Society of Church Archaeology Conference 2023: The Church in North West Britain and its Connections, Liverpool, 16-17 September 2023

Society of Church Archaeology Conference 2023

The Church in North West Britain and its Connections

16-17 September 2023

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool, UK

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

The Society for Church Archaeology is pleased to announce its annual conference for 2023, on the theme of 'The Church in North West Britain and its Connections’. Covering the north-western seaboard of England, Scotland, and Wales, this region has a long and complex history of church and ecclesiastical sites which do not always or easily mirror the changes and continuities noted in other, arguably more well-researched and well-excavated areas, of Britain and Ireland. Reflecting centuries of cultural exchange around the Irish Sea, not least with western Ireland, the North West has its own rich heritage, combining influences from the south-west of Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia. From its earliest medieval origins to its most recent church heritage, this conference aims to include the widest range of periods and places, connections or isolations, from this complex and vibrant region.

Our keynote will be presented by Professor Harold Mytum (University of Liverpool) with a wine reception sponsored by LCMRS on Saturday 16th September at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (please note the date and venue change).

Our fieldtrip will be a coach trip to Norton Priory on Sunday 17th September. Price includes entry fee, a seat on the coach, and catered lunch.

Professor Mytum, who has led excavations at the priory for several seasons, will also give a private guided tour of the site and Professor Jill Rudd (English, University of Liverpool) will host an optional special interactive reading and discussion on the Old English poem The Ruin in the priory grounds.

For enquiries about the conference and bookings: scaconference2023@outlook.com

To register for the conference, click here and see the conference website (link below).

For more information, www.churcharchaeology.org/current-conference

Programme

Saturday 16th September 2023: SCA Annual Conference and AGM

The Gibberd Room, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (UK)

9:30-10:00 AM - Registration

10:00-10:15 AM - Welcome

10:15-10:30 AM - Ken Murphy (Dyfed Archaeology), “St Patrick's Chapel at St David’s, Wales”

10:30-10:45 AM - Glenn Cahilly-Bretzin (University of Liverpool) and Tom Livingstone (Chester Cathedral), “The Repurposing of Werburgh's Remains and Shrine, Chester Cathedral”

10:45-11:00 AM - Kevin Cootes (Liverpool John Moores University), “The Archaeology of Grief. Deviations in Burial Practice in a Later Medieval Graveyard in Poulton, Cheshire.”

11:00-11:15 AM - 15 min Q&A with Speakers

11:15 AM-12:00 PM - Refreshments Break

12:00-12:15 PM - Stephen Henders (Independent Researcher), “Hagioscopes and their significance for medieval worship, with reference to examples in NW England”

12:15-12:30 PM - Joanne Machin (UHI Archaeology Institute, Orkney), “Medieval maritime pilgrimage - myth or maxim? Building the evidence”

12:30-12:45 PM - Ian Faulds (University of Huddersfield), “Ancient parish church in the Isle of Man (Kirk Maughold): A forgotten pilgrimage centre”

12:45-1:00 PM - 15 min Q&A with the speakers

1:00-2:00 PM - LUNCH

2:00-2:45 PM - AGM

2:45-3:00 PM - Rachel Newman (Oxford Archaeology), “The Monastic site of Dacre”

3:00-3:15 PM - Emily Bowyer-Kazadi (University of Liverpool), “Deconstructed Landscape Photography: A Framework for Engaging with Church Archaeology in NW Britain”

3:15-4:00 PM - Morn Capper (University of Chester) and Rachel Abbiss (Churches Conservation Trust), “St Mary’s, Shrewsbury: Preserving an Historic Assemblage in the 21st Century”

4:00-4:30 PM - 15 min Q&A with the speakers (plus closing remarks)

4:30 PM - Conference ends

5:30-6:45 PM - Wine Reception and Keynote: Professor Harold Mytum (The Gibberd Room)

7:00 PM - Conference Dinner

Sunday 17th September 2023: Norton Priory Fieldtrip

9:45 AM - Meet at coach pick-up point for 10:00am departure

11:00 AM-4:00 PM - Tour of the Priory Grounds and excavations by Prof. Harold Mytum (University of Liverpool); the Old English elegy ‘The Ruin’ by Prof. Jill Rudd (University of Liverpool); free time at Priory and Museum.

4:00 PM - Depart Norton Priory, ETA in Liverpool 4:45pm.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Graduate Student Museum Study Day: Egyptian Textiles and Medieval Indian Ocean Trade, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC (31 October 2023), Applications Due 17 July 2023

Call For APplications

Graduate Student Museum Study Day

Egyptian Textiles and Medieval Indian Ocean Trade

October 13, 2023, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, DC

Applications due: July 17, 2023

In conjunction with the ongoing interdepartmental project “Passage Between Worlds: Exchanges Along the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean in the Middle Ages,” the 2023 Dumbarton Oaks Museum Graduate Study Day Egyptian Textiles and Medieval Indian Ocean Trade will consider Indian cotton textiles found in Egypt, India, and Indonesia and emblematic of a vibrant maritime trade network found east of the Mediterranean Sea in the late antique and medieval periods.

The workshop will be co-taught by Elizabeth Dospel Williams (Dumbarton Oaks), Anna Kelley (University of St. Andrews), Sumru Belger Krody (The George Washington Museum and The Textile Museum), and Arielle Winnik (Yale University), who will discuss the trade, manufacture, and use of textiles across the Indian Ocean in the premodern periods.

In the morning, these scholars will present their current research, with a particular focus on recent exhibitions featuring Indian textiles. After lunch, participants will spend the afternoon studying textiles from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection in object storage and the Cotsen Textiles Collection at the Textile Museum.

Funding 

Dumbarton Oaks will reserve participants’ accommodation in its on-site Guest House for one night (October 12) and will arrange for Friday lunch in the Refectory. Participants should book their own travel to Washington, to be reimbursed up to $600 upon submission of receipts. 

