Manuscripts in a Global Context, J. Paul Getty Museum, April 16–17, 2016

This interdisciplinary symposium will examine artists, patrons, and audiences as agents who desired real, imagined, or exotic representations of and narratives about the world and its peoples. In an attempt to expand the monolithic notion of the period traditionally referred to as the Middle Ages in Europe, this symposium invites dialogue among specialists from across the art historical spectrum of the 12th to 17th centuries to include Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Focusing on manuscripts, this symposium aims to encourage collaborations across traditional geographic and disciplinary boundaries and to foster new dialogues between museums and the academy.

This symposium complements the exhibition Traversing the Globe through Illuminated Manuscripts (on view through June 26, 2016).