L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Location: International Congress on Medieval Studies, University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, MI (USA)
Submission Deadline: 15 sept 2015

Sponsored by the Italian Art Society, http://www.italianartsociety.org
Organizers: Marius B. Hauknes, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Johns Hopkins University

Alison Locke Perchuk, Assistant Professor of Art History, California State University Channel Islands

Digital, environmental, material, Mediterranean, sensory, spatial: these are among the recent “turns” taken by the medieval humanities, including art history. The new perspectives on the past opened by these approaches, many of which are informed by interdisciplinary research and contemporary cultural interests in the natural and built world, are fundamentally reshaping how we conceive of and study medieval art and architecture. In the field of medieval art, the city of Rome has traditionally been a key site for the formulation of innovative avenues of approach, but what are its current status and its potential in relation to the discipline’s new discourses? These two linked sessions seek to assess the impact of recent methodological developments on the study of the art, architecture, and urban forms of Rome during the long middle ages, ca. 300–1500. We invite papers that offer new research on, and new ways of thinking about, the visual and material culture of medieval Rome.

Please direct inquiries/submissions to the organizers at mhaukne1@jhu.edu and alison.perchuk@csuci.edu. Information about the conference, including proposal submission forms, may be found at http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html.

Source : Episcopus

Cambridge, CRASSH, December 17 – 18, 2015
Deadline-CFP: 15 sept. 2015

Sponsored by:
CRASSH (Centre for Research into the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities)
NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research)

Organized by:
Dr Emma Spary (University of Cambridge) and Dr Marjolijn Bol (University of Amsterdam and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin)

This interdisciplinary conference aims to bring together scholars from the sciences, social sciences and humanities in order to address material practices of mimesis. Aristotle, in one of the first definitions of the concept, argues that mimesis, or the imitation of nature, refers to both form and material. Thus far, scholarship has mostly focused on the role of form in mimetic practices, while the mimetic role of materials, despite the many disciplines in which these are central to making and knowing, remains significantly understudied.

Materials play a fundamental role in mimetic practices, from the earliest known examples to some of the most recent. Ancient ceramic vessels, for instance, some nearly four millennia old, imitate the visual appearance of other materials like metal or straw, while medieval artisans gave wood the costly appearance of marble, or made paper seem like gilded leather. The industrial revolution and chemical innovation created many new opportunities for material mimesis, crowned with the invention of plastics, which can be transformed into almost anything imaginable. Today, computer science allows us to flip pages of digital paper and navigate the visible world in three dimensions, while material science has invented biomaterials that replace the cells of our bodies, smart materials that can assume the appearance of their surroundings, and drugs that imitate the material of neurotransmitters, to name but a few. The role of materials in mimesis is by no means limited to the past: the practice will continue to have an impact in the future which cannot be foreseen.

The conference invites papers that explore the different roles played by materials in mimetic practices. The notion of substitution raises questions about the new techniques invented by artisans for making one material resemble another, as well as about the politics of the Ersatz in diet and medicine. Replication has united historians and anthropologists in attempts to reconstruct past materials and techniques, as well as engaging historians of science with the issue of ‘tacit knowledge’. Forgery, from banknotes to paintings, creates a competition to establish expertise over materials and mimetic processes between forgers and their opponents, who each have to become increasingly expert in order either to produce, or to detect, fraudulent objects. Nachahmung, the question of likeness and verisimilitude, is particularly interesting in material mimetic practices where artisans attempt to materialize the impossible, to give marble the weight of silk and hair, or have paper take on the appearance of a solid block of gold. Similarly interesting in this respect is the discussion over which representations of animal and plant materials most successfully capture ‘Nature’. Preservation is also a form of material mimesis, not only in recreations of life and the body after death in mummies, effigies and relics, but also as a way of stabilising a lasting value in certain material objects, either through technologies of preventing change or through reuse. Lastly, the question of disguise engages with material mimesis in important ways, from animal camouflage to smart materials that can assume the appearance of their surroundings and debates about bio-engineering where artificial tissues and organs are made to become one with our bodies.

Participants from different fields are welcome, including, but not limited to, archaeology, philosophy, art history and technical art history, history of science, technology and medicine, materials science, biology, anthropology and sociology.

Deadline for submissions: 15 September 2015 – Abstracts and proposals of 300 words (max), a short biography of 100 words (max). Please reply to: materialmimesis@gmail.com

Source : ArtHist

International conference at Ghent University (Belgium), Thursday 18th to Saturday 20th February 2016

The ERC research group Novel Saints (Ghent University) builds on and contributes to a recent trend in scholarship of studying late antique and early medieval hagiography (4th-12th cent.) as literature.

We welcome paper proposals for our first, international conference, which will deal with literary constructions of characters as hero(in)es in different types of late antique and early medieval hagiographical narrative (Lives, Martyr Acts, hagiographical romances, etc.). We envisage contributions on hagiography from different linguistic traditions (Latin, Greek, Syriac, Georgian, Coptic, Armenian, Persian and Arabic).

The conference aims to explore definitions of and aspects/concepts relevant to heroism in Christian narrative. What does it mean to be a hero(ine) in these narratives? Are there different types of hero(in)es (and of heroism)? To what extent can narratological concepts provide useful tools for evaluating hagiographical constructions of heroism? The other central question is how saints (and/or, possibly, other characters) are characterized, shaped, imagined and/or constructed as hero(in)es.

