L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Colloque international organisé par les laboratoires Criham, FoReLLIS, CESCM, sous la coordination d’Étienne Boillet (Université de Poitiers, FoReLLIS), Yannis Delmas-Rigoutsos (Université de Poitiers, Criham, Techné), Harmony Dewez (Université de Poitiers, CNRS, CESCM), Alina Gonzalez Mediano (Université de Poitiers, Criham), Laurence Montel (Université de Poitiers, Criham), Johann Petitjean (Université de Poitiers, Criham).

• Appel à communications jusqu’au : 4 mai 2026

• Date et lieu du colloque : du 2 au 4 décembre 2026, Université de Poitiers (France)

Ce colloque propose de mener une réflexion interdisciplinaire, faisant dialoguer les sciences humaines et sociales, les sciences de l’information et de la communication, les études littéraires et artistiques sur les représentations alternatives du passé et la construction sociale de la vérité, depuis la Renaissance jusqu’à nos jours.

Par représentations alternatives, nous désignons les représentations du passé en divergence par rapport aux représentations construites comme dominantes, et la vérité non seulement comme l’adéquation entre un énoncé anhistorique et une réalité factuelle, mais aussi et surtout comme une construction sociale dans des champs de pouvoir et d’intérêts (Foucault, 1990 ; Delmas-Rigoustos, 2025, Guerrier, 2020).

Alors que le web social et la révolution de l’intelligence artificielle bouleversent les repères et les codes du monde médiatique, un changement de paradigme semble s’opérer dans le rapport au réel et à la vérité : nous serions entré·es dans une ère de « post-vérité », où des « vérités alternatives » peuvent être créditées sans passer l’épreuve des faits, où fake news et théories du complot semblent se multiplier (Keyes, 2004 ; Engel, 2019 ; Bloch, 1921). Les représentations du passé sont elles aussi touchées. Les « histoires post-véridiques », dites aussi « alternatives », se multiplient (Kichelewski, 2025). Pourtant, fake-news, contre-vérités et révisions de l’histoire, avec leur prétention à dire le vrai, ne sont pas seulement des marqueurs de notre temps (Dugoin-Clément, 2025 ; Pinker, 2020), d’où la proposition d’étudier les représentations alternatives du passé dans une perspective interdisciplinaire et de longue durée.

Les propositions pourront s’inscrire dans un ou plusieurs des trois axes suivants :

Axe 1 – Histoire des représentations alternatives du passé, mise en récit et construction de la vérité

Axe 2 – Communication, médiations et circulation de représentations

Axe 3 – Histoire, narration et fiction

Comité scientifique

• Christine Baron, FoReLLIS, Université de Poitiers
• Étienne Boillet, FoReLLIS, Université de Poitiers
• Patrick Charaudeau, professeur émérite de l’Université Paris 13
• Yannis Delmas-Rigoutsos, Criham, Techné, Université de Poitiers
• Harmony Dewez, CESCM, Université de Poitiers
• Kelly Fazilleau, MiMMOC, Université de Poitiers
• Isabelle Féroc Dumez, Techné, Université de Poitiers, CLEMI
• Marie-Hélène Hermand, Elliadd, Université Marie et Louis Pasteur
• Anne Jollet, Criham, Université de Poitiers
• Amarande Laffon, Criham, Université de Limoges
• Olivier Maheo, IHTP, université Paris 8, CNRS
• Arnaud Mercier, Carism, Institut français de presse, Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas
• Johann Michel, Cems, EHESS / Université de Poitiers
• Angeliki Monnier, Crem, Université de Lorraine
• Laurence Montel, Criham, Université de Poitiers
• Jessy Neau, FoReLLIS, Université de Poitiers
• Johann Petitjean, Criham, Université de Poitiers
• Nathan Rera, Criham, Université de Poitiers
• Clément Sigalas, CELLF, Sorbonne Université
• Valeria Tettamanti, École Française de Rome

Source : CRIHAM – Poitiers

New York, 4-5 December 2026)
Deadline 1 May 2026

Columbia University, New York, 4–5 December 2026
29th Biennial Conference of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program of Barnard College

For centuries, textiles clothed bodies and books, veiled relics, marked liturgical and political boundaries, and insulated and adorned walls. Their portability and preciousness made them ideal agents of exchange. They carried forms, materials, and techniques across vast regions and cultures. It is through textiles, perhaps more than any other artistic medium, that the global interconnectedness of this historical period comes into view. At the same time, their manufacture could remain insistently local and idiosyncratic, dependent as it was—before industrustrialization—on individual touch and rhythm. Textiles could be a luxury or a thing of everyday life, and medieval and Renaissance writers exploited the double entendre of the Latin textus—both a woven and written thing—in their expositions on divinity and knowledge. Jerome characterized the Evangelists as those who “wove the truth of history” (historiae texere veritatem), a metaphor Erasmus, among others, revived in describing eloquence as a woven fabric of words. In Arabic, al-Jāḥiẓ described poetry as “a kind of weaving (ḍarb min al-nasj).”

This one-day conference invites scholars from across disciplines (archaeology, art history and conservation, history, literary studies, religion, history of science, legal history) to explore how textiles, and the metaphors they inspired, shaped medieval and Renaissance life. Topics could include but are not limited to the following: production and labor; global trade and circulation; technical knowledge and transmission; gendered and domestic craft practices; liturgical and ceremonial textiles; clothing and identity; textiles as diplomatic or political gifts; conservation and material analysis; weaving and intertextuality; and the role of textiles in shaping networks and communities.

