The Medieval Academy Blog

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Celebrating Belle da Costa Greene: An Examination of Medievalists of Color within the Field” (November 30-December 2, 2018, Saint Louis University)

The African American Studies Program at Saint Louis University invites paper and panel proposals for “Celebrating Belle da Costa Greene: An Examination of Medievalists of Color within the Field,” a conference to be held at the Center for Global Citizenship on the campus of Saint Louis University in the heart of Midtown Saint Louis, Missouri.

The contemporary state of Medieval Studies is at a crossroads. Will the field remain an open, safe, and inclusive environment–reflective of its always, already integrated history–or will the present atmosphere of isolated thinking, white supremacy, and delimited academic freedom continue to reign? In accordance with those who seek the light, this conference will celebrate the life and accomplishments of Belle da Costa Greene and will contribute to the developing field of scholarship centered on the meaning of the “medieval” and “Middle Ages” as relates increasingly interdisciplinary and cross-regional conceptions of the premodern world. More specifically, the conference represents an opportunity to focus on those aspects of the “medieval” and “Middle Ages” specifically of interest to Medievalists of Color and in alignment with the life of Greene. Greene was a black woman who had to pass as white in order to gain entrance and acceptance into the racially fraught professional landscape of early twentieth-century New York. She was a prominent art historian and the first manuscript librarian of the Pierpont Morgan collection. She was also the first known person of color and second woman to be elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (1939). According to the Morgan Library & Museum website, “Greene was barely twenty when Morgan hired her, yet her intelligence, passion, and self-confidence eclipsed her relative inexperience, [and] she managed to help build one of America’s greatest private libraries.” Her legacy highlights the professional difficulties faced by Medievalists of Color, the personal sacrifices they make in order to belong to the field, and their extraordinary contributions to Medieval Studies.

This conference invites researchers to consider any aspect of the field as regards the life of Belle da Costa Greene; moreover, this conference invites scholarly perspectives of the “Other Middle Ages” by presenting research and resources that address the connectivity and mobility of the globe c. 500-1600 CE, particularly as relates the movements of racialized and othered bodies. Even more, the conference invites researchers who focus on new and novel ways of employing medieval historiographical, bibliographical, cosmological, etc. conceptions for contemporary analyses and explorations of human endeavors. What work (and violence) does the idea of “the Middle Ages” do in our scholarship, and what do we gain from a shared or comparative notion of the medieval? What do we lose when the field acts in a parochial manner, closing itself off and ostracizing scholars of color as Others. Papers and presentations will aim to contribute to a more inclusive view of the premodern world that de-centers European interpretations of the Middle Ages and recognizes dynamic globalisms and transient contemporary times.

Please include the title of proposed paper or panel and an abstract of about 500 words outlining how the paper or panel will fit with the conference theme. Be sure to include five keywords associated with the paper or the panel, name, title, position, affiliated institution, and a short biographical statement (40-50 words each) for all authors involved.

Faculty and graduate students are also welcome to apply to deliver a lightning talk + complementary paper and/or a primary source-based research presentation. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words.

Lightning Talks

The conference will hold two panels of lightning talks (8 minutes each) based on short, pre-circulated papers (approx. 4 pages) summarizing current work on globalized conceptions of and connections within the medieval world. Lightning talks will engage field- or region-specific conceptualizations of “the medieval/Middle Ages.”

Roundtable discussions with respondents will follow.

Primary Source-based Research Presentations

Submissions will also be accepted for 15- to 18-minute research presentations, each focused on a particular medieval primary source (text, image, object, etc.) that is useful for thinking in comparative or global perspectives. The source (an image or a selection from the source) should be pre-circulated to attendees.

Each talk will be followed by a moderated discussion.

All presenters are asked to submit a brief bibliography (5-10 entries) on resources related to their lightning talks or research presentations. After the symposium, these bibliographies will be curated and will contribute to the development of a canon of literatures on the global Middle Ages made always available to conference participants and attendees.*

Nota bene : The submission of a paper and/or panel proposal must be on the understanding that if the proposal is accepted, then the author (or authors) will register for and attend the conference.

The costs of attending the conference, including registration fees, travel, accommodation and other expenses, are the responsibility of the presenter(s) or their institutions.

Deadline: September 28, 2018

How to Apply:

Applications should be submitted in PDF form to conference organizer Tarrell R. Campbell (tarrell.campbell@slu.edu) by September 28, 2018. Those submitting paper, panel, lightning talks, and primary source presentations should prepare separate abstracts, respectively. Please include the following information:

Name:
Affiliation:
Faculty/Graduate Student/Independent Scholar:
Field:
Regional Specialization:
Proposed Format (Paper/Panel/Lightning Talk/Primary Source Presentation):

Abstracts of no longer than 500 words.

Notifications of acceptance will be made by no later than October 15, 2018.

***Interested in helping to organize the conference or conducting a workshop?***

Contact tarrell.campbell@slu.edu for more information.

Call for Papers – Leeds International Medieval Congress, 1-4 July 2019, Leeds

The International Medieval Congress (IMC) is the largest medieval studies conference in the world. More than 2,900 medievalists from more than 60 countries participated in the 25th annual International Medieval Congress (IMC) from 2-5 July 2018.

In line with the Special Thematic Strand in 2019 “Materialities” (https://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2019_call.html) and the recent creation of the strand “Manuscript studies”, we organize sessions on “Text as object in the Middle Ages”. Texts, indeed, are at the same time an idea and a form. The latter is the result of a combination of inherited social uses and specific intentions by the various actors involved in transmitting the text as idea. This process begins with the authors, continues to the craftsmen (parchment and paper makers, copyists and chancery clerks, painters and illuminators, sculptors and weavers, booksellers…) and then on to possessors, readers, archives and libraries. All textual artefacts are concerned: manuscripts, charters, inscriptions, tapestries, seals, coins, etc.

