***************************************************

THE THIRTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL BYZANTINE STUDIES CONFERENCE

CALL FOR PAPERS

Deadline for abstracts: Friday, 30 March 2012

The Thirty-Eighth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference (BSC) will be held at the Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts from Thursday evening, November 1, through Sunday lunch, November 4.

The conference is the annual forum for the presentation and discussion of papers on every aspect of Byzantine studies, and is open to all, regardless of nationality or academic status. It is also the occasion of the annual meeting of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America (BSANA), conducted by the current BSANA officers:

President: Derek Krueger (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

Vice President: Cecily Hilsdale (McGill University)

Secretary: Kathleen Maxwell (Santa Clara University)

Treasurer: Leonora Neville (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

For more information, please see our website:

http://www.bsana.net

******************************************

We welcome proposals on any aspect of Byzantine studies.

Proposals may be submitted either as individual abstracts or bundled as panels. Proposals consist of a cover sheet with your proposed title, proposed panel information (if part of a panel proposal) and your contact information and, on separate pages, two copies of an abstract of no more than 500 words, formatted and submitted according to the detailed instructions below. Organized panels may also be proposed, see instructions below.

The abstract is the basis for judging the proposed paper for acceptance. All abstracts, including those bundled for proposed panels, will be reviewed by each member of the Program Committee and accepted on their own merits. The program chair will group individually submitted papers into sessions, with the expectation that many sessions will be interdisciplinary. The session topics in the final program will depend on the subjects represented in the submissions.

All proposed papers must be substantially original and never have been published or presented previously in a public forum. Each contributor may deliver only one paper. The Program Committee may give preference to those who did not present a paper at the last BSC.

All abstracts will be reviewed by each member of the Program Committee:

Sarah Brooks (James Madison University)

Scott Johnson (Georgetown University and Dumbarton Oaks)

Kostis Kourelis (Franklin & Marshall College, Chair of the Committee)

Eunice Dauterman Maguire (Johns Hopkins University)

Christian Raffensperger (Wittenberg University)

If accepted, the abstract will be published in the Byzantine Studies Conference’s annual Abstracts of Papers. Submission of the accepted abstract for publication constitutes agreement to present the paper at the conference.

To deliver your paper at the BSC, you must be a member of BSANA in good standing: to join or renew your membership in the BSANA, complete the membership form posted on the BSANA website and send it along with your dues payment to the current BSANA Treasurer (contact information listed on the membership form):

http://www.bsana.net/membershipform.pdf

You can verify your membership status at the BSANA website listed above.

Notice of acceptance or rejection will be sent by email by May 15th.

******************************************

Byzantium/Modernism: Art, Cultural Heritage, and the Avant-Gardes

Sponsored by History of Art, Yale University

Friday, April 20, 2012 – Sunday, April 22, 2012

Location:
History of Art Department, Yale University
190 York Street
New Haven, CT 06510
United States

The Byzantine Empire cultivated a thriving community of theologians and philosophers that debated the ontological, phenomenological, and broader epistemic foundations of the image, upon which the Empire and the Church grounded their physical and metaphysical rule.

Since the nineteenth century, artists, critics, and scholars have utilized the Byzantine as a manner of articulating the development of modernity and its image-world. For example, in 1958, Clement Greenberg famously remarked on the formal homologies between Byzantine art and contemporary abstraction. Before him, Roger Fry coined the term “Proto-Byzantines” to describe the Post-Impressionists, and Alfred Barr described Byzantine art and its iconic heritage as fundamental to modern art.

The connection between Byzantium and modernity, however, is usually relegated to passing references or mere formal parallels, lacking a sustained consideration and archaeology of its conceptual grounding. What does modern art have to gain from Byzantium? How can Byzantine philosophy enrich our understanding of the modern and contemporary image?

The goal of this conference is twofold: First, to investigate the prolific interest in Byzantine art at the turn of the century and its effects on the historical Avant-Gardes in art, architecture, archaeology, and visual culture to the present; second, to articulate how Byzantine art and image philosophy can contribute to modern and contemporary visual culture. The intention is to produce an intellectual history of art from the nineteenth century to the present that uses Byzantium/Modernism as a paradigmatic fissure for the co-identification of said terms.

Website: http://byzmod2012.eventbrite.com/

Contact:
Roland Betancourt
roland.betancourt@yale.edu

**********************************************

BSANA listserv from Nancy Sevcenko, Vice President, International Center for Medieval Art:

Dear BSANA members,

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA), the association of medieval art historians that publishes the journal Gesta, is very interested in the idea of sponsoring a session at the BSC in Boston this coming fall. Through the generosity of the Kress Foundation, the ICMA is able to provide some travel and hotel funds for the speakers at such a session (up to $1000 per person), including speakers coming from abroad. This is a wonderful way for us to encourage more western and Islamic art historians, as well as our European colleagues, to attend the BSC.  Do please think of organizing such a session.  This invitation will go out to the membership of the ICMA as well. 

