Exhibition Closing: Glänzende Begegnungen Die Domschätze von Münster und Paderborn, Until 7 January 2023

Exhibition Closing

Glänzende Begegnungen: Die Domschätze von Münster und Paderborn

DIÖZESANMUSEUM PADERBORN, Germany

2 September 2023 - 7 January 2024

Kopfreliquiar des Münsteraner Dompatrons Paulus aus dem 11. Jahrhundert, © Fotos: Stephan Kube, Greven, https://dioezesanmuseum-paderborn.de/der-schatz-von-muenster/

Der Bestand des Kathedralschatzes des St. Paulus-Doms zu Münster zählt mit seinen einzigartigen Werken der Goldschmiede- und der Textilkunst zu einer der bedeutendsten Schatzkammer-Sammlungen Europas. Von kostbaren Reliquiaren des 11. Jahrhunderts über wertvolle liturgische Geräte und Paramente des Mittelalters und der Renaissance spannt sich der Bogen bis in die Barockzeit.

Momentan ist der Schatz nicht zu sehen, sondern wegen des geplanten Neubaus der Domschatzkammer Münster eingelagert. Hochrangigen Museen – z. B. dem Catherijneconvent Utrecht oder dem Cleveland Museum of Art – wurde exklusiv die Gelegenheit geboten, Teile des Bestandes in ihren Häusern zu präsentieren.

Ab September wird er nun erstmals seit Schließung der Münsteraner Domkammer beinahe in Gänze für vier Monate wieder öffentlich zu sehen sein und ausgewählten Stücken des Paderborner Domschatzes begegnen: zwei kostbare Kathedralschätze erstmals in einer gemeinsamen Ausstellung.

For more information, https://dioezesanmuseum-paderborn.de/der-schatz-von-muenster/

Call for Applications: Research Residencies, ERC AGRELITA 2024, University of Lille, Due By 1 February 2024

Call for APplications

Research Residencies, ERC AGRELITA 2024

University of Lille

Due By 1 February 2024

The ERC Advanced Grant AGRELITA Project n° 101018777, “The reception of ancient Greece in pre-modern French literature and illustrations of manuscripts and printed books (1320-1550) : how invented memories shaped the identity of European communities”, directed by Prof. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas (Principal Investigator), opens guest researchers residencies.
The Hypotheses academic blog presents the project and its team: https://agrelita.hypotheses.org/
This call for applications is open to anyone, of French or foreign nationality, who holds a PhD in literature, art history, or history, whose work focuses on the history of books, cultural and political history, visual studies, or memory studies, wherein the competence and project are deemed to be complementary to the ones of the AGRELITA team.
These residencies indeed aim to open the reflections carried out by the team, to enhance its scientific activity through interactions with other scholars and other universities. The guest researchers will have the exceptional opportunity to contribute to a major project, to work with a dynamic team that conducts a wide range of activities at the University of Lille and within the research laboratory ALITHILA where many Medieval and Renaissance times specialists work, as well as to publish in a prestigious setting.


The ERC Advanced Grant AGRELITA Project

The AGRELITA project is based at the University of Lille. Located in the north of France, Lille is a city in the heart of Europe : 35 minutes from Brussels, 1 hour from Paris, 1 hour 20 minutes from London, 2 hours 40 minutes from Amsterdam, and 2 hours 30 minutes from Aachen. Residing in this metropolis offers the chance to discover the rich medieval heritage of Flanders and to carry out research in nearby libraries, museums, and archives, with very rich collections (Lille, Saint-Omer, Valenciennes, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Cambrai, Arras, Brussels).
Until now the reception history of ancient Greece in pre-modern Western Europe has focused almost exclusively on the transmission of Greek texts. Yet well before the revival of Greek teaching, numerous vernacular works, often illustrated, contained elaborate representations of ancient Greece. AGRELITA studies a large corpus of French language literary works (historical, fictional, poetic, didactic ones) produced from 1320 to the 1550s in France and Europe, before the first direct translations from Greek to French, as well as the images of their manuscripts and printed books. These works and their illustrations – exploring texts/images interactions as well as the distinctive impact they have – show representations of ancient Greece we can analyze from a perspective that has never been explored until now : how a new cultural memory was elaborated. AGRELITA thus examines this corpus linked with its political, social, and cultural context, but also with the literary and illustrated works of nearby countries from Europe. Situated at the crossroads of literary studies, book history and art history, visual studies, cultural and political history, and memory studies, AGRELITA’s ambition is to explore how the role played by ancient Greece was reassessed in the processes of shaping the identity of European communities. The project also aims to contribute to a general reflection on the formation of memories, heritages, and identities.

Missions of visiting researchers

The ERC Advanced Grant AGRELITA Project is funded for five years (2021-2026) and has budgetary support available in order to invite researchers at the University of Lille (France), in the Faculty of Humanities (https://humanites.univ-lille.fr/), and attached to the ALITHILA laboratory (Literary Analyzes and History of Language), housed in the Pont de Bois Campus (Villeneuve d’Ascq). Stays may be 4 to 6 weeks length, and during the year 2024 may take place in May/June.
Visiting researchers will work with the Principal Investigator and the AGRELITA team.
Visiting researchers undertake to produce research for the project during their stays in Lille as follows :

  • they will write one paper (which must not exceed 50 000 characters, including spaces) published in one of the volumes edited by ERC AGRELITA (Brepols ed.), or in one of the team’s files published in an academic journal

  • they commit to present the topic of the paper or another topic dealing with AGRELITA’s research during a seminar session organized by the team

  • they will contribute to the Hypotheses academic blog : https://agrelita.hypotheses.org/

In 2024, the AGRELITA project will focus on these axes : « Inventions of Greek origin myths », « The new lives of Greek divinities (14th-16th centuries) », and « Violence and rape culture in the reception of Greek myths (14th-16th centuries) » (Call for papers will be released shortly.)

Conditions for defraying mission expenses

Visiting researchers will receive, in the form of mission expenses, a maximum fixed amount of 2000 euros per month, based on all necessary receipts of the costs of stay in Lille (accommodation, transport in the North region, and meal costs). A further maximum fixed amount is added to cover their travel expenses from their place of residence to Lille (round trip) :

  • travel from a European country (based on proof of expenses) : 400 €.

  • travel from a country outside Europe (based on proof of expenses) : 1200 €.

The expenses will be paid following the mission. AGRELITA will not arrange visas.
The University of Lille has a partnership that allows the rental of studios at the Reeflex University Residence : https://reeflex.univ-lille.fr/chercheur ; as well as at the International Research Residence : https://www.crous-lille.fr/se-loger/je-cherche-un-logement/notre-offre-logement-courts-sejours/4883-2/ . Visiting researchers can request this and the AGRELITA team will assist them to complete the reservation, subject to availability.

How to apply

The application file must include the two following documents :

  • A completed and signed application form, including the dates of the stay

  • A scientific project (2 pages) the candidate will be working on during his stay, dealing with the AGRELITA team’s research, from which the researcher intends to write the required article, due at the end of the stay. The provisional title of the paper is required.

