Exhibition: The Nature of Gothic: Reflecting the Natural World in Historic and Contemporary Artistic Practice, Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, England, 13 Sept. 2025 - 13 Dec. 2025

Exhibition

The Nature of Gothic: Reflecting the Natural World in Historic and Contemporary Artistic Practice

Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery

Blackburn, England

13th September – 13th December 2025

Inspired by John Ruskin’s phrase “the nature of gothic”, this exhibition explores how artists across centuries have represented the natural world.

From Blackburn’s Hart collection of medieval and Islamic manuscripts, works from the Arts and Crafts Movement, including: ceramics, textiles, Private Press Books, and works by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Contemporary artistic responses further demonstrate the influence of the natural world.

The exhibition is part of the outcomes from the Museum’s National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status, awarded by Arts Council England, as part of a wider story of cultural renewal in Blackburn.

‘The Nature of Gothic’ has also been supported by the Brian Mercer Trust, and by loans from a wide range of museums and galleries across the UK.

Once shaped by industrial wealth, Blackburn is now redefining its identity through art, heritage and community partnerships.

For more information, visit https://blackburnmuseum.org.uk/whats-on/the-nature-of-gothic/

Exhibition Closing: Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Château de Chantilly, France, 7 June 2025 - 5 Oct. 2025

Exhibition Closing

Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry

Château de Chantilly, Institut de France

Chantilly, France

7 June to 5 October 2025

© RMN-GP

Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is the most famous manuscript in the world. Described as the ‘Mona Lisa’ of manuscripts, this collection of offices and prayers made especially for the Duke of Berry, brother of King Charles V of France, is a testament to the splendour and artistic refinement of the late Middle Ages.

Produced throughout the 15th century, this exceptional work was illuminated by the Limbourg brothers, distinguished artists affiliated with the courts of Burgundy and Berry, whose work profoundly transformed the course of art history. Consisting of 121 miniatures, Les Très Riches Heures capture the imagination with their depictions of historic castles, noble scenes and seasonal work in the fields that have shaped our perception of the Middle Ages.

To celebrate the restoration of this masterpiece, which has only been shown to the public twice since the end of the 19th century, an international exhibition has been set up, featuring almost 150 exhibits from all over the world. The exhibition provides visitors with an insight into each stage of the creation of the Très Riches Heures over almost a century and explains why the manuscript is still so popular.

For more information, visit https://chateaudechantilly.fr/en/evenement/les-tres-riches-heures-du-duc-de-berry/

Exhibition Closing: Another History of The Book of Hours, Château de Chantilly, France, 7 June 2025 - 6 Oct. 2025

Exhibition closing

Another History of The Book of Hours

Château de Chantilly, Institut de France

Chantilly, France

7 June to 6 October 2025

The Present Hours for the Use of Tournai are complete, without omissions. Printed in Paris for Simon Vostre around 1512 The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, hand-colored woodcut. © Musée Condé

As an extension of the major exhibition devoted to Les Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, the Reading Room presents a remarkable collection of over fifty Books of Hours, both manuscripts and printed editions, dating from the late 12th to the 19th century. These once-overlooked works now reveal the rich and fascinating history of a treasured book form that was both dreamt of and venerated.

What can be found in the Books of Hours? How, by whom and where are they created? Why are they so important in the history of art and books in general? All the questions that might be asked about books of hours are addressed in the works on display.

For more information, visit https://chateaudechantilly.fr/en/evenement/another-history-of-the-book-of-hours/

New Exhibition: Fra Angelico, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy, 26 Sept. 2025 - 25 Jan. 2026

New Exhibition

Fra Angelico

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy

26 September 2025 - 25 January 2026

Beato Angelico, Trittico francescano (det.), 1428-1429. Su concessione del Ministero della Cultura – Direzione regionale Musei nazionali Toscana – Museo di San Marco

From September 26, 2025, to January 25, 2026, the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco present Fra Angelico, an extraordinary and unprecedented exhibition devoted to an artist who symbolises fifteenth-century Florentine art and stands out as one of the greatest masters of Italian art of all time.

The exhibition, organized in collaboration between the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, the Ministero della Cultura – Direzione regionale Musei nazionali Toscana and Museo di San Marco in a close dialogue between cultural institutions and the region, is one of the leading cultural events of 2025. It celebrates a father of the Renaissance in two venues: the Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco.

