning on burial practices.

Ultimately, this comprehensive approach seeks to illuminate how mortuary landscapes functioned as dynamic spaces where identity, memory, and social relations were continually re-constructed and re-negotiated in Late Antiquity.

We will accept proposals for papers from a multidisciplinary perspective: scholars of archaeology, art history, iconography, architecture, epigraphy, hagiography, Late Antiquity, early Christian literature, and ancient history. Additionally, all related disciplines are welcome to submit a paper.

The following topics are suggested, but any other relevant topics are welcome as well:

• Funerary Landscapes and Urban/Suburban Contexts: The location of the necropolises in relation to urban contexts and/or nearby settlements; communication routes; shared or contiguous funerary spaces.

• Continuity and Transformation of Mortuary Customs: The examination of mortuary practices amid religious and social changes in Late Antiquity.

• Funerary Architecture and Monuments: The analysis of architectural forms of burials and funerary monuments.

• Religious Markers in Multi-Confessional Funerary Contexts: The meaning and interpretation of symbols in shared or adjacent funerary spaces.

• Religious Identity and Social Stratification: The investigation of social hierarchies within religious communities and how these are reflected in expressions of identity within funerary spaces.

• New Archaeological and Interdisciplinary Techniques for the Study of Late Antique Cemeteries: The use of GIS, archaeobotanical, anthropological, and bioarchaeological analyses conducted in recent excavation contexts.

You are invited to submit an abstract (maximum 300 words) accompanied by a short CV via EABS's systems by 31st January 2026. All submissions should include your name, e-mail address and academic affiliation (if applicable).

Participants are expected to give a 20-30-minute talk, followed by a session for discussion. A publication of the contributions is planned. Further information will be provided during the conference.

If you would like to receive further information or submit an abstract, please visit the EABS website at the following page: https://eabs.my.site.com/

Call for Papers: Violence in the Medieval and Early Modern North, Aberdeen Medieval and Early Modern Conference, University of Aberdeen (25-26 May 2026), Due by 29 Jan. 2026 at 18:59 ET/23:59 GMT

Call for Papers

Violence in the Medieval and Early Modern North

Aberdeen Medieval and Early Modern Conference

25-26 May 2026, University of Aberdeen, Scotland

Due by 29 January 2026 at 18:59 (ET)/ 23:59 (GMT)

At the second annual Aberdeen Medieval and Early Modern Conference, we encourage researchers to explore how violence was interpreted, enacted and avoided in the medieval and early modern north. How does the reality of the medieval and early modern world reflect how we view the past? How did distinct or militaristically violent roles (i.e. Vikings, Knights and Musketeers) handle the violence of their occupations? Do we still enact violence on the past as researchers? What were the aftereffects of violence, on the body, on architecture, and on society?

We are seeking papers on the topic of violence and its intersections with:

• Memory and Trauma

• Judicial and Legal Systems

• Literature and Art History

• Gender, Race, Class, and Disability Studies

• Military and War Studies

• Religious and Ecclesiastical History

• Histories of Medicine and the Body

• Medievalism and Early Modern Reception

• History of Emotions (e.g. anger, humour etc.)

• Ecocriticism

• Manuscript Studies and Material Culture

While we invite papers on all parts of the north, we especially welcome papers on Aberdeen and northern Scotland.

The conference will be held on 25-26 May 2026 at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Please email abstracts of no more than 250 words to medievalandearlymodernaberdeen@gmail.com.

Deadline: 29 January 2026 @ 23:59 (GMT)

Call for Papers: Different Differentiations. Logiche e pratiche della differenziazione sociale attraverso i secoli, University of Genoa (7-8 May 2026), Due by 15 Feb. 2026

Call for Papers

Different Differentiations. Logiche e pratiche della differenziazione sociale attraverso i secoli

University of Genoa, 7-8 May 2026

Due by 15 February 2026

Il Dottorato in Storia, Storia dell’Arte e Archeologia (STARCH) dell’Università di Genova organizza il convegno dottorale Different Differentiations. Logiche e pratiche della differenziazione sociale attraverso i secoli, che si terrà a Genova il 7 e 8 maggio 2026.

