Gender & Sexuality in the Afterlives of Byzantium: An Online Roundtable with Roland Betancourt, Allison Leigh, and Roman Utkin

In his recent book, Byzantine Intersectionality (Princeton UP), Roland Betancourt looks at the history of sexual consent, reproductive rights, trans lives, same-gender desire, and race in the medieval world. Focusing on the Byzantine Empire, his research stands at the crossroads not only of many modern Christian traditions, including Greek and Russian Orthodoxy, but also of the cultural and artistic heritage of European and Slavic worlds.

In this online roundtable, Betancourt is joined by Allison Leigh and Roman Utkin to discuss the long, rich, and complex histories of gender and sexuality in the afterlives of Byzantium, focusing on the key role that the Empire has played in the Slavic worlds.

https://borderlinesopenschool.org/events1/byzantineafterlives

ONLINE CONFERENCE: ‘THE AFTERLIFE OF MEDIEVAL SCULPTURE’, 7TH ANNUAL ARDS CONFERENCE, 3, 4 & 10 DECEMBER 2020, 13:00 – 18:00 (CET)

ONLINE CONFERENCE: ‘THE AFTERLIFE OF MEDIEVAL SCULPTURE’, 7TH ANNUAL ARDS CONFERENCE, 3, 4 & 10 DECEMBER 2020, 13:00 – 18:00 (CET)

The 7th ARDS annual colloquium, which celebrates new research in the field of renaissance and medieval sculpture will focus on the theme of the Afterlife of medieval sculpture. At the Ards conference in 2017 in Paris we already touched upon the theme of the Collecting of Medieval sculpture and at Ards 2018 in Utrecht, Michael Rief provided us with a very interesting keynote on the repurposing of (amongst others) some Mechelen Christ child statues. This year we want to explore the theme of the ‘nachleben’ (afterlife) of medieval sculpture in more depth. The idea of ‘nachleben’ is to be understood in a broader sense than the pure Warburgian interpretation. Not only the ‘nachleben’ of the image, but also that of the object is of interest for the study of sculpture.

How were medieval and late-gothic sculptures used, understood, copied, altered, re-used, recycled, repurposed and treated (or mistreated) in the centuries after the moment of their production? From the medieval period until the present, Gothic art has undergone shifts in taste and appreciation. Nowadays prices for medieval art are soaring at auctions but in the 17th and 18th centuries many churches and cloisters were refurbished in the style of the period and medieval art and furniture had to make room. And e.g. in the 1790’s many churches were stripped of their medieval furniture (if extant) and they were sometimes sold by the pound if not thrown away or burnt. Even in the fifteenth century, some sculptures made in the earlier Middle Ages were restored, remade, cleaned and polished, whereas others were neglected.

The conference committee consists of Dr. Jessica Barker (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Dr. Peter Carpreau (M Leuven/Ards), Dra. Marjan Debaene (M Leuven/Ards), Drs. Lloyd De Beer (The British Museum) and Dra. Michaela Zöschg (Victoria and Albert Museum).

We had a record number of proposals and were able to select a fascinating and diverse program in 4 large thematic sessions, with 25 speakers, over 3 conference days via Teams, due to COVID-19 restrictions.

See the programme here.

Register for the conference here.

2021-2022 ARCE Research Fellowship Applications Available Now

For more than six decades the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) has supported American scholars to undertake research in Egypt through its Fellowship Program. Doctoral candidates (ABD), postdoctoral scholars, independent scholars and faculty in humanities and social science disciplines are invited to apply.

ARCE provides fellows with funding, administrative support and practical, sound advice to ease access to museums, monuments, archaeological sites, research libraries, archives and collections. The Cairo Center provides a welcoming environment where fellows are encouraged to engage in the academic life of the center.

Funding is available for: CAORC and NEH funded Fellowships; the Pre-dissertation Travel Grant; the Short-Term Research Grant for Postdoctoral, Adjunct Faculty and Independent Scholars; the Theodore N. Romanoff Prize; the William P. McHugh Memorial Fund.

Additional information is available on the ARCE website.

http://www.arce.org/fellowships

Mapping Eastern Europe, a new open-access digital project from North of Byzantium

North of Byzantium has launched a new open-access digital project - Mapping Eastern Europe - intended to promote study, research, and teaching about the history, art, and culture of Eastern Europe between the 13th and 17th centuries among students, teachers, scholars, and the wider public.

 https://mappingeasterneurope.princeton.edu/

Mapping Eastern Europe gathers a multitude of specialists - early career and senior scholars who have either already published or are currently researching new topics - to supply original online content in English in the form of historical overview, art historical case studies, short notices about ongoing projects, and reviews of recent books and exhibitions. 

