Index of Medieval Art

NEW Conference DATE for “FRAGMENTS, ART, AND MEANING IN THE MIDDLE AGES”

Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University

In response to continued uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Index will postpone the “Fragments” conference until November 6, 2021. We are grateful that all the originally scheduled speakers envision being able to join us at that time.

The conference will address the role played by fragments and fragmentation in the medieval and modern understanding of works of art. Speakers will address such topics as the use or reuse of fragments in the creation of new works; quotation and replication as a kind of fragmentation; fragmentation of the perceptual or conceptual experience of a work; deliberate fragmentation or fragmentariness in works such as pilgrims’ tokens or votive objects; and the modern engagement with fragments as an attempt to reconstruct lost works of art, lost visual traditions, or lost cultural practices.

Speakers (listed alphabetically):

Andrea Achi, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Patricia Blessing, Princeton University

William Diebold, Reed College

Shirin Fozi, University of Pittsburgh

Gregor Kalas, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

Kathryn M. Rudy, University of Saint Andrews

Henry D. Schilb, Princeton University

Susanne Wittekind, Universität zu Köln

Save the Date: Art, Power, and Resistance in the Middle Ages

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Portrait bust of Germanicus Caesar, ca. 14-20 CE, Roman original with medieval alterations. London, British Museum, 1872,0605.1

Please join the Index of Medieval Art for a one-day conference that examines the role of the visual in the negotiation of medieval power relationships, whether political, social, religious, or individual. Eight scholars with a range of specializations will address how works of medieval art were used to impose and maintain power over others, to resist dominant figures or regimes, or as agents in the back-and-forth of an ongoing power struggle. Speakers will include:

Heather Badamo, University of California, Santa Barbara

Elena Boeck, DePaul University

Thomas E.A. Dale, University of Wisconsin

Martha Easton, St. Joseph’s University

Eliza Garrison, Middlebury College

Anne D. Hedeman, University of Kansas

Tom Nickson, Courtauld Institute of Art

Avinoam Shalem, Columbia University

A schedule and free registration link will be posted in late summer 2019