CFP -- Queer Sanctity: Contemporary Visions of Medieval and Renaissance Art

due Sunday 15 March 2026

https://differentvisions.org/queer-sanctity-call-for-participation/

I'm pleased to share a CFP for a volume I'm editing: https://differentvisions.org/queer-sanctity-call-for-participation/

Different Visions is an on-line journal dedicated to innovative scholarship on medieval art, and in partnership with them, Queer Sanctity: Contemporary Visions of Medieval and Renaissance Art will be a virtual exhibition and catalogue of work from scholars at any stage of their career (from undergrads to post docs to professors, curators, artists, and more). The focus will be on LGBTQIA2+ artists working in North America (Canada, Mexico, and the US) from about the 1980s to the present who draw inspiration from medieval and Renaissance art, whether directly or indirectly. The chronological limits of medieval/Renaissance and contemporary are quite flexible, as are the queer and trans approaches that we hope to represent by the volume / virtual exhibition.

This project is taking shape beyond the bounds of a museum or gallery, since those constraints were posing challenges to embarking on the collaborative work of creating spaces to share research on the attraction, critiques, or ruptures between LGBTQIA2+ creators, premodern art, and the institutions where these works are found (be they museum, gallery, religious setting, bathhouse, bar, archive, etc.).

There has been a surge of art historical research on queerness/transness in the premodern world, as well as monographic exhibitions devoted to queer/trans contemporary artists and their individual relationships with religion, visual culture, etc. Equally rich is the bibliography on queer/trans European and Brazilian artists working in historicizing modes. With this project, we're hoping to bridge art history, curation, religious studies, and more.

Another goal is to be intentional about expanding beyond Christian histories and visual traditions (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, etc.) to include Jewish, Islamic, and other religions from the premodern world that create those temporal connections between past and present.

At the above link, you'll see the official CFP, as well as a video introduction I recorded. We're asking interested participants to fill out a Google Form (also linked on the CFP) with the type of contribution they might like to produce: a longer scholarly essay, a shorter object entry, a reflection piece, a video / multimedia work, an interview, etc.

One of the things I love about Different Visions is the creative flexibility we have.

Demonstration & Conversation

How Did They Do That?—Manuscript Illumination

The Met Cloisters, New York, New York

Gallery 7, Cuxa Cloister

Sunday, March 15, 2026, 1–4 pm

Peek at technique and learn—through handling tools and materials—how works of art were created. Stop by for hands-on demonstrations and conversations with educators, conservators, artists, and more! Demonstrations repeat every 30 minutes. For visitors of all ages.

Presented in conjunction with The Met Cloisters exhibitiion, Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages.

For more information, visit https://engage.metmuseum.org/events/education/workshops-and-classes/cloisters/how-did-they-do-that/fy26/how-did-they-do-that-manuscript-illumination/

Exhibition Closing

Modern Bestiary: Creatures from the Collection

Judith S. Moore Gallery (level 3)

Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina

August 20, 2025–March 15, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

Exhibition Closing

Praymobil

Medieval art in motion

Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen, Germany

29 November 2025 - 15 March 2026

Special Opening Hours: tur-sun 10-17h

Sculptures which weep, bleed, and talk, sculptures which open and close their eyes and mouths. Sculptures with movable arms and legs, as well as sculptures on wheels for processions. Sculpted doves descending from the vaults of Gothic churches into the nave to represent the Holy Ghost, and angels who seem to ascend to heaven:

Medieval participants in church liturgies, religious ceremonies, and mystery plays were keen on dramatic reenactments of biblical events. During the festive days throughout the year, they therefore set various sculptures, mostly made of wood, in motion in ritual ceremonies. Although moved by human hands, the sculptures thus appeared to be alive. This now forgotten aspect of medieval art is the subject of a fascinating exhibition at the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, which demonstrates that sculptures in churches weren’t always motionless.

Instead, they were “played” with in a dignified, but also tangible manner, in order to enable people to actively participate in the history of salvation and to involve themselves emotionally in these events.

The exhibition audience is confronted with concrete uses of medieval objects, which live on in folk customs in many parts of Europe to this day. Be enchanted by 80 late medieval objects from European museums, private collections, and remote parishes in this world-first exhibition on medieval art in motion.

A complementary exhibition catalogue is available for 49,95 Euro.