Please send your application in a PDF document to the following addresses : catherine.bougassas@univ-lille.fr and erc-agrelita@univ-lille.fr

Application deadlines : by February 1st, 2024.
For more information on the ERC AGRELITA Project, please see : https://agrelita.hypotheses.org/

The ERC AGRELITA project is about the Reception of Ancient Greece in Premodern French Literature and Illustrations of Manuscripts and Printed Books (1320-1550) : how invented memories shaped the identity of European communities. 
The AGRELITA project ERC n° 101018777 was launched on October 1st 2021. It is a 5-year project (2021-2026), which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101018777).

CfP: Connecting stucco in the Mediterranean (c. 300BCE - 1200CE). Methodological approaches and the state of research (Ankara, 16-18 May 2024), Abstracts - Paper 31 Jan. 2024 & Poster 28 Feb. 2024

Call for Papers

Connecting stucco in the Mediterranean (c. 300 BCE - 1200 CE). Methodological approaches and the state of research

Bilkent University, Ankara, 16th-18th May 2024

Paper Abstracts due by 31 January 2024

Poster Abstracts due by 28 February 2024

The use of plaster reliefs (stuccoes) as architectural decoration is a well-known phenomenon in the Mediterranean, with roots already in ancient Egyptian architecture. However, it has been mainly studied within the boundaries of specific disciplines and chronological specialisations. While this allowed scholars to recognise the relationship of stucco with specific architectural traditions and technologies, it did not allow to spot long-term trends and cross-cultural interactions. This is due to the lack of coordination of scholarship on the study of stucco, which appears to develop at different speeds and aim at different goals depending on the field of study. For example, in the field of Islamic art and archaeology, stucco has mainly been studied in terms of stylistic and iconographic aspects in order to spot cultural exchanges within the Islamicate world; the technological aspect has only recently started to be addressed with archaeometric analyses.

At the same time, research on Western Medieval stuccoes benefitted from a more holistic approach,which started to answer the changes in iconography, style, and technologies from the Late Antique to the Early Medieval period. However, the last comprehensive publications on the subject date to the early 2000s and little has been done since then, especially on the archaeometric analyses and their interpretation. The study of stucco makers, their legal and social status have been analysed for Roman stucco and partially for the Western Medieval world, while it is largely missing for the other fields of study on stucco in the period of interest here. The knowledge of Byzantine stucco is still in its infancy, lacking archaeometric analysis and not going beyond the single case studies, except for a limited number of studies.

Despite this dispersed character of research on stucco, many important studies on this material have been produced in the recent decades and the academic community has had multiple occasions to discuss stucco at various conferences and workshops. Therefore, we feel it is time to connect these efforts and address common questions that can help to see long-term phenomena and cross-cultural exchanges in the Mediterranean.

We encourage papers submission on the following (but not exclusively) topics:

1. Technology and makers: what do we know about the technology of stucco production and howitdifferedinvariousregionsandthroughouttime?Didtechnologicaladvancesspreadfrom one region to another? Who were the stucco workers? What was their place in past societies, and how did their status change through time?

  1. Patterns of transmission: to what extent did stucco workshops, styles, iconographic motifs, and formal features overcome geographical, political, and confessional boundaries? How knowledge about stucco-making was transmitted? What was the relationship between stucco produced in the Mediterranean with stucco traditions of other regions such as the wider Iranian world?

  2. Perception by past societies: What was the perception of stucco by past societies? How did people perceive it in relation to marble and other media? Was it perceived as a material worthy of preservation? Was it considered a cheap material?

4. Stucco and modern discipline boundaries: does stucco production fit modern boundaries of academic discourse? For example, do we have “Byzantine” and “Islamic” stucco production? How does it relate to other materials (marble, limestone, wood), and what do we know about workshops? Did stuccoist work alongside stone sculptors, whitewashers, and/or painters?

5. The state of studies: What is the place of research on stucco in modern academia? What are the practices related to excavations, displays, publishing etc.? Does it have a place on its own, or is it seen as a part of studies on sculpture or architectural decoration? What are the methodological approaches used to date and study stucco?

We encourage an in-person presence to facilitate the discussion and dissemination of knowledge, even though the conference will be available in hybrid form.
Papers of approximately 20 minutes are welcome. We also invite posters on specific case -studies. The language of the conference is English.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words by Wednesday 31st January 2024 to: connectingstucco@gmail.com.

Applicants will be notified of selection by Thursday 29th February 2024.

For posters, please send an abstract of the topic of no more than 250 words by Wednesday 28th February 2024.

Applicants will be notified of selection by Sunday 31st March 2024.
If you need a letter by the Organising Committee for visa purposes, please state it in your application.

For any questions please contact: connectingstucco@gmail.com.

Organisers: Dr Agnieszka Lic (Polish Academy of Sciences), Dr Flavia Vanni (Università degli Studi di Salerno) and Dr Luca Zavagno (Bilkent University).

Online Resource: Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database - Now Housed at the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History

Online Resource

Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database

An Image Archive of Monuments and Sites
in Southern Italy c. 1100 - c. 1450

Now Housed at the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History

The Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University, the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas, and the Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II” are pleased to announce the transfer of The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database to its new home at the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History.

This transfer makes possible the continuation and further development of an invaluable digital resource for the study of the cultural heritage of southern Italy. At the time of its transfer, the database consisted of catalogue entries for over 9,000 historical images (including drawings, prints, paintings, and photographs) that document hundreds of medieval monuments in the former Kingdom of Sicily (c. 1100-1450). The database is accessible through a public website at https://koseodiah.org.

The Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database was developed in 2011 at Duke University with a Collaborative Research Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its objective was to collect and make available to scholars, students, travelers, and local communities the rich patrimony of historical images scattered throughout Europe and the United States in museums, archives, and libraries. Close study of these images enables researchers to reconstruct the history of a site, monument, or city, as well as to attest to its form prior to renovation, restoration, or destruction (especially as the result of natural disasters and bombardment during World War II). From its inception, the database was conceived as a collaboration between scholars in the United States and Italy.

With the retirement of the project’s founder, Caroline Bruzelius, from Duke University, the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History and Associate Director Sarah K. Kozlowski emerged as the ideal partner to steward the American side of this international collaboration. On the strength of its individual scholars and collaborative research initiatives, the O’Donnell Institute has developed a strong focus on southern Italy and the Mediterranean world, as well as on digital cultural heritage practices. With the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte the O’Donnell Institute founded the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia”, which will be a Naples-based platform for research for the Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database project. At the Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, Paola Vitolo, who has been involved with the design and development of the database since its beginnings, will continue as co-Director (now with Sarah K. Kozlowski) and will represent Italian scholarship and contributions to the project’s future.

Current work on the database includes a comprehensive georeferencing campaign, the creation of new entries that document Arabic inscriptions from medieval Palermo, and the incorporation of material related to the ongoing projects of the team’s researchers and graduate student researchers.

The project team invites scholars, students, and the interested public to visit the relaunched website at https://koseodiah.org. Learn more about the project, its history, and our team. And follow us on Instagram at @medieval.kosid.

For the latest developments in our research, please subscribe to our email list by writing to arthistory@utdallas.edu.

