Online Lecture

Mediating Touch: Ivory Pyxides and the Eucharist

Evan Freeman, Simon Fraser University

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture

November 17, 2025 | Zoom | 12:00–1:30 pm (Eastern Standard Time, UTC -5)

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the next lecture in our 2025–2026 lecture series.

A large body of round ivory boxes, also known as pyxides, survive from late antiquity. Each pyxis was cut from a section of elephant tusk and decorated with carvings. Most were likely produced around the Eastern Mediterranean between the fifth and seventh centuries CE, but the precise origins and functions of these objects are difficult to pinpoint. Several boxes display motifs associated with the Eucharist, leading scholars to speculate that they may have been used to bring the Eucharist home, on journeys, or to those who could not come to church. More recently, it has been suggested that ivory pyxides were used by worshippers who felt unworthy to receive Communion directly in their hands, as prohibited by canon 101 of the Quinisext Council held in Constantinople in 691/692. This talk offers a close examination of ivory pyxides that may have been used for receiving Communion in church as described by this canon. It argues that these boxes and their iconographic motifs were designed to appeal to the senses of sight and touch. If they were used for receiving Communion as described by the Quinisext Council, such boxes would have mediated physical contact with the Eucharist, warned and protected against the dangers of faithless and unworthy touch, and offered biblical models for worshippers to imitate as they sought salvation in the celebration of the Eucharist.

Evan Freeman is Assistant Professor and Hellenic Canadian Congress of British Columbia Chair in Hellenic Studies in the Department of Global Humanities and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. He researches art and ritual in the Byzantine world, recently co-editing the volume Byzantine Materiality (2024) with Roland Betancourt. He is also Contributing Editor for Byzantine art at Smarthistory, the Center for Public Art History, where he co-edited Smarthistory Guide to Byzantine Art (2021) with Anne McClanan.

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/mediating-touch

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

Murray Seminar

Imago Dei, Imago Mundi: Matthew Paris’s saints, relics, maps and wonders

Paul Binski

Online and

Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

17 November 2025, 17:00 — 18:30 GMT

Book your place to attend online.

Book your place to attend in-person (Waiting List).

At this Murray Seminar, Paul Binski will share his research on 'Imago Dei, Imago Mundi: Matthew Paris’s saints, relics, maps and wonders'.

This paper will place one aspect of Matthew’s work, his representations of exceptional things, in the context of his unfolding life story. It will discuss his unusual position as a writer and artist, his interest in saints and relics, his map-making and his recording of wonders as part of a single and in many ways coherent view of the World.

Paul Binski is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and was Slade Professor, Oxford University, 2006-7.  A leading international authority on Gothic art and architecture, and medieval culture more widely, his publications include Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets (1995), Becket’s Crown. Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170-1300 (2004), Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style 1290-1350 (2014). He published Gothic Sculpture in 2019 and Architecture and Affect in the Middle Ages in 2024. He now writes widely on general issues of aesthetics, ethics, affectivity and form in the Middle Ages, and is also a guest curator at the National Gallery, London.

Call for Pre-Application Statement of Intent

Peter Fergusson PhD Scholarship in English Medieval Architecture

The Courtauld, London

Due by 17 November 2025

 The Courtauld is delighted to announce a new fully funded PhD scholarship in English medieval architecture, starting in September 2026. Architecture is understood broadly to encompass the built environment, from infrastructure, urban design and domestic buildings to churches, castles and cathedrals, but may also include architectural representation or micro-architecture. Eligible projects should focus on England in the period between the eleventh and early sixteenth centuries. 

The scholarship is made available thanks to a generous bequest by Professor Peter Fergusson (1934-2022), an internationally recognised scholar of medieval architecture. The scholarship includes full home or international tuition fees, as well as an annual stipend of £22,780 to support the costs of living in London. There is also an annual allowance of £1000 to support travel for research purposes, and the possibility of financial support for the scholar to organise a conference in their final year of study.  

The Courtauld is based in central London and has one of the largest communities of postgraduate art historians in the world. The extensive faculty includes several specialists of medieval art and architecture. Further details of research specialisms and contact details are available at https://courtauld.ac.uk/faculty and details of The Courtauld’s PhD programme and its application process can be found at https://courtauld.ac.uk/phd  

Candidates are expected to have a strong postgraduate degree in a relevant field and a feasible idea for an original research project. They are encouraged to contact prospective supervisors to discuss their application at the earliest opportunity and must submit a ‘pre-application’ statement of intent by 17 November 2025, in advance of formal submission of their application by 8 January 2026. 

Call for Papers

Shaping the Word: the Form and Use of Biblical Manuscripts in the Early Medieval West

Durham University, 2-5 July 2026

Due 17 November 2025

In the second half of the first millennium, the Christian scriptures were produced, circulated, and put to use in a diverse range of forms and contexts. A manuscript may accommodate a single biblical text (the psalter, a gospel, the Apocalypse), a collection of texts (the Hexateuch, the fourfold gospel), or, rarely, a complete "New Testament" or "Bible" in the familiar modern sense. The distinctiveness of a manuscript is determined by its content and textual affiliation, its palaeographical and codicological characteristics, and its paratextual features - from illustrations of biblical narratives, author portraits, and illuminated lettering to canon tables, capitula, prefatory materials, and glosses. Once in circulation, a manuscript's contexts of use may include liturgical reading and preaching, meditation and mission, education and scholarship, gift-giving and display. Different uses correspond to different users with distinct and perhaps conflicting priorities and goals. Production and uses) may occur at the same site or at far distant times and places.

This conference aims to explore topics related to both the physical presentation and the use of scriptural manuscripts produced in the Early Medieval period (c. 500-1000 CE).

We welcome paper proposals from scholars working in all areas of this field, including PhD students. Whatever the specific topic, priority may be given to papers that also relate it to the wider focus of the conference on both "form" (or "production") and "use".

We hope to be able to cover presenters' full conference costs with the exception of travel.

Titles and Abstracts of proposed papers should be submitted to Lauren Randall (lauren.m.randall@durham.ac.uk), copied to Francis Watson (francis.watson@durham.ac.uk), no later than Monday 17 November. Abstracts should not exceed 150 words. Our current draft schedule can accommodate up to fourteen 45 minute sessions, with a maximum of 25 minutes for the presentation in order to allow substantial time for discussion. There will also be several keynote papers or presentations. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this event!

