L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, November 12 – 13, 2020
Deadline: Apr 3, 2020

Ovid’s aphorism «Materiam superabat opus», evoked throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, reveals the special consideration given to skill, technique and craft in the artistic creation processes. Thus, ingenuity and mastery have been privileged qualities in our approach to works of art, according to a restricted vision assumed by Art History as a discipline. However, both the aesthetic reflections and the documents related to artistic commissions in the Middle Ages show the great importance given to the material and sensory aspects of artefacts and monuments. In line with this perception, once again valued in light of the «material turn» of the discipline in the last decades, the 14th Jornadas Complutenses de Arte Medieval propose to focus on materiality as an essential factor in the artistic production, as well as on the poetics of immateriality and the intangible condition of the aesthetic experience.

Beyond the technical analyses, which in recent decades have allowed us to reconsider common places in the study of the medieval artistic production, this congress aims to establish transversal debates in order to open up new perspectives. In this sense, the material conditions of artistic production (properties, supply, cost, transport or technology, among others), as well as their reflection in the written sources –from technical treatises to documentary and literary references– will be discussed. On the other hand, the congress will address issues related to the sensorial features of the medieval works of art and their relationship with intangible aspects, such as the material and chromatic qualities, the incidence of light, the acoustic and olfactory effects, and the impact of the natural environment. The poetics of the materials, their meaningful uses, and the symbolic values of the immaterial will have room in the debates. Likewise, it will be of interest to consider new interpretative concepts, such as «transmateriality» and «transmediality», which may include the morphological transformation of elements across different materials, the transfer and circulation of ornamental patterns, or the physical traces of mental, invisible or transient phenomena. Contributions that address non-hegemonic and / or under-treated practices and media in historiography are especially welcomed.

Proposed topics include (but are not limited to):

– Material conditions of artistic creation.
– Underrated practices and media.
– Poetics and semantic uses of the material and the intangible.
– Cultural history of materials.
– Sensoriality and immateriality.
– «Transmateriality» and «transmediality».

Confirmed keynote speakers: Miquel Àngel Capellà Galmés (Universitat de les Illes Balears), Vincent Debiais (CRH – Centre national de la recherche scientifique), Beate Fricke (Universität Bern), Ruggero Longo (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte), María Teresa López de Guereño Sanz (Universidad Autónona de Madrid), José Miguel Puerta Vílchez (Universidad de Granada), Laura Rodríguez Peinado (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Elisabetta Scirocco (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte), Noelia Silva Santa-Cruz (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Ana Suárez González (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), Jorge Tomás García (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid).

Call for papers:

Researchers interested in submitting a 20-minute paper on any of the topics listed above are invited to send their proposals in Spanish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese, including the following information:

– Title of the paper proposal.
– Name and surname of the author and email address.
– Abstract of about 500 words.
– Brief academic and research CV of about 300 words.

The proposals should be sent to the email address inmaterial@ucm.es by 3 April 2020. Authors will be notified of the outcome by 8 May 2020. Selected papers will be published later in a collective volume after peer review.

Source : Medieval Art Research

Appel à contribution : ici

Identity is a complex, elusive and compelling topic, crucial to understanding any society at any time. Identity can be extremely difficult to define; it can be both private and communal; influenced by peoples’ sense of themselves and by outside perceptions of what they should be. A community’s beliefs about its past, and the stories it tells about its origins, help to shape its sense of itself in the present. The fourth Aberystwyth Medieval Conference for postgraduates will explore the relationship between history, community and identity, how those writing about the past helped to construct the identity of their communities, and how far their vision of communal identity and its relationship with the outside world reflects the experience of real medieval societies.

Confirmed Keynotes:

Elizabeth Boyle (Early Irish, NUI Maynooth)
Darius von Güttner-Sporzynski (History, Melbourne)

The workshop will take place at Aberystwyth University on 1st-3rd July 2020. It warmly welcomes postgraduates and early career scholars working on the high medieval past (c.800-1300) from a variety of disciplinary perspectives – including but not limited to history, literary studies, art history, philosophy, archaeology and palaeography – to offer a comparative and transregional approach.

The workshop takes place under the auspices of the Centre for the Study of Historiography and Historical Culture (Aberystwyth) and the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Aberystwyth & Bangor), and is funded by the Graduate School and the Department of History and Welsh History, Aberystwyth University.

2020 Conference main organiser: David Lees

Source : Aberystwyth Medievalists

CALL FOR PAPERS: 13th Celtic Conference in Classics – Lyon, 15-18 July 2020
Around the Classics: Paratextual Frame of Latin Classics in the Middle Ages
Autour des classiques : les paratextes des classiques latins au Moyen Âge

Convenors:
Angela Cossu – École française de Rome
Frédéric Duplessis – École normale supérieure de Lyon

Panel description:

In medieval manuscripts, a classical text is rarely copied alone. It is most often accompanied by paratextual elements that have been intentionally added to the text. Such elements come in a wide variety of formats: explanatory or complementary texts (accessus, prologues, vitae, commentaries, glosses, glossaries, etc.), images (illumination, diagrams, drawings, etc.), or elements structuring the manuscript, the text or the page (index, table of chapters, titles, division into books, chapters or paragraphs, sections, etc.). They can be transcribed at the beginning, the end, or next to the classical text, within its writing frame or in its margins.

These various paratexts, inherited from Antiquity or created during the Middle Ages, are often ignored by modern editions and remain largely unpublished. Yet, during the Middle Ages, the Latin classics were copied, read and imitated through these “interpretative filters”, which are still relatively understudied. Indeed, these paratextual elements shape the medieval reception of ancient texts.

The aims of this panel are to:

1. study the paratexts per se (more precisely, study their interactions with the classical texts as well as unfold the mechanisms of their production, use and evolution),

2. emphasize their role in the history of transmission and reception of Latin classics,

3. explore their influence on medieval Latin language and literature.

Topics for papers may include:

Text and paratext of the Latin classics (synchronic or diachronic perspective)

Shaping of the paratext in the transmission of classics

Practices of reading and writing: annotations, glosses, and, more broadly, medieval scholarship on the margins of Latin classics

Public and reception of the Latin classics through the paratext

Non-textual paratext: rubrication, illumination, diagrams…

Prospective speakers: young (PhD students, Post-doc researchers) and established scholars (researchers, professors, librarians).

Submitting papers:

We foresee a panel of around 15 speakers, so that each speaker will present a paper of around 35-40 minutes. Papers in either English or French are accepted. If you wish to submit a paper, please send an abstract of no more than 500 words in either English or French to aroundtheclassics@gmail.com. The deadline for submitting papers is 27/03/2020. Papers’ acceptance will be communicated shortly thereafter.

Source : The Celtic Conference in Classics