Il Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database si è trasferito all’Istituto di Storia dell’Arte Edith O’Donnell

Il Dipartimento di Arte, Storia dell’Arte e Visual Studies della Duke University, l’Istituto di Storia dell’Arte Edith O’Donnell dell’Università del Texas a Dallas, e il Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II” sono lieti di annunciare il trasferimento del Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database alla sua nuova sede presso l’Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History. Questo trasferimento rende possibile la continuazione e l’ulteriore sviluppo di una preziosa risorsa digitale per lo studio del patrimonio culturale dell’Italia meridionale. Al momento del trasferimento, il database comprende le voci di catalogo di oltre 9.000 immagini storiche (tra cui disegni, stampe, dipinti e fotografie) che documentano centinaia di monumenti medievali dell’ex Regno di Sicilia (1100-1450 circa). Il database è accessibile al pubblico attraverso il sito web https://koseodiah.org.

Il Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database è stato sviluppato nel 2011 alla Duke University con un Collaborative Research Grant del National Endowment for the Humanities. Il suo obiettivo era quello di raccogliere e rendere disponibile, per studiosi, studenti, viaggiatori e comunità locali, il ricco patrimonio di immagini storiche sparse in musei, archivi e biblioteche tra l’Europa e gli Stati Uniti. L’attento studio di queste immagini consente ai ricercatori di ricostruire la storia di un sito, di un monumento o di una città, nonché di attestarne la forma prima di un ammodernamento, un restauro o la sua distruzione (soprattutto in seguito a disastri naturali e ai bombardamenti della Seconda Guerra Mondiale). Fin dall’inizio, il database è stato concepito come una collaborazione tra studiosi degli Stati Uniti e dell’Italia.

Dopo il pensionamento della fondatrice del progetto, Caroline Bruzelius, dalla Duke University, l’Istituto di Storia dell’Arte Edith O’Donnell, con la sua Direttrice Associata Sarah K. Kozlowski, è emerso come partner ideale per gestire la parte americana di questa collaborazione internazionale. Forte dei suoi singoli studiosi e delle collaborazioni in diversi progetti di ricerca, l’Istituto O’Donnell ha sviluppato una forte attenzione per l’Italia meridionale e il mondo mediterraneo, nonché per lo studio del patrimonio culturale digitalizzato. Con il Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, l’O’Donnell Institute ha fondato il Centro per la storia dell’arte e dell’architettura delle città portuali “La Capraia”, che costituirà una postazione di ricerca a Napoli per il progetto del Medieval Kingdom of Sicily Image Database. Presso l’Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, Paola Vitolo, che è stata coinvolta sin dall’inizio nella progettazione e nello sviluppo del database, continuerà a ricoprire il ruolo di co-direttrice (ora insieme a Sarah K. Kozlowski) e rappresenterà lo studio e il contributo italiano al futuro del progetto.

L’attuale lavoro sul database comprende una campagna di georeferenziazione completa, la creazione di nuove voci che documentino le iscrizioni arabe della Palermo medievale e l’aggiunta di materiale relativo ai progetti in corso portati avanti dai ricercatori e dagli studenti del team.

Il team del progetto invita gli studiosi, gli studenti e il pubblico interessato a visitare il sito web all’indirizzo https://koseodiah.org. Si rimanda alle singole pagine per saperne di più sul progetto, sulla sua storia, e sul nostro team. E seguiteci su Instagram su @medieval.kosid.

New Developments in Dendrochronology and its impact on the study of Vernacular Architecture, Uni. of Leicester (6-7 Jan. 2024), Booking Closes 15 Dec. 2023 & Bursary Applications By 8 Dec. 2023

Conference

New Developments in Dendrochronology and its impact on the study of Vernacular Architecture

Saturday 6 to Sunday 7 January 2024

College Court, University of Leicester

Booking Closes 15 December 2023

Bursary Applications By 8 December 2023

There have been significant developments in dendrochronological dating over the past 10 years and much of this has had important implications for vernacular building research. New complementary techniques have opened up opportunities to date other wood types and timbers derived from short-lived trees and increased the number of buildings that can be accurately dated. This has allowed dendrochronology to contribute to vernacular building studies in a wider number of areas, moving beyond the dating of individual buildings to contribute to studies of settlements and regions and contribute to other debates. The conference will cover three main areas; new techniques, dating of other timber types, including imported timbers, and the contribution of dendrochronology to wider debates in vernacular building studies. The outline programme is given below.

  • Saturday 6 January

    • Nat Alcock (Independent researcher) - The Tree-ring Database: 1978-2023: 4,000 dates and counting

    • Cathy Tyers (Dendrchronologist, Historic England) - Scientific Dating and vernacular architecture

    • Robert Howard (Nottingham Tree Ring Dating Laboratory) - Case study: Calverley Old Hall

    • Neil Loader (Prifysgol Abertawe/Swansea University) - An introduction to stable isotope dendrochronology

    • Dan Miles (Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory) - Stable isotope dendrochronology. Application to vernacular buildings

    • Alex Bayliss (Head of Scientific Dating, Historic England) - Using radiocarbon dating to understand historic buildings

    • Danny McCarroll (Prifysgol Abertawe/Swansea University) - Welsh Houses and the climate of the past

  • Sunday 7 January

    • Ann Crone (AOC Archaeology Group) and Coralie Mills (Dendrochronicle) - Home and away; the dendrochronology of pine in Scottish buildings

    • Rob Wilson (School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of St. Andrews) - Blue Intensity and historical dating: Not just for conifers!

    • Dr Martin Bridge (Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory) - Elm and dating prospects with additional analysis methods

    • Steven J Allen (Conservation Dept, York Archaeology) - Dates and the details: Constructing Anglo-Scandinavian Buildings in York

    • Duncan James (Insight Heritage) - Pembridge village, Herefordshire in the light of dendro

    • Stephen Price (Independent researcher) - The impact of dendro on understanding urban development in the Worcestershire towns of Droitwich and Bewdley

    • Ann Crone (AOC Archaeology Group) - American oak imports to Britain and Ireland in the 18th and early 19th centuries; the dendrochronological evidence

    • Vincent Debonne (researcher, built heritage, Flanders Heritage Agency, Belgium) - Towards tree-ring based chronologies of historical building materials and techniques. The example of Bruges (Belgium)

    • Chris Dyer (University of Leicester) - The importance of tree ring dates in changing our understanding of the past

Full booking details are being circulated to members during week beginning 13 November 2023, and are also available in the Members' Area. Booking closes on 15 December 2023.

We are offering two bursaries to assist registered full or part-time students, recent graduates or professionals in the early years of their career to attend the conference; for more information please see the bursary details. The closing date for bursary applications is 8 December 2023.

Conference enquiries: please email winter-conference@vag.org.uk.

For more information, https://www.vag.org.uk/index.htm.

Call for Papers: Creating Holiness: Books, Scrolls and Icons as Carriers of Sacredness (Mainz, 17-20 June 2024), Due By 15 December 2023

Call for Papers

Creating Holiness: Books, Scrolls and Icons as Carriers of Sacredness

Conference in Mainz (Academy of Sciences and Literature)
17–20 June 2024

Due By 15 December 2023

Applying the ink during a writing exercise
Image Credit: Annett Martini

Every written culture has its sacred texts. Through the regular reading of these texts, which is usually guided by a fixed rite in the same direction, a group of people reassures themselves of their community and constructs a place of cultural identity beyond the profane. The sacred text not only defines the respective beliefs, but also represents the physical expression of divine revelation, and is often itself revered as a representative of the divine in ritual. Such a text has a special quality as a manuscript, since its value can be increased not only by the high quality of the material and decoration, but also by the extraordinary virtues of the scribe and the circumstances of the act of writing itself. There are notions of what requirements such a scribe should fulfill and what rituals writing itself is subject to. The process of writing becomes a sacred act, a divine service, or an ascetic practice.

