Call for Applications: Postdoctoral fellowship for East Central European researchers in Gotha, Halle and Wolfenbüttel (3 months), Due by 31 October 2025

Call for Applications

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

Due by 31 October 2025

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

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

Call for Papers: Decentring Europe: Nordic–Iberian Histories in Transregional Perspective, 4th SWESP International Workshop, Gothenburg (21-22 May 2026), Due 15 Nov. 2025

Call for Papers

4th SWESP International Workshop

Decentring Europe: Nordic–Iberian Histories in Transregional Perspective

University of Gothenburg, 21-22 May 2026

Due 15 November 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please see the full CFP here.

Call for Papers: The Medici and the Dominicans, Florence (20 Jan. 2026), Due by 15 Nov. 2025

Call for Papers

The Medici and the Dominicans

Friday, 30 January 2026

Palazzo Alberti, Florence

Due by 15 November 2025

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

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

• Medici Presence at San Marco

• Antonino Pierozzi: Patronage and Canonization

• The Medici and Santa Maria Novella

• The Medici Library and the Library at San Marco

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

• The Studia of Florence and Pisa

• Savonarola and Piagnonism

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

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

• Cosimo I and the 1545 San Marco Crisis

• Medici and Dominican Fonderie in Florence

• Egnazio Danti and Mapmaking

• The Medici Popes at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome

• Plautilla Nelli and Santa Caterina da Siena in Florence

• Paupertas, Majestas, and Simplicitas

• The Dominicans in Florence during the "Forgotten Centuries"

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

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

Call for Papers: Bridging the Past and Present in Cartography, 31st ICHC, Prague (7-11 July 2026), Due by 14 Nov. 2025

Call for Papers

Bridging the Past and Present in Cartography

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

7-11 July 2026, Prague, Czech Republic

Due by 14 November 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key Dates

• Opening of the call for papers: 15 July 2025

• Deadline for submission of proposals: 14 November 2025

• Notification of acceptance: 15 January 2026

• Early Bird Registration: until 15 April 2026

Papers

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

Posters

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

Panel Proposals

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

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

Call for Papers: 11th Conference of the Medieval Chronicle Society, Munich (27-30 July 2026), Due by 10 Nov. 2025

Call for Papers

11th Conference of the Medieval Chronicle Society

27th-30th July 2026

Munich, Germany

Due by 10 November 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In-person/Online Conference: The Challenge of Historical Distance Historicism and Anachronism in the Study of Art, Florence (In-Person) & Teams (Online), 6-7 Nov. 2025

In-person/online International conference

The Challenge of Historical Distance Historicism and Anachronism in the Study of Art

Nederlands Interuniversitair Kunsthistorisch Instituut (NIKI), Florence, Italy

6-7 November 2025

View the programme here

Click here to register for online attendance via Teams.

Click here to register for in-person attendance at the NIKI, located at Viale Evangelista Torricelli 5 in Florence.

How can art historians explore, understand, or even ‘feel’ the material evidence of the past? How can we approach the problem of historical distance, of our anachronistic nostalgia and our intellectual desire for pre-modern periods and artefacts? Can we inhabit the time of past artworks, or do artworks constantly re-construct their own times? What role do contemporary concerns play in our interpretations of the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods? Numerous recent publications have explored the study of the past through different lenses. They have complicated the idea of ‘historical contexts’ by showing the ability of artworks to simultaneously refer to various time periods. They have also encouraged cross-temporal and sometimes ahistorical interpretations of premodern artefacts in the light of modern theories and concerns. This conference will bridge the ‘historicist’ and ‘anachronist’ camp in an attempt to theorise the thorny issue of time which sits at the core of both history and art history. The conference is organised in celebration of the scholarship of Prof. Gervase Rosser and in honour of his retirement from the University of Oxford. It particularly celebrates Prof. Rosser’s prominence as both historian and art historian and his inspirational interrogation of both disciplines.