La Call for Papers è rivolta a dottorande e dottorandi e a giovani ricercatrici e ricercatori interessati a riflettere sul tema della differenziazione sociale in prospettiva storica, storico-artistica e archeologica.

Tutte le informazioni su temi, modalità di partecipazione e scadenze sono disponibili nel documento della Call for Papers scaricabile in allegato

---

The Genoa University PhD Course in History, History of Art, and Archaeology (STARCH) is organizing a Doctoral Conference entitled Different Differentiations. Logics and Practices of Social Differentiation Across the Centuries, which will take place in Genoa on May 7 and 8, 2026.

The Call for Papers is aimed at PhD students and young researchers interested in reflecting on social differentiation themes from historical, art-historical, and archaeological perspectives.

Please download the Call for Papers document attached for all information regarding themes, submission guidelines, and deadlines.

---

For a more in-depth call for papers, click here.

For more information, click here.

Call for Papers: Forma Scientiarum: Image (&) Translation, A Collaborative Study Day (17 Mar. 2026, 9:00-17:00), East Anglia, Due by 13 Feb. 2026

Call for Papers

Forma Scientiarum: Image (&) Translation

A Collaborative Study Day

09:00–17:00, 17 March 2026, University of East Anglia

Due by 13 February 2026

Translation/Translatio, in all its forms, was inherent to the shaping and practice of medieval sciences. Scholarship has long established that written ideas were constantly shifting from one form to another – from places, languages, and milieux.

But what of images?

Today, associating scientific texts with images is taken for granted. But what of medieval images? How did they complexify the communication of ideas and add new perspectives to written elements which could not be translated otherwise? Beyond the long-studied word/image relationship, how did images translate scientific concepts into a visual language of their own?

Images in scientific texts are usually considered through the lenses of standard and/or pre-existing iconographies. Yet, many were produced when new scientific ideas were translated (both physically and linguistically) into Europe and often there were no such visual traditions to refer to. How then did these images visualise the ‘new’?’ Did they function as a cultural visual translation of sorts?

To tackle these questions, the day will be divided into three collaborative sessions. Firstly, participants will reflect on the ‘forma scientiarum’ of the Middle Ages by responding to a pre-circulated image or word. We conceptualise ‘forma’ as encapsulating different languages – textual, visual, and scholarly – which jointly work(ed) toward shaping medieval sciences.
This will be followed by a second, smaller workshop discussing how scholars mediate(d) the role of visual translations into their own scholarship.

Finally, the day will close with a roundtable. For this session, willing participants will be asked to prepare and pre-circulate a short piece; this can take whatever form they find most useful. We are not expecting ‘conference-style’ papers and welcome more creative ‘formae’.

If you are interested in participating, please send a short expression of interest (no more than 250 words) detailing your research interest and what you’d consider pre-circulating for discussion along with a short biography (no more than 150 words) to the organisers Benedetta Mariani and Lauren Rozenberg at b.mariani@uea.ac.uk and l.rozenberg@uea.ac.uk by 13 February 2026.

ICMA Study Day: "Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages," Thursday 12 February 2026 - REGISTER TODAY!

ICMA Study Day
Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages 
The Met Cloisters, New York City
In-person
Thursday 12 February 2026, 1pm

Register HERE

Spectrum of Desire considers how medieval objects reveal and structure the performance of gender, understandings of the body, and erotic encounters, both physical and spiritual. It offers new readings of often familiar objects in which gender, sexuality, relationships, and bodies are central themes. Its methods draw from gender studies and queer theory to help visitors to the exhibition question past assumptions and read against the grain of modern heteronormativity.
 
Join Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut, co-curators of the exhibition, for a tour followed by group discussion of some of the show’s more challenging objects.  We’ll be able to have a coffee break halfway through the afternoon at the new Cloisters winter café. 