The exhibition explores Fra Angelico’s art, development and influence and his relation to painters such as Lorenzo Monaco, Masaccio, and Filippo Lippi, as well as sculptors like Lorenzo Ghiberti, Michelozzo, and Luca della Robbia. Curated by Carl Brandon Strehlke, Curator Emeritus of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with – for the Museo di San Marco – Angelo Tartuferi, former Director of the Museo di San Marco, and Stefano Casciu, Regional Director of Musei nazionali Toscana, Fra Angelico marks the first major exhibition in Florence dedicated to the artist exactly seventy years after the monographic show of 1955, creating a unique dialogue between institutions and the region.

For more information, visit https://www.palazzostrozzi.org/en/archivio/exhibitions/angelico/,

Call for Papers: Cambridge Medieval History Graduate Workshop for Michaelmas Term 2025 (Virtual and In-Person), Due by 29 Sept. 2025

Call for Papers

Cambridge Medieval History Graduate Workshop for Michaelmas Term 2025

Virtual and In-Person

Due by 29 September 2025

The Cambridge Medieval History Graduate Workshop is inviting paper submissions for Michaelmas term 2025. We host presentations on the cultures, economies, literature, material cultures, politics, thought, religions, and reception of the medieval world, which we define as broadly as possible as the global period between c.500 and c.1500. We welcome interdisciplinary scholarship and encourage submissions which stretch our conception of ‘medieval’ in
time or space, from late antiquity to modern reception and from Scandinavia to the Middle East and beyond, or which deal with the practice of medieval history.

These short 15–20-minute workshop papers are excellent ways to share your work, gain presentation experience, and receive constructive feedback in a supportive environment run for and by graduate students. In terms of scope, we are looking for focused studies that offer snapshots into ongoing graduate research, and particularly encourage primary source work and case studies, rather than sweeping overviews of large topics or summaries of entire dissertations/theses.

We welcome submissions from Master’s and PhD students from any discipline or university, but especially encourage graduate students based in or around Cambridge to submit. Accepted speakers will have the opportunity to be featured on our blog, Camedieval. The Workshop meets alternate Thursdays, 4–5 :30pm, with the option of virtual attendance on Microsoft Teams for audience members. In each session we will have two 15–20-minute papers, followed by in-person socialising and refreshments.

Please send abstracts of not more than 250 words and a short bio by 29th September 2025 to: cambridgemedieval@gmail.com.

For more information, visit https://medieval.ox.ac.uk/2025/09/11/cfp-cambridge-medieval-history-graduate-workshop/

Exhibition: Retablos II: Spanish Paintings and Polychromed Sculpture from the 13th to 16th Centuries, Sam Fogg Gallery, London, 18 Sept. 2025 - 17 Oct. 2025

Exhibition

Retablos II

Spanish Paintings and Polychromed Sculpture from the 13th to 16th Centuries

Sam Fogg Gallery, London, England

18 September - 17 October 2025

The late medieval period was a time of extraordinary artistic dynamism in the Spanish kingdoms. Among its most remarkable expressions was the retablo, a type of fixed monumental altarpiece unique to the Iberian Peninsula. Positioned behind the altar table and completely filling the apse in a display of brilliant colours and shimmering gold leaf, Spanish retablos reached towering dimensions, combining panel paintings, polychromed sculptures and sumptuous traceried frames. Their scale, presence, and graphic depiction of the lives and deaths of the Christian saints made them the visual and spiritual focus of Spanish churches, framing the liturgy and guiding devotion. 

Over the centuries, many retablos were dismembered as a result of renovation, changing taste, or simple decay. Most have been scattered across private collections and museums right around the world, a process which, paradoxically, often ensured their survival. Following the success of the gallery's first exhibition of Spanish late-medieval retablos in 2019, this new iteration brings together eighteen panel paintings alongside five polychromed sculptures created by artists working in the wealthy northern Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon between around 1250 and 1520. Selected highlights from the exhibition can be seen below, by scrolling down this page, but a complete digital catalogue of the exhibition is available upon request. 

The arresting, inventive, and iconographically complex works of art brought together for this new exhibition all reflect the rich and rapidly changing artistic climate that characterised the Iberian Peninsula during the period. The earliest paintings in the group vividly document the influence of the so-called 'International Gothic' style with its decorative stylisation, rich colour and lavish application of gold, which persisted in Spain longer than anywhere else in Europe. As we move through the fifteenth century however, we begin to discern new models and innovations introduced from Northern Europe through trade routes, itinerant artists and the circulation of drawings and prints. Rather than abandoning tradition, artists and workshops right across Spain adapted to change in remarkable, creative ways, assimilating foreign influences and transforming them into a distinctive Iberian style which, though regionally diverse, stands out for its material richness and complexity. Collectively, these astonishing and arresting works of art help to shine a searing light on the extraordinary artistic splendour of medieval Spain as it developed and evolved from the end of the Romanesque to the birth of the Renaissance.

