Call for Submissions: ‘Points of Friction’, Special Issue, Different Visions, deadline 30 April 2026

Issue editors: Dr Millie M. Horton-Insch ([email protected]) and Dr Lauren Rozenberg ([email protected])

If the mission of art history is to make sense of visual and material cultures, then what can be learned from objects that resist art historical study? How can medieval art history benefit from the methodological frictions this resistance generates? Scholars of medieval art may expect to encounter ‘friction’ from archives, individual artworks or methodologies. This Special Issue invites contributors working across the medieval period to reflect on artworks that they find compelling, but which they feel they have “failed” to satisfactorily engage in art historical study.

Contributors are encouraged to consider objects and images that they find confounding, have struggled to write about, have abandoned the study of, or have found resistant to art historical methodologies. Contributors may also wish to consider methodological “failings,” such as art historical theories that present significant challenges when applied to medieval art. Archives may also be explored as “sites of friction.” Art historians of the medieval past are often required to conduct research within varied archives that were not designed for art historical research. We therefore also welcome contributions that discuss the “friction” of working with unillustrated catalogues, the challenges of studying material that is still “active” in a working context, or the complexities which surround the creation of digital archives.

In reflecting on the limits of art historical research, this issue will provoke generative discussion about what can be learned from these “frictions,” both with medieval objects and in art history as a discipline. In doing so, we conceive of ‘frustration’ as a rewarding method in the study of medieval art. Given the challenges posed by the pressures to publish within the neoliberal university, we invite medievalists to confront what confounds them and pause to find scholarly joy in the medieval.

We invite contributions in the range of 6000–9000 words; however, alternative lengths and formats are possible. Write to the issue editors Dr Millie M. Horton-Insch ([email protected]) and Dr Lauren Rozenberg ([email protected]) with any questions.

Please send a 250-word abstract and a 100-word biography to [email protected] by Thursday 30 April 2026.

Find out more about this special issue here.

About the journal:

Different Visions aims for inclusive publishing and welcomes a variety of approaches and topics reflecting the diversity of medieval visual and material culture. It publishes work that engages with all forms of critical theory, including Premodern Critical Race Studies, Gender Studies, the global Middle Ages, and Medievalism. The journal also seeks integrated, socially-engaged, or pedagogical projects that examine the role of medieval visual culture in our contemporary world. In addition, the journal welcomes projects that work at the intersection of medieval art history and the digital humanities. Unlike a traditional print journal, the e-format of Different Visions accommodates dynamic and interactive new media. We invite submissions that include digital content, including but not limited to film and audio clips, three-dimensional models, and gigapixel and spherical panoramas.

CFP: Harmondsworth600: Celebrating six centuries of the Great Barn at Harmondsworth, deadline 20 March 2026

A conference hosted by English Heritage and the Friends of the Great Barn at Harmondsworth

Friday 4 – Saturday 5 September 2026 

2026 marks the 600th anniversary of the construction of the ‘New Barn’ at Harmondsworth, the largest surviving medieval timber-framed barn in England. To celebrate this remarkable example of medieval architecture, English Heritage and the Friends of the Great Barn at Harmondsworth are hosting a conference in the Barn and the adjacent church of St Mary. 

Described by the former Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, as ‘a cathedral’, Harmondsworth Barn was built in 1426. William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, had bought the manor of Harmondsworth in 1391 as part of the endowment for Winchester College. Their medieval records show that the barns on the demesne farm were soon beyond economic repair and a replacement was planned in 1425. It is the longevity of this ‘New Barn’ we are celebrating. All those who now visit it are, like Betjeman, struck by the size, proportions and atmosphere of this magnificent structure, even though it was not designed as polite architecture. Its function was to store the agricultural produce from the manor. 

Today the Barn’s significance lies in its extraordinary scale (over 58 metres/190 feetlong), the near-complete survival of its medieval structural timbers, its precocious features, and the exceptional survival of documentary evidence relating to its construction, ownership and use. Yet, despite its importance and more recent scholarship on comparable structures, there has only been one comprehensive study of Harmondsworth Barn this century. This conference aims to act as a catalyst for new research into medieval vernacular buildings, using Harmondsworth Barn as both case study and inspiration. 

The name of Harmondsworth will be familiar to many not from its long history but from recent media reports of Heathrow Airport’s wish to build a third runway. It is still some years before a final decision on this will be taken by the Government, but the Barn, the village, and their surroundings are again threatened. It is thus an appropriate moment to celebrate the Barn’s survival and to remind ourselves of its significance, both national and local.