Exhibition website HERE
Register HERE

Call for Proposals: ICMA Sponsored Session at College Art Association Annual Conference 2027, due Sunday 1 February 2026

Call for Proposals
ICMA Sponsored Session

College Art Association Annual Conference 2027
3-6 February 2027, New York City

Upload proposals HERE
due Sunday 1 February 2026

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) seeks proposals for sessions to be held under the organization’s sponsorship in 2027 at the annual meeting of the College Art Association (CAA), held 3-6 February 2027 in New York City. The CAA Conference offers an essential opportunity for medievalists to present research and engage in discussion with a full spectrum of art historians. To that end, we are particularly interested in sessions that might attract (as panelists and audience members) medievalists as well as scholars from other corners of the discipline, while showcasing the vitality and breadth of the topics studied by members of the ICMA. We would be pleased to consider sessions that propose co-sponsorship with another scholarly organization. Session organizers and speakers must be ICMA members if seeking travel funding from the ICMA.

Proposals must include the following in one single Doc or PDF with the organizer’s name in the title:  

1. Session abstract   

2. CV of the organizer(s)   

3. Session organizers may also include a list of potential speakers   

Please upload all session proposals as a single DOC or PDF by Sunday 1 February 2026 here.
 
For inquiries, contact the Chair of the ICMA Programs & Lectures Committee: Alice Isabella Sullivan, Tufts University, alice.sullivan@tufts.edu.  

---

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 a conference meets in person, the Kress funds are allocated for travel and hotel only. If a presenter is attending a conference virtually, Kress funding will cover virtual conference registration fees.
 
Click HERE for more information. 

ICMA

ICMA announces the 2025 ICMA Annual Book Prize recipient

ICMA Annual Book Prize

We are delighted to announce the recipient of the 2025 ICMA Annual Book Prize:

Andrew Griebeler

Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean

The University of Chicago Press, 2024.

Click HERE for The University of Chicago Press site

This year’s Book Prize is awarded to Andrew Griebeler for Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean (University of Chicago Press). This innovative study redefines the role of botanical illustration in the premodern Mediterranean, presenting it as a central mode of knowledge-making rather than a mere supplement to text. 
 
Griebeler’s work spans a broad yet coherent cultural sphere shaped by trade, diplomacy, and intellectual exchange, offering an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates art history with linguistic, medicinal, and scientific traditions. His thesis—that image-making conveyed knowledge in its own right—has far-reaching implications for understanding Mediterranean trade and cultural exchange, manuscript traditions, and the history of scientific imagery.
 
The book dismantles long-standing misconceptions about medieval botanical illustration, revealing its dynamism and accuracy through close analysis of objects within the context of copying and adaptation. By tracing the interplay of Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Syriac traditions, Griebeler illuminates a complex visual culture that transcends religious boundaries and enriches Mediterranean studies. And by demonstrating that the scientific picturing of plants comprised a host of critical practices, each responsive to the needs and desires of their makers, he advances a sensitive model for exploring questions of iconography and replication in the medieval context.  
 
Beautifully produced with abundant illustrations of rarely reproduced materials, Botanical Icons combines erudition with accessibility, making it essential reading for specialists and a wider scholarly audience. Its originality and scope promise to inspire future research on visual knowledge and cross-cultural exchange in the medieval world.

ISBN: 9780226826790
344 pages | 96 color plates
The University of Chicago Press, 2024.

We thank the ICMA Book Prize Jury:
Alexa Sand (chair), Benjamin Anderson, Till-Holger Borchert, Luke Fidler, and Lynn Jones

Exhibition Closing: Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Until 18 January 2026

Exhibition Closing

Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks

Level 3, Centre Block

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada

28 June 2025 - 18 January 2026

Jan Sanders van Hemessen (1550-1566), Double Portrait of a Couple, 1532. Oil on panel. Antwerp, The Phoebus Foundation.