For more information, visit https://www.niki-florence.org/in-person-online-conference-the-challenge-of-historical-distance-historicism-and-anachronism/?lang=en

Call for Papers: Materialising the Holy. Matter, Senses, and Spiritual Experience in the Middle Ages (12th-15th century), Padua (6-8 May 2026), Due by 31 Oct. 2025

Call for Papers

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

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

University of Padua, 6-8 May 2026

Due by 31 October 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By October 31st please submit to the conference organizers Zuleika Murat (zuleika.murat@unipd.it), Valentina Baradel (valentina.baradel@unipd.it), Vittorio Frighetto (vittorio.frighetto@phd.unipd.it) and Teresa Martínez Martínez (teresa.martinez@unipd.it): full name, current affiliation (if applicable), and email address; paper title of maximum 15 words; abstracts of maximum 300 words; a biography of maximum 500 words; three to five key-words.
Notifications of acceptance will be given by November 15th.

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

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

Call for Papers: levating the Word. Bimah – Ambo – Minbar – Pulpit as Spaces of Sacred Speech, Munich (22-23 July 2026), Due by 31 Oct. 2025

Call for Papers

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

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

due by 31 October 2025

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

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

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

Submission instructions

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

Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered. 

The publication of the conference proceedings is planned.

Call for Papers: Marginalities in the Insular Worlds of North-Western Europe (8th –13th c.), University of Caen (12 June 2026), Due by 7 Nov. 2025

Call for Papers

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

FRIDAY, 12 JUNE 2026

UNIVERSITY OF CAEN / CRAHAM (FRANCE)

Due by 7 November 2025

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

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

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

Subjects may include (but are not limited to):

• Gendered and sexual marginalities

• Religious minorities, non-conformist spiritualities

• Migrants, exiles

• Individuals marginalized by the law

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

• Marginal voices in legal, literary, or documentary sources

• Representations of difference and exclusion

• Networks and strategies of adaptation among marginal groups

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

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

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

Call for Papers: The Courtauld Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium, London (6 Mar. 2026), Due by 14 Dec. 2025

Call for Papers

The Courtauld Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium

Friday 6 March 2026, London, UK

Due by 14 December 2025

Royal 14 B VI, genealogical roll of the kings of England, 1300-8, f. 7, British Library, London. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

In our digital age, memory is both permanent and fleeting: forever enshrined on the internet, and yet easily forgotten amid the endless scroll of new information. In the Middle Ages, however, memory was more consciously articulated by medieval makers, patrons and viewers, and was appropriated to serve carefully crafted political, devotional and cultural agendas. Far from being passive repositories of remembrance, medieval artworks, buildings and objects played active roles in constructing, shaping and transmitting memory, whether personal, collective or institutional. This colloquium invites papers that explore the complex and dynamic relationship between memory and the material culture of the Middle Ages. It seeks to consider how images from medieval Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic world engaged with the processes of remembering and forgetting, and how they mediated the relationship between the past and the present.

We invite submissions for 20-minute papers that investigate the relationships between memory, objects and buildings, as well as those involved in making, commissioning and viewing them. Respondents might consider themes including but by no means limited to:
● The role of images in preserving, rewriting or reframing the past, and in creating, re-creating and reinforcing memory
● Agendas of patronage and the politics of remembering and forgetting in the construction of memory
● Death, commemoration and the visual cultures of remembrance
● Genealogy, dynastic representation and strategies of commemoration
● Architecture, monuments and urban spaces as sites of shared or contested memory
● The staging and restaging of memory in rituals and processions
● The transmission of memory across geographical, cultural and temporal boundaries
● The afterlives of medieval images and their role in shaping modern memory of the Middle Ages

We invite PhD candidates to submit an up to 250-word paper proposal and title, a short CV, together with their complete contact details (full name, email, and institutional affiliation) by 14 December 2025. Please send these to Sophia Dumoulin (sophia.dumoulin@courtauld.ac.uk).

