Call for Papers for Panel

 Across Seas, Across Cultures: The Transmission of Female Saint Cults from East to West

72nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America Conference

San Francisco, 19-21 August 2026

Due by 10 August 2025

Organizer

Ioanna Christoforaki, Academy of Athens

Abstract Submission

Please submit paper title, abstract and CV to ichristoforaki@yahoo.co.uk

Session Proposal

This panel invites papers that explore the cross-cultural transmission, reception, and reinvention of female saint cults from the Christian East to the Latin West in the centuries leading up to and following the Crusades, with particular attention to their resonance during the Renaissance (1300-1500 C.E.). During this period of intensified contact between East and West—through crusades, pilgrimage, trade, and manuscript circulation—the cults of women, such as Catherine of Alexandria, Thecla, Barbara, Pelagia, Marina/Margaret of Antioch and others, were reimagined to suit the spiritual, political, and cultural needs of Latin Christendom.

The panel seeks to explore how these Eastern-origin saints were integrated into the devotional, artistic, and intellectual frameworks of Renaissance Europe, and how their stories were reshaped through translation, visual culture, and localized liturgical practice. We are particularly interested in papers that interrogate the interplay between gender, sanctity, and cross-cultural exchange in the construction of saintly authority during this transformative period. We seek contributions that examine how these cults were transmitted, adapted, and appropriated across cultural, linguistic, and theological divides. Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly welcome. 

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• The role of the Crusades, pilgrimage and holy sites in the movement of relics and saint cults from East to West

• The role of Crusader memory and pilgrimage in sustaining or reshaping devotion

• Visual representations of these saints in Renaissance Italy, Iberia, or Northern Europe

• Theological or political uses of female saintly models in the context of ecclesiastical reform or royal patronage

• Gendered readings of martyrdom, asceticism, and virginity across cultures

• Monastic, mendicant, or courtly promotion of Eastern female saints

• Gender, virginity, and martyrdom in cross-cultural saint narratives

• Eastern case studies of individual saints and their cultic journeys

• Political and theological motivations behind the promotion of Eastern female saints

• Comparative East–West perspectives on virginity, martyrdom, and asceticism

Submission Guidelines

Proposals should include:

• Paper Title (15-word maximum)

• Abstract (150–200 words)

• Curriculum Vitae (in .pdf or .doc format, maximum 2 pages)

• PhD or other terminal degree completion date (past or expected)

• Primary discipline

Please send submissions to ichristoforaki@yahoo.co.uk or christof@academyofathens.gr by August 10, 2025. Papers should be no longer than 20 minutes and must be delivered in English. Presenters must be RSA members at the time of the conference.

For questions or informal inquiries, please contact the panel organizer at ichristoforaki@yahoo.co.uk or christof@academyofathens.gr.

We welcome proposals from scholars across disciplines focused but not limited to art history, history, literary studies, theology, and manuscript studies. Graduate students and early-career researchers are especially encouraged to apply.

Note

Speakers must be RSA members at the time of the conference.

Exhibition Closing

Taught by the Pen: The World of Islamic Manuscripts

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT

Monday, February 24, 2025 to Sunday, August 10, 2025

The Qur’an declares that God taught humanity the use of the pen. Taking this commandment to heart, Muslim scholars systematically organized and extended almost every field of knowledge in astonishing new ways. For over a thousand years, this pursuit of knowledge set in motion exchanges with other artistic, religious, and scholarly communities. Through themes such as literature, religion, and science, this exhibition reveals that Islamic civilization has never been a homogeneous phenomenon: ideas and artistic practices always circulated between and among Muslims, Jews, Christians, and other faith communities. 

Yale Library’s collection of manuscripts produced in the Islamic world is among the largest and oldest in the United States. Taught by the Pen: The World of Islamic Manuscripts celebrates Islamic civilization and its interconnected artistic, religious, and scholarly traditions. Through 150 items from the 9th to the 20th centuries, visitors are invited to engage with the intellectual and aesthetic values and practices of the many peoples and communities encompassed by Islamic civilization. The exhibition sheds light on how these manuscripts—and the ideas they contain—were transmitted and disseminated. Gallery guests will encounter diverse books, from lavishly illuminated Qur’ans, elegant calligraphy albums, and delicately illustrated epics and chronicles to well-thumbed prayer books, beloved poetry collections, detailed maps, learned science and mathematics volumes, and more. The papers, inks, and bindings that transmit these ideas and genres reveal a continuity of artistic traditions and new innovations in works from the Middle East to North Africa, Europe, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and North America.

This exhibition is co-curated by Roberta L. Dougherty, Yale Library’s librarian for Middle East studies, Özgen Felek, a lector of Ottoman in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Agnieszka Rec, curator at the Beinecke Library.  

For more information, visit https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/taughtbythepen

Call for Abstracts

peer-reviewed, open access journal

“The So What” of Medieval Collections

Due by 29 August 2025

One of the hardest questions academics, educators, and cultural workers must answer is: why does teaching the public about the past matter? This question becomes even sharper for those who steward the past in physical form: rare manuscripts, fragmented psalters, pilgrim badges, weaponry, and bestiaries—often thousands of miles and hundreds of years removed from their origin. What are these medieval materials doing in U.S. institutions? And how can they still be impactful to modern viewers?

As The So What (TSW), a peer-reviewed, open access journal, continues its mission to interrogate why the study of the Middle Ages matters—especially in public-facing spaces—we invite contributions that explore the role of libraries, museums, and similar cultural institutions in honestly and inclusively shaping the stories we tell about the past.

We are particularly interested in how medieval collections in the United States complicate, challenge, or reinforce current political projects that seek to rewrite history not in the service of truth, but of nationalism, exclusion, and power.

In an era when government officials increasingly question the value of public libraries and museums—defunding them, questioning their “neutrality,” or attempting to erase marginalized histories—we want to ask: What is the “so what” of public medieval collections in the U.S.?

We invite museum professionals, librarians, archivists, curators, educators, and public historians to contribute pieces that explore:

● Why U.S.-based medieval collections matter to the public today

● How these collections challenge or reinforce white supremacist narratives of a "pure" or "Christian" past

● The material and ethical questions of acquiring, maintaining, and displaying medieval objects far from their origin

● How to teach with and through medieval collections in community-centered, inclusive ways

● Creative or multimedia responses to working with medieval collections in public institutions

● Examples of public programming, exhibitions, or curriculum that connect medieval objects with today’s urgent issues

We welcome short, accessible essays, lesson plans, annotated exhibition materials, creative or multimedia pieces, and reflections on the work of public medievalism. All submissions will undergo anonymous peer and editorial review.

Abstracts (500 words or less) due by 08/29/25. Issue would come out fall 2026 or early 2027. Send abstracts and questions to mlsheble@gmail.com

Church Monuments Society Symposium 2025

Tombs of the Aristocracy

29th August 2025 — 31st August 2025

West Dean College, West Dean, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 0QZ

We are delighted to invite you to the next Church Monuments Society symposium, which will be held at West Dean College from Friday 29th to Sunday 31st August 2025.