The Southern Netherlands — better known today as Flanders — was home to revolutionary artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Hans Memling, and others. These extraordinary painters found new ways to depict reality, portray humanity, and tell stories that created parallels to their world then - and to our world today.

This large-scale exhibition, featuring over 80 stunning art works and objects — medieval, Renaissance, and baroque paintings, sculptures and more — offers a doorway into the Southern Netherlands of 1400 to 1700, a dynamic environment where new artistic genres and styles were created and flourished. The exhibition's unique presentation introduces the visitor, through these rare, extraordinary artworks, to stories of enterprising townspeople, prosperous cities, and an ever-developing society.

For more information, visit https://www.rom.on.ca/whats-on/exhibitions/saints-sinners-lovers-and-fools-300-years-flemish-masterworks

Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks is co-organized by the Denver Art Museum and The Phoebus Foundation SON, Antwerp (Belgium).

Exhibition: Modern Bestiary: Creatures from the Collection, Asheville Art Museum, NC, 20 Aug. 2025 - 15 Mar. 2026

Exhibition

Modern Bestiary: Creatures from the Collection

Judith S. Moore Gallery (level 3)

Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina

August 20, 2025–March 15, 2026

J. L. Nippers, "Critter," circa 1985, cedar wood, oil paint, rope, glass marble, 12 × 23 × 13 ½ inches. Asheville Art Museum. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. A. Everette James, Jr. © J. L. Nippers

In medieval Europe, a bestiary—or “book of beasts”—was a popular type of handwritten, illustrated manuscript whose stories and images taught Christian lessons. Animals in the bestiary were associated with particular human traits and behaviors, making abstract moral lessons easier to communicate to a mostly illiterate public. While the books themselves were rare and precious, their thought-provoking tales and vivid imagery were a familiar part of everyday life in the Middle Ages (500–1500 CE). Tapestries, metalwork, jewelry, sculptures, sermons, and popular storytelling all incorporated motifs from the bestiary.

Medieval bestiaries featured real animals alongside imaginary creatures, like unicorns and griffins, to present a holistic view of divine creation. Artists relied on secondhand accounts, written descriptions, and popular legends to depict animals that they had never seen for themselves. As a result, strange hybrids and mythic beasts accompanied realistic portrayals of ordinary animals—blending natural history, misinformation, and metaphor. Bestiaries inspired medieval audiences to observe and collect information about the world around them, setting the stage for a new encyclopedic era focused on gathering and organizing knowledge of the natural world.

Modern Bestiary: Creatures from the Collection explores the artistic legacy of the medieval bestiary through a selection of animals and fantastic beasts from the Museum’s Collection. Building on Anthony Hecht and Aubrey E. Schwartz’ A Bestiary Portfolio (1962), the exhibition examines how contemporary artists across a range of styles and media incorporate real and imagined creatures in their work, drawing on categories rooted in the medieval manuscript tradition.

This exhibition is organized by the Asheville Art Museum and Robin S. Klaus, PhD, assistant curator.

For more information, visit https://www.ashevilleart.org/exhibitions/modern-bestiary/

Lecture: Sainthood and Gender Variance in the Middle Ages, Roland Betancourt, The MET Cloisters, New York, 14 Jan. 2026 6:00-7:00PM

Lecture

Sainthood and Gender Variance in the Middle Ages

Roland Betancourt

Gallery 1 Romanesque Hall

The MET Cloisters, New York

Wednesday, January 14, 2026 6–7 pm

Theodora of Alexandria entering a monastery (detail). Golden Legend, folio 310r, Belgium, Bruges, 1445-1465. MS M.672-5 III, The Morgan Library & Museum

Join scholar Roland Betancourt for a talk on how depictions of holy persons in medieval art complicate ideas of gender across both the western European world and the Byzantine Empire. Discover how works of religious art reflect the ways in which medieval thinkers explored gender in their writings to contemplate both spiritual matters and lived realities.