For more information, visit https://suermondt-ludwig-museum.de/en/exhibition/praymobil-medieval-art-in-motion/

Call for Proposals

AVISTA SMART Grant

Due 15 March 2026

The AVISTA START (Science, Technology, and Art Research/Teaching) Grant is a new award that provides up to $3,000 USD in seed funding for the initial stages of a long-term scholarly project. It is sponsored by Robert E. Jamison, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Clemson University, in collaboration with AVISTA (the Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art).

The grant is open to any Ph.D.-holding researcher (full-time faculty, part-time faculty, or independent scholar). Eligible projects must engage the intersection of science, technology, and art or architecture in the medieval world—with a preference for initiatives that feature a public—facing component. Examples include, but are not limited to, publications, exhibitions, symposia, conferences, public demonstrations, research resources, and teaching resources.

The submission deadline is Sunday, March 15, 2026. Complete applications will be reviewed by AVISTA’s Grants and Awards Committee. The winning recipient will be notified in mid-April and announced at AVISTA-sponsored events at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in mid-May.

All questions and applications should be sent to:

Sarah Thompson at: avistatreasurer@gmail.com

NOTE ON FILE SUBMISSION: Please submit PDF files when appropriate with the file named as LAST NAME first, then the item.

Example: SMITHdescription.pdf, SMITHbudget.pdf, SMITHcv.pdf

Applicants are asked to submit the following materials for consideration:

1. A CV (curriculum vitae).

2. Project summary, including a title, list of goals, list of products, and discussion of the expected project impact (two pages max)

3. Project timeline, including a description of which portion of the initiative would be covered by the grant (one page)

4. Project budget, including a description of which portion of the initiative would be covered by the grant (one page)

5. List of additional funding sources to which the applicant has applied or will apply to ensure the successful completion of the project (one page).

For more information, visit: https://www.avista.org/opportunities-prizes-and-grants

Call for Papers

International Medieval Meeting Lleida

The Changing Landscapes of Holiness in the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages

University of Lleida, Spain

3-5 June 2026

Due 12 March 2026

The session seeks to explore the conceptualizations of landscape(s) of holiness in the Mediterranean viewing landscape as a participant in religious life and not only a mere background. Suggested topics, on a time frame between 300-1500, may include, but are not limited to:

• Spaces and places of holiness: Churches, catacombs, and graveyards

• Nature and holiness: landscapes of the wilderness

• Architecture, cosmology, and environments: monasteries, churches

• Political geographies of holiness: use of sacred spaces for political power, identity

• Landscape in textual sources: preaching, hagiography

• Images and landscapes of holiness: maps, pilgrimage routes

• Affective and sensorial approaches to holy places

• Rituals and landscapes of holiness in the Mediterranean

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

The language of the panel is English. Fees to be covered by participants.

Please submit a short CV and a 300-words abstract (PDF or Word.doc), in English, clearly underlying the innovative aspect of your current research - that should be at an advanced level.

Deadline: 12 March 2026

Contact email: andreabianka.znorovszky@udl.cat

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

Special invitation from our friends at the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum

Praymobil: Medieval Art in Motion

Exhibition viewing + reception

Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum
Aachen, Germany

Wednesday 11 March 2026, 18:00-21:45

RSVP  info@suermond-ludwig-museum.de

As the preview day of The European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht approaches on Thursday 12 March 2026, the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum and Friends of the Museum welcome ICMA members to their museum in neighboring Aachen.

As in previous years, the team of the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen (Wilhelmstraße 18, 52070 Aachen) and the Friends of the Museum are delighted to invite you and your friends on Wednesday 11 March 2026 at 18.00 h (6 pm) to join us for a reception until approximately 21.45h.

This year we have the pleasure to offer you not only snacks and drinks but also an exclusive visit to our current exhibition Praymobil: Medieval Art in Motion. Michael Rief, Deputy Director of the museum and Curator of this critically acclaimed exhibition, will offer guided tours before the show closes on 15 March.

We’re looking forward to welcoming you and ask that you send a short RSVP to: info@suermond-ludwig-museum.de

Upcoming Exhibition

Licornes!

Musée de Cluny, Paris

10 Mars 2026 - 12 Juillet 2026

Connue depuis l’Antiquité, souvent mentionnée et représentée au Moyen Âge, la licorne est aujourd’hui encore une créature mythique qui suscite la fascination. Elle peuple la littérature fantastique comme les univers enfantins. Elle revêt des significations variées, évocatrices de singularité ou de succès, à l’exemple du terme licorne pour désigner une start-up florissante.