Our theme, Tombs of the Aristocracy, is inspired by the magnificent tombs of the Fitzalans and Howards (Earls and Dukes of Norfolk) in Arundel and Chichester but covers so much more (see the provisional programme below). The event will include expert lectures and two excursions, with both residential and non-residential options for attending. Please download the relevant booking form from below, which can be emailed to us (instructions on the form).

The symposium is open to anyone. The final deadline for bookings is 30th June 2025. Those aged under 30, and/or registered on full- or part-time degree courses, are eligible for a special reduced rate, but these are strictly limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. See the booking forms for more details and conditions.

Non-residential attendees have the option to pay for the evening meal and lecture on Friday, and the extra meal on Saturday evening. Sunday-only attendees are able to attend the evening lecture (but not the evening meal) on Saturday with their Sunday-only ticket because, due to extra speakers filling the programme, Saturday now has a fuller programme of talks. 

For more information and the booking forms, visit https://churchmonumentssociety.org/events/symposium-2025-tombs-of-the-aristocracy

Provisional Programme (detailed timings to be confirmed nearer the time)

Friday 29th August: West Dean College

• Registration (time TBC but after 3pm)

• Hot buffet dinner (private room) with President’s Welcome

• After dinner lecture: Dr Dirk Breiding on commonalities and differences in iconography between English and Continental aristocratic tombs

Saturday 30th August: West Dean College lectures and excursion to Chichester Cathedral

• Brian & Moira Gittos, ‘Beaufort’s pride’: the Tomb of John, 1st Duke of Somerset at Wimborne Minster

• Dr Keith Dowen, All’Antica or Alla Moderna? The Monuments of Erasmo and Giantonio di Narni in Padua

• Mid-morning refreshments

• Sophia Dumoulin, ‘meete for my degree and callinge’: The Monument to Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, in Westminster Abbey

• Pat Poppy, Fashion, status or timeless: clothing in 17th century church monuments.

• Buffet lunch at West Dean

• Visit to Chichester Cathedral

• Optional evening buffet meal (self-service)

• After dinner lecture: Dr Roger Bowdler, Humility in the Grave: outdoor aristocratic monuments over the centuries

Sunday 31st August: West Dean College lectures and excursion to Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel

• Dr David Carrington, The Church Monuments Society in Action: progress report on the Getty-funded North Yorkshire monument conservation publication

• Dr Adam White, John, Lord Lumley, the last of his line

• Mid-morning refreshments

• Dr Tobias Capwell, The French Connection: Refining the Stylistic Attribution of Armour Represented on Certain English Effigies c. 1435-1450

• Buffet lunch at West Dean

• Visit to Fitzalan Chapel, with talks

We look forward to seeing you at this exciting event!

Call for Papers for Panel

NEW APPROACHES TO MEDIEVAL OFFICE LITURGY

Leeds International Medieval Congress (6-9 July 2026)

Thematic Focus: ‘Temporalities’

Due by 31 August 2025

The past decades have seen exciting developments in medieval liturgical scholarship, moving beyond analysis of texts to examining liturgical practices as diverse, lived, localised, and contested devotional frameworks. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the study of the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours: the cycle of daily prayers structured around the eight canonical hours (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline) central to the spiritual, intellectual, temporal and communal life of the medieval Christian world.

This panel invites proposals for 15-20 minute papers on any aspect of Medieval Office Liturgy, especially those that address new perspectives, methodologies, or understudied sources.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

• Office Manuscripts

• Intersections with visual and material culture

• Lay experiences of the Divine Office

• Liturgical Reform

• Performance Practices and/or Prescriptions

• The Liturgy of the Hours in Medieval Literature

• Temporality and the Canonical Hours

• Saints lives, cults and offices

Please send an abstract of up to 250 words and short biography including your affiliation(s) to Rhiannon Warren (rlow2@cam.ac.uk) by the 31st of August 2025

Church Monuments Society Symposium 2025

Tombs of the Aristocracy

29th August 2025 — 31st August 2025

West Dean College, West Dean, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 0QZ

We are delighted to invite you to the next Church Monuments Society symposium, which will be held at West Dean College from Friday 29th to Sunday 31st August 2025.

Our theme, Tombs of the Aristocracy, is inspired by the magnificent tombs of the Fitzalans and Howards (Earls and Dukes of Norfolk) in Arundel and Chichester but covers so much more (see the provisional programme below). The event will include expert lectures and two excursions, with both residential and non-residential options for attending. Please download the relevant booking form from below, which can be emailed to us (instructions on the form).

The symposium is open to anyone. The final deadline for bookings is 30th June 2025. Those aged under 30, and/or registered on full- or part-time degree courses, are eligible for a special reduced rate, but these are strictly limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. See the booking forms for more details and conditions.

Non-residential attendees have the option to pay for the evening meal and lecture on Friday, and the extra meal on Saturday evening. Sunday-only attendees are able to attend the evening lecture (but not the evening meal) on Saturday with their Sunday-only ticket because, due to extra speakers filling the programme, Saturday now has a fuller programme of talks. 

For more information and the booking forms, visit https://churchmonumentssociety.org/events/symposium-2025-tombs-of-the-aristocracy

Provisional Programme (detailed timings to be confirmed nearer the time)

Friday 29th August: West Dean College

• Registration (time TBC but after 3pm)

• Hot buffet dinner (private room) with President’s Welcome

• After dinner lecture: Dr Dirk Breiding on commonalities and differences in iconography between English and Continental aristocratic tombs

Saturday 30th August: West Dean College lectures and excursion to Chichester Cathedral

• Brian & Moira Gittos, ‘Beaufort’s pride’: the Tomb of John, 1st Duke of Somerset at Wimborne Minster

• Dr Keith Dowen, All’Antica or Alla Moderna? The Monuments of Erasmo and Giantonio di Narni in Padua

• Mid-morning refreshments

• Sophia Dumoulin, ‘meete for my degree and callinge’: The Monument to Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, in Westminster Abbey

• Pat Poppy, Fashion, status or timeless: clothing in 17th century church monuments.

• Buffet lunch at West Dean

• Visit to Chichester Cathedral

• Optional evening buffet meal (self-service)

• After dinner lecture: Dr Roger Bowdler, Humility in the Grave: outdoor aristocratic monuments over the centuries

Sunday 31st August: West Dean College lectures and excursion to Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel

• Dr David Carrington, The Church Monuments Society in Action: progress report on the Getty-funded North Yorkshire monument conservation publication

• Dr Adam White, John, Lord Lumley, the last of his line

• Mid-morning refreshments

• Dr Tobias Capwell, The French Connection: Refining the Stylistic Attribution of Armour Represented on Certain English Effigies c. 1435-1450

• Buffet lunch at West Dean

• Visit to Fitzalan Chapel, with talks

We look forward to seeing you at this exciting event!

