International Conference: Early Medieval Graphicacy in a Comparative Perspective
University of Oslo, Blindern, Oslo
9–10 June, 2016
Conference Website
Organizers: Prof. Ildar Garipzanov and Dr Romy Wyche
This conference is the last of a series for the Graphicacy and Authority in Early Medieval Europe Project. The aim of the project has been to gather scholars from a wide range of disciplines to discuss the increasing role of non-figural graphic devices across a wide range of media, from manuscripts to architecture and mass-produced objects.
Visual communication in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages is conventionally analysed using methods specific to either figural imagery (and visualcy of the past) or literary productions (and literacy). In contrast, our project focuses on non-figural graphic devices which are intermediaries between texts and pictures, and which appear during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. The project operates with a working hypothesis that these graphic compositions attest to early graphicacy, which has been defined as a visual mode of communication of conceptual information and abstract ideas by means of non-figural graphic devices, which may comprise inscribed letters, words, or decorative symbols. For a recent discussion of early graphicacy, click here and for more information about the project, please visit our website.
Our previous conferences have examined functions and contextual usage of graphic devices such as monograms, christograms, the staurogram, the sign of the cross and symbolic ornaments on a wide array of material as well as the monogrammatic and decorated initials, graphic symbols, and ornamental designs that appear in early medieval manuscripts. In this closing conference, we would like to include early non-figural graphic devices that are more familiar to specialists in modern graphicacy, namely maps and diagrams.
The objective of this conference is to gather scholars from a wide range of disciplines including but not limited to art history, archaeology and cultural history of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in the Latin West and Greek East for comparative discussions of early non-figural graphic devices in different media, regions, or chronological periods. We are especially interested in papers dealing with different forms of early graphicacy in a comparative perspective as well as common cognitive mechanisms that enable their deployment in visual communication.
Please submit your proposal (about 300 words) and a short academic CV (no more than a page) at the following link by 1 October, 2015. Places are limited to allow us to subsidise some costs, including registration fee and refreshments. If you have any question please contact Dr Romy Wyche at r.m.wyche@iakh.uio.no.
Showing posts with label Visual Perception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Visual Perception. Show all posts
CALL FOR PAPERS: The Senses in Medieval and Renaissance Europe: Sight and Visual Perception
University College Dublin, 11–12 March 2016
Proposals for papers are invited for The Senses in Medieval and Renaissance Europe: Sight and Visual Perception, which aims to provide an international and interdisciplinary forum for researchers with an interest in the history of the senses in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
The history of the senses is a rapidly expanding field of research. Pioneered in Early Modern and Modern studies, it is now attracting attention also from Medieval and Renaissance specialists. Preoccupation with the human senses and with divine control over them is evident in a range of narrative texts, scientific treatises, creative literature, as well as the visual arts and music from the pre-modern period. This conference – the first in a series devoted to the five senses – aims to contribute to this expansion by bringing together leading researchers to exchange ideas and approaches.
The theme of the inaugural meeting is ‘Sight and Visual Perception’. Sight has been chosen as the first topic for investigation as it was considered the primary sense and was treated as an abstract philosophical and religious concept in many medieval texts. But the study of sight can also provide insights into various aspects of medieval society: ‘eye-witness’ descriptions; sight impairment and the care of the blind; deprivation of sight as punishment or revenge; the development of spectacles and other optical aids; ideas about colours and their significance; ‘second sight’ as manifested in visions and apparitions; the concept of ‘the gaze’ in visual arts. The conference aims to address these and other themes and to foster interaction between established and younger scholars working in the area.
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Elizabeth Robertson, University of Glasgow
Professor Chris Woolgar, University of Southampton
Professor Robertson’s research and publications are concerned with vernacular theology, medieval poetics, literacy in the Middle Ages, and gender and religion in Middle English literature. Her recent work has focused on vision and touch in devotional literature. With J. Jahner she edited Medieval and Early Modern Devotional Objects in Global Perspective: Translations of the Sacred for theNew Middle Ages series (Palgrave MacMillan, 2010). This collection contains her important paper, ‘Julian of Norwich’s Unmediated Vision’.