For more information, visit https://www.samfogg.com/exhibitions/64/

Gallery Reopening: Arms and Armor Galleries, Worcester Art Museum, MA, 22 November 2025

Gallery Reopening

Arms and Armor Galleries

Worcester Art Museum, MA

Opens 22 November 2025

Image: Concept design rendering for the forthcoming arms and armor galleries. Courtesy TSKP x IKD.

Building a new home for a beloved collection

Work is currently underway on the Worcester Art Museum’s new Arms and Armor Galleries, opening on November 22, 2025. Through innovative design solutions and immersive displays, the new 5,000-square-foot galleries will allow visitors to explore more than 1,000 objects from the Museum’s Higgins Armory Collection, the second largest of its kind in the country. 

For more information about the opening, visit https://www.worcesterart.org/about/campus-transformation/arms-and-armor-gallery/

For more information about the Arms and Armor Galleries, visit https://www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/arms-and-armor/

Call for Submissions: Season 5 of The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast (MMA), Due by 15 Oct. 2025

Call for Submissions

Season 5 of

The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast (MMA)

Due By 15 October 2025

After four successful seasons, The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast (MMA) will return for its fifth in 2026. Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America, MMA is an anthology-style podcast that seeks to continue conversations and generate new avenues of inquiry related to the Middle Ages that emphasize the period’s diversity and the scholarship related to it. We highlight thoughtful reflections on culturally responsible approaches to the study of the Middle Ages (expansive beyond western Europe) and its afterlives.

We invite proposals from individuals and collaborators of all ranks and disciplines, especially graduate students, for single podcast episodes aimed at fellow medievalists and the wider public.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• innovative methodological/disciplinary approaches to the Middle Ages

• the future of medieval studies

• research on the multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic Middle Ages

• discussions of recent scholarship

• archival discoveries

• academic activism and responses to misappropriations of the Middle Ages

• pedagogical approaches

• medievalisms

• medieval culture in contemporary political and public discourse

• cultural heritage and approaches to curating exhibitions of the Middle Ages

Possible formats may include narrative expositions, interviews, textual analysis, visual analysis, oral performances, and panel discussions.

No previous experience with podcasting is required. The Graduate Student Committee of the MAA has hosted several podcasting workshops, which are now available on the MAA YouTube channel. If accepted, an MMA team member will support you through the episode development process and post- production.

To help us assess the project’s potential, your submission should include a brief description (500 words) of your proposed episode, noting the following:

• the chosen topic and its relevance

• the plan for adapting the topic to a podcast medium (we encourage 35–45 min. episodes but also welcome proposals for shorter or longer episodes)

• the episode format (interview, narrative, etc.) with an outline of its structure

• if you require technical assistance to realize the episode (by facilitating an interview, helping record the episode, or taking care of the audio editing)

Please also include each author’s name and CV.

Submit your proposals and any questions to mmapodcast1@gmail.com and Loren Cantrell (lorenlee325@gmail.com) by October 15, 2025.

Full call available on the website: https://www.multiculturalmiddleages.com/

The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast Production Team

Will Beattie | wbeattie@nd.edu

Jonathan Correa Reyes | jonatcr@clemson.edu

Loren Easterday Lee Cantrell | lorenlee325@gmail.com

Reed O’Mara | reed.omara@gmail.com

Logan Quigley | quigleylogan@gmail.com

Online Event: Index of Medieval Art: Database Training Session, 7 Oct. 2025 10:00-11:00AM EST

Online Event

Index of Medieval Art

Database Training Session

October 7, 2025, 10:00 – 11:00 am EST

Musician playing bagpipe, manuscript miniature, Cantigas de Santa María, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, MS B.I.2, fol. 313v (Seville, 1280-1300). Photo: RBME. Patrimonio Nacional (Index system no. pap20250730036)

We are pleased to announce that the Index will be holding an online training session for anyone interested in learning more about the database! It will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, October 7, 2025 from 10:00 – 11:00 am EST.
This session, led by Index specialists Maria Alessia Rossi and Jessica Savage, will demonstrate how the database can be used with advanced search options, filters, and browse tools to locate works of medieval art. There will be a Q&A period at the end of the session, so please bring any questions you might have about your research!