This platform aims to stimulate new research and outreach focused on the networked regions of the Balkan Peninsula, the Carpathian Mountains, and further north into early modern Russia, which developed at the crossroads of the Latin, Greek, Slavic, and Islamic traditions during the late Middle Ages and early modern periods. 

Mapping Eastern Europe is made possible through generous support from the “Rapid Response Magic Project of the Princeton University Humanities Council”.

If you have suggestions for future contributions you or other colleagues might be interested in submitting, please be in touch with us: https://mappingeasterneurope.princeton.edu/help.html

Mining the Collection: The Morgan Library and Museum with Joshua O'Driscoll; Thursday, November 19th at 11:00 am ET, RSVP today!

MINING THE COLLECTION: THE MORGAN LIBRARY AND MUSEUM WITH JOSHUA O'DRISCOLL

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19TH AT 11:00 AM ET, RSVP HERE

Breviary. Italy, Bologna, ca. 1315-1325. MS M.0373 fol. 116r. The Morgan Library and Museum.

Breviary. Italy, Bologna, ca. 1315-1325. MS M.0373 fol. 116r. The Morgan Library and Museum.

We are delighted to invite you to our third installment of Mining the Collection. Joshua O'Driscoll, Assistant Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at The Morgan Library and Museum, will present a fourteenth-century Italian Breviary with intriguing illuminations.

Please join us Thursday, November 19th at 11:00 am ET for a brief presentation of this fascinating manuscript followed by an informal discussion. Please sign up here. 

Additional events in this series to follow.

In case you missed it...
You can watch our most recent Mining the Collection: The J. Paul Getty Museum event with Elizabeth Morrison and Bryan C. Keene here.


ICMA Town Hall on Diversity, Medieval Art History, and 2020 - Friday, November 20, 2.00-3:30pm ET - RSVP today!

ICMA TOWN HALL ON DIVERSITY, MEDIEVAL ART HISTORY, AND 2020
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2.00PM-3.30PM ET (ON ZOOM)

The ICMA, in response to the events of the past few months, but also cognizant of the longstanding need for the field of medieval art history to undertake a sustained campaign of reflection and self-critique, is convening a Town Hall, open to all interested members, on Friday, November 20 from 2.00pm-3.30pm ET.  The Town Hall will provide an opportunity for us, both as an organization and as individuals, to discuss issues of diversity, the state of our discipline, and the needed actions and changes we envision.  The Town Hall, which is organized by the newly formed IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) Committee of the ICMA, will serve as a listening session and forum for sharing and collecting experiences, testimonials, calls to action, and proposed strategies for ICMA members.  The Town Hall is intended to serve as a starting point for self-study, brainstorming, and planning as the ICMA moves to address the biases and inequities, historically entrenched and yet recently magnified, of the structures and practices of our work.

The Town Hall, which will be moderated, will consist of structured discussions among attendees. Everyone is most welcome, most enthusiastically: feel free to come to listen and observe, or to ask questions, or to share an experience or an idea.  Please register for the Town Hall here.

In addition, we want to incorporate your own ideas into the planning of the Town Hall.  To that end, if you feel so inclined, we encourage you to submit a question, a topic of conversation, a personal anecdote, or anything else you would like us to consider in advance of the Town Hall.  Please use the Google Form linked here. The Co-Chairs of the IDEA Committee will review the submissions, which will be otherwise kept anonymous, and incorporate some of the submissions into the structure of the Town Hall.  If you would like to make a submission via the Google Form we ask that you do so before the end of the day on Monday, November 16th, 2020.  Please note that the Google Form is optional, and it is separate from registration - you are not obligated to complete it to attend.

If you have questions about the Town Hall, please feel free to reach out to the Co-Chairs of the IDEA Committee, Andrea Achi (andrea.achi@metmuseum.org) and Joe Ackley (jackley@wesleyan.edu).  It is our goal that this Town Hall be a safe space for the full breadth of the ICMA membership, from established scholars to beginning graduate students, to come together to talk, listen, and learn - and, it will be the start of a longer conversation.  We do hope to see you on November 20.