Call for Papers Extended

XVIII Jornadas Internacionales Complutenses de Arte Medieval

Transculturality and Medieval Art in Dialogue: Negotiating New Identities

7-8 October 2025 Madrid, Spain

Due by 1 September 2025

Places:

• Universidad Complutense de Madrid Facultad de Geografía e Historia

• Museo Arqueológico Nacional

• Casa Árabe

Architecture, objects, and material culture, as structuring agents of human relationships, play a key role in discovering the potential of understanding medieval art through the paradigm of transculturality. This method examines the negotiation of fluid artistic identities shaped by the mobility of people, circulation of objects, and transmission of ideas across diverse social, geographical, and religious contexts. The materiality of transcultural objects has rendered them repositories of memory, bearing witness to historical encounters across cultures. Their various recontextualization, restaging, and differing forms of appreciation have made them subject to manipulation, reuse, and re-signification, even after their integration into private collections or museums. Addressing these themes allows for a broader reflection from educational and museum studies. By examining intersections of gender, class, and ethnicity, the eighteenth edition of the Complutense International Conference on Medieval Art aims to uncover microhistories that offer a more nuanced understanding of otherness in the Middle Ages.

Invited speakers: María Elena Díez Jorge (UGR), Manuel Castiñeiras González (UAB), Beatriz Campderá Gutiérrez (MAN), Licia Buttà (URV), Raúl Estangüi Gómez (CSIC), Elvira Martín Contreras (CSIC), Alicia Miguélez Cavero (UNL), Theodora Konstantellou (DOaks), Ravinder Binning (DOaks), Julie Marquer (UdL), Herbert González Zymla (UCM), Víctor Rabasco García (ULE), María Puértolas Clavero (Museo Diocesano BarbastroMonzón), Julia Perratore (MMA), Helena Lahoz Kopiske (MAN)

Themes may include, but are not limited to: Transcultural narratives and artistic exchanges at historical or historiographical margins Processes shaping perceptions of otherness Itinerancy, performativity, and gendered dimensions of objects Ambivalence of terminology and problems of approaching sources and documents New museum narratives The relationship between art historical knowledge and tourism Proposals for papers up to 15 minutes in duration and posters should be send by 1 September 2025. Send title, abstract of not more than 250 words, and short author bio (not more than 10 lines) to: jornadas.transculturalidad@ucm.es.

Papers should be in Spanish, English, French or Italian. Decisions on acceptance will be made by the End of July. Papers, communications, and posters will be presented during the conference sessions. Posters would be printed by the conference organizers and displayed in the Facultad de Geografía e Historia and the Facultad de Comercio y Turismo of the UCM. After peer review, the various contributions will be published in a monograph.

For more information, visit https://www.ucm.es/intersections/jornadas-transculturalidad

Call for papers

Congreso internacional/ International Conference

Recepción y usos públicos de la Edad Media Cultura, pensamiento y política

Reception and Public Uses of the Middle Ages Culture, Thought, and Politics

Universidad de Valladolid, Spain, 27-28 November 2025

Due by 7 September 2025

The past, that «strange country», as David Lowenthal defined it, has always been subject to multiple treatments in order to make it intelligible and useful for a given present. In this respect, the period historically constructed and defined as the Middle Ages has been no exception. Defamed by humanists and the enlightened authors as a symbol of obscurantism and barbarism, mythologised by Romanticism as the setting for fantastic fables and legends, depositary of ancestral essences for nineteenth-century nationalisms, resituated in its historical agency by much of modern medievalism and again deformed in today's media, the multiform images projected on the Middle Ages have varied enormously depending on the historical context. This conference aims to study the different and ever-changing uses of the Middle Ages by historiography, the intellectuality, politics, the press and literature, among other social and cultural agents, from the Modern Age onwards.

For this reason, we welcome proposals that are interested in one or more of these aspects of the different images constructed about the period. For example, for its own denomination and chronological limits as a historical period, which have not innocently contributed in a decisive way to the consolidation of a certain vision of it. Also because of the very configuration and professionalisation of medievalism as a discipline and its attempts to banish some of the myths surrounding the period. Along the same line, from the point of view of the history of historiography, this conference is interested in the image of the time that was constructed by scholars and historians of the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century. On the other hand, the medieval period has been an important supplier of myths, clichés and all kinds of arguments to modern nationalist, political and religious movements for the justification of territorial, ideological and social ambitions of many different kinds, an aspect on which we also seek to receive proposals. At the same time, it has served as inspiration for various artistic and intellectual currents, feeding the conceptual renovation in different fields and the plurality of views on the period. Similarly, we seek to understand how cultural artifacts such as novels, films, series or video games have been inspired by the Middle Ages to set their stories, thus conveying a certain image of the period, issues that have been highlighted in recent years by some works in this regard. Finally, we would also like to draw attention to more recent phenomena: the distortion ―linked to the rise of pseudohistory and amplified by digital media, social networks or artificial intelligence― of visions of the Middle Ages, which threatens to impoverish historical knowledge in favour of simplified and digestible formats.

Therefore, the aim of this conference is to promote historiographical reflection on all these different uses, narratives, representations and visions produced about the Middle Ages, in order to understand how these images of the period have been constructed. We encourage the submission of proposals for papers on any of the thematic lines aforementioned above by filling in the form with an abstract (max. 500 words) and a brief CV (max. 250 words) which can be found on the conference website. Abstracts proposals will be accepted in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. The interval for submitting proposals is between 15 May and 7 September 2025.

The scientific committee of the congress will evaluate the proposals received and will communicate the decision on their acceptance by 15 September. Then, between 16 September and 1 October, participants will have to formalise their registration through the conference website. The registration fee is €60 for general participants and €50 reduced for students and unemployed. Every person can only submit one communication, alone or in co-authorship. The organising committee is currently considering how to publish the different contributions, aspect on which we hope to provide more information in the upcoming months.

For those interested, attendance will be free, and those who wish to receive a certificate of participation will be able to do so upon registration for a fee of €15.

For more information, click here.

Call for Future Host Institution

26th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, 2027

Due by 8 September 2025

We are now soliciting applications for the Host Institution of Vagantes 2027!

Vagantes is an interdisciplinary conference focusing on the Middle Ages that is entirely organized and run by graduate students. This is a unique opportunity to showcase the Medieval Studies community at your institution, and to gain valuable professional development experience in planning and organizing the event. It is also an excellent opportunity to meet and network with other graduate students interested in medieval studies! Since 2002, Vagantes has been hosted by twenty-two different universities in the US and Canada. Is your institution next?

Applications should be submitted via email to vagantesboard@gmail.com and will be reviewed by the Vagantes Board of Directors. Submissions are due Monday, 8 September 2025.

You can access the application template, view past applications and programs, and learn more here: http://vagantesconference.org/hosting-vagantes/.

Please reach out to vagantesboard@gmail.com with any questions!

Call for Papers for Panel

Société Rencesvals - American-Canadian Branch

Performing Faith in Romance Epics and Chivalric Romances

International Congress on Medieval Studies

Kalamazoo, May 14-16, 2026

Due by 10 September 2025

The Société Rencesvals (American-Canadian Branch) is pleased to offer a sponsored session titled "Performing Faith in Romance Epics and Chivalric Romances." We are particularly interested in papers that explore how such texts present the practices and ideas of medieval religion across a wide and interdisciplinary spectrum.

