British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Online Conference, 29 November 2023 12:30PM-17:35PM GMT, Zoom

British Archaeological Association

PostGraduate Online Conference

29 November 2023, 12:30-17:35pm GMT/ 7:30AM-12:35PM ET

On Zoom

We are excited to present a diverse conference which includes postgraduates and early career researchers in the fields of medieval history of art, architecture, and archaeology. The British Archaeological Association postgraduate conference offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present their research and exchange ideas.

Use this link to register for the conference.

Conference Programme

Wednesday 29th November 2022

12:30 pm (GMT) Welcome

Panel 1: Approaches to Overlooked Elements in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Architecture

12.40 – 14.30 pm (GMT)

• Bryony Wilde (University of Warwick, UK), ‘Decoding Medieval Roof Bosses’

• Mats Dijkdrent (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium), ‘Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics as a lieu for Architectural Thinking’ 

• Nils Hausmann (University of Cologne, Germany), ‘Naming and Meaning – On the Survival and Reuse of Early and High Medieval Book Cases’

• Sophia Feist (University of Cambridge, UK), ‘Extravagant Violations and Visual Tropes: Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Semiotic use of Dress in the Budapest Martyrdom of Saint Catherine’

14.30 – 14.45 pm (GMT) – Break

Panel 2: Intersections of Materiality and Identity: Unpacking the Medieval Landscape and Space

14.45 – 16.05 pm (GMT)

• Theodore Muscillo (Independent Researcher), ‘Jugs, mugs and aquamaniles: pottery and networks on the east coast of England, 1250-1500’

• Sercan Batum (Middle East Technical University, Turkey), ‘Christianization of Urban Topography in Late Antique Histria’

• Eleanor Townsend (University of Oxford, UK), ‘‘All the werkemanship and masonry crafte of a frounte Innying to the Awter of our lady’: the problem of the Jesse reredos in St Cuthbert’s, Wells’

16.05 pm – 16.15 pm (GMT) – Break

Panel 3: Stones and Stories: Interrogating the Art and Gender Dynamics in Religious Commemoration Across Medieval Europe

16.15 pm – 17.25 pm (GMT)

• Nicola Lowe (Independent Researcher), ‘Tears at the Graveside’

• Philip Muijtjens (University of Cambridge, UK), ‘Tombs as Sensory Experiences in Fifteenth-Century Italy’

• Arica Roberts (University of Reading, UK), ‘Gender in Early Medieval Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales c. 410-1150 CE’

5:35 pm (GMT) Closing remarks

Call for Papers: The Fifth Quadrennial Symposium on Crusade Studies, Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus (3-5 October 2024), Due By 31 March 2024

Call for Papers

The Fifth Quadrennial Symposium on Crusade Studies

October 3-5, 2024, Madrid, Spain
Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus

Due By 31 March 2024

Plenary Speakers
Thomas Asbridge
Queen Mary University of London

Helen Nicholson
Cardiff University

The Symposium on Crusade Studies is a quadrennial conference sponsored by the Crusades Studies Forum of Saint Louis University. The Symposium invites proposals for scholarly papers, complete sessions, and roundtables on all topics related to the crusading movement. Papers are normally twenty minutes each and sessions are scheduled for ninety minutes.

Abstracts of 250 words and session proposals should be submitted online at http://www.crusadestudies.org/symposium-on-crusade-studies.html. The deadline for all submissions is March 31, 2024. Late submissions will be considered if space is available. Decisions will be made by the end of April and the program will be published in June.

For a PDF of the Call for Papers, click here.

Job Posting! Assistant Professor of Art/Architecture of the Middle East, North Africa, and Iberia, 600-1500 CE, Northwestern University Due By 15 November 2023

Job Opening

Assistant Professor of Art/Architecture of the Middle East, North Africa, and Iberia, 600-1500 CE

Northwestern University

Due by 15 November 2023

The Department of Art History at Northwestern University invites applications for a tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level in the art or architecture of the Middle East, North Africa, and Iberia, from 600–1500 CE. The geographical and temporal fields of specialization within these parameters are open. We particularly welcome scholars whose work engages with transregional and intercultural contexts within and beyond the Islamic world; visual and material culture; architecture, urbanism, and the environment; archaeology, heritage, and preservation; or technical art history. This position is meant to complement areas of departmental strength in ancient, early modern, and modern art of the Middle East and North Africa; the art of Africa and the African Diaspora; Indo-Islamic and Mughal South Asia; and medieval and early modern Europe. The ideal candidate would also complement faculty in other Northwestern departments, including History and Religious Studies, and programs such as Middle East and North African Studies, African Studies, Medieval Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and the Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts. Our department is firmly committed to racial justice and equity, here and across the world, and we welcome candidates whose interests and experiences align with these values.

