SPECTRUM-Visual Translations of Jerusalem
About the Project
About the Project
In October 2012 the Department of History of Art at the University of York joined the research project SPECTRUM-Visual Transalations of Jerusalem, which is funded until April 2016 by the European Research Council and based at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The project documents and examines visual translations of Jerusalem across Europe, including such famous examples as the Temple Church in London or the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, but also a multitude of lesser-known sites which have hitherto been studied only at a regional level. The research group at York focuses on Jerusalem translations in Great Britain and the Low Countries, as well as on Western medieval maps of Jerusalem.
Project Team
Project Team
The project draws together a team of academics and research students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of York and is directed by Professor Bianca Kühnel (Hebrew University); the research group at York is led by Dr Hanna Vorholt.
Research Group Leader: Hanna Vorholt
Dr Hanna Vorholt is an Anniversary Research Lecturer at the Department of History of Art, University of York. Before joining the Department in 2012, she held positions or fellowships at the Max Planck Institute for History, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University Library, the British Library, and the Warburg Institute. She is Co-Investigator of the AHRC-funded project ‘The Production and Reading of Music Sources’ and leads the ERC-funded research group at York on the topic of translations of Jerusalem in Great Britain and the Low Countries. She is currently preparing a book-length study of Western medieval maps of Jerusalem from c.1100 to 1450 and has co-edited the volumes Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West [= Proceedings of the British Academy 175] (Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2012) and Visual Constructs of Jerusalem [Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 18] (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015).
Post Doctoral Researcher: Laura Slater
Dr Laura Slater completed her AHRC-funded PhD in History of Art at King’s College, University of Cambridge. In spring 2012, she held a Visiting Research Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin as part of the 'History Books in the Anglo-Norman World’ project, funded by the Marie Curie Programme (FP7) alongside Trinity Long Room Hub and Trinity Irish Art Research Centre (TRIARC). She joined the University of York as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the ERC-funded project from October 2013 until April 2015 and is now Research Affiliate on the project. Her research focus for this project is a study of the medieval Westminster Abbey and Palace complex, alongside wider investigations into the political significances of European Jerusalem sites. Her research interests centre on the relationships between art, ideas, power and politics in medieval Britain and Europe.
PhD Student Claudia Jung
Claudia Jung studied History of Art as well as English and French Philology at the University of Cologne and at the University of Bonn. She received her MA in History of Art in 2011 from the University of Cologne, with a thesis on the 'Baroque Gardens of Gracht Palace in Liblar'. She is interested in medieval and early modern architecture, especially in its relationship to the landscape. As part of the research project, she is writing her PhD dissertation on architectural translations of Jerusalem in the Low Countries.
Affiliated Projects
AHRC-Funded Research Network Imagining Jerusalem c. 1099 to the Present Day.
Events and Publications
Events and Publications
Events
- The Politics of Visual Translations of Jerusalem, an international project conference at the University of York on 20-21 March 2015
- York Medieval Seminar Series, public lecture and graduate seminar by Bianca Kühnel on ‘Jerusalem’s Imprint on the European Visual Memory’ at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York on 11-12 November 2014
Team members have also presented papers or chaired sessions at:
- Representations of the Holy Land: Challenging the Phenomenon through New Case Studies, international conference at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1-3 December 2014
- Remembering Jerusalem: Imagination, Memory, and the City, international conference at King’s College, London, 6-7 November 2014
- Invention and Imagination in British Art and Architecture, 600-1500, international conference at the Paul Mellon Centre and The British Museum, 30 October-1 November 2014
- Perceptions and Translations of Jerusalem in German and Italian Speaking Areas, international conference at Augsburg and the University of Salzburg, 3-8 August 2014
- International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds, session 1125 (Fragmented Body Politic, I: Bodies of Land and Fragments of Empire), 9 July 2014
- Post-doctorate Showcase at the History of Art Department, University of York, 9 June 2014
- Meeting of the AHRC-Network Imagining Jerusalem 1099 to the Present Day at the University of York, 11-12 February 2014
- International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds, sessions 717 (Jerusalem of the Senses, I: Re-Enacting the Passion in Late Medieval Europe), 817 (Jerusalem of the Senses, II: Re-Enacting the Passion in Late Medieval Europe), and 909 (Remembered Places and Invented Traditions: Thinking about the Holy Land in the Later Middle Ages - A Round Table Discussion), 2 July 2013
Publications
- Laura Slater, ‘Imagining Place and Moralising Space: Jerusalem at Medieval Westminster’ (forthcoming in a special issue of British Art Studies, 2017)
- Laura Slater, 'Recreating the Judean Hills? English Hermits and the Holy Land', Journal of Medieval History 42:5 (2016): 603-626
- Laura Slater, ‘Jerusalem Transformed in Post-Reformation England: The Case of the Cliffords and Beamsley Hospital’ Northern History 53:1 (2016): 69-79
- Renana Bartal and Hanna Vorholt (eds), Between Jerusalem and Europe: Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel [= Visualising the Middle Ages 11] (Leiden: Brill, 2015)
- Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai and Hanna Vorholt (eds), Visual Constructs of Jerusalem [= Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 18] (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015)
- Laura Slater, 'Finding Jerusalem in Medieval Pontefract', in: Northern History 51:2 (2014), pp. 211-220
- Hanna Vorholt, 'Herrschaft über Jerusalem und die Kartographie der Heiligen Stadt', in: Ingrid Baumgärtner and Martina Stercken (eds), Politische Kartographie des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Zürich: Chronos, 2012), pp. 211-228
- Hanna Vorholt, 'Studying with Maps: Jerusalem and the Holy Land in Two Thirteenth-Century Manuscripts', in: Lucy Donkin and Hanna Vorholt (eds), Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West [= Proceedings of the British Academy 175] (Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 163-200
- Lucy Donkin and Hanna Vorholt (eds), Imagining Jerusalem in the Medieval West [=Proceedings of the British Academy 175] (Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 2012), incl. introduction on pp. 1-13
Project Blog
Project Conference
The Politics of Visual Translations of Jerusalem
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
University of York, Berrick Saul Building
20-21 March 2015
Convened by Laura Slater and Hanna Vorholt
Hosted by the Department of History of Art at the University of York in association with The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the context of the major ERC-funded-research project ‘SPECTRUM – Visual Translations of Jerusalem’
This conference will consider the political dimensions in the creation and use of architectural copies, visual representations and physical relics of the holy places of Jerusalem in Europe and beyond. Ranging from the medieval period to the present day, papers will cover topics including the importance of Jerusalem for the image of rulers, the role of Jerusalem in public rituals and punishment, the appropriation of Jerusalem sites as war memorials and the role of Jerusalem translations in current political debates.
Speakers include Kristin B. Aavitsland, Kobi Ben-Meir, Carla Benzan, Jane Chick, Antony Eastmond (keynote lecture), Cathleen A. Fleck, Catherine E. Hundley, Bob Jobbins, Bianca Kühnel, Betsy Bennett Purvis, Marianne Ritsema van Eck, Elisabeth Ruchaud, Shimrit Shriki, Laura Slater, Nancy Thebaut and Achim Timmermann (keynote lecture).
The keynote lectures are free to the public. Registration for the 2-day conference is £30 (£15 for students). To register for the conference please visit the Online Registration Site. Registration will close on 10 March 2015. For further information please email Laura Slater.
Keynote lectures: Antony Eastmond and Achim Timmermann
View the Conference Abstracts (PDF 
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View the Conference Programme (PDF , 405kb)
Download the Conference Poster (PDF , 399kb)