This last, broad question comprises a number of important sub-questions:

• Which literary and/or rhetorical techniques underlie such constructions? To what extent and how do these narratives employ techniques rooted in ancient rhetoric (e.g. ecphrasis, syncrisis, ethopoeia, etc.), and to what purpose?
• Does the notion of heroism imply specific behavioural patterns and/or speech acts?
• What is the relevance of other literary traditions, such as biblical narrative, Acts of the Apostles (both canonical and apocryphal), ancient biography, historiography and fiction (pagan and/or Jewish novels)? To what extent do these traditions offer models of heroism that are adopted/adapted in hagiographical narratives? To what extent and
  how, for example, do ancient fictional strands of heroism persist in hagiographical constructions of martyrs and saints, as they are well known to do, for example, in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (e.g. Paul & Thecla) and other early Christian narrative such as the Ps.-Clementines and a few pre-Nicean Martyr Acts?
• How do hagiographical narratives adopt/rework authentication strategies common in biography or historiography in order to construct its hero(in)es?
• To what extent and how do constructions of heroism in saints/martyrs in different cultures develop over time and cross-fertilize other such constructs throughout late antiquity and the middle ages?

In relation to this, the conference also aims to explore issues like the following:

• heroism and definitions of sainthood and holiness;
• heroism and explorations of moral/ethical dimensions of character;
• heroism and development (is one a hero(ine) or does one become one?);
• saints, self-presentation and performance: constructions of heroism and/or reenactments of earlier models by saints themselves (rather than by the narrators of their narratives);
• heroism and ego-narration;
• heroic constructions in collective v. individual life-writing;
• impact of depictions of hero(in)es/heroic behaviour on audiences;
• heroism and meta-literary approaches: ‘heroic’ qualities of both saints and texts;
• types of saints (e.g. desert saints, military saints, converted prostitutes, holy fools, etc.) v. character individuation.

Abstracts (in English or French) should contain 300-350 words and should be sent to novelsaints@ugent.be before 20 September 2015. Notifications about acceptance (or not) will be sent out by 20 October 2015. Not only senior scholars but also PhD students are welcome to submit abstracts.

For further queries, please contact klazina.staat@ugent.be or julie.vanpelt@ugent.be.

Prof. dr. Koen De Temmerman
Klazina Staat
Julie Van Pelt

Source : Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies

Journée d’étude »Essor et renouveau de la bibliothèque (XVe‒XVIIe siècle)« organisée par le CNRS-IRHT, Biblissima, Paris (Gilbert FOURNIER), l’université de Namur; PraME (Xavier HERMAND) et l’Institut historique allemand (Rolf GROSSE), Paris, Institut historique allemand, vendredi 17 juin 2016

Appel à communications

La seconde moitié du XVe siècle marque le renouveau matériel et intellectuel de la capitale du royaume de France. Les finances rétablies, le patrimoine consolidé, les institutions qui accueillent la vie de l’esprit sont à nouveau florissantes. Elles le doivent pour beaucoup à une nouvelle génération d’hommes, plus bâtisseurs que grands clercs. S’il est un indice de ce nouvel essor, c’est bien l’attention dont les bâtiments des bibliothèques font l’objet. Partout on pallie aux outrages du temps, on répond à de nouveaux besoins, on anticipe l’afflux de livres imprimés. Ces opérations donnent toujours lieu à un redéploiement des collections et à la rédaction de nouveaux instruments. Tel est le cas des catalogues alphabétique et topographique des ouvrages enchaînés dans la nouvelle salle de lecture de l’abbaye de Saint-Victor composés par Claude de Grandrue en 1514. Au milieu du XVIe siècle, le collège de Sorbonne dote sa bibliothèque commune d’un catalogue imprimé qui atteste la montée en puissance des livres imprimés dans les bibliothèques institutionnelles. Héritiers d’une longue tradition bibliothéconomique, ces catalogues continuèrent à être utilisés et à recevoir des additions pour certains jusqu’au milieu du XVIIe siècle.

Pour succinctes qu’elles soient, les lignes qui précèdent invitent à une réflexion sur l’essor et le renouveau des bibliothèques à l’automne du Moyen Âge. Le grand nombre de catalogues de bibliothèque conservés à travers l’Occident latin n’est qu’un indice parmi d’autres. A Paris, le rayonnement de l’université et le redéploiement d’une partie de son activité dans les collèges en sont les causes immédiates. Ailleurs, il s’agit du développement et de l’affirmation des institutions politiques, de la réforme des ordres ou de l’avènement de nouveaux modes de cohabitations religieuses. Partout les bibliothèques, leur vocation, leurs instruments et leurs hommes, sont investis de significations nouvelles qui annoncent l’époque moderne. Citons à titre d’exemple la figure du bibliothécaire qui sort de son anonymat et concentre sur sa personne plusieurs fonctions. Ainsi n’est-t-il pas rare qu’il cumule les fonctions de libraire, de maître des novices, de rédacteur de traités de dévotion et de propagateur de la réforme dans les établissements religieux. Ou encore l’apparition de nouveaux publics, en particulier laïcs, dans le sillage des bibliothèques urbaines ou d’ordres et de communautés réformés.

Notre propos est donc de cerner quelques une des significations nouvelles dont sont investies les bibliothèques à partir du XVe siècle et qui perdurent à l’époque moderne. Notre démarche est comparatiste. Pour l’occasion, elle privilégie le Saint Empire. Outre de favoriser le dialogue entre médiévistes et modernistes, notre projet vise à réunir des historiens de langue française et allemande et à confronter leurs historiographies respectives.

Les communications (en français, allemand ou anglais) dureront 20 minutes. Les propositions de communications devront être envoyées pour le 15 octobre 2015 par mail à Gilbert Fournier (gilbert.fournier@dbmail.com).

Elles devront comporter environ 500 mots et être accompagnées d’un CV détaillé.

Comité scientifique: Gilbert Fournier, Rolf Große, Xavier Hermand

Contact:
Gilbert Fournier
Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes
40 avenue d’Iéna
75116 Paris
gilbert.fournier@dbmail.com