All best,
Andrea Achi and Joe Ackley, Co-Chairs, IDEA Committee 

Online Lecture: Picturing Medieval Myths & History: Making ‘Storyland’ & Visualising Becket’s Shrine, with Amy Jeffs & John Jenkins, University of Kent MEMS, 12 November 2020, 6pm (GMT)

Join the Centre of Medieval and Early Modern Studies for this week’s seminar: Picturing Medieval Myths & History: Making ‘Storyland’ & Visualising Becket’s Shrine with Dr Amy Jeffs & Dr John Jenkins.

This seminar will showcase the groundbreaking work of two early career scholars, who are applying their expertise in medieval myths / history to their development of new creative projects and didactic, digital visualisations. 

You can access the seminar using this link.

Dr Amy Jeffs, who has worked as an assistant curator at the British Museum, contributed to the Polonsky Project at the British Library, and helped to shape the Paul Mellon-funded Digital Pilgrim interface, recently completed her PhD from the University of Cambridge, working with Prof Paul Binski. Her doctoral research examined c1330–40s English illustrated manuscripts of histories and romance. She is now finishing her first book, Storyland, which will retell English medieval myths alongside her own evocative linocut illustrations.

Dr John Jenkins, who obtained his PhD from Oxford, is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of York, based in the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture. He is one of the key developers of the Becket 2020 anniversary commemorations, leading the AHRC-funded ‘Becket Story’ activities. He has worked extensively on the history of devotion to Thomas Becket (in Canterbury, London, York and beyond) and his recent article, published on the 800th anniversary of Becket’s ‘translatio’ (on 7 July 2020) includes the first-ever digital reconstruction of the lost shrine in the Trinity Chapel.

University of Cambridge Seminar in Medieval Art Series: 16 and 20 November 2020; 1 February 2021, 1 March 2021

The University of Cambridge Seminar in Medieval Art meets every other week during full term, attracting an impressive range of speakers from home and abroad. All seminars will take place online. Further details, including registration, to follow. 

Seminars take place at 5pm (17.00) UK time. 

MICHAELMAS:


Monday 16th November (Wk 6): Dr Heather Badamo (University of California Santa Barbara), ‘Beyond Iconoclasm: Sacred Images and Christian-Muslim Exchange in Medieval Egypt’ (Register here)

Monday 30th November (Wk 8): Professor Jeremy Johns (University of Oxford) and Dr Elise Morero (University of Oxford), ‘Industry not Dynasty: A Different Approach to Medieval Islamic Rock Crystal Objects’ (Register here)


LENT

Monday 1st February (Wk 2): Dr Pamela Patton (Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University) ‘What Did Medieval Slavery Look Like? Colour, Race, and Unfreedom in Late Medieval Iberia’


Monday 1st March (Wk 6): Dr Maria Lidova (Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence): ‘Christ, Fire, Gospels: Images of Theophany in the Chapel of Galla Placidia in Ravenna’

Organisers: Dr Laura Slater and Dr Donal Cooper. Please email Dr Laura Slater at lss33@cam.ac.uk with any queries.


ICMA Mentoring Session: Writing and Publishing (Friday 13 November 2020 at 12:30pm ET)

ICMA Mentoring Session: Writing and Publishing
 
Friday, November 13, 2020,  12:30pm ET, to be held on Zoom

Please join us on Zoom on Friday, November 13, at 12:30 pm ET for a mentoring session focused on writing and navigating the publishing process.
 
We will be joined by:
 
Gregory Bryda, Assistant Professor of Art History at Barnard College

Kirk Ambrose, Professor of Art History and Founding Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
 
Our panelists welcome your questions regarding writing and publishing in an informal discussion. 
 
Please sign up here for this event and please let us know if you have suggestions for future mentoring sessions.

In Case You Missed It...


Our Mentoring Session onFellowship Applications is available to view here, featuring Thelma K. Thomas (Institute of Fine Arts, New York University), Kirk Ambrose (University of Colorado, Boulder), and Glaire D. Anderson (University of Edinburgh).