Applications 

Currently enrolled graduate students in good standing are eligible to apply. Dumbarton Oaks does not sponsor J1 visas for Study Day attendees. We encourage applicants from graduate programs in art history, archaeology, history, classics, religious studies, and other fields who might benefit from close engagement with our collections and from training in material culture approaches.

To apply, please submit a CV and cover letter with a brief summary of the candidate’s research interests, plans for future research, and an explanation of why attendance is important to the candidate’s intellectual and professional development. All materials should be submitted as one pdf to museum@doaks.org. Applications are due July 17, 2023.

For more information, https://www.doaks.org/events/other-events/museum-study-day

Call for Papers: Visualising Crisis in Late Middle Ages, Panel Session at Leeds IMC 2024 “Crisis”, Abstracts Due 31 August 2023

Call for Papers

Visualising Crisis in Late Middle Ages

Panel Session at Leeds IMC 2024 “Crisis”

Abstracts Due 31 August 2023

Slowly but surely, the last centuries of Medieval Europe on the verge to turn to Modernity, bang to build up a lot of dilemmas and moral interrogations: numbers of heresies and peculiar religious questions indicate how intricate cultural identities were during the Middle Ages. One of the many ways to document and explore those discrepancies and the modalities of maybe mending them, is the study of visual images, mental ones and pictures.

The session invites papers dealing with multiple societal / moral / religious / economic crisis in late medieval Europe resulting in the new approaches in visual media - such as new or idiosyncratic iconography (crisis of images), emotional aspects of visual objects, naturalism etc. Papers should address not only the ways the visual media reflected, responded to and represented the period crisis, but also the rituals and rites that helped to pacify it and battle the period anxiety. Papers using the variety of methodologies are welcome, in particular those addressing the period relation between the society and images via the optics of media studies, visual anthropology, visual semiology and information and communication sciences, theories of reception, or addressing the particular aspects of the late medieval visuality.

The possible topic may (but not have to) include:

• moral and religious crisis and its visual perceptions

• visualizing late medieval heresy and witchery and how to "deal with it" with images or pictures

• crisis of images - new images in mind

• moral theology and art (seven deadly sins, works of mercy, Sunday Christ etc.)

• visualizing the pastoral didactics

• visual objects and prayers against the illness / heresy

• magical visual obiects

• visual media and sin / death / devil

• new ways: visual information and communication (dogmatic images, pastoral education)

Studying relationships and collective dynamics within mediation processes with visual objects and artefacts give us a better understanding of cultural representations of the idea of "crisis" during this particular time. We can analyse social and individual identities, but also how images are used to perform and mediate meaning and sym-bol, that can also change through use. This panel will therefore look at the agency and the multimodality of new sets of thinking the crisis through, with, and in reflection to Late Medieval images.

Paper proposals should be sent to Marianne Cailloux (marianne.cailloux@univ-lille.fr) and Daniela Rywiková (daniela.rywikova@osu.cz).

Paper proposals (20 minutes) should include paper title, max 150 word abstract, speakers' affiliation and contact information.

The deadline for paper proposals is 31 August 2023.

36th Irish Conference of Medievalists, 22nd-23rd June 2023, Dublin, Hosted by Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University

36th Irish Conference of Medievalists

22nd-23rd June 2023

3/4 Foster Place, College Green, Dublin 2

Hosted by Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University

The Irish Conference of Medievalists (ICM) was established in 1987 and has met yearly ever since. It is one of the longest running conferences of its type. Since the beginning, the ICM has had the purpose of showcasing the latest research in both Irish and international medieval studies. The ICM welcomes speakers from Ireland and abroad on all aspects of the Middle Ages.

The ICM has a well-established tradition of moving venue every few years. To date, it has been convened in Maynooth, Kilkenny, Limerick, Galway, Cork and Dublin.

To register for the conference, click here.

For more information, http://www.irishmedievalists.com/.

Conference Organizers: Sparky Booker, Peter Crooks, Seán Duffy, Immo Warntjes

Programme

Thursday, 22 June 2023

10.15 Registration

11.15–12.45 Session 1 (Parallel Strands, Rooms 1.14/2.14)

12.45–14.00 Break (lunch not provided)

14.00–15.30 Session 2 (Parallel Strands, Rooms 1.14/2.14)

15.30–16.00 Tea and Coffee (Banking Hall)

16.00–17.30 Session 3 (Single Session, Room 1.14)

Friday, 23 June 2023

9.15–10.45 Session 4 (Parallel Strands, Rooms 1.14/2.14)

10.45–11.15 Tea and Coffee (Banking Hall)

11.15–12.45 Session 5 (Parallel Strands, Rooms 1.14/2.14)

12.45–14.00 Break (lunch not provided)

14.00–15.30 Session 6 (Parallel Strands, Rooms 1.14/2.14)

15.30–16.00 Tea and Coffee (Banking Hall)

16.00–17.30 Session 7 (Single Session, Room 1.14)

Call for Papers: 42nd International Conference of the Haskins Society, University of Richmond (3-5 November 2023), Proposals Due 30 July 2023

Call for Papers

42nd International Conference of the Haskins Society

3-5 November 2023

University of Richmond (Richmond, VA)

Deadline for All Proposals: 30 July 2023

The Haskins Society is delighted to announce our ongoing return to in-person, annual conferences for our second year at the University of Richmond, Virginia on 3-5 November, 2023. We invite proposals for presentations on any topic related to the history and cultures of peoples in northwest Europe in the early and central middle ages, and their encounters with societies in the Mediterranean, the Baltic and the larger medieval world. The Society has a longstanding tradition of encouraging interdisciplinary exchange, and so papers from all disciplines are encouraged.

In order to make our conference as accessible as possible, we will again offer options for virtual attendance and presentation of papers this year (at appropriately reduced registration fees).