L’exposition invite petits et grands à explorer l'histoire fascinante de cette créature. Elle révèle la licorne non seulement comme un animal fantastique, mais aussi comme un symbole aux multiples résonances. Organisée en huit sections, elle étudie l'iconographie de la licorne dans une perspective historique, mais aussi intellectuelle et esthétique, et incite les visiteurs à des lectures multiples.

Une exposition du Museum Barberini, Potsdam et du musée de Cluny - musée national du Moyen Âge, Paris, en collaboration avec le GrandPalaisRmn.

Consultez la page dédiée à l'événement. 

Pour plus de détails, consultez https://www.musee-moyenage.fr/activites/programmation/licornes.html

Exhibition Closing

Mandorla, les métamorphoses du sacré

Abbaye de Maubuisson, Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, France

Du 5 Octobre 2025 au 8 Mars 2026

Tirant son nom du mot italien signifiant “amande”, Mandorla renvoie à une figure symbolique majeure dans l’iconographie chrétienne : celle de l’ovale lumineux formé par l’intersection de deux cercles, image de la rencontre entre le céleste et le terrestre, entre le spirituel et le corporel. L’exposition propose une relecture contemporaine de cette zone d’interpénétration des contraires, véritable matrice du sacré et de ses multiples résurgences. Pensée comme une traversée des seuils – entre les âges, les cultures, les corps et les imaginaires – Mandorla met en regard une sélection de sculptures de saintes portant leurs martyrs, provenant du Musée Krona à Uden (Pays-Bas), avec des œuvres contemporaines dans un dialogue fertile. Sculptures médiévales, dessins, photographies, installations, vidéos et objets rituels viennent ainsi célébrer le sacre de la chair, de la vie et de la nature et la résonance entre l’intime et l’universel.

Avec Gaylene Barnes, Lara Blanchard, Hildegarde de Bingen, L. Camus-Govoroff, Alexandra Duprez, Charles Fréger, Annabelle Guetatra, Balthazar Heisch, Lauren Januhowski, Kate MccGwire, Rachel Labastie, Yosra Mojtahedi, Armelle de Sainte Marie, peggy.m & Scarlett Owls, Chloé Viton.

Co-commissariat : Marie Ménestrier et Emmanuel Reiatua Cuisinier.

Pour plus de détails, consultez https://abbaye-de-maubuisson.fr/evenements/exposition-collective-mandorla-les-metamorphoses-du-sacre/

Exhibition Closing

Shaping the Soul: Medieval Manuscripts Exhibition

Aubrey R. Watzek Library, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, ORegon

12 January to 6 March 2026

From January 12 to March 6, over thirty items from the 13th through 16th centuries will be on display in Aubrey R. Watzek Library. Bringing together books normally unavailable to the public with recent acquisitions by Lewis & Clark’s Watzek Library, Shaping the Soul is the first public exhibition of medieval manuscripts in Portland in nearly three decades.

Viewing a medieval manuscript is a profoundly intimate experience. Unlike today’s mass-produced publications, medieval manuscripts are unique, bespoke productions, revealing traces of both their makers and their readers. Medieval books also performed a number of roles: developing moral character through education, nurturing interiority through meditation and prayer, creating community through shared use in worship, forming the public self through legal documentation, and more. Shaping the Soul demonstrates the various ways that people understood themselves and their world through books. Highlights include a nun’s private devotional handbook, a lawyer’s manual with amusing doodles for memory aids, a grand choir book, a thirteenth-century Bible, and sumptuous books of hours.

Curated by Professor Gross (Professor of English) and Alli Sanders (BA ’26), this exhibition is made possible in part through the Manuscripts in the Curriculum initiative developed by the international art dealer Les Enluminures (Chicago, New York, and Paris). Lewis & Clark is the first liberal arts college to participate in this program. Shaping the Soul also benefits from generous loans made by Phillip J. Pirages’s Fine Books & Manuscripts (McMinnville, Oregon). These partnerships attest to the unique opportunities created by Lewis & Clark’s instruction in Special Collections and the strong reputation for research by faculty, staff, and students.

For more information, visit https://college.lclark.edu/live/news/57521-shaping-the-soul-medieval-manuscripts-exhibition

Met Expert Talks

Medieval Desire

Thursday, March 5, 2026, 3–3:30 pm

The Met, Fifth Avenue, New York, New York

Gallery 305, Medieval Sculpture Hall

Explore the ways love, sex, and gender are represented in the Medieval Art galleries at The Met.

