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[1] Contested Boundaries: Blurring the Sacred and the Secular in Late Medieval Visual Culture.
From: Shannah Rose
Date: Sep 6, 2022
Format: in-person

As Joanna Cannon has argued: “The secular and the sacred were overlapping spheres; to suggest a clear contrast between secular and sacred would thus be an anachronism.” Bearing in mind Cannon’s assertion, this session seeks papers that investigate how late medieval visual culture blurs the border between the sacred and the secular throughout the late medieval global world (ca. 1250-1500). During this period, the creation of and haptic engagement with sacred and secular architectural spaces and objects in various media operated in a state of flux. Such variability and fluidity were dependent on the socio-political context of the production, circulation, and reception of such objects and spaces, and were critically shaped by contemporary ontological and hermeneutic questions of their very nature and interpretation.

This session seeks papers that address any of the following questions: How did the uses of objects and their significance shift as they moved from space to space, from court to court, from family member to family member, from collector to collector? How did the interpretation of and engagement with spaces change as both people and objects moved through them? In what ways did wealth (or lack of it), gender, race, and ethnicity impact the audiences’ ability to access and engage with particular objects and spaces?

Possible themes and subjects include but are not limited to:
• Cloisters, cathedral spaces, civic buildings
• Altarpieces, cassone and furniture, quotidian domestic objects
• Portable books, jewelry, clothing

Keywords: sacred, secular, production, circulation, engagement, interpretation

Organizers:
Gabriela Chitwood (Ph.D. Candidate, University of Oregon) gchitwoouorgeon.edu, (she/her/hers)
Shannah Rose (Ph.D. Candidate, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) (she/her/hers), shannah.rosenyu.edu

Presider:
Nina Gonzalbez (Ph.D. Candidate, Florida State University) nmg03efsu.edu, (she/her/hers)

Submissions are due by September 15, and those wishing to submit a proposal must upload at: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions.

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[2] Political reuse of Medieval sculpture. Family strategies and (re)construction of the past.
From: Paola Vitolo
Date: Sep 6, 2022
Format: online

The iconic value of sculpture, combined with the fact that it can readily be adapted to new contexts, makes it susceptible to be reused, reenforcing new social, political and cultural messages. The session aims to analyse cases of reuse, repurposing and recarving of Medieval sculpture in the Modern Time (15th-18th centuries) inspired by the need to communicate new cultural and political messages of high symbolic value. Papers will investigate strategies of visualization of political and social claims from the part of families and royal courts, within more general processes of creation and/or consolidation of dynastic memories and powers. (https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call#special)

The session is part of the activities of the MemId (= Memory and Identity. The reuse, reworking and repurposing of Medieval sculpture in the Modern Age, from historical research to new technologies: https://memid.it/) project funded by the Italian Ministry for University and Research, which is conducting in various regions of Italy a systematic and in-depth study of the topic, with a team of young researchers. The session will be an opportunity to discuss the topic with a wide range of international scholars of different geographical and cultural areas.

Organizers: Laura Cavazzini, Clario Di Fabio, Paola Vitolo.

Please submit abstracts no later than 15 September ONLY through the ICMS Confex site at icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi
Please direct all questions or concerns to paola.vitolounina.it

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[3] Unfolding the Past. The Materiality and Temporality of Medieval Southern Italy (I and II).
From: Anna Paulinyi
Date: 05.09.2022
Format: blended

Southern Italy offers a vast and diverse collection of historical evidence. Since Antiquity, the region has been hosting civilizations committed to a thorough preservation of memory in the forms of both historic narratives and the material legacy of the past. During the Middle Ages, the splitting in separated cultural entities in contrast with each other, prompted the reclamation of the past for specific political agendas.
For instance, Norman rulers reinstalled cults from Paleo-Christian times, displaying a variety of material evidence, such as allegedly recovered bodily remains or supposed burial sites of early martyrs. Manifold are the examples on the architectural scale, such as Naples’s gothic Duomo: its pillars include juxtaposed marble columns likely taken from the early Cathedral complex, thus materially folding Christian Antiquity onto the present and hence strengthening the local episcopal authority fostered by the new Angevin rulers.
This double session aims at collecting study-cases of re-temporalized Past in Medieval Southern Italy. We are primarily interested in material evidence of conceptualizations of time, i.e. embodied by architecture and other works of art, by the use of spolia in various contexts, by collections of objects from different strata of time, by the mise-en-scène of relics and traces, etc. Instead of projecting intellectual constructs such as Antiquarianism back into the past we are interested in the immanence of history in the process of constructing the present. We propose to further explore the range of practices dealing with the folding and unfolding of time in the political and social reality of Medieval cultures.