The featured speakers in 2023 will be:

•          Courtney Luckhardt (University of Southern Mississippi)

•          Sharon Farmer (UC- Santa Barbara)

•          Louise Wilkinson (University of Lincoln)

For individual paper submissions, please send a 250-word abstract and c.v. tohaskinsconference@gmail.com.

For full panels (usually 3 papers), provide a one-page rationale for the panel in addition to the information for each paper. Panel organizers are encouraged to contact the conference organizers in advance of their submission.

Papers presented at the Haskins Conference by graduate students, untenured faculty, and independent scholars are eligible for the Denis Bethell Prize competition when submitted as full essays.

The conference does accept submissions for remote online presentations. If you wish your paper to be considered for remote presentation, please state this clearly in the abstract.

We also invite submissions for two alternative forms of presentation and participation:

The New Research Forum

On Friday morning, the conference will host an online New Research Forum to highlight and discuss new research or work in progress. Modeled on “flash sessions,” presenters will have five minutes to explain their projects as a prelude to in-depth small group discussions. Presenters will be listed in the program and should send a one paragraph abstract and c.v. to haskinsconference@gmail.com and include the word “Forum” in the address line.

Bursaries for Graduate Students

The Society and the University of Richmond are making available a number of bursaries to graduate students to facilitate participation in the conference. Four bursaries worth approximately $550 each will be available to graduate students.

In order to apply, please so indicate when submitting your proposal to give a paper or to take part in the New Research Forum. Please also include a statement, 300-400 words in length, that situates your proposal within your wider research trajectory and explains how participation in the Haskins Society conference will aid both your academic and career-development goals.

Support for Graduate Students

In order to encourage and support rising scholars, graduate student members of the Society are eligible to receive support from the Thomas Keefe memorial fund to cover the costs of registration.

For more information, click here.

Free Access to the Index of Medieval Art Begins July 1, 2023!

Free Access to the Index of Medieval Art Begins July 1, 2023

The Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University is delighted to remind researchers that as of July 1, 2023, access to our online database will become free to all users. This change has been made possible by a generous bridge grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the ongoing support of Princeton’s Department of Art & Archaeology.

The database can be consulted at https://theindex.princeton.edu/. We look forward to sharing our resources with students and scholars at all levels and with public learners seeking reliable information about medieval art and culture.

In the coming months we will offer several online training sessions to introduce the database to those who may be unfamiliar with it, the schedule and signups for which will be publicized on our blog (https://ima.princeton.edu/) and through the Index social media accounts. The first session will be held on August 3, 2023 from 10 to 11am Eastern time; further information and registration can be found here: https://ima.princeton.edu/index_online_workshop_august_2023/. Index staff also remain available for researcher questions via our online form at https://ima.princeton.edu/research-inquiries/.

Exhibition Closing: Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Closing 23 July 2023

Exhibition Closing

Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster

Sun, 26 March 2023 to Sun, 23 July 2023

Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery | Gallery 010, The Cleveland Museum of Art

Saint Jerome and the Lion (detail), c. 1495. Tilman Riemenschneider (German, c. 1460–1531, active Würzburg). Alabaster; 37.8 x 28.1 x 15.9 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1946.82

Alabaster was prized for its luster and capacity for fine details from the 14th to the 16th century particularly in Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Spain. The gleaming stone was used for altarpieces and small sculptures, as well as for the tombs of wealthy princes. Despite the rich corpus of surviving works, medieval alabaster sculpture from continental Europe has not yet been highlighted by museums in Europe and North America. The exhibition seeks to shed light on this important yet understudied topic by gathering some of the most extraordinary surviving examples of alabaster works from mainland Europe.

The core of the show is the Cleveland Museum of Art’s masterpiece by Tilman Riemenschneider, Saint Jerome and the Lion, produced for the Benedictine abbey church of Saint Peter in Erfurt, Germany, depicting a legend in which Jerome kindly removes a thorn from a lion’s paw. Our exhibition reunites Saint Jerome with another Riemenschneider work from the same church in Erfurt, the alabaster statuette The Virgin Mary of the Annunciation in the collection of the Louvre. These works are exceptionally rare, as they are two of only a few extant alabaster sculptures produced by Riemenschneider, with Saint Jerome being the only example in an American collection. One of the most prolific late Gothic sculptors, Riemenschneider is renowned for his technical virtuosity and ability to convincingly portray human emotion in his elegant sculptures of religious figures. Saint Jerome and the Louvre’s Virgin Mary are exemplary of Riemenschneider’s artistic ability, as well as the refinement that can be achieved with alabaster by virtue of the medium’s softness. 

The majority of the objects in the exhibition come from the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art and allow insight into the production of alabaster sculptures in this period. It is striking that these works are of such a particularly exquisite quality and that the material was used especially for high-ranking commissions, such as the tomb of Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy in Champmol near Dijon. A few loans from North American museums complement the exhibition.

For more information, https://www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/riemenschneider-and-late-medieval-alabaster

Exhibition Closing: The Medieval Top Seller: The Book of Hours, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Closes 30 July 2023

Exhibition Closing

The Medieval Top Seller: The Book of Hours

Fri, 26 august 2022 to Sun, 30 July 2023

Gallery 115, The Cleveland Museum of Art

Leaf Leaf from a Book of Hours: Calendar Page for May (recto) and Calendar Page for June (verso) a Book of Hours: Calendar Page for May (recto) and Calendar Page for June (verso), c. 1510. France, Rouen. Ink, tempera, and liquid gold on vellum; leaf: 18.1 x 12.9 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection, 2011.65.a–b

Books of hours were immensely popular devotional books in the later Middle Ages. Meant for laypeople or those not in the clergy, books of hours were at-home companions containing daily prayers as well as prayers for specific occasions, such as death, plague, warfare, travel, or bad weather. Ranging from lavishly decorated by hand with gold leaf to printed on paper with no images, books of hours were customizable and could be highly personalized to an individual’s tastes, budget, and interests. Mostly used by women, these books are estimated to have been owned by every fourth household at the height of their popularity. Such popularity lasted until around the 1550s, when German priest Martin Luther, in his attempts to reform the Catholic Church which led to the Protestant Reformation, declared them full of “un-Christian tomfoolery,” and they fell out of favor. These precious volumes are windows into the medieval world and the lives of their original owners. 