Themes and Scope 

We invite proposals from everyone, including postgraduate students, early-career and more established researchers for papers that engage with Harmondsworth Barn and/or the construction and use of related buildings. Contributions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

  • The architectural history, construction, and materiality of medieval barns
  • Vernacular architecture and large-scale agricultural buildings in medieval England and northern Europe
  • Documentary, archaeological, and scientific approaches to medieval agricultural structures
  • Medieval farming, crop storage, and land management practices
  • The relationship between vernacular architecture and ecology, landscape, or environmental history
  • Conservation, repair, and heritage management of medieval timber-framed buildings
  • The social, political, and economic contexts of medieval agricultural architecture
  • Memory, community, and lived experience of Harmondsworth Barn as part of a working farm
  • Threats to heritage sites from modern infrastructure and development

Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged, including perspectives from architectural history, archaeology, history, agricultural studies, environmental studies, conservation, and heritage practice.

A word from the hosts 

English Heritage is a charity that is responsible for the conservation and enhancement of the National Heritage Collection of more than 400 historic sites and monuments across England, and a collection of over 1 million objects. Through these sites, English Heritage promotes public enjoyment, knowledge and education of our shared history and heritage, with the belief that heritage is for everybody. 

The Friends of Harmondsworth Barn were founded in 2005 following a public meeting called by John McDonnell, the local MP, after the company that then owned the Barn went into receivership. The Friends’ committee work to secure the preservation, maintenance and upkeep of the Barn as a heritage building, and to promote access to the Barn for the general public. When English Heritage acquired the Barn in 2011 the Friends were invited to manage it for EH. 

This conference has been made possible with generous support from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Speakers and Audience 

The conference will welcome a broad audience, including academics, students, heritage professionals, members of English Heritage and architectural and archaeological societies, and the general public. Reduced-rate tickets will be available for local residents and students. 

Submission Guidelines

In your paper proposal, please include:

  • Title of your paper (please keep this concise)
  • Brief abstract (max 250 words)
  • Oral or poster presentation. If oral, preferred speaking time (20 or 30 mins)
  • Biography including affiliations (or if independent/freelance) (max 100 words)
  • Email address
  • Social media handles 

Please send abstracts and biographies to: [email protected]

The submission deadline is Friday 20 March 2026 at 12 noon. 

You will be notified if your paper has been accepted by 4 May 2026.

Further details regarding the programme, accessibility, and travel will be circulated once speakers have been confirmed. For any other queries, please do email the address above.

‘Facing Crisis: Art as Politics in Fourteenth-Century Venice’, Anna Christidou Memorial Lecture by Stefania Gerevini (Bocconi University), CEU – Vienna Campus & Zoom, 26 March 2026 (5:30–8:00 pm Central European Standard Time)

Although Venice emerged as a leading Mediterranean power in the Trecento, the city faced a series of crises during a brief but cataclysmic period coinciding with Andrea Dandolo’s dogeship (1343–1354): earthquakes, disease, fierce military conflicts, and dramatic political and institutional tensions had the republic on edge. It was nevertheless precisely at this time that the government sponsored a series of ambitious and sumptuous artistic campaigns in the church of San Marco: a reliquary-chapel, a new baptistery, and a folding altarpiece that blended Byzantine and Italianate visual forms. Far from being mere “vanity projects”, these works were affirmative political interventions that interrogated the meaning of community, authority, and (shared) political leadership at a time when those notions were unsettled. Looking beyond established concepts of triumph and imperialism, this seminar situates the arts of San Marco and the artistic interactions between Byzantium and Venice into ongoing processes of state formation, and attests to the power of images to inform—and transform—political imaginations in troubled times.

Stefania Gerevini is Associate Professor of Medieval and Byzantine Art at Bocconi University, Milan, and holds a PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Prior to joining Bocconi, she held academic positions at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, The Courtauld, and The British School at Rome, where she is currently a member of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Letters. Stefania’s research and publications primarily concern the nexus between art and politics; and medieval materiality and performativity. Her recent book Facing Crisis? Art as Politics in Fourteenth-Century Venice (Harvard University Press), focuses on artistic interactions, political conflict, and public memory in Trecento Venice. The agency of medieval artifacts, the semantic affordances of different artistic media, and the interplay between materiality and immateriality are instead central to her current project, Hidden in Plain Sight: the Metalwork Altarpieces of Medieval Venetia (MUR-PRIN 2022), which she leads as principal investigator.