Our Mentoring Session on CV and Job Applications is available to view here, featuring Asa Mittman (California State University, Chico), Susan Boynton (Columbia University), and Doralynn Pines, (The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

You can also find it on our website here.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM AT GOURDON IN BURGUNDY, 18 November 2020 at 12pm ET

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM, AT GOURDON IN BURGUNDY

ONLINE EVENT

Wednesday 18 November 2020
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

SPEAKER

  • Professor John Osborne - Research Professor and Dean Emeritus, Carleton University, Ottawa and Honorary Research Fellow, The Courtauld Institute of Art

ORGANISED BY

  • Dr Tom Nickson - The Courtauld Institute of Art

 

This talk explores the fragmentary twelfth-century mural depicting an elephant, situated in the lowermost zone, or dado, of the choir wall in the church of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption at Gourdon, a small village in the Charolais district of Burgundy. This painting is unique in France, but its presence has attracted little attention, let alone any further consideration of its meaning and function. Some light can perhaps be shed on these issues by considering the mural in the larger context of dado imagery in western Europe in the central Middle Ages, as well as through an exploration of how medieval audiences knew about and understood elephants. Using texts such as the Bestiary, in which elephants are associated with the virtues of modesty and chastity, it will be proposed that the Gourdon elephant was intended to remind viewers of the theology underlying the selection of Mary, who is depicted receiving the archangel Gabriel’s greeting in a depiction of the Annunciation placed directly above. 

John Osborne is a cultural historian of the early medieval Mediterranean, with a specific interest in the material culture of the cities of Rome and Venice.  He has also written more broadly on the topography of medieval Rome, saints’ cults, cultural transmission between western Europe and Byzantium, the Roman catacombs, and Counter-Reformation interest in Early Christian and medieval antiquities.  Following a “conversion” experience in Venice in the summer of 1970, he pursued a B.A. in art history at Carleton, followed by an interdisciplinary Master’s in Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.  His doctoral thesis at the University of London (Courtauld Institute of Art) examined the early medieval paintings in the excavated “lower church” of San Clemente, Rome.  Subsequently he has spent part of every year in Rome, based at The British School, which in 2006 appointed him as an Honorary Fellow.  He taught at the University of Victoria (1979-2001), and Queen’s University (2001-2005), before returning to Carleton in 2005 as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL. Details will be sent to all registered attendees.

Book Now

More information: https://courtauld.ac.uk/event/online-the-elephant-in-the-room-at-gourdon-in-burgundy

This is a live online event.  

Please register for more details. The platform and log in details will be sent to attendees at least 48 hours before the event. Please note that registration closes 30 minutes before the event start time.  

If you have not received the log in details or have any further queries, please contact researchforum@courtauld.ac.uk. 

CFP: ‘Remarkable women’: Female patronage of religious institutions, 1300-1550, due 27 November 2020

CFP: ‘Remarkable women’: Female patronage of religious institutions, 1300-1550

Online event

More information: https://courtauld.ac.uk/event/cfp-remarkable-women-female-patronage-of-religious-institutions-1300-1550

Organised by

  • Nicholas Flory - The Courtauld

Please note that the conference organiser is currently seeking proposals for this event. The deadline for proposals is 27 November 2020. Full details below:

This conference seeks to explore the ways in which women patronised and interacted with monasteries and religious houses during the late Middle Ages, how they commissioned devotional and commemorative art for monastic settings, and the ways in which these donations were received and understood by their intended audiences. The artistic donations of lay patrons to religious institutions has become a fruitful area of study in recent years, but the specific role played by women in these networks of patronage has been subject to less thorough scrutiny. Similarly too, the interests of female patrons have often been considered separately from the contexts of the places to which they made their donations, without a thorough consideration of their very different status from their male counterparts and how this shaped their pursuit for commemoration and memorial after death and their reception as patrons by monastic houses and religious institutions.

Applicants are encouraged to consider these issues and to think about the placement of objects and works of art commissioned by women within religious buildings, the devotional practices and beliefs of various religious orders, the physical materials of donations, and the ways in which female patrons situated themselves within monastic spaces. Was there a dialogue between these benefactors and the religious institutions they patronised? What can such donations tell us about the role and position of women in late medieval society and the ways in which they used religious patronage to articulate their own status? By examining a category of patrons that was clearly highly aware of a variety of devotional and commemorative practices, this conference seeks to gain a better understanding of art commissioned for monasteries by female lay donors, and how this more broadly reflects the position of women in late-medieval Europe.

Proposals are encouraged to address these issues throughout Europe between circa 1300 to 1550. Topics might include, but are not limited to considerations of:

  • Issues of access and entry for women into religious spaces

  • The agency of women in donating to monastic orders

  • The significance of widowhood

  • How women made themselves present, either in images or burial, in spaces often unavailable to them in life.

