8th Annual Ards Conference "Alabaster as Material for Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture,” 18–20 January 2022

8th Annual Ards Conference "Alabaster as Material for Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture"
Musée Du Louvre, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
18–20 January 2022
9:00–17:00 CET

More information

The 8th ARDS annual colloquium focuses on alabaster as a material for European sculpture from the 14th until the 17th century.

Much research has been carried out on this subject over the past few decades in several European countries, both in universities and in laboratories, and in particular on the occasion of restorations carried out in museums and historic monuments. New analysis methods have improved our knowledge of the origin of alabaster and the quarries exploited during this period, supply and trade circuits - often long distance - have been brought to light, restorations have enabled to specify the implementation of the material. The results have been the subject of seminars, study days and major publications.

In order to present the general public with a summary of the current state of our knowledge, M Leuven and the Musée du Louvre jointly organize an international exhibition on this theme in the fall of 2022. This exhibition will show how and why alabaster was used for sculpture in Western Europe during the late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque period. This exhibition will bring together high-quality sculptures, small-format objects with monumental achievements, from the Louvre and M’s collections, as well as from numerous public and private collections.

This Paris colloquium brings together specialists in this material, whether they are geologists, restorers, historians or art historians. The scientific committee of the conference invited researchers to submit papers via a call for papers and has selected 15 papers, which resulted in a highly qualitative and varied programme.

© Franck Paubel Centre des monuments nationaux

The Bard Graduate Center Global Middle Ages Seminar: Sonja Drimmer, February 9 at 12:15 pm eastern time; register now!

Sonja Drimmer at the Bard Graduate Center: https://www.bgc.bard.edu/events/1310/09-feb-2022-the-kings

February 9 at 12:15 pm eastern time

Register now

A persistent myth in the history of the book in the west is that the roll gave way to the codex. This idea is often encountered in the prepositional formula, “from roll to codex,” as ubiquitous as the phrase “from manuscript to print.” Over the last two decades, an efflorescence of scholarship devoted to the abundant variety of scrolls and rolls in medieval Europe has offered welcome pushback to this supersessionist model of book history. Yet, the roll and the codex were not the only formats available for the book arts of the Middle Ages. Focusing on a recent acquisition made by the Metropolitan Museum of Art—a manuscript genealogy of King Edward IV that is both roll and codex—this talk will examine the political significance of codicological diversity during the Wars of the Roses. Nearly one hundred genealogical rolls survive from fifteenth-century England, across which scribes and illuminators fashioned remarkably experimental approaches to the narration of genealogical history, approaches that defy our own genealogical narrative of the history of the book. Public doubts about the monarch’s legitimacy, pragmatic considerations about the physical presentation of history, and the robust scribal infrastructure required to proliferate genealogies combined to drive this experimentation, which rests largely on the different affordances of each medium produced.

This talk is part of a larger project that examines a variety of reproducible media that preceded movable type as political discourse in visual and material form in late medieval England. None of the objects considered in this project—from livery badges and coins to heraldry, genealogical rolls and, horribly, the bodies of the decapitated and the lists that bear their names—were new media. Yet in the quantity, manner, and contexts of their production, distribution, and display, they threatened the foundations of the social and economic affiliations they forged. What does it mean when the most potent media for political discourse are themselves the instruments of doubt and suspicion? And why is it important to recognize the role of pre-print reproduction in this history?

Sonja Drimmer is associate professor of Medieval Art in the department of the history of art and architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of The Art of Allusion: Illuminators and the Making of English Literature, 1403-1476 (University of Pennsylvania, 2018), which was awarded High Commendation for Exemplary Scholarship from the Historians of British Art. Recently, she edited a special issue of Digital Philology (2020), “Manual Impressions: Visualizing Print in Manuscript, Europe c.1450-1850.” Her articles have appeared in Gesta, the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Viator, Exemplaria and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a second book, Political Visuality: Reproduction, Representation, and the Wars of the Roses.

This event will be held via Zoom. A link will be circulated to registrants by 10 am on the day of the event. This event will be live with automatic captions.

