Vlaamse Werkgroep Mediëvistiek

Vooraankondiging 24^ste Mediëvistendag, 2018 (English version below)

Vrijdag 30 november 2018: 11.00-18.00 uur Universiteit Leiden

De 24^ste Mediëvistendag zal op vrijdag 30 november gehouden worden in Leiden. Het plenaire gedeelte vindt plaats in de Lorentzzaal van het Kamerlingh Onnes gebouw (Faculteit Rechten), voor de projectpresentaties na de lunchpauze zijn verschillende lokalen van het pas gerenoveerde P.J. Vethgebouw (gelegen aan de Hortus Botanicus) beschikbaar. Beide locaties bevinden zich in het hartje van academisch Leiden en liggen op loopafstand van elkaar en van het NS station.

Tijdens het plenaire gedeelte voor de lunch zijn er twee key note voordrachten rond het thema ‘De globaliserende middeleeuwen/middeleeuwen en globalisering’. Een zal gegeven worden door Hilde de Weerdt, hoogleraar Chinese geschiedenis te Leiden, de andere door de hoogleraar middeleeuwse geschiedenis, Peter Hoppenbrouwers.

Gelegenheid tot het geven van korte projectpresentaties (van 20 minuten) wordt in de eerste plaats geboden aan in Nederland en Vlaanderen werkzame promovendi (betaalde onderzoekers en buitenpromovendi) die in de beginfase van hun onderzoek zijn. Daarnaast is er ruimte voor de presentatie van postdoc-onderzoek of van grote koepelprojecten, hetzij in de vorm van ‘posters’, hetzij in de vorm van papers. Research Master studenten die deelnemen en een korte paper schrijven, krijgen daarvoor 1 ECTS.

Omdat binnen de Onderzoekschool bezwaren zijn gerezen tegen een exclusief Engelstalige programmering van de Mediëvistendag (immers in eerste instantie een ontmoetingsdag voor in Nederland en Vlaanderen werkzame mediëvisten), heeft het schoolbestuur besloten dat in het vervolg naast Engels ook Nederlands voertaal zal zijn. Om die reden zal één van de key notes in het Engels worden uitgesproken, de andere in het Nederlands. Bij de korte presentaties in het middagprogramma wordt de keuze van de taal overgelaten aan de presentatoren. In het definitieve programma zal duidelijk worden vermeld, in welke taal presentaties zullen worden gegeven. Presentaties graag vóór 15 oktober aanmelden via het secretariaat van de Onderzoekschool: ozsmed@rug.nl.

Inschrijven voor de Mediëvistendag kan via een e-mail aan het secretariaat van de Onderzoekschool, graag vóór 15 november: ozsmed@rug.nl, o.v.v. ‘Mediëvistendag 2018’. De kosten van deelname bedragen 10 euro (voor koffie/thee, lunch en afsluitende borrel),  vóór 15 november over te maken op bankrekeningnummer NL89 ABNA 04 8871 1827, t.a.v. P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers [inzake Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis], Doelensteeg 16, 2311 VL Leiden.

Het definitieve programma zal kort na 15 oktober via de website van de Onderzoekschool bekend worden gemaakt. Nadere informatie is te verkrijgen bij het secretariaat van de Onderzoekschool (ozsmed@rug.nl) of bij de organisator van de dag (p.c.m.hoppenbrouwers@hum.leidenuniv.nl).

English version:

Early notice 24^th Medieval Studies Day, 2018

Friday 30 November 2018, 11.00-18.00 hours Leiden University

The 24^th Medieval Studies Day will take place on Friday, November 30, 2018, at Leiden University. The plenary session will be organized in the morning, in the Lorentzhall of the Kamerlingh Onnes building (Law Faculty); after lunch project presentations will be held in various class rooms of the recently renovated P.J. Veth building (near the Hortus Botanicus). Both locations are in the heart of academic Leiden, and at a walking distance from each other and the railway station.

During the plenary session two key note lectures will be given around the theme of ‘The Global Middle Ages/Globalising the Middle Ages’. One will be delivered by Hilde de Weerdt, Professor of Chinese History at Leiden University, the other by Peter Hoppenbrouwers, Professor of Medieval History at Leiden University.

