CFP: Conference: Book Ornament and Luxury Critique, Zurich 15.9.-17.9.2022

The research group “Textures of Sacred Scripture. Materials and Semantics of Sacred Book Ornament” (https://textures-of-scripture.ch) invites paper proposals for a three-day international conference on “Book Ornament and Luxury Critique”. The conference, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, is scheduled to take place at the Institute of Art History at the University of Zurich from 15 to 17 September 2022.

Since antiquity, philological correctness was opposed to ornament in the rhetorical discourse, which associated an overtly rich language with overblown luxury and female adornment. Already in Roman literature, this gendered discourse was projected onto the material artifacts of writing, a tradition that influenced the varied discussions about the materiality of sacred books and their status in Christian,Islamic and Jewish book cultures from Late Antiquity until the end of the Middle Ages and beyond. In all three religious traditions, the discourse concerning the ornamentation of scripture established connections “between ornamenting bodies, buildings and language, in which fancy forms are rejected in favor of plain, and embellishment opposed to simplicity in a dialect of truth and falsity” (F. B. Flood,in: Clothing Sacred Scriptures, ed. D. Ganz/B. Schellewald, Berlin/Boston 2019, 52).When, how, and under what circumstances might book ornament be understood as offensive, and which strategies were employed to avoid such critique or to create books that are ostentatiously ascetic?
The conference welcomes proposals that consider the entire range of such critique of book ornament in Christian, Islamic and Jewish book cultures, and that analyze their specific contexts and semantics, as well as “the spaces of negotiation, in which artists, commissioners and users could react to critical allegations without simply obeying them” (D. Ganz, as above, 34). The time range for proposed papers is from antiquity through the Middle Ages and beyond; early modern and Reformation studies as well as broader theoretical approaches are also welcome. Discussions across disciplinary boundaries are encouraged.

Speaking time for each paper should not exceed 30 minutes and will be followed by a discussion. The conference languages are English, German, French and Italian. Submissions should include the title and an abstract (max. 300 words) as well as the name, contact information and a short CV of the speaker. Proposals should be submitted to thomas.rainer@uzh.chby 15 April 2022. Acceptance of papers will be confirmed at the beginning of May 2022. The conference is currently planned as an in-person meeting. Travel expenses and on-site accommodation of all speakers will be covered.


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Maria Stürzebecher (March 2, 2022). CFP: Conference: Book Ornament and Luxury Critique, Zurich 15.9.-17.9.2022. medievalJewishStudiesNow! Retrieved March 15, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/rhlm


About Maria Stürzebecher

I am the curator of the Museum Old Synagogue in Erfurt and scientific coordinator for the UNESCO World Heritage application Jewish-Medieval Heritage in Erfurt. Since 2012, I am editing the series "Erfurter Schriften zur Jüdischen Geschichte"; in 2020, the 6th volume "Ritual Objects in Ritual Contexts." was published. I studied History of Arts, Archaeology, Sociology and History and wrote my PhD thesis about the medieval Erfurt Treasure, which was published in 2009 entitled „Der Schatzfund aus der Erfurter Michaelisstrasse – Mittelalterliche Goldschmiedearbeiten als Zeugnisse jüdischen Lebens in Erfurt“.