[1] Post-Medieval: Afterlives, Preservation and Loss of the Medieval
From: Tommaso Zerbi
Date: May 20, 2024
Deadline: Jun 5, 2024

This session interrogates the stakes, modes, and attitudes surrounding the afterlives, preservation, and loss of the medieval built environment after the end of the Middle Ages. Architectural history inherently gravitates towards comprehending the pre-existing, often downplaying responses to this condition. While the medieval built environment is the subject of extensive scholarship, the discipline tends to prioritize its medieval histories over post-medieval ones, driven by a pervasive quest for the “real” Middle Ages. Yet structures erected in the medieval period are integral components of early modern, modern, and contemporary environments and histories. Occurrences such as the Notre-Dame fire in 2019, discussions on subsequent interventions, and the ongoing construction site prompt a thorough examination of the implications arising from the absence, reworking, and care of medieval architecture within post-medieval societies. The session embraces this challenge. Recent endeavors have drawn attention to an “architectural history of medievalism” and architectural history’s responsibilities in advancing knowledge on responses to the Middle Ages. This session aims to further the conversation and shine a spotlight on the diachronic nature of medieval architecture. Highlighting an aspect that has often been undervalued, it seeks to tackle prevailing biases: the emphasis on medieval architecture in its pre-modern state and the negative evaluation of post-medieval interventions impacting the “original”. By rethinking the medieval built environment as a lens of refraction through which to delve into post-medieval histories, the session welcomes explorations into responses to this environment, while shifting focus away from the Middle Ages. Submissions may encompass any geography and historical period from the early modern to the contemporary. Papers that examine dynamic modes of interaction like annihilation, restoration, preservation, and reworking — including practices of medieval survival (continuing post-medieval enterprises that follow patterns ascribable to the medieval era) — in relation to themes such as injustice, sustainability, and crisis are particularly encouraged.

Submission Guidelines:
- Confirmed 2025 Session Chairs are not eligible to submit to the Call for Papers
- Abstracts must be under 300 words.
- The title cannot exceed 65 characters, including spaces and punctuation.
- Abstracts and titles must follow the Chicago Manual of Style.
- Only one abstract per conference by an author or co-author may be submitted.
- A maximum of three (3) authors per abstract will be accepted.
- Please attach a two-page CV in PDF format.
Abstracts are to be submitted online using the link below.

Abstracts should define the subject and summarize the argument to be presented in the proposed paper. The content of that paper should be the product of well-documented original research that is primarily analytical and interpretive, rather than descriptive in nature. Papers cannot have been previously published or presented in public except to a small, local audience (under 100 people). All abstracts will be held in confidence during the review and selection process, and only the Session Chair and Conference Chair will have access to them.

Please submit an abstract no later than 11:59 p.m. CDT on June 5, 2024, via the SAH website:
https://www.sah.org/2025/call-for-papers

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[2] Architectural Culture of Public Health and Early Modern Adriatic
From: Jasenka Gudelj
Date: May 15, 2024
Deadline: Jun 5, 2024

The Adriatic region is notable for its early advances in the field of public health, with the implementation of first-ever quarantines in Dubrovnik and Venice, integrated with elaborate anti-epidemiological lazaretto complexes in the seaports and on the frontiers. Legislation on urban form emphasised ventilation and regulated complex water and food supply infrastructures. In addition, due to the highly militarised nature of the area and the constant occupational hazards faced by seafarers, military and naval hospitals, as well as asylums for the mentally ill, were common structures.
This session aims to explore the architectural culture of public health from around 1400 to 1800, focusing on the solutions found in the Adriatic in a comparative perspective, ranging from the regulation and form of the city to the large-scale lazaretto and hospital complexes. It will explore the material implications of public health measures, arguing that they already strongly impacted architectural practice and urban form in the late medieval and early modern periods. By exploring anti-epidemiological and other health-related structures, the session will also address questions of territory, boundary and accessibility. It seeks to explore parallels between urban systems and architectural implications of public health and welfare management in different early modern political realities in the region and beyond by shifting the scholarly gaze between Italy, the lands of the Austrian Crown, and the Balkans, as well as introducing comparisons in the larger Mediterranean area. Papers may, for example, discuss how political and religious implications shaped the architectural culture of health structures in the early modern period. Papers on actors, networks and gender issues related to architecture for health are also encouraged.

Session organizer: Jasenka Gudelj, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Submission Guidelines:
- Confirmed 2025 Session Chairs are not eligible to submit to the Call for Papers
- Abstracts must be under 300 words.
- The title cannot exceed 65 characters, including spaces and punctuation.
- Abstracts and titles must follow the Chicago Manual of Style.
- Only one abstract per conference by an author or co-author may be submitted.
- A maximum of three (3) authors per abstract will be accepted.
- Please attach a two-page CV in PDF format.
Abstracts are to be submitted online using the link below.

Abstracts should define the subject and summarize the argument to be presented in the proposed paper. The content of that paper should be the product of well-documented original research that is primarily analytical and interpretive, rather than descriptive in nature. Papers cannot have been previously published or presented in public except to a small, local audience (under 100 people). All abstracts will be held in confidence during the review and selection process, and only the Session Chair and Conference Chair will have access to them.

Please submit an abstract no later than 11:59 p.m. CDT on June 5, 2024, via the SAH website:
https://www.sah.org/2025/call-for-papers