The Institute for Medieval Studies (IMS) hosts its 33rd annual Spring Lecture Series, “Sacred Objects and Places of the Middle Ages,” from April 23-26, 2018. This week-long series of six lectures and a concert of early music attracts several hundred members of the Albuquerque community to hear lectures by eminent scholars from around the country, and sometimes around the globe. This year’s lectures are:
- Monday, April 23, 7:15 p.m. “The Book of Kells—Seen and Unseen,” Bernard Meehan, Trinity College Dublin
- Tuesday, April 24, 5:15 p.m. “Places to Go, Things to See: A Medieval Bucket List,” Concert by the UNM Early Music Ensemble directed by Colleen Sheinberg
- Tuesday, April 24, 7:15 p.m. “Sacred Worlds in the Medieval Hebrew Book,” Adam S. Cohen, University of Toronto
- Wednesday, April 25, 5:15 p.m. “The Dome of the Rock and Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem: An Exploration,” Jennifer Pruitt, University of Wisconsin
- Wednesday, April 25, 7:15 p.m. “Vessel, Quest, Prize, Test, Threat: The Many Faces of the Grail,” Janina P. Traxler, Manchester Univeristy
- Thursday, April 26, 5:15 p.m. “Irish Manuscripts before 800 A.D.”
- Thursday, April 26, 7:15 p.m. “Watching the Birth of a Holy Object: The Icon of Kykkotissa on Cyprus,” Annemarie Weyl Carr, Southern Methodist Univeristy
Each spring the IMS welcomes a prominent scholar as the visiting “Viking Scholar” to teach the “Viking Mythology” course. This spring, Kendra Willson joined the UNM medievalist community for the semester. On Friday, April 13, she shared her work-in-progress talk entitled “Runes in the Margins of the Viking World.”
Earlier in the year, the IMS collaborated with UNM’s History Department to offer a series of events focused on Late Antiquity. In October, Noel Lenski (Yale University) offered a lecture entitled, “Roman Refugees: Settling Extra-Territorials inside a World Empire;” on March 3, a colloquium with the theme “Climate, Cartography, and Imperialism in Late Antique Eurasia,” featured contributions by Richard Talbert (University of North Carolina), Richard Payne (University of Chicago), Nicola Di Cosmo (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton), and Michael Maas (Rice University); and finally, in late March, Joyce Salisbury (University of Wisconsin, Green Bay) offered the lecture “Theology Is Personal in the Fifth Century.”
During the upcoming summer term, Institute Director Timothy Graham will offer his intensive graduate seminar, “Paleography and Codicology,” from June 4-28, with participants drawn from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Oregon, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of New Mexico.