For information, the context of this event is our sub-project "Text, Format, and Reader", focused primarily on Codex Amiatinus and funded by the Glasgow-based "Paratexts Seeking Understanding" project (Templeton Religion Trust). We are grateful to our Glasgow colleagues for their support.

Call for Papers

4th SWESP International Workshop

Decentring Europe: Nordic–Iberian Histories in Transregional Perspective

University of Gothenburg, 21-22 May 2026

Due 15 November 2025

The CFP for the 4th SWESP International Workshop has just been launched. With the title “Decentring Europe: Nordic–Iberian Histories in Transregional Perspective”, it will take place on 21-22 May 2026 at the University of Gothenburg.

The workshop is free of charge, and we offer partial bursaries to cover travel costs for doctoral students and early-career researchers with limited access to funding. Please see the attached CFP for details about how to apply for a bursary.

Conference Theme: This interdisciplinary conference seeks to explore the multifaceted connections and entanglements between the Nordic and Iberian worlds. Moving beyond traditional centre-periphery and modernisation narratives, the event aims to foster dialogue on how exchanges across these regions have shaped diplomatic, economic, political, and cultural networks from the late medieval period to the contemporary era. We welcome approaches from comparative and transnational history, histoire croisée (entangled history), and other interdisciplinary frameworks that examine both the continental lands and the overseas territories of these regions.

Topics: We invite contributions from a wide range of disciplines, including history, literature, arts, philosophy, and the social sciences. Topics may include, but are not limited to: Cross-regional diplomatic, religious, and military networks; Movements of people, goods, and ideas; political exile and migration; Comparative studies of governance, reform, and military/maritime infrastructures; Cultural exchange, translation, and artistic reception; Knowledge production and scientific transfer; Comparative gender, family, and welfare structures; Environmental and climatic histories; Transregional solidarities and intellectual entanglements.

Submission Guidelines: We encourage submissions that focus on specific historical periods or adopt cross-temporal perspectives. The workshop aims to illuminate the shared questions and conceptual paradigms that emerge from studying the Nordic and Iberian regions in relation to one another.

Key dates: Proposals should be sent in a Word or PDF document containing a title, a short abstract (max. 250 words), and the author’s name and affiliation to the organisers at swespnet@gmail.com no later than 15 November 2025. The results of the selection process will be communicated by 15 December 2025. If you wish to request a bursary, please include a short motivation letter (max. 250 words) explaining how attending the workshop may impact your career, with details of available funding.

Organising Committee: A. Jorge Aguilera-López (University of Helsinki), Enrique J. Corredera Nilsson (University of Bern), Lucila Mallart (Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona), Kenneth Nyberg (University of Gothenburg), Ingmar Söhrman (University of Gothenburg).

Please see the full CFP here.

Call for Papers

The Medici and the Dominicans

Friday, 30 January 2026

Palazzo Alberti, Florence

Due by 15 November 2025

In partnership with the the Library and Archive of Santa Maria Novella (Florence), the academic journal Memorie Domenicane, and the Leonine Commission (Paris), the Medici Archive Project is organizing a one-day conference on the relationship between the Medici (both the merchant-bankers of the quattrocento and the grand dukes of the later centuries) and the mendicant order founded by Dominic de Guzmán at the beginning of the thirteenth century.

This conference intends to reassess this complex relationship—sometimes symbiotic, often strained—that indelibly marked the history of Florence. Priority will be given to papers addressing the interpenetration between artistic production and patronage, religious dissent, political crises, book and print history, and humanist and scientific discourse. The organizers invite proposals for 20-minute unpublished papers in English or Italian, which address topics including, but not limited to:

• Medici Presence at San Marco

• Antonino Pierozzi: Patronage and Canonization

• The Medici and Santa Maria Novella

• The Medici Library and the Library at San Marco

• The Medici and the Observant and Conventual conflict in the Quattrocento

• The Studia of Florence and Pisa

• Savonarola and Piagnonism

• Neo-Piagnonism at the Time of the Medici Grand Dukes

• Santa Caterina de' Ricci and the Convent of San Vincenzo in Prato

• Cosimo I and the 1545 San Marco Crisis

• Medici and Dominican Fonderie in Florence

• Egnazio Danti and Mapmaking

• The Medici Popes at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome

• Plautilla Nelli and Santa Caterina da Siena in Florence

• Paupertas, Majestas, and Simplicitas

• The Dominicans in Florence during the "Forgotten Centuries"

The conference will take place at Palazzo Alberti in Florence on Friday, 30 January 2025.

To apply: please send an abstract (max 250 words) and a short bio (max 100 words) by 15 November 2025 to education@medici.org.
Successful applicants will be notified on 25 November 2025.

Call for Applications

Assistant Professor in Medieval European Art and Architectural History in the World

Brown University

Reviewing of Applications Begins 15 November 2025

Position Description

The Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University seeks applicants at the rank of Assistant Professor (tenure-track) whose scholarship focuses on histories of medieval (ca. 500s-1400s) European art and architecture in the world. We are interested in candidates whose work explores developments in Europe, and we consider scholarship that examines Europe’s relationship and connections to the wider world as a highly desirable additional area of investigation. We are especially interested in scholars who combine art or architectural historical and archaeological expertise. The position start date is July 1, 2026.

Qualifications

Applicants must have a doctorate in art or architectural history in hand by July 1, 2026. The successful candidate will demonstrate outstanding scholarly potential, as well as a commitment to classroom teaching of introductory as well as specialized courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. They are expected to encourage cross-disciplinary collaborations through innovative teaching, research and mentoring, helping to make connections with students and faculty across the university.

Application Instructions

Candidates should provide a cover letter, a current curriculum vitae, a research statement, a teaching statement, a writing sample (ca. 30 pages) and the names and contacts of three recommenders (references will only be contacted for candidates under serious consideration). Applicants should state in their cover letter how they would contribute to the research and/or teaching missions of our diverse and inclusive university community. Please submit all materials online via Interfolio: apply.interfolio.com/174923 Review of applications will begin on November 15, 2025. The search will remain open until filled or closed.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

Brown University provides equal opportunity and prohibits discrimination, harassment and retaliation based upon a person’s race, color, religion, sex, age, national or ethnic origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law, in the administration of its policies, programs, and activities. The University recognizes and rewards individuals on the basis of qualifications and performance. The University maintains certain affirmative action programs in compliance with applicable law.