  • The relationships between a female patron and a male religious institution.

  • The role of materials in articulating identity or expressing specific aims, ideas or associations

  • The differences in donations, and their reception, between male and female patrons

  • The positioning of chapels, memorials or objects within monastic spaces

  • How concepts of death and the afterlife may have been expressed in visual terms, and the ways in which this may have been gendered.

  • The political nature of female patronage, and the ways in which women contributed to dynastic or familial ambitions through their donations

  • How different monastic orders may have received and understood female patronage

  • The types of object given by female donors to monastic audiences

  • The types of object owned by women which reflect their interaction with monastic influences

Proposals are welcome from postgraduate, early-career and established researchers working in all relevant disciplines. The conference will be held online on 29 January 2021. Please send a title and an abstract of no more than 300 words for a 20-minute paper, together with a short CV and 100-word biography, to Nicholas.Flory@courtauld.ac.uk by 27 November 2020.

Conference 10-11 December 2020: Travelling Objects, Travelling People: Art and Artists of Late-Medieval and Renaissance Iberia and Beyond, c. 1400–1550

[ONLINE] Travelling Objects, Travelling People: Art and Artists of Late-Medieval and Renaissance Iberia and Beyond, c. 1400–1550

Conference, The Courtauld Research Forum

Thursday 10 December 2020
1:00 pm - 5:35 pm GMT

Friday 11 December 2020
1:00 pm - 6:00 pm GMT

Booking essential, for more information:
https://courtauld.ac.uk/event/online-travelling-objects-travelling-people-art-and-artists-of-late-medieval-and-renaissance-iberia-and-beyond-c-1400-1550

Speakers include

  • Vanessa Antunes - Universidade de Lisboa

  • Piers Baker-Bates - The Open University

  • Joana Balsa - Universidade de Lisboa

  • Fernando António Baptista Pereira - Universidade de Lisboa

  • Nelleke de Vries - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

  • Kelley Helmstutler di Dio - University of Vermont

  • Caterina Fioravanti - Independent Scholar

  • Bart Fransen - KIK/IRPA

  • Eduardo Lamas Delgado - KIK/IRPA

  • Eva March - Universitat Pompeu Fabra

  • Encarna Montero - Universitat de València

  • Francisco Montes - Universidad de Sevilla

  • Ricardo Nunes - Universidade de Lisboa

  • Elena Paulino - Universidad Complutense de Madrid

  • Alexander Röstel - Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome

  • Maria Sanz Julian - Universidad de Zaragoza

  • Marco Silvestri - Universität Paderborn

  • Maria Vittoria Spissu - Università di Bologna

Organised by

  • Costanza Beltrami - University of Oxford

  • Sylvia Alvares-Correa - University of Oxford

Book Now

This is a live online event.  

Please register for more details. The platform and log in details will be sent to attendees at least 48 hours before the event. Please note that registration closes 30 minutes before the event start time.  

If you have not received the log in details or have any further queries, please contact researchforum@courtauld.ac.uk. 

 

Travelling Objects, Travelling People aims to nuance our understanding of the exchanges and influences that shaped the artistic landscape of Medieval and Renaissance Iberia. Traditional narratives hold that late fifteenth-century Iberian art and architecture were transformed by the arrival of artists, objects and ideas from France, the Low Countries, and eventually Renaissance Italy, while 1492 marked a chronological rupture and the beginning of global encounters. Challenging these perceptions, this conference revisits the dynamics of artistic communication in late medieval Iberia, placing the peninsula in a global network, from Flanders to Florence, from Madeira to Santo Domingo. Bringing together contributions from international scholars working on Spain, Portugal and a range of related geographies, this event seeks to address the impact of ‘itinerant’ artworks, artists and ideas, and to investigate moments of encounter, conflict, and non-linear transfers of materials, techniques and iconographies.  

