The Medieval Academy Blog

Interpreting Data, Constructing Performance: Source Study and the Recreation of Medieval MusicPractices

International Medieval Meeting Lleida
University of Lleida (Spain), 25-28 June 2019

http://www.internationalmedievalmeetinglleida.udl.cat

CFP deadline: 24 March 2019. Applicant notification: 10 April 2019

Keynote speaker: Sam Barrett (University of Cambridge

Despite the large amount of religious and secular music that has survived in medieval manuscripts, we know very little about the performance practice of the period. Nonetheless, musicologists and performers are finding ways to extract valuable information about medieval practices not only from the actual music but also from visual, literary, archeological, and oral sources. Their methods and conclusions can become real paradigms in the reconstruction of historical practices.

This conference considers all possible approaches to the study of musical, visual, literary, archeological, and oral sources and their application to the creation of theories for the reconstruction of medieval music performance. Potential topic areas might include, but are not limited to:

• Manuscripts and their performance indications
• Notation and performance
• Performance context and space
• Usage of musical instruments
• Song accompaniment
• Audience participation
• Iconography and performance
• Experimental archeology, ethnoarcheology, and their application to performance
• Voice production and song performance
• Gesticulation, rhetoric, and music delivery

We invite researchers at all career stages to send abstracts up to 250 words for 20-minute papers (in English, Spanish, or Catalan), along with a current CV. Abstracts and CVs should be submitted to:

Màrius Bernadó (marius.bernado@hahs.udl.cat)

Mauricio Molina (maurus4@gmail.com)

Notification of acceptance will be sent via email around 10 April 2019.

Selected papers will be considered for publication in a new series dedicated to medieval music research sponsored by the University of Lleida.

Call for papers
 “We are all servants” — The Diversity of Service in Premodern Europe International Conference, 20-22 September 2019
to be held at the Centre for Medieval Studies
University of Toronto, downtown campus

Organized by Elisheva Baumgarten and Isabelle Cochelin
with Lochin Brouillard and Emma Gabe

Scientific Advisory Board:
Elisheva Carlebach, Konrad Eisenbichler,
Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux and Diane Wolfthal

Heures de Charles d’Angoulême, Paris, BnF, Latin 1173, fol. 1r (end of 15^th cent.)

If you would like to participate, please send the following information to Servants2019@gmail.com before January 3rd, 2019:

your name, university, title of paper, 150 word abstract,
contact info (address, email and telephone), one page CV, and finally a short biographical blurb (the latter for the session chairs).

Service in premodern Europe was a ubiquitous phenomenon in daily life but also constituted a key concept for defining relationships between individuals. Servants were men or women, high or low on the social scale, poor or wealthy, children or elderly, of different faiths (Christian, Jewish or Muslim), and with few or great expectations for their future. For some, service was a lifetime occupation but for many a finite period in their life cycle. Even kings considered themselves to be servants in relation to God. In contrast with the diversity and pervasiveness of service in the past, few today would consider themselves the servant of another.

The project for this conference is therefore timely and innovative on many fronts. Our approach seeks to conceive the history of service in the longue durée, starting around 1000, when primary sources become more abundant (thanks to the increasing reliance on written texts) and ending before the turning point of the late seventeenth century, when the conception of service changed significantly. Our research will thus cover the medieval period for which no overall study on service exists so far. We will use an interdisciplinary methodology and bring together scholars from different fields (History, Literature and Art History, but also Religious Studies, Anthropology, and History of Architecture) and with complementary areas of geographical and chronological focus. In addition, we will take into account religion, which has been very little considered so far in the studies concerning service, even though any discourse on service in these centuries was steeped in religious imagery. For this reason, we will consider the Christian, Jewish and (when and where relevant also) Muslim communities of medieval and early modern Europe side by side. Finally, our approach will be both empirical and theoretical: we intend to examine service as a socio-historical reality and as a concept to define human relationships and work relations, a joint approach which has never been adopted in previous scholarship.

Main themes:

– Domestic servants in distinct surroundings (urban context, rural context, and within castles)

– Service in different religious groups (Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, etc.), including service when the servant is of a different religious faith than the masters

– Service in various religious sources and servants working for religious individuals or communities (theology and canon law; exempla literature in Latin and Hebrew; servants of secular clergy and in monasteries)

– Servants in art

– Service in literary sources

– Service as a model for human relationships, including service as work, or rather work conceived as service

– Service and issues of gender, sexualities, and kinship

– Service, race and migration

– Spatial distribution of servants within the households

– Service as opposed to slavery

Main disciplines: Social History, Religious History, Art History, History of Law, Theology, Literature, Economic History, History of Architecture, and Anthropology

The Art of the Lost: destruction, reconstruction and change 

27^th to 29^th November 2019

Proposal deadline: Friday 25^th January 2019

Proposals for papers are invited for the two day conference ‘The Art of the Lost: destruction, reconstruction and change’ (working title) to be held at Canterbury Cathedral on the 27^th to 29^thNovember 2019.

The conference is part of a wider project to preserve and research the material culture of Canterbury Cathedral and it is supported by the Chapter of Canterbury and the Heritage Lottery Fund through The Canterbury Journey project.

This conference will explore and appraise current and developing studies of how art changes, is reused or repurposed, disappears or is rediscovered.

It will look at how and why art is defaced, destroyed or is lost within architectural settings, with a particular focus on art within the context of cathedrals, churches or other places of worship.

It will consider changing ideologies, iconoclasm, war, fashion and symbolism. It will cover art from the 6^th century to the modern day.

The aim of the conference is to offer a vibrant and challenging perspective on the field, review ongoing projects, scholarly activity and public engagement.

Original proposals are welcome from professionals, rising and established academic scholars and graduate students. Submissions are invited on topics including, but not limited to:

• Stained Glass
• Graffiti
• Wall art
• Paintings
• Textiles
• Books, manuscripts and libraries
• Architecture and interior design
• Sculpture
• Monuments and tombs
• Church plate
• New art making use of old or reacting to architectural settings
• Photography and moving image

The conference will include a series of presentations and panel discussions, supported by unique and unusual access to the architecture of the Cathedral.

Guidelines for proposals:

Presentations of papers will be 30 minutes in length with time for questions at the end of each session.

Papers in this context could be individual or joint presentations or panel discussions.

Proposals should include the presenter’s name, position and institutional affiliation, the paper’s title, an abstract of up to 250 words, a biography of up to 200 words (written in the third person), and a contact e-mail address.

Proposals for joint presentations or panel discussions should include the above for each speaker, and in the case of a panel discussion a paragraph of up to 250 words describing the panel’s rationale.

Proposals for papers should be emailed to Sarah Turner, Collections Manager and Heather Newton, Head of Conservation by 25^th January 2019 at Learning@canterbury-cathedral.org, with the email titled: Art of the Lost Proposal and your proposal title.

Informal enquiries in advance of this deadline are welcome, via the same e-mail address or by phone on: + 44 (0) 1227 862797

All presenters will receive a contribution towards their travel costs (standard class tickets within the UK or mileage at 40p mile) and free entry to the conference (including lunch and refreshments, but excluding the conference dinner).

Full registration details will be available in February 2019. Limited student and low income bursaries may be available, more details to follow.