For more information, visit https://hiaa.brown.edu/news/2025-10-06/hiaa-faculty-position-opening

Call for Papers

Bridging the Past and Present in Cartography

31st International Conference on the History of Cartography (ICHC)

7-11 July 2026, Prague, Czech Republic

Due by 14 November 2025

The Faculty of Science of Charles University, the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Moravian Library in Brno, the Faculty of Science of Masaryk University, and the Czech Geographical Society, under the auspices of the Czech Cartographic Society, are pleased to invite proposals for papers and posters for the

ICHC is the only academic conference solely dedicated to advancing knowledge of the history of maps and mapmaking, regardless of geographical region, language, period or topic. ICHC promotes free and unfettered global cooperation and collaboration among cartographic scholars from many academic disciplines, curators, collectors, dealers and institutions through illustrated lectures, presentations, exhibitions, and a social program. In order to expand awareness of issues and resources, each conference is sponsored by a leading educational and cultural institution.

The biennial conferences are organized in conjunction with Imago Mundi CIO. ICHC 2026 builds upon Czechia’s robust tradition of research in the history of cartography and related disciplines, a tradition that has flourished for more than a century.

Under the broad rubric of Bridging the Past and Present in Cartography, ICHC 2026 welcomes paper and poster presentations on the following themes:

1. Maps and Tourism - Encompasses the role of maps and related works in promoting tourism to regions or particular destinations and in the experience of touristic places.

2. Maps as Artefacts - Investigates the nature of maps as cultural object s that circulate within the marketplace and other networks, and that are variously collected and preserved within institutions of memory (GLAM).

3. The Third Dimension: Representing Elevation on Maps - Explores the particular strategies developed to represent the earth’s crumpled surface of hills and valleys for specific tasks, from military and geological mapping to forest management.

4. Mapping the Past: Historical Cartography at the Turn of the Digital Era- Pursues interdisciplinary and critical perspectives on the ideological implications of new digital technologies in mapping the past, including the risks of distortion and of the instrumentalisation of historical content for political or ideological purposes.

5. And any other aspect of the history of cartography.

Key Dates

• Opening of the call for papers: 15 July 2025

• Deadline for submission of proposals: 14 November 2025

• Notification of acceptance: 15 January 2026

• Early Bird Registration: until 15 April 2026

Papers

Paper presentations will comprise 15 minutes for presentation, followed by a short discussion.

Posters

Posters will be installed for a dedicated session on the second morning of the conference and will remain on display through the remainder of the conference.

Panel Proposals

We welcome the proposal of organized sessions. However, proposals for paper presentations, whether by one or more presenters, must be submitted and evaluated individually. Therefore, if a proposed paper is intended for an organized session, please include the information at the end of the submission form. The session’s organizer must also submit a separate proposal for the session that lists all the papers and presenters.

For more information, visit https://ichc2026.org/

York Medieval Lecture

Video Games & the Work of Medieval Art History: Possibilities for Public Impact Through Industry Collaborations

Dr Glaire Anderson (The University of Edinburgh)

Wednesday 12 November 2025, 5.30 PM to 7.00 PM GMT/ 12.30 PM to 2.00 PM ET

The lecture will be followed by a wine reception.

To attend in person, please register via Eventbrite. 
To attend online, please register via Zoom.

This lecture will be recorded, which we hope to upload to the Centre for Medieval Studies Youtube Channel shortly after the lecture.

Call for Papers

11th Conference of the Medieval Chronicle Society

27th-30th July 2026

Munich, Germany

Due by 10 November 2025

The 11th international conference on the Medieval Chronicle will be held in Munich, Germany, in the week of 27-30 July 2026. Papers in English, French or German are invited on any aspect of the medieval chronicle. These can for example be related to form, function, questions regarding historiography or images. However, we especially encourage papers related to our special focus “Chronicle in Danger”. Themes to be addressed may include, but are not limited to:

• Use and abuse of the chronicle, both in the Middle Ages and thereafter

• Creation of crisis narratives in chronicles, including blaming, scapegoating, hate, compassion, and cohesion during crises

• Gender, race, class and religion in the chronicle: concepts of othering and exclusion

• Materiality of the chronicle and future perspectives concerning preservation and digitization

• Challenges of ‘outdated’ editions and of editing chronicles in the 21st century

We welcome submissions for individual papers and sessions. Each session will be 90 minutes and consist of three papers. For a session proposal please include three papers and a chair. Conference papers will be strictly limited to 20 minutes in length. Please note that the conference will take place in person and no hybrid access can be provided.

The submission deadline for abstracts (maximum length 200 words per paper) and sessions is Monday, November 10th, 2025. Please submit abstracts through our online platform: https://doo.net/de-de/widget/189361/buchung?booking_widget_config_name=booking-18400-84682&organizerId=18400&locale=de-de

Notifications of acceptance will be given by the end of January 2026 and the registration will follow in spring 2026. We are estimating a conference fee of €90 (reduced rate €60 for PhD/graduate students) and additional fees for a day trip to Regensburg on Thursday, July 30th including a guided tour and a conference dinner. Travel and accommodation have to be covered and organized individually.

Contact: Florian Datz (florian.datz@lmu.de)

Organizers: Prof. Julia Burkhardt, Florian Datz, M.A., Prof. Eva Haverkamp-Rott, Dr. Paul Schweitzer-Martin (LMU Munich)

For more information, visit https://medievalchronicle.org/2025/05/21/call-for-papers-11th-conference-of-the-medieval-chronicle-society-27-30-july-2026/

Call for Sessions and Papers

11th Conference of the Medieval Chronicle Society

27-30 July 2026, Munich, Germany

Due by 10 November 2025

The 11th international conference on the Medieval Chronicle will be held in Munich, Germany, in the week of July 27th to 30th 2026. Papers in English, French or German are invited on any aspect of the medieval chronicle.

The 11th international conference on the Medieval Chronicle will be held in Munich, Germany, in the week of July 27th to 30th 2026. Papers in English, French or German are invited on any aspect of the medieval chronicle. These can for example be related to form, function, questions regarding historiography or images. However, we especially encourage papers related to our special focus “Chronicle in Danger”. Themes to be addressed may include, but are not limited to:
Use and abuse of the chronicle, both in the Middle Ages and thereafter

• Creation of crisis narratives in chronicles. Including questions regarding blaming, scapegoating, hate, compassion, and cohesion during crises

• Gender, race, class and religion in the chronicle: Concepts of othering and exclusion

• Materiality of the chronicle and future perspectives concerning preservation and digitization

• Challenges of ‘outdated’ editions and of editing chronicles in the 21st century

We welcome submissions for individual papers and sessions. Each session will be 90 minutes and consist of three papers. For a session proposal please include three papers and a chair. Conference papers will be strictly limited to 20 minutes in length. Please note that the conference will take place in-person and no hybrid access can be provided.

