L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Association for Art History 2024
Annual Conference, University of Bristol
Deadline 10 November 2023

2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Association for Art History. We are delighted to announce that next year’s conference will be held in collaboration with the History of Art department at the University of Bristol.

Proposals are invited for the conference session ‘Ecologies of Visual Culture in the Global Middle Ages’.

The study of medieval art and visual culture has recently seen a flourishing of ecocritical and environmental approaches that invite us to explore new ways of thinking about objects, buildings and landscapes. Drawing on the material, spatial, and post-human turns in humanities research, these have highlighted the complex ways in which human creativity and acts of making are entangled with non-human processes and agency. One aspect emphasises the landscape as integral to sacred space, placing built structures within their topographical and ecological contexts, and attending to other kinds of material intervention. Another focuses on materiality, the ‘stuff’ of the natural world from which both buildings and objects were crafted, to better understand their making and meaning. Across the globe, such interactions were inflected by different environments and cultural frameworks. This panel thus aims to bring together new research on visual cultures of the natural world, as these relate to any medium and geographic region, c.500-1500.

Proposals for papers are invited on topics including, but not limited to: visual representations and perceptions of the natural world; the materiality of objects and buildings, whether animal, vegetable or mineral in origin; the impact of cultivating and extracting such materials on landscapes and ecosystems; lasting interventions in the natural world, from free-standing buildings and monuments to rock-cut structures and gardens; ephemeral engagement with natural environments, through ritual and performance, mobile objects and temporary creations; the relationship between the non-human world and the human body, including sensory experience; intersections between environmental science and visual culture. We welcome submissions that together represent a variety of methodologies and perspectives, and a range of cultural contexts.

Advertisements

about:blank

Report this adPrivacy

To offer a paper:

• Please email your paper proposals direct to the session convenor(s).
• You will need to provide a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 20-minute paper, your name and institutional affiliation (if any).
• Deadline for submissions: 10 November 2023

Session convenors:

• Peter Dent, University of Bristol, peter.dent@bristol.ac.uk
• Lucy Donkin, University of Bristol, lucy.donkin@bristol.ac.uk
• Sophie Kelly, University of Bristol, sophie.kelly@bristol.ac.uk
• Naomi Speakman, British Museum, nspeakman@britishmuseum.org
• Beth Williamson, University of Bristol, beth.williamson@bristol.ac.uk

Source : Medieval Art Research

Deadline: 15 November 2023
Contact: martin.bauch@leibniz-gwzo.de / vadas.andras@btk.elte.hu

There’s a long-standing discussion if and to what extent the first wave of the Second Plague Pandemic, the Black Death (1347-52), had an impact on Eastern Central Europe. Its virtual absence from large parts of the Polish and the Bohemian Kingdoms has long been explained with a lack of written sources, especially in comparison with the much denser documentation for England, France, and Italy. Especially since aDNA research has clarified that the Black Death was indeed caused by the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis, an overwhelming majority of plague historians argue for a scheme of “same pathogen, same outcome” all across Europe, with the Central European cases as less important exceptions to the rule. New research with scientific proxy data seems to confirm that the absent impact of the Black Death is more than just a lack of sources, confirming the overall impression of demographic continuity and even economic, political, and cultural affluence so typical for the monarchies ruled by the Luxembourgs, Piasts, and the Angevins in the second half of 14th century.

Moreover, the focus of historical plague research in recent years has shifted away from the dominant event of the Black Death to the subsequent plague waves such as pestis secunda, tertia, etc. It has long been clear to researchers that these were actually the more important plague events for Eastern Central Europe. Detailed reconstructions of their spread route are important for a deeper understanding of how plague became endemic in Europe and into which animal reservoirs the pathogen retreated between outbreak waves – and yet they are not available. Likewise, all conceivable sources of indirect demographic information on the impact of subsequent waves, such as wills or similar written sources, have not yet been adequately addressed for the plague waves of the 14th-15th centuries in East Central Europe. Furthermore, cultural phenomena connected to the recurring plague waves, like flagellants and institutionalized memory of plague victims would also merit a more detailed examination in future research.

We are looking for contributions assessing the reconstruction, the impact, and the memory of the Black Death and subsequent plague waves in Central and Eastern Europe between 1347 and ca. 1500. After peer review we plan to publish them as a thematic issue of “Historical Studies on Central Europe” https://ojs.elte.hu/hsce  and hence the 6.000-10.000 word articles will undergo a double-blind peer-review process; English proof-reading will be provided by the journal.

Deadline for abstracts (300 words) in English with a short CV (1 page): 15 November 2023;
the Deadline for the finalized contributions will be in spring 2024-

Please send your abstracts to Dr. Martin Bauch (GWZO Leipzig) martin.bauch@leibniz-gwzo.de  and Dr. András Vadas: vadas.andras@btk.elte.hu

Download this as a PDF: CfA HSCE Absence and Presence

Université de Trento, 25 – 28 Septembre 2024

Le XXVe Colloque international de la Société Internationale Renardienne aura lieu en Italie, dans le cadre montagneux du Trentino-Alto Adige, avec les Dolomites et leurs pics acérés à l’arrière-plan ; organisé à l’Université de Trento, Département des Etudes Humanistes, il sera focalisé sur le rôle que les animaux, sauvages ou domestiques, jouent dans la littérature médiévale.

Presque tous les genres littéraires médiévaux attribuent un rôle important aux animaux, réels ou imaginés ; ces créatures sont le plus souvent stéréotypées et polarisées, positivement ou négativement : adjuvants de Dieu ou du Diable, elles incarnent des caractéristiques de l’homme.

Les communica ons pourront explorer la nature mul forme des personnages animaliers et la manière dont ils s’insèrent dans le système narra f pour sensibiliser le public médiéval. Voici quelques thèmes et pistes, nullement exhaus fs, qui pourraient être développés :

 Animaux narrateurs, comme dans les fables, où ils dialoguent avec les êtres humains pour signifier la nature ambivalente de la rela on entre animalité et humanité ;

 Animaux incarnant une pensée symbolique, comme dans les bes aires, où l’imaginaire textuel et la textualité visuelle se combinent pour représenter une mentalité fondée sur la foi ;

 Animaux matérialisant des contextes sociaux et des valeurs propres à des contextes spécifiques, comme dans les fabliaux, où ils sont inextricablement liés aux acctvités et comportements humains, tant nobles que populaires.

Il en va de soi que les présenta ons sur tout autre sujet tradi onnel de la Société Reynardienne sont les bienvenues.

La Société à l’Université de Trente invite les proposi ons de communica on et d’atelier dans toutes les principales langues européennes.

Veuillez nous envoyer votre tre et votre résumé (environ 100 mots pour les communica ons et 300 mots pour les ateliers) avant le 31 décembre: renard25.le @unitn.it

Pour de plus amples informa ons, vous pouvez nous contacter à tout moment en écrivant à l’adresse électronique indiquée ci-dessus.

Caterina Mordeglia, Roberta Capelli, Paola Cifarelli