The successful candidate will teach four courses annually over the course of three academic quarters, at both undergraduate and graduate levels; share in departmental service; and contribute to the vibrant intellectual community within and beyond the department. Applicants must have earned a Ph.D. in art history or an adjacent field by the time of appointment, or shortly thereafter. This is a full-time position starting September 1, 2024.

To apply, please submit 1) a letter of application explaining your research accomplishments and goals, and your teaching ideals, commitments, and strengths; 2) a statement describing how your research and pedagogy contribute to Northwestern’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; 3) a current CV; 4) one sample course syllabus from within your field; 5) the names of three references, with contact information. Letters of recommendation will not be requested until after the application deadline. Candidates who advance in the search will be asked to submit a writing sample of no more than 10,000 words. Application materials must be submitted electronically at https://facultyrecruiting.northwestern.edu/apply/MTkzNw== by November 15, 2023.

Address any questions about this position to Mel Keiser mel.keiser@northwestern.edu.

NEW VIDEO: ICMA VIEWPOINTS BOOK LAUNCH, Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? Toward a Critical Historiography, edited by Benjamin Anderson and Mirela Ivanova

New Video

ICMA Viewpoints Book Launch

Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? Toward a Critical Historiography, edited by Benjamin Anderson and Mirela Ivanova

Online, 15 September 2023, 12:00-1:00 pm ET

with Benjamin Anderson, Mirela Ivanova, Roland Betancourt, Eleanor Goodman, Nicholas S. M. Matheou, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, and Alexandra Vukovich 

Is Byzantine Studies a colonialist discipline? Rather than provide a definitive answer to this question, this book defines the parameters of the debate and proposes ways of thinking about what it would mean to engage seriously with the field’s political and intellectual genealogies, hierarchies, and forms of exclusion. In this volume, scholars of art, history, and literature address the entanglements, past and present, among the academic discipline of Byzantine Studies and the practice and legacies of European colonialism. Starting with the premise that Byzantium and the field of Byzantine studies are simultaneously colonial and colonized, the chapters address topics ranging from the material basis of philological scholarship and its uses in modern politics to the colonial plunder of art and its consequences for curatorial practice in the present. The book concludes with a bibliography that serves as a foundation for a coherent and systematic critical historiography. Bringing together insights from scholars working in different disciplines, regions, and institutions, Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? urges practitioners to reckon with the discipline’s colonialist, imperialist, and white supremacist history. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Andrea Myers Achi, Nathanael Aschenbrenner, Bahattin Bayram, Averil Cameron, Stephanie R. Caruso, Şebnem Dönbekci, Hugh G. Jeffery, Anthony Kaldellis, Matthew Kinloch, Nicholas S. M. Matheou, Maria Mavroudi, Zeynep Olgun, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Jake Ransohoff, Alexandra Vukovich, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, and Arielle Winnik. ICMA Books | Viewpoints aims to engage with and instigate new conversations, debates, and perspectives not only about medieval art and visual-material culture, but also in relation to the critical practices employed by medieval art historians. Books will typically be data-rich, issue-driven, and even polemical. The range of potential subjects is broad and varied, and each title will tackle a significant and timely problem in the field of medieval art and visual-material culture. The Viewpoints series is interdisciplinary and actively involved in providing a forum for current critical developments in art historical methodology, the structure of scholarly writing, and/or the use of evidence. Eleanor Goodman is the Executive Editor at Penn State University Press, and Roland Betancourt is the Series Editor.

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

The Courtauld 2023-2024 Medieval Lecture and Seminar Series, Vernon Square Campus, 25 October 2023 to 15 May 2024

The Courtauld

2023-2024 Medieval Lecture and Seminar Series

Vernon Square Campus, The Courtauld

The Medieval and Renaissance cluster brings together students and researchers interested in art and architecture made between c. 300 and 1500. Although our activities primarily focus on art from Europe (including Byzantium) and the Mediterranean basin, we are committed to expanding the geographic horizons of scholarship in our period, with current projects on art in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caucasus, as well as the interaction between religions and cultures across the medieval world. We seek to share interests and stimulate connections — whether expected or unexpected, whether relating to materials or methods. Our members include faculty, MA students and doctoral students, interested researchers from other UK and overseas institutions, including universities, museums, libraries and heritage sector.