Professor Woolgar’s research and publications are concerned with the social and economic history of late-medieval England and in particular with the evidence contained in domestic household accounts. He is the author of The Senses in Late Medieval England (Yale, 2007) and co-author of A Cultural History of the Senses in the Middle Ages, 500–1450, ed. Richard Newhauser (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).
Contributions on any aspect of the conference theme of ‘Sight and Visual Perception’ are welcomed from established and early career scholars as well as postgraduates. Proposals for panels are also warmly encouraged. Titles and abstracts (maximum 300 words) together with a short biography, institutional affiliation and contact details, should be forwarded to medrenforum@gmail.comby 8 November 2015.
The conference is organised by Edward Coleman, School of History, UCD and the Forum for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Ireland. It is generously supported by UCD Seed Funding.
Organizing Committee:
Dr Edward Coleman (University College Dublin)
Dr Ann Buckley (Queen’s University Belfast / Trinity College Dublin)
Dr Carrie Griffin (University of Bristol)
Dr Emer Purcell (University College Cork)
Forum for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Ireland (FMRSI)
Web: www.fmrsi.wordpress.comEmail: medrenforum@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ForumMRSI
Twitter: @FMRSI
The history of the senses is a rapidly expanding field of research. Pioneered in Early Modern and Modern studies, it is now attracting attention also from Medieval and Renaissance specialists. Preoccupation with the human senses and with divine control over them is evident in a range of narrative texts, scientific treatises, creative literature, as well as the visual arts and music from the pre-modern period. This conference – the first in a series devoted to the five senses – aims to contribute to this expansion by bringing together leading researchers to exchange ideas and approaches.
The theme of the inaugural meeting is ‘Sight and Visual Perception’. Sight has been chosen as the first topic for investigation as it was considered the primary sense and was treated as an abstract philosophical and religious concept in many medieval texts. But the study of sight can also provide insights into various aspects of medieval society: ‘eye-witness’ descriptions; sight impairment and the care of the blind; deprivation of sight as punishment or revenge; the development of spectacles and other optical aids; ideas about colours and their significance; ‘second sight’ as manifested in visions and apparitions; the concept of ‘the gaze’ in visual arts. The conference aims to address these and other themes and to foster interaction between established and younger scholars working in the area.
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Elizabeth Robertson, University of Glasgow
Professor Chris Woolgar, University of Southampton
Professor Robertson’s research and publications are concerned with vernacular theology, medieval poetics, literacy in the Middle Ages, and gender and religion in Middle English literature. Her recent work has focused on vision and touch in devotional literature. With J. Jahner she edited Medieval and Early Modern Devotional Objects in Global Perspective: Translations of the Sacred for theNew Middle Ages series (Palgrave MacMillan, 2010). This collection contains her important paper, ‘Julian of Norwich’s Unmediated Vision’.
Professor Woolgar’s research and publications are concerned with the social and economic history of late-medieval England and in particular with the evidence contained in domestic household accounts. He is the author of The Senses in Late Medieval England (Yale, 2007) and co-author of A Cultural History of the Senses in the Middle Ages, 500–1450, ed. Richard Newhauser (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014).
Contributions on any aspect of the conference theme of ‘Sight and Visual Perception’ are welcomed from established and early career scholars as well as postgraduates. Proposals for panels are also warmly encouraged. Titles and abstracts (maximum 300 words) together with a short biography, institutional affiliation and contact details, should be forwarded to medrenforum@gmail.comby 8 November 2015.
The conference is organised by Edward Coleman, School of History, UCD and the Forum for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Ireland. It is generously supported by UCD Seed Funding.
Organizing Committee:
Dr Edward Coleman (University College Dublin)
Dr Ann Buckley (Queen’s University Belfast / Trinity College Dublin)
Dr Carrie Griffin (University of Bristol)
Dr Emer Purcell (University College Cork)
Forum for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Ireland (FMRSI)
Web: www.fmrsi.wordpress.comEmail: medrenforum@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ForumMRSI
Twitter: @FMRSI
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