Paper proposals must include:
• Author’s name, affiliation, and contact information
• Paper Title (15 words max)
• Abstract (300 words max)
• Short description (50 words)

Please submit abstracts no later than September 15, 2022, at the Confex submissions portal https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions#papers

Session Organizers: Antonino Tranchina, Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, Antonino.Tranchinabiblhertz.it, and Adrian Bremenkamp, Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, Adrian.Bremenkampbiblhertz.it

Sessions Sponsored by the Italian Art Society https://www.italianartsociety.org

Please note: As this is a sponsored panel, all speakers must be (or become) members of the Italian Art Society in 2023. Please note that there are free one-year sospesi memberships available for eligible speakers in IAS sponsored sessions. Information can be found on our website here: https://www.italianartsociety.org/join/

The IAS offers several types of conference travel grants which help support graduate students and junior scholars, as well as scholars who are traveling internationally to present in IAS- Sponsored sessions. Applications for these grants are announced and opened in the late fall.

More information on the various conference travel grants be found on our website: https://www.italianartsociety.org/grants-opportunities/travel-grants/

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[4] Movement & Activation: Social Sculpture in the Global Middle Ages.
From: Ariela Algaze
Date: 05.09.2022
Format: in-person

Organizers: Ariela Algaze (NYU Institute of Fine Arts), Kris Racaniello (CUNY Graduate Center)

Drawing performance studies into the larger field of medieval art history, this session seeks to address the methodological unity between materiality, sensory experience, and activation studies through the paradigm of “social sculpture.” Since Joseph Beuys introduced the term in the late 1960s, contemporary art historians investigated the potentialities of sculpture and bodies-as-sculpture to shape social communities and identity through performance. This session proposal seeks to identify ways in which this phenomenon can be applied to the study of art in the Global Middle Ages.

Transformative and performative, medieval art was integrated into the lived experience of everyday people through religious and political institutions in the form of procession, liturgy, and urban planning. Medieval viewers responded to art through offerings, drawing, graffiti, and ritual actions. We invite papers that might address how medieval sculptural programs shaped and transformed various social, political, or religious communities through direct and indirect contact. We welcome investigations excavating premodern performance practices through the paradigm of social sculpture.

We seek to open this relatively new field of study through a diverse panel focused on different geographies across Afro-Eurasia and welcome papers focused on subjects from the fifth to sixteenth century. Please submit the proposed paper title, affiliation, and an abstract of no more than 250 words for this in-person session through the ICMS portal AND email them to aa8765nyu.edu and kristen.racaniellogmail.com by September 15th.

Papers might consider, but are not limited to, the following subjects and questions:

Participatory sculpture, performance, and spectacle
The role of the sculpted body-in-space in structuring religious and civic ritual
Portable sculpture along pilgrimage, processions, and trade routes
The representation of the body with ephemeral or recyclable materials, such as votive offerings in shrine space and on cult objects
Delimiting premodern race and community building through public oaths and acts of conversion
Manipulation of the body in penitential and confessory settings

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[5] The Visual and Literary Legacy of Hrabanus Maurus.
From: Kelin Michael
Date: Sep 7, 2022
Format: in-person

Conversations with medieval art: Carte blanche to Jan Dibbets. Within the show, Dibbets paired images from Hrabanus’s In honorem sanctae crucis (In honor of the holy cross) with pieces of minimalist, conceptual, and land art to create a dialogue between the works. The relationship between the medieval and the modern world is often understudied, but Hrabanus’s work, in particular, offers an opportunity to examine the longevity, applicability, and adaptability of medieval material across time and space.

This in-person session will explore the various ways Hrabanus’s work continues to permeate visual and textual culture. We invite projects from several disciplines, including literary studies, art history, history, public humanities, and digital humanities, among others. The goal is to have presentations that build a picture of the current state of research into the relationship between word and image, both within Hrabanus' work itself and in current scholarly projects that respond to him. Topics may involve anything from creating accessible ways of interacting with Hrabanus’s works to academic interventions to curatorial exhibitions designed for public consumption. By gathering these new and varied approaches to engaging with Hrabanus, we hope to create a space for productive conversation and collaboration.

Please submit a proposal of 300 words or less via the Conference’s Confex system. Our session can be found under the “Sponsored and Special Sessions of Papers.” (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi). Email session organizers Jennifer Awes Freeman (jawes-freemanunitedseminary.edu) or Kelin Michael (kelin.tesia.michaelemory.edu) with questions. The deadline for submission is September 15th, 2022.