Roland Betancourt, Andrew W. Mellon Professor, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art and Chancellor’s Professor, Department of Art History, University of California, Irvine

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages.

Free, though advance registration is required. Please note: Space is limited; first come, first served.

ICMA in Florence: Tour of FRA ANGELICO exhibition, Thursday 22 January 2026 at 10am

ICMA in Florence
Last look! Exhibition tour of Fra Angelico 
Museo di San Marco and Palazzo Strozzi 
Thursday 22 January 2026, starting at 10am

Register HERE

ICMA members and local medievalists are invited to an exhibition tour of Fra Angelico, led by Dr. Allie Terry-Fritsch, Professor of Italian Renaissance Art History (BGSU) and Fra Angelico Expert/Contributor to the Florence Fra Angelico exhibition and catalogue.

The day will begin at the Museo di San Marco at 10am (meet time is 9:45am) with a general tour, highlighting the context of the humanist users of the library at San Marco and the rare manuscripts included in the exhibition. After a lunch break (lunch provided by the ICMA), we will continue at the Palazzo Strozzi at 2:30pm for the second portion of the exhibition.

While tickets are currently sold out online, we have special access to Museo di San Marco. For Palazzo Strozzi, we will retrieve tickets at the ticket desk (there might be a wait). ICMA will cover the cost. 

The exhibition brings together more than 140 works of art across the two venues that include paintings, drawings, sculptures, and illuminated manuscripts. The result of over four years of preparation, the project has enabled an undertaking of exceptional scholarly and cultural importance, thanks also to an extensive campaign of restorations and the singular opportunity to reunite altarpieces that were disassembled and dispersed over two hundred years ago.

Register HERE

Call for Papers: Reenvisioning the Medieval World(s) in the 21st Century, The Annual Conference of the New England Medieval Consortium due 15 January 2026

Reenvisioning the Medieval World(s) in the 21st Century

(The Annual Conference of the New England Medieval Consortium)

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine

Diptych icon with Saint George and The Virgin and Child. Saint George wing: possibly Crete, ca. 1480–1490. Virgin and Child wing: Ethiopia, ca. 1500. Wyvern Collection, 0472.

Keynote Lecture by Lloyd de Beer (Curator at the British Museum): Friday April 10

Conference: Saturday April 11, 2026

followed by a reception at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art,

Featuring the exhibition, Medieval Art from the Wyvern Collection: Global Networks and Creative Connections

This interdisciplinary conference will explore new ways of understanding the chronological, geographic, and conceptual contours of the Middle Ages. In recent years, every discipline within the field of medieval studies has experienced what some have called the “global turn,” informed by emerging scholarship that has demonstrated the profoundly interconnected nature of the medieval world. We seek papers that engage with these new scholarly directions. We envision a set of panels with papers interrogating material including works of art, archaeological sites, literary and theological texts, and archival documents. The papers will be unified by a shared commitment to reckoning with our developing understanding of the global dimensions of medieval culture, presenting new sets of questions and new methods for understanding such objects.

We hope to receive proposals for papers from a range of disciplines and adopting a variety of approaches to questions such as:

• to what extent is a concept of “the Middle Ages” useful in structuring our knowledge of past cultures, and to what extent does it occlude important aspects of the past?

• Is that manner of periodization applicable to cultures beyond Europe, or does the application of such terminology to non-European contexts reinscribe upon those cultures Eurocentric or even colonial ways of seeing the world?

• How do we balance an ability to comprehend the specific, often highly local roots of phenomena, texts, or objects with an awareness of the broader networks (trade, intellectual, etc.) that they participated in or engaged with?

• Are there ways in which the “global turn” risks obscuring key aspects of medieval culture—for instance, moments in which a culture turns inward rather than reaching beyond itself, or the fragmentary and incomplete nature of apprehending something from a different place?