PROGRAMME:  

Day 1 – Thursday 10th December 

Opening remarks  

Panel 1: Nexus Objects  

Bart Fransen (KIK/IRPA), Two Fragments from the Predella of Juan de Flandes’ Altarpiece for the University Chapel in Salamanca 

Alexander Röstel (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome) and Caterina Fioravanti (Independent Scholar), Lorenzo Ghiberti, Rodrigo Borgia and the Cradle of the Iberian Renaissance: The Retrochoir and Chancel of Valencia Cathedral in the Fifteenth Century  

Francisco Montes (Universidad de Sevilla), The Jamuga of Cortés. An Islamic Throne Chair for the Conquest of Mexico 

Discussion 

Break  

Panel 2: Transmission and Image Chains  

Vanessa Antunes (Universidade de Lisboa), Travelling from Flanders to Portugal Via Techniques and Materials: the Portuguese Copy of the Painter Jorge Afonso to Quentin Metsys’s Painting The Angel Appearing to Saints Clara, Colette and Agnes  

Maria Sanz Julian (Universidad de Zaragoza), Original, Copies and Iconographic Traces in Illustrated Books at the End of the Middle Ages 

Nelleke de Vries (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Portable Passion. The Dissemination of Martin Schongauer’s Artistic Inventions in Spain 

Discussion

Break  

Keynote

Fernando António Baptista Pereira (Universidade de Lisboa), Importing Painting, Sculpture and other artistic objects from the Low Countries to Madeira during the Cycle of the ‘White Gold’ 

 

Day 2 – Friday 11th December

Welcome  

Panel 3: Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost  

Piers Baker-Bates (The Open University), ‘In the Spanish Fashion’: Iberian Artists Travelling in Italy 1450–1550 

Eduardo Lamas Delgado (KIK/IRPA), Looking for Italy in Castile: the Iberian Career of Willem van Santvoort, a Netherlandish Assistant of Alonso Berruguete  

Marco Silvestri (Universität Paderborn), Family Ties and Diffusion of Architectural Knowledge: Migration, Networks and the Establishment of Two Sixteenth-Century Spanish Stonemasons in Latin America 

Discussion  

Break 

Panel 4: Stones Don’t Move  

Joana Balsa (Universidade de Lisboa), Ricardo Nunes (Universidade de Lisboa), All Saints’ Hospital in Lisbon: Artistic Exchanges in the Context of Hospital Architecture in the Renaissance 

Elena Paulino (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Negotiating the American space: Travelling Artists and Local Elites in the Architectural Configuration of Santo Domingo at the End of the Fifteenth Century 

Kelley Helmstutler di Dio (University of Vermont), Labor, Transportation and Technological Systems of Sculpture Exchange in Early Modern Europe  

Discussion

Break 

Panel 5: Reconsidering Influence  

Encarna Montero (Universitat de València):  Recomposing and Reframing the Northern Influence in Aragonese Painting ca. 1400: the Hazardous Case of Marçal de Sas

Eva March (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), The Itinerancy of Jan van Eyck’s Models: (Re) Creating Images of Power in Late Medieval Catalonia 

Maria Vittoria Spissu (Università di Bologna), A Missing Ring in the Iberian Marian Atlas: Transferring the Cult of the Seven Sorrows from the Habsburg Netherlands to Mediterranean Kingdoms in the Early Modern Age 

Discussion  

Closing remarks 

 

This event is supported by the Society for Renaissance Studies

FELLOWSHIPS FOR RESEARCH AND STUDY AT THE GENNADIUS LIBRARY 2021-2022 , due 15 Jan 2021

FELLOWSHIPS FOR RESEARCH AND STUDY AT THE GENNADIUS LIBRARY 2021-2022

The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is pleased to announce the academic programs and fellowships for the 2021-2022 academic year at the Gennadius Library. Opened in 1926 with 26,000 volumes from diplomat and bibliophile Joannes Gennadius, the Gennadius Library now holds a richly diverse collection of over 146,000 books and rare bindings, archives, manuscripts, and works of art illuminating the Hellenic tradition and neighboring cultures. The Library has become an internationally renowned center for the study of Greek history, literature, and art, especially from the Byzantine period to modern times.

COTSEN TRAVELING FELLOWSHIP FOR RESEARCH IN GREECE: Short-term travel award of $2,000 for senior scholars and graduate students, for work at the Gennadius Library. Open to all nationalities. At least one month of residency required. School fees are waived for a maximum of two months. DEADLINE: JANUARY 15, 2021.

THE GEORGE PAPAIOANNOU FELLOWSHIP: Ph.D. candidates or recent PhDs writing on Greece in the 1940’s and the post-war period, civil wars and the history of the Second World War. Fellows are required to make use of the George Papaioannou Papers housed at the Archives of the ASCSA. Open to all nationalities. School fees are waived for a maximum of two months. Stipend of €2,000. DEADLINE: JANUARY 15, 2022. Runs every other year.