Genealogical Chronicle of the Kings of England, British, 1466–67 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

ICMA ONLINE LECTURE BY SUSAN L'ENGLE AT THE ANDREW LADIS MEMORIAL TRECENTO CONFERENCE: BOLOGNA REDUX: A FRESH LOOK AT THE BEGINNINGS OF LEGAL MANUSCRIPT ILLUMINATION; 13 JANUARY 2022 - REGISTER TODAY!

Bologna Redux: A Fresh Look at the Beginnings of Legal Manuscript Illumination
Presented by Susan L’Engle, professor emerita, Saint Louis University 
Thursday, January 13, 6:00–7:00 p.m. CST

Register HERE

Nicolò di Giacomo di Nascimbene, called Nicolò da Bologna (documented 1349–1403). Leaf from Giovanni d’Andrea, Novella in Decretales (detail): Frontispiece for Book 4, The Marriage, ca. 1355–60. Tempera, gold, and ink on parchment, 17 1/2 x 10 3/4 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Rosenwald Collection, 1961.17.5

Textbooks made for law professors and students, lawyers, and judges represent a major category of manuscripts made in the northern Italian city of Bologna in the late Middle Ages. Hundreds of examples survive, and in them we find distinctive page layouts, illuminated courtroom scenes and illustrations of societal regulations, and the marginal annotations of readers. Susan L’Engle has spent her academic career studying Bolognese legal manuscripts of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. In this lecture presented in conjunction with the exhibition Medieval Bologna: Art for a University City, Dr. L’Engle takes us on a journey of how she first became interested in these complex and sophisticated books and the avenues of research that she has since pursued as she seeks to understand medieval legal iconography, the ways scribes and artists worked in service to Bologna’s university, and how students in this period engaged with texts and images in the classroom as they learned and memorized the law. 

Susan L’Engle, PhD, is a professor emerita of Saint Louis University and former assistant director of the Vatican Film Archive Library. The author of numerous essays on canon and Roman law manuscripts and a specialist in Bolognese illumination, she co-curated the exhibition Illuminating the Law: Medieval Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge Collections (2001) and co-authored its catalogue. She contributed the essay “Learning the Law in Medieval Bologna: The Production and Use of Illuminated Legal Manuscripts” to the catalogue for the Frist Art Museum exhibition Medieval Bologna: Art for a University City.

For more information and to register:
https://fristartmuseum.org/event/bologna-redux/

This lecture is supported in part by the International Center of Medieval Art.

Queer Medieval Art II: Talking Circle and Research Workshop; Friday, January 21st, 2022 - Register today!

Queer Medieval Art II: Talking Circle and Research Workshop

Friday, January 21st, 2022 
ONLINE: 9am PT / 12pm ET / 6pm CET

Register HERE

Christ and Saint John the Evangelist, 1300-1320. Germany, Swabia, near Bodensee (Lake Constance); Polychromed and gilded oak. 92.7 x 64.5 x 28.8 cm (36 1/2 x 25 3/8 x 11 5/16 in.). Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, The Cleveland Museum of Art. 1928.753

Following up on the event Queer Medieval Art: Past, Present, and Future that took place in August 2021, the ICMA will host a forum for further conversation among our membership with the goal of building a global professional network for those engaged in any facet of queer medieval art history. The event will open with remarks from our colleague Gerry Guest and then will go on with two breakout rooms: a talking circle focused on sharing experiences in the field and career guidance (breakout room 1) and a workshop for informal presentation and discussion of in-progress research related to queer medieval art and methodologies (breakout room 2). This event will not be recorded. Attendees will be asked to submit questions and topics for discussion in breakout room 1 or images for discussion in breakout room 2 in the Registration Form, though advance submission of questions or images is not required in order to attend.

The event is co-organized by the ICMA’s Programs & Lectures Committee and the IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, & Accessibility) Committee.

For questions, please contact Bryan Keene, Bryan.Keene@rcc.edu.

Please register HERE.

ICMA-POP-UPS NASHVILLE: MEDIEVAL BOLOGNA: ART FOR A UNIVERSITY CITY + DRINKS on 22 January 2022

ICMA-POP-UPS IN NASHVILLE

FRIST ART MUSEUM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 2022
3:00 P.M.