Find out more about the lecture and how to access the Zoom link on the Central European University’s website.

Lecture: ‘Grid as Ground: Ruled Lines and Manuscript Images’ with Hanna Vorholt, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Friday 17 April 2026, (12:00 – 1:30 pm EDT)

Find out more about the lecture and register on the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies website.

Most printed and electronic documents, like this one, show text organized along invisible horizontal and vertical lines. In medieval Europe, where the primary text technology was the manuscript, lines formed visible grids on the parchment or paper surface. Scholars have examined the resulting patterns and analysed their role in the layout of the written text. While manuscript images were frequently executed on the same ruled surfaces as the written text, their relationship to the ruling has rarely been the subject of research. Hanna Vorholt’s forthcoming book Grid as Ground provides the first sustained analysis of this topic across the wide range of image types encountered in manuscripts, from tables, maps, and diagrams, to figural imagery across different domains of learning. The lecture introduces the project and some of the opportunities this analysis presents for humanities research on lines and grids as tools for cognition, creativity, and control. 

Hanna Vorholt

Hanna Vorholt is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of York. She was previously employed at the Fitzwilliam Museum and the British Library and received fellowships from the Warburg Institute, Cambridge University Library, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust. Her publications include Shaping Knowledge: The Transmission of the Liber Floridus (2017) and, as co-editor, Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West (2012), Visual Constructs of Jerusalem (2014) and Between Jerusalem and Europe (2015). Her forthcoming book Grid as Ground is under agreement with Harvey Miller Publishers. 

Grants for research on Chartres Cathedral, deadline 15 April 2026

The American Friends of Chartres is accepting proposals for its annual research grant to support a research project requiring on-site research in Chartres that promises to advance knowledge and understanding of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres or its historical contexts in the medieval to early modern period. The American Friends of Chartres will provide a grant of $2,500.00 and will facilitate access to the cathedral, the Centre International du Vitrail, the municipal library, archival collections and related resources.

Topics in the fields of art history, history, or related disciplines might include architecture, stained glass, sculpture, urban development, economy, religious practices, manuscripts, or the cathedral treasury, among others.

Applicants may be graduate students, recent advanced degree recipients, or established scholars. Joint projects involving faculty and students are also welcome. Following the research project, the grantee is asked to provide a synopsis of the research and conclusions, which will be publicized through the cultural activities and website of the American Friends of Chartres.

Questions about the grant may be addressed to [email protected]. 

Find out more about the grant on the American Friends of Chartres website.

CFP: ‘Locus Sacratissimus: From Object to Place. The Eucharistic Reservation between the Fourth Lateran Council and the Council of Trent’, International Conference on Art and Liturgy, University of Cádiz (October 2026), deadline 6 April 2026

We are pleased to inform you that next October, the III International Conference on Art and Liturgy at the University of Cádiz will take place. This specialised conference, now in its third edition, is entitled “Locus Sacratissimus: From Object to Place. The Eucharistic Reservation between the Fourth Lateran Council and the Council of Trent.”

The conference will be held from 15 to 17 October 2026, and the deadline for submitting proposals is 6 April 2026. We would be most grateful if you could circulate the attached call for papers to colleagues who may be interested in participating.

Further information is available on the following website.

Between the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the Council of Trent (1545–1563), Europe witnessed one of the most profound and decisive transformations in the history of the Christian liturgical space: the gradual conversion of the tabernacle from a simple container into an architecturally qualified place, charged with theological, symbolic, and visual significance. This transition was neither immediate nor uniform, but rather the result of a complex process in which doctrinal development, liturgical practice, and devotional growth converged with an unprecedented artistic ambition.

At Lateran IV, the dogmatic definition of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species, as articulated by Scholastic theology, intensified attention toward the reservation of the Sacrament, raising new questions of visibility, custody, decorum, and security. During the Late Middle Ages, the Body of Christ ceased to be solely consumed and became also an object of contemplation, adoration, and vigilant safeguarding. In this context, the tabernacle was transformed into a true “house for the Body of Christ,” whose form was required to express both the sacredness of its content and its centrality in the spiritual life of the Church.

