PhD Scholarship in Medieval History – Flinders University

Flinders University is currently advertising a HDR scholarship opportunity as a part of Dr Matthew Firth’s Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship project ‘Contesting Conquests: Pre-Modern Attempts to Come to Terms with the Past’.

This scholarship is for a candidate wishing to pursue a PhD in history, with a relevant undergraduate or masters degree in history or a cognate discipline.

The larger project looks at how societies experience and remember the trauma of conquest and colonisation, taking an especial interest in England’s early medieval histories of invasion (pre-1066) and how these were received and transmitted in the historiography of the later Middle Ages and early modern period.

The scholarship opportunity is to conduct a PhD project that either:

  • examines the distinctive contributions to English historiography of twelfth-century historians. This HDR project would consider:
    • what social contexts and authorial interests encouraged the unprecedented volume of history writing that was produced in this period
    • what role these histories had in shaping common perceptions and subsequent accounts of England’s pre-Conquest past

OR

  • examines the links between narrative genres, such as hagiography, and traditions of history writing in the medieval or early modern period. This HDR project would consider:
    • the extent to which the chosen narrative genre can be (or was) considered a form of history writing
    • how these texts shaped narratives of England’s pre-Conquest past and can so be located within wider networks of medieval history writing 

The recipient of this scholarship will be able to design the scope of their project within these frameworks.

For further details, see the advertised opportunity.

Member News: AFCEMS Best Book in Medieval Art 2024

Congratulations to Pippa Salonius and her co-editor, Mike Bintley, whose collection, Trees as Symbol and Metaphor in the Middle Ages: Comparative Contexts, has been awarded the 2024 Best Book in Medieval Art prize by the Association of Friends of the Center for Early Medieval Studies. The judges concluded:

This profoundly researched, well written, and clearly composed book has been deemed outstanding for its stimulating contribution to a nuanced and profound understanding of the nexus between nature and human creativity as expressed through various media in the visual arts and literature as well as theology and cosmology. Although mainly focusing on the European continent, it also comprises analyses of Maori and Islamic cultures for comparison and thereby embraces a ‘global’ approach to its common arboreal focus.

The book is now available in harcover and ebook formats through Boydell & Brewer.

CFP: Cerae Volume 12 – Dreams, Visions, and Utopias

Ceræ invites article submissions on the theme of Dreams, Visions, and Utopias for volume 12 of the journal.

The journal is interested in receiving submissions related to both the idealistic and the critical, considering the variety of ways that medieval and early modern constructions of dreams, visions, and utopias have expanded and/or delimited the future.

There is no geographic or disciplinary limitation for submissions, which can consider any aspect of the medieval or early modern world or its reception. Non-themed submissions will also be considered.

The deadline for themed submissions is 30 April 2025.

See below flyer for further details.

CFP: Early Modern Global Separation Conference

The research project Moved Apart is pleased to announce that its second conference
Early Modern Global Separation will take place at Lund University on 20-22 August 2025.

This conference seeks proposals that contribute to further our knowledge of how separation was communicated in different parts of the world (Africa, America, Asia, Europe) in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The deadline for submitting a proposal is 3 March 2025 and you will be notified of the results by the end of March 2025.

Note that there may be opportunities for financial support for early career scholars. Please flag this in your proposal.

See the below flyer for further details.

The Great Viking Survey

The University of Oslo has recently launched the Great Viking Survey, a wide-ranging study to explore how people across the world perceive and engage with the vikings as history and heritage, and to map the many ways in which contemporary media and academia shape these views. This online survey invites anyone, anywhere, over 18, to share their thoughts on the iconic viking warrior figure, as well as the enduring legacy and memory of the vikings in the modern world. In doing so, researchers will be able to shine an unprecedented light on the means and mechanisms that allow images and myths of the vikings to be shaped and spread in the public sphere.

The survey is part of the Making a Warrior-project, a pan-Nordic network of scholars examining the concept of viking ‘warriorhood’ and its representations past and present. By determining how ideas and images of vikings are shared among different communities and demographics, the project is able inform future outreach and cultural heritage initiatives that respond to public interest, while fostering a nuanced appreciation of the Viking Age.

The Great Viking Survey is now live at vikingsurvey.org, and remains open until mid-May 2025.

The associated press release from the University of Oslo can be found here.

Member Publication: Pre-Conquest History and its Medieval Reception

Matthew Firth has recently published an edited collection with York Medieval Press/Boydell & Brewer: Pre-Conquest History and its Medieval Reception: Writing England’s Past. The book includes contributions from ANZAMEMS members Daniel Anlezark and Julian Calcagno, among others.