• Are analytical tools such as “style,” developed in disciplines like Art History, capable of accounting for the ways that certain medieval objects were designed to legible across political and religious boundaries, or do those disciplinary tools need to be supplemented (or even supplanted) by different analytic approaches?

• How did conceptions of a broader world on the part of authors and artisans shape the forms that cultural productions adopted?

Speakers in the conference will be provided with lodging for two nights (April 10 and 11) as well as meals during the conference; they are responsible for their own transportation costs.

Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2026.

Submit proposals to Steve Perkinson (Professor of Art History, Bowdoin College): sperkins@bowdoin.edu

Exhibition Closing: Patterns of Luxury: Islamic Textiles, 11th–17th Centuries, St. Louis Art Museum, 13 June 2025 - 4 Jan. 2026

Exhibition Closing

Patterns of Luxury: Islamic Textiles, 11th–17th Centuries

June 13, 2025–January 4, 2026

Carolyn C. and William A. McDonnell Gallery 100

St. Louis Art Museum, MO

Persian; Textile Pieced with Two Panels with Design of Columns of Flowers, 17th century; silk cut voided velvet weave with satin weave foundation and silver and gilt thread brocading wefts; 23 × 26 3/16 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Purchase 56:1919

Patterns of Luxury: Islamic Textiles, 11th–17th Centuries showcases rare and magnificent examples of SLAM’s collection of early Islamic textiles, including many that have not been on view in decades and some that have never before been exhibited at the Museum.

Textiles have had an important place in Islamic civilization since the seventh century. As the influence of Islam radiated outward from Arabia through conquest and trade, textile patterns absorbed various local design aesthetics. Featured in this exhibition are works spanning three continents—Africa, Europe, and Asia. They demonstrate the diversity of textile traditions with luxurious examples from Egypt in the Fatimid (909–1171) and Ottoman (1517–1867) periods, Islamic Spain during the Nasrid dynasty (1232–1492), Ottoman Turkey (1281–1924), Persia (present-day Iran) during the Safavid dynasty (1501–1736), and India during the Mughal period (1526–1858).

The exhibition showcases textiles with inscriptions (tiraz) that were popular during the early and middle Islamic periods—the 7th through 13th centuries—along with several pieces from Nasrid Spain that show the influence of architectural decoration and were hung as curtains or murals. Also included are carpet fragments and rugs from Egypt, Spain, Turkey, Iran, and India, collected by St. Louisan James F. Ballard (1851–1931), whose extraordinary collection is divided between The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Patterns of Luxury is curated by Philip Hu, curator of Asian art.

For more information, visit https://www.slam.org/exhibitions/patterns-of-luxury-islamic-textiles-11th-17th-centuries/

Exhibition: Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 11 Oct. 2026 - 3 Jan. 2027

Exhibition

Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea

Sunday, October 11, 2026–Sunday, January 3, 2027

003 Special Exhibition Hall, The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall

The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH

The Fourth King of Hell, late 1300s. Korea, Goryeo dynasty (918–1392).

Organized in partnership with the National Museum of Korea, this landmark international exhibition, Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea, explores the artistic legacy of the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), posing daring questions: How did medieval Koreans envision the world beyond death and how did works of art and materiality shape and reflect that imagined realm?

Presenting an exceptional array of important artworks, including the CMA’s recent acquisitions—the Fourth King of Hell from the late 1300s, the Knife Sheath from the 1100s (Apollo’s Acquisition of the Year Award 2022), and the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva from the 1300s—the exhibition unfolds across three interlocking sections, each illuminating the soul’s passage from death through purgatory to the Buddhist paradise. At its dramatic center is the historic reunification of a dispersed set of 10 hanging scrolls from the 1300s depicting the 10 Kings of Hell. Brought together for the first time since the 1960s, the scrolls offer a rare opportunity to experience the set’s panoramic sequence of judgment, atonement, and salvation.