This conference will address the questions of what turns a book – or an icon of the Eastern churches – into a sacred object in Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist cultures, and how is sacredness connected to the material.

  • Are there material elements – writing surfaces, inks, colors, letterforms – that are preferred in the making of the sacred artifact? What expectations, memories, or theological concepts are associated with the material?

  • Is the manufacturing process subject to ritual rules? What requirements are imposed on the scribe? Is the scribe distinguished by a certain way of living or a special position within society?

  • What does the special handling of the sacred writings and icons, their veneration and performative choreography within the liturgy or prayer tell us about their functions within the religious community?

  • How are the sacred artifacts received? Are there legends about the scribes and the documents they produced? How are narratives about the magical potential of sacred objects to be assessed?

Travel and accommodation costs can be covered by the organizers on behalf of the ToRoll project.

Please send your abstract (150-200 words) to PD Dr Annett Martini
by December, 15th 2023: amartini@zedat.fu-berlin.de. Visit our website for more information about the research project ToRoll: Materialized Holiness: https://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/materialisierte-heiligkeit/index.html

For a PDF of the CFP, click here.

Call For Abstracts: Archaeology of Colour: The production of polychromy in sculpture up to the 16th century (17-18 April 2024 - Online), Due By 15 December 2023

Call For ABstracts

International Symposium

Archaeology of Colour: The production of polychromy in sculpture up to the 16th century

17-18 April 2024 (Online - Zoom)

Due By 15 December 2023

The NOVA School of Science and Technology, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, and the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga are organizing the International Symposium Archaeology of Colour – The production of polychromy in sculpture up to the 16th century. 

The symposium aims to engage scholars from different fields to enrich our understanding of the production of polychromy in sculpture up to the 16th century.

This symposium, to be held online, is organized within the scope of the project Archaeology of Colour (PTDC/ART-OUT/5992/2020), a project dedicated to studying the polychromy of medieval and early modern Portuguese sculpture. 

The symposium aims to engage scholars from different fields to enrich our understanding of the production of polychromy in sculpture up to the 16th century. Communications on subjects related to the production of polychromy on different chronologies, geographies, and technologies are welcome: 

  • Materials and Techniques

  • Documentation

  • The meanings of colour

  • Circulation of materials, techniques, artists, and artworks 

  • Experimental Archaeology

  • Knowledge transmission among neighbourhood chronologies, geographies, and technologies

  • Novel techniques and scientific approaches for studying polychromy

  • Material/Digital reconstructions of past appearances – technical challenges, experience on the public’s response, etc. 

The language of the symposium will be English (special cases in other languages will be considered). Presentations should be 20 minutes maximum length. Please submit an abstract of approximately 400 words, plus a title and 4 keywords. Proposals should include the name and affiliation of the author(s) and a short biography (c. 150 words) of the presenting author. 

Proposals should be submitted to archaeologyofcolour@campus.fct.unl.pt no later than the 15th of December 2023. The symposium is free of charge.

For more information, https://sites.google.com/campus.fct.unl.pt/archaeology-of-colour/home?authuser=0.

Call for Applications for PHD Studentship: Medieval Women's Religious Communities, University of Cambridge and British Library, Due By 4 January 2024

PhD Studentship opportunity

Medieval Women's Religious Communities

University of Cambridge and British Library

Due By 4 January 2024

Nuns attending Mass inside a church: Yates Thompson MS 11, f. 6v

The British Library is collaborating with the University of Cambridge to offer a fully-funded PhD studentship on the subject of ‘Reading and Writing in Medieval Women's Religious Communities’. The successful applicant will be supervised by Dr Jessica Berenbeim (Cambridge) and Dr Eleanor Jackson (British Library), and start in October 2024. 

The student will have the opportunity to investigate the culture of female religious communities in the Middle Ages through a study of their surviving manuscripts. Medieval women living together in monasteries and other kinds of convent communities owned or produced an astonishing number and variety of manuscripts. These include literary works in poetry and prose, archive and record books, music manuscripts, financial and administrative accounts, maps, books for religious services, paintings in the form of manuscript illumination, documents such as charters, and sculpture in the form of seal impressions.

We are inviting applicants to propose a project that explores any aspect of women’s conventual life, with the specific aim of bringing together kinds of sources that have rarely been discussed in combination. The themes and structure of the project are entirely open, provided the proposal is interdisciplinary and combines different types of manuscripts—broadly defined, as above—in novel, creative, and productive ways. At least some element of your research should concern institutions in the British Isles, but the project as a whole may be comparative. In your proposal, you would aim to draw principally on the British Library’s collections (although we understand that some research in other collections will almost certainly be inevitable). Some indication of the BL’s holdings can be found on these sites:

The British Library has one of the world’s most extensive and diverse collections of manuscripts from medieval women’s communities. In your research for this project, you would work on these collections alongside the BL’s curatorial staff, and undertake specialised training at both the BL and at Cambridge, where you would be part of a large and collegial community of medievalists in a wide range of fields. The British Library is currently developing a major exhibition on Medieval Women, which is due to open in October 2024. Starting your doctoral research just as the exhibition is opening, you will be able to develop a close familiarity with the display, support the programme of private views and visits to the exhibition, and build on its research findings.

The studentship is fully funded via the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership. Applications are now open on their website, where you can view the full Collaborative Doctoral Award advert and find details of how to apply. The closing date for applications is 4 January 2024. 

For more information, https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2023/09/phd-studentship-opportunity-medieval-womens-religious-communities.html

University of York History of Art Research Seminar: The Power of Blue: Didactic models in text and image in Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othea, Charlotte Cooper-Davis, 6 December 2023 6-7PM

History of Art Research Seminar

The Power of Blue: Didactic models in text and image in Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othea

Dr Charlotte Cooper-Davis, Cambridge University Library

Wednesday 6 December 2023, 6pm to 7pm, University of York, UK


Room BS/005, Berrick Saul Building, Campus West, University of York (Map)

In-person Only, Booking Required in Advanced

Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othea is a unique work: each of the 100 sets of glossed verse imparts a lesson through an exemplary figure or didactic model and is accompanied by an image that was created in collaboration with the author. The 101 images featured in one of the Othea author manuscripts (British Library, Harley MS 4431) were prepared by a master known as the Master of the City of Ladies and, although copied from an earlier source, the images in this manuscript set out to enhance women's power in a way that the earlier manuscript did not. This talk will analyse some of this artist's depictions of the didactic models who are present in the text to reveal his predilection with representing female didactic figures in blue, especially in verses evoking wisdom, chastity, and motherhood. The Master of the City of Ladies thereby creates a network of intervisual connections that enhance the power of the individual women represented, and of women as a collectivity. 

Charlotte Cooper-Davis has carried out extensive research into the visual programme of Christine de Pizan's manuscripts and the relationship between text and image in manuscripts of her works. She is the author of the biography, Christine de Pizan, Life, Work, Legacy (Reaktion 2021) and of Christine de Pizan: Empowering Women in Text and Image (Arc Humanities, 2023).

