Herinnering VWM-uitstap: Tentoonstelling Jan van Eyck. Een optische revolutie – 12 maart 2020, Gent

Er zijn nog enkele plaatsen beschikbaar voor de VWM-uitstap naar de Van Eyck-tentoonstelling. Inschrijven kan via het formulier onderaan.

Op donderdag 12 maart 2020 organiseert de Vlaamse Werkgroep Mediëvistiek haar jaarlijkse uitstap voor de leden. We bezoeken de Van Eyck-tentoonstelling in het Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Gent. Deze tentoonstelling wordt de grootste Jan van Eyck-tentoonstelling ooit. Meer dan honderd stukken uit de late middeleeuwen worden voor de tentoonstelling samengebracht. Hieronder bevinden zich een achttal originele Van Eycks die uitzonderlijk vanuit het buitenland naar Gent reizen. Het concept ‘optische revolutie’ zal tijdens de tentoonstelling worden uitgeklaard door de schilderijen van Van Eyck naast werken van zijn tijdgenoten uit Duitsland, Frankrijk, Italië en Spanje te plaatsen. Deze uitstap is overigens niet alleen een unieke kans om al deze werken te ontdekken, ook de gerestaureerde buitenpanelen van het Lam Gods zullen een prominente plaats krijgen.

Voor het bezoek aan de tentoonstelling zelf (13:00), zullen prof. dr. Jan Dumolyn (mediëvist, gespecialiseerd in Vlaamse steden, politieke en sociaaleconomische geschiedenis) en prof. dr. Maximiliaan Martens (kunsthistoricus, gespecialiseerd in kunst in de Lage Landen in de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw) een inleiding geven waarbij ze het leven en de werken van Van Eyck en de toenmalige historische context uiteen zullen zetten. Vervolgens (14:10) bezoeken we in groep de tentoonstelling. Iedereen kan zo lang op de tentoonstelling blijven als hij of zij wil, er is immers geen einduur voorzien.

De tentoonstelling in het Museum voor Schone Kunsten kadert in het themajaar ‘OMG! Van Eyck was here’ waarmee de stad Gent laat zien dat Van Eyck na zes eeuwen nog steeds zijn stempel op de stad drukt. Naast de Van Eyck-tentoonstelling zullen ook beeldende kunsten, theater, dans, design, mode, gastronomie, muziek en zelfs shoppen een jaar lang baden in de sfeer van Van Eyck en zijn meesterwerk.

Naast al deze evenementen opent de Sint-Baafskathedraal in 2020 een nieuw bezoekerscentrum. Hier zal het Lam Gods (vanaf 8 oktober 2020) centraal staan en worden moderne presentatietechnieken gebruikt om dit meesterwerk en zijn boodschappen voor het grote publiek toegankelijk te maken. Op deze manier wil de stad Gent bezoekers van over de hele wereld aantrekken en kennis laten maken met Van Eyck, zijn beroemdste werk en met de stad zelf.

Lees hier meer over het themajaar ‘OMG! Van Eyck was here’

Praktisch:

  • Datum: donderdag 12 maart 2020
  • De uitstap is gratis voor leden van de VWM. Niet-leden kunnen zich eveneens aansluiten, mits een bijdrage van 25 euro.
  • Het Museum voor Schone Kunsten is naast het Citadelpark in Gent gelegen (Fernand Scribedreef 1, 9000 Gent).
  • We verzamelen om 12:45 aan de ingang van het Museum voor Schone Kunsten (zie kaartje onderaan), zodat we om 13:00 kunnen starten.
  • Lunch is niet inbegrepen.
  • Gelieve in te schrijven via het onderstaande formulier (maximum 25 personen!)

Call for contributions – Francophone Literature in the Low Countries (ca. 880 -1600) – A special issue of Queeste, Journal of Medieval Literature in the Low Countries

Het tijdschrift Queeste zoekt bijdragen voor een speciaal nummer dat zal verschijnen in 2021. Het nummer zal zich richten op Franstalige middeleeuwse literatuur in de Lage Landen. Abstracts moeten verstuurd worden voor 30 april 2020. Meer details kan u in het bericht hieronder vinden en in het pdf-bestand in bijlage.