The Norman Conquest brought about great change in England: new customs, a new language, and new political and ecclesiastical hierarchies. It also saw the emergence of an Anglo-Norman intellectual culture, with an innate curiosity in the past. For the pre-eminent twelfth-century English historians – such as Eadmer of Canterbury, William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon – the pre-Conquest past was of abiding interest. While they recognised the disruptions of the Conquest, this was accompanied by an awareness that it was but one part of a longer story, stretching back to sub-Roman Britain. This concept of a continuum of English history that traversed the events of 1066 would prove enduring, being transmitted into and by the works of successive generations of medieval English historians.

This collection sheds new light on the perceptions and uses of the pre-Conquest past in post-Conquest historiography, drawing on a variety of approaches, from historical and literary studies, to codicology, historiography, memory theory and life writing. Its essays are arranged around two main interlinked themes: post-Conquest historiographical practice and how identities – institutional, regional and personal – could be constructed in reference to this past. Alongside their analyses of the works of Eadmer, William and Henry, contributors offer engaging studies of the works of such authors as Aelred of Rievaulx, Orderic Vitalis, Gervase of Canterbury, John of Worcester, Richard of Devizes, and Walter Map, as well as numerous anonymous hagiographies and histories.

Introduction: The Pre-Conquest Past in Post-Conquest England – Matthew Firth

Part I – Writing the Past
1. The Authorship of Late-Eleventh-Century Annals of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – Daniel Anlezark
2. Making All Things New: Eadmer of Canterbury and the Pre-Conquest Church – Eleanor Parker
3. Usable Pasts in Angevin England: Gervase of Canterbury and Richard of Devizes – Michael Staunton
4. ‘A Little Handbook of Chronology’: Contexts and Purpose of Libellus de primo Saxonum aduentu – Stanislav Mereminskii
5. The Libellus de gestis regum Anglorum, a Cistercian Excerpt of William of Malmesbury’s Gesta regum Anglorum from Late-Twelfth-Century Normandy – Elisabeth van Houts
6. What’s in a Tomb? Language and Landscape in Robert Mannyng’s Story of Inglande – Jacqueline M. Burek

Part II – Writing Identity
7. ‘Terre ipse loqueretur’: Pre-Conquest Space in Post-Conquest Monastic Institutions – Cynthia Turner Camp
8. ‘I will give myself to the work of reading history’: Lessons from the past in the Relatio de Standardo of Aelred of Rievaulx – Connor C. Wilson
9. King Offa of Mercia: Damnatio Memoriae or Vir Mirabilis? Transmission and Adaptation in Post-Conquest England – Julian Calcagno
10. ‘Cesare splendidior’: Anglo-Norman Memories of Æthelflæd of Mercia – Matthew Firth
11. Eadric Silvaticus: Walter Map’s Parable on the Colonisation of Wales – Kimberly Lifton

Member Publication: Embodied Experiences of Making in Early Modern Europe

Sarah A. Bendall and Serena Dyer have recently published and edited collection with Amsterdam University Press: Embodied Experiences of Making in Early Modern Europe:
Bodies, Gender, and Material Culture
.

The book is currently available at 20% off with the discount code AUP20.

Processes of making in early modern Europe were both tacit and embodied. Whether making pottery, food, or textiles, the processes of manual production rested on an intersensory connection between mind, body, and object. This volume focuses on the body of the maker to ask how processes of making, experimenting, experiencing, and reconstructing illuminate early modern assumptions and understandings around manual labour and material life. Answers can be gleaned through both recapturing past skills and knowledge of making and by reconstructing past bodies and bodily experiences using recreative and experimental approaches.

In drawing attention to the body, this collection underlines the importance of embodied knowledge and sensory experiences associated with the making practices of historically marginalised groups, such as craftspeople, women, domestic servants, and those who were colonised, to confront biases in the written archive. The history of making is found not only in technological and economic innovations which drove ‘progress’ but also in the hands, minds, and creations of makers themselves.

Seminar Series: Mediterranean Emotions – A Global Research Hotspot

The first talk in the seminar series Mediterranean Emotions: A Global Research Hotspot is taking place on 6th December at 8pm AEDT. The talk, entitled “Inebriated by a Barbaric Language I need to Possess Immediately: The Emotional Tribulations of a Grammarian Trying to Learn Arabic”, will be given by Prof. José María Pérez Fernández (University of Granada). See below flyer for abstract at speaker profile.

You can join online using this link or in person at the University of Florence (Aula Sapienza, Via San Gallo 10, Florence). You can find more information about MEEM by visiting their webpage.