ICMA members are warmly invited to an informal gathering at the Frist Art Museum on Saturday, January 22, beginning at 3:00 p.m. to view Medieval Bologna: Art for a University City. Trinita Kennedy, Senior Curator, will give a brief introduction to the exhibition and highlight different objects within the show. Attendees will then be welcome to roam the galleries and join a casual discussion at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free for up to 20 people.

The Frist Art Museum requires that visitors wear masks. 

Those who would like to continue the conversation afterward may gather for drinks and eats at Lou/Na on the twenty-fifth floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, located directly across the street from the Frist Art Museum. The restaurant has a balcony with heaters and firepits. 

Organizers
Gilbert Jones, Student Committee Co-Chair, ICMA
Trinita Kennedy, Senior Curator, Frist Art Museum

Register HERE

Nerio (active late 13th–early 14th centuries). Cutting from a choirbook (antiphonary): Easter Scenes (in initial A), ca. 1315. Tempera, gold, and ink on parchment, 9 3/8 x 9 3/8 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, Rogers Fund, 12.56.1

Andrew Ladis Memorial Trecento Conference, January 13–15, 2022 online

Andrew Ladis Memorial Trecento Conference
January 13–15, 2022
Presented on Zoom

Image: Seneca Master (Bologna, active early 14th century). Cutting: The Sixth Day of Creation, early 1300s. Tempera and gold on parchment, 2 3/4 in. diameter. The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 2006.9

The Andrew Ladis Memorial Trecento Conference is held biennially in honor of the art historian Andrew Ladis (1949–2007), an authority on Taddeo Gaddi and Giotto and an inspiring teacher. The conference—the only gathering of its kind—emphasizes trecento Italian art as a fruitful area of research and offers participants the opportunity to exchange ideas formally and informally in a collegial environment.

The next conference will be held online on January 13–15, 2022. Dr. Susan L’Engle, professor emerita, Saint Louis University, will be the keynote speaker. Twenty-four other scholars will present papers, which will be published by Brepols.

Admission is free, but advance registration for both the keynote and the two days of paper sessions is required.

The keynote address on January 13 is open to the public. To register for the keynote, please visit this webpage.

The remainder of the conference on January 14 and 15 is only for specialists or students of early Italian art or a related field; it will be presented on Zoom Events. To register for the remainder of the conference, please visit this webpage.

Download conference program


Questions? Please contact Trinita Kennedy at tkennedy@FristArtMuseum.org.  


Organizing Committee

Anne Derbes, emerita, Hood College
Max Grossman, The University of Texas at El Paso
Bryan Keene, Riverside Community College
Trinita Kennedy, Frist Art Museum
Areli Marina, University of Kansas
Judith Steinhoff, University of Houston
Kristen Streahle, Hollins University
Sarah Wilkins, Pratt Institute

More information at https://fristartmuseum.org/andrew-ladis-memorial-trecento-conference/

ACLS EMERGING VOICES FELLOWSHIPS, DUE 12 JANUARY 2022

Summary

The American Council of Learned Societies is pleased to announce the third competition of the Emerging Voices Fellowship which allows recent PhDs in the humanities and interpretive social sciences to take up two-year positions at select institutions in ACLS’s Research University Consortium for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years. Up to 45 fellowships will be available for a fall semester 2022 start date.

NOTE – Candidates will not be permitted to hold Emerging Voices Fellowships at their PhD-granting institution. 

This final iteration of the Emerging Voices Fellowship will maintain its focus on the vanguard of scholars whose voices, perspectives, and broad visions will strengthen institutions of higher education and humanistic disciplines in the years to come. The program seeks to sustain emerging scholars who are “both-and”: who are both outstanding scholars and effective communicators to diverse audiences inside and/or outside the classroom. We are proud of our record in this program so far of supporting scholars of color, scholars from low-income and unconventional backgrounds, scholars who have taken on extraordinary roles in graduate school (organizing public art exhibits, teaching in prison education programs, managing research support groups, to name just a few). Preference will continue to be given to these groups.  

Emerging Voices Fellowships provide a $65,000 annual stipend plus benefits, a one-time relocation allowance of $3,000, and $3,500 (annually) in research/professional development funding, childcare or elder care costs, as well as access to ACLS professional development resources. Fellows are expected to teach one course or the equivalent per year.  Fellows will participate in professional development activities organized by ACLS in the first year of the fellowship. In the second year, they will join projects in their host institution in a limited, pre-arranged capacity – for example, assisting in organizing public events, contributing to institutional research, or leading a workshop for doctoral students. 