The Medieval Lecture and Seminar series is kindly supported by Sam Fogg. 

25 October 2023: Tom Nickson (The Courtauld): Towers, Travel, and Architectural Habits

15 November 2023: Niamh Bhalla (Northeastern University): Birth, Death and Protective Imagery in a Rock-hewn Church from Tenth-Century Cappadocia

6 December 2023: Assaf Pinkus (Tel Aviv University): Experiencing the Gigantic in Late Medieval Art: Schloss Runkelstein

17 January 2024: Katrin Kogman-Appel (Muenster University): Entanglement in Shared Cultural Spaces: Hebrew Book Art in Iberia, c. 1300

7 February 2024: ICMA lecture: Nina Rowe (Fordham): Dancing in the Streets (and the Courts and the Choirs) of Fifteenth-Century Austria

6 March 2024: Elena Paulino Montero (UNED, Madrid): Architecture in Fourteenth-Century Castile (TBC)

1 May 2024: Margaret Crosland (Washington University & St Louis Art Museum): (TBC)

15 May 2024: Paul Crossley Memorial Lecture: Merlijn Hurx (KU Leuven): Keldermans on Horseback. Five Star Architects in the Medieval Low Countries

Online EAST OF BYZANTIUM Lecture: Daughter, Healer, Soldier, Spy: Finding Communities in the Medieval Middle Eastern Countryside, Reyhan Durmaz, 17 Oct. 2023 12:00 PM EDT, Zoom

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University

Daughter, Healer, Soldier, Spy: Finding Communities in the Medieval Middle Eastern Countryside

Reyhan Durmaz, University of Pennsylvania

Tuesday, October 17, 2023 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University are pleased to announce the first lecture in the 2023–2024 East of Byzantium lecture series.

The medieval Middle Eastern countryside was a dynamic space populated by groups uniting around powerful patrons, distinct religious practices, and a variety of languages. These groups, contrary to our expectations of a “community”, were often destabilized, negotiated, dismantled, and reconfigured. As a way to capture this dynamism, in light of literature and epigraphy, this talk explores a group of demographic categories that are often sidelined in our conventional taxonomies of the medieval Middle Eastern society – such as rulers and subjects, clergy and lay people, elite and non-elite.

Reyhan Durmaz is an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the history of religion, especially Christianity, in the late antique and medieval Middle East.

Advance registration required. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/

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

An East of Byzantium lecture. EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

ONLINE EVENT! MEDIEVAL MATTERS: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR ACCESS AND DISCOVERABILITY, 20 OCTOBER 2023, REGISTER TODAY!

Medieval Matters: Digital Technologies for Access and Discoverability

Friday 20 October 2023
12pm ET
Online via Zoom

Register HERE

In conjunction with the exhibition Illuminating the Medieval and the Modern through Cultural Heritage Imaging: A Brief History of Innovation and Collaboration at Rochester Institute of Technology, this event offers examples and use cases of low barrier-to-entry technology to facilitate access and discoverability for research, exhibition development, and visitor engagement. Join facilitator Tory Schendel-Vyvoda, Visiting Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at Harlaxton College, and Juilee Decker, Professor of Museum Studies, as they discuss innovative practices developed at RIT, working in collaboration with humanities scholars and museum practitioners, that can foster new knowledge about cultural heritage collections, including medieval manuscripts.

Particular attention will be drawn to the involvement of undergraduate students in the museum studies program at RIT who have been working on the development of a low-cost, multispectral imaging system. After a brief demo of the system, attendees will learn how they can access this technology for use on their own collections. In the second part of the session, attention will turn to the use of technology for digital access such as 3D capture to develop interactive, digital exhibitions using freely-available tools. Attention will turn, in the final third of the session, to the audience for a conversation and brainstorming about what digital methods ICMA members are using to advance access to collections and to provide opportunities for greater discoverability. These use cases will illuminate how digital technologies can enhance our understanding of cultural heritage collections and help make the case that medieval matters.

Registration Required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/medieval-matters-digital-technologies-for-access-and-discoverability-tickets-717253924797

Juilee Decker, Ph.D. is professor of history at Rochester Institute of Technology where she directs the Museum Studies/Public History program. She earned her Ph.D. from the joint program in art history and museum studies at Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Museum of Art. She serves as editor of the peer-reviewed journal, Collections (SAGE).

