In this episode:

Art and Frontier: the role of art in “frontier societies” e.g. around the Black Sea in the 14th century [or 19th-century Texas] (1:30) — How colonial forces, e.g. the Venetians and Genoese, both convert and control indigenous communities, and produce luxurious objects for export back to the mainland (2:00) — 250,000 slaves exported from the Black Sea to Genoa in a decade (2:45) — How European colonialism and globalism operated before Columbus (3:15) — Robert Bartlett’s idea of the constant expansion of Europe from its Carolingian core (4:15) — in the 15th century, the Black Sea was not yet “European” (5:00) — taking over natural resources e.g. silver mines, displacing silver from the Harz and the Black Sea (5:15) — the historiography of medieval slavery (6:00) — parallels between Black Sea and Mediterranean slavery? (7:45) — the basis for Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land (8:30) — exchange between center and periphery in art history (9:30)– The “middle ground” where settlers and indigenous forces meet and reciprocally influence each other (10:00) —

“Hildesheim avant-garde,” the first large-scale bronze casting since the end of the Roman empire, and the frontier situation of the Ottonians around 1000 (12:00) — It doesn’t make sense that Bernward would go all the way to Rome and back for inspiration for his doors (13:45) — Why does a village of 400 people need a set of three-ton bronze doors? (14:45) — The church campaigns to convert the local Slavs (15:30) — Rethinking the “art history of masterpieces” (17:45) — Why so many pagan Jupiter Columns survived the Christian conversion of German-speaking lands (18:30) — Sacred trees and groves in Germany (21:30) —

Primordial objects in art history (23:00) — The shock of the new and the ability to break away from a tradition or series (24:15) —  Rudolf Berliner on “The Freedom of Medieval Art” (26:00) — The basic carnal human desire for something new (26:30) —

Agents of Faith: the way in which people charge objects with sentiment (28:00) — Votive object-making: one of the earliest, most universal practices of mankind, since at least 5000 BCE (29:00) — Protestant vs. Catholic votives in the German lands; Volkskunde at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (31:15) —  Modernity, secularization and ex votos: Michael Jackson or David Bowie as “saints” (35:30) — Atomized modern society and the desire for belonging and community (38:45) — The Open Work, contemporary art and participation (41:00) — The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages and techniques of making: doors, fountains, bells and otherwise (45:15)