[1] Touching Mary:
Marian Devotion and the Senses in the Middle Ages
[2] Inscriptions and/as Networks and Entanglements in the
Medieval Eastern Mediterranean
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[1] Touching Mary:
Marian Devotion and the Senses in the Middle Ages

Call for Papers for Session Proposal at the
International Medieval Congress (IMC 2023)
July 3 - 6, 2023
University of Leeds
Thematic focus: Networks and Entanglements

This session seeks to explore the sensory approach of the Marian cult as reflected in Eastern and Western Christianity. It aims to examine the private/collective expressions of Marian devotion in relation to the senses (touch, smell, sight, taste, and hearing) that generate forms of spiritual entanglements and mutual dependencies between human devotional practices, artefacts, and sites.
Suggested topics, on any geographic area or time period (between 300-1500) may include, but are not limited to:

- pilgrimages to Marian shrines/holy sites (incubation, dreams, and Marian miracles);
- devotion gestures based on: touch (e.g. touching the floor, kneeling, kissing), smell and its healing properties, sound, etc.;
- active/passive use of the senses in Marian devotion;
- inner senses/external senses in relation to Marian devotion;
- Marian devotion, the senses, and the liturgy (ceremonies, sermons);
- architecture/church interiors in relation to sensory effects and Marian devotion;
- personal/collective devotional practices;
- religious objects, the senses, and Marian devotion;
- sensory deprivation, mystical experience, and Marian proximity;
- visual representations and the senses: books and illustrations, paintings, mosaics, marbles, statues;
- literature: liturgical dramas/plays; books;

Submissions from a variety of disciplines are accepted including but not limited to: history, art history, visual culture, social history, cultural history, hagiography, religious studies, cultural studies, textual studies in a transdisciplinary perspective.

Please submit a 250-word proposal (in English) for a 15-20 minute paper. Proposals should have an abstract format and be accompanied by a short CV, of no more than 800 words, including e-mail, current affiliation, affiliation address, and position and your preference for whether to present in-person or virtually. Please submit all relevant documents, as PDF or Word.doc, by 12 September, 2022, to the e-mail address: znorovszkyandreagmail.com

Contact information:
Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
(znorovszkyandreagmail.com)

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[2]
From: Maria Aimé Villano
Date: Jul 26, 2022
Subject: CFP: Inscriptions and/as Networks and Entanglements in the
Medieval Eastern Mediterranean

IMC Leeds 2023, Jul 26–Sep 15, 2022
Deadline: Sep 15, 2022

The ERC GRAPH-EAST project (CESCM, University of Poitiers and CNRS) will
sponsor three sessions that explore topics dealing with “Epigraphic
Networks and Entanglements in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean” for the
International Medieval Congress 2023 in Leeds (UK).
The Medieval Mediterranean has long been thought of in terms of networks,
circulations, and dynamics of exchanges, at different scales. One type of
“network” has not yet been studied: the epigraphic network formed by
the inscriptions and graffiti in Latin alphabet of pilgrims, travellers,
crusaders, military orders and merchants. The theme for the IMC Leeds 2023,
“Networks and Entanglements,” presents an opportunity to explore the
complex set of relationships between the epigraphic writing and its web of
interactions in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The aim of the sessions is to explore, among others that might arise from
the proposals, the following four sets of questions:

• Pilgrims, churchmen, merchants, and artists moved across Europe, Africa
and Asia, back and forth. The inscriptions referring to the movements of
such social groups bear precious information about their producer’s
intentions, which can be reckoned both from their textual and linguistical
content and from their technical and material features. Do some or all of
these characteristics form a network or an entanglement? What kinds of
networks, entanglements, paths, and circulations are revealed by the
graphic signs? Is it possible to trace epigraphical recurrent patterns or
connections within a small and/or a large area such as the one between the
Eastern and Western coast of the Mediterranean basin?

• What is the relationship between inscriptions and micro (within a
building) and macro space (within a continent)? For instance, from an
architectural point of view the memory of the Holy Sepulchre was echoed in
a large series of buildings and shrines which studded the Medieval Western
realm. Is it possible to say the same about epigraphy? Were inscriptions
conceived as to evoke the Holy Land or any other area of the Eastern
Mediterranean? And vice versa, did inscriptions in the Eastern
Mediterranean recall any
Western region?

• Beyond the Latin alphabet, is it possible to think of inscriptions in
different languages
and scripts together, such as Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Syriac etc., as
forming a vast graphic network in the East? For instance, in the Holy
Places as the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Nativity
church of Bethlehem?

• Medieval inscriptions formed a network also within a large span of time
both backwards and forwards. If the classical Greek and Roman inscriptions
were related to medieval ones in terms of content and form, medieval
inscriptions had at their turn an impact on men and women of the modern and
contemporary era. What was the political, intellectual, devotional, and
social role of medieval inscriptions in modern societies? What were the
connections and the entanglements linking the men and women of the past to
the men and women of the present?
Art historic, archaeological, historic, and literary approaches are
welcome, in particular through precise case studies.

Submission guidelines
Proposals are due by September 15th to Maria Aimé Villano
(maria.aime.villano01univ- poitiers.fr), Sercan Saglam
(hasan.sercan.saglamuniv-poitiers.fr) and Estelle Ingrand-Varenne
(estelle.ingrand.varenneuniv-poitiers.fr) and must include:
• Full name
• E-mail address
• Full affiliation details (department, institution) if applicable •
Paper title
• Abstract (250 words max.)
• Keywords
• Brief bio (300 words max.)

Applicants will be notified of the outcome by September 30, 2022. Each
panel will host three papers of 20 minutes each, plus 10 minutes for
discussion.

Keywords: Inscription, Epigraphy, Eastern Mediterranean, Written Culture,
Material culture

For further information please contact: Estelle Ingrand-Varenne
(CNRS/CESCM, Poitiers –
France) estelle.ingrand.varenneuniv-poitiers.fr.

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