Please note that this session will not be recorded.

To register, visit https://ima.princeton.edu/index_training/

Workshop: Books for the Soul: Personal Devotion in the Middle Ages, Denva Gallant, at Harvard University, 16 Oct. 2025 at 10:30am-12:30pm AND 3:00-5:00pm

Houghton-Medieval Studies Workshop on Early Book History

Books for the Soul: Personal Devotion in the Middle Ages

Denva Gallant (Rice University)

Hofer Classroom, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

October 16, 2025, 10:30AM - 12:30PM ET and 3:00PM - 5:00 PM ET

Space in this hands-on workshop with Denva Gallant (Rice University) is limited. To register for the 10:30am-12:30pm workshop, please click here, and to register for the 3:00-5:00pm workshop, please click here.

Medieval readers turned to books not only for knowledge, but also for the nourishment of their spiritual lives. In this workshop, we will explore manuscripts from Houghton Library that reveal the many ways books shaped practices of prayer, meditation, and moral reflection. Together, we will consider these manuscripts as artefacts of personal devotion: how their texts, images, and physical features reflect the intentions of scribes and patrons; how signs of use capture the habits of readers; and how such books created spaces for private piety while also connecting to wider devotional communities. By situating them in their artistic and historical contexts, we will gain insight into the lived experience of devotion in the later Middle Ages.

Books for the Soul: Personal Devotion in the Middle Ages will be offered once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and space is limited. Please register for one session only.

For more information on the morning workshop, click here.

For more information on the afternoon workshop, click here.

Lecture: Considering Withdrawal in Images of the Vitae patrum (Lives of the Desert Fathers), Denva Gallant, at Harvard University, 13 Oct. 2025 5:30-7:00PM

Houghton-Medieval Studies Lecture on Early Book History

Considering Withdrawal in Images of the Vitae patrum (Lives of the Desert Fathers)

Denva Gallant (Rice University)

Edison & Newman Room, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

October 13, 2025, 5:30- 7:00PM ET

Co-sponsored by Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers defined their lives through acts of withdrawal. Anthony the Abbot’s withdrawal from the fringes of his village to the desert inspired a generation of ascetics and gave rise to an entire genre of hagiography, the vita. Through a close analysis of the lives of Onuphrius and Marina the Virgin, this talk by Denva Gallant explores how Morgan Library MS. M.626 teaches the fourteenth-century viewer to cultivate a rich inner life. Produced at a moment when lay Christians, like Giordano’s audience on the first Sunday of Lent, were being invited to withdraw to private “deserts” in their own homes, the illuminations in this manuscript promote the virtue of total reliance on God—a posture that is essential if withdrawal is to lead to salvation. 

For more information, visit https://medieval.fas.harvard.edu/event/houghton-medieval-studies-lecture-early-book-history-12

Lecture: The Materiality of the Voynich Manuscript, Lisa Fagin Davis, at University of Toronto, 26 Sept. 2025 2:30-4:30PM

Lecture

The Materiality of the Voynich Manuscript

Lisa Fagin Davis

3rd Floor, Lillian Massey Building, 125 Queen's Park, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 2C7

Friday, September 26, 2025 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Voynich Manuscript f. 71r Photo credit: Beinecke

The Centre for Medieval Studies welcomes Lisa Fagin Davis (Executive Director, Medieval Academy of America) to present "The Materiality of the Voynich Manuscript", a talk on her recent work using forensic evidence to hypothesize the original sequence of bifolia in the codex. Register for either in-person or virtual attendance.

