Reconsidering the Concept of Decline and the Arts of the Palaiologan Era
One day and a half Symposium & Workshop
University of Birmingham
24-25 February, 2017

This one day and a half conference combines a symposium and a workshop. The aim is to examine and contextualise the artistic and cultural production of the geopolitical centres that were controlled by or in contact with the late Byzantine Empire, such as the Adriatic and Balkan regions, the major islands of Cyprus and Crete, and the regions surrounding the cities of Constantinople, Thessaloniki, and Mystras. This conference will explore the many intellectual implications that are encoded in the innovative artistic production of the Palaiologan Era often simplified by a rigid understanding of what is Byzantine and what is not.

In its last centuries, the political entity of the Empire of the Romaioi released cultural and artistic energies migrating towards new frontiers of intellectual achievements. The intent is to counter-balance the innovation of these works of art with the notion of decline and the narrative of decay frequently acknowledged for this period; and to promote an understanding of transformation where previous cultural heritages were integrated into new socio-political orders.

The Symposium – hosted on the afternoon of the 24 and the morning of the 25 February – will bring together established scholars, early-career scholars, and postgraduate students. Three keynotes will provide the methodological framework for the discussion; while the selected papers will focus solely on the visual expressions and cultural trajectories of the artworks produced during the late Palaiologan Era.

The Workshop, hosted on the afternoon of the 25 February, will offer the opportunity to further the discussion in a more informal setting and for a selected number of Master students to interact and offer brief presentations.

Postgraduate students and early-career scholars are invited to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers on art and architecture history, material culture, visual aspects of palaeography and codicology, and gender studies.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Gift exchange in view of diplomatic missions or dynastic marriages both within the Empire and with its neighbours
• Visual evidence of the interaction between the Emperor and the Patriarch
• Innovations in the visual agenda of the Palaiologan dynasty
• Aspects of religious iconography and visual representations of theological controversies, i.e. Hesychasm
• Artistic patronage and manuscript production as the outcome of dynastic and institutional interactions
• Visual and material production as the outcome of political and social circumstances, i.e. the Zealot uprising or the Unionist policy
• Evidence of artistic exchanges in the depictions of women, men, and children during the Palaiologan Era

Titles of proposed papers, abstracts of 250 words, and a short CV should be sent to Maria Alessia Rossi (The Courtauld Institute of Art) – m.alessiarossi@icloud.com and Andrea Mattiello (The University of Birmingham) – axm570@bham.ac.uk by 30 September, 2016.

Objects and Possessions: Material Goods in a Changing World, 1200–1800
Southampton
3–6 April, 2017

This interdisciplinary conference looks at material culture across a long timeframe in order to explore the worlds of goods and objects across Europe and its overseas colonies, the connections and relationships facilitated by the exchange of goods, the importance and interpretation of the inheritance of goods and objects, and the ways in which goods brokered relationships between Europe and the wider world in the period.

The aim is to deepen our understanding of how goods ‘worked’ in a variety of social, economic and cultural contexts. We know a great deal about real property and the possession of land, but comparatively little about goods and chattels and their connections, and how these developed across a long timeframe. Over the period 1200‒1800 there were great changes in the type, range and availability of goods, from the finest items of the elite, the work of craftsmen on an individual basis, to the manufacture and widespread availability of cheap and utilitarian goods and equipment.

Customs of ‘possession’ need to be exposed, to show what ownership might mean, what property might be held by women or children, and what might be considered inalienable within families. The conference will look to identify the cultural connections—and how goods and attitudes to them change culture. It will also consider how goods were transferred, exchanged and collected, as well as the ways in which objects could be used to mediate connections and broker relationships between different people and places.

Proposals are invited for single papers and for whole sessions (three papers). Papers should not exceed 30 minutes. Themes might include:

• The ownership of goods; the law and objects
• Patterns of inheritance for different categories
• The connections of different groups in society to goods, for example, domestic equipment, jewellery, textiles
• The introduction of new goods, fashions and colours
• The increasing quantities and diversity of goods
• Furnishings for household interiors
• Consumer revolutions (e.g. sugar, colour, fur)
• Vocabularies for describing goods
• Trades and markets for goods
• Processes of collecting and accumulation
• The politics of possession and display

Please send short abstracts (no more than 200 words per paper) by 12 September, 2016 to Chris Woolgar (C.M.Woolgar@southampton.ac.uk).

Space, Place and Image in Early Modern English Literature
University of Lausanne, Switzerland
11-13 May, 2017

Confirmed keynote speakers:

• Dr. Mary Morrissey (University of Reading)
• Professor Andrew McRae (University of Exeter)

Expanding on our ongoing research project on the spatial and visual dimensions of the poetry and prose of John Donne, we are organising a conference seeking to investigate issues of ‘Space, Place and Image in Early Modern English Literature’ (c. 1500-1700). The conference will take place on the beautiful campus of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, on 11-13 May 2017.

In the wake of the recent visual and spatial turns in literary criticism, we would like to explore how revolutions in social, political and religious practice in the Renaissance have translated into new uses and understandings of space and images in the poetry and prose of the period.The Reformation implied a new geography of faith, a rearrangement of church space, as well as ambivalent attitudes towards visual arts and representations of the divine. Geographical exploration and colonial expansion redefined what had been until then relatively well-established frontiers, while a growing interest in land surveying increasingly focused on the layout and properties of the natural landscape. The political sphere of the court was clearly marked in contrast with other areas of urban and rural life in terms of place but also in terms personal and professional trajectories. Scientific discoveries distorted the shape and size of the known cosmos and, amidst these large-scale upheavals, questions of intimacy and selfhood became increasingly important as individuals distinguished public spaces from private spheres or more intimate communities. The expansion of print technology in the Renaissance revolutionized textual space, while new techniques in the visual arts, exemplified by the introduction of one-point perspective, similarly led to major developments in the way space was apprehended and pictured.Early modern authors were thus writing at a time in which spaces, places and images significantly evolved in the way they were scientifically and aesthetically recorded.

We welcome abstracts for 20 minute-papers addressing ways in which early modern English authors engage with the spatial and visual paradigms of their times. Potential subjects may include:

• geography, topography, and travel narratives
• cartography and astronomy
• natural landscape and urban environment
• sacred & profane spaces
• linear perspective & optics
• motion, dislocation and confinement
• visual arts & literary ekphrasis
• geocriticism and theories of space and place
• textual space and spatial deixis
• iconoclasm
• metaphorical representations of the divine
• preaching places and spaces

We warmly invite you to send your paper title along with a 300-word proposal (in Word format) and a short biography (100 words) containing your academic affiliation to both conference organisers, Sonia.Pernet@unil.ch and Kader.Hegedus@unil.ch, by Monday 19 September, 2016.

Papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in a collection of essays edited by the organisers.