Among its most compelling narratives, the exhibition examines how sociopolitical upheavals and environmental pressures shaped medieval Korea’s deep preoccupation with purgatorial afterlife—not only as a moral and devotional terrain but also as a response to broader natural forces, from climatic volatility during the Little Ice Age to the devastating reach of the Black Death. A select group of contemporary artworks is also included to underscore the enduring resonance of humanity’s existential concerns. 

Anicka Yi’s Bending Willow Branches (2025) makes a strong opening statement: that death adds to life’s continuum—mutating, persisting, and transforming rather than ending it. Park Chan-kyong’s Belated Bosal (2019) serves as a visually and psychologically immersive centerpiece, prompting viewers to confront human-induced environmental catastrophes and their far-reaching karmic consequences. The circuit further widens with The Third King of Hell Afterimage (2025) by 2025 MacArthur Fellow Gala Porras-Kim, created specifically for this show as a critical inquiry into the afterlives of objects within Western collecting practices.

Additionally, the exhibition incorporates innovative digital experiences that deepen engagement with the artworks and themes. Visitors have the opportunity to interact with the Sutra Container in 3-D and to look closer into the artwork by exploring intricate details of select paintings on a large-scale “Zoom Wall.” Complementing these visual experiences are carefully designed audio and video installations, from the meditative resonance of a Buddhist temple bell to the evocative projection of contemporary works. 

Featuring more than one hundred works drawn from leading public and private collections in Korea, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom, Ten Kings of Hell: The Afterlife in Medieval Korea is accompanied by a substantial, richly illustrated catalogue, anchored in the contributing scholars’ shared commitment to transregional and interdisciplinary investigation.

For more information, visit https://www.getty.edu/exhibitions/creation-story/

Upcoming Exhibition: Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages, Getty Center, January 27 – April 19, 2026

Upcoming Exhibition

Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages

January 27 – April 19, 2026

Museum North Pavillion, Plaza Level

Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA

Left: Portrait of Eve (detail), 2021, Harmonia Rosales. Oil, gold leaf, and silver leaf on panel. The Akil Family. © Harmonia Rosales. Photo: Brad Kaye

Creation stories imagine the world’s origins, often leading to a shared cultural vision of identity and values. For medieval Christians, the Biblical story of the seven days of Creation was essential to understanding the natural and spiritual realms, as well as humanity’s role in bridging the two. This exhibition features manuscripts from Getty’s collection alongside select contemporary paintings by LA-based artist Harmonia Rosales to explore how the Creation was visualized, represented, and interpreted both in the Middle Ages and today.

This exhibition is presented in English and Spanish. Esta exhibición se presenta en inglés y en español.

For more information, visit https://www.getty.edu/exhibitions/creation-story/

Call for Papers: Canadian Society of Medievalists Annual Conference, St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia (26-28 May 2026), Due by 15 Jan. 2026

Call for Papers

Canadian Society of Medievalists Annual Conference 

St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia

26-28 May 2026

Due by 15 January 2026

The Canadian Society of Medievalists will hold its Annual Conference 26-28 May 2026 at St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

The CSM welcomes proposals that concern any topic within Medieval Studies broadly defined, in one of the following formats:

• Individual papers (no more than 20 minutes in length)

  1. Sessions (three papers plus question period over 90 minutes)

  2. Roundtables, Workshops, or other alternative forms, no more than 90 minutes

• Individual paper proposals will include:

• A title and abstract of about 250 words

  1. A one-page CV

• Proposals for complete sessions, workshops, or roundtables will include

• Session title, a brief rationale for the session, indication of format, and (if determined) name of session chair

  1. As applicable, depending on the format: titles and 250-word abstracts of papers; one-page CVs of presenters

Don't forget the Calls for Submissions for EDID Sessions

• You Are On Native Land:  Understanding Medieval Studies in Turtle Island

• Queer World-Making

• Medieval Engagements with Disability

• Understanding Medieval Race-Making

Link to submit your proposals

Deadline for submission 15 January 2026

Address any questions to CSM President Shannon McSheffrey (shannon.mcsheffrey@concordia.ca).

