Call for Proposals: Encountering Medieval Iconography at Kalamazoo 2019 (due 15 Sept 2018)

Call for Proposals: Encountering Medieval Iconography at Kalamazoo 2019

Deadline: September 15 2018

Call for Proposals
54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 9 to 12, 2019

A Roundtable
Encountering Medieval Iconography in the Twenty-First Century: Scholarship, Social Media, and Digital Methods

Organizers: M. Alessia Rossi and Jessica Savage (Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University)
Sponsored by the Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University

Stemming from the launch of the new database and enhancements of search technology and social media at the Index of Medieval Art, this roundtable addresses the many ways we encounter medieval iconography in the twenty-first century. We invite proposals from emerging scholars and a variety of professionals who are teaching with, blogging about, and cataloguing medieval iconography. This discussion will touch on the different ways we consume and create information with our research, shed light on original approaches, and discover common goals.

Participants in this roundtable will give short introductions (5-7 minutes) on issues relevant to their area of specialization and participate in a discussion on how they use online resources, such as image databases, to incorporate the study of medieval iconography into their teaching, research, and public outreach. Possible questions include: What makes an online collection “teaching-friendly” and accessible for student discovery? How does social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and blogging, make medieval image collections more visible? How do these platforms broaden interest in iconography and connect users to works of art? What are the aims and impact of organizations such as, the Index, the Getty, the INHA, the Warburg, and ICONCLASS, who are working with large stores of medieval art and architecture information? How can we envisage a wider network and discussion of professional practice within this specialized area?

Please send a 250-word abstract outlining your contribution to this roundtable and a completed Participant Information Form (available via the Congress Submissions website: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions) by September 15 to M. Alessia Rossi (marossi@princeton.edu) and Jessica Savage (jlsavage@princeton.edu). More information about the Congress can be found here: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress.

 http://ima.princeton.edu/2018/07/16/call-for-proposals-the-index-at-kalamazoo-2019/

New Publication: Microarchitectures médiévales

New Publication: Microarchitectures médiévales

 Jean-Marie Guillouët and Ambre Vilain (eds.), Microarchitectures médiévales: L'échelle à l'épreuve de la matière, Paris, INHA/Picard, 2018, 240 p., ISBN 978-2-7084-1042-8.

This collective work aims the re-evaluation of the forms and concepts of architecture and artistic creation in the Middle Ages. During this period of profound political and religious restructuration, the metamorphosis of European societies has been reflected in an architectural language. The vocabulary of architecture then spread on all kinds of materials and supports, but also on different scales, thanks to numerous exchanges and transfers between buildings, monumental decorations and the usual or devotional objects. This phenomenon of "architecture" gradually blurs the boundaries between architecture, image, and artefact, renewing the modes of addressing the spectator as well as the symbolic repertoire of mystery, authority and interiority.

Microarchitectures médiévales, the first major publication on the subject since the pioneering work of François Bucher, explores the technical and rhetorical processes of medieval microarchitecture in its broadest sense. In addition to the study of artistic monuments such as Gothic cathedrals and their sculptures or the inscriptions of the Alhambra Palace, this last one treated for the first time under the angle of microarchitecture, the collected contributions focus on devotional objects, models and illuminated manuscripts. An important part of the book is devoted to little-known objects, such as episcopal sticks, city seals, or the chivote, these church-formed tabernacles used in Orthodox liturgy.

By re-establishing the dialectical link that articulates miniature and gigantism in medieval thought, the essays in this book renew in depth the thinking of modern and contemporary concepts of scale, value and sublime.

This bilingual and richly illustrated volume contains 15 papers (8 in French, 7 in English).

The authors: Sabine Berger, Paul Binski, Clément Blanc-Riehl, James Alexander Cameron, Sophie Cloart-Pawlak, Alexander Collins, Julian Gardner, Jean-Marie Guillouët, Javier Ibáñez Fernández, Ethan Matt Kavaler, Farah Makki, Anita Paolicchi, Anne-Orange Poilpré, Matthew James Sillence, Achim Timmermann, Frédéric Tixier, Ambre Vilain, Arturo Zaragozá Catalán.

