Whipping of the Statue of Saint Nicholas, 13th century, ambulatory, Chartres Cathedral (wood, fire, badger hair, urine)
Nancy’s introduction set up the discussion by highlighting some of the relevant points of the MC manifesto, including the goals of experimentation, transparency, collaboration, and focus on materiality. She also engaged briefly with Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Ian Bogost’s notion of “flat ontology” in Alien Phenomenology, two methodological strands that would permeate the other presentations and the session as a whole. She put forth the key question for the session, which was “how do we as scholars form and act in a temporal network with the medieval objects that we study?”
Anne explored the messy networks evident in medieval stained glass: not only the networks of those who were involved in the creation of those windows, but also the wood (used for the glass-blowing fires), the badgers (whose hairs were used for brushes that painted on faces), the urine (used to chemically fuse the glass itself). She called for us to think through Bogost’s “unit operation,” but also Jane Bennett’s notion that instead of “what we know,” let’s ask “how things are.” In the end, Anne raised key questions for our subsequent discussion, including what the ethical implications are of understanding the agency of objects outside of human concerns.
Alfred Jewel, late ninth century, England, gold, enamel, and rock crystal, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum
Next up was Ben, who considered Alfred (King of Wessex), his translation of Gregory the Great’s Regula Pastoralis, and the æstels (pointers for reading) that Alfred sent along with each copy of the text. Ben thought through the Actor-Network Theory of Latour in an effort to better understand these objects—the manuscripts and the æstels, including the most famous one, known as the Alfred Jewel—as “actants” that played a role in their own engagement by and with past and present users and readers as part of an extended and cross-temporal “textual community.
Finally, I focused in on a particular motley grouping of medieval objects, one of several on display in the Great Hall of Glencairn Museum, the former home of Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn in Bryn Athyn, PA, a very “medievalist” enterprise built in during the 1920s and 30s. I wanted to consider the many networks created by Pitcairn when he brought sculptural and architectural fragments from multiple centuries and different sites across Europe together, and then reassembled them in his Great Hall. In thinking about the elements in this particular conglomeration as disparate parts that come together essentially as a new object, or a new “unit operation,” it became useful to break apart that new object in a kind of exploded-view diagram. I tried to grapple with how and why we tend to prioritize one context (the past context) over more recent ones, asking whether places like Glencairn might help us to release ourselves from these sometimes quite arbitrary inclinations.
Medieval assemblage in Great Hall, Glencairn Museum, Bryn Athyn, PA
The highlight of the session was the fantastic, informal conversation that took place after these brief presentations. There were a variety of strands that threaded through the discussion, but those that stand out include the impossible ideal of “truth” and the historians’ compulsion to find it, the inevitable generational divides that exist in academia and how these can impact publishing and the production of new work, and questions about we construct our arguments, especially when we are interested in venturing into new methods and approaches. Many participants were clearly excited about the potential to move beyond traditional methods, but also expressed concern about both how that work might be received, and how to be critical as well as receptive of the ideas that are coming from authors like Latour, Bogost, or Bennett. We saw some familiar faces but also many new ones, at least new to these conversations, guaranteeing, I think, that this conversation is central and ongoing for an ever-expanding network of individuals.
The session left us feeling invigorated, excited, but also disappointed that it was all over so quickly! However, that feeling was somewhat dissipated by leaving immediately for a tour of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, built in the 1910s. It contains a breathtaking 83,000 square feet of mosaics, made up of 41.5 million glass tesserae in more than 7,000 colors. The mosaics were only completed in 1988 and reflect a wondrous diversity of styles from the 20th century, partly the result of many different artists and designers who worked on the project.
Tour of Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis
We departed from St. Louis feeling part of several new networks, created by a great new scholarly venue, the sights of this marvelous city, and the new voices that have joined our ongoing conversation.
Next year’s Call for Sessions and Papers has already been posted, and submissions are due December 31, 2013. Some of us plan to return again next year; please consider joining us!