The conference will be held Saturday, December 5, 2026 on the Barnard College campus in New York City. Tours of local collections for conference participants may take place the preceding day, Friday, December 4.

Plenary Speakers:

• Timothy McCall, Villanova University
• Sharon Farmer, University of California-Santa Barbara

PLEASE NOTE: The conference will be in person. While we will give preference to submissions for papers held in person, we also invite proposals from scholars who are only able to deliver papers remotely on Zoom.

Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words and a 2-page CV to Greg Bryda (gcb2128@columbia.edu).

Submission Deadline: May 1, 2026

Source : Medieval Art Research

Bratislava, Slovak University of Technology, 21-23 September 2026

Organisation: COST Action 24164: Sensing Europe’s Court Spaces at the Crossroads of Past, Present and Future (SENSES) and Slovak University of Technology

How does the sacred come into being?

History of art and architecture as well as religious studies have long demonstrated that the sacred is not merely an inherent property of spaces, objects, or images, but is constituted in part through (worldly) staging. Light regimes, overwhelming chromatic effects, dense olfactory atmospheres, architectural materials and spatial structures capable of producing resonances, all contribute to the sensorial construction of the holy. Yet sacred space is never purely environmental. Singing and speaking, moving and sometimes even dancing participants and audiences are integral to the performative creation of the sacred as well as to its perception.

But how can we approach such past sensorial enactments and experiences today? How can we model the historical sensory dimensions of ceremonies and devotional acts on the basis of surviving spaces, furnishings, or liturgical and courtly sources? And how might contemporary cognitive science alongside digital, virtual, and AI-based methods enable new forms of analysis, simulation, and interpretation? These questions lie at the centre of the Working Group “Sacred Spaces” within COST Action 24164: Sensing Europe’s Court Spaces at the Crossroads of Past, Present and Future (SENSES). “Court Space(s)” should be understood here as the spatial and material environment of medieval and early modern courts in Europe (1300–1800), and is/are seen as playing a significant role in shaping social structures, behaviours, and ways of life. The Action explores the full gamut of sensory experiences linked with the court residence and its life throughout history until today to build a better understanding of this complex cultural phenomenon, to support its survival as European heritage, and to contribute actively to its role as shaper of a collective identity for the future.

Sacred space at court should be understood as a multiple ranging from the smallest scale to the largest. Architecturally speaking, it comprises the court chapel, or as the case may be, the church, even an entire monastery (e.g. the convent palaces of the Hispanic world, such as the Escorial and the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, Spain, but also the monastery at Brou, France, built by the widowed regent of the Habsburg Low Countries). As part of the private apartments, the oratories constitute another component, one which serves as connection. But sacred space at court includes much more, the courtly organization behind the chapel’s service frequently taking care of worldly matters such as the prince’s valuables, for instance; the great hall adjacent to the smaller chapel actually serving as auditorium of the Mass for the lower ranks at court, and so on. On a larger scale, courts established religious networks extending across their lands, such as the Habsburg archdukes serving as regents establishing seven Marian shrines in strategic sites of the Low Countries around 1600.

Focusing on courtly contexts 1300–1800, the conference intends to explore the inter-sensorial performances and experiences within religious spaces of European court residences. It is explicitly conceived as forward-looking, aiming to open future avenues of research and foster shared methodological standards across disciplines.

We especially welcome contributions that:

• explore inter-sensorial experience from an interdisciplinary perspective
• address the performative and embodied dimensions of sacred space at court in all its forms (such as court chapels, churches, monasteries, oratories)
• reflect epistemological questions of approaching past perception
• present proof-of-concept projects using digital, virtual, or AI-based methods

We particularly encourage participation from art and architecture historians, scholars in cognitive sciences and historical cognition studies, olfactory heritage studies, digital humanities researchers, heritage specialists and curators, as well as digital designers and simulation experts. Early-career researchers are strongly encouraged to apply.

Please submit:
– an abstract (max 300 words)
– a short CV (max one page)
by May 15, 2026 to krista.dejonge@kuleuven.be and joanna.olchawa@lmu.de

Participants must register with COST (free of charge). Travel and accommodation costs of accepted speakers will be reimbursed according to COST rules. Early career researchers may also apply for Short-Term Scientific Missions.

For more information, see:

• https://cost-senses.eu
• https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA24164/

Organisation:
Andrea Vargová (Slovak U. of Technology, Bratislava)
Monika Rychtáriková (KU Leuven / Slovak U. of Technology, Bratislava)
Magdaléna Kvasnicová (Slovak U. of Technology, Bratislava)
Vojtech Chmelík (Slovak U. of Technology, Bratislava)

Scientific Committee:
Krista De Jonge (KU Leuven), Chair
Monika Rychtáriková (KU Leuven)
Andrea Vargová (Slovak U. of Technology, Bratislava)
Joanna Olchawa (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Dubravka Botica (U. of Zagreb)
Jiří Kubeš (U. of Pardubice)
Philippe Vendrix (Tours, RicercarLab, Centre d’Études supérieures de la renaissance)
Pedro Luengo Gutiérrez (U. of Seville)
Mona Hess (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg)
José Eloy Hortal Muñoz (U. Juan Carlos, Madrid)

Source : Medieval Art Research