The editors: Jean-Marie Guillouët is a specialist in flamboyant Gothic microarchitecture, artistic transfers in the Gothic period and the socio-cultural history of the technical gesture. He is a lecturer in art history at the University of Nantes.

Ambre Vilain is sigillographer and teaches medieval art history at the University of Nantes. Her thesis, Imago Urbis: Les sceaux de ville au Moyen Âge, has been published in June 2018 (INHA/CTHS).

http://www.inha.fr/fr/ressources/publications/collections-imprimees/actes-de-colloques/microarchitectures-medievales.html

CFP: The Middle Ages: What Does it Have to Do with Me? Kalamazoo 2019

Please consider submitting an abstract to this session sponsored by The Material Collective at Kalamazoo 2019:

The Middle Ages: What Does it Have to Do with Me?

What does medieval art, culture, and history have to do with my life; what is the point of knowing this stuff? Immersed in the study of the Middle Ages as we are, we may lose sight of the fact that for many people the material to which we are passionately devoted holds little to no interest. It is our hope that this roundtable discussion can produce some strategies for countering this disengagement.

As we consider how to expand access to and engagement with the field, we invite consideration of the roles identity can play in both academic and popular engagement with Medieval Studies. From its antiquarian origins to today, the field has been shaped by nationalist identities, impulses, and agendas. In more recent decades, scholarly attention to gender, racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual identities has expanded and re-shaped the field and created opportunities for multiple identifications with the past. We also wish to question this paradigm: must engagement be structured by identity?

We welcome contributions treating all aspects of fostering access to and engagement with Medieval Studies both in the classroom and beyond. This includes consideration of the way we as scholars talk about Medieval Studies—where our voices are heard and what we can be heard to say. With humanities fields under constant threat, we may also wish to consider the various publics with whom we might profitably engage. Beyond undergraduate students are the parents, administrators, and legislators whose voices sway what does and does not get taught at colleges and universities; there are also the primary and secondary school students who may enter our classrooms someday in the future.

A discussion of public engagement is also an opportunity to reconsider the way we conceive of our field. Ongoing efforts to decolonize Medieval Studies are essential to the mission of making the field accessible to a more diverse public. This includes engaging colleagues to recognize the need for change as well as the need to support medievalists marginalized by race, LGBTQ identity, or employment status.

Topics for consideration may include but not be limited to: 
• Engaging students
• Engaging the public beyond the classroom
• Medieval Studies and modern identities
• Medieval Studies in the neoliberal academy
• Promoting access to Medieval Studies
• Role of public scholarship within the academy

Please submit abstracts of 300 words and PIF to Rachel Dressler, dressler@abany.edu, and Maeve Doyle, DOYLEMAE@EASTERNCT.EDU, by September 15, 2018.

CFP: Celebrating Reproductions in Plaster, Metal and Digitally (V&A conference)

Call For Papers

Celebrating Reproductions in Plaster, Metal and Digitally: Past, Present and Future:
A Conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum
17, 18 and 19 January 2019

In November 2018 the Victoria and Albert Museum is reopening the Cast Courts after their extensive renovations. Inaugurated in 1873, these magnificent spaces house a plethora of plaster casts and electrotypes reproducing medieval and renaissance monuments from all over Europe, as well as Trajan’s Column from the 2nd century AD. A new interpretation gallery running between the two galleries will interpret the Cast Courts as expressions of the Museum’s historic interest in copies – in particular plaster casting, photography and electrotyping – which has been re-appraised in recent years with the development of digital technologies.

In order to celebrate the re-opening of these great galleries the V&A is hosting a three day conference on Thursday 17, Friday 18 and Saturday 19 January 2019. Speakers are invited to submit proposals. Subjects to be covered will include the functions and fates of historic collections, the uses and nature of reproductions now and in the past - including photography and digital media, as well as plaster casts and electrotypes. The papers presented on Saturday 19 January will draw from the direct working experience of practitioners using conservation, analytical techniques or craft skills to further an understanding of the material, behaviour and deterioration processes of plaster casts and electrotypes.

Please submit a title and short summary of your proposal for sessions to be held on the first two days to Holly Trusted (m.trusted@vam.ac.uk) and/or Angus Patterson (a.patterson@vam.ac.uk). Proposals for the session on the third day should be submitted to Charlotte Hubbard (chubbard@vam.ac.uk) and/or Sarah Healey-Dilkes (s.healey@vam.ac.uk).