In 2015, we concluded the introduction of our special issue on Literature and Multilingualism in the Low Countries with a renewal of Queeste’s ‘commitment to the varied and multilingual culture of the Low Countries’. And indeed, in the five years since then, Queeste has continued to publish scholarly articles on the production and circulation of literature in Dutch, French, and Latin, on translation, and on multilingual text collections and reading culture in the Low Countries.

While the editors applaud this continuous attention to multilingualism and language contact, we also feel that Queeste often approaches these issues from a distinctly Dutch-language perspective. This poses the risk of downplaying the actual impact of the literature in French (and Latin) that was written, copied and disseminated in the Low Countries. Following up on the earlier issue on multilingualism, we therefore aim to publish a new special issue of Queeste devoted solely to current scholarship on medieval Francophone literature in the Low Countries, to appear in 2021.

Since Queeste actively seeks to deliver the diversity that is implied in the journal’s subtitle, this special issue should be seen as another step towards a more balanced and accurate representation of the region’s multilingual literary culture. We therefore hope that this collection of essays will mark the beginning of a steady supply of articles on the medieval francophone literature produced and received in the Low Countries.

We invite reflections on any aspect of the authoring, copying, and reception of French literary texts in the area covering modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Northern France. As we aim for a wide and diverse panorama, we welcome general overviews as well as case studies, written from a varied range of theoretical and methodological perspectives (literary theory, codicology, stylometry, etc.), with a diachronic, comparative or contextualizing approach, and discussing texts from a broad spectrum of genres (lyric, epic, theatre, but also religious, moral-didactic, scientific, and practical writing).

Contributors should by no means feel confined to the textual production in the principally francophone regions and social circles of the Low Countries, but are encouraged to (also) discuss examples of French literature in reception contexts and parts of the area that have not been typically associated with francophone culture.

Abstracts (300 words or less) should be sent to the editorial board of Queeste before 30 April 2020 (b.j.m.caers@hum.leidenuniv.nl), after which authors will be notified by 15 May. Contributions of ca. 8000 words (including notes and bibliography) should be delivered before 31 October 2020 and will be, as always, subject to double blind peer review. Contributors are requested to follow the journal’s stylesheet (https://queeste.verloren.nl/guidelines).
For any further questions, please contact the editors of this special issue directly:

* Alisa van de Haar (a.d.m.van.de.haar@hum.leidenuniv.nl) or
* Dirk Schoenaers (d.j.c.schoenaers@hum.leidenuniv.nl).

Queeste is a multilingual journal and accepts articles written in Dutch, English, French, and German. Find out more at: https://queeste.verloren.nl/

Vacature FWO project. ‘The Quest for Otherness. Uncovering Narratives of Religious Distinction in the ‘Long Tenth Century’.

Binnen het FWO-project “The Quest for Otherness. Uncovering Narratives of Religious Distinction in the ‘Long Tenth Century” is een vacature beschikbaar voor een doctoraatsstudent, het jobaanbod is hieronder te vinden.

Doctoral fellow

Department: LW03 – Department of History

Employment category: Doctoral fellow

Contract: Limited duration

Degree: Master’s degree in History or a related field

Occupancy rate: 100%

Vacancy Type: Research staff

Job description

One doctoral position (PhD studentship) is available starting 1 May 2020 (with the possibility of a delayed start until 30 December 2020) on an FWO Senior Research Project titled ‘The Quest for Otherness. Uncovering Narratives of Religious Distinction in the ‘Long Tenth Century’.

The eleventh century is commonly seen as the time when Western Christianity first drew strict moral and behavioral boundaries between the servants of the Church and the laity. Recent scholarship has indicated, though, that many ideas and solutions propagated then built on a legacy from up to two hundred years earlier. Crucially, the contribution of the ‘long tenth century’ (c. 880–1020/30) – a critical transition phase – remains for the most part unknown. While case studies have shown that commentators of this period were deeply preoccupied with the moral identity and conduct of ecclesiastical personnel in particular, a systematic investigation of surviving testimonies remains a major gap in religious and historical scholarship. In order to resolve this gap, the project will offer a detailed reconstruction of a large, regionally defined sample of narratives of religious distinction.