Romance-epics and chivalric romances not only shed light on the societies (local, regional, and global) in which they were produced, also inform us of those who kept them at the forefront of their national backbone. These texts are sites of religious performance in which devotional prayers and rituals, as well as discussions of spiritual matters (like conversion and apostasy), are brought to the forefront. This session aims to consider how these poets understood and presented the performance of their faith-and of the non-Catholic faiths that their subjects (and perhaps they themselves) encountered.

We invite submissions that explore the representation of performed religion in Romance language epics, especially papers that examine the theme from a non-Catholic perspective or that reflect interdisciplinary and comparative approaches including (but certainly not limited to) history, art history, literature, and material culture in relation to the study of epics and chivalric romances in Romance languages.

Please, submit your 250-word abstract to this link by September 10, 2025. Scholars interested in participating, especially those who may not benefit from standard forms of academic funding, are welcome to apply to our grant program. See our webpage for further information.

Call for Papers

Disability Studies in Byzantium: Toward Inclusive Futures

Leeds International Medieval Congress, 6–9 July 2026

Due by 12 September 2026

Organisers: Yorgos Makris (University of British Columbia), Maroula Perisanidi (University of Leeds), and Maria Alessia Rossi (Princeton University)

Disability Studies offers powerful tools for interrogating embodiment, normativity and lived experience, all of which can be traced in the textual, material and visual record of Byzantium. Despite this potential, the field has only just begun to be explored. This panel seeks to highlight the richness of Byzantine evidence and to showcase how productive disability-focused approaches can be.

Disability in Byzantium was neither fixed nor uniform. This panel foregrounds the historical and cultural specificity of how disabled bodies were perceived, represented, and regulated across time. By tracing these shifting understandings—in texts, art, and archaeology—we also engage the broader theme of temporality, asking how disability in Byzantium shaped and was shaped by change over time, whether at the scale of history or individual lives.

We welcome proposals from all disciplines within Byzantine studies, including but not limited to history, art history, theology, archaeology, philology, and manuscript studies.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
● Disability and social status
● Disability and gender
● Disability and the lifecycle
● Disability, pain, suffering, and violence
● Disability, gain, pleasure, and aesthetics

Please send proposals for 20-minute papers (in English), including a title, an abstract (max. 250 words) and a brief CV (max. 2 pages) to marossi@princeton.edu by September 12, 2025. Include “Disability Studies in Byzantium: Proposal” in the email subject line.

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

Call for Papers for Panel

Moving in the Medieval Apse

International Medieval Congress (IMC 2026)

University of Leeds, July 6-9, 2026

Due by 12 September 2025

The medieval apse – adorned with its altar/piece, reliquaries, liturgical objects, or religious scenes – becomes a place of permanent movement(s) by bridging the spiritual to the corporal, the immaterial to the material, and the divine to the mortal. As these movements occur in time, one’s relation with the divine is changed, shaped, or negotiated.

The proposed session focuses on movements of devotional objects, images, and texts in the medieval apse. Suggested topics on movements in the medieval apse, from any geographic area or time period ,(between 300-1500), may include, but are not limited to:

• Altarpieces: change in iconography, composition, materials

• Reliquaries: multiplication of, change in materials, form or function

• Liturgical objects: crosses, books, votive offerings

• Frescoes, paintings, statues: composition, iconography, materials

• Liturgy, feasts, music cultures, ritual in relation to objects

Submissions from a variety of disciplines 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.

Please submit a 250- 400 word proposal (in English) for a 15-20 minute paper. Proposals should have an abstract format and be accompanied by a short CV, of no more than 800 words, including e-mail, institution, and profession. The session is planned to be in-presence. Please submit all relevant documents by 12 September 2025, to the e-mail address: andreabianka.znorovszky@udl.cat

Contact information: Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain (andreabianka.znorovszky@udl.cat)

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE SESSION

Troubling Desires: Queer and Trans Approaches to Medieval Art

6th SWISS CONGRESS FOR ART HISTORY
7 – 9 SEPTEMBER 2026, UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA, UNI MAIL

Due: 12 September 2025

Over the past several years, gender and sexuality studies have been casting new light on the history of medieval art. Madeline Caviness has shown that medieval theories of gender and sexuality have the potential to reconfigure the modern linking of (binary) gender and (homo/hetero) sexuality, paving the way for a recognition of the fluidity of identities across time. Robert Mills has identified and studied a visual culture of the medieval concept of “sodomy” (Mills 2015). Roland Betancourt has considered the ways that several Byzantine manuscripts demand an intersectional approach through the lens of trans and queer theories (Betancourt 2020). Leah DeVun has in turn analyzed images of animals that question the binarity of gender in medieval thought (DeVun 2020). Ostensibly well-known images have been enriched with new interpretations, and previously unpublished sources have been brought to light. In response to and as a continuation of this research, various exhibition projects on these topics and methods are emerging, including Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages (The Met Cloisters, October 2025 – March 2026).

This session aims to foster exchanges between those who work on gender and sexuality in the field of medieval art history. It is premised on the idea that the tools required to study premodern sexuality and gender in and as related to the visual arts are not necessarily those that have been so central to modern and contemporary histories of these topics. As such, this session aims to present a series of case studies that offer new approaches to works of art and explore medieval configurations of sexuality and gender that are distinct from and complementary to contemporary studies in this field.

Head of section : Clovis Maillet, HEAD – Genève ; Nancy Thebaut, University of Oxford ; Pauline Guex, Centre Maurice Chalumeau en sciences des sexualités de l’Université de Genève (CMCSS)

Congress details & practical information: https://www.vkks.ch/fr/activites/congres

For more information: https://rmblf.be/2025/07/30/appel-a-contribution-desirer-et-troubler-approches-queer-et-trans-en-art-medieval-troubling-desires-queer-and-trans-approaches-to-medieval-art/

APPEL À COMMUNICATIONS POUR LA SECTION

Désirer et troubler : approches queer et trans en art médiéval

6e CONGRÈS SUISSE EN HISTOIRE DE L’ART
7 – 9 SEPTEMBRE 2026, UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE, UNI MAIL

Délai de soumission des propositions : 12 septembre 2025

Depuis plusieurs années, les études sur les sexualités et le genre posent un nouveau regard sur l’histoire de l’art médiéval. Madeline Caviness a montré que les spécificités des agencements du genre et des sexualités dans les théories médiévales ont le potentiel de reconfigurer la construction moderne de l’entrelacement entre genre (binaire) et sexualité (homo/hetero), en ouvrant la voie à des fluidités et pénétrabilités complexes. Robert Mills a donné au concept médiéval de « sodomie » une véritable culture visuelle (Mills 2015). Sous la plume de Roland Betancourt, plusieurs manuscrits byzantins ont pu dévoiler ce qu’ils apportent à la conceptualisation de l’intersectionnalité trans (Betancourt 2020). Analysées par Leah DeVun, certaines pages des bestiaires médiévaux interrogent la non-binarité des genres dans la pensée médiévale (DeVun 2020). Des corpus connus s’enrichissent de nouvelles interprétations, et des sources inédites s’en trouvent révélées. À la lumière de ces recherches, des projets d’exposition voient le jour, tels que Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages (The Met Cloisters, cur. Melanie Holcomb et Nancy Thebaut, oct. 2025 – mars 2026).