Join Museum experts, including curators, conservators, scientists, and scholars, for a deep dive, into a selection of objects in the galleries. Hear new insights and untold stories from Met insiders and take a closer look. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions. 

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

Note: Space is limited; first come, first served. Priority will be given to those who register.

For more information, visit https://engage.metmuseum.org/events/education/talks/cloisters/met-expert-talks-at-the-met-cloisters/fy26/met-expert-talks-medieval-desire/

Call for Book Proposals

Bloomsbury Academic

Bloomsbury's Trans Studies Book Series

Due 5 March 2026

Contact email: dvakoch@meti.org

Trans Studies, a book series published by Bloomsbury Academic, is seeking proposals for books that provide leading-edge scholarship on transgender and nonbinary topics from any discipline in the humanities, social sciences, and biological sciences. Bloomsbury’s Gender & Sexuality Studies list pioneers the publishing of innovative scholarly research from the Global South, and from marginalized gender identities and sexualities across global and transnational contexts. Bloomsbury has a longstanding commitment to publishing insightful books on LGBTQIA+ topics.

To propose a book for Trans Studies, please complete this form and submit it to General Editor Douglas Vakoch (dvakoch@meti.org) and Senior Acquisitions Editor Courtney Morales (Courtney.Morales@bloomsbury.com). Please include your CV, a list of five to seven potential reviewers you do not know personally, and a sample chapter. If you do not have a sample chapter for the book, please include a previous writing sample written in the same style that you envision for the book.

On the form, list the highest degree for each author, editor, and chapter author. Authors and editors should have already completed their PhDs. For edited volumes, all chapters should have at least one author who has already completed their PhD. 

Books in this series include only original content, and no materials should be previously published.

High priorities for the series include books that provide intersectional perspectives, as well as works that examine transgender and nonbinary topics with reference to particular linguistic, national, and regional groups. We encourage authors from around the world to contribute to the series, incorporating culture-specific insights as feasible.

Contemporary and historical works are equally appropriate. Books in this series include monographs and edited volumes that target academic audiences. We value books that explore socially relevant issues and that both clarify and question the premises of fields outside of trans studies.

All books in the Trans Studies series—whether they are grounded in the humanities, social sciences, or biological sciences—reflect on the assumptions that guide the book’s specific version of trans scholarship. We especially seek works that provide innovative reformulations of the scope and practice of trans studies, including novel methodologies and theoretical concepts that challenge the status quo. We welcome books from disciplines that are underrepresented in trans studies.

All books follow the most recent guidelines for best practices in using accurate and respectful language when discussing transgender and nonbinary people and topics. Key resources to these best practices include GLAAD’s overviews of Transgender People and Nonbinary People, as well as this Glossary of Terms.

Contributors to this series come from disciplines including but not limited to anthropology, architecture, area studies, art, biology, cinema studies, classics, communication studies, cultural studies, disability studies, ecology, economics, education, environmental studies, ethics, ethnic studies, gender studies, geography, history, law, literary studies, masculinity studies, media studies, medicine, medieval studies, philosophy, political science, psychology, public policy, queer studies, religious studies, rhetoric, science and technology studies, science fiction studies, sociology, theology, trans studies, and women’s studies. Proposals grounded in other disciplines are equally welcome.

Bloomsbury Academic’s Trans Studies book series is based on a three-fold commitment to:

• Provide inclusive, global representation of transgender and nonbinary topics and authors

• Challenge assumptions of trans studies and other fields

• Engage diverse disciplines from the humanities, social sciences, and biological sciences

For more information, visit https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/series/trans-studies/

BAA Annual Lecture Series

The transformation of the monastic enclosure at Marmoutier (Tours, France) between the 11th and the early 13th centuries

Elisabeth Lorans

Emeritus Professor of Medieval Archaeology, University of Tours (France)

Society of Antiquaries of London & Online

Wednesday, 4 March 2026, 5:00pm

Tea is served from 5 p.m. and the Chair is taken at 5.30 p.m. 