There may be some limited funding to support travel and accommodation costs for those without institutional support. If you would require funding support, please include a brief budget alongside your abstract.

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

For more information online, visit https://courtauld.ac.uk/research/the-research-forum/calls-for-papers/call-for-papers-memory-and-the-medieval-image/

Call for Applications: 2026-2027 Predoctoral Research Residencies at La Capraia, Naples, Due by 31 Jan. 2026

Call for Applications

2026-2027 Predoctoral Research Residencies at La Capraia, Naples

Due by 31 January 2026

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

Housed in “La Capraia,” a rustic eighteenth-century agricultural building at the heart of the Bosco di Capodimonte, the Center engages the Museo di Capodimonte and the city of Naples as a laboratory for new research in the cultural histories of port cities and the mobilities of artworks, people, technologies, and ideas. Global in scope, research at La Capraia is grounded in direct study of objects, sites, collections, and archives in Naples and southern Italy. Through site-based seminars and conferences, collaborative projects with partner institutions, and research residencies for graduate students, La Capraia fosters research on Naples and southern Italy as a site of cultural encounter, exchange, and transformation, and cultivates a network of scholars working at the intersection of the global and the local.

The Advisory Committee of the Center for the Art and Architectural History of Port Cities “La Capraia” invites applications for 2026-2027 Research Residencies for PhD students carrying out research for their dissertations. Projects, which may be interdisciplinary, may focus on art and architectural history, archaeology, histories of collecting, technical art history, cultural heritage, the digital humanities, music history, or related fields, from antiquity to the present. Projects should address the cultural histories of Naples and southern Italy as a center of exchange, encounter, and transformation, and, importantly, make meaningful use of local research materials including artworks, sites, archives, and libraries. We welcome applications for projects that engage with histories of the collections and grounds of Capodimonte, and/or artworks and monuments held there. Projects in the earlier phases of research are preferred.

All materials, including letters of recommendation, are due by January 31, 2026.

Read the full Call and learn how to apply at https://utdallas.box.com/v/LaCapraiaCall2026-2027

Call for Papers: Medievalisms Area, 47th Annual SWPACA Conference, Albuquerque, NM (25-28 Feb. 2026), Due 31 Oct. 2025

Call for Papers

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

Medievalisms Area

Marriott Albuquerque, Albuquerque, New Mexico

25-28 February 2026

Due 31 October 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2025.   

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

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

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

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

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

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

Call for Papers: 25th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, University of Rochester (9-11 Apr. 2026), Due by 12 Dec. 2025

Call for Papers

25th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies

The University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, 9-11 April 2026

Due by 12 December 2025

We are now accepting submissions for Vagantes 2026! 

The 25th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies will be hosted by The University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, April 9-11, 2026.  

Vagantes is an interdisciplinary community of junior and early career scholars that offers an ideal opportunity for sharing new research. The conference accepts submissions on any topic pertaining to the long Middle Ages. We encourage submissions from scholars across all disciplines that engage with medieval studies and welcome work that explores medieval culture, religion, philosophy, literature, art, historiography, as well as medievalisms and reception studies. There is no registration fee. 

Please submit an abstract of 300 words and a short CV as a PDF to vagantesboard@gmail.com by December 12th, 2025.

For more information, visit https://vagantesconference.org/submit-now-for-vagantes-2026-due-12-dec-2025/

Call for Papers: Mirror Worlds, 6th annual Medieval Student Colloquium (MSSC), Cornell University (21 Feb. 2026), Due by 1 Dec. 2025

Call for Papers

Cornell Medieval Studies Program

6th annual Medieval Student Colloquium (MSSC)

Mirror Worlds

A.D. White House, Cornell University, Saturday, 21 February 2026

Due by 1 December 2025

The Cornell Medieval Studies Program is pleased to announce the 36th annual Medieval Student Colloquium (MSSC) in person at Cornell University's A.D. White House on Saturday, February 21, 2026. 

The theme this year is "Mirror Worlds".

