Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art (AVISTA) invites paper proposals for From Tree to Truss, its two in-person sessions at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (8-10 May 2025). Paper proposals will be accepted through the Confex proposal portal through 15 September 2024. If you have any questions in the interim, don’t hesitate to reach out to session co-organizer Lindsay Cook (lsc5353psu.edu).

1. From Tree to Truss: Wood in Medieval Building(s).

The 2019 Notre-Dame fire laid bare vast quantities of a building material ubiquitous throughout the medieval world, yet sometimes concealed from view: wood. Despite their practical, structural, and even symbolic importance, the wooden elements of medieval buildings often go unheralded in scholarship or are treated in isolation from building materials like earth, brick, and stone rather than in concert with them. This session welcomes papers that take a range of approaches to the use of wood in medieval construction (e.g. as formwork or scaffolding) and/or in the finished structures themselves (e.g. as roof trusses or vaults).

Submit your paper proposal for the first AVISTA session here: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6440

2. From Tree to Truss (2): Woodcarving in Medieval Architecture.

The 2019 Notre-Dame fire laid bare vast quantities of a building material ubiquitous throughout the medieval world, yet sometimes hidden in plain sight: wood. As a pendant to our session about the place of heavy timber in medieval building(s), this session will focus on the works of woodcarvers, woodturners, and joiners within medieval architectural spaces. To that end, we welcome papers that take material, technical, or intermedial approaches to more intricate forms of woodwork, including but not limited to wooden altarpieces, bemas, canopies, ciboria, iconostases, lecterns, maqsuras, minbars, screens, stalls, templons, Torah arks, and beyond.

Submit your paper proposal for the second AVISTA session here: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6443