Contact: history-of-art@york.ac.uk

The Murray Seminars at Birkbeck: Foreignness and Architecture in late fifteenth-century Castile, Dr Costanza Beltrami, 5 Dec. 2023 16:45-18:30 GMT (11:45-13:30 ET), Online

THE MURRAY SEMINARS AT BIRKBECK

FOREIGNNESS AND ARCHITECTURE IN LATE FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CASTILE

DR COSTANZA BELTRAMI

5 DECEMBER 2023, 16:45-18:30 GMT (11:45-13:30 ET)

ONLINE

Book your place

What did it mean to be a foreigner in fifteenth-century Castile? How was local architecture shaped by broader phenomena of migration, and how was international exchange transformed by local contexts? The history of fifteenth-century Spanish architecture has often been told as a history of travelling artists. Following a first ‘wave’ of French ‘pioneers,’ around mid-century, Northern European artists settled in the kingdom of Castile, obtaining leading positions in important cathedral lodges where they trained ‘second-generation’ migrants like Juan Guas (active 1453–1496), the leading architect of his time. In his will, Guas evokes his distant French origins, but also his position as Royal Master Mason. The foreign craftsmen who settled in Castile in the late-fifteenth century have been credited with establishing a new status for architects at the Gothic-to-Renaissance transition. Unusually, their names are recorded next to those of patrons on some contemporary buildings. Exploring the dynamics of artistic migration, this lecture will interrogate the meanings of architecture in fifteenth-century Castile.  

Contact name: Laura Jacobus

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: ICMA AT COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2025, DUE 15 JANUARY 2024

ICMA AT COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE   

New York, February 2025 
Call for ICMA Sponsored Session Proposals
due 15 January 2024

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) seeks proposals for sessions to be held under the organization’s sponsorship in 2025 at the annual meeting of the College Art Association. Session organizers and speakers must be ICMA members.  

 

The actual conference dates have not yet been confirmed, but the ICMA would like to plan ahead and so the CFP comes earlier this cycle.   

 
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 15 January 2024 here.

 

For inquiries, contact the Chair of the ICMA Programs & Lectures Committee: Alice Isabella Sullivan, Tufts University, USA, alice.sullivan@tufts.edu.  


Call for CHAPTER submissions: Marian Devotion and the Senses in the Middle Ages, EDITED VOLUME FOR BREPOLS, DUE BY 20 DECEMBER 2023

Call for CHAPTER submissions

Marian Devotion and the Senses in the Middle Ages

EDITED VOLUME FOR BREPOLS

DUE BY 20 December 2023

Pendant Brooch with Cameo of Enthroned Virgin and Child and Christ Pantokrator; late 1000s–1100s (cameo); 1100s–1300s (mount); Chalcedony cameo; gold mount with pearls, emeralds, garnets, sapphires, and a sardonyx intaglio; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Accession Number: 2007.9 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/477247

While some of the abstracts have been secured, we are still looking for ones that address the below topic for a volume being considered for publication with Brepols Publishers.

The volume seeks to explore the sensory approaches of the Marian cult as reflected in Eastern and Western Christianity. It aims to examine the private and collective expressions of Marian devotion in relation to the senses or intersections of senses (visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory) that generate forms of spiritual entanglements and mutual dependencies between human devotional practices, artefacts, and sites.

Suggested topics, on any geographic area or time period (between 300-1500) may include, but are not limited to:

  • pilgrimages to Marian shrines/holy sites (incubation, dreams, and Marian miracles);

  • devotion gestures based on: touch (e.g. touching the floor, kneeling, kissing), smell and its healing properties, sound, etc.;

  • active/passive use of the senses in Marian devotion;

  • inner senses/external senses in relation to Marian devotion;

  • Marian devotion, the senses, and the liturgy (ceremonies, sermons);

  • architecture/church interiors in relation to sensory effects and Marian devotion;

  • personal/collective devotional practices;

  • religious objects, the senses, and Marian devotion;

  • sensory deprivation, mystical experience, and Marian proximity;

  • visual representations and the senses: books and illustrations, paintings, mosaics, marbles, statues;

  • literature: liturgical dramas/plays; books.

Submissions from a variety of disciplines (and sources) are accepted including but not limited to: history, art history, visual culture, social history, cultural history, hagiography, religious studies, cultural studies, textual studies in a transdisciplinary perspective. The language of publication is English.

Please submit a 600-800 words abstract clearly underlying the main argument and the potential outcomes of the essay. All contributions should be original and previously unpublished.

Proposals should have an abstract format written either in PDF file or Word.doc and be accompanied by a short 700 words CV including e-mail, current affiliation, affiliation address, and academic position.

CVs should have the standard CV format; narrative bio formats are not accepted.

Please submit all relevant documents, as PDF or Word.doc, by 20 December, 2023, to the e-mail address: znorovszkyandrea@usal.es

Contact information:

Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain (znorovszkyandrea@gmail.com)

Nota Bene!

Submitted abstracts will be selected. Contextually, potential authors will be asked to submit their essays for the publication of the edited volume considered for publication with Brepols Publishers.

At this early stage, neither the editor, nor the publisher guarantees the publication of the essays. These are accepted for publication only after they undergo several reviewing procedures, initially by the editor, and then by two (2) reviewers. Alternatively the series editor might decide to review the material. Essays also need to fulfill formatting and language requirements.

CALL FOR PAPERS: 2024 MEDIEVAL STUDIES STUDENT COLLOQUIUM: MEDIEVAL SUBJECTIVITIES (ONLINE), DUE BY 15 DECEMBER 2023

CALL FOR PAPERS

2024 MEDIEVAL STUDIES STUDENT COLLOQUIUM: MEDIEVAL SUBJECTIVITIES  

CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDIEVAL STUDIES PROGRAM

DUE BY 15 DECEMBER 2023

The Medieval Studies Program at Cornell is pleased to announce the 34th annual Medieval Studies Student Colloquium (MSSC), which takes the idea of “Subjectivities” as its theme. The conference will be held virtually over Zoom on Saturday, March 2nd, 2024.    

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers investigating the various subjectivities present in the Middle Ages or later understandings of or scholarship on the medieval period. Such papers are encouraged to approach this theme from an expansive range of disciplines and perspectives, especially those which have been absent or underrepresented within medieval studies. “Subjectivities” can refer to the various ways in which individuals’ perceptions are influenced by their unique identities, experiences, feelings, beliefs, and tastes. For the purposes of this conference, papers may address the myriad relationalities and orientations that connect medieval subjects to each other. Papers might engage with the ways in which identities, communities, religions, affects, archives, arts, or the environment inform medieval subjectivities. Papers might also consider how medieval subjectivities function across spatial and temporal boundaries. How can conceptions of the Global Middle Ages be used to understand medieval subjectivities? What is the relationship between postmedieval and medieval subjects? What subjectivities do modern readers bring to medieval texts, and how do those subjectivities impact scholarship? What are the ramifications of using contemporary critical theories to interpret medieval subjects? How do modern subjectivities affect retellings and re-imaginings of the Middle Ages in pop culture and speculative media? Papers may respond to, but are certainly not limited to, these questions.  

Papers from underrepresented fields and backgrounds are particularly welcome, and we strongly encourage papers that look beyond Christian, Eurocentric, and Anglocentric contexts. We invite submissions from all fields and disciplines adjacent to Medieval Studies, including but not limited to Africana Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, Asian Studies, Classics, Critical Race Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, History, Indigenous Studies, Literature, Near Eastern Studies, Philosophy, and Theology. While we will consider all abstracts that are submitted, we will give priority to those aligned with the colloquium’s theme.   