The submission deadline for abstracts (maximum length 200 words per paper) and sessions is Monday, November 10th, 2025. Please submit abstracts below.

Notifications of acceptance will be given by the end of January 2026 and the registration will follow in spring 2026. We are estimating a conference fee of €90 (reduced rate €60 for PhD/graduate students) and additional fees forexcursions on Thursday, July 30th and a conference dinner. Travel and accommodation have to be covered and organized individually.

Recommendations for accommodation in Munich can be found here.

Contact: Florian Datz (florian.datz@lmu.de)

Organizers: Prof. Julia Burkhardt, Florian Datz, M.A., Prof. Eva Haverkamp-Rott, Dr. Paul Schweitzer-Martin (LMU Munich)

To submit your proposed session or paper, click here.

Call for Papers

Marginalities in the Insular Worlds of North-Western Europe (8th –13th c.)

FRIDAY, 12 JUNE 2026

UNIVERSITY OF CAEN / CRAHAM (FRANCE)

Due by 7 November 2025

The CRAHAM invite proposals for papers for a conference exploring the theme of marginalities in the insular worlds of North-Western Europe from the 8th to 13th centuries. This event aims to foster critical analysis of the processes, identities and representations that may have contributed to defining, structuring or even blurring the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in medieval insular societies, with a particular emphasis on Britain and Ireland.

We are seeking contributions grounded in historical, literary, archaeological and/or interdisciplinary approaches that interrogate the experiences and perceptions of those situated at the margins of medieval society, whether socially, culturally, ideologically, or economically.

We strongly encourage analyses that approach marginality through the lens of intersectionality, recognising how multiple, overlapping identities shaped unique experiences at the margins. Contributors may also wish to question both the degree of marginalisation, exploring the spectrum from partial exclusion to profound social isolation. They may also consider the necessity or function of marginalised people within medieval societies.

Subjects may include (but are not limited to):

• Gendered and sexual marginalities

• Religious minorities, non-conformist spiritualities

• Migrants, exiles

• Individuals marginalized by the law

• Disabilities (physical, mental, cognitive, psychological, sensory)

• Marginal voices in legal, literary, or documentary sources

• Representations of difference and exclusion

• Networks and strategies of adaptation among marginal groups

Proposals (200 words maximum) as well as a short CV and a biography should be sent to sarah.vincent@unicaen.fr and to jocelyn.coulon@unicaen.fr before 7 November 2025. Informal inquiries are also welcome. Please note that the presentations will last 30 minutes and will be followed by a 15-minutes time for questions. We are aiming for publishing the papers in a French medieval studies journal. Priority will be given to in-person presentations. Accommodation and meals will be provided for confirmed speakers, but travel costs should be covered by your own institution.

We invite scholars at all stages, particularly early career researchers and PhD students, to contribute to a dynamic dialogue that will expand, challenge, and enrich current perspectives on marginalities in medieval insular worlds. We look forward to receiving innovative proposals and to fostering meaningful intellectual exchanges in Caen.

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

Carl Sheppard Memorial Lecture in Medieval Art History

Beyond Text: Objects and Manuscripts in Sacred Storerooms across Medieval Africa

Dr. Ariel Fein

1210 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave S, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Thursday 6 November 2025 | 7 - 8:30 PM

The Cairo Geniza has long been celebrated as an accidental archive of “sacred trash”—a repository where medieval Jews deposited worn texts bearing God’s name. But what if this narrative of passive preservation of manuscripts obscures a more dynamic reality? Alongside manuscripts, the Geniza also preserved Torah ark doors, dedicatory panels, and carved inscriptions that moved between the synagogue’s walls and the storage chamber across centuries. This material reality—long overlooked in favor of textual treasures—reveals a broader phenomenon across medieval Africa. From the Great Mosque of Kairouan, where precious Qur’ans shared space with chandeliers, woodcarvings, armor, and manuscript chests, to Ethiopian monasteries preserving textiles beneath parchment deposits, to Coptic churches assembling new sanctuary screens from centuries-old wooden fragments, religious communities across the Mediterranean world stored objects and texts together in sacred repositories. Drawing on new evidence from Jewish, Islamic, and Christian sites, this lecture reveals how the medieval Mediterranean and Africa were connected through unexpected practices of material preservation—and what these practices tell us about memory, devotion, and the very nature of the sacred in the medieval world.

Ariel Fein is an art historian specializing in the visual cultures of Byzantium and the Islamic world, with a particular focus on intercultural and interreligious relationships across the Mediterranean. Her forthcoming book, Refugee to Kingmaker: George of Antioch and the Shaping of Norman Sicilian Visual Culture, examines how a twelfth-century Arab-Christian refugee rose from displacement to become Norman Sicily’s most influential administrator and cultural innovator. Her current project, Medieval Wood Networks, investigates the circulation, consumption, and preservation of decorated wooden objects across the Mediterranean, including extensive research on the carved furnishings of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue. Her research has been supported by the Institute for Advanced Study, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bard Graduate Center, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture. Dr. Fein received her PhD from Yale University and holds degrees from the Courtauld Institute of Art and Barnard College.

The Carl Sheppard Lecture is an annual lecture in honor of the late Carl Sheppard, former University of Minnesota professor of medieval European art history. Begun in 2012 and held every fall, the Carl Sheppard Memorial Lecture in Medieval Art History celebrates the richness and diversity of global medieval art by inviting an internationally-renowned scholar to the University of Minnesota. The event is open to the University community and the general public.

If you would like to make a gift, you can contribute to the Carl Sheppard Memorial Fund through the University of Minnesota Foundation. 

This event is cosponsored by the James Ford Bell Library and the Center for Jewish Studies.