For more information, https://www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/medieval-top-seller-book-hours

NEW VIDEO! ICMA ANNUAL IDEA LECTURE: “JOHN OF MARIGNOLLI, THE TRIBUTE HORSE, AND EAST-WEST ENCOUNTERS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY," NANCY WU

NEW VIDEO

ICMA ANNUAL IDEA LECTURE

“JOHN OF MARIGNOLLI, THE TRIBUTE HORSE, AND EAST-WEST ENCOUNTERS IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY”

NANCY WU, EDUCATOR EMERITA, THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

17 APRIL 2023, 5:30 PM, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

In 1342, the Franciscan John of Marignolli, as papal nuncio, presented a horse to the Mongol Emperor of China. When scrutinized, the seemingly cordial exchange reveals a multitude of encounters across temporal and geographic boundaries—over 1,300 years and from Avignon to Xanadu. This paper will discuss and consider the event’s historical and cultural implications against the backdrop of the so-called Mongol Mission in medieval China.

Nancy Wu is Educator Emerita of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she was responsible for education at The Cloisters for over twenty years. For decades she has worked extensively on various aspects of Gothic architecture and the Cloisters collection. Since 2020, she has been devoted to the history of the Franciscan mission in fourteenth-century China.

Convened by the IDEA Committee, the ICMA Annual IDEA Lecture showcases research by ICMA members that engages, in content, method, or disciplinary practice, issues of inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

The video is available to watch on the Special Online Lectures page.

ICMA Wine Reception & Other Events at the Tenth Annual Symposium on Medieval & Renaissance Studies, St. Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, 12-14 June 2023

Tenth Annual Symposium on Medieval & Renaissance Studies

St. Louis University

Saint Louis, Missouri

12-14 June 2023

The Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies provides a convenient summer venue in North America for scholars in all disciplines to present papers, organize sessions, participate in roundtables, and engage in interdisciplinary discussion. The goal of the symposium is to promote serious scholarly investigation on all topics and in all disciplines of the medieval and early modern world.​

​The plenary speakers for 2023 will be Uta-Renate Blumenthal, of Catholic University of America, and Lia Markey, Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library.

This year, alongside general sessions, three mini-conferences going on within the bounds of the symposium: the long-running St. Louis Conference of Manuscript Studies, now in its 48th year; the International Arthurian Studies conference; a conference on Late Medieval Philosophy. An exhibit,“The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology, 1100-1550,” is also at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, which is within walking distance. A curator’s talk is scheduled there Tuesday late afternoon.

Of particular interest for ICMA members is:

Thursday, June 13, 2023 - Wine Reception: Co-Sponsored by International Center of Medieval Art, New York, 6:00-7:30 p.m. Center for Global Citizenship

More information is available from the event program and the symposium website.

Panels involving medieval art include:

Monday, 12 June 2023 - M5: Roles of the Manuscript - 48th Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies - Père Marquette Gallery

“North Africa and its Peoples in the Book of Games by Alfonso X: Reimagining Thirteenth-Century Court Culture in the Western” - Alexandra Peters, Bowdoin College

“Tasting the Fruit of the Orchard: Interpretive Agency, Authorial Will, and Organizational Failure in Pierpont Morgan Library MS M.162” - Elissa Johnston, Fordham University

“Queering the Manuscript: a Study of Morgan Library MS G.47” - Vivian Brown, Trinity College Dublin

Monday, 12 June 2023 - M8: Art in the Renaissance - Morrissey 0600 - Chair: Allen Loomis, Binghamton University

“Extravagant Violations and Visual Tropes: Lucas Cranach the Elder's Semiotic use of Dress in the Budapest Martyrdom of Saint Catherine” - Sophia Feist, Cambridge University

“Claude Dodieu's Portrait Medal (1532)” - Jan Pendergrass, University of Georgia

“‘A Face of Muche Nobillitye Lie in a Little Roome’, Re-Imaging the Tudor Dynasty: Renaissance Repetition and the Portraiture of Henry VIII's Family” - Jean Marie Christensen, Southern Methodist University

Monday, 12 June 2023 - M14: Roundtable: Digital Humanities and Opportunities for Studying Texts and Glosses – Successful NEH Grants and Possibilities Ahead - Morrissey 0600 - Chair: Margaret K. Smith, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Panelists: Atria Larson, Theological Studies, Saint Louis University; Lia Markey, Newberry Library; John McEwan, Walter J. Ong Center for Digital Humanities, Saint Louis University; Patrick Cuba, Research Computing Group, Saint Louis University; Geoff Brewer, English, Saint Louis University; Ahlam Jaber, English, Saint Louis University; Ryan Prewitt, English, Saint Louis University

Monday, 12 June 2023 - M16: Plenary Session in Manuscript Studies - 48th Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies - Père Marquette Gallery

“Compiling Spheres of Knowledge: Medieval Creativity in the Astronomical Arts” - Eric Ramirez-Weaver, University of Virginia

Tuesday, 13 June 2023 - T5: Revelations of Codicology - 48th Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies - Père Marquette Gallery

“The 19th Century Medieval: The Inserted Illuminations of the Fisher Antiphonarium” - Risa de Rege, University of Toronto

“Wars in the Workshop: Digitising Manuscript Rolls” - Natasha Hodgson, Nottingham Trent University

“Fragmented Hours: The Biography of a Printed Devotional Book” - Stephanie Haas, University of South Florida

