[Andalusi Studies] CFP: Art and Ideology in the Twelfth-Century Western Mediterranean

[Abby Balbale]

Art and Ideology in the Twelfth-Century Western Mediterranean

a Symposium at Bard Graduate Center, New York City, October 14, 2016

Supported by the Trehan Fund for Islamic Art and Material Culture

co-sponsored by the Spain-North Africa Project

Call for Papers

In the twelfth century, new powers emerged throughout the Western
Mediterranean, from the Almohads of North Africa to the Norman Kingdom of
Sicily. In the Iberian Peninsula, upstart rulers with broad ambitions
emerged in both Muslim and Christian territories. New city-states (ṭā’ifa pl.
ṭawā’if) appeared with the dissolution of the Almoravid Empire in
al-Andalus, and older kingdoms, including Castile-León and Aragon, began
massive expansions under rulers who claimed imperial titles. “Art and
Ideology in the Twelfth-Century Mediterranean” explores how the rulers of
this region deployed art (conceived in the broadest sense) to legitimate
new claims, how they asserted their authority through the construction of
palatial and liturgical spaces, and what kinds of objects their kingdoms
produced, traded, or coveted. We will investigate how these rulers looked
to imperial and caliphal precedents and rivals for models, how they
elaborated on these models, and which communities of artisans and workmen
they drew on.

The aim of the symposium is to consider art and ideology in the Western
Mediterranean as an integrated region where culture and religio-political
ideologies cut across the geographic, ethnic, and religious lines that are
so often used to divide it. Art and material culture provide a powerful
lens for considering and clarifying the sometimes-hidden connections in
this region, since the movement of objects and craftsmen rarely ceased at
the edges of the cultural zones and traditions later fostered and imposed
by nation-state institutions and modern scholars. We will explore how
examining the broader region affects our understanding of its component
kingdoms, and, following recent scholarship, seek to establish a
theoretical framework for understanding the imbricated world of the
medieval Western Mediterranean.

The symposium will feature several keynote lectures by scholars who work on
Sicily, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula from Christian and Islamic
perspectives, followed by a panel of shorter papers by junior scholars. *We
welcome proposals of 20-minute papers for this panel from PhD students and
those within three years of the PhD, considering these topics from any
disciplinary perspective. *

Potential topics for presentation include (but are not limited to)
questions such as the following:


   -

   How were art and architecture deployed by rulers and aspiring rulers and
   their courts?
   -

   How are articulations of politico-religious power visible in
   architectural construction and decoration?
   -

   What artisanal communities participated in the production of new spaces
   and what was the nature of their relationship to political power and
   patronage?
   -

   How were legitimating strategies mirrored across cultural and political
   boundaries and how is this visible in material culture and its circulation?
   -

   How were old patterns adopted and transformed by those engaged in new
   political endeavors and projects?
   -

   How did groups not clearly associated with the dominant religious
   identities and evolving orthodoxies  (e.g. Jews, Mozarabs, and Kharijites)
   participate, and how was their cultural production affected by the
   political and demographic transformations of the twelfth century?
   -

   How did people who were traditionally marginalized, including slaves and
   women, participate in programs of cultural production?
   -

   How were new ideas of crusading/jihad manifested in material culture?


Please submit your 300-word proposals via email to
abigail.balbale at bgc.bard.edu by Friday, July 29.
Final drafts for pre-circulation are due October 1.
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