New Perspectives on Medieval Rome (2 Sessions)

Organizers:
Marius B. Hauknes, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Johns Hopkins University
Alison Locke Perchuk, Assistant Professor of Art History, California State University Channel Islands

Digital, environmental, material, Mediterranean, sensory, spatial: these are among the recent “turns” taken by the medieval humanities, including art history. The new perspectives on the past opened by these approaches, many of which are informed by interdisciplinary research and contemporary cultural interests in the natural and built world, are fundamentally reshaping how we conceive of and study medieval art and architecture. In the field of medieval art, the city of Rome has traditionally been a key site for the formulation of innovative avenues of approach, but what are its current status and its potential in relation to the discipline’s new discourses?
These two linked sessions seek to assess the impact of recent methodological developments on the study of the art, architecture, and urban forms of Rome during the long middle ages, ca. 300–1500. We invite papers that offer new research on, and new ways of thinking about, the visual and material culture of medieval Rome. Possible topics and perspectives include but are not limited to:

• Questions of reception and sensory experience of art, architecture, and material culture, including problems of agency and efficacy; the differing cultural and social perspectives of historical observers, the role of vision vis-à-vis other bodily senses, virtual and imaginary experiences of medieval Rome’s monuments, and concepts of animation in medieval artistic practice and contemporary theory.
• Questions of mobility and cultural exchange in the study of the visual and material culture of medieval Rome; the effects of trans-regional intellectual and artistic exchange on distinctively Roman representational practices, the place of Rome within artistic, cultural, and commercial networks.
• Eco-critical, environmental, and material perspectives on the art, architecture, and urban forms of medieval Rome; the physicality of built and natural environments, expressions of physical and spiritual topographies, and the relationship between matter and meaning in artistic and religious practices.
• Newly discovered or previously overlooked works of art and architecture that challenge traditional art historical narratives; new knowledge and insights provided by technical art history and conservation; re-assessments of the historiographic lives of artists, objects, and monuments; advantages offered by comparative analyses between the art and architecture of medieval Rome and that of other cultures and historical periods.

The two sessions will serve as a forum for productive and collaborative dialogue among emerging, mid-career, and senior scholars whose work places the study of medieval Roman art and architecture in dialogue with broader methodological, technological, and theoretical developments in the discipline and in the humanities.

Please direct inquiries/submissions to the organizers at mhaukne1jhu.edu and alison.perchukcsuci.edu. Information about the conference, including proposal submission forms, may be found at http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html.

Speakers do not need to be members of the Italian Art Society at the time of their proposal. It is, however, expected that those not already members will join prior to the conference. Limited travel funds are available on a competitive basis through the Italian Art Society. See www.italianartsociety.org for additional information.