Emerging Voices Fellows will join a robust community of practice in the publicly engaged humanities and will have the opportunity to draw on networks of related ACLS programs, including alumni of the Mellon/ACLS Leading Edge Fellows and Scholars and Society Fellows. The diverse experience of the ACLS community is a shared resource that fellows are encouraged to draw on during and after their fellowship terms.

For questions about eligibility, please visit the FAQ page or contact EVFapplications@acls.org.

FELLOWSHIP DETAILS

  • Stipend: $65,000 plus health insurance, a one-time relocation allowance of $3,000, and $3,500 (annually) for research/professional development

  • Tenure: Two-year positions at select institutions in the ACLS Research University Consortium beginning in August/September 2022

  • Eligibility: Applicants must have received their PhD in the humanities or humanistic social sciences from a US institution and that degree must be conferred between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2021.

  • Application deadline: Completed applications must be submitted only through the ACLS Online Fellowship Application system (ofa.acls.org) no later than 9 pm Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday, January 12, 2022.

ELIGIBILITY

  • The competition will be open via the ACLS online portal to all applicants whose PhDs in the humanities and interpretive social sciences were formally conferred at US-based institutions between June 1, 2018 and December 31, 2021. Students who anticipate receiving the PhD after December 31, 2021 are not eligible.

  • Applicants must be authorized to work legally in the United States for academic year 2022-23.

  • Applicants’ PhDs may be in any field in the humanities or interpretive social sciences. See FAQ for further information.

Strong candidates for this fellowship program will be both outstanding scholars and effective communicators to diverse audiences inside and/or outside the classroom. They will have demonstrated their ability to use the classroom as a vehicle to attract students to humanistic study and research. Priority in the review process will be given to applicants who show great promise in making the humanities meaningful to non-specialist audiences; come from diverse backgrounds including historically underrepresented groups; and have experience or show promise of leadership in institutional contexts or within their disciplines or interdisciplinary area of study.

APPLICATION GUIDELINES

Applications must be submitted online and must include:

  • A completed brief application form including demographic information

  • A CV (1-2 pages)

  • A double-spaced, three-page (max) personal statement (in place of a cover letter) responding to specific prompts. Applicants should log into the online application portal for information about the writing prompts and document upload.

  • Dissertation abstract (no more than one full page, double-spaced)

  • One letter of reference is required and must be submitted by your faculty adviser, department chair, or other suitable referee. Recommenders should include information to highlight the strengths and experience of the applicant in being both an outstanding scholar and an effective communicator to diverse audiences inside and/or outside the classroom. Letters must be submitted through the ACLS application portal no later than 9 pm Eastern Daylight Time on Friday, January 12, 2022 (applicants will be prompted to request this letter from recommenders using our system).

  • Please note: As of the 2021-22 competition year, ACLS requires all applicants to have an ORCID iD. Learn more.

Applicants will be asked to describe their potential contribution to programmatic needs in their disciplinary or interdisciplinary field or area: specifically, how they use the classroom as a vehicle to attract students to humanistic study and research, and how they approach inclusive online teaching. We will also ask applicants to choose from a list of programs and initiatives and explain their relevant experience and potential contribution. This list, which we are currently developing in dialogue with potential host institutions, includes but is not limited to programs and initiatives such as race and ethnicity studies, gender and sexuality studies, premodern studies, area studies, creative arts, digital humanities, public humanities, medical humanities, environmental humanities, community-engaged research and generalist, non-field specific.

Only complete applications, submitted through the ACLS Online Fellowship Application system (ofa.acls.org) from December 10, 2021 – January 12, 2022, 9pm Eastern Daylight Time, will be considered. Submitted applications will be evaluated through peer review based on the priorities detailed below.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

The selection and placement take place over three stages: ACLS will organize two rounds of peer review, the first a large group of external readers holding PhDs and the second involving a small group including ACLS staff. Then, finalists determined by this process will be interviewed by ACLS’s Research University Consortium hosting institutions, who will send rankings and feedback to ACLS. Top- ranked candidates will be offered the fellowship.