Tory Schendel-Vyvoda is a Visiting Professor of Art and History and Museum Studies at Harlaxton College as well as the curator of the Evansville African American Museum and director of the Lamasco Microgallery. She is pursuing her PhD at the Institute of Doctoral Studies in Visual Art.
_________

Sponsored by the ICMA, the Museum Studies Program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology 

More information about the exhibition, on view in Rochester, NY until 28 October 2023: https://www.rit.edu/universitygallery/exhibitions/current-exhibitions

Illuminating the Medieval and the Modern through Cultural Heritage Imaging: A Brief History of Innovation and Collaboration is the recipient of the 2022 ICMA-Kress Exhibition Development Grant. 

Early European Puppetry Studies Conference, Yale University, 13-14 October 2023

Early European Puppetry Studies Conference

13-14 October 2023

Yale University, New Haven, CT

Join us at Yale University on October 13-14 for an interdisciplinary conference to launch the field of Early European Puppetry Studies. Scholars from across North America and Europe will explore a wide range of performing objects to locate fruitful avenues for using puppetry as a framework to analyze art, literature, culture, and performance traditions in late medieval and early modern Europe. Sessions include puppetry's intersection with children, dolls, transgression, death and violence, bodies and materiality, articulated Christ sculptures, records and reconstructions, and cover various regions including England, Spain, the Mediterranean, and more.

For more information and the full schedule, see: earlyeuropeanpuppetrystudies.com/conference

For a copy of the event flyer, click here.

Call For Papers: The Medieval in Museums, IMC Leeds 2024 Session, Due 18 September 2023

Call for Papers for IMC Leeds 2024 Session

The Medieval In Museums

Due 18 September 2023

Proposals are invited for 15-minute papers examining presentations of the medieval in museum and heritage contexts. We invite interrogation of the social, political, historical, and cultural effects of museum and heritage work, including: 

• practices of acquisition, curation, display, and interpretation

• archives, record-keeping, and databases

• education and community projects

• digital presences

• outreach or knowledge exchange activities run by field archaeologists or academics

• performances or reenactments

• artworks or events commissioned as part of museum or heritage programming

Catherine Karkov (2020), Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand (2021), and Karen Jolly (2022) have argued that museums reflect and construct national and local identities, which, intentionally or unintentionally, may prop up myths of ethnogenesis or ethnonationalism. Joshua Davies (2018), Clare Lees and Gillian Overing (2019), and Beth Whalley (2023) have directed attention to the workings of creative medieval heritage broadly conceived. We invite a similarly expansive approach to the medieval and to museums.

We encourage reflection on the stakes of representing the medieval at a time of increased public awareness of how museums and heritage are entangled with histories of European imperialism, calls for decolonisation, and matters of social justice. 

We also encourage attention to written medieval sources (histories, poems, or other texts): how manuscripts are displayed or interpreted in conjunction with other visual or material culture, places, or landscapes.

To apply: please send an abstract of no more than 150 words explaining your approach to the medieval and museums and/or heritage to Fran Allfrey and Maia Blumberg, fran.allfrey@york.ac.uk and m.blumberg@qmul.ac.uk .

Deadline: 18 September 2023. The session organisers will submit the complete session by 29 September 2023. 

Please include the following: 

• details of your academic affiliation (if appropriate), email, and postal address. 

• a short abstract for the paper of no more than 150 words, in the language in which you want to present your paper. 

• Select relevant index terms for your paper (see https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-index-terms/). 

• Indicate any special equipment you will need (each IMC session room is equipped with data projector and PC as standard – find out more about session equipment and setup at the IMC here: https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/proposals/equipment-and-setup/). 

• Indicate any accessibility needs you have, such as wheelchair access, assistive listening devices, or information in alternative formats such as Braille or large print.

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture: A Song of Theology and Emotion: Romanos the Melodist’s Hymn on Pentecost, Andrew Mellas, 6 October 2023 12:00-1:30 PM EDT, Zoom

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture

A Song of Theology and Emotion: Romanos the Melodist’s Hymn on Pentecost

Andrew Mellas, University of Sydney

6 October 2023, 12:00-1:30 PM EDT, Zoom

Romanos the Melodist and the Theotokos, Menologion of Basil II. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. gr. 1613

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the second lecture in our 2023–2024 lecture series: A Song of Theology and Emotion: Romanos the Melodist’s Hymn on Pentecost, with Andrew Mellas, St Andrew's Theological College and University of Sydney, Friday, October 6, 2023, at 12:00 PM EDT on Zoom.

