The Medieval Academy Blog

Call for Applications for the
Medieval Textile Workshops 

Workshop 1: Tuesday, February 21, 2023
Led by Jennifer Ball and Valerie Garver

Workshop 2: Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Led by Sharon Farmer and Sharon Kinoshita

The Avenir Center
George Washington University Virginia Science and Technology Campus
44930 Knoll Square
Ashburn, VA 20147

 I. Description: Supported by the Medieval Academy, the MAA 2023 Local Arrangements Committee and UC Berkeley Department of History, the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum are offering two identical, full-day workshops that make use of the institution’s rich textile collections housed in the Avenir Center on GW’s Virginia Science and Technology Campus in Ashburn, Virginia. The Avenir Foundation Conservation and Collections Resource Center houses the majority of The Textile Museum’s world-class collections. These include Oriental carpets and late antique, early Islamic (including tiraz), Indian (including Mughal), Southeast Asian, Central Asian, Persian, Turkish, and Greek textiles. The collections also include textiles from China, Japan, and Africa, although these are fewer in number. The museum also has extraordinary holdings of pre-Columbian Peruvian textiles: styles that are particularly well represented include Ocucaje, Nasca, Huari, Chimu, Chancay, and Inca. In addition, the collections include extensive holdings of textiles in the modern traditions that descend from pre-Columbian origins, including those of Guatemala and Mexico, as well as the Andean countries of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

Each workshop day, 2 faculty leaders will work with eight participants alongside the museum staff to examine examples from the collections.

II. Participants: The workshop is designed for those familiar with but not-yet-expert in textile research and scholarship. Due to space restrictions, each day of the workshop is restricted to two faculty members and eight graduate students, junior scholars or independent scholars.

III. Timing: A proposed schedule for the event is as follows:

9:00 Depart from Grand Hyatt
10:00-10:30 Arrive in Ashburn; welcome and orientation
10:30-12 Access to textile samples
12:00-1 Lunch
1-3:00 Access to textile samples
3:00 Return to Grand Hyatt

IV. Application Process
To apply, please fill out the MAA 2023 Textile Workshop application form, which will require the following:

1. Contact information 

• first name
• last name
• current affiliation (if applicable, if currently unaffiliated, please include hometown)
• mailing address
• preferred email
• preferred phone number

2. A 2-paragraph statement of interest, indicating which day you would prefer to attend and how this workshop will support or expand your research and/or teaching agenda.

 3. A short CV (1 page maximum).

Applications are due by November 15, 2022, 11:59 EST. No late applications will be accepted. All applicants will be informed of the status of their applications by December 1, 2022. Those accepted to the workshop should register by January 1, 2023 to ensure their space at the workshop;  any places not claimed by accepted participants by this date will then be made available to applicants on the waiting list.

V. Cost: The cost of lunch and roundtrip transportation to the Avenir Center from Washington, D.C. for all applicants will be covered through the generous support of the University of California at Berkeley.

However, PLEASE NOTE the cost of lodging is not covered, and individuals arriving to the D.C. area early for the textile workshop should be prepared to make arrangements for accommodations accordingly. A block of rooms has been set aside at the conference hotel at the conference rate for workshop participants.

Call for Papers
Movement & Activation: Social Sculpture in the Global Middle Ages
International Congress on Medieval Studies (In Person, May 11-13, 2023)

Organizers: Ariela Algaze (NYU Institute of Fine Arts), Kris Racaniello (CUNY Graduate Center)

Drawing performance studies into the larger field of medieval art history, this session seeks to address the methodological unity between materiality, sensory experience, and activation studies through the paradigm of “social sculpture.” Since Joseph Beuys introduced the term in the late 1960s, contemporary art historians investigated the potentialities of sculpture and bodies-as-sculpture to shape social communities and identity through performance. This session proposal seeks to identify ways in which this phenomenon can be applied to the study of art in the Global Middle Ages.

Transformative and performative, medieval art was integrated into the lived experience of everyday people through religious and political institutions in the form of procession, liturgy, and urban planning. Medieval viewers responded to art through offerings, drawing, graffiti, and ritual actions. We invite papers that might address how medieval sculptural programs shaped and transformed various social, political, or religious communities through direct and indirect contact. We welcome investigations excavating premodern performance practices through the paradigm of social sculpture.

We seek to open this relatively new field of study through a diverse panel focused on different geographies across Afroeurasia and welcome papers focused on subjects from the fifth to sixteenth century. Please submit the proposed paper title, affiliation, and an abstract of no more than 250 words for this in-person session through the ICMS portal AND email them to aa8765@nyu.edu and kristen.racaniello@gmail.com by September 15th. 

Papers might consider, but are not limited to, the following subjects and questions:

• Participatory sculpture, performance, and spectacle
• The role of the sculpted body-in-space in structuring religious and civic ritual
• Portable sculpture along pilgrimage, processions, and trade routes
• The representation of the body with ephemeral or recyclable materials, such as votive offerings in shrine space and on cult objects
• Delimiting premodern race and community building through public oaths and acts of conversion
• Manipulation of the body in penitential and confessory settings

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture invites papers for its sponsored panel at the 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 11–13, 2023.

Audience and Action in Byzantine Ceremonies
Session organized by Nikolas Churik (Princeton University) & Erik Ellis (Hillsdale College)

This panel invites a wide-range of papers on the question of popular presence and participation in Byzantine public ritual. In particular, the panel is interested in idealized and non-idealized participation. It aims to consider especially how the people are understood to take part in public ceremonies through their normative representatives (guilds, nationalities, ethnic groups) or upset those norms due to some limiting factor (geography, social status, ability). The papers may come from relevant disciplines (literary/area studies, history, religious studies, art history, among others) and from any relevant linguistic or cultural field.

To read the full call for papers, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/58th-icms

Abstracts of 300 words are due September 15, 2022. Abstracts must be submitted using CONFEX, the conference portal (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi). The session will take place in-person.

Please submit any questions about the panel to Nick Churik (nchurik[at]princeton.edu).

Funding
The Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse session participants up to $600 maximum for scholars based in North America and up to $1200 maximum for those coming from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement. For scholars participating remotely, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse participants for conference registration.