For more information and to register, visit https://www.medieval.utoronto.ca/events/lisa-fagin-davis-materiality-voynich-manuscript

Lisa Fagin Davis received her PhD in Medieval Studies from Yale University in 1993. She has catalogued medieval manuscript collections at Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, the Walters Art Museum, Wellesley College, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Boston Public Library, and several private collections. Her publications include: the Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Vol. IV (with R. G. Babcock and P. Rusche, Tempe, 2004); The Gottschalk Antiphonary (Cambridge University Press, 2000); numerous articles in the fields of manuscript studies and codicology; and the monograph, La Chronique Anonyme Universelle: Reading and Writing History in Fifteenth-Century France (a translation, critical edition and detailed study of a fifteenth-century French world chronicle, published by Brepols Publishers in 2015). Dr. Davis was a member of the EAMMS working group that established initial standards for electronic cataloguing of pre-1600 manuscript material and is currently serving on the Advisory Boards of Digital Scriptorium and of the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts. With Melissa Conway, Davis is co-author of the Directory of Pre-1600 Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, published online by the Bibliographical Society of America and as Volume 109:3 of the Papers of the BSA. She regularly teaches an introduction to manuscript studies at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science and is the author of "The Manuscript Road Trip," a blog devoted to promoting collections of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in North America. In 2016, she co-curated the major exhibition "Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections" at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Dr. Davis is currently serving as Executive Director of the Medieval Academy of America.

Lecture: Beyond Text: Objects and Manuscripts in Sacred Storerooms across Medieval Africa, Dr. Ariel Fein, at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 6 Nov. 2025 7:00-8:30PM

Carl Sheppard Memorial Lecture in Medieval Art History

Beyond Text: Objects and Manuscripts in Sacred Storerooms across Medieval Africa

Dr. Ariel Fein

1210 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave S, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Thursday 6 November 2025 | 7 - 8:30 PM

The Cairo Geniza has long been celebrated as an accidental archive of “sacred trash”—a repository where medieval Jews deposited worn texts bearing God’s name. But what if this narrative of passive preservation of manuscripts obscures a more dynamic reality? Alongside manuscripts, the Geniza also preserved Torah ark doors, dedicatory panels, and carved inscriptions that moved between the synagogue’s walls and the storage chamber across centuries. This material reality—long overlooked in favor of textual treasures—reveals a broader phenomenon across medieval Africa. From the Great Mosque of Kairouan, where precious Qur’ans shared space with chandeliers, woodcarvings, armor, and manuscript chests, to Ethiopian monasteries preserving textiles beneath parchment deposits, to Coptic churches assembling new sanctuary screens from centuries-old wooden fragments, religious communities across the Mediterranean world stored objects and texts together in sacred repositories. Drawing on new evidence from Jewish, Islamic, and Christian sites, this lecture reveals how the medieval Mediterranean and Africa were connected through unexpected practices of material preservation—and what these practices tell us about memory, devotion, and the very nature of the sacred in the medieval world.

Ariel Fein is an art historian specializing in the visual cultures of Byzantium and the Islamic world, with a particular focus on intercultural and interreligious relationships across the Mediterranean. Her forthcoming book, Refugee to Kingmaker: George of Antioch and the Shaping of Norman Sicilian Visual Culture, examines how a twelfth-century Arab-Christian refugee rose from displacement to become Norman Sicily’s most influential administrator and cultural innovator. Her current project, Medieval Wood Networks, investigates the circulation, consumption, and preservation of decorated wooden objects across the Mediterranean, including extensive research on the carved furnishings of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue. Her research has been supported by the Institute for Advanced Study, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bard Graduate Center, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture. Dr. Fein received her PhD from Yale University and holds degrees from the Courtauld Institute of Art and Barnard College.

The Carl Sheppard Lecture is an annual lecture in honor of the late Carl Sheppard, former University of Minnesota professor of medieval European art history. Begun in 2012 and held every fall, the Carl Sheppard Memorial Lecture in Medieval Art History celebrates the richness and diversity of global medieval art by inviting an internationally-renowned scholar to the University of Minnesota. The event is open to the University community and the general public.

If you would like to make a gift, you can contribute to the Carl Sheppard Memorial Fund through the University of Minnesota Foundation. 

This event is cosponsored by the James Ford Bell Library and the Center for Jewish Studies.

For more information and to register, visit https://cla.umn.edu/premodern/news-events/events/beyond-text-objects-and-manuscripts-sacred-storerooms-across-medieval-africa

Curator Roundtable: Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life, The Morgan Library & Museum, 17 Sept. 2025 6-7 PM

Curator Roundtable

Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life

Gilder Lehrman Hall, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY

Wednesday, 17 September 2025, 6–7 PM

Chanting Clerics, from the Windmill Psalter, England, London, late thirteenth century. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.102, fol. 100r (det).

Tickets: Free; advance registration is required.

Join curators Roger Wieck, Deirdre Jackson, Joshua O’Driscoll, and Frederica Law-Turner to explore the exhibition’s themes and objects. Moderated by art historian Lucy Freeman Sandler, the discussion will delve into the Psalms’ origins, the uses of Psalters in daily life, and the curatorial process.