A re-reading of the narrative sources produced by the communities at Marmoutier and at St Martin between the 11th and the 13th centuries, when confronted with the archaeological data, allows us better to understand the topographical and architectural transformation carried out by Marmoutier during this period. This paper will examine in turn the four major aspects of these transformations: a. the formation of the enclosure and its surrounding funerary areas (or not) around 1096 as a sacred space; b. the growing role of the Repos de St Martin as a sanctuary; c. the development of a new devotional core centred on the chapel of Our Lady of the Seven Sleepers, with easier access for the pilgrims; and finally d. the lengthening of the nave of the Romanesque church, which required the destruction of the Galilee porch and the removal of the abbatial and seigniorial tombs which it contained to the chapter house. These transformations show the community’s desire to augment the surface of the enclosure and the monumental nature of its buildings, in order to move further away from the episcopal authority, within the framework of the Gregorian Reform, as well as to create a martinian centre on the right bank of the Loire, which would rival the left bank sanctuary containing the tomb of the saint.

The lectures are open to all; non-members are welcome to attend occasional lectures but are asked to make themselves known to the Hon Director on arrival, and to sign the visitors book.

To watch online, click here.

For more information, click here.

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture 2025-2026 Lecture Series

Spindle Whorls and Women’s Work: Reframing Middle Byzantine Lives in the Athenian Agora

Fotini Kondyli

University of Virginia

March 4, 2025 | 12:00–1:30 pm (Eastern Standard Time, UTC -5)| | Zoom

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

Over 150 Middle Byzantine spindle whorls in bone and steatite have been uncovered in the Athenian Agora Excavations, found in domestic and work spaces as well as in burials. In this lecture, I move these objects out of the artifact catalogues where they often linger and let them speak, telling the stories of the women who used them and the non-elite lives they illuminate.

By tracing the “biographies” of these tools—their birth (materials, making, design), working life (use, skill, transmission), and economic movement (exchange, display, disposal)—we can reconstruct rhythms of women’s labor and situate spinning within the urban economy of Byzantine Athens. Highly decorated surfaces, combining polished planes with incised grooves and circles, reveal a tactile aesthetic meant to be felt as much as seen. These designs, often associated with sacred or protective motifs, suggest that spindle whorls were not merely functional but active participants in religious experience and domestic protection. Decoration also connects these objects to a wider world: parallels with Islamic spindle whorls from the 9th–10th-century point to cultural exchange through textiles and luxury goods, and their appropriation for aesthetic and apotropaic purposes in Byzantine contexts.

Portable and publicly performed, spinning transformed these tools into communication objects, signaling skill, status, and adherence to social norms, while transmitting tacit knowledge across generations. Thinking through these encounters, this lecture reframes spinning as a socially and religiously meaningful, economically consequential performance at the heart of Middle Byzantine urban life.

Fotini Kondyli is Associate Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at the University of Virginia. She researches spatial practices, community-building processes, the material culture of Byzantine non-elites, and cultural, economic, and political networks in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Byzantine period (13th-15th centuries).

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/spindle-whorls-and-womens-work

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

Online Workshop for Graduate Students and ECRs

GIS Basics for Byzantinists Workshop Series

Becky Seifried

University of Massachusetts Amherst

March 13 and March 20, 2026

Zoom

Registration Ends 4 March 2026

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Byzantine Studies Association of North America are pleased to offer a a GIS basics workshop series for graduate students and early career researchers in collaboration with Becky Seifried of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The GIS Basics for Byzantinists workshop series will provide an introduction to the core concepts of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) through participatory sessions geared towards map creation and design. Using QGIS, a free and open-source GIS desktop software package, participants will learn how to create new research data and then transform it into an effective digital or static final map. The sessions are independent, but attending both is recommended to get the most out of the series. Participants are invited to use their own research project or idea as a basis for exploring the tool. Demo data will also be provided if needed. This workshop series is intended for those who have very little or no experience with GIS.

Each workshop is limited to 15 participants. Students enrolled in graduate programs in North America and early career researchers working in North America will be given priority. Registration is first come, first served.

Registration closes March 4, 2026.

To read a full description of the workshop series and register your interest, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/gis-basics-for-byzantinists.

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

Exhibition Closing

Impressions of the Imagination: New Medieval Beasts in Print

The MET Cloisters, New York, New York

Gallery 007

Until 3 March 2026

Snarling, prancing, prowling, and peeking out from stone and thread, animals both real and fantastical fill medieval art with energy and imagination. As part of The Met Cloisters’ commitment to serving neighbors in upper Manhattan, fifth-grade students from P.S. 48 P.O. Michael J. Buczek were invited to immerse themselves in this lively world of hybrid creatures and respond with beasts of their own invention.