In the afternoon there will be ample opportunity for short project presentations (of 20 minutes), primarily by PhD students working the Netherlands and Flanders (both paid PhD students and external doctoral students), but post-docs or leaders of large research projects  are expressly invited to present their projects, either as ‘posters’ or as papers. Research Master students who attend and write a short paper will be awarded with 1 ECTS.

Because objections have been lodged against the exclusively English programme of the Medieval Studies Day – which, after all, was once set-up as a meeting of professional medievalists working in Flanders and the Netherlands – the board of directors of the Research School for Medieval  Studies decided that henceforth, in addition to English, Dutch will be the language of communication. For this reason, one of the key note lectures will be held in English, and one in Dutch. The choice of language of the presentations during the afternoon session will be left to the speakers. In the definitive programme, it will be clearly announced what the language of all papers will be.  Proposals for presentations have to be sent before October 15 to the administration of the Research School: ozsmed@rug.nl.

Please, register for the day by sending an e-mail to ozsmed@rug.nl, preferably before November 15. There is an attendance fee of 10 euros, which will cover expenses for coffee/tea, lunch and drinks. You are requested to pay the fee before November 15 to the account NL89 ABNA 04 8871 1827, with the reference ‘P.C.M. Hoppenbrouwers [inzake Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis], Doelensteeg 16, 2311 VL Leiden.

The definitive programme will be announced  shortly after October 15 on the website of the Research School.  Further information may be obtained from the administration of the Research School (ozsmed@rug.nl) or from the Day’s organizer (p.c.m.hoppenbrouwers@hum.leidenuniv.nl).

Belonging in late medieval cities

Date: Friday June 28 to Sunday June 30, 2019.

Location: Huntingdon Room, King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York YO1 7EP.

One of the ways belonging is conceptualised within sociological literature is that it is a socially constructed category which revolves around an individual’s inclusion and exclusion from formal and informal groups. It is thought that individuals can concurrently be included within one group yet excluded from others, and that belonging is negotiated by various actors such as local communities, governments and individuals themselves.

Late medieval and early modern cities were environments with many formal and informal groups to which people could belong, such as street communities, parishes, guilds and the citizenry, to name a few. The conference aims to explore how notions of belonging might be utilised within the study of late medieval urban centres. We invite speakers to consider whether belonging as a idea can be used to contribute to established ideas of identity, especially considering the (hierarchical) structures of urban society and examining how community boundaries were drawn and redrawn, how spaces were imagined as well as the significance of membership and exclusion. These were always in a state of flux, owing to the influence of the variety of agents who structured belonging, including rulers, local communities and individuals, with inclusion and exclusion operating along the axes of gender and social status. Papers will explore these intersections between the individual and their communities, and how inclusion and exclusion manifested themselves in historical urban areas.

Please send an abstract of 300 words to Joshua Ravenhill jtr518@york.ac.uk or Luke Giraudet lwg502@york.ac.uk by the 8^th October 2018.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his predecessors:  

Culture and Visual art and in the late 15^th and 16^th centuries

Masterclass with Reindert Falkenburg and Michel Weemans, organised by the Vlaamse werkgroep mediëvistiek (VWM) and the Réseau des médiévistes  belges de langue française (RMBLF)

