The purpose of the conference will
be the exploration of aspects of the residence of the Papal
Court at Avignon which have hitherto been little studied. While
scholarship has focused on this interesting episode in the history
of the Church as it pertains to political and ecclesiastical
developments, less attention has been devoted to the Avignon
papacy as the context for exchange between and among the cultures
of late medieval Europe. Especially because many contributions
to the study of cultural history have been grounded in a disciplinary
practice limited by a national language or philology, the story
of this seventy-year "displacement" of the center
of the Western Church as an opening up of cultural institutions
to new possibilities has yet to be told.
Organizing committee: Kevin Brownlee,
Oliver Nicholson, Susan Noakes (Chair), Kathryn Reyerson, and
Joëlle Rollo-Koster [Faculty], and Evelyn Meyer & Tracey
Daniel [Research Assistants].
Speakers at the Avignon Conference include:
- Mark Blincoe, University of Minnesota
- Kevin Brownlee, University of Pennsylvania
- Caroline Bruzelius, Duke University
- Michael Hanly, Washington State University/CNRS
- Ronald Martinez, University of Minnesota
- Janine Mathieu, Centre Pontifical, Avignon
- Sophia Menache, University of Haifa
- Esther Moench, Centre Pontifical, Avignon
- Kelly Morris, University of Minnesota
- Ronald Musto, Italica Press, New York
- Gretchen Peters, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
- Michelangelo Picone, University of Zürich
- Michael Sizer, University of Minnesota
- Kathryn Reyerson, University of Minnesota
- Joëlle Rollo-Koster, University of Rhode Island
- David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania
- Ronald Witt, Duke University
- Patrick Zutshi, Cambridge University
As part of the conference, a free concert will be held at which
music from Papal Avignon will be performed. The local Music
Croup "Concentus Musicus Minnesota" directed by Dr.
Arthur Maud will be performing on period instruments. The Concert
will be April 26, 2002 at 8:00 PM at Grace University
Lutheran Church, 324 Harvard Street, S.E., Minneapolis (corner
of Harvard and Delaware, next to Fairview University Medical
Center). Please call CMS for more information at (612) 626-0805.
The conference will be held at the Holiday
Inn Metrodome, 1500 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis,
MN 55454.
Talks and Discussions will be held in Ballroom A-D at
the Holiday Inn Metrodome Hotel. Breakfast will be held
in the Foyer outside of Ballroom AD, and lunches and Thursday
dinner will be held in the Aragon Ballroom C-D. The Book
Exhibit by the University of Minnesota Press and Loome's
Booksellers will be at the back of Ballroom AD
Rooms have been set aside at the Holiday Inn Metrodome, 1500
Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55454, Phone: (612) 333-4646,
Fax(612) 338-4049 (Fax). Please specify that you are with the
University of Minnesota, Center for Medieval Studies when making
reservations. Other hotels are the Days
Inn, 2407 University Ave. SE (612-623-3999 or 1-800-329-7466)
and the Radisson
Hotel Metrodome at 615 Washington Ave. SE (1-612-379-8888
or 1-800-333-3333).
Participants in the conference are also invited to attend,
at no charge, a concert of vocal and instrumental music written
for the papal court at Avignon. The concert is sponsored by
the College of Liberal Arts Scholarly Events Fund.
Sponsored by:
Center for
Medieval Studies
Center
for Comparative Early Modern History
University of Minnesota McKnight Arts
& Humanities Endowment
Department
of French & Italian
School of
Music
C. L. A. Scholarly Events Fund