During two gallery visits, students studied the curves of a dragon’s tail, the proud stance of a griffin, and the shimmer of a unicorn’s tail woven into tapestries, taking careful note of how medieval artists used line, pattern, and material. Back in the classroom, students brought their ideas to life through printmaking that required layering textures and shapes to create bold, whimsical creatures, each one stamped with the imagination of its maker.

The Met Cloisters gratefully acknowledges P.S. 48 art teacher Félix Portela, Met teaching artist Pamela Lawton, and the entire P.S. 48 community for their support of this program.

For more information, visit https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/impressions-of-the-imagination-new-medieval-beasts-in-print

Call for Papers

Centre for Scottish & Celtic Studies Postgraduate Symposium

Where is Scotland? Navigating Identities and Communities by Land and Sea

University of Glasgow, 28th May 2026

Due by 2 March 2026

We are pleased to invite PGTs and PGRs to submit proposals for a 15-minute paper, in English or Gaidhlig, for the annual Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies (CSCS) hybrid postgraduate symposium to be held at the University of Glasgow on 28th May 2026.

Movement and the landscape are increasingly recognised for their role in shaping not only Scotland but Celtic nations of the present and Celtic cultures of the past. This interdisciplinary conference aims to foster dialogue across institutions and showcase the latest research of postgraduates across the fields of Scottish Archaeology, History, Literature, and Celtic & Gaelic Studies.

We encourage abstracts addressing themes including, but not limited to:

• Scottish and Celtic diaspora: the nation beyond its borders

• The role of empire and colonisation in Early Modern identities and beyond

• Boundaries and points of contact

• Mapping populations, landscapes, identities, languages, archaeological sites

• Scotland's literary topoi

• Popular memory and folklore in shaping Celtic arts, literature, media

This conference provides a supportive and friendly environment for postgraduates to share their latest research or works-in-progress with an audience of peers including Post-Docs, Eatly Career Researchers, and foremost thinkers in similar themes across a wide array of disciplines.

Prospective speakers should submit a title, abstract (100-200 words), and a brief biography (c.50 words) in English or Gaidhlig, by 2nd March 2026

Additionally, if you are a PGT and would like to attend the symposium but not present a paper, we invite you to send us a brief, one sentence summary of you research interests, or thesis title, for inclusion in a PGT research spotlight.

Please send any abstracts or questions to arts-cscs@glasgow.ac.uk.

Call for Papers

The Purple and the Book: Precious Manuscripts from Late Antiquity to Renaissance

Turin, 18-20 November 2026

Due by 28 February 2026

Purple manuscripts represent a distinctive genre in Western bookmaking production, holding significant artistic and cultural value. Known since Late Antiquity, the purple colour imparts a high symbolic worth: a mark of imperial authority, it later became, with the advent of Christianity, a symbol of the blood of Christ, of martyrs, and of the authority of the Church. After a revival during the Carolingian era, which influenced Ottonian and Romanesque illumination, these manuscripts experienced renewed prominence during the Humanist and Renaissance periods.

This international conference, as the concluding event of the PURple Parchment LEgacy project (PRIN 2020; https://purpleproject.it), brings together scholars from various fields, time periods, and traditions of book decoration. The aim of the meeting is to offer a comprehensive and multidisciplinary overview of purple manuscripts and the use of purple in manuscript decoration. In addition to invited keynote talks, there will be an open session dedicated to more focused themes and case studies.

Proposals are invited for papers (maximum 15 minutes) addressing, but not limited to, the following research areas, covering periods from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance:

• case studies on single works or small groups of manuscripts, with a particular focus on their historical-artistic context

• in-depth studies of techniques and materials (dyes, writing supports, bindings, etc.)

• research on written sources that contribute to the reconstruction of historical-artistic, documentary, and technical aspects

• the history of purple manuscripts, with attention to their provenance and collecting histories

Submissions from PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career scholars are especially encouraged, as well as presentations of ongoing research or projects.

Proposals should be submitted in a single document (Word or PDF format) by 28 February 2026 to: convegno.purple@unito.it. Submissions should include:

• Full name, email address, and current affiliation

• Paper title

• Abstract (maximum 2,000 characters, including spaces)

• Short CV (maximum 1,000 characters, including spaces)

Proposals may be submitted in Italian, French, English, or German, and will be reviewed by the organizing committee. The outcome of the selection process will be communicated by March 2026.