The deadline for the receipt of proposals is Monday 3 September 2018. For more information about the cast collection at the V&A please see: www.vam.ac.uk/collections/cast-collection

Share your news on ICMA's Community News forum

ICMA's Community News forum is a valuable resource for distributing information that benefits the medieval art community. Calls for papers, conferences, lectures, grants, employment opportunities and other news about our field can be distributed on the ICMA website and social media, reaching an international network of  academics, museum professionals, collectors, and enthusiast of medieval art.

Posting is not limited to ICMA members and international participation is encouraged. 

For more information and to submit your news, please click
http://www.medievalart.org/community-news.

Please share this info with colleagues near and far.

Leicestershire medieval parish churches damaged by roofing thefts

Over the second half of 2017 and in the first half of 2018, several medieval parish churches in Leicestershire have had parts of their roofing lead stolen, often from the (lower) aisle roofs, in what appear to be well-prepared and coordinated thefts (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-30151909).

Many of the affected churches are fine examples of English Gothic architecture (see for example St. Peter, Church Langton; https://www.leicestershirechurches.co.uk/church-langton-st-peter/).

The removal of the lead sheathing from the roofs has caused leaks that are continuing to damage medieval wooden ceilings and/or stone vaults as well as pews and other church furnishings. There is no centrally coordinated organization raising funds for the repair of these churches. While the churches themselves belong to the regional Anglican diocese, the repair and maintenance of the buildings is left entirely to the resources of the shrinking communities of the faithful, often in small villages. At some sites, alarms have been installed to prevent further thefts, but as the communities cannot easily raise funds to repair the roofs of their churches, plastic sheeting strategically placed over sections of the aisle roofs and over affected areas of the pews below is often the only financially viable response. Because there is at present no central organization taking the lead on fundraising to repair the affected buildings, aid at this point must take the form of donations to individual church communities.

JOB: Postdoctoral Fellowship in Medieval Art and Digital Humanities, Toronto

JOB: Postdoctoral Fellowship in Medieval Art and Digital Humanities, Toronto

University of Toronto Mississauga, September 17, 2018 - September 1, 2020
Application deadline: Jul 15, 2018

The Department of Visual Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga offers a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in medieval art, with a focus on Digital Humanities and web-based technologies. The Fellow will have an established track record in his/her/their own discipline and/or Digital Humanities. Qualifications for the position include excellent writing and communication skills, expertise in an area of medieval visual culture (broadly defined as European, Byzantine, Islamic art and architecture or related fields), and experience working with Drupal and information architecture.  

The primary role of the Fellow will be to help develop a website that accompanies a new textbook on medieval art. The Fellow will be collecting and organizing data from several sources for implementation in the website. Close collaboration with the authors, content creators, publisher, and web host is required. The Fellow must possess strong organizational skills and the ability to meet firm deadlines.

Responsibilities
The first sixteen months of the Fellowship will be dedicated to the development of the website. In 2020, the Fellow will teach one semester-long course in the Department of Visual Studies at University of Toronto Mississauga. The topic of the course will align with the Fellow’s research area and include a Digital Humanities component.
At the University of Toronto, the normal hours of work for a full-time postdoctoral fellow are 40 hours per week, recognizing that the needs of the employee’s research and training and the needs of the supervisor’s research program may require flexibility in the performance of the employee’s duties and hours of work.
The stipend per year is $45,000 (Canadian) plus benefits. The position begins on September 17, 2018 and ends September 1, 2020.

Background

The University of Toronto Mississauga is one of the three campuses comprising the University of Toronto. It is home to the Department of Visual Studies, which offers several undergraduate programs in art history and related fields. The Fellowship provides opportunities for scholarly exchange with faculty and students on the main campus, including in the Graduate Department of Art, Centre for Medieval Studies, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, and the iSchool. In addition, the Fellow will have opportunities to participate in the Tri-Campus Digital Humanities Network, which builds upon some of the University’s well-known and ground-breaking projects (Dictionary of Old English, DEED, DECIMA) while providing a platform for scholars of many disciplines who are at the forefront of digitality. For more information on salient programs related to the Fellowship, see:
http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/dvs/
http://art.utoronto.ca/
https://www.humanities.utoronto.ca/DH_Network