Please direct questions to EVFapplications@acls.org

CONTACT

Please contact EVFapplications@acls.org with questions. Before submitting an inquiry, please read the Emerging Voices the FAQ page.

More info at: https://www.acls.org/competitions/acls-emerging-voices-fellowships/

Mining the Collection with Raymond Clemens, Curator, Early Books and Manuscripts, Beinecke Library, Yale University; Monday, December 13, 1pm ET

Mining the Collection with Raymond Clemens, Curator, Early Books and Manuscripts, Beinecke Library, Yale University

Monday, December 13, 1pm ET
Register HERE

The Beinecke Apocalypse, fourteenth-century Italy (Yale University, Beinecke Library, MS 1215, fols. 28v-29r)

Yale's Beinecke Library has a treasure trove of little studied medieval illuminated manuscripts, many of them acquired in the last decade. In this session of Mining the Collection, virtual attendees will be introduced to a selection of these books with the express purpose of encouraging members of the ICMA community to address the materials in research and teaching. A full bibliography will be distributed after the session. Among the manuscripts and types to be presented will be:

The Beinecke Apocalypse
This unusual manuscript from fourteenth-century Italy most closely recalls an apocalyptic block book with images organized into panels on many pages.

Nonnenarbeiten
We are expanding our holdings in creations by late medieval German nuns and we are excited to broaden awareness of our new acquisitions.

Books of Hours and other late medieval Prayerbooks
In 2014 we acquired the Otto Ege archive. This collection contains not only remnants of Ege’s “biblioclasm” but also 62 codices, 22 of which are Books of Hours.

The Voynich Manuscript
Although it has been the darling of conspiracy theorists since the early twentieth century, there are still many mysteries to this manuscript, including its curious illuminated cycle.

Register HERE

For questions, please contact icma@medievalart.org

The Idea and Ideology of Empire in the Middle Ages, panel discussion; Thursday, December 9, 12:30–2:30 PM EST; Register now!

The Idea and Ideology of Empire in the Middle Ages

A panel discussion to accompany the exhibition Imperial Splendor: The Art of the Book in the Holy Roman Empire, 800–1500

Thursday, December 9, 2021, 12:30 - 2:30 PM EST
Tickets: Free, advance registration is required

The Holy Roman Empire, a shape-shifting entity that underwent continuous transformation throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, provides the framework for this virtual panel discussion, which focuses on the conceptions and understandings of empire that informed political, legal, and historical debate during the period in question. Presented by the Morgan Library and Museum in partnership with the German Historical Institute, this virtual event consists of a brief introduction to the exhibition by its two co-curators, followed by four brief papers and discussion.

The Carolingians and the Emergence of a New Imperial Art
Jennifer Davis, Catholic University of America; Fellow, The Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, 2021–22

Charlemagne and Charles IV: Imperial Splendor as Relationship Across the Centuries
Eva Schlotheuber, Heinrich-Heine University, Düsseldorf

Perspectives on European Christian Empires from the Islamicate World 
Wolfram Drews, Münster University

Italy and Empire in the Age of Dante and Petrarch
Alexander Lee, University of Warwick

Please note that the program will take place online. After registering, participants will receive a confirmation email with instructions on how to participate using Zoom. We ask that you download the app in advance for the best user experience.

“Lindau Gospels,” in Latin Switzerland, St. Gall, ca. 880 (manuscript) Eastern France, ca. 870 (front cover) NO. 1 Salzburg, ca. 780–800 (back cover) Morgan Library & Museum, 1901 The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.1, front cover. Photography by Graham S. Haber.

Three exhibitions, six gatherings with curators; December 17, register now!

Will you be in New York this holiday season? 
We’d love to see you on December 17, 2021 — uptown, downtown, all around town!

Three exhibitions, six gatherings with curators, you mix and match.