Cette section vise à créer des échanges au sein des recherches sur les sexualités et le genre dans le domaine de l’histoire de l’art médiéval. Elle se fonde sur l’idée que l’étude des agencements prémodernes en termes de sexualité et de genre n’est pas un décalque de ce que les études contemporaines ont produit comme élaboration théorique. De ce fait, cette section tend à présenter des dossiers singuliers qui permettent de renouveler l’approche des oeuvres, ainsi qu’à penser et explorer des configurations originales de l’articulation sexualité/genre, distinctes et complémentaires des études contemporaines en la matière.

Dir. de section : Clovis Maillet, HEAD – Genève ; Nancy Thebaut, University of Oxford ; Pauline Guex, Centre Maurice Chalumeau en sciences des sexualités de l’Université de Genève (CMCSS)

Détails du congrès & informations pratiques: https://www.vkks.ch/fr/activites/congres

Pour plus d’information: https://rmblf.be/2025/07/30/appel-a-contribution-desirer-et-troubler-approches-queer-et-trans-en-art-medieval-troubling-desires-queer-and-trans-approaches-to-medieval-art/

Call for Papers for Special Session

Contesting the Sacred: Profanation, Theft, and Claims over Religious Images

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, May 14-16, 2026

Online Event

Due by 13 September 2025

This session investigates the complex dynamics involving sacred images and relics in the medieval period, focusing on profanation, theft, and disputes over ownership that reshaped their spiritual, social, and cultural significance. It examines acts of contestation that challenged established hierarchies and redefined sacrality. The panel will explore how medieval communities negotiated power, devotion, and identity through their relationships with sacred objects, with particular emphasis on the intertwined role of images and relics in religious life and social contexts.

Interdisciplinary contributions are encouraged, particularly in art history and anthropology. Through in-depth case studies covering various media, geographic areas, and historical periods, participants will analyze both symbolic meanings and practical implications of possession and contestation. The session will explore the social, legal, and theological frameworks that shaped late medieval perceptions of ownership, sacrality, and profanation, highlighting their role in conflicts and negotiations surrounding sacred objects.

This session aims to provide a nuanced understanding of how medieval societies engaged with sacred images and relics beyond veneration. It will highlight the cultural, devotional, and political tensions underpinning these interactions, offering new perspectives on authority, piety, and subversion within the medieval religious landscape.

Scholars are invited to submit a 300-word abstract, excluding references. Proposals should also include name, affiliation, email address, the title of the presentation, 6 keywords, a selective bibliography, and a short CV. Please send the documents to kalamazoocallforpapers@gmail.com by September 13, 2025.

Call for Papers for Panel

Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Medieval Roofing Systems from Europe to the Christian East

INTERNATIONAL MEDIEVAL CONGRESS (IMC)

Leeds, 6-9 July 2026

Due by 14 September 2025

Sponsor: @ Archaeological Research Unit, UCY - Ερευνητική Μονάδα Αρχαιολογίας, ΠΚ of the Πανεπιστήμιο Κύπρου | University Of Cyprus

Organizers: Angelo Passuello and Michalis Olympios (Univ. of Cyprus)

One of the most important structural elements in the formulation of the architectural language of sacred space in the Middle Ages was the creation of varied roofing systems (wooden roofs, stone vaults, domes). It is the roofs that decisively conditioned the internal spatiality and assumed a primary importance also in formulating the external form of the churches, because the entire construction is based on the shape that the roof will have.

Roofing systems, therefore, have an enormous potential for the study of sacred spaces: if these structures are studied with an interdisciplinary approach they can be compared, contextualised and better understood

The aim of this session is to delve deeper into some case studies from Europe to the Christian East in a multidisciplinary perspective, integrating seamlessly elements of the history of architecture and restorations, archaeometry, archaeology, and art history. Although these methods are native to different disciplines, they constitute indispensable and complementary approaches for a holistic analysis of medieval roofing systems.

Potential topics include, but need not be limited to, the following:

• The structure of roofing systems and the construction phases of individual buildings

• Analysis of groups of buildings: contextualization and regional or international comparison of building ensembles

• Dating and structural analysis of timber roof frameworks

• Stereotomy and construction techniques of vaulted stone structures

• Nineteenth- and twentieth century restoration campaigns

This session forms part of the activities of the CaMeRoofs (Cataloguing Medieval Roofs) project, coordinated by the University of Cyprus and funded by the European Commission under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions.

If you are interested in participating, please send an abstract of max. 200 words, 2-4 relevant index terms (https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-index-terms/), a short bio with full affiliation details (department, institution, email address) to: passuello.angelo@ucy.ac.cy

Deadline: 14 September 2025

This is planned as a hybrid session. Please make sure to indicate whether you intend to participate in person or online

Call for Papers

Timely Tusks: New Approaches to Global Medieval Ivories

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo (May 14 - 16, 2026)

Due by 15 September 2025

1997 was a landmark year for the study of Gothic ivories, with the exhibition Images in Ivory at the Detroit Museum of Art and a plenary talk and two sessions at Kalamazoo. Thirty years later, the field has seen an explosion of scholarship and approaches, making for a timely revisit. The proposed session welcomes papers that examine ivory from 500-1500 - from anywhere and of any type. Topics might include the trade and market in raw materials, the organization and processes of production, the use and handling of various object types, issues of iconography, and post-medieval collecting, reception and treatment.

For more information and to submit, visit: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call

Call for Papers for Session

A Sensory History of Devotion in the Late Medieval Meditteranean World

International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI

14-16 May 2026

Due by 15 September 2025

This panel invites papers on Christian devotional practices in the late medieval Mediterranean that foreground the senses. How did touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste shape how people encountered the divine? We welcome papers on themes such as material culture, gendered piety, cross-cultural devotional exchange, institutional attempts to regulate sensory worship, and the politics of embodied spirituality. Scholars working with diverse Christian communities and sources—from relics to processions, from tears to incense—are encouraged to apply. Together, we aim to explore how sensory experience made the sacred tangible between 1300 and 1550.

This session is organised by Clair Becker (PhD Student, University of Rochester), Emmarae Stein (PhD Student, University of Rochester), Vittoria Magnoler (PhD Student, University of Genoa, EHESS), and sponsored by Hagiography Society.

This session is hybrid. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted via the Confex proposal portal by 15 September 2025. Organizers will not be able to add abstracts to their sessions manually. If you have any technical questions about using Confex, please contact icms@confex.com. Apply via the International Congress on Medieval Studies website: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call

Call for Papers for Session(s)

Session in Honor of William “Bill” Clark

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan - May 14-16, 2026

Due 15 September 2025

AVISTA invites paper proposals for Session(s) in Honor of William “Bill” Clark, which will be in-person sessions at the 61st International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan (May 14-16, 2026). Paper proposals will be accepted through the Confex proposal portal through September 15, 2025.

