CFP: Theme issue: The South Caucasus
Supplementum 2016 of the journal Convivium. Exchanges and Interactions in the Arts of Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean. Seminarium Kondakovianum Series Nova
Deadline: June 1st, 2015
Convivium, theme issue, June 2016 – Call for Papers
Theme: The South Caucasus

The canon of medieval and Byzantine art and architecture, as currently shaped by a Euro-American art history, only rarely incorporates any of the rich artistic achievements of the South Caucasus. While church architecture and book illumination of medieval Armenia have attracted some scholarly attention, the monuments of Georgia, not to mention those of former early Christian Albania (now in the Republic of Azerbaidjan), remain obscure to even specialists in the field. As a whole, the South Caucasus continues to be entirely peripheral to the Euro-American discourse, and when included, the region is typically relegated to the status of a provincial off-shoot of the Byzantine Empire. The purpose of the present volume is to call attention to the medieval art and architecture of the South Caucasus which has for too long remained inaccessible, skewed by patriotic and racial approaches and, over the last two centuries, perceived and interpreted as part of the Russian and Soviet Empires. While addressing these historiographical issues, we want to propose the South Caucasus, not as a periphery, but as a region in its own right that is worthy of a central place in the current discourse. Whereas in recent years the study of Mediterranean culture has become a leading trend within medieval art history due to an increased interest in travel, transfer, and cultural and artistic encounters across borders and religious traditions, few are aware that, as a historical buffer zone between Europe and Asia, connecting those continents through the Black Sea and the Silk Road, Southern Caucasia is well appointed to offer new materials and directions to such on-going explorations. In contrast to Carl Schnaase , who in his Geschichte der bildenen Künste im Mittelalter (1843-61) found the continuous oppression of the South Caucasus by foreign powers incompatible with the creation of a proper artistic culture, it could be precisely this multi-colored history - blending Christian with Sassanid, Islamic and Mongolian traditions - that makes the region a promising area for research within a globalized art history.

We welcome papers on topics that may concentrate on but be not limited to:
- Historiography (i.e. the discovery of the region by early European travelers; the impact of patriotism and politics; the western/Byzantine perspective: center versus periphery; the Russian perspective).
- Specific case studies of Albanian, Armenian or Georgian monuments (architecture, manuscripts, icons, monumental decorations, etc) with attention to historiography and recent methodologies.
- South Caucasus and medieval art history today (i.e. multiculturalism; cultural transfer, travel, and object exchange; canon and chronology; center versus periphery; South Caucasus as a region in relation to Asia, Europe and Russia).
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The theme issue The South Caucasus will be edited and curated by Ivan Foletti (editor in chief of Convivium), Ass. prof. from the University of Brno and Maître Assistant of the University of Lausanne, and Prof. Erik Thunø from Rutgers University.

Convivium is a new high quality peer-reviewed academic journal which restarts and continues the glorious Seminarium Kondakovianum, the journal of the institute founded in memory of Nikodim Kondakov in 1927, which represented the desire to maintain and deepen Kondakov’s pioneering scholarly work in Byzantine and medieval studies, celebrated not only in the Russian and Czech worlds but also in western Europe. Convivium covers an extended chronological range, from the Early Christian period until the end of the Middle Ages, which in central Europe lasted well beyond the Renaissance in Italy. Equally vast is the range of subjects it treats. Whereas its central concern remains art history, that is, whatever pertains to images, monuments, the forms of visual and aesthetic experience, it also includes many disciplines tied to art history in the deepest sense: anthropology, liturgy, archaeology, historiography and, obviously, history itself. The goal is to ensure that the journal provides a 360º opening onto the field and the research methods being deployed in it.
http://www.earlymedievalstudies.com/convivium.html

Submission:
Please submit your abstract (300 words max) before June 1st, 2015. Deadline for the essay will be January 31, 2016. Abstracts should be sent to:

Ivan Foletti (ivan.folettigmail.com)
Erik Thunø (thunorci.rutgers.edu)