women

July 20, 2026
CFP: Medieval Italian Women & Visual Culture (CAA 2027)

CFP for CAA New York, Feb 3-6, 2027: Medieval Italian Women & Visual Culture

This session investigates how medieval women lived their lives both in compliance with and in circumvention of the societal assumptions circulating about their nature and capabilities, read through their relationships to visual images and artistic patronage. Papers will address this topic through two lenses: 1) ways that gendered religious and social beliefs were encoded in visual imagery and 2) how women of different social and economic strata negotiated regulations that defined and constrained them in the ways they engaged with visual imagery or commissioned works of art or architecture.

The roles of women as artists, patrons, and audiences for illuminated manuscripts enjoy extensive in-depth study for northern medieval cultures since the mid 20th century. Studies of women’s participation in the visual culture of medieval Italy are much rarer and less well-known. This session seeks to help redress that imbalance by focusing on medieval Italian women as patrons, but also as audiences of artistic projects and performative visual media, and the ways women responded to or helped shape the imagery and ideas those works projected.

Papers are welcome from art history scholars in all stages of their careers as well as advanced graduate students whose research focuses on Italy in the 5th through 14th centuries.

If interested, submit a proposal by August 31, 2026 to jsteinhoff@uh.edu

Please include:
Your name and affiliation (if any)
Title
Abstract of 300 words
CV of a maximum 3 pages
Notifications will be sent out on September 16

July 3, 2026
CFP: Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italian Women & Visual Culture (RSA 2027)

This session investigates how medieval Italian women lived their lives both in compliance with and in circumvention of the societal assumptions circulating about their nature and capabilities, read through their relationships to visual images and performative media. Papers will address this topic through two lenses: 1) ways that gendered religious and social beliefs were encoded in late medieval-early Renaissance visual imagery and performance and 2) how women of different social and economic strata negotiated regulations that defined and constrained them in the ways they engaged with these media.

The roles of women as artists, patrons, and audiences for visual culture enjoy extensive in-depth study for northern medieval and Renaissance cultures since the mid 20th century. Studies of women’s participation in the visual culture of late medieval/Early Renaissance Italy, itself an often-marginalized field, are much rarer. This session seeks to help redress that imbalance by focusing on late medieval-early Renaissance Italian women as patrons, but also as audiences of artistic projects and performative visual media, and the ways women responded to or helped shape the imagery and ideas those works projected.

Papers are welcome from scholars in all stages of their careers whose research focuses on Italian images of and/or used by women, ideas about women constructed or reflected in religious drama, or sermon literature that address women or ideas about women in the 14th-early 15th centuries.

If you are interested, please send an abstract for a 20-minute paper (max 300 words) and a short c.v. by JULY 10 to jsteinhoff@uh.edu

The session configuration will be announced on or before August 4.