About the event 
This season in New York we celebrate a trio of medieval exhibitions, curated by ICMA members:

  • Spain, 1000-1200: Art at the Frontiers of Faith, at the Met Cloisters, curated by Julia Perratore

  • The Good Life: Collecting Late Antique Art at the Met, at the Met Fifth Avenue, curated by Andrea Achi

  • Imperial Splendor: The Art of the Book in the Holy Roman Empire, ca. 800-1500, at the Morgan Library and Museum, curated by Joshua O’Driscoll and Jeffrey Hamburger

The curators of the shows have graciously agreed to host informal conversations in the galleries on a single day, Friday, December 17. In order to serve as many of our members as possible, we have scheduled slots at the various exhibitions throughout that day, as follows:

10am   The Cloisters with Julia Perratore
The Met with Andrea Achi

1pm     The Cloisters with Julia Perratore
             The Morgan with Joshua O’Driscoll

4pm     The Met with Andrea Achi
The Morgan with Joshua O’Driscoll

6pm informal gathering at a TBD venue in Midtown

Due to the uncertainties of the pandemic and the challenges of confirming vaccinations for participants, we are keeping this program casual. We arrange for the curators to be in the galleries at fixed times, you register for slots and coordinate with your friends and colleagues about the structure of your schedule. We will be in touch with attendees about museum admission fees.

Space is limited, so act now! Since we want to keep participation open to as many ICMA members as possible, we ask that you please register only for sessions you know you can attend. And do let us know if your plans change, so we can fill open slots.

Register HERE

New York law requires that all museum visitors be vaccinated against COVID-19. Be sure that you understand the regulations for each institution you plan to visit:

 Due to the pandemic, the museums must limit capacity and are requiring timed entry. Once you have reserved your slots for the ICMA gallery gatherings please reserve tickets at the museums you will be visiting:

 
For questions or special needs, please contact: icma@medievalart.org


“Working towards Equity and Inclusion in Journal Publication,” Monday, April 4, 2022, 5:00–700pm ET, save the date!

“Views from the Inside”

Monday, April 4, 2022, 5:00–7:00pm ET

More information: https://sofheyman.org/events/peer-reviewed-journal-publishing-from-the-perspectives-of-editors-and-authors

What does it take to make journal publishing function more inclusively and transparently? In this workshop, participants will discuss their perspectives on future paths for greater equity and inclusion in authorship, the division of labor, peer review, the constitution of editorial boards, and consider the ways in which journals can foster the diversity of all participants. Presenters will address the ways in which institutional contexts (universities, university presses, scholarly societies) shape journal operations, and consider how the relationships between journals and institutions can lead to support for enhanced inclusion and equity.

Panelists: Susan Boynton (organizer), coeditor of Gesta; Callum Blackmore, editor of Current Musicology; Alex Gil and Kaiama Glover, coeditors of archipelagos; Seth Kimmel, Elisabeth Ladenson, and Pier Mattia Tommasino (Romanic Review); and Michelle Wilson (Digital Publishing, Columbia University Libraries)

Drawing on their experience with journals in the humanities and humanistic social sciences as editors and publishers, panelists will discuss the process of double-blind peer review (as well as other forms of review), the intellectual labor involved, the roles and compositions of editorial boards, and what authors need to know about how to submit their work and the stages of publication (as well as the costs authors typically bear for permissions to reproduce images or texts). The presentations will address the ethical expectations of authors and peer reviewers and issues concerning languages of publication.
 
The workshops are appropriate for scholars at all stages, from graduate students to senior researchers. Save the date!

"A Night at the Rare Books Auction," 17 November, 6:00PM - 7:00PM Greenwich Mean Time, Register now!

"A Night at the Rare Books Auction" (Conference/Symposium)
17 November 2021, 6:00PM - 7:00PM Greenwich Mean Time

Register now: https://sas.sym-online.com/registrationforms/iesbooking22538242572425924261243393290342488/

Contact: IESEvents@sas.ac.uk

How did medieval books gain a new life and meaning centuries after their creation? And how did the actions of past collectors, dealers and scholars affect the way we see these objects today? Join the CULTIVATE MSS team for an online immersive theatre performance bringing the atmosphere of early twentieth-century book auctions to life.

In this virtual auction – recreating the dramatic events surrounding the sale of the famous Luttrell Psalter – you will ‘fight’ for your favourite manuscripts alongside distinguished collectors and dealers of the past, while reflecting on the importance of rare book auctions as a moment in time in which old books gained new cultural value and import. The evening ends with a short conversation with the historians and actors, and the launch of a virtual exhibition and podcast exploring the history of book collecting. This event is suitable for anyone interested in immersive theatre, the Middle Ages, and wider discussions about preserving cultural heritage.