**NB: Scholars need not be members to submit proposals, but must be members in good standing to participate in the Annual Meeting and are expected to pay their 2025-26 annual membership fees to CSM / SCM by 15 April 2026.

For more information, visit https://www.canadianmedievalists.org/Annual

Call for Papers: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn: Grief from Antiquity to the Present, Interdisciplinary Conference, University of St. Andrews (24-25 June 2026), Due by 2 Feb. 2026

Call for Papers

Interdisciplinary Conference

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn: GRIEF FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE PRESENT

University of St Andrews, Wednesday 24 & Thursday 25 June 2026

Due by Monday 2 February 2026

More than fifty years after the publication of Philippe Ariès' Western Attitudes Toward Death (1974), it is past time for a comprehensive reassessment of the history, culture, and experience of grief, loss, and mourning. Recent decades have seen profound developments across fields, including the rise of global and transnational history; the history of emotions ano affect theory; the anthropology of death; analyses of the politics of "grievability"; and new interdisciplinary approaches to the relationship between brain, body, and society. Together, these innovations open up fresh ways of understanding how individuals and communities negotiate loss across diverse temporal, cultural, and social contexts.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn seeks to initiate this reassessment by examining grief as a historically situated, socially embedded, and politically resonant phenomenon. Bringing together scholars working across disciplines, periods, and regions, the conference aims to break down siloed approaches and foster new dialogue on the history and culture of grief.

We welcome papers from across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. We are particularly, but not exclusively, interested in papers on the below themes:

• What grief is: boundaries, definitions, and phenomenology

• The politics of grief, including who is permitted to mourn, when, how, and for whom; the intersection between grief, status and power

• The connection between grief and other emotions

• Funerals, mourning and the "practice" of grief after death

• Grieving, senses and the body

• Continuity and change

• Medical approaches to grief, grieving, and consolation

• The materiality and material culture of grief, including art works, monuments, seals, effigies, tombs, jewellery.

Please send your proposals for twenty-minute papers (to be delivered in English), including a title, an abstract of c. 150 words, and short bio, to griefconference.sta2026@gmail.com by Monday 2 February 2026.

Call for Applications: Research grants funded by the State of Lower Saxony 2027, Herzog August Bibliothek, Due 31 Jan. 2026

Call for Applications

Research grants funded by the State of Lower Saxony 2027

Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, Germany

Due January 31, 2026

start: January 1, 2027

The HAB offers different fellowships for post-docs and experienced researchers (senior level) and the state of Lower Saxony funds two different formats in the area of research fellowships. In addition, there are further fellowship opportunities with cooperation partners.

Post-doc Fellowships

Scholars who are within 6 years of receiving their PhD, may apply for a long-term fellowship of between 6 and 10 months. The library will award from 4 to 6 such fellowships annually. The monthly fellowship is € 2.200. The fellowship holder will receive a one-time reimbursement for the cost of travel to and from Wolfenbüttel (max. € 2.000). Fellows who bring their families to Wolfenbüttel may apply for a monthly child supplement (one child: € 300; two children € 400; three or more € 500).
*for applications submitted in January 2026 the PhD must have been awarded in 2020 or later.

Short-term Fellowships

The fellowships are addressed to a broad range of scholars of all career stages (from post-doc to emeriti) wishing to make a short visit in order to gather source material. Applications can be made for stays of between one and three months. The monthly fellowship is € 1.800. A travel subsidy will also be paid (between € 150 and max. € 650, depending on country of origin).

Application for a fellowship at the Herzog August Bibliothek

For your application please request the application forms for the respective fellowship program at ed.bah@gnuhcsrof, stating your research focus and the keyword "Post-doc" or "Short-term". Reviewers will be appointed to evaluate the applications, and the Scientific Advisory Board will select the fellows. You can find the guidelines for the awarding of scholarships in the download area on the right.

For more information, visit https://www.hab.de/en/forschungsstipendien/