While Romanos the Melodist composed hymns rather than theological treatises, the theology of his poetry echoed the festal orations of the fourth-century Cappadocian, Gregory the Theologian. Articulating the mystery of the Trinity through the performance of his hymn for the feast of Pentecost, Romanos wove together sacred song and theology, retelling the scriptural stories that defined the Byzantines, and shaping an emotional and liturgical community in Constantinople. Poetry and music showed forth the hidden fears and desires of scriptural characters amidst the overarching narrative of Pentecost, inviting the faithful to become part of the biblical narrative unfolding before them and experience the mystery of the Trinity. This paper will explore how Romanos the Melodist reimagined the events narrated in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, amplifying the biblical story, echoing the theology of Gregory’s oration on Pentecost and providing an affective script for his audience.

Andrew Mellas is a Senior Lecturer at St Andrew's Theological College and an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney's Medieval and Early Modern Centre.

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/a-song-of-theology-and-emotion

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture: Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society, Rebecca Darley, 28 September 2023 12:00-1:30PM EDT, Zoom

Mary Jaharis Center for ByZantine ARt and Culture

Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society

Rebecca Darley, University of Leeds

Thursday, 28 September 2023, 12:00 PM EDT Zoom

Obverse and reverse of an imitation Byzantine coin, c. 7th century, made in India, double-pierced and with a quarter removed, Weepangandla hoard. State Archaeological Museum, Hyderabad (Telangana)

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the first lecture in our 2023–2024 lecture series: Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society, with Rebecca Darley, University of Leeds, Thursday, September 28, 2023, at 12:00 PM EDT on Zoom.

Much of the current move towards global history is focussed on connections. Viewed from this perspective, there is no very good reason for seeing Byzantium in the first millennium CE as an Indian Ocean society. Its direct contact with the Indian Ocean was attenuated in comparison with earlier Roman contact and increasingly mediated by others, most notably from the seventh century onwards, citizens of the Umayyad then Abbasid Caliphates. There are other ways to think about both Byzantium and global history, though. This paper examines Byzantium not as a player in an Indian Ocean defined by mercantile networks, but as one of many societies around the Indian Ocean littoral, shaped by common forces. Between the fourth and the ninth centuries, understanding Byzantium as an Indian Ocean society, in direct comparison with complex states from the Horn of Africa to peninsular South Asia provides a new insight into the development of governmental structures, state religion and economic practices that all affected the lives of millions of people in profound and sometimes unpredictable ways.

Rebecca Darley is a scholar of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Indian Ocean in the first millennium. She is currently employed as Associate Professor of Global History, 500-1500 CE at the University of Leeds.

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/byzantium-as-an-indian-ocean-society

ICMA VIEWPOINTS OFFICIAL BOOK LAUNCH - IS BYZANTINE STUDIES A COLONIALIST DISCIPLINE? 15 SEPTEMBER 2023 12PM ET - REGISTER NOW!

ICMA VIEWPOINTS BOOK LAUNCH

IS BYZANTINE STUDIES A COLONIALIST DISCIPLINE? TOWARD A CRITICAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

EDITED BY BENJAMIN ANDERSON AND MIRELA IVANOVA

FRIDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2023
12PM ET, ONLINE

REGISTER HERE

We are delighted to invite you to a virtual event celebrating the publication of the second volume of the ICMA Viewpoints book series, sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art and Penn State University Press! Please join us!

WITH
BENJAMIN ANDERSON • MIRELA IVANOVA • ROLAND BETANCOURT • ELEANOR GOODMAN • NICHOLAS S. M. MATHEOU • ELIZABETH DOSPĚL WILLIAMS • ALEXANDRA VUKOVICH  

---

Is Byzantine Studies a colonialist discipline? Rather than provide a definitive answer to this question, this book defines the parameters of the debate and proposes ways of thinking about what it would mean to engage seriously with the field’s political and intellectual genealogies, hierarchies, and forms of exclusion.