Please send 300-word abstracts to Alexa Gall at aap228@cornell.edu by December 15th, 2023.  

For more information, https://medievalstudies.cornell.edu/news/2024-medieval-studies-student-colloquium-medieval-subjectivities

Call for Submissions: SPECULATIONS: The Centennial Issue of Speculum January 2026, Due by 1 December 2023

Call for Submissions

SPECULATIONS: The Centennial Issue of Speculum January 2026

Due by 1 December 2023

The centenary of a scholarly journal offers the opportunity to recognize, reflect on, and reimagine scholarly methods and objects, including canonicity and the discursive possibilities of scholarship; the boundaries, borders and spaces that define our disciplines; the genres and taxonomies that shape our work.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Speculum, we aim to commemorate the journal by raising questions about the methods and parameters of our study in a prospective rather than retrospective manner. What might the future of medieval studies look like? What might the place of this journal in that future be? The volume focuses on the future of the journal and the field it helps to define by inviting a wide breadth of scholarship that can collectively speculate about how we can take medieval studies into the future. But of course those living in the medieval world broadly considered speculated on their future as well. How was the future conceived in the past and what might those past reflections about the future, and about the condition of futurity generally, have to teach us as we consider recent shifts in our field and a shifting institutional context.  

The format of the centennial volume will model the kind of contributions we seek: instead of 4-5 long form articles, we plan to publish 50 short essays (of approximately 3,000 words each) in an attempt to represent a broader range of voices, perspectives, methodologies, and areas of study. We welcome traditional essays as well as innovative forms of research and reflection (pedagogical speculations, creative or dialogic writing, speculative history, etc.).

We invite contributions that speculate on the past and future of scholarly work in medieval studies. We particularly welcome essays that address gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and that use comparative and interdisciplinary methods and that address at least one of the following questions:

  • What kinds of methods and theoretical models shape our work and will orient us in the future?

  • How might we call on more inclusive and expansive understandings of the Middle Ages in light of the global turn and critical reappraisals of periodization.

  • What histories do we examine, what histories do we obscure, and what criteria will most productively guide our examination of histories in the future?

  • How have scholarly understandings of medieval historicity and temporality shaped the parameters of our inquiry, and how might we critically engage these accounts?

Proposals of 300 words should be sent to speculations@themedievalacademy.org by December 1, 2023.

Speculations editorial collective:

Mohamad Ballan; Peggy McCracken; Cecily Hilsdale; Katherine Jansen; Sierra Lomuto; Cord J. Whitaker

For more information, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/spc/speculations

Call for Papers: Irish Heritage Studies: The Annual Research Journal of the Office of Public Works (Government of Ireland), Abstracts for Volume One Due by 15 December 2023

Call for Papers

Irish Heritage Studies: The Annual Research Journal of the Office of Public Works

Abstracts for Volume One Due by 15 December 2023

The Office of Public Works, Ireland, is pleased to announce the launch of its annual research journal and invites submissions for the first volume to be published in spring 2025.

The journal will showcase original critical research rooted in the substantial portfolio of material culture in the care of or managed by the OPW: built heritage; historic, artistic, literary and scientific collections; the national and international histories associated with these places and objects; and its own long organisational history. Papers will contribute to a deeper understanding of this important collection of national heritage, and investigate new perspectives on aspects of its history. The journal is designed for a broad public, specialist and professional readership.

Established in 1831 (and with antecedents dating back to 1670), the Office of Public Works is a central government office currently with three principal areas of responsibility: managing much of the Irish State’s property portfolio; managing Ireland’s flood risk; and maintaining and presenting 780 heritage sites including national monuments, historic landscapes, buildings and their collections.

We invite submissions on the following historical themes, ranging from the early medieval period to the close of the twentieth century:

  • the design history of properties, demesnes and parks in the care of or managed by OPW

  • the furniture, archives, libraries, historical botanical collection, fine and decorative art collections in the care of OPW – including the State Art Collection – and items of material culture held elsewhere with connections to these properties and collections

  • the social, political, biographical and global histories connected with these properties and collections

  • previously marginalised historical narratives connected to these properties and collections, such as women’s voices, Ireland minority ethnic/global majority heritage, queer lives and disability history

  • the organisational history of public works bodies in Ireland since the seventeenth century such as the Surveyor General’s activities for the crown in Ireland and the Barrack Board, prior to the formalisation of the OPW. The full spectrum of OPW’s diverse history since 1831 including civil engineering, famine relief, loan administration, architectural builds and conservation, archaeological conservation, curatorship and interpretation of monuments and historical sites. This remit encompasses activities at properties owned or managed by the OPW, as well as OPW work undertaken at other State-owned properties (for example: Leinster House, the Four Courts)

We welcome scholarly papers from a range of perspectives, including (but not limited to) art, architectural, social, scientific and book history, cultures of collecting and display, museum and conservation studies, contested history and provenance research. We are also interested in interdisciplinary approaches and innovative methodologies. Discrete single-object case studies should seek to place the chosen subject within its broader cultural and historical context.

We welcome submissions from academics, post-graduate students, allied professionals, independent researchers and OPW personnel, and actively encourage the work of early career scholars. Submissions should draw on original and unpublished research. Manuscripts will be blind peer-reviewed before definitive acceptance for publication. The journal will be published in hardcopy, with later release for e-book sales and finally open access online.

Each volume will consist of eight to twelve papers. Final manuscripts will be 4,000–8,000 words (plus endnotes), typically with twelve illustrations. In addition to these more traditional essays, we welcome shorter pieces of above 1,000 words (plus endnotes), typically with six illustrations. Submissions should be in English, and multi-authored contributions are welcome.

The timeline for volume one is as follows:

  • deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 December 2023

  • feedback to authors: 15 January 2024

  • deadline for selected contributions (text and images) from authors: 17 June 2024

  • peer-review process completed and final text returned by authors: 29 September 2024

  • publication: spring 2025

Abstracts are welcome at any time for future volumes.

If you are interested in proposing a paper, please email an abstract of approx. 500 words (300 words for shorter case studies) with a provisional title and a brief biographical note (not CV) to Caroline Pegum, editorial manager, at IHSjournal@opw.ie by 15 December 2023. All submissions will be acknowledged. Informal enquiries are welcome at the same email address.

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

For more information, https://www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/irish-heritage-studies/

Call for Applications: Reginald Taylor and Lord Fletcher Essay Prize, British Archaeological Association, Due by 1 December 2023

Call for Applications

Reginald Taylor and Lord Fletcher Essay Prize

British Archaeological Association

dUE by 1 December 2023

Reginald Taylor was an active member of the British Archaeological Association for many years and acted as the Association’s secretary from 1924 until his death in 1932. With the agreement of his sister, Miss S. May Taylor, it was decided to use the monies he bequeathed the Association to found an essay prize in his memory. In 1996 a further decision was taken to combine this with a second legacy, one which had been left to the Association by Eric George Molyneaux Fletcher, Lord Fletcher, who died in 1990.