THE M. ALISON FRANTZ FELLOWSHIP: Ph.D. candidates and recent Ph.D.s from colleges or universities in the U.S. or Canada, for work in the Gennadius Library for the full academic year. Stipend of $11,500 plus room, board, and waiver of School fees. DEADLINE: JANUARY 15, 2021.

MEDIEVAL GREEK SUMMER SESSION AT THE GENNADIUS LIBRARY: Graduate students and university professors in any field of late antique, post-antique, Byzantine or medieval studies at any university worldwide. Month-long program in intermediate level Medieval Greek language and philology at the Gennadius Library, with site and museum trips. Up to twelve scholarships available. DEADLINE: JANUARY 15, 2021.

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES (NEH) FELLOWSHIPS: Awards for postdoctoral scholars and professionals in the humanities, not only limited to work at the Gennadius Library. Terms: Two to four fellows will be selected for awards of 4, 5, or 9 months duration. The monthly stipend per fellow is $4,200 allocated from a total pool of $75,600 per year. U.S. citizens or foreign nationals who have been U.S. residents for three years before application deadline. Candidates must hold the Ph.D. or equivalent terminal degree at time of application. DEADLINE: OCTOBER 31, 2020

Please forward this announcement to eligible students or colleagues you may know who are working on a project in post-classical studies and encourage them to apply. For further information, consult the ASCSA website at: https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/research/gennadius-library/educational-programs/fellowships

The American School of Classical Studies at Athens does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, sexual orientation, color, religion, ethnic origin, or disability when considering admission to any form of membership or application for employment.

https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/research/gennadius-library/educational-programs/fellowships

MINING THE COLLECTION: THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM WITH ELIZABETH MORRISON AND BRYAN C. KEENE; THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER 2020 AT 11AM ET

MINING THE COLLECTION: THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM WITH ELIZABETH MORRISON AND BRYAN C. KEENE

THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER 2020 AT 11AM ET


Please join us for the second online event in a new series entitled “Mining the Collection” in which curators will present medieval objects that offer unusual or challenging opportunities for research and investigation. After each brief presentation, we invite you to bring your questions and expertise to bear on these objects during an informal discussion.

The event will take place on Thursday, October 29 at 11:00 am Eastern. Elizabeth Morrison, Senior Curator of Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Bryan C. Keene, Assistant Professor at Riverside City College, will discuss manuscripts in the Getty collection. Please register for this event here.
 
Additional events in this series to follow.

A ROCK-HEWN REVOLUTION IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ETHIOPIA; THE RESEARCH FORUM AT THE COURTAULD

A Rock-Hewn Revolution in Early Medieval Ethiopia

[ONLINE]

Wednesday 28 October 2020
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm GMT

This is a live online event. Please register for further details. The platform and log-in details will be sent to attendees at least 48 hours prior to the event time. Registration will close one hour prior to the event start time.

SPEAKER

  • Dr Mikael Muehlbauer - Core-Lecturer in Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

ORGANISED BY

  • Dr Tom Nickson - The Courtauld

Following the collapse of the late antique empire of Aksum, northern Ethiopia entered a “dark age” period, wherein little is known of the region. However, around the year 1000, a triad of cruciform churches were hewn out of rock in East Tigray, unparalleled in scale, form and the use of vaulting. This talk argue that these rock-cut churches were built in a period where Fatimid Egyptian investment in the Red Sea trade promoted a post-Aksumite state which in turn provided economic and political stability in northern Ethiopia. This also involved the sending of new ecclesiastical authorities from the Coptic Patriarchate, newly relocated to Fustat. These churches as such exhibit experimental forms in Ethiopian architecture, including spatial hierarchy based around a central module, and barrel vaulting: features which were not found in the region earlier. This paper locates these enigmatic buildings within broader historical citations and revivalism that occurred in the art and architecture of the Mediterranean, produced around the year 1000. It proposes that the radical plan and articulation the three churches embody was effectively a reinvention of the aisled cruciform churches of late antiquity, engineered through new architectural techniques introduced from Fatimid Egypt.