In this volume, scholars of art, history, and literature address the entanglements, past and present, among the academic discipline of Byzantine Studies and the practice and legacies of European colonialism. Starting with the premise that Byzantium and the field of Byzantine studies are simultaneously colonial and colonized, the chapters address topics ranging from the material basis of philological scholarship and its uses in modern politics to the colonial plunder of art and its consequences for curatorial practice in the present. The book concludes with a bibliography that serves as a foundation for a coherent and systematic critical historiography. Bringing together insights from scholars working in different disciplines, regions, and institutions, Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? urges practitioners to reckon with the discipline’s colonialist, imperialist, and white supremacist history.

In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Andrea Myers Achi, Nathanael Aschenbrenner, Bahattin Bayram, Averil Cameron, Stephanie R. Caruso, Şebnem Dönbekci, Hugh G. Jeffery, Anthony Kaldellis, Matthew Kinloch, Nicholas S. M. Matheou, Maria Mavroudi, Zeynep Olgun, Arietta Papaconstantinou, Jake Ransohoff, Alexandra Vukovich, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, and Arielle Winnik.

Call for Applications: Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Various Fellowships Due Either 21 September 2023, 15 October 2023, or 15 November 2023

Call for Applications

Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

Various Fellowships Due Either 21 September 2023, 15 October 2023, or 15 November 2023

The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art is a research institute that fosters the study of the production, use, and cultural meaning of art, artifacts, architecture, and urbanism, from prehistoric times to the present. The resident community of scholars includes the Kress-Beinecke Professor, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor, the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, and the A.W. Mellon Lecturer in the Fine Arts as well as approximately 18 fellows at any one time, including pre- and postdoctoral fellows, senior and visiting senior fellows, and research associates.

The Center is now welcoming applications for the following fellowships:

Visiting Senior Fellowships
Award period: One two-month period between March 1 and August 15, 2024
Applications due September 21, 2023

Senior Fellowships
Award period: Academic year 2024–2025, or a single semester therein
Applications due October 15, 2023

A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship
Award period: September 2024–August 2026
Applications due October 15, 2023

Center/YCBA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Award period: September 2024–August 2026
Applications due October 15, 2023

Predoctoral Dissertation Fellowships
Award period: One to three years beginning September 2024
Applications due November 15, 2023

Fellows have access to the notable resources represented by the art collections, the library, and the image collections of the National Gallery of Art, as well as other specialized research libraries and collections in the Washington, DC, area.

For more information, please visit the Center’s website or email us at thecenter@nga.gov.

Call for Papers: Queer(ing) Medieval Art, 2 Sessions at ICMS Kalamazoo 2024, Due By 15 September 2023

Call for Papers

Queer(ing) Medieval Art

2 Sessions at ICMS Kalamazoo 2024

Due by 15 September 2023

This session seeks papers that bring queer methodologies to the study of medieval visual culture. Case studies from across the medieval globe are welcome as are a broad range of approaches. Among the questions for consideration are the following: Under what circumstances does queerness become apprehensible within the visual field? What contextual factors allow it to be sensed, consciously or unconsciously? And once queerness is found to reside within the medieval artwork, does it then have some kind of agency? Instead of addressing accusations of anachronism, the papers in this session look to the past for new directions in queer scholarship. These contributions not only disrupt prevailing assumptions about the Middle Ages, but also highlight what medieval visual and material culture can teach us about more fluid or expansive perspectives on gender, sexuality, masculinity, and femininity.

Proposals for papers are due by September 15, 2023 and must be submitted through the Kalamazoo website. Go to https://icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi and scroll to the bottom of the page to choose “Sponsored and Special Sessions of Papers.”

Questions can be directed to Gerry Guest (geraldbguest@gmail.com). General information about the Kalamazoo conference can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress.

Job Posting! Associate/Full Professor, Medieval Studies, Yale University, Due 10 October 2023

Call for Applications

Associate/Full Professor, Medieval Studies

Yale University

Due By 10 October 2023, Due to Start 1 July 2024

Yale's Department of Italian Studies is seeking a senior colleague at the full or associate professor level with a strong research and teaching record in medieval studies, as well as administrative experience at the departmental and/or university level. The appointment will begin on July 1, 2024.

While continued focus on the inaugural figures of Italian culture such as Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Giotto, Catherine of Siena, etc. is central to the department, our curriculum is equally engaged with critical and theoretical issues that have shaped Italian culture and history broadly conceived. The successful applicant will be expected to teach courses on some of these core figures while expanding the traditional canon of medieval studies. Insofar as transnationalism has become increasingly important for Italian Studies, we encourage applications from colleagues committed to working with other programs and departments at Yale and to thinking about Italy’s role in larger, comparative frameworks relevant for the understanding of art, religion, politics, ethnicity, and society. We thus welcome scholars working in areas such as narrative and poetry, philosophical and critical theory, art history, history, gender and sexuality studies, race and migration studies, religious studies, and translation.