The conference will take place in person in Turin. Accommodation expenses will be covered by the organization (travel expenses will be the responsibility of the participants). The conference proceedings will be published following a peer-review process

Annual Lecture of The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture

and Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies

The Frankish Kingdom and the Eastern Empire: Rethinking Their Interconnections from a Medieval Perspective

Laury Sarti

University of Bonn

February 27, 2026 | 12:00–1:30 pm (EST, UTC -5) | Zoom

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the 2025–2026 edition of its annual lecture with the Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.

How did the Byzantines perceive the Franks since the end of Antiquity, and to what extent did they recognise Frankish imperial claims at the time of Charlemagne? This lecture reassesses the sources to challenge the traditional view of general Byzantine superiority, focusing on contemporary perspectives. It examines the relationship and connections between the Franks and the empire from the Merovingian period, and how these relations evolved over time. It does so by employing three approaches: the study of connectivity, exploring interactions and infrastructures; the study of networking, tracing the processes and outcomes of these interactions; and entanglement, analysing intersecting socio-political factors. The evidence shows that Charlemagne’s recognition in 812 followed standard imperial protocols, that the dual imperial order remained conceptually viable, and that the Franks retained ties to imperial structures while gradually asserting autonomy. Elite-level networks—embassies, marriage proposals, and Greek learning—sustained a limited but enduring imperial connection, which only weakened by the Ottonian period.

Laury Sarti is Heisenberg Professor in the Department of History at the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on war as a factor of social change after the end of the Roman Empire, the legacy of Rome in the early medieval West, and physical mobility until the Late Middle Ages.

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/the-frankish-kingdom-and-the-eastern-empire

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

New Scholarly Space

Byzantine Disability Hub

Informal Meeting

Thursday February 26 at 6pm GMT / 1PM EST (Zoom)

Want to learn more about the Byzantine Disability Hub and the people behind it? Join us for a virtual coffee hour! We will tell you more about our events and future planning and look forward to learning more about your interests.

Fill out the Contact form on the website and we will send you the Zoom link. We look forward to e-meeting you!

We are pleased to announce the establishment of the Byzantine Disability Hub, a new scholarly space dedicated to exploring physical and mental difference in the Byzantine world. The Hub aims to bring together scholars, students, and all those interested in the lived experiences, representations, and social dimensions of disability in Byzantium and the medieval eastern Mediterranean.

Serving as a central platform for our activities and resources, the Byzantine Disability Hub offers a gateway to lectures, group discussions, conference updates, and a curated repository of relevant scholarship. We envision the Hub as a meeting place—one that fosters connection, collaboration, and contribution within this emerging field of study. By encouraging dialogue and highlighting ongoing work, the Hub seeks to strengthen international networks, inspire new research, and support future projects that broaden our understanding of Byzantium and its diverse communities.

Exhibition closing

Paws on Parchment

Centre Street Building, Level 3, Medieval Gallery

The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD

August 06, 2025–February 22, 2026

Cat lovers unite! The Walters is celebrating our feline friends with this paws-itively adorable exhibition. Paws on Parchment explores how medieval people thought about, engaged with, and admired cats through the animals’ presence in manuscripts from the period. Centuries before cat memes took over the internet, the antics of fanciful felines were already popular in the margins of medieval manuscripts. These furry animals delighted readers back then just as they amuse us today.

Cats played an important role in the medieval era. Like today, cats were considered beloved pets whose behavior amused and exasperated their owners. However, felines also served an important function as hunters that protected valuable books and textiles, food stores, and even people from disease-carrying rodents and other vermin. Cats also carried deep symbolic and moral meaning in this period.

In Paws on Parchment, visitors will enjoy medieval depictions of cats preserved in the pages of manuscripts from across the world, including a 15th-century “keyboard cat.” Most notably, visitors can see real pawprints left by a cat walking across the pages of a Flemish manuscript as the ink dried in the 1470s. A handful of these “pawprint” manuscripts are known around the world, and this is the first time the Walters’ example will ever be shown.

Curator: Lynley Anne Herbert, Robert and Nancy Hall Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts

For more information, visit https://thewalters.org/exhibitions/paws/

ICMA Happy Hour
Friday 20 February 2026, 6:00pm CT
Adams Street Brewery at The Berghoff
Chicago, Illinois

Register HERE 

The ICMA will host a special happy hour at Adams Street Brewery at The Berghoff (17 West Adams Street, near the Art Institute) from 6:00 pm until 7:30pm CT. All are welcome, but please register so we know how many to expect.