For more information and to register, visit https://cla.umn.edu/premodern/news-events/events/beyond-text-objects-and-manuscripts-sacred-storerooms-across-medieval-africa

New Exhibition

Spectrum of Desire: Medieval Art, Eroticism, and the Museum

Melanie Holcomb, Co-Curator

Nancy Thebaut, Co-Curator

The Met Cloisters, New York, NY

October 17, 2025–March 29, 2026

Thursday, November 6, 2025, 6pm

On October 16, 2025, a landmark exhibition called Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages will open at The Met Cloisters. Visitors to this institution, or to the medieval galleries of museums in general, tend to associate the Middle Ages with images that uphold traditional beliefs and hierarchies – paintings and sculptures celebrating Christ and the Virgin, tapestries and other precious objects exalting royal authority, for instance. The Spectrum of Desire will upend such expectations. The exhibition will explore how medieval objects reveal and structure the performance of gender, understandings of the body, and erotic encounters, both physical and spiritual. Featuring approximately fifty objects, most of which are from the museum’s permanent collection, it will offer new readings of otherwise familiar objects in which gender, sexuality, relationships, and bodies are central themes. Although firmly grounded in the Middle Ages, the exhibition will also encourage modern audiences to reflect on the ways that gender, sex, and desire structure their own lives and identities today. In this talk, Curator Melanie Holcomb will speak on the goals of the exhibition and discuss specific works in the show, demonstrating how asking new questions about the past can reveal sometimes surprising answers about the present.

For more information about the exhibition, visit https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/spectrum-of-desire-love-sex-and-gender-in-the-middle-ages

Online Lecture

Creating Christian Sacred Spaces: The Armenian Case (4th–7th Centuries)

Nazénie Garibian

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art & Culture Lecture Series

Zoom

4 November 2025, 12:00 PM–1:30 PM ET

Nazénie Garibian, Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts Matenadaran and State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia, explores the creation of Christian sacred spaces in Armenia, from its official conversion at the beginning of the 4th century to the definitive establishment of Arab rule at the end of the 7th century.

This lecture offers a case study on the creation of Christian sacred spaces in Armenia, from its official conversion at the beginning of the 4th century to the definitive establishment of Arab rule at the end of the 7th century. This is a complex and turbulent transitional period for all of Christendom, during which the gradual transformation of the religious landscape is carried out through the marking of both physical grounds and human minds, conceived as a single space of the Church. Accordingly, any theological concept relating to the Church in its universal and eternal sense becomes applicable to this space. However, Christianity was adopted in Armenia largely by adapting to the existing political and social structures, as well as to the previous local religious traditions. Moreover, the fluctuating historical conditions inherent to the contact zones between the Roman/Byzantine and Iranian worlds profoundly shaped the formation of Armenian Christian identity and thought. All these factors largely defined the specificities of the concept and architectural organization of Armenian sanctuaries in the period under consideration. 

The lecture is structured around three main themes. The first theme focuses on the foundation of Armenian ecclesiastical institutions connected with the earliest Christian sanctuaries. The latter’s establishment, character, and geographical distribution will be analyzed using source evidence and situated within the historical context of the region during the first decades of the 4th century. 

The second theme addresses the adoption in Armenia of sacred models originating from the Holy Land, particularly Jerusalem, with the aim of creating a ‘New Jerusalem’ in Armenia at the beginning of the 5th century. The theological motivations underlying this initiative will be examined within the context of the contemporary political situation. The Armenian case will also be compared with similar examples among neighboring Christian countries in the Caucasus. 

The third theme explores the development of major ecclesiastical complexes from the 4th to the 7th centuries, which served as the household and see of the Catholicoi of Armenia. Three selected examples – Ashtishat, Dvin, and Zvartnots – will be analyzed within the framework of a new urban concept: the ‘church-city’. Inheriting the tradition of the ancient ‘temple-towns’, the spatial organization and architecture of these religious centers were designed, drawing inspiration from the sacred model of Jerusalem perceived as quintessential Christian Temple, Church, and Holy City.

This lecture will take place live on Zoom, followed by a question and answer period. Please register to receive Zoom link.

For more information and to register, visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/creating-christian-sacred-spaces

Call for Contributions for Edited Volume

The Medieval in Museums

Due by 3 November 2025, 5 pm GMT/12 pm ET

We invite short abstracts (100-200 words) in response to our call for chapters for an edited volume, ‘The Medieval in Museums’.

“The Medieval in Museums” seeks to demonstrate the cultural, aesthetic, political and historical stakes and effects of how medieval objects, texts, and histories are presented in museums. Our interpretation of ‘museum’ is broad, encompassing a range of ‘memory institutions’ including galleries, libraries, archives, and museums, and heritage sites both independently and government managed. We invite contributions which address the presentation of the medieval in physical galleries, landscapes, or other visitor-facing spaces in exhibitions and events programming; in behind-the-scenes archive and collections stores; and analogue or digital database or catalogue systems. Similarly, ‘the ‘medieval’ here encompasses Late Antiquity to the Late Medieval, as a temporal marker which shifts according to geo-spatial-political realities across a ‘global Middle Ages’.

We welcome traditional chapters, and will also consider dialogues, interviews, or other creative-critical text-based formats. Contributions may be from individual authors or two or more co-authors.

Full CfP available via the following link bit.ly/CfPMiM

Please send abstracts by 5pm GMT on Monday 3 November to Fran Allfrey (University of York) and Maia Blumberg (QMUL) fran.allfrey@york.ac.uk ; m.blumberg@qmul.ac.uk. Please be in touch with us to discuss your idea more informally should you wish.

Call for Applications

UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies

John W. Baldwin Post-Doctoral Fellowship

Due 3 November 2025

The UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies is pleased to announce it is accepting applications for the John W. Baldwin Post-Doctoral Fellowship. It is a two-year position beginning July 1, 2026, for recent Ph.D. recipients whose work focuses on European medieval studies within a global comparative context. The application deadline is November 3, 2025.

Full position details and application link: https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF10513

Call for Papers

ASSOCIATION FOR ART HISTORY CONFERENCE

CONFOUNDING IMAGES: FRUSTRATION AS ART HISTORICAL METHOD

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

8th-10th APRIL 2026

Due by 2 November 2025

If the mission of Art History is to make sense of visual and material cultures, then what can be learned from objects that resist art historical study?

This panel invites contributors to reflect on pre-modern artworks that they find compelling, but which they feel they have ‘failed’ to satisfactorily engage in art historical study. We encourage contributors to consider objects and images that they find confounding, have struggled to write about, have abandoned study of or which they have found resistant to art historical methodologies. We also invite papers which consider methodological ‘failings’: art historical theories that present significant challenges when applied to pre-modern art. In reflecting on encounters with the limits of art historical research, we hope to provoke generative discussion about what can be learned from this friction, about both these objects and Art History as a discipline. In doing so, we conceive frustration as a productive method in the study of material culture.