What scholars can study nowadays is however only one specific, if not final, state of those manuscripts, documents and inscriptions, from which they seek to reconstruct the respective intents of the actors. Under the topic “Text as object in the Middle Ages”, we intend to study the interplay of the original creation act, the possible transformations, and modern scholarship, especially along the following lines: “archaeology of a research concept”, “materiality in scholarly editions”, “genre and materiality”, “fragments”, “imaging techniques and physicochemical analysis”

–          Archaeology of a research concept: awareness of materiality in the 15th-19th centuries

Medieval library catalogues started including dictiones probatoriae or secundo folio as identifiers of a given manuscript as object rather than as the bearer of a text; additional information on the physical appearance could also be indicated (size of the script, illumination, …). Cartularies and registers, but also inventories, sometimes include a description of the original charter, be it in a text form, be it as a  drawing (“copie figurée”), also for elements which are no validation signs. These are early examples of an awareness of material aspects in textual artefacts.  “materiality” as a term is rather new in historiographical research, however there is a complex archaeology of this research concept applied to texts. Starting in the Middle Ages, it became more prominent with the rise of the “auxiliary sciences” such as palaeography and diplomatics in the 17^th and 18^th century which were very much focused on the material aspects of written objects. By the 19^th century it found its way into the bibliographic descriptions, either in a scholarly environment or in auction and sales catalogues as part of a bibliophilic interest.

This pre-historical time of “materiality” as a research concept is not well known. We welcome proposals dealing with examples of a “material” approach to manuscripts and documents in medieval and early modern times, and evidencing the consequences of this past material concern on modern scholarship (e.g. identification of well described manuscripts in past collections vs. apparently lost collections).

–          Materiality in Scholarly Editions

When doing editorial work, scholars may take the materiality of the text into account and either decide to discard their observations or communicate them to the user. >From imitative, so-called “diplomatic” editions to very normalizing ones, several models coexist depending on editorial goals, national traditions, text genres, or witness tradition with regard to the nature of the textual work. Discussions of former editions and practices are welcome, as well as proposals discussing the current developments in scholarly editions. This could include reflections on the tensions resulting from tight schedules due to fixed-term contracts and the ideal of exhaustive material description and analysis.

–          Genre and materiality: literary genre and their influence on layout, decoration, and scripts

The connection between text and object is reflected by specific requirements for the written object in the fields of diplomatics, epigraphy, codicology (layout, material structure), art history (iconography, decoration), and palaeography (script types, abbreviations, script size and degree of formality).

Recurrent patterns in book production have already been identified, such as books of hours and prayers for lay people being small in size, illustrated, and written in long lines, or genealogies and universal histories being written in scroll format in order to stress the continuity. There are also illuminators working mainly in the production of one or two literary genres, for whom it is not always possible to ascertained if it is a consequence of being hired by one librarian or if they specialized into specific iconographic types. Illuminated charters as a category may also be connected with specific conditions in their creation.

Connexions between script types and text genres also may be a medieval reality uncovered by modern research (Beneventan/Caroline scripts depending on genres) or a historiographical construct (such as the misleading “gothic liturgical script” or Uncial as Christian script). In this regard, cultural divide and contact zones (Beneventan, Wisigothic vs. Caroline; Humanistic vs. Gothic) deserve special attention, as well as a further study of “pragmatic literacy” under the pragmatic aspect of writing.

Medieval autographs form a cross-genre domain, in which the intervention of the author may provide modern scholars with additional information. Yet, only a reciprocal analysis of text and handwriting in their context should allow the expertise of autography. Theoretical proposals and case studies demonstrating how material (here mainly palaeographic) and textual inquiries interact are welcome.

 Papers could focus on new results within these known patterns or new connections between text and materiality.

–          Fragments and damaged text objects: an ex post decided layout and format definition

Fragments are a challenging form to study manuscripts both as texts and objects. They pose specific challenges for the identification of the textual contents as well as the objects’ origin and life. Proposals may present innovative tools and projects, as well as scholarly research based on virtual or physical reconstruction of dismembered or fragmentary text objects. The organizers particularly welcome proposals dealing with the fragment as source for the broader historical context (e.g. textual history, reception and cultural transfers).

–          Imaging techniques and physicochemical analysis of medieval text objects

The material analysis is not a new field any more. Imaging techniques available for manuscript research include those based on physicochemical properties (multispectral, X-ray fluorescence, etc.) as well as those that allow a better perception of the object (Reflectance Transformation Imaging, 3D scan). Recent technological advances now allow a better coordination of textual studies,imaging and physicochemical research. Examples include the Archimedes palimpsest, the manuscripts from Mount Sinai or the rolls from Herculanum and Ein Gedi. For this session we expect proposals illustrating how material analyses or imaging techniques can reveal hidden or illegible text layers and therefore have a direct impact on our understanding of the textual content and its history.

Papers of 20 minutes in length are invited. To propose a paper, please send a brief abstract (250 words max) to

·         dominique.stutzmann@irht.cnrs.fr  

·         katharina.kaska@univie.ac.at

·         sebastien.barret@cnrs-orleans.fr

·         paul.bertrand@uclouvain.be

·         christoph.egger@univie.ac.at

·         georg.vogeler@uni-graz.at

The deadline for receipt of submissions is 25th September 2018.