The Reginald Taylor and Lord Fletcher Essay Prize is a competitive award conferred biennially in recognition of an outstanding paper and consists of a bronze medal and cheque for £500. The paper should normally be no longer than 8,000 words (not including footnotes), be of high academic and literary quality and embody original and rigorous research. It should be appropriately footnoted. Essays should relate to the Association’s areas of interest, which are defined as the study of archaeology, art and architecture from the Roman period to the present day, principally within Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The core interests of the BAA are Roman to 16th century. We only entertain applications that cover the 17th to 21st centuries if they are of an historiographical, conservationist or antiquarian nature and link back to the BAA’s core interests. Papers submitted for publication in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association and those written expressly for the Prize competition are equally eligible. However, because the Prize seeks to recognise developing researchers (of any age), established scholars with a substantial list of publications to their name already are ineligible to apply.

The next closing date for submissions is 1 December 2023. The prize is now included in the British Archaeological Awards scheme, and candidates will be informed whether or not they have been successful in early 2024. The presentation of the award would follow at a time convenient to the recipient. The successful candidate will be invited subsequently to read their essay before the Association. Prize-winning essays are commonly published in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association (subject to approval via peer review).

The Association’s Council deals with all matters relating to the adjudication of essays, and the decision of its members shall be considered final. No award will be made unless the Council feels that a sufficiently high standard has been attained by at least one of the candidates.

Prospective candidates are advised they should send notification of the intended subject of their submission in advance by email to the Honorary Editor, Dr John Munns – editor@thebaa.org. A copy of the final text of the essay should then be sent as an email attachment so as to arrive with Dr Munns by 1 December 2023.

For more information, https://thebaa.org/scholarships-awards/reginald-taylor-lord-fletcher-essay-prize/

Call for Papers: The Senses, Cognition, and the Body in Medieval Devotional Practices; 2nd International Multidisciplinary Conference of the Series ‘Experiencing the Sacred’, Due By 30 Nov. 2023

Call for Papers

The Senses, Cognition, and the Body in Medieval Devotional Practices

2nd International Multidisciplinary Conference of the Series ‘Experiencing the Sacred’

Due By 30 November 2023

Starting with the 12th century, the upsurge of interest in Christ’s humanity and the more intense focus on his corporeal nature fostered more individualized and embodied approaches to spirituality, as emphasized by Caroline Walker Bynum. The human body of the believers themselves became a focal point, as a tool through which individuals could aspire to connect with the divine. Mary Carruthers and Michelle Karnes have illustrated that the incorporation of Aristotelian theories into Christian thought by theologians such as Thomas Aquinas played a crucial role in shaping these changing paradigms. They provided a new framework for understanding the moral and spiritual interpretations of the senses, the body and cognitive processes. This intellectual shift created innovative avenues for communicating complex spiritual concepts through somatic experiences, making the divine more accessible and even tangible. Over the centuries, the dissemination of these ideas among the laity through sermons, as noted by Giuseppe Ledda, and devotional literature such as the Meditationes Vitae Christi, led to the creation of a widespread culture of sensation. As a result, the integration of sensory and bodily experiences into religious practices became a shared cultural phenomenon, shaping the way people perceived and interacted with their faith.

To better grasp the relations between the senses, the body and the mind we propose to incorporate recent developments in the field of cognitive sciences. The intersection between cognitive sciences and medieval studies is a very recent and still rare occurrence (Blud & Dresvina, 2010), yet it holds promise. For the purpose of the present conference, we are interested in the fact that in cognitive sciences, the dynamics of interaction among mind, body, and material world are now deemed crucial to understand mental states and processes. Cognition is indeed understood to be embodied (it does not depend solely on the brain but is also influenced by the body) and embedded, meaning it is inextricably linked to its social and material environment. This interpretative framework proves particularly useful in analyzing medieval religious practices, where material items, environments, and individual experiences were inextricably connected.

The interdisciplinary focus of this conference, integrating sensory studies, material culture studies, cognitive studies, and historical research, provides a rich platform for understanding the profound changes in religion during the medieval period. By exploring somatised spiritual experiences, the conference aims to shed new light on the intricate ways in which the senses, cognition, and the body were engaged in devotional practices, emphasizing the multisensory nature of medieval spirituality.

We welcome abstracts for 25-minute papers, in English or Italian. Desirable themes include (but are not limited to):

  • The intersection of material objects, the body, and immaterial practices in devotional contexts;

  • The role of the body, emotions and cognition in the sacred spaces and its perceptions;

  • Living and dead bodies in religious spaces and practices;

  • Touching and dressing bodies in sacred spaces;

  • The role played by the senses in cognitive processes, for example the use of the body and the senses as metaphors to facilitate the understanding of religious concepts;

  • Individual, collective, and gendered forms of embodied and embedded devotion;

  • The agency of objects in extended forms of cognition in religious contexts;

  • Theories (medical, physiological, theological, etc.) on the body and mind in medieval culture.

By November 30th please submit to the conference organizers Zuleika Murat (zuleika.murat@unipd.it), Pieter Boonstra (pieterhendrik.boonstra@unipd.it), Micol Long (micol.long@unipd.it) and Davide Tramarin (davide.tramarin@unipd.it):

  • full name, current affiliation (if applicable), and email address;

  • paper title of maximum 15 words;

  • abstracts of maximum 300 words;

  • a biography of maximum 500 words;

  • three to five key-words.

  • Notifications of acceptance will be given by December 18th.

Selected papers will be invited for publication in a collective volume in the Brepols series “The Senses and Material Culture in a Global Perspective’’.

This conference is organised by the ERC research project SenSArt – The Sensous Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art and Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th century), Grant Agreement nr. 950248, PI Zuleika Murat, Università degli Studi di Padova (https://sensartproject.eu/)

Organising Committee: 

Zuleika Murat (Associate Professor, Università degli Studi di Padova)

Pieter Boonstra (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Università degli Studi di Padova)

Micol Long (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Università degli Studi di Padova) 

Davide Tramarin (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Università degli Studi di Padova)

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

Call for Applications: 2024-2025 Research Residencies, Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia”, Naples, Due on 31 January 2023

Call for Applications

2024-2025 Research Residencies

Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia”, Naples

Due on 31 January 2023

Photo: Claudio Metallo


Founded in 2018, the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” (Centro per la Storia dell’Arte e dell’Architettura delle Città Portuali “La Capraia”) is a collaboration between the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas, Franklin University Switzerland, and the Amici di Capodimonte.

The Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” (Centro per la Storia dell’Arte e dell’Architettura delle Città Portuali “La Capraia”), housed in “La Capraia”, a rustic eighteenth-century agricultural building at the heart of the Bosco di Capodimonte, engages the museum and the city of Naples as a laboratory for new research in the cultural histories of port cities and the mobilities of artworks, people, technologies, and ideas. Global in scope, research at La Capraia is grounded in direct study of objects, sites, collections, and archives in Naples and southern Italy.

Through site-based seminars and conferences, collaborative projects with partner institutions, and research residencies for advanced graduate students, La Capraia fosters research on Naples as a site of cultural encounter, exchange, and transformation, and cultivates a network of scholars working at the intersection of the global and the local.

The Advisory Committee of the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” invites applications for Research Residencies for PhD students in the earlier stages of their dissertations. Projects, which may be interdisciplinary, may focus on art and architectural history, archaeology, music history, the digital humanities, or related fields, from antiquity to the present. Projects should address the cultural histories of Naples and southern Italy as a center of exchange, encounter, and transformation, and, most importantly, make meaningful use of local research materials including artworks, sites, archives, and libraries.