The proposed session will need to pass two hurdles. The procedure is the following:

1.  Submit a proposal for an organized session, with a title, an abstract, a CV of the organizer and the names of 4-5 speakers, to the Programs and Lectures Committee of the ICMA for its approval. 

2.  The ICMA committee will determine whether to sponsor the proposed session, and if it chooses to do so, will notify the organizer, who will then submit the approved proposal to the Program Committee of the BSC, which will make the final decision.

The deadlines are these:

1 March: submit the session proposal to the ICMA by sending it to Prof. Elina Gertsman, Chair, Programs and Lectures Committee (exg152@case.edu).  Guidelines are available on the ICMA website (http://medievalart.org), under Events, ICMA Sponsored Sessions, Call for Papers.

ca. 15 March (exact date not yet determined).  Submit the approved session proposal to the BSC, following the guidelines that will be posted on the Byzantine Studies Association of North America website: www.bsana.net. Abstracts of the individual papers are required.  The abstracts will be reviewed blindly; speakers and session organizers are usually notified by mid May.

Speakers will be refunded only after the conference, against travel receipts.  The funds are available for travel and hotel expenses only (with a limit of $1000 per person), and are available only to speakers: session organizers, chairs and discussants are not eligible.

If you have any questions, please contact Nancy Sevcenko at nsevcenko8@gmail.com

MAPMAG News

The AIA/APA Annual Meeting preliminary programs are out, and the MAPMAG sponsored panel, “Sailing Away from Byzantium,” is on for Friday afternoon.

Conferences:

• A number of conferences last month on Byzantine archaeology and world
• Redefining Byzantium: Art & Thought in the Byzantine World: held last month at Princeton
• “1st International Workshop: The Byzantine Early Middle Ages, 7th-8th Centuries” held in late October at the University of Cyprus in Nicosia. 
• 37th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference at DePaul University
• “Fact and Fiction in Medieval and Post-Medieval Ceramics in the Eastern Mediterranean – Are we on the right track? – Conference held at the University of Amsterdam
• “Reality and Illusion: Seeing through the ‘Byzantine Mirage’,” The Oxford Byzantine Society’s 2012 International Graduate Conference, February 17-18, 2012, University of Oxford
• “The Archaeology of Late Antique and Byzantine Cyprus (4th – 12th centuries AD): Recent Research and New Discoveries”,  Nicosia, October 19^-21, 2012.  Here’s the Call for Papers:
• “A number of conferences and exhibitions organised in 2011 or planned for 2012, the latter meant to celebrate Cyprus’s accession to the Presidency of the EU Council in the second semester of that year, share a focus on the history, art and culture of Byzantine and Medieval Cyprus (4th-16th centuries AD). The proposed conference, as the title makes apparent, adopts a more targeted approach by narrowing its focal point on the archaeology of Late Antique and Byzantine Cyprus, from the 4th up to the 12th centuries AD. As such, it may be viewed as a sequel to the successful international colloquium “Chypre à l’époque hellénistique et impériale: recherches récentes et nouvelles découvertes” organised in Paris in September 2009 by the Centre d’Études Chypriotes, the UMR ArScAn (CNRS, Université de Paris I, Université de Paris Ouest) and the University of Cyprus, the proceedings of which have already been published in the Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes 39 (2009).”
• This conference aims to serve as an international scientific forum for archaeologists and other researchers, to present, in some cases for the first time, the results of their recent work. This could include archaeological excavations and field surveys, analyses of archaeological data using new analytical techniques and methodological tools, and new research projects on various aspects of the culture of Late Antique and Byzantine Cyprus, from architecture, painting and epigraphy to ceramics and numismatics. Contributions dealing with the period from the 7th century up to the 12th would be particularly welcome, considering the many grievous gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the material culture of the island following the end of Late Antiquity.
• We plan a three-day event, with individual contributions up to 20 minutes in length. The conference will take place at Nicosia between the 19th and the 21st of October, 2012. There is no registration fee.   Prospective speakers are invited to submit a title and a 500-word abstract for consideration electronically, by January 15, 2012. Please send all materials and address all queries to Demetrios Michaelides (d.michaelides@ucy.ac.cy) and Maria Parani (mparani@ucy.ac.cy).”
• Italian Art Society CFP: Italian Art and the Confluence of Cultures, I–IV, Kalamazoo 2012, May 10-13, 2012, University of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo.  Submission deadline has passed, but you may have interest in “Session II: 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.”