Abstracts should be 200–300s and submitted by December 1, 2025.

When we make a mirror of something, what becomes of the reflection? This year, our theme “Mirror Worlds” considers the metaphorical and material worlds crafted through mirror images. Mirrors in the medieval world act as thresholds, whether for inner worlds, outer worlds, or the otherworldly, both promising “access to other realms—earthly, imaginary, or divine” while also suggesting “the limitations of human perception, knowledge, and wisdom” (Frelick, The Mirror in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 2–3). We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers exploring the multifaceted nature of mirrors and their worlds from a wide range of medieval literatures, histories, geographies, material cultures, and disciplines. Studies could examine, but are certainly not limited to, metaphors of mirrors, mirror worlds and dreamscapes, mirrored characters, twins, and doubles, as well as ideas of microcosm and macrocosm. Furthermore, we invite applicants to consider the stakes of representation involved with mirrors—how do mirrors represent or distort the mirrored image? What new realities can mirrors conjure and what dangers do they provoke? How does representation function like a mirror for meaning, and what is lost or gained through representation?

Other possible questions for consideration include:

• How do the various “worlds” (spiritual, physical, bodily, political) of the Middle Ages mirror and overlap with one another?

• What are the limitations of the mirror’s framing? What can the mirror not see?

• To what extent is art a mirror for reality, and how?

• How do anthropocentric mirrors distort physical environments, landscapes, and ecologies, or vice versa?

• What is the relationship between performance and reality in the Middle Ages?

• How are mirrors as material objects used in the Middle Ages?

• When does memory become a mirror for experience?

Papers from underrepresented fields and backgrounds are particularly welcome. We invite submissions from all fields and disciplines adjacent to Medieval Studies, including but not limited to Africana Studies, Animal Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, Asian Studies, Classics, Comparative Literature, Critical Identity Studies, Disability Studies, Ecocriticism, English Language & Literature, Gender and Sexuality Studies, History, Indigenous Studies, Music Studies, Near Eastern Studies, Philosophy, Romance Studies, Theology, Trans Studies, and Queer Theory.

For more information, visit https://events.cornell.edu/event/medieval-studies-student-colloquium-mssc-907

Call for Contributions for Edited Volume: The Medieval in Museums, Due by 3 Nov. 2025, 5 pm GMT/12 pm ET

Call for Contributions for Edited Volume

The Medieval in Museums

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

Choir stall originally from Burs Church, Swedish History Museum, https://samlingar.shm.se/media/4CB28EE1-6F86-412D-92D7-67462316F1AA

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

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

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

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

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

New Publication! Proceedings of the Study Day: La sella perduta. L'oreficeria tardoantica a Ravenna

New Publication

Proceedings of the Study Day

La sella perduta. L'oreficeria tardoantica a Ravenna

The Study Day organised by the National Museums of Ravenna in 2024, 100 years after the theft of the so-called “Corazza di Teodorico”, was attended by various Italian and foreign experts. This volume publishes the contributions, which explore the themes of the discovery of the precious object in 1854 and its theft in 1924. The significance of this superb cloisonné artefact, now referred to in specialist literature as the ‘saddle of Ravenna’, was analysed in essays on the techniques and typology of the work and on the study of the historical context and craftsmanship, materials and visual culture of Ravenna in Late Antiquity. The book offers an enrichment of knowledge of cultural heritage and can provide a wide and varied audience with the latest advances in research.

Call for Applications for Student Scholarships: Boundaries and Encounters in Medieval Art and Architecture, BAA Conference, Oxford (12-14 Dec. 2025), Due by 16 Oct. 2025

Call for Applications for Student Scholarships

British Archaeology Association

Boundaries and Encounters in Medieval Art and Architecture: A Conference in Memory of John McNeill

Rewley House, Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford

Friday 12 December to Sunday 14 December 2025

Due by 16 October 2025

A limited number of scholarships for students are available to help them cover the cost of the conference. Please apply by 16th October, 2025 attaching a short CV along with the name and contact details of one referee. Applications should be sent to: rplant62@hotmail.com.

