Podcasts
Medieval Art Matters complements the book written by Jill Caskey, Adam S. Cohen, and Linda Safran, Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages: Exploring a Connected World (Cornell University Press, 2022). The podcast is produced by Cited Media Productions and is made possible through the support of the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto, St. George Campus, and the Office of the Vice-Principal and Dean, University of Toronto Mississauga. Many thanks to the Toronto Consort for providing the music.
Episodes
Conceptualizing the Middle Ages
Sex and Sexuality in Medieval European Art
Gender and the Body in Byzantine Art
Religion and Identity in the Cantigas de Santa María
Curating and the Global Imperative
Light in the Great Mosque at Córdoba
Race in the Middle Ages
Indigenizing the Museum
Muhammad in Islamic Art
Abstraction and Meaning in Medieval Jewish Manuscripts
Medieval Monsters
Sound in Byzantine Churches
Conservation and International Cooperation
The Nile River and the Abbasid Nilometer
Conceptualizing the Middle Ages
Alexandra Gillespie
Vice-President and Principal, University of Toronto Mississauga
in conversation with Jill Caskey, Adam S. Cohen, Linda Safran, and Erika Loic
Sex and Sexuality in Medieval European Art
Karma Lochrie
Provost Professor of English and faculty member at the Medieval Studies Institute at Indiana University
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Erika Loic
Images: Illuminations by Jeanne de Montbaston, Roman de la Rose, France, fourteenth century
(Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Français 25526, fols. 106v and 160r)
Gender and the Body in Byzantine Art
Roland Betancourt
Professor of Art History at the University of California, Irvine
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Linda Safran
Images: St. Mary of Egypt, in sanctuary, and St. John the Baptist with Mary, just outside the sanctuary, both in All-Holy Mother of God of the Spurges (Panagia Phorbiotissa), Asinou, Cyprus
(Byzantine Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Records and Papers, photos ca. late 1920s, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, DC)
Religion and Identity in the Cantigas de Santa María
Pamela Patton
Director of the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Erika Loic
Image: Cantiga 46, Cantigas de Santa María, Spain, thirteenth century
(Madrid, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, MS T.I.1, fol. 68v)
See the full digitized manuscript online.
Curating and the Global Imperative
C. Griffith Mann
Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge at The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Adam S. Cohen
Images: Virgin and Child in Majesty, France, ca. 1175–1200; Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in Water Moon Form (Shuiyue Guanyin), China, 1385
(both on view at The Met Fifth Avenue)
Light in the Great Mosque at Córdoba
Renata Holod
Professor Emerita in the History of Art Department and Curator in the Near East Section, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, at the University of Pennsylvania
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Linda Safran
Images: interior of Great Mosque of Córdoba under current lighting conditions; digital renderings of the mosque interior under Caustic Cone method to produce more perceptually valid representations of medieval lighting (provided by Renata Holod)
Mary Rambaran-Olm
Activist, public intellectual, and Provost Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Toronto
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Erika Loic
Image: illustration of Abbot Hadrian of Canterbury by Nico @NicoDeLuna, they/them
Gerald McMaster
Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree)/citizen of the Siksika Nation
Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Visual Culture and Curatorial Practice and director of the Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge at OCAD University
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Erika Loic
Images: Inuit Norseman figurine (above), Nunavut (Canada), ca. 1250–1300 (Canadian Museum of History, Artifact Number KeDq-7:325); Haida sea captain, Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia (Canada), ca. 1840 (Art Gallery of Ontario, Object Number 2008/43)
Christiane Gruber
Professor of Islamic Art at the University of Michigan
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Linda Safran
Image: Muhammad speaking with God (as a gold bundle), Jami, Yusuf va Zulaykha (Joseph and Potiphar's Wife), Qazvin or Shiraz, Iran, 1570 (Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Library, H. 1483, fol. 42r)
Abstraction and Meaning in Medieval Jewish Manuscripts
Julie Harris
Independent scholar
in conversation with Adam S. Cohen and Erika Loic
Image: Hebrew Bible associated with the workshop Joshua Ibn Gaon, carpet page with colophon, Spain, ca. 1300 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Hébreu 21, fol. 1v)
Asa Simon Mittman
Professor of Medieval Art History at California State University, Chico
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Erika Loic
Image: Miscellany including The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, monstrous races, England, second quarter of the fifteenth century (London, British Library, Harley MS 3954, fol. 42r)
Sharon E. J. Gerstel
Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Linda Safran
Image: Chapel of Sotiraki (Christ the Savior) in Thessaloniki, Greece, ca. 1350–70
Read more about collaborative research at the intersection of engineering, art and architectural history, archaeology, and musicology.
Conservation and International Cooperation
Elizabeth Bolman
Elsie B. Smith Professor in the Liberal Arts, Professor and Chair of Art History at Case Western Reserve University
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Linda Safran
Image: Red Monastery church, partially cleaned apse, Sohag (Egypt), fifth to sixth century
The Nile River and the Abbasid Nilometer
Heba Mostafa
Assistant Professor of Islamic Art at the University of Toronto
in conversation with Jill Caskey and Linda Safran
Image: Nilometer of Caliph al-Mutawakkil, interior of well, Cairo (al-Rawda Island), Egypt, 861 (photo by Heba Mostafa)