Events

Monica Green, Professor of History at Arizona State University, specializes in medieval European medical history and the global history of infectious diseases.  In her talk she will show how our understanding of the Black Death, the plague pandemic that ravaged Europe, the Middle East, and north Africa between 1346 and 1353, has been transformed in the last decades because of new developments in genetics. Historians and archaeologists are now learning to incorporate the findings from genetics into new narratives, ones that show that this largest of pandemics was even larger, and more widespread, than we ever imagined before. Our story must now include not only the Mediterranean and Europe, but also China and perhaps even much of sub-Saharan Africa.

  In commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation (October 1517-October 2017),  Dr. Christopher Boyd Brown and UMBC’s Camerata and Collegium Musicum will present an interdisciplinary concert-lecture on Martin Luther’s use of music and the community practice of hymn-singing in the Protestant Reformation. Brown will discuss how Lutheran hymns, sung in the streets and homes as well as in community spaces, were central to the success of the Reformation. UMBC students will provide live musical examples of plainchant, Reformation hymns, and multi-part choral works by Walter and Bach.

Bio: Christopher Boyd Brown is Associate Professor of Church History, School of Theology, Boston University.  A recognized scholar of Martin Luther and Reformation music, he has published Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation (Harvard University Press, 2005), and several studies on the role of midwives in early modern Lutheranism. His translations of Luther and early modern Lutheran theological texts can be found at http://www.projectwittenberg.org/etext/luther/.

The exhibition brings together more than 100 works representative of the late medieval period—roughly the 12th to the 15th century—to explore how the senses enhance the experience of art. . . and how art triggers sensate experience. Included are stained glass, precious metals and gemstones, ivories, tapestries, paintings, prints, and illuminated manuscripts from public and private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

This exhibition runs from October 16 2016 through January 8 2017

A Feast for the Senses: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe has been organized by the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, in partnership with the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota.

This exhibition received major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor; the Institute of Museum and Library Services; the National Endowment for the Arts; and anonymous donors, with additional support from the Gary Vikan Exhibition Fund, Nanci and Ned Feltham, and the Helen Hughes Trust. The accompanying catalogue was made possible by an anonymous donor. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or the National Endowment for the Arts.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.