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

Call for Papers

Church Archaeology Journal

Society for Church Archaeology

Due 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.

Contact: editorchurcharchaeology@outlook.com

For more information, visit https://www.churcharchaeology.org/journal and https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/journal/churcharch

ICMA at the College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago 2026

ICMA Sponsored Session
The Archival Art Historian
Thursday 19 February 2026, 11am - 12:30pm CT
Hilton Chicago - 3rd Floor - Marquette Room

Lecture

Men in Love in the Romance of the Rose

Christopher T. Richards & Eliza Zingesser

The MET Cloisters, New York City

Wednesday, February 18, 2026, 6–7 pm

Christopher T. Richards, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, Colby College
Eliza Zingesser, Associate Professor of French; Director of French Graduate Studies; Director of French Graduate Admissions, Columbia University

One of the most widely read love poems of the Middle Ages, the Romance of the Rose narrates an erotic dream about a man’s seduction of a woman and includes episodes about other forms of desire. Join us to hear medieval scholars Christopher T. Richards and Eliza Zingesser in conversation on the unexpected imagery inspired by this iconic work of courtly literature.

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

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

To registers and/or obtain more information, visit https://engage.metmuseum.org/events/education/talks/cloisters/free-talks/fy26/romance-of-the-rose-cloisters/

Exhibition

Gold: Enduring Power, Sacred Craft

Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA

October 24, 2025 – February 16, 2026

This exhibition explores the artistic and cultural function of gold in approximately 60 works of art drawn from across the collections of the Norton Simon Museum, which encompass South and Southeast Asia, Europe, North Africa and North America. This compelling group of objects, spanning from around 1000 BCE to the 20th century, reveals unexpected intersections in the circulation, craft and meaning of gold across time and place.

Gold’s elemental nature lends significance to many of the artworks on view in the exhibition. In the realm of religious art, the metal’s malleable yet incorruptible quality enabled artists to create enduring images of devotion. Gilt Hindu and Buddhist sculptures from the 12th to 20th centuries were commissioned by donors to emphasize the spiritual attainments and deified status of various religious figures. The gold on these objects represents one of the highest forms of offering, in terms of both economic and aesthetic value, and it was intended to accumulate merit and provide protection for devotees. Intricate details wrought by the hands of skilled artisans centuries ago are still preserved in the corrosion-resistant metal, which ensured the longevity of the object’s splendor and spiritual power. In 14th- and 15th-century Europe, artists of Christian images used extraordinarily thin, hammered gold leaf to create shimmering divine realms, an effect once dramatically enhanced by candlelit churches and private altars.

Gold’s rarity, and the expertise required to harness it as a medium, contributed to its impact as a visual expression of power. The objects in this exhibition were crafted from metal excavated from mines across three continents and transported over vast regions, often in the form of currency. In the hands of trained craftspeople, this processed gold was transformed into jewelry that adorned Roman patrician women or spun into thread that was then woven into textiles for elite patrons in Europe and Asia. The long historical thirst for gold motivated California’s own extractive 19th-century mining practices, the legacy of which is explored through photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.

New technical analysis conducted for this exhibition helped to identify the objects’ fundamental material properties, which provoked further questions about their significance—are these works actually gold, and what does it mean if they are not? In some cases, gilding versus solid gold becomes an issue, because it is the purity and preciousness of the material itself that gives these objects power. Alternatively, when “gold” is created through the treatment of another metal such as brass, or by skillful illusionistic painting, the gleaming effect and impressive artistic alchemy become more important than the raw materials.

Organized on the occasion of the Museum’s 50th anniversary, a milestone traditionally associated with this metal, Gold: Enduring Power, Sacred Craft invites fresh inquiry into the nature of gold as an artistic medium. In the process, the exhibition generates new conversations about the cultural and material resilience of these objects, many of which will be displayed together for the first time.

For more information, visit https://www.nortonsimon.org/exhibitions/2020-2029/gold-enduring-power-sacred-craft

Exhibition

Fastnacht: Dance and Games at the Nuremberg Carnival

Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg, Germany

11.11.2025 – 15.02.2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free admission on Wednesdays from 17.30

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

Call for Papers

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

University of Genoa, 7-8 May 2026

Due by 15 February 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more information, click here.