This panel discussion will consist of 10-minute presentations followed by a round table discussion and Q&A. We therefore invite papers that reflect on: a single pre modern artwork, object, image or method. Papers should raise issues which may form the basis of a broader conversation between panellists and with the audience. We welcome papers which consider pre-modern objects from across periods and geographies, including those related to the ‘afterlives’ of pre-modern objects.

Please submit an abstract using the form on the AAH website (https://forarthistory.org.uk/confounding-images-frustration-as-art-historical-method/) by Sunday 2nd November 2025.

Contributing panellists will have the opportunity to submit their paper for publication in a special issue of the open-access journal, Different Visions, titled ‘Points of Friction’ and co edited by Millie Horton-Insch and Lauren Rozenberg. More details may be found here: https://differentvisions.org/special-issue-points-of-friction/.

Call for Papers for Session

Carrying Across: Translation as Material Practice in the Pre/Early Modern World

Association for Art History 2026 Annual Conference

University of Cambridge, 8–10 April 2026

Due by 2 November 2025

This session explores how portable things, such as reliquaries, textiles, books, and tools, are objects of translation. A coconut shell from Ceylon, joined to a Fatimid rock-crystal ewer and refashioned as a Christian reliquary in thirteenth-century Münster, invites us to rethink the concept of ‘translation’ as an act of transgressing linguistic, sociocultural, geospatial, and temporal boundaries. Taking its etymological root, the Latin translatio (‘to carry across’), as our point of departure, we ask how materials move across contexts. We explore how they mediate intercultural traffic, urging a reconceptualisation of translation not as a linguistic but also a material act. Shifting focus from the moment and place of an object’s creation to the networks through which it has travelled, we seek to illuminate pre- and early modern circuits of local and global exchange. Building on scholarship on material agency by Beate Fricke, Finbarr Barry Flood, Tim Ingold, and others, we invite conference papers that explore questions such as: How can translating (e.g., mounting, re-cutting, over-painting) be understood as a form of making? How do deliberate misuses, repairs, or forgeries reveal contested meanings? In what ways do pre-/early modern artefacts act as ‘temporal hinges,’ enabling dialogue between past, present, and future? We welcome papers that consider materials and makers that have been underrepresented in existing scholarship and that stimulate a productive methodological conversation between art history and other adjacent disciplines, including translation studies, cultural heritage preservation studies, and material anthropology.

Abstracts (max. 250 words) should be submitted using the 2026 Paper Proposal Form to the convenors, Yupeng Wu (yupeng.wu@yale.edu) and Se Jin Park (sejin.park@yale.edu), by 2 November 2025.

Paper formats
The majority of AAH Sessions are made up of between three and eight 20-minute research papers, each followed by 5 minutes for questions. The minimum number of papers per session is three, and eight is the maximum number of papers per session. Sessions run for a half or full day only.

For more information or questions, please get in touch with the Session Convenors.

Please also visit https://forarthistory.org.uk/carrying-across-translation-as-material-practice-in-the-pre-early-modern-world/

Call for Papers for Session

Animal Representation in the Global Middle Ages: Bridging the Natural and Social Worlds

Association for Art History 2026 Annual Conference

University of Cambridge, 8–10 April 2026

Due by Sunday 2 November 2025

Animals occupied a multivalent space in the medieval world. As part of nature, they were embedded in ecological systems, yet they were also abstracted into symbols of power, religious allegory, and medicinal knowledge—ultimately serving as a nexus between human societies and the natural environment. This panel explores the representation of animals across the global Middle Ages (c. 500–1500 CE), examining how diverse cultures imbued fauna with meaning through their representation. Moving beyond Eurocentric frameworks, we investigate how animal representations functioned as dynamic sites of meaning-making, from the meticulously rendered beasts in Islamic manuscripts, the symbolic menageries of Chinese paintings and prints, to the creatures that materialized along the Afro-Eurasian trade routes.

How did artists and patrons deploy animal iconography to articulate political authority, spiritual ideologies, or ecological knowledge? In what ways did the circulation of creatures, whether real or imagined, confer social prestige or negotiate cultural encounters? How did depictions of animals reflect or shape premodern environmental consciousness? Adopting a global perspective, we seek to illuminate the interconnectedness of medieval visual cultures while challenging anthropocentric narratives in art history. Of particular interest are studies that demonstrate how animals, as living beings and symbolic constructs, actively participated in shaping artistic traditions across regions. We welcome submissions focusing on understudied geographies and encourage interdisciplinary approaches bridging art history and environmental humanities. Ultimately, this panel aims to reconsider the global Middle Ages through its creaturely representations, revealing how such species—real, mythical, and metamorphic—fundamentally shaped medieval visual knowledge.

Session format

The session will include between three and eight 20-minute research papers, each followed by 5 minutes for questions.

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Yuxi Pan, SOAS University of London, 714232@soas.ac.uk

For more information, visit https://forarthistory.org.uk/animal-representation-in-the-global-middle-ages-bridging-the-natural-and-social-worlds/

Call for Papers

levating the Word. Bimah – Ambo – Minbar – Pulpit as Spaces of Sacred Speech

Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich, July 22–23, 2026

due by 31 October 2025

International Conference, organizers: Prof. Dr. Joanna Olchawa, Dr. des. Ella Beaucamp (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)

The Word was at the center of religious practice in the medieval sacred sphere. Its proclamation found a privileged stage in different forms depending on time, culture, and confession: the Jewish bimah, the Christian-liturgical ambo, the Islamic minbar, and the Christian (preaching-)pulpit. From these sites, theological messages, as well as moral instructions, practical guidance, and community announcements, were delivered in performative acts designed to resonate with audiences as intersensory, and therefore more memorable, experiences. The effectiveness relied not only on voice, performance, and content of the spoken word, but also on the architecturally defined, liturgically embedded, and symbolically charged settings from which it was proclaimed. Viewed as dynamic components of religious communication rather than solely as art-historical objects, these sites reveal striking acoustic, aural, oral, and audiovisual facets.

This conference focuses on Bimah, Ambo, Minbar, and Pulpit as central stages of religious communication, with particular attention to their sonic dimensions. Drawing on textual, visual, and material evidence, we ask how these sites supported and actively shaped the transmission and reception of sacred content across the three monotheistic traditions. Which visual strategies predominated, to what extent were they guided by official norms or conventional practices, and when did artistic innovation occur? What pictorial programs, ornaments, and inscriptions up to c. 1500 CE deliberately addressed the preacher or the assembled audience? How was the spoken word shaped by acoustic and architectural features, and how was its resonance intensified in interplay with the visible? Who commissioned these works: specific donor circles, religious authorities, or even the auditorium itself, who appropriated and reshaped these spaces according to their expectations and needs?