Mikael Muehlbauer is a specialist in the architecture of Medieval Ethiopia and Egypt. He is currently a Core-Lecturer in Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University where he earned his PhD in 2020. His book project is the first monographic study of cruciform churches in northern Ethiopia, informed by extensive field research and site documentation there. Mikael Muehlbauer's research has been supported by grants and fellowships from Dumbarton Oaks, the American Research Center in Egypt, the Historians of Islamic Art Association, the Society of the Architectural Historians and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He has published articles in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, West 86th and Aethiopica.

https://courtauld.ac.uk/event/online-a-rock-hewn-revolution-in-early-medieval-ethiopia

Gesta Fall 2020 (Volume 59, Number 2) now available!

The latest issue of Gesta (Fall 2020) is available to members by logging in to your membership account.

GestaFall2020full.jpg

In this volume:

Found in Translation: Images Visionary and Visceral in the Welles-Ros Bible Kathryn A. Smith

The Earls of Hereford and Their Retinue: A Network of Architectural and Sculptural Patronage in Twelfth-Century England, ca. 1130–55
Jonathan Andrew Turnock  

Villard de Honnecourt and Bar Tracery: Reims Cathedral and Processes of Stylistic Transmission, ca. 1210–40
James Hillson

The Admiral, the Virgin, and the Spectrometer: Observations on the Coëtivy Hours (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS W082)
Richard Gameson, Catherine Nicholson, and Andrew Beeby

ICMA membership provides exclusive online access to the full run of Gesta in full text, PDF, and e-Book editions – at no additional charge.

To access your members-only journal subscription, log in to the ICMA site here with your username and password.  If you have any questions, please email icma@medievalart.org.


For ICMA members receiving a print copy along with the online version,  there may be a delay in shipping the journal to you. Thank you for your patience.  


Caroline Walker Bynum and Brooke Holmes in Conversation at Labyrinth Books

Please join Labyrinth Books, the Classics Department and Humanities Council at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study for an evening of conversation between historians Caroline Walker Bynum and Brooke Holmes on the subject of late medieval devotional objects.

Caroline Bynum will consider some examples of late medieval devotional objects from her recent work Dissimilar Similitudes: Devotional Objects in Late Medieval England : beds for the baby Jesus, the headdresses of medieval nuns, and the footprints of Christ carried home by pilgrims from the Holy Land in patterns cut to their shape or their measurement in lengths of string. Bynum demonstrates how these objects themselves communicate a paradox of dissimilar similitude—that is, that in their very details they both image the glory of heaven and make clear that that heaven is beyond any representation in earthly things.

Caroline Bynum’s work has been instrumental in introducing the concept of gender into the study of medieval Christianity. Her early, path-breaking books are Holy Feast and Holy Fast and The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christendom. She is Professor emerita in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study. Brooke Holmes is Professor of Classics at Princeton University. She is the author of The Symptom and the Subject: The Emergence of the Physical Body in Ancient Greece and Gender: Antiquity and Its Legacy.

This event is cosponsored by the Classics Department and Humanities Council at Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. Please click the link below to register.

https://www.labyrinthbooks.com/events/1237

Branner Forum 2020-2021 Speakers; booking essential.

We are so pleased to invite you to this year’s scheduled lectures. In light of the current pandemic, all lectures for the 2020-2021 academic year will be held remotely as Zoom webinars. We have used this as an opportunity to invite speakers from across the US and abroad, who would not normally be available to speak in person in the forum. We have also expanded our series to include six speakers, three in each semester. The variety of speakers' locations has led to several mid-day lectures, so please note the times of each event.

Our first talk will take place on Tuesday, October 27, at 11:00am: Paul Binski will present, "Mood and Magniloquentia: The Emotional Lives of Gothic," followed by a short Q&A.

 

Our 2020-2021 line-up also includes the following lectures:

Roland Betancourt, "Queer Desire and the Senses in Byzantium" 

Thursday, November 12, 2020, 6:00pm

Isabelle Dolezalek

Tuesday, December 15, 2020, 12:30pm

Michele Bacci

Friday, February 19, 2021, 12:00pm

Jennifer Ball and Thelma Thomas, "Collaborative Research on Byzantine Silk: Two Case-Studies from Aachen" 

Thursday, March 11, 2021, 6:00pm

Elizabeth James

Thursday, April 1, 2021, 12:00pm

We kindly ask those interested in attending lectures to please fill out this form. This information will allow us to circulate Zoom links to those attending each lecture. If any questions arise, please contact Whitney Kite (wak2115@columbia.edu) and Sarah Cohen (sfc2112@columbia.edu).