Call for Papers for Commemoration of the Dead: New Approaches, New Perspectives, New Material conference to be held 10.00- 17.00, Saturday 15 November 2014 at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
Proposals are invited for papers to be presented at a one-day conference, jointly sponsored by the Monumental Brass Society and the Church Monuments Society. The aim of this event is to showcase the developments in research techniques and approaches that have led to new insights into monumental brasses.
This follows a conference, ‘Fifty Years after Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture: New Approaches, New Perspectives, New Materials’ to be held at the Courtauld Institute of Art on 21 June 2014. Panofsky, in his lavishly illustrated Tomb Sculpture, included the illustration of only a single brass (Pl. 212), that of the hand-holding Sir Edward Cerne and Lady Elyne Cerne, Draycott Cerne, Wilts. The ‘Commemoration of the Dead’ conference will address this imbalance by examining the significance of monumental brasses within the broader context of funerary art, especially the connections and divergences between brasses and other forms of tomb sculpture.
The core period covered by the conference will be Medieval to Early Modern, but papers up to the current day will be considered. The core geographic focus will be Europe.
Papers are invited on a wider range of topics arising from the study of monumental brasses, and could include:
• Individual brasses – style, location, patronage, production
• Groups of brasses united by a common theme
• Materials and their symbolic importance
• Function of brasses- prospective/retrospective, devotional, legal, etc.
• Audience and reception
• Brasses and the liturgy
• Inscriptions, epitaphs, heraldry
• Technical investigation
Logistics:
• Length of paper: 20 minutes
• Expenses: limited funds are available to cover speakers’ expenses
This is an opportunity for doctoral and early post-doctoral students to share their research. It is intended (subject to quality and peer review) to publish a joint collection of edited essays from the two conferences.
Please send proposals of no more than 250 words and a brief biography to
tombsculpture@gmail.com by 18 May.
Organised by: Christian Steer, Hon. Secretary, Monumental Brass Society, Ann Adams & Jessica Barker, PhD Candidates, The Courtauld Institute of Art.