Submission instructions

We invite proposals for case studies as well as transcultural and transreligious comparisons from art history and related disciplines (including religious studies and theology). Please submit an abstract of approx. 300 words (in German or English) and a short CV by October 31, 2025 to joanna.olchawa@lmu.de and ella.beaucamp@lmu.de. 

Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered. 

The publication of the conference proceedings is planned.

Call for Applications

Postdoctoral fellowship for East Central European researchers in Gotha, Halle and Wolfenbüttel (3 months)

Due by 31 October 2025

The Gotha Research Centre of the University of Erfurt, the Francke Foundations in Halle and the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel can again award a three-month scholarship for 2026 to an excellent postdoctoral researcher from the East Central European region to research their holdings. The international scholarship programme is open to all historically oriented disciplines. It supports projects geared towards researching the holdings of all three institutions, linking them and relating them to each other. A central requirement of this programme is that the library holdings are essential to the proposed research project.

Further information about the scholarship can be found here: https://www.francke-halle.de/en/science/research-centre/postdoc-fellowship-east-central-europe

47th Annual Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA) Conference

Medievalisms Area

Marriott Albuquerque, Albuquerque, New Mexico

25-28 February 2026

Due 31 October 2025

Proposals for papers and panels are now being accepted for the 47th annual SWPACA conference. One of the nation’s largest interdisciplinary academic conferences, SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas, each typically featuring multiple panels. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit https://swpaca.org/subject-areas/.

The Medievalisms Area invites papers exploring constructions and representations of the medieval from any number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. This area is broadly interested in how meanings, uses, and signifiers of the medieval are engaged and negotiated, both in specific instances and across time. Papers might approach medievalism with attention to media (e.g., literary medievalisms, cinematic medievalisms, etc.); historical, regional, and cultural contexts (among others); theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary approaches; and any other scholarly (including scholarly-creative and pedagogical) perspectives and topics.

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at https://swpaca.org/app.

For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general (including submitting proposals for roundtables and preformed panels), please see the FAQS & Resources tab on https://swpaca.org/.

Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words and a brief summary of 100 words or less.

For information on how to submit a proposal for a roundtable or a multi-paper panel, please view the above FAQs & Resources link.   

The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2025.   

SWPACA offers monetary awards for the best graduate student papers in a variety of categories. Submissions of accepted, full papers are due January 1, 2026. More details are here: https://swpaca.org/graduate-student-paper-awards/.  SWPACA also offers travel fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students as well as contingent faculty: https://swpaca.org/travel-awards-students-faculty/.

Registration and travel information for the conference is available at https://swpaca.org/albuquerque-conference/.  For 2026, we will be returning to the Marriott Albuquerque (2101 Louisiana Blvd NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110), which boasts free parking and close proximity to shopping and dining.

In addition, please check out the organization’s peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, at https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dialogue/.

If you have any questions about the Medievalisms area, please contact its Area Chair, Amber Dunai, at adunai@tamuct.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@swpaca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you.

This will be a fully in-person conference. If you’re looking for an online option to present your work, keep an eye out for details about the 2026 SWPACA Summer Salon, a completely virtual conference to take place in June 2026.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

NEW AVISTA Book

American Gothic: Reflections on Gothic Scholarship in America 1925–2025

Edited by Robert Bork

The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Technology, Science, and Art (AVISTA) are excited to announce the publication of the 18th volume in our Brill series, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art, with "American Gothic: Reflections on Gothic Scholarship in America 1925–2025," edited by Robert Bork.

Use code DGBCONFC for 35% off the list price through October 31st, 2025, here: https://brill.com/display/title/72359

This book chronicles the contributions of American scholars to the study of European Gothic architecture. It traces this history through a series of biographical case studies of major figures ranging from Arthur Kingsley Porter to Robert Branner and Jean Bony to Caroline Bruzelius, calling attention to their influence as mentors and to the character of their professional networks. These biographical chapters are supplemented by thematic essays and a roundtable discussion of current issues in the field. Altogether, the book explains how working from overseas presents both significant challenges and valuable perspectives, allowing American scholars to enrich dialog in the field.

Call for Papers

4th International Multidisciplinary Conference of the Series ‘Experiencing the Sacred’

Materialising the Holy. Matter, Senses, and Spiritual Experience in the Middle Ages (12th-15th century)

University of Padua, 6-8 May 2026

Due by 31 October 2025

In recent years, the growing interest in materiality has shifted art-historical inquiry from a primary focus on images to the physical and material characteristics of objects themselves. No longer viewed merely as carriers of representation, materials have emerged as crucial sites of meaning. Seminal studies by Caroline Walker Bynum (1995, 2007, 2011) and Jean-Claude Bonne (1999) have challenged the traditional hierarchy that privileged image over matter, demonstrating that the substance and presence of devotional objects were integral to their significance. Bynum, in particular, highlighted the transformative qualities of bleeding hosts, relics, and images—objects that drew viewers’ attention as much to their materiality as to their iconography. In this perspective, the perception of sacred matter transcended symbolic or representational layers, creating an embodied and immediate nexus with the divine.

At the same time, as scholars have shown, philosophy and theology reshaped medieval understandings of perception. The recovery of Aristotle introduced new models of cognition in which sensory experience became the foundation of thought. As Michelle Karnes (2011) demonstrates, Scholastic Aristotelianism—mediated through Avicenna and Averroës – conceptualised perception as a phased process moving from sensation to abstraction. Thomas Aquinas systematised this framework, positing the existence of internal senses that mediated between bodily perception and spiritual apprehension (nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu). This marked a decisive departure from Augustinian suspicion of the senses. Reframed through the Aristotelian virtue of temperance, sensory pleasures could instead be disciplined and elevated as instruments of knowledge and spiritual ascent (Newhauser 2007). These developments fostered what has been described as a “culture of sensation” (Bagnoli 2017), in which the body and its faculties became indispensable pathways to affective experience and, ultimately, to divine union.

Building on this dual reorientation toward matter and the senses, the ERC project SenSArt (2021–2026) has explored the interplay of art, material culture, and sensory experience in medieval Europe. Combining art history, sensory studies, material culture studies, and cognitive approaches, the project has analysed case studies across England, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and the Low Countries, refining our understanding of how objects and the senses shaped spiritual practices across different communities, social groups and strata.