Tuesday, 13 June 2023 - T11: The Infinite Ingenuity of Authors and Artisans - 48th Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies - Père Marquette Gallery

“Examining the Scientific Illustration Method in Various Ajayeb Nameh Manuscripts” - Fahimeh Zarezadeh, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

“Visions of Silver: 17th-18th Century Armenian Silver Bindings from Kayseri, Ottoman Empire” - Sylvie Merian, The Morgan Library & Museum

“Playful Experimentation in Medieval Chemistry: The case of ‘The 88 Natural Experiments of Rasis’” - Vanessa Baptista, University College London

Tuesday, 13 June 2023 - T14: Academic Polymaths: Roundtable on Leveraging Medieval Adjacent Skills in Career Advancement - Morrissey 0200 - Chair: Edward Holt, Grambling State University

Panelists: Amy Boland, Briar Cliff University; Edward Holt, Grambling State University; Kyle Lincoln, Southeastern Oklahoma State University; Margaret K. Smith, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Tuesday, 13 June 2023 - T16: The Nature of Things: Art, Culture, and Environment in the Medieval East and West - Morrissey 0600 - Chair: Heather Alexis Smith, Pulitzer Arts Foundation

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Rethinking Spolia and the Luxury Marble Trade in the Early Middle Ages” - Nathan S. Dennis, University of San Francisco

“Assemblage and Symbiosis: Matter as Maker in Medieval Art” - Anne F. Harris, Grinnell College

“Medieval Art and Ecology: Ecocriticism and the Museum Exhibition” - Heather Alexis Smith, Pulitzer Arts Foundation

Tuesday, 13 June 2023 - T18: Demons and Death in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts - 48th Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies - Père Marquette Gallery

“Demons at Court: An Exploration of 14th-century Iconography” - Lyle Dechant, DePauw University

“Punished Demons: Illuminations of Divine Retribution in Late Medieval Manuscripts” - Layla Seale, University of North Texas

“‘As We Are Now, So Shall You Be’: Depictions of Liminality in Manuscript Images of the Three Living and Three Dead” - Delaney Finau, Winston-Salem State University

Tuesday, 13 June 2023 - Optional Excursion and Curator's Talk: Pulitzer Arts Foundation Exhibition: “The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology, 1100- 1550”

3716 Washington Ave. St. Louis MO 63108

Doors open 3:45 p.m.

Tour and curator’s talk by Heather Alexis Smith at 4:30 p.m.

Admission is free; pre-registration is not required.

Wednesday, 14 June 2023 - W7: Power and Pageantry: Political Philosophy and Displays of Power I Morrissey 0400 Chair: Jean Marie Christensen, Southern Methodist University

“The King's Two Bodies, Twice” - Sophia Feingold, Independent Scholar

“Looking for Forgiveness in the Tudor Myth” - Andrew Shifflett, University of South Carolina

“Transparent Glass and the Spectacle of Sovereignty: Kenilworth Castle Entertainment of 1575” - Allen Loomis, Binghamton University

Wednesday, 14 June 2023 - W8: Scotland: Concrete Evidence and Presentation - Morrissey 0600 - Chair: Nicholas Babich, University of Notre Dame

“The Picts in Perspective: How Heritage Professionals Can Revitalize Modern Connections with this Early Medieval Civilization” - Claire Reinert, McKendree University

“The Early Christian Cross-Marked Stones that were Erected on the West Coast of Scotland: A New Methodological Approach” - Alla Kurzenkova, University of Glasgow

Exhibition: The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology, 1100-1550, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 10 March - 6 August, 2024

Exhibition

The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology, 1100-1550

Mar 10–Aug 6, 2023

Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 3716 Washington Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63108

Installation view of The Nature of Things: Medieval Arts and Ecology, 1100–1550 at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, March 10–August 6, 2023. Photography by Alise O'Brien Photography, © Pulitzer Arts Foundation and Alise O'Brien Photography

What does it take to make a work of art? What are its environmental impacts? How does the natural world shape artistic practices? And what did this mean in the Middle Ages?

With nearly fifty sculptures, textiles, and books made between 1100 and 1550 CE, The Nature of Things highlights the links between artmaking and the environment in the later medieval era. Featuring a range of materials including wood, stone, cloth, and metal, this exhibition considers the vast array of natural resources needed to produce the artworks that decorated churches and households across Europe during the Middle Ages. The Nature of Things prompts us to recognize how the industries that artists relied on—forestry, quarrying, mining, and farming—temporarily and permanently affected landscapes throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Decorative and functional, sacred and secular, these artworks also shed light on medieval people’s nuanced engagements with the natural world. Some represent responses to moments of scarcity, abundance, or ecological change. Others demonstrate the rich inspiration that artists and patrons drew from plants and animals. Still others reveal attitudes of care and reverence. The Nature of Things is the first museum exhibition to examine medieval objects through this lens, offering new ways of thinking about the relationships between people, art, and environments.

Resources:

• Press Release

• Exhibition Guide

• Digital Guide

The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology, 1100-1550 is organized by Heather Alexis Smith, Assistant Curator at the Pulitzer.

For more information, https://pulitzerarts.org/art/medieval-art-and-ecology/

Carantes Announcement: Joining the Mailing List for Readings & Events to Help Protect Celtic Studies from the Global Growth of Fascism and Far-Right Movements

Association of Celtic Students

Carantes Announcement

We are Carantes (from Proto-Celtic *karants), and we want to invite you to help protect the field we all love from the global growth of Fascism and Far-Right movements. If that is all you need to hear, email us at caranteswg@proton.me and we will add you to our mailing list. But, if you want the full story, here it is. 