Candidates must have met the requirements for a Ph.D. or its international equivalent at time of hire.
Curriculum vitae and cover letter need to be submitted by October 10, 2023 to ensure consideration.

Please contact Jane Tylus, Chair of Italian Studies (jane.tylus@yale.edu) with any questions.
Application submission portal URL: http://apply.interfolio.com/129066.

Yale University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. Yale values diversity among its students, staff, and faculty and strongly welcomes applications from women, persons with disabilities, protected veterans, and underrepresented minorities.

Byzantine Tradition in Africa: Art and Culture in Northern and Eastern Africa, Andrea Achi, The Met Fifth Avenue, 19 September 2023 6-7 PM

Byzantine Tradition in Africa: Art and Culture in Northern and Eastern Africa

Andrea Achi

Mary and Michael Jaharis Associate Curator of Byzantine Art, Department of Medieval Art, The Met

The Met Fifth Avenue, Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall, Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education

Tuesday, September 19, 2023, 6–7 pm

To register, click here.

Join a Met expert to learn about the profound artistic contributions of North Africa, Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and other powerful African kingdoms whose pivotal interactions with Byzantium had a lasting impact on the Mediterranean world. Highlighting artworks rarely or never before seen in public, the talk sheds new light on the staggering artistic achievements of medieval Africa. Hear an overview of Byzantine art in Africa and take a deeper look at fifth-century Nubian (Sudanese) chests that shift perceptions about Byzantine art production and sources.

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Africa and Byzantium.

Free, though advance registration is required. Please note: Space is limited; first come, first served.

Use the street-level Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education entrance at Fifth Avenue and 81st Street.

For more information about the event., click here.

International Conference: Visualizing Drugs & Dyes Art and Pharmacology in (Early) Medieval Worlds (600–1400), University of Basel, The Pharmacy Museum, & Online, 4-6 September 2023

International Conference

Visualizing Drugs & Dyes Art and Pharmacology in (Early) Medieval Worlds (600–1400)

University of Basel: Forum eikones (Rheinsprung 11), the Pharmacy Museum (Totengässlein 3), and Online

4-6 September 2023

Plants have long shaped the material practice and imagination of pharmacy. Far more than animals or minerals, plants and their products were central to medicine in premodern epistemologies. Over centuries, images and imaginings of vegetal materia medica played a profound role in human conceptions of and interactions with the natural world. In many ways, they continue to do so. Conversely, the therapeutic efficacy of plants and their products impacted broader visual and material cultures and practices. Thus, premodern pharmacological techniques interacted with the practices of image-making, artistic processes, and art.
The international conference wants to foster a dialog between conservators, art historians, medical historians, philologists, anthropologist and literary studies.

To participate online, sign up here.

For more information, including the poster and the program, visit
https://eikones.philhist.unibas.ch/de/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/event-details/visualizing-drugs-dyes-art-and-pharmacology-in-early-medieval-worlds-600-1400/

Call for Applications: The National Humanities Center 2023–24 Fellows, Due 5 October 2023

Call for Applications

The National Humanities Center 2023–24 Fellows

Due 5 October 2023

The National Humanities Center (NHC) is pleased to announce the appointment of 34 Fellows for the academic year 2023–24. These leading scholars will come to the Center from universities and colleges in 16 US states as well as Canada, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. Chosen from 541 applicants, they represent humanistic scholarship in African American studies; anthropology; archaeology; Asian American studies; East Asian studies; ethnomusicology; gender and sexuality studies; history; history of art and architecture; information studies; languages and literature; media studies; medieval studies; music history and musicology; philosophy; psychology; religious studies; and Slavic studies. Each Fellow will work on an individual research project and will have the opportunity to share ideas in seminars, lectures, and conferences at the Center.

These newly appointed Fellows will constitute the forty-sixth class of resident scholars to be admitted since the Center opened in 1978. “We are extremely pleased to be able to support the exciting work of these scholars,” said Robert D. Newman, president and director of the National Humanities Center. “They were selected from a truly exceptional field of applicants spanning the wide range of humanities disciplines. We look forward to their arrival in the fall as they pursue their individual projects and form a robust intellectual community.”