This event is part of the Being Human festival, the UK's only national festival of the humanities, taking place 11-20 November 2021. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see https://beinghumanfestival.org/.

Youn-mi Kim, “Cross-Cultural Transformation of Buddhist Talismans from Medieval China to Korea;” October 19, 12:15–1:15 pm Eastern Time; Register now!

The Global Middle Ages Seminar with Youn-mi Kim, Ewha Womans University

Tuesday, October 19, 12:15–1:15 pm on Zoom

Youn-mi Kim will present a talk entitled, “Cross-Cultural Transformation of Buddhist Talismans from Medieval China to Korea.”

Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-global-middle-ages-youn-mi-kim-tickets-170212310603

Based on materials excavated from inside Buddhist statues and tombs, this talk explores Buddhist talismans from medieval Korea. Recently a growing number of scholars have shown an interest in talismans used in Buddhist contexts. Buddhist talismans from medieval Korea, however, remain unknown, to say nothing of their connections to manuscripts discovered from the distant Dunhuang caves in China. Through an exploration of Korean Buddhist talismans, this talk traces a hybrid practice that interweaves Buddhism and Daoism, arguing that such hybrid talisman practices formed part of a large network that spanned western China and the Korean peninsula. Surprisingly similar types of talismans were used from tenth century Dunhuang to thirteenth century Korea. At the same time, the efficacy of each talisman reveals considerable modification which continuously changed according to the needs of local populations in different periods and regions. This talk is based on a joint study with Professor Paul Copp and Venerable Jeonggak.

Youn-mi Kim is associate professor in the Department of History of Art at Ewha Womans University. Before joining the Ewha faculty, Kim served as assistant professor in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University (2012–16) and The Ohio State University (2011–12), and was a postdoctoral associate at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University (2010–11). Kim is a specialist in Chinese Buddhist art, but her broader interest in the cross-cultural relationships between art and ritual extends to Korean and Japanese materials as well. She is particularly interested in symbolic rituals in which an architectural space serves as a material agent; the interplay between visibility and invisibility in Buddhist art; and the sacred spaces and religious macrocosms created by religious architecture for imaginary pilgrimages. She is the editor of New Perspectives on Early Korean Art: From Silla to Koryŏ (Cambridge, MA: Korea Institute, Harvard University, 2013). Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, Religions, International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture, as well as art history journals. Based on archaeological data from a medieval Chinese pagoda and medieval ritual manuals, she is currently completing two book manuscripts.

Dana Katz, “Islamic Palaces in a Christian Land? The Royal Park Residences and Pavilions in the Twelfth-Century Norman Kingdom of Sicily,” October 12, 12:15–1:15 pm Eastern Time; Register now!

Brown Bag Lunch with Dana Katz, BGC Visiting Scholar 2021–22

Tuesday, October 12, 12:15–1:15 pm on Zoom

Dana Katz will deliver a Brown Bag Lunch presentation entitled “Islamic Palaces in a Christian Land? The Royal Park Residences and Pavilions in the Twelfth-Century Norman Kingdom of Sicily.”

From their capital Palermo, the Norman rulers controlled a vast kingdom in the mid-twelfth century that stretched across southern Italy, the island of Sicily, and coastal Tunisia, with a diverse population of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. In the scholarly literature, they are renowned for their ecclesiastical building and programmatic mosaic cycles based on Byzantine models. The talk will consider another corpus of buildings, the palaces and pavilions located in the royal parklands just outside Palermo. These monuments are rarely discussed in most overviews of the artistic and architectural production of the medieval kingdom of Sicily. Katz will explore the reasons for their exclusion, among which is that they do not seem to fit into existing disciplinary paradigms of Western medieval art history for monuments commissioned by Christian kings. This is because they were built entirely in what could be termed an Islamic mode, and thus they cannot be considered “hybrid” monuments. The latter interpretation has been made by some scholars in reference to key works in the royal Norman sphere, denoting the supposed syncretism of their rule and even tolerance toward the multi-faith population. The talk will include recent findings in Palermo and on the island that illuminate the preceding period of Islamic rule, while also considering comparative monuments to the Sicilian parkland palaces elsewhere in the twelfth-century Mediterranean. The ultimate aim is to demonstrate that these secular buildings in the human-modified landscapes on the periphery of medieval Palermo were central to the formulation of Norman kingship and are rich in cultural significance and meaning.

