On the Edge: Medieval Margins and the Margins of Academic Life
Symposium, Wednesday May 9th, 2012
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Deadline: March 12th, 2012
The On the Edge committee seeks papers for a symposium accompanying the May 9th preview of the exhibit On the Edge: Medieval Margins and the Margins of Academic Life. We invite papers from graduate students and faculty that consider questions and problems related to the margins, either medieval or modern. Lucy Freeman Sandler, Professor of Art History Emerita, New York University will be the keynote speaker for the symposium.
Honoring the twentieth anniversary of Michael Camille’s Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art, the On the Edge exhibit will pair marginalia in illuminated manuscripts with photographs of life at the University of Chicago. Camille’s groundbreaking work brought light to the confluence of the serious and the playful, the sacred and the profane in medieval manuscripts and architecture. The serious and the playful also converge at the university. University life is defined not only by cutting edge research, but also by superstitions, protests, scavenger hunts, streakers in sneakers, social groups, and dance marathons. The On the Edge exhibit and symposium will explore the symmetry between the margins of academic life and medieval margins.
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
Architecture
Alterity
Center and periphery
The betwixt
Manuscripts: marginal imagery, textual emendations and notes
Margins of the university
Marginalized academic disciplines
Parody and play
Queering the middle ages
Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words for a 20 minute talk to kLwood@uchicago.edu by March 12th, 2012 if you are interested in presenting at the symposium. Attending ICMS the next day? Kalamazoo is just a short train ride from Chicago.
On the Edge will be on view from May 19 – August 10, 2012 at the Special Collections Research Center Exhibition Gallery.