Thus, from the earliest chests and pyxes, there emerged—especially from the late thirteenth century onward—solutions of remarkable formal ambition: sacrament houses, autonomous architectural tabernacles, Eucharistic towers, monumental aedicules, and complex micro-architectures dialoguing with the great Gothic structures. These constructions—situated halfway between reliquary, tomb, tower, and temple—not only addressed functional concerns, but also articulated genuine visual discourses on the mystery of the Eucharist, the Incarnation, the Passion, the Death, and the Resurrection of Christ, integrating themselves actively into the ecclesial topography of the church interior.

Far from being a marginal phenomenon, this development achieved extraordinary diffusion throughout Europe, with particular intensity in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, France, the Low Countries, and the Iberian Peninsula. In the Spanish case, medieval and transitional tabernacles reveal a remarkable typological diversity and an early sensitivity to the symbolic dimension of the Eucharistic locus, anticipating solutions that would be fully crystallized after Trent. It was then that the tabernacle would be definitively fixed upon the high altar, from which it would hierarchically preside over the entire liturgical space of the church.

This conference seeks to examine this long and fruitful historical itinerary, from the first medieval experiments to the Tridentine consolidation of the tabernacle as the visual, theological, and devotional center of the Christian temple. Through an interdisciplinary perspective—integrating art history, liturgical history, theology, religious anthropology, and visual culture studies—it invites reflection on the tabernacle not merely as an artistic object, but above all as a constructed locus of presence, where architecture, rite, and faith are inseparably intertwined. The conference will feature the participation of renowned specialists such as Aintzane Erkizia, Justin Kroesen, Eduardo Carrero, and Ferruccio Botto, among others. 

The conference will be organized around the following thematic panels: 

  1. Thinking Presence: Concepts, Sources, and Practices of Eucharistic Reservation
  2. Monumentalizing the Eucharist: The Holy Roman Empire, France, England and the Low Countries
  3. The Tabernacle as Center: Models and Meanings in the Hispanic Kingdoms 
  4. Tradition, Form, and Centrality: Italy and the Mediterranean World 

Proposals may be submitted in Spanish, English, Italian, or French and should be approximately 500–700 words in length. Each proposal must clearly indicate the panel to which it is addressed and include a brief curriculum vitae of the presenter, as well as their institutional affiliation, if applicable. Proposals should be sent to [email protected] no later than 6 April 2026. 

The publication of the contributions is planned (book format with a publishing house of recognized academic prestige). Final versions of accepted papers must therefore be submitted by 30 November 2026.

Registration Fees (Speakers): Regular speakers: 50 €; CEHA members: 25 €. In both cases, the registration fee includes a complimentary copy of the volume containing the conference proceedings.

Once acceptance of the paper has been confirmed, participants will have until 15 June 2026 to complete the registration payment. Payment must be made by deposit or bank transfer to the University of Cádiz bank account: Banco Santander IBAN: ES48 0049 4870 8529 1609 2739 – SWIFT: BSCHESM; IMPORTANT: The bank transfer must include the reference code ARTEYLITURGIA, followed by the speaker’s SURNAME(S) AND FIRST NAME. A copy of the bank transfer receipt must be sent by email to: [email protected]

Scientific Coordinators: Pablo J. Pomar Rodil. Universidad de Cádiz; Diana Olivares Martínez. Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Elena Escuredo. Universidad de Sevilla

Scientific Secretariat: Francisco de Asís García García Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Pedro Manuel Martínez Lara. Universidad de Sevilla

Technical Secretariat: Noelia Muñoz Arjona. Universidad de Cádiz
Scientific Committee: Eduardo Carrero Santamaría. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; Irma Patricia Díaz Cayeros. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Aintzane Erkizia Martikorena. Universidad del País Vasco; Fernando Gutiérrez Baños. Universidad de Valladolid; Stefan Heid. Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana; Justin Kroesen. Universidad de Bergen; Teresa Laguna Paúl. Universidad de Sevilla; Fabio Massaccesi. Universidad de Bolonia; María Rodríguez Velasco. Universidad San Pablo-CEU; María Dolores Teijeira Pablos. Universidad de León; Giovanna Valenzano. Universidad de Padua; Cécile Vincent Cassy. CY Cergy París Université

British Archaeological Association Travel Grants, deadline 15 March and 15 May 2026

The British Archaeological Association invites applications for their travel grants.

Applications for travel grants are invited from students registered on post-graduate degree courses (at M.A., M.Litt., M.St., M.Phil., and Ph.D. level). Grants of up to £500 are available to cover travel for a defined purpose (such as essential site visits, attendance at an exhibition/conference, short research trip, etc). The awards will be made twice yearly, with deadlines for applications on 15 March and 15 May.