Dana Katz received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD from the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Haifa Center for Mediterranean History and held a Lady Davis Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Foundation, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Medieval Academy of America (Olivia Remie Constable Award), and Garden and Landscape Studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. She has participated in international seminars organized by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and funded by the Getty Foundation, as well as the Bibliotheca Hertziana–Max Planck Institute for Art History. She is currently working on a monograph on a historical landscape in the medieval Mediterranean, the royal parklands of the twelfth-century Norman kings of Sicily, which she will be completing this year at BGC. Her work has been published in the Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, Convivium: Exchanges and Interactions in the Arts of Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean, and most recently in the International Journal of Islamic Architecture. In addition to specializing in medieval Sicily, her research interests include Islamic art and architecture, Crusader art, museology, and the formation of modern collections of Islamic and medieval art.

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Beate Fricke, “Silk in Stone. Mediums of Labor, Craft, and Art,” Friday, November 19, 2021, 12:00 pm EST; Register now!

“Silk in Stone. Mediums of Labor, Craft, and Art”
Beate Fricke (University of Bern)

Friday, November 19, 2021, 12:00 pm EST

Register: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6eOxM554SKKEzWHCbz9Vew

Robert Branner Forum for Medieval Art

Robert Branner (1927-1973) was an art historian specializing in Gothic architecture and manuscript illumination. Active as an excavator, he made important discoveries in the chronology and style of French cathedrals, incorporating cultural historical tools into the method of design analysis that had more traditionally dominated architectural history.

Branner is remembered through the Robert Branner Forum, a student-run symposium sponsoring lectures several times a year that are open to the public. The Forum originated as a series of visiting lectures organized by Branner's graduate students immediately after his death during the academic year as a way of continuing his courses. It has been supported by his family since that time.

Robert Branner, 1968

Robert Branner, 1968

Robert Branner Forum for Medieval Art: Antony Eastmond; Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 12:00pm EST; Register now!

Robert Branner Forum for Medieval Art
Antony Eastmond (Courtauld)

Tuesday, November 2, 2021, 12:00pm EST

Register: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lcdAF2UoQ3S92AdkzNKYBw

Robert Branner Forum for Medieval Art

Robert Branner (1927-1973) was an art historian specializing in Gothic architecture and manuscript illumination. Active as an excavator, he made important discoveries in the chronology and style of French cathedrals, incorporating cultural historical tools into the method of design analysis that had more traditionally dominated architectural history.

Branner is remembered through the Robert Branner Forum, a student-run symposium sponsoring lectures several times a year that are open to the public. The Forum originated as a series of visiting lectures organized by Branner's graduate students immediately after his death during the academic year as a way of continuing his courses. It has been supported by his family since that time.

Robert Branner, 1968

Robert Branner, 1968

Emanuele Lugli: "
Dragon Breath: On Paolo Uccello’s Saint George in London’s National Gallery;" 
Thursday, October 21, 2021, 3:00 pm; Register now!


"Dragon Breath: On Paolo Uccello’s Saint George in London’s National Gallery"
Emanuele Lugli (Stanford University)


Thursday, October 21, 2021, 3:00 pm

Register: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CeWOmJC0QWGAAm3Loc1oEA

Robert Branner Forum for Medieval Art

Robert Branner (1927-1973) was an art historian specializing in Gothic architecture and manuscript illumination. Active as an excavator, he made important discoveries in the chronology and style of French cathedrals, incorporating cultural historical tools into the method of design analysis that had more traditionally dominated architectural history.

Branner is remembered through the Robert Branner Forum, a student-run symposium sponsoring lectures several times a year that are open to the public. The Forum originated as a series of visiting lectures organized by Branner's graduate students immediately after his death during the academic year as a way of continuing his courses. It has been supported by his family since that time.

Robert Branner, 1968

Robert Branner, 1968