We are a group of young scholars who met at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies' Summer School in 2022, who, after the episode of the Association of Celtic Students' Podcast about Celtic Studies, Fascism, and the Far-Right, came together to form a reading group. As time went on, supervisors, senior scholars, fellow students, and others expressed interest in supporting us and getting involved. So, here we are today, with a shiny new logo from the wonderful ForFeda Project, to open our doors and invite you to join us as we learn to better ourselves and help safeguard Celtic Studies. 

If you have listened to the aforementioned episode of the Association of Celtic Students' Podcast, you will know a bit about the grim situation concerning the appropriation of the histories and traditions of Celtic peoples by White Supremacists and other Far-Right groups. Stormfront, the largest Neo-Nazi internet forum that has existed since the early 1990s, and has been associated with a number of violent crimes, uses a Celtic High Cross as its logo. High Crosses have been appropriated by White Supremacist movements outside the internet, and are listed in the Anti-Defamation League's database of hate symbols. They have appeared in flags at Far-Right rallies in France in the previous months. The 'Irish Slave Meme', used to dismiss and downplay the evils of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, proliferates itself across the internet where it is passed off as simple benign historic fact. Celtic Films, an American self-funded filmmaking group, reimagines the history of early Celtic peoples into a quagmire of antisemitic tropes, misogyny, racism, and White Supremacy by (mis)using recent scholarly publications from our field. Taking advantage of the public's  interest and the current death of easily accessible resources, several YouTube Channels run by Far-Right presenters spread misinformation under the guise of retelling medieval Irish and Welsh stories. This includes one who has gone so far as to falsify a translation of a part of the medieval Irish story Cath Maige Tuired ('[Second] Battle of Mag Tuired'). 

As a field, we also have some dark corners that must be closely examined. Possibly the most overt is our mysterious association with the journal Mankind Quarterly, a bastion of scientific racism, White Supremacy, and other malignant pseudo-sciences that support hate movements, such as phrenology, that has been rejected by scholars in other fields. However, as a field, we are fortunate. The obscure nature of our topic and general isolation, even from other parts of the academy, appears to have given us a degree of insulation. We have suffered glancing blows which have left infected wounds. While serious and demanding obesrvation, study, reflection, and excision, these are nothing compared to the deep-rooted rot that afflicts our companion fields of Medieval Studies, Norse Studies, and Early English Studies, and that our fellow scholars in those fields seek to remedy. 

With this in mind, as an organisation, Carantes seeks to help inoculate Celtic Studies. To teach people how to notice Dog Whistles. To examine the history of the field and learn from past mistakes. To provide an environment for scholars of any level to come together to read relevant scholarship and discuss these issues, while keeping in mind the busy schedules of students, ECRs, and senior faculty. 

If you sign up for our mailing list, we will send monthly suggested readings from a broad range of scholarly perspectives from varous fields, such as works by Mary Rambaran-Olm, Alan Tansman, and Stefan Quiroga. If you find reading groups to be helpful, we would encourage small groups to form in different institutions, but if you are an isolated Celticist, we would be happy to help facilitate setting up small online reading groups. Around each of the quarter days (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, Lughnasa), we will hold an online event for everyone to come together and discuss what we have read in the past four months. Around Samhain, we will also host online lectures from invited speakers to cover specific topics. 

We have intentionally picked this dispersed structure and limited number of meetings to help avoid disrupting already busy schedules, and ensure that even younger scholars who are occupied with exams or writing these theses can participate. If you have the time and energy to commit to even more, you are welcome to, and can support you with that. But as we want to include as many people as possible from as many backgrouns as possible, making sure the organisation is open and accessible is our chief priority. 

If you are interested, even if you are only mildly curious, please email us at caranteswg@proton.me, and we can add you to our mailing list or answer any questions you may have. 

Please, come stand with friends and protect what we all love from the growth of malignant hate. 

- Emmet Taylor, Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork.

- Fay Slakey, Comparative Literature, Princeton University.

- Carter Pruetz, Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork.

- Gaëlle Clion, School of English, Irish, and Communication, University of Limerick. 

- Manon Metzger, Irish & Celtic Studies, Ulster University. 

- Sarah Vincent, Independent Scholar

Originally from: http://celticstudents.blogspot.com/2023/06/carantes.html

For further resources on “Race, Racism, and Anti-racism Resources for Rethinking the History of Medieval Art and the Ethics of the Classroom,” visit the ICMA section: https://medievalart.org/teaching-a-global-middle-ages-art-history/#anti-racism

CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS: TURKISH-SERBIAN RELATIONS, FROM THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE UNTIL 1939, Proposals Due 15 June 2023

CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS

TURKISH-SERBIAN RELATIONS, FROM THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE UNTIL 1939

Proposals Due 15 June 2023

The Balkan History Association is preparing a volume that aims to explore the diplomatic, political, social, and economic dynamics of Turkish-Serbian relations from the Ottoman period until the beginning of the Second World War. The volume will be published by Peter Lang (in the series "South-East European History").

Proposals must deal with the following topics:

• Role and importance of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire;

• Serbian princess at the Ottoman Court; Conversion to Islam;

• Serbs in the Ottoman army and administration;

• Land division and taxation system;

• Migrations;

• Historical demography and changes of the family structure;

• Sufism and its influence;

• Syncretic culture and forms of art; Everyday life;

• 18th century warfare;

• Struggle for the independence;

• documents on Serb-Ottoman relations, their provenance, diplomatic form and research value;

• Republic of Turkey and Kingdome of Yugoslavia: political, social and cultural relations;

• Status of the Ottoman artefacts in Serbia today.

