CALL FOR PAPERS: Netherlandish Art and Luxury Goods in Renaissance Spain Trade, Patronage and Consumption

University of Leuven, Belgium, 4-6 February 2016
International conference

Initiated and organized by
Illuminare – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art | KU Leuven

In 2010, Illuminare – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art (KU Leuven) acquired the archive of the eminent Belgian art historian professor Jan Karel Steppe (1918-2009). Steppe is internationally renowned for his groundbreaking research on the influx of Netherlandish art and luxury goods in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spain. By springtime 2016, his documentation will be archived and the inventory made accessible online. To celebrate this accomplishment, Illuminare is organizing an international conference on Steppe’s long-term and much loved research topic.

This conference will focus on a large variety of media, ranging from painting and tapestry to broadcloth and astrolabes. Special attention will be paid to the driving forces behind this export-driven market, such as artists, patrons, collectors and merchants. By taking into account cultural, religious, political and socio-economic dynamics, this conference aims to shed new light on the multifaceted artistic impact of the Low Countries on the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

We welcome 20-minute papers by established and early career scholars that revisit or expand Steppe’s topics of research and, equally important, enhance these with recent methodologies and theoretical frameworks. The official language of the conference is English, although papers in French might be taken into consideration. Proposals of no more than 300 words and a brief CV should be submitted to drs. Robrecht Janssen (robrecht.janssen@arts.kuleuven.be) and drs. Daan van Heesch (daan.vanheesch@arts.kuleuven.be) by the 1st of October 2015. Speakers will be invited to submit their papers for a peer-reviewed publication on the topic.

Scientific committee:
Barbara Baert (KU Leuven), Krista de Jonge (KU Leuven), Bart Fransen (KIK-IRPA, Brussels), Robrecht Janssen (KU Leuven / KIK-IRPA, Brussels), Maximiliaan Martens (Ghent University), Werner Thomas (KU Leuven), Paul Vandenbroeck (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp / KU Leuven), Jan Van der Stock (KU Leuven), Daan van Heesch (KU Leuven), Koenraad Van Cleempoel (Hasselt University), Annelies Vogels (KU Leuven), Lieve Watteeuw (KU Leuven)

For more information, please visit the conference website: https://netherlandishartinspain.wordpress.com/ 

CALL FOR PAPERS: Domestic Devotions in the Early Modern World, 1400-1800

An Interdisciplinary Conference 9-11 July 2015 University of Cambridge

Across faiths and regions and throughout the world, the home was a centre for devotion in the early modern period. Holy books, prayer mats, candlesticks, inscriptions, icons, altars, figurines of saints and deities, paintings, prints and textiles all wove religion into the very fabric of the home. While research into religious practice during this period often focuses on institutions and public ceremonies, it is clear that the home played a profound role in shaping devotional experience, as a place for religious instruction, private prayer and contemplation, communal worship, and the performance of everyday rituals.

The ERC-funded research project Domestic Devotions: The Place of Piety in the Italian Renaissance Home will be hosting this three-day international interdisciplinary conference in July 2015. The project team invites proposals for 20-minute papers that explore domestic devotions in the early modern world. Papers may consider this theme from a variety of perspectives, including material culture studies, art and architectural history, gender studies, theology, religious studies, economic and social history, literary studies, musicology, archaeology and anthropology. Topics may include, though are not limited to:

• The use of images, objects or books in private devotion 
• Daily life and life cycles 
• The relationships between collective (e.g. institutional or non-familial) devotion and private devotion 
• The role of the senses in spiritual experience 
• The production and ownership of religious objects found in the home 
• Gender, race or age and devotional life 
• Policing and regulating household religion 
• Encounters between different faiths and traditions in domestic context 
• Domestic devotional spaces 
• Music in domestic devotion 
• Devotional literature

Plenary speakers will be Debra Kaplan (Bar-Ilan University), Andrew Morrall (Bard Graduate Center) and Virginia Reinburg (Boston College).

Please email abstracts of no more than 300 words to Maya Corry at mc878@cam.ac.uk, Marco Faini at mf531@cam.ac.uk, and Alessia Meneghin at am2253@cam.ac.uk by 7th January 2015. Along with your abstract please include your name, institution, paper title and a brief biography. Successful applicants will be notified by 7th February 2015. For further information on Domestic Devotions see our website http://domesticdevotions.lib.cam.ac.uk/

College accommodation will be bookable nearer the time. Registration fees (tbc) will be kept as low as possible and graduate bursaries will be available to help with costs. 

Images provided by the Fitzwilliam Museum MS 336, folio 2r & PD158-1963