Academic Sessions: Glasgow 2010
AAH Annual Conference 2010
15 - 17 April, University of Glasgow
Medieval Art / Postcolonial Questions (AHRC Research Network Postcolonising the Medieval Image)
Session Convenors:
Eva Frojmovic, University of Leeds clsef@leeds.ac.uk
Catherine Karkov, University of Leeds fincek@leeds.ac.uk
The application of contemporary theories to pre-modern art history is often greeted with anxieties about anachronism. This session sets out to create a conversation between medieval art and postcolonial theories. The contributors to this session will address questions both of race in the middle ages, and of colonial entanglements on the part of medievalist scholars of the 19th-21st centuries.
Theoretical questions the papers and ensuing panel discussion will endeavour to address will include:
• How can concepts current in postcolonial studies in disciplines such as history and comparative literature (diaspora and migration, minor artistic cultures, translation, accented art making, displacement, intercultural vs transcultural, hybridity, presence/absence] help medievalist art historians to re-envision their objects of study?
• How might postcolonial concepts be used to interrogate the canon(s] of medieval art?
• To what extent can such theories help bridge the methodological gap between medievalists and modernists?
• How might postcolonial questions help to engage a new generation of students who are alert to the global reach of art?
Speakers:
Eva Frojmovic (University of Leeds)
Arts of Extimité
Roberto Pesenti (Courtauld Institute)
Retelling the story of medieval architecture in Sardinia
Rebekah L. Pratt (Arizona State University)
Visualizing Chivalric Identity: The Fantastical East of the Frescoes at Runkelstein Castle
Nadia Altschul (The Johns Hopkins University)
Saracens and Race in Roman de la Rose Iconography: the Case of Dangier in Ms Douce 195
Michael Michael (Christie's)
Re-Orienting the Westminster Retable