2019 marks the 450^th anniversary of the death of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525/30-1569), one of the most renowned Flemish artists of the 16^th century. In Belgium, several exhibitions (at the KBR, the MRBAB-KMSKB, the Mayer van den Bergh Museum, the Castle of Gaasbeek…) and other scientific activities are planned to highlight the artistic production of the master. This “Bruegel year” constitutes a great opportunity for the VWM and the RMBLF to explore this fascinating personality and the artistic, cultural and intellectual context in which he emerged through a vivid dialogue between young and senior scholars. Indeed, we aim at taking part to this celebration by organizing a masterclass with two specialists of Pieter Bruegel’s work, Reindert Falkenburg (NYU Abu Dhabi) and Michel Weemans (ENSA Bourges and EHESS), whose forthcoming book explores the religious and exegetical character of Bruegel’s landscapes and their relationship with landscape painters of the first half of the 16th century such as Hieronymus Bosch, Joachim Patinir or Herri met de Blès.[1] This masterclass will gather up to eight young researchers (PhD students, postdocs, young lecturers) coming from various disciplines (art history, literature, history…) who will have the opportunity to present and discuss their work on the visual art and culture at the time of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his predecessors with both respondents and the audience.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder is a complex artistic figure. Often considered as “both a proponent and an exponent of popular culture”[2], the Flemish painter was also appreciated and admired by the high nobility whose members praised the exceptional quality of his oeuvre and owned paintings by his hand. His work also enjoyed a great deal of success among a wider audience thanks to the diffusion of his engravings. From an artistic point of view, Bruegel was deeply influenced by the Flemish pictorial tradition of the late 15^th and early 16^th century, and especially by Hieronymus Bosch. He also played a crucial role in the emergence of genre and landscape painting, a topic which is at the core of the new publication of Michel Weemans and Reindert Falkenburg. Bruegel also had close links with humanists and scholars such as Abraham Ortelius, and with the Antwerp chambers of rhetoric (rederijkerskamers) like the Violieren (the Gillyflower). In other words, he belonged to the Antwerp intellectual circles of his time. His artistic production is deeply influenced by this intellectual and cultural context, just as it nurtured it in return.

Recent scholarship on Bruegel[3] has highlighted the multi-layered complexity of his (painted, printed and drawn) pictures, which are rooted in the rich artistic, cultural and literary context that we will investigate during this masterclass. More precisely, we would like Pieter Bruegel the Elder to act as a prism through which young scholars will explore, among others, the visual interactions between artists and between pictorial practices, the relationships between literary groups such as the rederijkers and the visual culture of their time, the social and intellectual networks of Pieter Bruegel and other Flemish artists of the late 15^th century and 16^th century, the impact of the complex religious context on the artistic production of the time, the links between humanists and artists, the influence of Flemish artists of the previous generations on Bruegel and his contemporaries, etc.

Early career researchers are invited to submit proposals for a 15-minutes paper. The languages of the masterclass will be Dutch, French, and English. A description of the proposed paper (max. one page) and a short CV should be submitted to Micol Long (micol.long@ugent.be) and Ingrid Falque (ingrid.falque@uclouvain.be), no later than October 15. Selected researchers will be notified in the first week of November.

This masterclass is jointly organised by the Vlaamse Werkgroep Mediëvistiek (Flemish Medievalist Association) and the Réseau des Médiévistes belges de Langue Française (Network of French-speaking Belgian Medievalists), with financial support of the F.R.S.-FNRS and the Fondation pour la protection du patrimoine culturel, historique et artisanal (Lausanne). The event will take place In Brussels (precise location to be announced later) on 25 January. On 24 January, Michel Weemans and Reindert Falkenburg will give a public lecture on their forthcoming book. Further practical details will be announced at a later stage.

[1] Reindert L. Falkenburg and Michel Weemans, Bruegel (Paris, Hazan: 2018).

[2] Mark Meadow, Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Netherlandish Proverbs and the Practice of Rhetoric (Zwolle, Waanders Publishers: 2002), 14.

[3] See among others: Walter S. Gibson, Pieter Bruegel and the Art of Laughter (Berkeley, University of California press<: 2006); Todd M. Richardson, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Art Discourse in the Sixteenth-Century Netherlands (Farnham, Ashgate: 2011); Bertram Kaschek, Weltzeit und Endzeit. Die »Monatsbilder« Piter Bruegels d.Ä. (München, Wilhelm Fink Verlag: 2012); Christina Currie and Dominique Allart, The Brueg(H)el Phenomenon. Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger with a Special Focus on Technique and Copying Practice (Brussels, Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage: 2012); Claudia Goldstein, Pieter Bruegel and the Culture of Early Modern Dinner Party (Farnham, Ashgate: 2013); Stephen Graham Hitchins, Art as History, history as Art. Jheronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder Assembling Knowledge not Setting Puzzles (Turnhout, Brepols: 2014); Jospeh Leo Koerner, Bosch and Bruegel. From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life (Princeton, Princeton University Press: 2016).