We invite papers celebrating the life and work of William “Bill” Clark, Gothic architectural historian and founding member of AVISTA. In addition to his significant contributions on the historiography and methodology for medieval art history, Bill Clark wrote extensively on twelfth- and thirteenth-century architecture and sculpture at sites including the Abbey of Saint Denis, Notre Dame in Paris, and the cathedrals of Laon and Reims. Papers responding to Bill’s research or reflecting on Bill’s legacy as mentor, professor, and collaborator are welcome.

For more information, visit https://www.avista.org/opportunities-cfp.

Call for Papers

Metropolitan Museum Journal

Sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Due By 15 September 2025

The Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works in the Museum’s collection. Beginning with Volume 52 (2017), there will be two sections: Full-length Articles and Research Notes. Full-length Articles contribute extensive and thoroughly argued scholarship. Research Notes typically present a concise, neatly bounded aspect of ongoing study, such as the presentation of a new acquisition or attribution, or a specific, resonant finding from technical analysis. All texts must take works of art in the collection as the point of departure.

We look forward to receiving your submission, whether a first-time investigation or a critical reassessment from the Museum's vast holdings.

To be considered for the following year’s volume, the complete article must be submitted by September 15.

Click here for more information.

Click here to view inspiration from the Collection

View the Journal here

View the instructions for authors 

Call for Papers

44th Annual Medieval Studies Conference

Boundaries, Crossings, and Crossroads in the Medieval Iberian Worlds (500-1600)

February 27-March 1, 2026

Lincoln Center Campus, Fordham University, New York City

Due by September 15, 2025

We are excited to announce that the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University will host its 44th Annual Medieval Studies Conference on February 27-March 1, 2026 at Fordham's Lincoln Center campus in New York City on "Boundaries, Crossings, and Crossroads in the Medieval Iberian Worlds (500-1600)." The conference is hosted by Fordham's Center for Medieval Studies with additional support from el taller @ KJCC at New York University.

Plenary Speakers:

Thomas Burman (University of Notre Dame)

María Judith Feliciano (CSIC, Madrid)

Anita Savo (Boston University)

Please see the website for the call for papers: https://mvstconference.ace.fordham.edu/iberianworlds/

Those interested in presenting should submit a 250-word abstract and CV to medievals@fordham.edu by September 15, 2025. Registration will be waived for conference speakers.

Call for Papers for Session

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: Psychedelic Approaches to Medieval Objects

International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 14-16, 2026

Due By Monday, September 15th, 2025

Psychedelic art, an outgrowth of mid-century counterculture, features numerous motifs that may resonate with medievalists. Surreal imagery, animation, bright colors, and the cross-pollination of disparate media all conspire to evoke a hallucinogenic or heightened response in the viewer. We invite proposals for 20-minute papers considering medieval material culture through a psychedelic lens, or vice versa. A sampling of topics may include devotional objects and visionary or mystical encounters; medievalism in 1960s fashion and design; artistic representations of or, artifacts associated with, psychoactive plant and fungi cultivation; or the synesthetic/multisensory impact of objects.

Please keep in mind that this is an in-person session, which means that only people who plan to attend the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo next May (May 14 - 16, 2026) will be able to participate.

All proposals should be submitted as abstracts no longer than 300 words to the ICMS Confex site: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7248

Please contact Sophie Durbin (sophiekhdurbin@gmail.com) or Clara Poteet (clara.poteet@yale.edu) with questions. 

Call for Papers

Buboes, Orificies, and Horns: Non-Normative Bodies

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, May 14-16, 2026

Due by 15 September 2025

This panel examines medieval conceptualisations and representations of (non-)normative bodies, and aims to better understand the demarcations between the human and non-human, the abled and disabled, the white and non-white/racialised, the gender conforming and gender non-conforming body. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches, including art history, literary criticism, disability studies, critical race studies, and gender studies. We adopt a broad definition of the ‘medieval world,’ and invite contributions on material from all geographic regions and time periods between ca. 500-1500, as well as the later re-appropriation of medieval material. Contributions that study the intersection of two or more bodily markers are encouraged.

We welcome papers from researchers, curators, conservators, librarians, and graduate students working on medieval bodies. This session will be held in person. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted via the Confex proposal portal by 15 September 2025.

For more information or questions, please contact the organisers, Imke Vet (imke.vet@yale.edu) and Se Jin Park (sejin.park@yale.edu).

Conference

Center for Medieval-Renaissance Studies of the University of Virginia’s College at Wise

Medieval-Renaissance Conference XXXVIII

September 18-20, 2025

Founded in 1986 by Professors Richard H. Peake and the late Jack Mahony, both of the Department of Language and Literature, the Medieval-Renaissance Conference began as a way of promoting scholarly activity on campus and providing visibility for the College in the larger academic community. The first conference was a success, hosting twelve speakers from mainly area colleges. Welcoming papers on all areas of medieval and renaissance studies, including literature, history, philosophy, art and music, the conference has enjoyed steady growth and increased national presence, with speakers representing institutions across the country – and the occasional international speaker. By the late 1990s it had grown to a gathering of thirty or forty presentations per year, growth that continues the legacy of Professors Peake and Mahony and confirms the value of an academic conference at the College. In spite of this growth, the conference remains small enough to foster a sense of academic community, generating lively discussions and feedback not always achievable at larger conferences. We also work to maintain an open, informal and friendly setting for participants. Many younger scholars, presenting their first academic paper, find their experience with the conference encouraging and helpful to their academic growth.

Sponsored by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference promotes scholarly discussion in all disciplines of Medieval and Renaissance studies. The conference welcomes proposals for papers and panels on Medieval or Renaissance literature, language, history, philosophy, science, pedagogy, and the arts.  Abstracts for papers should be 300 or fewer words.  Proposals for panels should include: a) title of the panel; b) names and institutional affiliations of the chair and all panelists; c) a 200-250 word description of the panel).  A branch campus of the University of Virginia, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise is a public four-year liberal arts college located in the scenic Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia. 

Keynote Address

Frederick de Armas, University of Chicago
Cervantes’ Architectures: Windows, Holes, Corners and Fissures

For more information and to register, visit https://www.uvawise.edu/academics/departments/language-literature/medieval-renaissance-conference

Call for Papers for Session

AGENCIES AND TEMPORALITIES IN COMPLEX ARTEFACTS FROM RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES (C. 1000–1600)

International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 6-9 July 2026

Special Thematic Strand: TEMPORALITIES

Deadline for proposals: 19 September 2025

The proposed session(s) will focus on the multifaceted relationship between time, matter, and religious practice. More specifically, the sessions will examine medieval multi-material and multimedia artefacts that challenge our conception of a “finished” object. The materialities and meanings of these complex artefacts have evolved throughout their lives and afterlives. They must therefore be understood as “works in progress” or organic entities that hold multiple narratives, identities, agencies and temporalities.
These sessions will focus on complex artefacts that have received little scholarly attention or have been misinterpreted due to discipline-bound approaches from a single perspective, overlooking their fluid or hybrid nature. The analysis will encompass reliquaries and other ornamenta sacra, devotional diptychs or triptychs, manuscripts as written artefacts, etc., from religious communities in a global perspective.
We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers in English from a variety of disciplines, including art history, material culture, archaeology, history, cultural history, anthropology, gender studies, musicology, literary studies, theology and the history of emotions. Contributions that facilitate a broader interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary or transregional approach to the study of materiality and religious practice are particularly encouraged.

Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Case studies of complex written and material artefacts resulting from the assembly of different elements that have been incorrectly labelled and studied. Particular attention will be given to objects from communities that have not been well integrated into mainstream scholarship, such as communities of hermits, non-cloistered religious women and communities belonging to understudied orders and territories.

• Embodied agencies. How complex artefacts resulting from the assembly of different elements, materials and media functioned as new media, shaping and reshaping the relationship between humans and matter, between individuals and communities.

• Objects embodying overlapping, nonlinear or anachronic temporalities. The interactive relationship between things and humans created an individual and communal sense of time that was not strictly linear.

• The potential of multi-material objects to display fluid religious identities, transcending binary divisions and boundaries that have defined religious life and practice.

• Textual materialities and temporalities. How inventories (and other sources containing 'textual things', i.e. descriptions of objects) facilitate the fluid and non-linear temporality of objects.

Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short biography (max. 150 words) to mercedes.pvidal@uam.es by 19 September. All proposals should include your name, email address, academic affiliation and preferred presentation format (in-person or virtual).

Speakers will be informed by 23 September.

Call for Papers For Session

The Spatial Turn in Medieval Studies

International Medieval Congress, Leeds 6-9 July 2026

Deadline: 19 September 2026

Space offers a valuable lens through which to rethink the practices in which religious rituals, material objects and written narratives, such as hagiography and historiography, were embedded. Scholars working within the spatial turn have emphasized that the location and physical spatial contexts of events are inseparable from the way in which they unfolded and the outcomes they produced. Space, both physically and socially constructed, plays a critical role in shaping human experiences, alongside other historical and social factors. This session explores how spatial configurations impacted medieval ways of knowing, by examining how space was conceptualized, structured, and transformed. In doing so, it aims to shed light on the ways in which spatial experience shaped the perceptions and actions of those who occupied it.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

Digital reconstruction of medieval objects in their historical space

• Performative actions within the context of their space in which they were performed

• Medieval liturgy and its spatial dimensions and signs for meaning-making

• Space and locations and its influence on medieval audiences

• Descriptions of the use of space in medieval written narrative sources

• Spatial dimensions in medieval manuscripts and its effect on its reader

• Depictions of space in medieval visual images and artworks

• The influence of space and location on the practices surrounding material (ritual) objects

If you are interested in joining these sessions, please send an abstract of max. 250 words, a short bio with affiliation details (institution, department, email address) and an indication if you are joining online or in-person, to Anne Sieberichs (Utrecht University) a.p.sieberichs@uu.nl and Imke Vet (Yale University) imke.vet@yale.edu.
Deadline: 19 September 2025

Call for Papers

IMC Leeds, 6-9 July 2026

Funerary Art, Memory, and Contexts in Medieval Iberia: Bishops and Cathedrals

Due by 20 September 2025

Studies on cultural memory are revolutionising ongoing scholarly debates in Premodern art history and heritage. The Middle Ages in Spain offer countless examples of overlooked figures, settings, and sources barely studied from this point of view in the country. Bishops were at the centre of this phenomenon. They were prolific patrons of the arts, and many cathedrals were prime settings and unparalleled repositories of both written testimony and spaces of belief and performance. The death of a famed bishop became a window into a carefully conceptualised world of ritual, visual, and textual remembrance, planned often years in advance and with implications far beyond this individual figure.

This IMC panel, part of the project FUNART (University of León / PIs: Prof. María Dolores Teijeira Marcos & Prof. Jose Alberto Morais Morán), aims to bring together scholars from all different career stages to analyse the intrinsic relationship between art and memory in regards to bishops, their patronage, and cathedrals in Iberia, c. 1000-1500.

Please, send a paper proposal of no more than 500 words, alongside a short bio, to Dr. Jesús Rodríguez Viejo (j.rodriguez.viejo@rug.nl) before September 20, 2025.

Conference

Center for Medieval-Renaissance Studies of the University of Virginia’s College at Wise

Medieval-Renaissance Conference XXXVIII

September 18-20, 2025

Founded in 1986 by Professors Richard H. Peake and the late Jack Mahony, both of the Department of Language and Literature, the Medieval-Renaissance Conference began as a way of promoting scholarly activity on campus and providing visibility for the College in the larger academic community. The first conference was a success, hosting twelve speakers from mainly area colleges. Welcoming papers on all areas of medieval and renaissance studies, including literature, history, philosophy, art and music, the conference has enjoyed steady growth and increased national presence, with speakers representing institutions across the country – and the occasional international speaker. By the late 1990s it had grown to a gathering of thirty or forty presentations per year, growth that continues the legacy of Professors Peake and Mahony and confirms the value of an academic conference at the College. In spite of this growth, the conference remains small enough to foster a sense of academic community, generating lively discussions and feedback not always achievable at larger conferences. We also work to maintain an open, informal and friendly setting for participants. Many younger scholars, presenting their first academic paper, find their experience with the conference encouraging and helpful to their academic growth.

Sponsored by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference promotes scholarly discussion in all disciplines of Medieval and Renaissance studies. The conference welcomes proposals for papers and panels on Medieval or Renaissance literature, language, history, philosophy, science, pedagogy, and the arts.  Abstracts for papers should be 300 or fewer words.  Proposals for panels should include: a) title of the panel; b) names and institutional affiliations of the chair and all panelists; c) a 200-250 word description of the panel).  A branch campus of the University of Virginia, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise is a public four-year liberal arts college located in the scenic Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia. 

Keynote Address

Frederick de Armas, University of Chicago
Cervantes’ Architectures: Windows, Holes, Corners and Fissures

For more information and to register, visit https://www.uvawise.edu/academics/departments/language-literature/medieval-renaissance-conference

Call for Papers

New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Sarasota, Florida, 5-7 March 2026

Due by 1 October 2025

The twenty-third biennial New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies will take place 5–7 March 2026 in Sarasota, Florida.  The program committee invites 250-word abstracts of proposed twenty-minute papers on topics in European and Mediterranean history, literature, art, music and religion from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries. Planned sessions are welcome (see guidelines below), and interdisciplinary work is particularly appropriate to the conference’s broad historical and disciplinary scope. The deadline for all abstracts is 1 October 2025. 

Junior scholars whose abstracts are accepted are encouraged to submit their papers for consideration for the Snyder Prize (named in honor of conference founder Lee Snyder), which carries an honorarium of $400.

The Conference is held on the campus of New College of Florida, the honors college of the Florida state system. The college, located on Sarasota Bay, is adjacent to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, which will offer tours arranged for conference participants. Sarasota is noted for its beautiful public beaches, theater, food, art and music. Average temperatures in March are a pleasant high of 77f (25c) and a low of 57f (14c).