For more information on the event, visit the ICMA post about the conference.

BAA Conference: Boundaries and Encounters in Medieval Art and Architecture: A Conference in Memory of John McNeill, University of Oxford, 12-14 Dec. 2025

Conference

British Archaeology Association

Boundaries and Encounters in Medieval Art and Architecture: A Conference in Memory of John McNeill

Rewley House, Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford

Friday 12 December to Sunday 14 December 2025

In memory of our much-missed friend and inspiration, The British Archaeological Association will be holding a  conference to celebrate our former secretary on 12-14 December 2025.  

The conference opens for registration at 12.30pm on Friday 12 December at Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford  OX1 2JA. The President’s Welcome and Introduction will be at 2.00pm followed by the first lecture at 2.15pm. Tea &  coffee refreshments will be served during the lectures and a buffet lunch will be provided on Saturday and Sunday in addition to dinner on two evenings. The conference will also include an evening reception.  

Participants will need to arrange their own travel and accommodation. Oxford is well provided with hotels and B&Bs,  and further information will be supplied by the conference organisers along with the booking form. These will be sent out later this month. 

Speakers will include:

David Robinson, Augustinian Claustral Buildings

Eric Fernie, John McNeill and the Study of the Romanesque

Julian Luxford, The Black Book of the Exchequer

Nicola Coldstream, ‘Sweet Thames run Softly’: London Bridge and the Building of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster’

Richard Halsey , ‘Few are run of the mill’, the late C12th capitals of Oxford Cathedral

Lloyd De Beer, Solomon in the Crypt: Romanesque Reuse and Gothic Intervention at Canterbury Cathedral

Fernando Gutiérrez Baños, A Painted Castilian Tabernacle-Altarpiece from the 14th Century now in the Wellcome Collection

Alexandrina Buchanan, The Secretaries of the BAA

Roisin Astell, Gendered Boundaries: Women as Antithesis and Exemplar in an early-fourteenth-century English Illuminated Manuscripts

Costanza Beltrami, Unexpected Connections: Making Sense of Spanish Gothic in 19th-Century London and Beyond.

Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, Willigelmo and Roman Art.

Tom Nickson, Batalha and Las Huelgas: Forms and Functions in Cistercian Cloisters in Iberia

Sally Dormer, Thoughts on Some Fragments of Romanesque Sculpture in Abbotsbury, Dorset

Rosa Bacile, The Use of Spolia in the Abbey of SS Trinita’, Venosa, 11th-12th Centuries

Richard Gem, Encountering St Benedict: his Tomb and Shrine at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire

Gerhardt Lutz, A Crucifixus Dolorosus in the Cleveland Museum of Art and Art Around 1300.

John Munns, How Norman is the Norman Chapel in Durham Castle?

Neil Stratford, Vézelay, Avallon et al.

Alison Perchuk, California Romanesque

Marcello Angheben, Romanesque images and Affective Piety

Sandy Heslop, Celebrating the Resurrection in Medieval Norwich

Jordi Camps, The sculptural program of the first construction phases of the Tarragona Cathedral: Contexts, tendencies and repertoires.

John Goodall, The North Transept Facade of Merton College Oxford

Øystein Ekroll, Corbels and Chess pieces. A Contribution to the Discussion on the Origin of the Lewis Chess Pieces.

Veronica Abenza, The Western Reception of Transcultural Objects: a Matter of Reuse or Recycling

Zoe Opacic and Alexandra Gajewski, Prague and Avignon

Conference Convenor: Richard Plant; Conference Secretary: Kate Milburn & Assistant Secretary: Ann Hignell.

Scholarships

A limited number of scholarships for students are available to help them cover the cost of the conference. Please apply by 16th October, 2025 attaching a short CV along with the name and contact details of one referee. Applications should be sent to: rplant62@hotmail.com. Any general enquiries about the conference should be sent to conferences@thebaa.org. 