Deadlines:

June 15, 2023: Submission of proposals to editors

June 19, 2023: Notification of accepted proposals

September 5, 2023: Receipt of final papers for peer review

September 26, 2023: Revised chapters re-submitted to editors

Editors:

Abidin Temizer (Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University)

Ema Miljkovic Petrovic (University of Belgrade)

Christopher Lamont (Tokyo International University)

Cristina Ionia (Balkan History Association)

More details at www.balkan-history.com/turkish-serbian-relations

Call for Threads/Abstracts/Panels: THE 49TH SEWANEE MEDIEVAL COLLOQUIUM, Sewanee, Tennessee (4-5 April 2024), Threads Due 1 August 2023, Abstracts and Panels Due 1 November 2023

Call for Threads/Abstracts/Panels

THE 49TH SEWANEE MEDIEVAL COLLOQUIUM

 History and Personhood

April 5th-6th, 2024

University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee

Threads Due 1 August 2023/ Abstracts & Panels Due 1 November 2023

The understanding of identity, in the medieval as in the modern, rests within discourses of science, medicine, religion, visual representation, literary imagination, legal definition, and historical record, among many others. Personhood is both imagined and policed by historical actors in a given time period -- but also by those looking back to uncover narratives and images of the past. This conference asks participants to consider how we construct the history of people and persons, as well as how people, in turn, construct history. We invite conversations around the ideas of persona, personhood in historical chronicle, visualizations of identity-categories, the limits of the anthropocene, voicing as subjectivity, and more. 

Papers might be interested in the construction of royal identity, of personhood marked by faith, in legislated systems of inclusion or exclusion, or how sensation determines what it means to be human. Panels might address the role of ‘the historical turn’ in modern scholarship, the nature of literary biography, or how we address personhood as a contested category in our classrooms. The conference welcomes papers focusing on any area or region of the globe and encourages participation from faculty working on material from Asia, Africa, or the Americas. Finally, we hope for interdisciplinary work addressing how categories or discourses around personhood disrupt our familiar, modern departmental divisions. 

How to Participate:

PROPOSE A THREAD (DUE: AUG 1)

SUBMIT A PAPER ABSTRACT (DUE: NOV 1)

PROPOSE A PANEL (DUE: NOV 1)

Colloquium Format: One of the unique elements of the Colloquium is its use of a respondent-format. Papers for each panel are pre-circulated to a selected respondent 1 month before the conference meeting. The respondent takes this time to read each paper and create a response that addresses the individual papers and poses questions for the panelists. This guarantees that each presenter has the opportunity for an established scholar to engage with their work, and the responses set the initial terms for the questions and conversation at the end of each panel.

Commenters are generally established figures in the field with a significant record of publication; participants in the Colloquium are generally limited to holders of a Ph.D. and those currently in a Ph.D. program. 

We have two exciting plenary speakers for this year's event. Our plenary lectures will come from Dr. Marion Turner (The University of Oxford) and Dr. Kristina Richardson (The University of Virginia). 

For more information, https://new.sewanee.edu/academics/medieval-colloquium/2024-conference-info/

ICMA POP UP IN ROUEN: EXHIBITION TOUR OF NORMANDS: MIGRANTS, CONQUÉRANTS, INNOVATEURS; WEDNESDAY 7 JUNE 2023, 10AM - REGISTER TODAY!

ICMA Pop Up in Rouen

Exhibition tour of Normands: Migrants, Conquérants, Innovateurs

Wednesday 7 June 2023, 10am
Musée des Antiquités and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen

Register HERE

The exhibition Normands: Migrants, Conquérants, Innovateurs at Rouen’s Musée des Antiquités and Musée des Beaux-Arts highlights the complexity and richness of the links forged between Normandy and the rest of the world during the medieval period of the 9th-12th centuries. More than 250 works are presented in the great epic of the Normans who took up residence in different countries, from England to Sicily.

You are invited to join other ICMA Members for a tour (in English) lead by exhibition curator Nicolas Hatot on Wednesday 7 June 2023 at 10am. We will meet at the Musée des Antiquités first, then visit the second part of the exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts. Drinks to follow courtesy of the ICMA.

Musée des Antiquités
198, rue Beauvoisine ou rue Louis Ricard
76000 Rouen

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen
Esplanade Marcel Duchamp
76000 Rouen

This gathering is informal:

• Attendees are responsible for their own travel bookings. Admission to the exhibition sites will be free for ICMA members.

• The purpose of this event is to introduce ICMA members from the area to one another, to strengthen the social and professional ties in our community, and to celebrate our mutual interest in medieval art, while exploring the exhibition together.

Organized by the ICMA Executive Director, Ryan Frisinger, who will be attending the event. For questions, please email icma@medievalart.org

Register HERE

CALL FOR ICMA SPONSORED SESSION PROPOSALS: VIITH FORUM MEDIEVAL ART, DUE BY FRIDAY 9 JUNE 2023

Call for Proposals

ICMA at the VIIth Forum Medieval Art

Jena, 25-28 September 2024
Due By Friday 9 June 2023

Light: Art, Metaphysics and Science in the Middle Ages

(Juliane von Fircks, Svea Janzen, Department of Art History and Film Studies, Friedrich Schiller University Jena)

 The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) seeks proposals for sessions to be held under the organization’s sponsorship at the VIIth Forum Medieval Art (Jena, 25-28 September 2024) for which the theme will be “Light: Art, Metaphysics and Science in the Middle Ages.” Session organizers and speakers must be ICMA members.  
 
Proposals to the ICMA must include a session abstract and a CV of the organizer(s). A list of speakers is not required at the time of application. Sessions will be selected in July 2023, and the call for papers for all sessions will be published in August. There will be one session chair and a maximum of three speakers per section.

Upload your proposals HERE by 9 June 2023. 

Please direct all inquiries to the Chair of the Programs Committee: Alice I. Sullivan, Tufts University, USA, alice.sullivan@tufts.edu 
 

The ICMA Programs and Lectures committee will select a session to sponsor and will notify the successful organizer(s) by 13 June 2023. The organizer(s) will then submit the ICMA-sponsored proposal to kontakt@dvfk-berlin.de by 15 June 2023.

