Confronting the Borders of Medieval Art

by Jill Caskey (Editor), Adam S. Cohen (Editor), Linda Safran (Editor)

This volume approaches the problem of the canonical “center” by looking at art and architecture on the borders of the medieval world, from China to Armenia, Sweden, and Spain. Seven contributors engage three distinct yet related problems: margins, frontiers, and cross-cultural encounters. While not displaying a unified methodology or privileging specific theoretical constructs, the essays emphasize how strategies of representation articulated ownership and identity within contested arenas. What is contested is both medieval (the material evidence itself) and modern (the scholarly traditions in which the evidence has or has not been embedded). An introduction by the editors places the essays within historiographic and pedagogical frameworks.

Contents:
Preliminary Material / : Jill Caskey, Adam S. Cohen and Linda Safran
Articles Jewish Art and Cultural Exchange:
Theoretical Perspectives / Katrin Kogman-Appel
Towers, Birds and Divine Light:The Contested Territory of Nasrid and “Mudéjar” Ornament / Cynthia Robinson
Stuccoes from the Early Norman Period in Sicily: Figuration, Fabrication and Integration / Jill Caskey
Khiḍr and the Changing Frontiers of the Medieval World / Ethel Sara Wolper
Locating Armenia / Christina Maranci
The Far Side: Expatriate Medieval Art and Its Languages in Sino-Mongol China / Jennifer Purtle
Would There Have Been Gothic Art Without the Vikings? The Contribution of Scandinavian Medieval Art / Nancy L. Wicker

246 pages, ebook

First published June 22, 2011