Archaeological News and Museums:

• The Medieval fortress at Yavneh-Yam in Israel
• Early Islamic Culture near Jericho 
• Byzantine Prayer box in Jerusalem
• The Crusader town at Acre
• Byzantine fortress at Zalabiyeh, Syria
• Thessaloniki Rediscovers its Byzantine Walls
• Pera Museum digs deep into Ottoman archaeological past: Penn curates a new exhibit in Istanbul
• Medieval Art Tells a Tale – the church at Banganarti in Sudan
• Transition to Christianity: Art of Late Antiquity, 3rd-7th Century AD – an exhibit at the Onassis Cultural Center in New York

Employment

• Cornell University, Department of the History of Art, seeks to hire a specialist in the Visual Culture of Byzantium

***********************************

BSANA listserv forward from Colum P. Hourihane, The Index of Christian Art

The Index of Christian Art has just launched three new resources for the medievalist which contain over 25,000 images, one of which is of particular interest to the Byzantinist-.

The first resource is the first installment of images from a collaborative venture the Index entered into with the Bibliotheque Gabriel Millet in the Sorbonne, Paris. This is to catalogue the entire archive of Byzantine art that was first started in 1903. As it presently stands, the database contains nearly all of the slides (approximately 15,000) in the archive. It is hoped that these will be extended over time with the addition of the glass plate negatives and prints. Enquiries regarding this database should be addressed to Catherine Jolivet-Lévy at catjolivet@yahoo.fr.  Images from this resources are not available from the Index.

The url for this resource is http://ica.princeton.edu/millet/index.php

The second of these is a database of some six thousand images of medieval-mainly Romanesque art which were taken by a Swiss couple who wish to remain anonymous. The collection of digitized slides covers France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and The Netherlands. Cursory cataloguing accompanies these images which are more fully analyzed in the Index database proper. The url is   http://ica.princeton.edu/romanesque/index.php

The third resource is The Lois Drewer Database. When she died some five months ago she left the Index of Christian Art a large and unsorted collection of slides which covered many countries she visited throughout her lifetime. Her wide interest in art and architecture is reflected in this collection which spans landscape and garden design to archaeological sites in the Near East, to Romanesque and Gothic architecture to a considerable focus on Renaissance architecture. Her travels brought her to Austria, Crete, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Libya, the Netherlands, Spain, Syria, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. It is slightly ironical that some of the weakest areas to be represented in this collection are the medieval and Byzantine worlds! Again, cursory cataloguing accompanies these images which are low resolution jpg files. The url for this site is http://ica.princeton.edu/drewer/index.php

Colum

Colum Hourihane

Director, Index of Christian Art

Blogosphere

• Recent posts on the Negroponte hoard and the Church of the Little Metropolis at Surprised by Time
• Bill Caraher’s Archaeology of the Mediterranean World
• Corinth’s Byzantine Countryside
• Ambivalent landscapes of Christian Corinth (with response by K. Kourelis)
• A new blog in post-classical Greece: Mediterranean Palimpsest
• Reflections on a Christian lamp

Conferences

• 2012 Center for Ancient Studies Symposium. MASONS AT WORK.  Architecture and Construction in the Pre-Modern World at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), 30 March-1 April 2012.  PDF here. 
• A Panel on Ancient and Medieval architecture at the the Society of Architectural Historians meeting, Detroit, April 18-22, 2012.

News

• “Historic Byzantine and Venetian Fortresses at Risk” (Greek Reporter)

*************************

Dear Members of the ASCSA Managing Committee,

It is with great sadness that I report the passing of a beloved member of the School community, professor and archaeologist Frederick A. Cooper, who died on Sunday, September 23.

Fred’s involvement with the ASCSA was a long and fruitful one, beginning with his year as a Regular Member in 1968-69 and extending through decades of service as a Managing Committee Member (from 1974 until his death) representing the University of Minnesota, where he was Morse Alumni Distinguished Professor of Art History. During that time span, he was also a Student Associate Member of the School (Strock Fellow) in 1969-70; a two-time Gertrude Smith Professor, directing Summer Sessions in 1978 and 2008; Andrew F. Mellon Professor of Classical Studies from 1982 to 1985; and NEH Fellow in 2001-02.

Born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, on December 12, 1936, Fred graduated from Yale University with an A.B. in 1959 and received an M.A. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962. In 1970 he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where the focus of his study was Greek and Roman art, modern art, and Early Italian art. Prior to embarking on his career as an educator, he was president of a civil engineering/surveying firm, a background that informed his subsequent archaeological pursuits. He taught briefly at the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, and Northwestern University before joining the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1971.