Eligibility and Attributes
Applicants must have completed the Ph.D. degree within four years of the beginning of the fellowship, 17 September 2018.  Applicants who are to defend their thesis after 17 September 2018 are eligible, but a letter from their supervisor or Chair may be requested. Any award will be conditional on a successful defense. Applicants who received their Ph.D. prior to 17 September 2014 are ineligible.
The successful candidate will have an established track record in medieval visual culture and experience in digital technologies. The candidate will have an understanding of and interest in the history, development, and current state of the field; willingness to work with scholars in different areas of specialization; ability to meet deadlines; and the desire to learn and pursue research in an interdisciplinary, collaborative environment.
The DVS Postdoctoral Fellowship is open to citizens of all countries. The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from racialized persons / persons of colour, women, Indigenous / Aboriginal People of North America, persons with disabilities, LGBTQ persons, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

For more information about postdoctoral fellowships at the UofT, see:
http://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/postdoctoralfellows/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/postdoctoralfellows/Pages/International-Postdocs.aspx

Employment as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the UofT is covered by the terms of the CUPE 3902 Unit 5 Collective Agreement.

Application Procedure
Applicants should send a Letter of Application, Curriculum vitae, and research sample (a completed thesis chapter, published article, or digital publication or portfolio) to Prof. Jill Caskey, c/o Debra Burrowes, dvschair.utm@utoronto.ca
In addition, applicants should have two letters of reference mailed directly to the same address. All applications must be received by 15 July 2018 at 11:59 p.m. (EDT).  Faxed or mailed applications will not be considered.

Questions? Contact Professor Jill Caskey, Associate Chair, Department of Visual Studies (jill.caskey@utoronto.ca)



 

Byzantine Studies Symposium, Dumbarton Oaks: The Diagram Paradigm: Byzantium, the Islamic World, and the Latin West

Long discredited as inadequate illustrations of thought processes more appropriately represented in algebraic or verbal terms, diagrams have enjoyed a renaissance across numerous disciplines—from philosophy and computer science to the burgeoning field of graphics—as a means of visualizing knowledge.

As the historical disciplines take a fresh look at diagrams, this symposium will seek to offer an interdisciplinary, comparative, and cross-cultural perspective, considering the range of diagrams in Byzantium, Europe, and the Islamicate world. Its cross-cultural approach aims to decenter the bodies of scholarly work that focus on only one of these three traditions, within which it remains all too easy to take particular uses of diagrams for granted.

Among the questions our symposium will pose are: Why are diagrams relatively sparse (and certainly understudied) in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds? Why are they rarely adopted as vehicles of religious thought? What role do diagrams play in the development and documentation of scientific thought across the three traditions? How does the diagrammatic mode relate to artistic practice? To cartography? To science? To literature? To the school curriculum? Why is so much of “Western” medieval art diagrammatic in character, but so little of Byzantine and Islamic art? How do attitudes toward diagrams change over time? And how do the three traditions interact with one another?

PROGRAM

REGISTRATION REQUIRED, CLICK HERE TO REGISTER: https://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/scholarly-activities/the-diagram-paradigm/the-diagram-paradigm

Job Vacancy: Teaching Fellow in Medieval Art, University of Edinburgh, 2018/19

Job Vacancy: Teaching Fellow in Medieval Art, University of Edinburgh, 2018/19

deadline April 16, 2018.

Details available at https://www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk/

Vacancy at The Courtauld: Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Art History c.300-1450

Vacancy at The Courtauld: Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Art History c.300-1450
Deadline: 20 April 2018

The Courtauld Institute of Art is the UK’s leading institution for teaching and research in Art History and the conservation of paintings; it is also home to one of the finest small art museums in the world. The Art History department has an outstanding research and teaching record from Late Antiquity to the Contemporary with an increasingly global outlook, and embraces its diversity of theoretical approaches and methodologies.