The Hebrew Book of Psalms is a collection of sacred poems that constitute the longest and most popular book of the Bible. These poems include expressions of lament and loss, petitions and confessions, as well as exclamations of joy and thanksgiving— universal themes that speak to what it means to be human. The exhibition Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life traces the impact of the Psalms on men and women in medieval Europe from the sixth to the sixteenth century.

The program takes place in Gilder Lehrman Hall on the Ground Floor. Doors to the Hall will open 30 minutes before the program begins. Attendees are invited to view Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life from 5:30-6 PM.

Please e-mail public_programs@themorgan.org with questions about accessibility.

For more information and to register, visit https://www.themorgan.org/programs/curator-roundtable-sing-new-song-psalms-medieval-art-and-life

Lecture: Mirror of Eternity: The Croce Dipinta and the Franciscans Between Medieval and Renaissance, Holly Flora, at Boston College, 23 Sept. 2025 6-7pm and reception

The Annual Josephine von Henneberg Lecture in Italian Art

Mirror of Eternity: The Croce Dipinta and the Franciscans Between Medieval and Renaissance

Professor Holly Flora

Tuesday, September 23

6:00–7:00 pm, with reception to follow

McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA

Free; Open to the public; McMullen Museum of Art, 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 111

The McMullen Museum and the Art, Art History & Film Department welcome Holly Flora, Professor of Art History at Tulane University, whose work sheds new light on the legendary artist Cimabue, revealing his sophisticated engagement with complicated intellectual and theological ideas about materials, memory, beauty, and experience. 

Holly Flora's scholarly work explores the themes of narrative, imagination, materiality, and gender in the devotional art of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy. Flora authored The Devout Belief of the Imagination: the Paris Meditationes Vitae Christi and Female Franciscan Spirituality in Trecento Italy (Brepols, 2009) and was recently awarded the Premio San Francesco from the Pontifical University of Saint Anthony (Antonianum) in Rome for her book Cimabue and the Franciscans (Brepols, 2018). She is also co-editor, along with Sarah S. Wilkins, of Art and Experience in Trecento Italy: Studies from the Andrew Ladis Memorial Conference in New Orleans, and is co-editor of the book series Trecento Forum. She is also co-editor with Peter Toth of The Meditationes Vitae Christi Recosidered: New Perspectives on Text and Image (Brepols, 2021). Her articles have appeared in a number of journals, including Gesta, Ikon, Studies in Iconography, Art History, and I Tatti Studies, as well as several edited volumes of essays. She has received a number of research fellowships, including awards from the American Association of University Women, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, the Samuel Kress Foundation, and the International Center of Medieval Art. In 2010-11 she was appointed the Millicent Mercer Johnsen Rome Prize Fellow in Medieval Studies at the American Academy in Rome and in 2015-16 she was the Jean-Francois Malle Fellow at the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti in Florence.

Co-sponsored by the Art, Art History, & Film Department and the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College

For more information, click here.

Lecture: Extracting the Past: How the ‘AI’ Industry Exploits Art History and What We Can Do to Stop It, Sonja Drimmer, at Wesleyan University (CT), 16 Sept. 2025 4:30 pm

Lecture

Extracting the Past: How the ‘AI’ Industry Exploits Art History and What We Can Do to Stop It

Sonja Drimmer

Tuesday, September 16, 2025 at 4:30pm

Boger Hall, Room 112, 41 Wyllys Avenue, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut

Free and open to the public.

Sonja Drimmer, Associate Professor of Medieval Art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will discuss the relationship between artificial intelligence and the practice of art history in the lecture “Extracting the Past: How the ‘AI’ Industry Exploits Art History and What We Can Do to Stop It.”

Over the last several years, universities and museums have partnered with commercial technology firms like Google, Microsoft, and Meta, who have promised that their AI products will enhance both historical research and accessibility to historical collections. These promises, however, are not supported by the reality of what computer vision—the branch of AI most relevant to the history of art—can achieve. So why have major institutions in education and the arts been so quick to take up these firms' offers?

