AVISTA invites paper proposals for Unfinished, Damaged, Reimagined: Rethinking the Fragment, which will be an in-person session at the 62nd International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan (May 13-17, 2027). Paper proposals will be accepted through the Confex proposal portal at the link below through September 15, 2026.

Unfinished, Damaged, Reimagined: Rethinking the Fragment

Rarely do material traces of the premodern world survive without damage or alteration. In response, the fragment has emerged in recent years as a productive theoretical framework for understanding the present condition of medieval objects, buildings, and archives. AVISTA’s emphasis has long been the intersection of medieval art, craft, and technology. In line with this focus, this session seeks papers which present new case studies of the fragment. This includes medieval objects or buildings that have been reconstructed or, in their current state, are incomplete or damaged. We also seek to broaden discussion of the medieval fragment to include works abandoned in process, or those that were not finished following their original plan. While this concept has gained traction in manuscript studies, the notion of the unfinished has been less discussed in architecture, even though there are many prominent examples, such as the cathedrals of Beauvais, Narbonne, and Siena, amongst others. We invite interdisciplinary papers, representing all disciplines and geographies, to take up unfinished, damaged, or reimagined medieval objects.

You can find the full call for papers on our website, here.

Submit your paper proposal for the AVISTA session here.