The National Humanities Center will award over $1,550,000 in fellowship grants to enable the selected scholars to take leave from their normal academic duties and pursue research at the Center. This funding is provided from the Center’s endowment and by grants and awards from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Geiss Hsu Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the UNCF/Mellon Programs, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as contributions from alumni and friends of the Center.

The Center will begin accepting applications for the 2024–25 academic year on July 1, 2023 with a deadline of October 5, 2023. Details about NHC fellowships, including application instructions, are available here.

For more information, including the projects of previous winners, visit https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/national-humanities-center-announces-2023-24-fellows/.

Christopher de Hamel Public Lecture By Centre for the Book, City Library, Dunedin, New Zealand, 16 August 2023, 5:30-7:30 PM

Christopher de Hamel Public Lecture

By Centre for the Book

Wednesday, August 16, 5:30pm-7:30PM
Dunningham Suite, 4th Floor, City Library, Dunedin, New Zealand

FREE

Our friends at Centre for the Book have invited Dr. Christopher de Hamel to present a public lecture entitled, “Medieval Manuscripts in Dunedin in the 1960s” at the Dunningham Suite on Wednesday, August 16th at 5:30-7:30 pm. The event is free and all are welcome.

Dr. de Hamel is an Otago graduate and recipient of a DLitt from the University in recognition of his expertise on medieval manuscripts. He is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and former Fellow Librarian of the Parker Library.

More information is available here.

Call for Proposals: Social Sculpture in the Middle Ages, Special issue of Different Visions, Due By 1 October 2023

Call for Proposals

Social Sculpture in the Middle Ages

Special issue of Different Visions

Abstracts Due By October 1, 2023

1: Donatello, articulated crucix under restoration, ca. 1415, Basilica of Santa Croce, 2: Joseph Beuys, MANRESA performance, 1966, Photograph by Ute Klophaus, 3: Festival of Santiago, Lampa, Peru, 2014.

This special issue of Different Visions seeks to address the methodological unity between sensory experience, reader response, and performance studies through the paradigm of “social sculpture.” Since Joseph Beuys introduced the term “social sculpture” in the late 1960s, contemporary art historians have investigated the potentialities of bodies-as-sculpture to shape social communities and identity through performance. Beuys’ expanded denition of artistic creativity no longer limited art to the creation of tangible objects; instead, the social realm became a stage for embodied performance that actively required the participation of its audience for its completion.

This methodological approach has the potential to usher medieval studies outside the archive and into the embodied repertoire, yet social sculpture has never been explored within the context of medieval art history. For medieval art historians, social sculpture can provide a paradigm to rethink our approach to medieval materials, documents, and objects by reframing these extant materials as only one actor within the greater collage of embodied participation that shaped medieval religious, political, and social communities.

We seek to open this relatively new eld of study through a diverse and interdisciplinary special issue incorporating scholars’ work across the medieval world (broadly dened). As an online, open-access journal, Different Visions accommodates dynamic and interactive media. We invite submissions that include digital content such as video and audio clips or three-dimensional models.

Paper proposals should consider the intersections between embodied action and material culture, including but not limited to:

• Participatory objects, performance, and spectacle

• The role of the sculpted body-in-space in structuring religious and civic ritual

• Animated images and automata

• The migration and performative uses of portable objects along pilgrimage, procession, and trade routes

• The various publics of medieval social sculpture

• The representation and/or interaction of the body with ephemeral or recyclable materials, such as votive offerings in shrine space(s) and on cult objects

• Delimiting premodern racial and religious communities through public oaths and acts of conversion

• Manipulation of the body in penitential and confessory settings

Different Visions believes that peer review should be an open, productive, and reciprocal process. Submissions are reviewed by the editors, and then sent to external reviewers. The first stage of the external review will be double blind. Following the first review, author and reviewer(s) are invited to communicate and collaborate during the remaining review process.

Please submit a proposal of no more than 300 words to differentvisionsjournal@gmail.com by October 1, 2023. First drafts of accepted essays of approximately 10,000 words will be due in Fall 2024.

For questions please reach out to differentvisionsjournal@gmail.com.

You may also reach out to the special issue editors: Kris Racaniello at kris.racaniello@gmail.com and Ariela Algaze at aalgaze1@jhu.edu.

Different Visions is supported by St. Olaf College and Oklahoma State University.

For more information, see https://differentvisions.org/proposals-social-sculpture/.

For a PDF of the Call for Proposals, click here.