Sculpture and the Medieval City CFP

CALL FOR PAPERS:



Sculpture and the Medieval City



Session to be held at the 2010 International Congress on Medieval
Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 13-16 May



Sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA)


Organizers: Mark Rosen (University of Texas at Dallas) and Ittai
Weinryb (Bard Graduate Center, NY).



This session aims to explore the role, meaning, function, and even
dysfunction of sculpture in the medieval city. From the ontological
value of their being objects occupying space, sculpture has always
been part of an environment. This session invites papers that ask how
the use and re-use of sculpture shaped the medieval city's definition
of itself, how sculpture illuminated medieval daily life, and how
meaning was generated through the performance of sculpture, its
interaction with its site, and its adaptation of pictorial themes
resonant to local populations. Church facades, governmental
buildings, antique monuments, fountains, and even wellheads are all
suitable topics for this session.



Disciplinary and interdisciplinary developments in scholarship over
the past forty years have resulted not only in the transformation of
our understanding of sculpture and its function within civic space
but also our understanding of what medieval space and specifically
medieval civic space meant in the Middle Ages. We are seeking papers
that will illuminate, revisit and even rephrase old notions of the
relationship between the place, the media and the materiality of
sculpture within the medieval city. Papers on issues of centrality
and marginality of sculpture around sacred or secular spaces within
the medieval city are also welcomed.



DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS: 15 September 2009



Paper proposals should consist of the following:
1. Abstract of proposed paper (300 words maximum)
2. Completed Abstract Cover Sheet (available at:
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions.html#ACS
3. CV with home and office mailing addresses, e-mail address, and phone number
4. Statement of ICMA membership status (note: all participants in
ICMA sponsored sessions are required to be members of the ICMA)



ALL PROPOSALS AND INQUIRIES SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO:

Mark Rosen

Arts and Humanities

University of Texas at Dallas

Mailing Station JO 31

800 W. Campbell Road

Richardson, TX 75080

medieval.sculpture.city@gmail.com