The Courtauld wishes to appoint a full-time Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Art History, to begin on 1 September 2018. The successful candidate will complement the existing teaching strengths of the Department and will have a research focus in any region or period from c.300-1450. We seek an art historian who situates their research in a wider, international context, and who can work across traditional geographic, linguistic and chronological boundaries. An ideal candidate would be able to teach across at least one other field in a way directed by concepts of exchange and interaction, and to build bridges with other areas of art historical investigation. The candidate is expected to be able to situate their work in the theoretical and historiographical debates in their specialised research area and also engage with current issues in global Art History.

The appointee will research and publish to the highest quality and will actively pursue and apply for appropriate research grants; will provide inspiring teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels; and will play an active role in the life and administration of The Courtauld.

PAY: Grade 6 (£36,644 to £41,958) or Grade 7 (£43,117 to £49,461), depending on experience

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 20 April 2018 23:59 GMT
INTERVIEW DATE: 15 May 2018

http://jobs.courtauld.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=198

Lecture: Place History and Architectural Origin Stories in Early Byzantium, April 12, 2018

Lecture: Place History and Architectural Origin Stories in Early Byzantium
April 12, 2018

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA, is pleased to announce the final lecture in its 2017–2018 lecture series:

Thursday, April 12, 2017, 6:15–7:45 pm
Harvard Faculty Club, 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

Place History and Architectural Origin Stories in Early Byzantium: Vestiges and Sense Memory
Ann Marie Yasin, University of Southern California

Ann Marie Yasin discusses architectural restoration in the early Byzantine world as a tool for accessing contemporary understandings of the past.

Details at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/place-history-and-architectural-origin-stories.

Mary Jaharis Center lectures are co-sponsored by Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.

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

https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/place-history-and-architectural-origin-stories

CFP: The 4th Annual Conference of the Late Antique & Medieval Postgraduate Society at the University of Edinburgh

CFP: The 4th Annual Conference of the Late Antique & Medieval Postgraduate Society at the University of Edinburgh.


The Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society (LAMPS) at the University of Edinburgh is hosting a one-day conference on the theme of Transformation in written media, visual art, and material culture from the Late Antique to the start of the Early Modern period. This conference seeks to further our understanding of the ‘Long Middle Ages’ as a time of continuous change. It invites us to explore how this spirit of transformation is reflected in the content and creation of literature, art, culture, social structures, and physical spaces. It also aims to strengthen interdisciplinary connections within and outside of the University of Edinburgh, including but not limited to the fields of Archaeology, History, Classics, History of Art, Literature, Language Studies, Islamic Studies, and Theology.

Submissions for abstracts may include, but are certainly not limited to:

• Depictions of metamorphosis and physical or emotional transformations (e.g. illness and healing)
• Evolving narratives or adaptation of themes over time, across cultures, and/or media
• Changing styles in material culture
•  Changes in social, religious, political, and economic structures
• Shifting attitudes and worldviews (e.g. conversion)
• Developments in methodology and the academic study of the Late Antique and Medieval periods
• Reappropriation of art and objects (e.g. spolia)
• Translation, transcription, and transmission
• Palimpsests
• Repurposing architectural spaces 

Early career scholars and postgraduate students are invited to submit abstracts of up to 200 words, as well as a short biography of up to 100 words to lampsedinburgh@gmail.com  by Monday, 26 March, 2018 .

CAA 2018 Conference: Mobilizing the Collection, AAMC session Sat 24 Feb 4-5:30

Mobilizing the Collection

With the decentering of the discipline of art history, museums in this century are working to transcend the values that shaped their collections. A panel discussion among curators and directors will explore how western-centric collections can engage contemporary audiences in a multicultural society. Panelists will also give short presentations outlining projects that have attempted to address this issue through loans, exhibitions, and programming.

Questions to be addressed include: How are we to mobilize our collections, using our works of art as a starting point for conversations that promote inclusiveness and connection to our audiences? What are the potential challenges that face museum professionals who move outside their areas of specialty in order to speak reach new audiences? How can museums can work across boundaries established by institutions, established canons, and audiences? The panel will address the inherent challenges of decentering the history of art while working with objects and collections that affirm the Western European canon. We will also explore the negative tropes associated with race, gender, and class that are reflected in museum collections and will discuss how museums can approach these difficult and ugly aspects of our shared history.

Mobilizing the Collection is an affiliated society session for AAMC (the Association of Art Museum Curators) and is taking place on Saturday 2/24 4-5:30 pm.