Applicants are required to provide one reference, together with a timetable and travel budget, and the objective of the travel must fall within the Association’s fields of interest (as defined below). Applicants should either be registered at a UK University or be undertaking work on material from, in, or related to the art, architecture or archaeology of the British Isles. Applicants are also responsible for asking their nominated referee to forward a reference directly to the Hon. Secretary within one week of the closing date for applications.

An application form is linked on this page. Once complete, this form should be sent as an email attachment to the Awards Officer at [email protected]. Funds are limited, so the awards are competitive. If successful, the Association expects candidates to write a short account (150-350 words) of the travel facilitated by the award that could be posted on the BAA website.

BAA Statement of Interest

The Association’s interests are defined as the study of archaeology, art and architecture from the Roman period to the present day, principally within Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The core interests of the BAA are Roman to 16th century. We only entertain applications that cover the 17th to 21st centuries if they are of a historiographical, conservationist or antiquarian nature and link back to the BAA’s core interests.

CFP: ‘Queer Sanctity: Contemporary Visions of Medieval and Renaissance Art’, deadline 15 March 2026

Edited by Bryan C. Keene • Riverside City College; formerly Getty Museum

Different Visions invites proposals for contributions to a forthcoming special issue, “Queer Sanctity: Contemporary Visions of Medieval and Renaissance Art.” Find out more about this edition on their website. 

This volume will take the form of a virtual and imaginary exhibition catalogue examining the ways queer- and trans-identifying contemporary artists working in North America over the last forty years have drawn on medieval and Renaissance visual and material culture (ca. 500–1600 CE) to imagine inclusive futures and advocate for justice in LGBTQIA2+ communities. By juxtaposing historical objects with contemporary works, this issue seeks to interrogate the continuities and ruptures across time in how sanctity, sexuality, and gender identity are represented, perceived, and contested.

The art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe has inspired creators of the LGBTQIA2+ communities in North America for decades. Themes of religion, the body, disease, and human relationships under the law are as urgent now as they were in the past. This project brings together historical objects made from about 500-1600 with contemporary art from the 1980s to today with the goal of deepening an understanding of gender and sexuality across time and the draw queer- and trans-identifying creators today have with these time periods.

The diversity of queer and trans artists included emphasizes intersectionality, that is, how individuals, especially those who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) or with multiple intersecting identities of (dis)ability, class, gender, race, religion, and sexuality face marginalization, prejudice, and discrimination. Some of the narratives related to HIV/AIDS and hate crimes are painful and may be triggering. Stories of coming out and pride offer hope for a future of care, inclusion, and justice. All are welcome and invited to reflect, question, admire, and heal.

“Queering” the past has revealed histories that have been erased or censored, while destabilizing cis-heteronormative frameworks that still dominate both medieval studies and museum practice. In pairing premodern art with works by contemporary artists, Queer Sanctity aims to deepen discourse around gender, sexuality, and sacred art.

We envision including works by the following artists (listed alphabetically), with the possibility for revision as the project develops: Ron Athey, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cassils, Jordan Eagles, Rubén Esparza, Robert Flynt, Gabriel García-Roman, Daniel Goldstein, Félix González-Torres, Keith Haring, Kang Seung Lee, Alma Lopez, Robert Mapplethorpe, Julie Mehretu, Meredith Monk, Kent Monkman, Carlos Motta, Rashaad Newsome, Catherine Opie, Jacolby Satterwhite, Andy Warhol, and Kehinde Wiley.

Submissions

We welcome contributions from art historians, medievalists, curators, artists, and scholars working across disciplines. Submissions may take the form of:

  • Scholarly essays (2,000–8,000 words)
  • Shorter position pieces or artist statements (1,500–3,000 words)
  • Case Study or Museum Exhibition Catalogue-Style Entry (shorter contributions)
  • Interviews, reflections, or multimedia formats – we welcome your creativity!

To express interest in contributing to this project, please fill out this form by March 15, 2026. A zoom meeting will follow to explore possibilities as a group, with this tentative timeline: abstracts for proposed contributions due early fall 2026, full text due winter 2027, publication late 2027.

Find out more about the submission process on their website. 

