CFP: Venice, Materiality, and the Byzantine World
CFP: Venice, Materiality, and the Byzantine World
Sponsored by the Italian Art Society
53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies
May 10-13, 2018, Western Michigan University
The Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposium leading to the 2010 publication of San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice introduced
new perspectives on Byzantine and Venetian visual and material culture
that extended Otto Demus’s survey of Saint Mark’s basilica. The authors’
application of more recent approaches—such as the social function of
spolia, the act of display, the construction of identity, and cultural
hybridity—brought fresh analyses to a complex and richly decorated
monument. This panel seeks to expand this methodological discourse by
taking into account questions related to materials, materiality, and
intermediality between Venice and Byzantium. The arrival of material
culture from the Byzantine world to Venice as gifts, spoils, or ephemera
during the centuries surrounding the Fourth Crusade allowed for both
appropriation and conceptual transformation of material culture. In
light of the renewal in interest of Venice’s Byzantine heritage, this
panel seeks to reflect on the interaction of material culture between la
Serenissima and the Byzantine world, especially during the eleventh
through fifteenth centuries. Topics may be wide-ranging, including, but
not limited to: issues of reception and cultural translation; changing
concepts of preciousness; different valuation of materials between
Venice and Byzantium; the fluctuating simulation of material visual
effects; the transformation of Byzantine objects incorporated into
Venetian frames; intermedial dialogue between Byzantine and Venetian
art; and the process and technique of manufacture of works between
Byzantium and Venice. Some points of departure may include: the building
of San Marco itself; Byzantine objects in the Treasury; Byzantine
manuscripts included as part of the Cardinal Bessarion gift to the
Republic; the monuments on Torcello; or issues raised as a result of
recent conservation projects. New cross-cultural methodologies from art
historical, anthropological, or sociological fields are welcome.
Please submit a 300-word abstract and a completed Participant Information Form (http://www.wmich.edu/
Brad Hostetler, Kenyon College, hostetler1@kenyon.edu
Joseph Kopta, Pratt Institute, jkopta@pratt.edu
In addition to the travel awards available to all Congress participants (http://www.wmich.edu/
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