Recipient of numerous awards for excellence in teaching, including the University of Minnesota’s Distinguished Teacher Award in 1972-73 and 1989-90 and the AIA’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1996, Fred Cooper also published and lectured widely. His study of the Temple of Apollo at Bassai, begun with the permission of the Greek Archaeological Service in 1969, was the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation and remained his lifelong passion. His four-volume series on The Temple of Apollo Bassitas, published by the School in 1992 and 1996, is recognized as the definitive publication on the temple’s architecture and sculpture.

In the early 1980s Fred worked on the reconstruction project of the Temple of Zeus at Nemea. His drawings for this project, exhibited at the Benaki Museum, appeared with commentary in the 1983 exhibition guide.

Throughout the 1990s, Fred headed the University of Minnesota’s program of archaeological research and exploration in the Peloponnese, MARWP (Minnesota Archaeological Researches in the Western Peloponnese), directing three field projects operating under the aegis of the ASCSA. At Pylos, his team applied modern survey capabilities to resume, after 20 years of architectural dormancy, excavation of the Bronze Age Palace of Nestor. The nearly decade-long project resulted in the recovery of thousands of ceramic and fresco fragments and a handful of Linear B tablet fragments, as well as the rediscovery and mapping of several chamber tombs and shaft graves. MAWRP’s Morea project, a survey of vernacular architecture dating from the Frankish period to the mid-twentieth century, conducted field seasons from 1991 to 2000; results of this work were published in 2002 in Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwest Peloponnesos. During the summers of 1991 and 1992, Fred oversaw MARWP’s efforts on the Heroon at Messene, a concentrated program of recovery, study and publication with the aim of eventual physical reconstruction. Fred’s work on these field projects delved into history that spanned three millennia, introduced undergraduate and graduate students to innovative and thought-provoking archaeological applications, and added immeasurably to the body of scholarly work on the region. In recent years Fred was working on a major book on Greek architecture, which his colleagues plan to bring to fruition. Always full of original ideas about Greek architecture and eager to talk about them, Fred will be sorely missed.

There will be no memorial or funeral service according to Fred’s wishes.
Donations may be made in his honor to the Lymphoma and Leukemia Foundation or Doctors Without Borders.
Condolences may be sent to his wife.
Ms. Helen B. Foster (Brad)
2190 Folwell Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108-1304
Sincerely,
Mary Sturgeon

Stemming mainly from excavations held in Argos and its environs, the museum’s 670 pieces tell the story of Argolid’s prosperous Byzantine era. The museum’s permanent collection, which has never been put on display before, further includes impressive pre-Byzantine mosaics. Also going on display are findings from the ongoing excavations at the Andritsa Cave, where a group of Christians sought refuge in the late 6th century.

*****************

CALL FOR PAPERS (Due: 1 September 2011)

Byzantium/Modernism: Art, Cultural Heritage, and the Avant-Gardes
20-22 April 2012, Yale University

Keynote Speakers: Marie-Jose Mondzain (CNRS) and Robert S. Nelson (Yale University)

The Byzantine Empire cultivated a thriving community of theologians and philosophers that debated the ontological, phenomenological, and broader epistemic foundations of the image, upon which the Empire and the Church grounded their physical and metaphysical rule.  Since the nineteenth century, artists, critics, and scholars have utilized the Byzantine as a manner of articulating the development of modernity and its image-world.  For example, in 1958, Clement Greenberg famously remarked on the formal homologies between
Byzantine art and contemporary abstraction.  Before him, Roger Fry coined the term “Proto-Byzantines” to describe the Post-Impressionists, and Alfred Barr described Byzantine art and its iconic heritage as fundamental to modern art. The connection between Byzantium and modernity, however, is usually relegated to passing references or mere formal parallels, lacking a sustained consideration and archaeology of its conceptual grounding.

What does modern art have to gain from Byzantium?  How can Byzantine philosophy enrich our understanding of the modern and contemporary image? The goal of this conference is twofold: First, to investigate the prolific interest in Byzantine art at the turn of the century and its effects on the historical Avant-Gardes in art, architecture, archaeology, and visual culture to the present; second, to articulate how Byzantine art and image philosophy can contribute to modern and contemporary visual culture. The intention is to produce an intellectual history of art from the nineteenth century to the present that uses Byzantium/Modernism as a paradigmatic fissure for the co-identification of said terms.

The core of this analysis is a shared visual heritage with a complex social life, layered with political, economic, social, religious, and ethnic turmoil that indexes the complex processes of orientalization and modernization in America, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.  Papers are encouraged from all relevant disciplines, which further the investigation of modern and contemporary visual worlds through the question of the Byzantine.

Please send a 500-word abstract and CV to byzmod2012@gmail.com by 1 September
2011.