2 sessions at 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies
University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, MI (USA), 12-15 May 2016
New Perspectives on Medieval Rome
Organizers:
Marius B. Hauknes, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Johns Hopkins
University
Alison Locke Perchuk, Assistant Professor of Art History, California
State University Channel Islands
Digital, environmental, material, Mediterranean, sensory, spatial:
these are among the recent “turns” taken by the medieval humanities,
including art history. The new perspectives on the past opened by these
approaches, many of which are informed by interdisciplinary research
and contemporary cultural interests in the natural and built world, are
fundamentally reshaping how we conceive of and study medieval art and
architecture. In the field of medieval art, the city of Rome has
traditionally been a key site for the formulation of innovative avenues
of approach, but what are its current status and its potential in
relation to the discipline’s new discourses?
These two linked sessions seek to assess the impact of recent
methodological developments on the study of the art, architecture, and
urban forms of Rome during the long middle ages, ca. 300–1500. We
invite papers that offer new research on, and new ways of thinking
about, the visual and material culture of medieval Rome. Possible
topics and perspectives include but are not limited to:
• Questions of reception and sensory experience of art,
architecture, and material culture, including problems of agency and
efficacy; the differing cultural and social perspectives of historical
observers, the role of vision vis-à-vis other bodily senses, virtual
and imaginary experiences of medieval Rome’s monuments, and concepts of
animation in medieval artistic practice and contemporary theory.
• Questions of mobility and cultural exchange in the study of the
visual and material culture of medieval Rome; the effects of
trans-regional intellectual and artistic exchange on distinctively
Roman representational practices, the place of Rome within artistic,
cultural, and commercial networks.
• Eco-critical, environmental, and material perspectives on the art,
architecture, and urban forms of medieval Rome; the physicality of
built and natural environments, expressions of physical and spiritual
topographies, and the relationship between matter and meaning in
artistic and religious practices.
• Newly discovered or previously overlooked works of art and
architecture that challenge traditional art historical narratives; new
knowledge and insights provided by technical art history and
conservation; re-assessments of the historiographic lives of artists,
objects, and monuments; advantages offered by comparative analyses
between the art and architecture of medieval Rome and that of other
cultures and historical periods.
The two sessions will serve as a forum for productive and collaborative
dialogue among emerging, mid-career, and senior scholars whose work
places the study of medieval Roman art and architecture in dialogue
with broader methodological, technological, and theoretical
developments in the discipline and in the humanities.
Please direct inquiries/submissions to the organizers at
[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask] Information about the
conference, including proposal submission forms, may be found at
http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html.
Speakers do not need to be members of the Italian Art Society at the
time of their proposal. It is, however, expected that those not already
members will join prior to the conference. Limited travel funds are
available on a competitive basis through the Italian Art Society. See
www.italianartsociety.org for additional information.
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