Research Residencies in the 2024-2025 academic year will run from 9 September 2024 through 2 June 2025. Applications are due on 31 January 2024. Download a pdf of the Call at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/residencies/

Learn more about the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/, where you will also find digital editions of our annual research reports. Learn about our Research Residencies at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/residencies/. View past and upcoming scholarly programs at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/programs/.

Download an overview of La Capraia at https://arthistory.utdallas.edu/port-cities/La_Capraia_Overview.pdf.

Call for Journal Article Proposals: Perspective : actualité en histoire de l'art, Due 10 December 2023

Call For Journal Article Proposals

Perspective : actualité en histoire de l'art

Due 10 December 2023

The journal Perspective : actualité en histoire de l'art will explore, in its 2025 – 1 issue, the relations between labor and art history, understood both as a scholarly discipline and the material under study.

That which we collectively term “labor” is today the subject of rapid changes and fierce debates which, in an often caricatural way, pitches those for whom labor is a value in and of itself (work or else laze about) against those who question the value of labor: Which type of work is useful to society? Are the conditions acceptable where labor is active? Is labor a form of domination ()? Posing these questions from an art-historical point of view allows us to start from scratch. This volume suggests that we study the relationships between labor and art history along four axes:

  1. The debate over art as labor: How has art history participated; effected changes in its vocabulary; and interacted with those artists, art critics, or philosophers who played a role in this debate?

  2. Art as a process of production: Which strands of art history have turned their attention more to the production of art than to its reception and through what type of theoretical, methodological, and ideological apparatus?

  3. The iconography of labor: What contributions does art history furnish, through the analysis of images, to our knowledge of the realities or representations of labor? What does it borrow from or contribute to other humanistic disciplines that study labor?

  4. Art history as labor: What are the material conditions in which art history is produced? How do these conditions vary in relation to individual, local, and/or historical situations?

Taking care to ground reflections in a historiographic, methodological, or epistemological perspective, please send your proposals (an abstract of 2,000 to 3,000 characters/350 to 500 words, a working title, a short bibliography on the subject, and a biography limited to a few lines) to the editorial email address (revue-perspective@inha.fr) no later than December 11, 2023. Perspective handles translations; projects will be considered by the committee regardless of language. Authors whose proposals are accepted will be informed of the decision by the editorial committee in January 2024, while articles will be due on May 15, 2024. Submitted texts (between 25,000 and 45,000 characters/ 4,500 or 7,500 words, depending on the intended project) will be formally accepted following an anonymous peer review process.

For additional information, visit the journal’s page on the INHA website and browse Perspective online.

PDFs of the Call for Papers are available in English and French.

La revue Perspective : actualité en histoire de l'art consacrera son n° 2025 – 1 à la question du travail dans ses relations avec l'histoire de l’art, entendue comme discipline scientifique et comme champ d’étude.

Ce que l’on appelle communément « travail » fait aujourd’hui l’objet de mutations rapides et de débats brûlants qui opposent, souvent de manière caricaturale, celles et ceux pour qui le travail est une valeur en soi (travailler ou fainéanter, telle serait l’alternative) à celles et ceux qui questionnent la qualité du travail : quel travail est utile à la société ? Les conditions dans lesquelles le travail s’exerce sont-elles acceptables ? Le travail est-il une forme de domination ? Aborder cette question du point de vue de l’histoire de l’art permet de la considérer à nouveaux frais et de l’approfondir. Ce numéro se propose d’étudier les relations entre le travail et l’histoire de l’art selon quatre axes :

  1. Le débat sur l’art comme travail : comment l’histoire de l’art y a-t-elle participé, fait évoluer son vocabulaire, interagi avec les artistes, les critiques d’art, les philosophes qui y ont pris part ?

  2. L’art comme processus de production : quels courants de l’histoire de l’art ont porté leur attention sur la production de l’art plus que sur sa réception, avec quel appareillage théorique, méthodologique et idéologique ?

  3. L’iconographie du travail : quelles contributions l’histoire de l’art apporte-t-elle à la connaissance des réalités ou des représentations du travail à travers l’analyse des images ? Qu’emprunte-t-elle ou qu’apprend-elle aux autres sciences humaines qui étudient le travail ?

  4. L’histoire de l’art comme travail : quelles sont les conditions matérielles dans lesquelles l’histoire de l’art est produite ? Comment ces conditions varient-elles selon les situations individuelles, locales, historiques ?

En prenant soin d’ancrer la réflexion dans une perspective historiographique, méthodologique ou épistémologique, prière de faire parvenir vos propositions (un résumé de 2 000 à 3 000 signes, un titre provisoire, une courte bibliographie sur le sujet et une biographie de quelques lignes) à l’adresse de la rédaction (revue-perspective@inha.fr) au plus tard le 11 décembre 2023. Perspective prenant en charge les traductions, les projets seront examinés par le comité de rédaction quelle que soit la langue. Les auteurs ou autrices des propositions retenues seront informées de la décision du comité de rédaction en janvier 2024, tandis que les articles seront à remettre pour le 15 mai 2024. Les textes soumis (25 000 à 45 000 signes selon le projet envisagé) seront définitivement acceptés à l’issue d’un processus anonyme d’évaluation par les pairs.

Pour plus d'informations, visitez la page de la revue sur le site internet de l'INHA et parcourez Perspective en ligne.

Exhibition: Point of View #27: A Masterpiece and its (Almost) Forgotten Collector: The So-Called Benda Madonna and Gustav von Benda's Legacy, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, 23 June 2023 - 14 Jan. 2024

Exhibition

Point of View #27: A Masterpiece and its (Almost) Forgotten Collector: The So-Called Benda Madonna and Gustav von Benda's Legacy

23 June 2023 - 14 January 2024

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

Maria-Theresien-Platz, 1010 Wien (Vienna), Austria

The Kunsthistorisches Museum owes a great deal not only to the Habsburgs: especially in the early 20th century, bourgeois collectors repeatedly ensured that the holdings grew. With Ansichtssache #27, the museum would like to commemorate one of the most important of these patrons, namely Gustav von Benda (1846 - 1932). He donated his rich collection of sculptures, paintings and other works to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1932. Initially housed in the Neue Burg, Benda's art treasures were distributed among the various departments of the museum against his will as early as 1939. The fact that Benda had belonged to the Jewish community until 1895 certainly contributed to this decision.

Supplemented by historical photographs and other works, the centerpiece of Viewpoint #27 is a masterful painting of the Virgin Mary that is part of Benda's 1932 legacy. Named after this painting, its creator is known to experts as the "Master of the Benda Madonna." This anonymous artist is certainly one of the most fascinating painters who were active at the end of the 15th century on the Upper Rhine, in the direct environment of Martin Schongauer. After the recent elaborate restoration, his namesake work will be made accessible to the public again for a few months as part of Ansichtssache #27. At the same time, we would like to remember the collector to whom we owe this masterpiece of the late Gothic.

The 27th edition of Ansichtssache can also boast a novelty: for the first time, the series will be accompanied by an open access publication (German and English). This is intended to offer interested audiences worldwide the opportunity to gain free insight into the research results of the house.

For more information, https://www.khm.at/en/visit/exhibitions/point-of-view-27/