For questions or informal discussion of ideas, feel free to reach out to the special issue editor: Bryan C. Keene: [email protected]

Lecture: ‘Time, Body and Building: Architecture and Timekeeping in Late Medieval Italy’ with Giosuè Fabiano, 25 Mar 2026, 17:30-19:00 (GMT), Courtauld Institute of Art

Date and time: 25 Mar 2026, 17:30-19:00 (GMT)

Location: Vernon Square Campus, Lecture Theatre 2. This event takes place at our Vernon Square campus (WC1X 9EW).

Register and find out more on the Courtauld Website.

Required to inhabit the same interiors day after day, year after year, medieval monastic and clerical communities developed ingenious ways of measuring the passage of time by tracking how sunlight and stars moved across built surfaces. Sunbeams slid across walls and pavements by day; stars aligned with rooflines and towers by night. Their timekeeping techniques depended on the precise coordination of three things: the moving heavens, the fixed fabric of architecture, and the observing body positioned in the right place at the right moment.

Some of these alignments were discovered empirically, as monks learned through habit where to stand inside a church, which window to watch, or which architectural feature to use as a sighting mark. Others were anticipated in architectural design itself, so that light would fall on specific surfaces or objects at particular hours and seasons. What do surviving buildings reveal of these fleeting visual and temporal experiences? Drawing on evidence from late medieval Italian churches, this talk examines how practices of time measurement shaped architectural and artistic decisions, highlighting shared ways of seeing time across Europe and beyond.

Giosuè Fabiano is Postdoctoral Assistant in Medieval Art at the Institute of Art History, University of Vienna. He received his PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art, following an MA from the Warburg Institute and a BA from Sapienza University of Rome. His publications explore the intersections of artisanal, scientific, and religious knowledge, including the relationships between optics (perspectiva) and architecture in Florence, as well as the fabrication, destruction, and reuse of gilt metalwork altarpieces in Venice. His current book project, based on his doctoral dissertation, examines how solar time shaped the experience of religious paintings and sculptures across the Italian peninsula.

Dr Fabiano’s research has been supported by fellowships at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, the University of Hamburg, the Nederlands Interuniversitair Kunsthistorisch Instituut in Florence, and Bocconi University, Milan.

Organised by Dr Jessica Barker, Senior Lecturer in Medieval Art History, The Courtauld, as part of the Medieval Work-in-Progress Series. This series is generously supported by Sam Fogg.

Fellowship: Wyvern Research Institute-Bilnas Postdoctoral Fellowship, deadline 27 February 2026

The British Institute for Libyan & North African Studies (BILNAS) offers a Wyvern-BILNAS Fellowship of up to £12,000 to support the writing-up of research within the framework of:

Artistic Exchange Along the Silk Roads: How did artistic motifs and materials from North Africa contribute to, or evolve through, interactions along the Silk Roads during the Byzantine and Medieval periods?

The award is explicitly intended to support early career scholars ordinarily resident in the UK (within 8 years of completion of their PhD) who have not yet been appointed to a permanent academic post, and who frequently lack the time and resources they need to publish their work.

By providing funds for scholars to dedicate themselves to writing, BILNAS aims to encourage a new generation of scholars to publish works in the humanities and social sciences that will advance our understanding of artistic exchange.

The research/fieldwork that forms the basis of the writing project is expected to be completed at the time of application. Publication should be in the form of a major journal article or a significant portion of a monograph, or a combination of these.

The awards are non-renewable and provide £12,000 of financial support for 6 months of continuous full-time writing (or longer if held part-time). Awardees must complete their fellowships by 31 March 2027. The Fellowship may also be held part-time over a proportionately longer period by those who hold part-time fellowships, academic posts or other employment (0.6 FTE or less) or those who prefer to hold it part-time due to caring responsibilities, disability or health-related reasons. No research funds in addition to the basic stipend are available. Institutional overheads, FEC, or institutional support are not eligible under this scheme.

Fellows will receive mentorship from the BILNAS Director or a relevant academic on the BILNAS Council or linked to the Wyvern Research Institute throughout the award. This will include meetings to discuss progress of their publication and to advise on preparation of applications for postdoctoral fellowships, research grants, academic and related jobs. BILNAS will also provide a year’s free membership which among other benefits will allow the recipient to have borrowing rights at SOAS where the BILNAS library is housed.

Applicants can apply regardless of institutional affiliation or nationality but must be ordinarily resident in the UK.

For further information regarding eligibility and the format of the application, please consult the BILNAS grants application page and the application form provided there.