This concluding conference of SenSArt seeks to consolidate and expand this field of research by:

• Broadening the range of materials under consideration, including those often overlooked such as clay, paper, or organic matter.

• Examining the full spectrum of the five senses, moving beyond the traditional emphasis on sight and touch, and drawing on anthropological models of ‘intersensoriality’ (Howes 2011).

• Broadening the geographical scope of analysis from its conventional focus on Central and Western Europe or the Mediterranean to encompass Eurasia, Africa, and other regions, thereby fostering cross-cultural and transcultural perspectives.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

• Philosophical and theological theories on matters and perception; what was considered matter;

• Diverse devotional materials: host, chrism, wax, oils, wood, ashes, clay, silk, parchment, and their ritual applications;

• Relics as matter: blood, milk, and other sacred substances emanating from saints’ remains or miraculous images;

• Materials perceived as inherently divine: stone, wood, and marbles conceived as part of God’s creation;

• Affect and emotion: sweetness, fear, disgust, joy, and other affective states mediated through material encounters;

• Methodological reflections: intersensoriality, anthropology of the senses, conservation science, digital reconstructions;

• Perceptions of materials: cultural hierarchies, comparative evaluations, and shifting meanings across contexts;

• Vision beyond “the image”: sheen, translucency, brilliance, and darkness; optical theories and material effects;

• Curative powers of matter: the bodily and spiritual healing properties attributed to substances;

• Objecthood and/or thingness, affordance & agency: how the choice of materials influenced the perception and devotional use of objects;

• Immaterial and/or intangible elements in dialogue with matter: light, sound, as well as odours or smoke, as sensory extensions of material presence.

We welcome proposals for 25-minute papers in English or Italian. While the primary focus is on objects, multidisciplinary approaches are strongly encouraged, including contributions that engage with broader theories and concepts.

By October 31st please submit to the conference organizers Zuleika Murat (zuleika.murat@unipd.it), Valentina Baradel (valentina.baradel@unipd.it), Vittorio Frighetto (vittorio.frighetto@phd.unipd.it) and Teresa Martínez Martínez (teresa.martinez@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 November 15th.

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

For more information, visit https://sensartproject.eu/call-for-papers-for-materialising-the-holy-matter-senses-and-spiritual-experience-in-the-middle-ages-12th-15th-century-university-of-padua-6-8-may-2026/

Conference

Beauty and Faith: Part One: Imperfect Beauty: Visions of Fractured Faith

24-26 October, 2025

Salmagundi Club along with a special visit to the Met Cloisters, New York City

Visual Theology’s third event is a major two-part conference, the first of which will take place in New York City, 24-26 October 2025 at the Salmagundi Club along with a special visit to the Met Cloisters, New York City. The second part will take place in the UK, 8-10 May 2026. (Further details forthcoming.)

Part One: Imperfect Beauty: Visions of Fractured Faith will use the history and material culture of the Met Cloisters as a starting point for conversations about the space between brokenness and beauty, and to consider how art, in its many forms, can replant, remake, and reaffirm Christian truth, even when the results demonstrate synchronic anxieties between the past and the present, and faith and fragmentation. 

Keynotes: Julia Yost (First Things, NYC) and Dr. Tracy Chapman Hamilton (Sweet Briar College), and artists Anthony Visco and Maya Brodsky 

For more information about the conference and booking, visit https://www.visualtheology.org.uk/beauty-and-faith-part-one/

Call for Papers

Virtual Conference

Confound the Time: Reception in Medieval & Early Modern Studies

24-25 January 2026

Due 25 October 2025

Confound the Time welcomes papers that investigate the ways in which texts, objects, and images from the medieval and early modern periods re-envision and reconstruct the past or imagine and anticipate the future. We also welcome papers that explore the ways in which medieval and early modern artifacts, history, and culture are reimagined and reconstructed in later periods.

As part of our commitment to accessibility, Confound the Time will be entirely virtual and have no registration fee. Graduate students and early career scholars are especially encouraged to submit.

Topics for individual papers may include:

• Medieval and early modern reception of classical mythology/culture

• Early modern reception of medieval literature/culture

• The Pre-Raphaelites and other neo-medievalist movements

• Contemporary video games, graphic novels, television shows, and/or films with medieval or early modern settings, characters, and cultures

• Dungeons and Dragons and/or other role-playing or tabletop games

• Manuscript Studies/Book History

• Time/The Times

• Gender and Sexuality

• Nationalism and Race

Papers that address these subjects are encouraged, but any paper that centers on medieval or early modern studies will be considered.

Paper submissions should include:

• An abstract of approximately 250 words

• A 2-3 sentence third-person bio

Please send all application materials to confoundthetime@gmail.com.

The deadline for all abstract submissions is October 25th, 2025. Questions can be directed to Drs. Audrey Gradzewicz (U of Wisconsin-Madison) and Audrey Saxton (Bethany College, KS).

Exhibition Closing

Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe

National Museum of Ireland

Archaeology, Kildare St, Dublin 2 D02 FH48

30th May 2025 until 24th October 2025

Experience the magic of metal, stone and manuscript art from Ireland’s Golden Age in this unique exhibition of early medieval treasures at the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare St. Explore extraordinary journeys of people, books and ideas between medieval Ireland and Europe. Immerse yourself in precious manuscripts from the Abbey of St Gall, Switzerland — some returning to Ireland for the first time in 1000 years — alongside spectacular objects from the Irish world from which they emerged.

For more information on the exhibition, click here.

Conference

Beauty and Faith: Part One: Imperfect Beauty: Visions of Fractured Faith

24-26 October, 2025

Salmagundi Club along with a special visit to the Met Cloisters, New York City

Visual Theology’s third event is a major two-part conference, the first of which will take place in New York City, 24-26 October 2025 at the Salmagundi Club along with a special visit to the Met Cloisters, New York City. The second part will take place in the UK, 8-10 May 2026. (Further details forthcoming.)

Part One: Imperfect Beauty: Visions of Fractured Faith will use the history and material culture of the Met Cloisters as a starting point for conversations about the space between brokenness and beauty, and to consider how art, in its many forms, can replant, remake, and reaffirm Christian truth, even when the results demonstrate synchronic anxieties between the past and the present, and faith and fragmentation. 

Keynotes: Julia Yost (First Things, NYC) and Dr. Tracy Chapman Hamilton (Sweet Briar College), and artists Anthony Visco and Maya Brodsky 

For more information about the conference and booking, visit https://www.visualtheology.org.uk/beauty-and-faith-part-one/