Art History Assistant Professor Erika Loic delivered the keynote lecture at the 2026 University of Michigan History of Art Graduate Student Symposium. In response to this year’s theme, “Crafting Place: Visual and Material Practices of Placemaking in the Premodern World,” student papers addressed a range of topics that included urban topographies, funerary arts, and portable objects.
Dr. Loic presented “From Book Space to Outer Space: Manuscript Placemaking in Medieval Iberia,” in which she examined Iberian manuscripts both as spaces and in spaces. In the second half of her talk, Dr. Loic offered an ecocritical reading of a lapidary compendium—a collection of treatises on the origins and properties of stones. Completed around 1270–75 for King Alfonso X of Castile (r. 1252–84), later known as “el Sabio” (the Wise), the manuscript’s imagery and its materials shaped reader perceptions of Alfonso’s status within global and cosmic networks.