Supervised at the Ghent University by prof. dr. Steven Vanderputten, in a first part of the project the PhD researcher will work on a well-defined set of mostly narrative sources to establish how exactly tenth-century commentators described the separate moral and social status of clerics, monks, and women religious. The researcher will look at precisely which properties –in terms of physical appearance, social conduct, and morality generally– they attributed to the ideal member of each of these cohorts, and which ones they considered a cause for scandal. In addition, they will reconstruct the precise settings in which these authors situated their descriptions: did they give a literal account of the ‘stage play’ of the distinct morality of ecclesiastical personnel (for instance, by portraying appropriate behaviour as it was supposed to be displayed during liturgical and other ceremonies, secular feasts, public meetings, ceremonies, individual interactions with the laity, and interactions within religious communities), or did they instead speak mostly in abstract terms? Finally, the researcher will also seek to establish the specific purpose of these accounts of distinction, which was the intended audience, and if they were transmitted outside of their original context of origin. In case of the latter, were they adapted in any way?

In a second part, the PhD researcher will try to establish if specific narratives on religious distinction can be matched with specific political, institutional, intellectual, and personal networks. Similarities in the argument of a number of key texts suggest that this is the case. However, due to the limited attempts at comparative analysis and the slim body of studied evidence we currently have very little to validate – or invalidate – this impression. Nor has there been a systematic effort to consider either cross-pollination of ideas and narratives between different networks, or the internal differences of views within specific networks. A key point is the adaptation of religious distinction narratives when they were transferred from major institutional and intellectual centers to small communities of clerics, monks, or women religious. In other words, are there indications that local expectations (by the religious themselves and by their social environment) and traditions influenced the way in which these narratives were received by, and communicated to, the religious in these places?

The project’s innovative quality lies in the fact that it transcends the focus of former scholarship on specific commentators and their work. Not only will it undertake an unprecedented comparative study of known commentaries, it will also considerably expand the body of primary evidence by including a range of narrative texts that have so far remained beyond the specialists’ focus. As such, this project will award to the long tenth century the key place it deserves in the study of religious reflection and debate in the medieval West.

The fellowship provides a monthly salary of ca. 1900 euros on a full-time basis, in concordance with the requirements of the Flemish Government. It is fiscally exempted and Ghent University offers a holiday allowance, gratis public transport between home and work place, access to university sports facilities and university restaurants, and end-of-year bonus. For more information, see www.ugent.be/en/work.

Profile of the candidate

The successful candidate preferably has:

– A master’s degree (in hand or in progress) in Medieval History or in a related discipline (for individuals whose master’s degree is in progress, the doctoral position may only be taken up if that degree is successfully completed before the start of the project).

– Demonstrated experience with Latin sources.

– Demonstrated experience with qualitative research methods and a willingness to work towards acquiring new research skills.

– Demonstrated capacity for creative and independent research.

– Reading-knowledge of English and French and a willingness to acquire the necessary passive language skills to read German and Italian publications.

– The ability and willingness to work as a member of an international research community at Ghent University, including contributions to a shared database as well as joint publication.

– The ability and willingness to develop a publication track record of high academic standards.

Ghent University is a multi-lingual environment. Most official communication is done in Dutch and English: PhD researchers are welcome to publish and do conference presentations in any West European language, and may submit their dissertation in English, French, German, or Dutch. Candidates are not required to be able to read and/or speak Dutch prior to or during their appointment at Ghent University, but are encouraged to acquire basic language skills to facilitate social integration.

How to apply

Applications are to be sent as a pdf-file to Professor Steven Vanderputten (steven.Vanderputten@ugent.be) and must include the following elements:

– Motivation letter.

– Curriculum Vitae, including an overview of language skills (active and passive); experience with Latin-sources; and PC-skills.

– A pdf-copy of the master dissertation or undergraduate dissertation (for those with a masters in progress).

– Certified copies of relevant diplomas.

– Contact details of two referees (name, institutional affiliation, and email address) and/or two letters of reference.

In the second stage of the application procedure, the selected candidates will be interviewed in person or via Skype.