This talk responds to this question by providing an introduction to computer vision’s origins in military surveillance, an overview of its development under late capitalist regimes of exploitative micro-labor, and an orientation to how computer vision works. However, the main focus of this talk is not what computer vision does. Rather, Drimmer considers the culture of the AI industry, its main objectives, and the dangerous vision for the future that it promises—and whether those promises are credible or even in good faith. This vision for the future has relied on extracting history, and art history in particular, and Drimmer argues that it is our responsibility as art historians to be knowledgeable about the forms this extraction takes. Drimmer concludes with suggestions about what we can do to protect the subjects and practitioners of our discipline, as well as education in the humanities more broadly, against this incursion. Drimmer does not intend an intransigent rejection of a given technology; rather this talk articulates a challenge that is grounded in knowledge of the historical origins and corporate practices of the AI industry today.

Drimmer is Associate Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A scholar of medieval European art with expertise in illuminated manuscripts and early print, Drimmer's longstanding interests in premodern notions of reproduction, replication, and media theory have led her to move beyond the medieval world and focus on the relationship between modern technology--from photography to artificial intelligence--and the history of art. Her first book, The Art of Allusion: Illuminators and the Making of English Literature, 1403–1476 (UPenn, 2018) is the first study devoted to the origins of the English literary canon as an illustrated corpus, and it received High Commendation for Exemplary Scholarship from the Historians of British Art. She is currently completing a monograph titled Impressive Politics: Print before the Press in Late Medieval England. Her writing on AI has appeared in both public and academic venues, including Artforum, The International Journal for Digital Art History, The Conversation, Art in America, and Art News.

Sponsored by the Samuel Silipo ’85 Distinguished Visitors Fund, Department of Art and Art History, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, and the Medieval Studies Program.

For more information, visit https://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2025/09-2025/09162025-sonja-drimmer.html

Call for Papers: Journeys — Borders — Encounters, SASMARS Biennial International Conference (2-6 Sept. 2026, Stellenbosch, South Africa), Due by 31 Dec. 2025

Call for Papers

The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SASMARS) Biennial International Conference

Journeys — Borders — Encounters

Mont Fleur Conference Venue, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2-6 September 2026

Due by 31 December 2025

We are pleased to announce that the 27th Biennial International SASMARS Conference will be held from 3 to 6 September 2026 at the Mont Fleur Conference Venue in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Papers for this interdisciplinary conference may cover any period within the Middle Ages and Renaissance, in any geographical space, and deal with any area of interest or discipline that could be relevant to the topic “Journeys — Borders — Encounters”.

Ideas to consider could include, but need not be limited to:

• Travel and migration

• Spiritual journeys and pilgrimage

• Trade routes, trade, and trade goods

• Encounters between cultures, peoples, religions, and the like

• Physical or metaphorical boundaries

• Maps and map-making

• Evirnoments and ecology

• Medicine and medical knowledge exchange

• Intellectual and textual encounters and exchanges

• War and campaigning

Proposals should consist of a title and abstract of up to 250 words, as well as the author’s name, affiliation, contact details, and a brief biography of no more than 100 words. Papers should be no longer than 20 minutes when read (approximately 2,500 words) and will be followed by a Q and A.

Please submit proposals to Carin Marais (samedrensociety@gmail.com) by 31 December 2025. Any enquiries can be sent to the same email address.

Our keynote speaker for the 2026 conference will be Professor Jordi Sánchez-Martí of the University of Alicante, Spain.

Professor Sánchez-Martí, B.A. (Jaume I), M.A. (Bristol), Ph.D. (Cornell) is a professor in English Literature and a Partner Principal Investigator on Re-mediating the Early Book: Pasts and Futures (REBPAF). Professor Sánchez-Martí has a particular interest in Middle English romances and their transmission, as well as Iberian books of chivalry in English translation and their circulation.

Please click for the conference details. More information and contact details on the SASMARS Facebook page and website.

Call for Papers for Special Session: Queer(ing) Medieval Art (2): New Queer Notations: Glimpses, Sketches, Fledgling Ideas, ICMS Kalamazoo 2026, Due by 15 Sept. 2025

call for Papers for Special Session

Queer(ing) Medieval Art (2)

New Queer Notations: Glimpses, Sketches, Fledgling Ideas

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI

May 14-16, 2026

Due by 15 September 2025

Fledgling ideas and reflections on queer(ing) medieval art often begin as glimpses and sketches. Scholars regularly set these “small” discoveries or field notes aside in the hopes of returning to them later or building them into larger, more formalized projects. This exploratory session invites speakers to share in-progress research or potential new approaches to queer medieval studies, with the aim of fostering generative conversations and collaborations. Following five to six lightning papers (max. 10–12 minutes), the session organizers will act as respondents and discussion facilitators. We invite participants to return to those provocative, marginal, or fugitive pieces of visual and material culture they have yet to “solve,” and to expand the possibilities and directions of the field.