CALL FOR ICMA SPONSORED SESSION PROPOSALS: INTERNATIONAL MEDIEVAL CONGRESS, LEEDS 2024; DUE BY FRIDAY 9 JUNE 2023

Call for Proposals 

International Medieval Congress (IMC 2024)

Leeds, 1-4 July 2024
Due By Friday 9 June 2023

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) seeks proposals for sessions to be held under the organization’s sponsorship in 2024 at the International Medieval Congress (IMC) at Leeds, England.  

While session proposals on any topic related to the art of the Middle Ages are welcome, the IMC also chooses a theme for each conference. In 2024 the theme is “Crisis.”  For more information on the Leeds 2024 congress and theme, see:  https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2024/

Session organizers and speakers must be ICMA members at the time of the conference. Proposals must include a session abstract, and a list of speakers, as one single Doc or PDF with the organizer’s name in the title, and a CV, again as a Doc or PDF with the organizer’s name in the title.

Upload your proposals HERE by 9 June 2023.

Please direct all inquiries to the Chair of the Programs Committee: Alice I. Sullivan, Tufts University, USA, alice.sullivan@tufts.edu 

The ICMA Programs and Lectures committee will select a session to sponsor and will notify the successful organizer(s) by 19 June 2023. The organizer(s) will then submit the ICMA-sponsored proposal to the IMC. Submit session proposals to IMC from June 2023 here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/proposals/proposal-forms/ Read about Proposal Criteria here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/proposals/criteria/

CALL FOR ICMA SPONSORED SESSION PROPOSALS: ASSOCIATION FOR ART HISTORY ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2024, DUE BY FRIDAY 9 JUNE 2023

Call for Proposals

Association for Art History Annual Conference

Bristol, 3-5 April 2024 
Due By Friday 9 June 2023

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) seeks proposals for sessions to be held under the organization’s sponsorship at the Association for Art History Annual Conference to be held 3-5 April 2024 at the University of Bristol.  
 
Proposals to the ICMA must include a session abstract and a CV of the organizer(s).

Please note the following:  

• The AAH does not require a slate of speakers; the AAH will generate a CFP once sessions have been selected. Therefore the ICMA will not request a slate of speakers. 

• The ICMA requires the CVs of the session organizers, but the AAH does not. 

• Session organizers and speakers must be ICMA members but are not required to become AAH members. However, AAH members receive a preferential conference rate. 

• Sessions at the AAH conference are built of 70-minute blocks, with a minimum of two blocks per session, up to four blocks in a day. Each block consists of two papers of 25 minutes plus 10 minutes of questions for each paper. The ICMA seeks to sponsor one session of two 70-minute blocks (four papers). 

Upload your proposals HERE by 9 June 2023. 

Please direct all inquiries to the Chair of the Programs Committee: Alice I. Sullivan, Tufts University, USA, alice.sullivan@tufts.edu 

 
The ICMA Programs and Lectures committee will select a session to sponsor and will notify the successful organizer(s) by 19 June 2023. The organizer(s) will then submit the ICMA-sponsored proposal to the AAH, which will make the final decision. Submit session proposals to the AAH by 30 June 2023 at conference2024@forarthistory.org.uk following the guidelines posted on the AAH website: https://forarthistory.org.uk/events/cfs-association-for-art-history-2024-annual-conference/

Mittelalter im Museum heute: Einladung zum Studientag anlässlich der neuen Mittelalterpräsentation im, 22. Juni 2023, 10-13 Uhr

Mittelalter im Museum heute

Einladung zum Studientag anlässlich der neuen Mittelalterpräsentation im

Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen

22. Juni 2023, 10-13 Uhr

Direktor Till-Holger Borchert/Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen

Begrüßung und Einführung

Dr. Markus Huber, Dr. Benno Baumbauer, Marie-Louise Kosan M.A./Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg

Die Neukonzeption der Dauerausstellung zur Kunst und Kulturgeschichte des Spätmittelalters am Germanischen Nationalmuseum

Dr. Björn Blauensteiner/Belvedere, Wien

Die Neuaufstellung der „Sammlung Mittelalter und Renaissance“ im Oberen Belvedere: Inhaltliche und ästhetische Leitlinien

Dr. Jan Friedrich Richter/Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin

Das Berliner Kunstgewerbemuseum

Zur Neupräsentation der Mittelaltersammlung – Ein Arbeitsbericht

Kaffeepause

Dr. Ingrid-Sibylle Hoffmann/Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart

Wie wird ein mittelalterlicher „Skulpturenschatz“ des 19. Jahrhunderts fit fürs 21. Jahrhundert? - Die Neugestaltung des Zweigmuseums „Sakrale Kunst des Mittelalters – Sammlung Dursch“

Maria Geuchen M.A./Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Aachen

Andere Blicke auf mittelalterliche Kunst - Zwischenbericht zum laufenden Forschungsvolontariat am Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum

Alle Interessierten sind herzlich eingeladen.

Teilnahmegebühr: 5,- EURO (vor Ort zu entrichten)

Anmeldung bis 20.06.2023 unter dagmar.preising@mail.aachen.de

oder Tel. 0241 4798022

Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum

Wilhelmstr. 18

52070 Aachen

Informationen: https://suermondt-ludwig-museum.de/event/studientag-mittelalter-im-museum-heute/

Project Survey: Hagiography and Digitality: Opportunities and challenges regarding the use of digital resources within hagiographic research

History of the Early and High Middle Ages at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel AND Kiel University Library

Project Survey

Hagiography and Digitality

Opportunities and challenges regarding the use of digital resources within hagiographic research

This survey serves to prepare a jointly planned project of the Kiel University Library and the Chair for the History of the Early and High Middle Ages at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. The aim is to gain an insight into the perception of resources on hagiography in the digital space and to find out about the need for networking hagiographical knowledge domains in order to be able to examine possibilities for supplementary digital resources.

To take the survey: https://www.umfragen.uni-kiel.de/index.php/798524?lang=en