Vacature FWO project “Renovating the church”

Binnen het FWO-project “Renovating the church” is een vacature beschikbaar voor een doctoraatsstudent, het jobaanbod is hieronder te vinden.

Doctoral fellow

Last application date: March 31, 2020 17:00

Department: LW03 – Department of History

Employment category: Doctoral fellow

Contract: Limited duration

Degree: Master’s degree in History or Art History

Occupancy rate: 100%

Vacancy Type: Research staff

Job description

One doctoral position (PhD studentship) is available starting 1 June 2020 (with the possibility of a delayed start until 30 December 2020) on an FWO Senior Research Project titled “Renovating the church: material culture, Habsburg ritual and early Counter-Reformation experiments in the Low Countries (c. 1535-1585)”.

In the sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformation seriously challenged Catholicism. According to the communis opinio, the Catholic Church only found an adequate answer towards the end of the century, when it launched a coordinated campaign that implemented the tenets of the Council of Trent (1545-63). In the historiography on the Low Countries, the Fall of Antwerp (1585) is usually designated as the starting point, which coincides with the political separation of the Habsburg Low Countries and the Dutch Republic. This project challenges this view by investigating Catholic experiments in countering the Reformation in the Low Countries in the transitional period from c. 1535 to c. 1585.

Supervised at the Ghent University by prof. dr. Anne-Laure Van Bruaene (History) and prof. dr. Koenraad Jonckheere (Art History), this interdisciplinary project will give centre stage to the church building, more particularly to the interiors of the cathedrals, collegiate churches and main parish churches of the larger cities. The aim is to learn and understand how Catholic elites (prince, courtiers, bishops, canons, churchwardens) invested in material culture through a broad range of artistic media. The project will pay special attention to the dynamic interplay between stylistic experiments and the ritual uses of objects during Habsburg ceremonies. Through this double focus on material culture and political ritual, the project intends not only to revise the chronology of the Counter-Reformation in the Low Countries, but also to develop new interdisciplinary methodologies for (art) historical research.

The project comprises of three work packages:

Work package 1 is the construction of a dataset of still extant objects in the principal churches of Belgium, the Netherlands and Northern France (more specifically, the territory of the historical Low Countries) in order to chart the religious art patronage between c. 1535 and c. 1585.

Work package 2 is an in-depth study of the church archives for three representative cases (Brussels, Ghent, Utrecht), in order to reconstruct in detail the investment in and attitudes towards religious material culture. The emphasis will lie on source types such as churchwarden accounts, separate accounts for building, renovation and restoration works, contracts, inventories, correspondence, memorials for rituals and feasts etc.

Work package 3 is an exploration of a range of archival, printed and published sources, in order to further contextualize the material gathered in work packages 1 and 2. The focus will be on the role of material culture in religious and political ritual (including iconoclasm).

For a full project description, contact prof. dr. Anne-Laure Van Bruaene.

Profile of the candidate

The successful candidate preferably has:

–     A master’s degree (in hand or in progress) in History or in Art History (for individuals whose master’s degree is in progress, the doctoral position may only be taken up if that degree is successfully completed before the start of the project).

–     Demonstrated interest in the cultural history of the late medieval or early modern Low Countries.

–     Demonstrated interest in visual sources.

–     Demonstrated experience with historical languages (Dutch, French, Latin).

–     Demonstrated experience with paleography.

–     Demonstrated capacity for creative and independent research.

–     Reading-knowledge of English and French and a willingness to acquire the necessary passive language skills to read publications in other European languages.

–     The ability and willingness to work as a member of an international and interdisciplinary research team at Ghent University.

–     The ability and willingness to develop a publication track record of high academic standards.

How to apply

Applications are to be sent as a pdf-file to prof.dr. Anne-Laure Van Bruaene (annelaure.vanbruaene@ugent.be) and must include the following elements:

– Motivation letter.

– Curriculum Vitae, including an overview of language skills (active and passive); experience with paleography and historical sources; and PC-skills.

– A pdf-copy of the master dissertation or undergraduate dissertation (for those with a masters in progress).

– Certified copies of relevant diplomas.

– Contact details of two referees (name, institutional affiliation, and email address) and/or two letters of reference.

In the second stage of the application procedure, the selected candidates will be interviewed.