To reduce barriers, this session is being offered in a hybrid format. Speakers are welcome to present virtually or in person.

Please submit proposals, including an abstract of no more than 100 words, via the ICMS-Kalamazoo Confex website by September 15, 2025: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7381

Questions? Contact Kris Racaniello (kris.racaniello@gmail.com) or Erika Loic (eloic@fsu.edu).

Call for Papers for Session: Queer(ing) Medieval Art (1): Queer Spatiality, ICMS Kalamazoo 2026, Due by 15 Sept. 2025

Call for Papers for Session

Queer(ing) Medieval Art (1)

Queer Spatiality

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI

May 14-16, 2026

Due by 15 September 2025

De balneis Puteolanis, Italy, ca. 1400 (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, detail of MS G.74 fol. 19r)

Centering the relational as subject, this session defines spatiality through the interpersonal and intermedial, seeking papers addressing queer places and spaces. Although typically evocative of architectural studies, we envision "Queer Spatiality" as an expansive category, encompassing a variety of subfields, including performance studies, sensory studies, and textual studies. This session seeks papers addressing the places and spaces where queer people moved, lived, died, bathed, and made. Where was medieval queerness practiced, resisted, felt out, negotiated, managed, materialized, forbidden, or visualized?

Presenters might address how liquid waterworks or textile architectures shaped queer medieval identities and communities, discussing, for example, caravansaries or bathhouses, or soundscapes generated by itinerant sexworkers' pavilions. How did class factor into making and archiving queer space? Other subjects might include the production of queer olfactory zones, "unsettled" living or settlement rejection (broadly defined, from migration to enslavement), burial settings as utopian community building, explorations of the materials, construction methods, and iconographies that characterized or archived these spaces and architectures, etc. We particularly welcome papers with a secular/non-Christian medieval queer or Trans* focus and especially papers on lesbians/wlw.

*The ICMA is able to offer Kress Foundation reimbursements for this session for domestic travel up to $600; overseas travel up to $1200: https://www.medievalart.org/kress-travel-grant

Please submit proposals, including an abstract of no more than 100 words, via the ICMS-Kalamazoo Confex website by September 15, 2025: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7380

Questions? Contact Kris Racaniello (kris.racaniello@gmail.com) or Erika Loic (eloic@fsu.edu).

Please consider submitting to one of two Queer(ing) Medieval Art sessions at Kalamazoo! This IN-PERSON session is sponsored by the ICMA (reimbursements for domestic travel up to $600; overseas travel up to $1200).

Call for Papers for Special Session: Contesting the Sacred: Profanation, Theft, and Claims over Religious Images, ICMS Kalamazoo 2026, Online Event, Due by 13 Sept. 2025

Call for Papers for Special Session

Contesting the Sacred: Profanation, Theft, and Claims over Religious Images

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI

May 14-16, 2026

Online Event

Due by 13 September 2025

This session investigates the complex dynamics involving sacred images and relics in the medieval period, focusing on profanation, theft, and disputes over ownership that reshaped their spiritual, social, and cultural significance. It examines acts of contestation that challenged established hierarchies and redefined sacrality. The panel will explore how medieval communities negotiated power, devotion, and identity through their relationships with sacred objects, with particular emphasis on the intertwined role of images and relics in religious life and social contexts.

Interdisciplinary contributions are encouraged, particularly in art history and anthropology. Through in-depth case studies covering various media, geographic areas, and historical periods, participants will analyze both symbolic meanings and practical implications of possession and contestation. The session will explore the social, legal, and theological frameworks that shaped late medieval perceptions of ownership, sacrality, and profanation, highlighting their role in conflicts and negotiations surrounding sacred objects.

This session aims to provide a nuanced understanding of how medieval societies engaged with sacred images and relics beyond veneration. It will highlight the cultural, devotional, and political tensions underpinning these interactions, offering new perspectives on authority, piety, and subversion within the medieval religious landscape.

Scholars are invited to submit a 300-word abstract, excluding references. Proposals should also include name, affiliation, email address, the title of the presentation, 6 keywords, a selective bibliography, and a short CV. Please send the documents to kalamazoocallforpapers@gmail.com by September 13, 2025.