CFP: Italian Art & the Confluence of Cultures (Kalamazoo)

Italian Art Society CFP:

Italian Art and the Confluence of Cultures, I–IV

Kalamazoo 2012

The membership of the Italian Art Society seeks papers for the 47th International Congress of Medieval Studies, to be held May 10–13, 2012, at the University of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo.  Italian Art and the Confluence of Cultures, I–IV comprises four linked sessions dedicated to the study of the rich cultural exchanges that lie at the foundation of Italy’s medieval art.  Building upon ideas that emerged during the IAS’s 2011 series Italian Art, a Reassessment of the Discipline, the IAS’s 2012 sessions will seek to direct attention to areas and periods so far neglected by American scholarship and at the same time to challenge received notions about periodization and geographic taxonomies.  Italian Art and the Confluence of Cultures encompasses a broad range of topics and materials, divided across the following sessions:

 

  • Italian Art and the Confluence of Cultures I. Early Medieval Art in Italy.  This session seeks papers that deal with the rich cultural exchange across the Alps and across the seas during the early centuries of the Middle Ages.  Areas of interest include but are not limited to: Brescia during the Longobard reign, Pavia as a Carolingian capital, and Milan as a center of Ottonian artistic production.
    Chair: Eliza Garrison, Middlebury College.

 

  • Italian Art and the Confluence of Cultures II. “Latin” and “Greek” Visual Cultures in the Italian Peninsula.  Byzantine art has often been invoked in regard to Italian art as an energizing foreign influence.  The session welcomes papers that explore the inextricable links between the two cultures on Italian soil: from early Christian icons to the maniera Graeca, from mosaics to cave paintings.
    Chair: Linda Safran, University of Toronto.

 

  • Italian Art and the Confluence of Cultures III. The Art of Islands and Islets.  The artistic panorama of islands presents peculiarities of exchange that set them apart from developments on the mainland. This session seeks papers that explore the artistic production of the Italian islands as microcosms of cultural exchanges: from Sardinia to Sicily, Elba to the Tremiti.  Chair: Cathleen Fleck, Saint Louis University.

 

  • Italian Art and the Confluence of Cultures IV. Cross-Cultural Exchanges Within and Beyond the Peninsula.  For centuries, Italy’s geographic position has favored productive exchange with countries bordering the Mediterranean basin.  This session seeks papers that explore the impact on Italian art of the circulation of objects, models, and artists from across the Mediterranean as well as the influence of Italian art in other countries.  Chair: Lisa Mahoney, De Paul University.

 

For submissions and inquiries, please contact Martina Bagnoli, the IAS’s Vice President for Program Coordination, at mbagnoli@thewalters.org.  Submission forms and instructions are available on the conference website, http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/.  The deadline for submissions is September 15, 2011.


Alison L. Perchuk

Visiting Assistant Professor

 

Art History & Visual Arts

Occidental College

Los Angeles CA 90041

 

323 259 2757 (t)

323 259 2930 (f)

perchuk@oxy.edu

 

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