This conference has been made possible by a generous donation from Tim and Geli Harris to whom the Association is very grateful.

For more information, visit https://thebaa.org/events/boundaries-and-encounters-in-medieval-art-and-architecture-a-conference-in-memory-of-john-mcneill/

Lecture: Episcopal display and the English crozier around the time of the Norman Conquest, Sophie Kelly, at The Courtauld, London, 22 Oct. 2025 17:30-19:00GMT

LEcture

Episcopal display and the English crozier around the time of the Norman Conquest

Dr Sophie Kelly

Vernon Square Campus, Lecture Theatre 2, The Courtauld, London

22 Oct 2025, 17:30 - 19:00 GMT

Beverley Crozier, England, mid-11th century. Limerick, Hunt Museum, acc. no. BM 002.

Croziers, the sceptre-like staffs granted to bishops, abbots, and abbesses across Europe as a sign of authority, are one of the most distinctive symbols of ecclesiastical office. In England in the decades either side of the Conquest, their style and function underwent a fundamental change. ‘T-shaped’ or tau-crosses were gradually replaced by the crook-like crozier with its distinctive swirling head, a shift that occurred alongside changes to their role in the ecclesiastical and secular worlds. Whether processed at the heart of liturgical ceremonies or wielded as signs of ecclesial power in bitter disputes between bishops and kings, croziers were increasingly becoming a powerful visual indication of status and episcopal display.

This paper focuses on an important witness to these art-historical, political, and liturgical changes. The so-called Beverley Crozier, now in the Hunt Museum in Limerick, has tentatively been associated with the mid-eleventh century Archbishop of York, Ealdred, on account of the unusual pair of scenes carved on either side of its volute, one of which depicts the healing of a young boy by St John of Beverley. Ealdred was known to have been particularly devoted to John of Beverley, but his relationship to this crozier, and its significance in the context of Ealdred’s other artistic and literary commissions, has not been teased out in depth. Moreover, hitherto unnoticed by art historians is the unusualness of this crozier’s form. This is one of – if not the – earliest surviving crozier from England to be carved with a circular head, rather than the cross-shaped Tau-croziers favoured in pre-Conquest England.

Drawing on evidence for Ealdred’s connections with the Holy Roman Empire, where he may have seen this new crozier design, and reflecting of the significance of its form and imagery in the context of the political turmoil of his career, this paper offers a new reading of the little-known Beverley Crozier, revealing its importance in understanding broader relationships between status, symbols, and material culture in pre- and post- Conquest England.

Dr Sophie Kelly is a Lecturer in Visual Studies and Cultural Heritage in the Department of History of Art at the University of Bristol. Her forthcoming book Imagining the Unimaginable: The Trinity in Medieval England draws on her PhD research, which was supervised by Prof Alixe Bovey and Dr Emily Guerry. Prior to her current role, Sophie was Project Curator on the 2021 exhibition Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint at the British Museum. She has also held curatorial roles at Canterbury Cathedral and the Royal Collection Trust. Sophie’s current research project focuses on the making and meaning of medieval croziers, the sumptuous and highly decorated staffs owned by bishops, abbots and abbesses across medieval Europe.

Organised by Dr Jessica Barker, Senior Lecturer in Medieval Art History, and Professor Alixe Bovey, Professor of Medieval Art History, The Courtauld, as part of the Medieval Work-in-Progress Series. This series is generously supported by Sam Fogg.

To book tickets and for more information, visit https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/episcopal-display-and-the-english-crozier-around-the-time-of-the-norman-conquest/

York Medieval Lecture: Video Games & the Work of Medieval Art History, Glaire Anderson, 12 Nov. 2025 12:30-2:00PM ET/5:30-7:00PM GMT

York Medieval Lecture

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

Dr Glaire Anderson (The University of Edinburgh)

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

The lecture will be followed by a wine reception.

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

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