Call for Papers:

Sculpture and the Medieval City

Session to be held at the 2010 International Congress on Medieval
Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 13-16 May

Sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA)

Organizers: Mark Rosen (University of Texas at Dallas) and
Ittai Weinryb (Bard Graduate Center, NY).

This session aims to explore the role, meaning, function, and even
dysfunction of sculpture in the medieval city. From the ontological
value of their being objects occupying space, sculpture has always been
part of an environment. This session invites papers that ask how the use
and re-use of sculpture shaped the medieval city's definition of itself,
how sculpture illuminated medieval daily life, and how meaning was
generated through the performance of sculpture, its interaction with its
site, and its adaptation of pictorial themes resonant to local
populations. Church facades, governmental buildings, antique monuments,
fountains, and even wellheads are all suitable topics for this session.

Disciplinary and interdisciplinary developments in scholarship over the
past forty years have resulted not only in the transformation of our
understanding of sculpture and its function within civic space but also
our understanding of what medieval space and specifically medieval civic
space meant in the Middle Ages. We are seeking papers that will
illuminate, revisit and even rephrase old notions of the relationship
between the place, the media and the materiality of sculpture within the
medieval city. Papers on issues of centrality and marginality of
sculpture around sacred or secular spaces within the medieval city are
also welcomed.

DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS: 15 September 2009

Paper proposals should consist of the following:
1. Abstract of proposed paper (300 words maximum)
2. Completed Abstract Cover Sheet (available at:
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions.html#ACS
3. CV with home and office mailing addresses, e-mail address, and phone
number
4. Statement of ICMA membership status (note: all participants in ICMA
sponsored sessions are required to be members of the ICMA)

ALL PROPOSALS AND INQUIRIES SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO:
Mark Rosen
Arts and Humanities
University of Texas at Dallas
Mailing Station JO 31
800 W. Campbell Road
Richardson, TX 75080
medieval.sculpture.citygmail.com
For information about the ICMA: http://www.medievalart.org
For information about the International Medieval Congress:
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/