More information will be posted here on the conference website as it becomes available, including plenary speakers, conference events, and area attractions. Click here for a downloadable PDF of this CFP.

For more information, click here.

Call for Applications

Doctoral Fellowship

Dr. Günther Findel-Stiftung / Rolf und Ursula Schneider-Stiftung

Annual application deadlines: April 1 and October 1

Thanks to the initiatives by private foundations (Dr. Günther Findel-Stiftung/Rolf und Ursula Schneider-Stiftung) fellowships programmes for doctoral candidates have been established at the Herzog August Bibliothek. These programmes are open to applicants from Germany and abroad and from all disciplines.

Applicants may apply for a fellowship of between 2 and 10 months, if research on their dissertation topic necessitates the use of the Wolfenbüttel holdings. The fellowship is € 1.300 per month. Fellowship holders are housed in library accommodation for the duration of the fellowship and pay the rent from their fellowship. There is also an allowance of € 100 per month to cover costs of copying, reproductions etc. Candidates can apply for a travel allowance if no funds are available to them from other sources.

Candidates who already hold fellowships (eg. state or college awards or grants from Graduiertenkollegs) or are employed can apply for a rent subsidy (€ 550) to help finance their stay in Wolfenbüttel.

New: Thanks to generous financial support by the Anna Vorwerk-Stiftung, the monthly fellowship will be increased by € 150 per month until further notice.

Please request an application form, which details all the documents that need to be submitted, at ed.bah@gnuhcsrof. Reviewers will be appointed to evaluate the applications. The Board of Trustees of the foundations will decide on the award.

Application deadlines: October 1st or April 1st. The Board holds its selection meetings in February and July. Successful applicants can take up the award from April 1st or October 1st onwards each year.

If you send your applications by mail, please submit only unstapled documents and no folders.

You can find more information about the foundation here. 

Fellowship Programme Expanded: Footnote Fund

Former holders of fellowships from the foundations can apply for further financial support. The Footnote Fund supports scholars who are either at the final stage of their doctorate or are working on the revision for the publication and wish to return to the library for a short stay – for example, should they need to review or add further source material. The fellowship is € 500 for Germans and € 750 for international applicants.

New: Thanks to generous financial support by the Anna Vorwerk-Stiftung, the fellowship will be increased by € 100 until further notice.

Please request an application form at ed.bah@gnuhcsrof.

This expansion to the doctoral programme was made possible thanks to the generous response to an appeal for financial support launched on the occasion of the anniversary of the Dr. Günther Findel-Stiftung in 2013. Further contributions are of course welcome.

Call for Papers

Bound for Devotion: The Prayer Book as Object and Practice, 1300–1800

Leiden University, Netherlands

1-3 July 2026

Due By 1 October 2025

Prayer was central to religious life in the late medieval and early modern period. Despite growing scholarly interest in religious texts, devotional practices, and spirituality, prayer and prayer books remain comparatively understudied. Prayer could take on a multitude of forms and occur in a range of spaces, from public to secluded and private; from monastic, liturgical prayer to short, indulgenced invocations and meditative prayers that evoked a rich scala of emotions and mental images.

To pray, devotees – whether clerical or lay – often took a book to hand. Prayer books played a vital role during many moments in a person’s life in the performance of prayer and prayer-related practices. While the act of prayer is inherently transient, the books held or touched by late medieval and early modern devotees form codified and material evidence of the practices in which they engaged. Still extant in large numbers and containing a vast variety of textual and visual materials, these books – through both content and appearance – reflect the diversity of prayer practices as well as developments in book production. Taking the book as the central artefact for the study of prayer allows for an analysis that encompasses all aspects and components of prayer books, along with the actors involved in their production and use. This, in turn, enables us to chart the ‘cultural ecosystem’ in which prayer books were produced, circulated, and used.

This three-day international conference, hosted at Leiden University by the PRAYER project (ERC Starting Grant), with keynotes by Walter S. Melion (Emory University) and Kathryn M. Rudy (University of St Andrews), aims to bring together researchers working on books that were (intended to be) used in any form of prayer practice in the late medieval and early modern era (up to the eighteenth century). This conference aims to shed new light on prayer across late medieval and early modern Europe by exploring the broader ecosystem of prayer books. This includes a wide range of interactions between the material book, texts and images disseminated through it (and their connections to other types of objects, such as rosaries, small pipe clay figures, and single-sheet prints), the devotions inspired by these texts and images, the producers and buyers/readers of the books, and the communities they belonged to.

For further information on possible formats and topics for proposals, click here for a PDF of the entire Call for Papers.

Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) and short biography (max. 100 words) to prayer@hum.leidenuniv.nl by 1 October 2025. We aim to inform our speakers by 1 November 2025.

A selection of revised contributions, pending double peer-review, will be published in an edited volume in Brill’s series 'Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture' (https://brill.com/display/serial/INTE).

Organizing Committee: Anna Dlabačová, Irene Van Eldere, Susanne de Jong, and Lieke Smits

Call for Applications

AVISTA Graduate Student Research Grant

Due by 15 October 2025, 5:00pm ET

Our application for the Graduate Student Research Grant for the study of art and architecture across borders in the medieval world is open!

This grant of $750 is intended to support an early-stage graduate student’s research on the theme of art that crosses the borders or peripheries of the medieval world. Funds should support research and/or dissemination of scholarship, which may include expenses for conference travel, site visits, or archive visits. The award includes a one-year gift membership to AVISTA.

We are grateful to Robert E. Jamison, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Clemson University, for underwriting this grant.

The deadline for submitting your application is October 15, 2025, 5:00pm ET.
For the full application instructions and guidelines please see the link here: https://www.avista.org/opportunities-prizes-and-grants

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.

New Exhibition

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

Melanie Holcomb, 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 The 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

Call for Applications

Italian Art Society

Dorothy F. Glass Travel Award

Due 15 December 2025

The Italian Art Society (IAS) welcomes applications for the Dorothy F. Glass Travel Award. The award of $1000 is meant to support an emerging or unaffiliated scholar traveling abroad to study, or to present on, the arts of the Italian Middle Ages. Preference will be given to scholars of sculpture, the major subject of Glass’s work. Recipients must be members of the Italian Art Society at the time of application and upon receipt of the award, and must not have received an IAS award in the previous two years. IAS officers are not eligible to apply. Deadline: December 15, 2025 Please email Dr. Silvia Bottinelli, Chair of the IAS Awards Committee, at awards@italianartsociety.org if you have any questions.

For more information, visist https://www.italianartsociety.org/grants-opportunities/travel-grants/dorothy-f-glass-icms-travel-award/

Call for Papers for Journal

Church Archaeology

Deadline 20 February 2026

The SCA’s peer-reviewed journal Church Archaeology is seeking submissions for its Vol. 26 (2026) issue. We welcome and provide initial editorial feedback on main research articles, shorter articles, news pieces, and book reviews about all kind of ecclesiastical places of worship, their burial grounds, and material culture.

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

For more information on the journal, visit https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/journal/churcharch

Contact: editorchurcharchaeology@outlook.com