The Australasian Crusades Studies Network (ACSN) is holding a Meet and Greet via Zoom on 14 May at 1pm AEST for researchers, early career academics and postgraduates who work in the field of crusades studies and are based in Australia or New Zealand. The purpose of this Zoom meeting is to bring together people working on the crusades and crusades-related topics in Australia and New Zealand and who are interested in the ACSN for an informal discussion. In particular, we would like to use this opportunity to begin fostering a friendly and active community, and to discuss ideas for the future of the Network. To express your interest in attending and to get the Zoom details for the meeting, please contact Dr Beth Spacey (b.spacey@uq.edu.au).

And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.
(Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales)

With much sadness I report that our friend and colleague, Mr John Gray, passed away in Sydney on Tuesday 17 March 2020 after a long battle with cancer. A member of ANZAMEMS for many years, John retired from James Cook University in 2006 after forty years of service as a lecturer and administrator.

John was a polymath whose learning and teaching extended across Old and Middle English Languages and Literature, Old Icelandic, Linguistics, Stylistics and Shakespeare studies. In the 1990s and 2000s he instituted subjects which became core units for students in Journalism, Communication and English. He was also an innovator in computer pedagogy and online teaching. The conference papers he delivered on these subjects assisted colleagues throughout Australia and internationally.

John was a friend and supporter to colleagues in Townsville and Cairns, and for those of us still teaching he remains an invigorating and inspiring influence. His wit was legendary. He spent endless time out of class counselling students on their work. An educator in the best sense of the word, he fostered students’ enthusiasm by his wit, cheerfulness and qualities as a performer. His rapport with students and ability to impart first-year academic literacies is unsurpassed in my career experience. He received perfect scores in student feedback and attracted loyalty from the most cynical or insecure students.

While I believe John’s retirement years were enjoyable and that is a gladdening consolation for his passing, it is nevertheless deeply saddening that he is gone. His wife, Denese Gray and extended family will be greatly bereft, and I offer deepest condolences and sympathy to them.
When he retired, Professor Richard Lansdown, then head of English, made the announcement: “John Gray has left the building.” John Gray has indeed left the building, never to be forgotten by the many people who knew him. Rest in peace.

from Associate Prof. Cheryl Taylor, James Cook University

The Australian Academy of the Humanities is pleased to be joining forces with Australia’s other Learned Academies to launch the COVID-19 Expert Database.

The database provides access to Australia’s leading researchers and experts across all disciplines who are willing and able to help Australia tackle COVID-19 and its aftermath. Envisaged as a publicly available searchable database, it will provide a starting point for governments, industry, education, the research sector, the media, and the community to easily connect with expertise.

Championed by Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel AO, the database is an initiative of Australia’s Learned Academies – the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Australian Council of Learned Academies – to ensure that multidisciplinary expertise is brought to bear on this issue of critical national importance.

We encourage Academy Fellows and humanities researchers across all career stages to register, especially those with expertise across ethical, historical and cultural approaches to pandemic or epidemic management, crisis recovery and communication.

Call for humanities expertise

This initiative complements the Academy’s call for expertise issued last week, which seeks to support our advice to government and inform policy directions. We are keen to hear from humanities researchers working in areas including (but not limited to):

-lessons from past experiences of epidemics, pandemics and quarantine;
-community responses to the COVID-19 crisis;
-social distancing challenges for Indigenous communities and other cultural impacts;
-access and equity to essential services, including digital communications and technologies;
-ethical decision-making;
-translation and analysis of information for multilingual populations; and
-the role of arts and culture in community building, recovery and resilience.

We invite you to complete this confidential online form, outlining your research speciality across these areas.

Bloomsbury has recently launched a new interdisciplinary digital resource, Bloomsbury Medieval Studies. It brings together high-quality secondary content with visual primary sources, an exclusive new reference work and object images into one cross-searchable platform, to open up the medieval world for students and scholars across this rich field of study.

This unprecedented platform comprises content from Bloomsbury and other leading publishers in the field, including I.B. Tauris, Amsterdam University Press and Arc Humanities Press – as well as medieval maps from the British Library and newly digitized incunabula from Senate House Library.

Users will benefit from instant, searchable access to a new and exclusively commissioned reference work, the Encyclopedia of the Global Middle Ages. Written by an international group of scholars, it offers a non-Eurocentric approach with articles including:

– Thematic overviews of intellectual discourse, migration and trade systems
– Primary source analyses of Maya Civilization, Japan and Korean Kingdom of Silla
– Core Case Studies of queens and powerful women of the Middle Ages.

The platform also provides full digital access to over 150 eBooks– ranging from primary texts to research monographs, companions, primary source readers and more.

Interested in finding out more?
Bloomsbury Medieval Studies will be available for 30-day free trials and can be purchased on a perpetual access basis. If you would like to register interest in a trial, or have any questions about the product please contact Katie.Dean@bloomsbury.com.

The full press release including further details of resources available can be downloaded here.[gview file=”http://www.anzamems.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Press-release__Bloomsbury-Medieval-Studies.docx”]

The EU-funded PARTHENOS project has released an online teaching module, Digital Humanities and Heritage Science Research Infrastructures: New Approaches to the Study of Pre-Modern Manuscripts, which seeks to bring together knowledge and resources from Research Infrastructures and Humanities projects. The module will be of interest to scholars looking to apply Digital Humanities and/or Heritage Science methods to medieval and early modern manuscript studies. It was produced in collaboration with teams working at Nottingham Trent University (UK) and the University of Canterbury (NZ).

The module is part of the PARTHENOS Training Suite, which provides reusable training materials that can be accessed for free by students, lecturers, and anyone interested in issues and skills related to e-Heritage and Digital Humanities. More information about the PARTHENOS Project can be found here.

Proposals are invited for the conference “Masculinities in the Premodern World: Continuities, Change, and Contradictions” to be held 13-15 November 2020 at the University of Toronto, Canada.

The past twenty-five years have witnessed a burgeoning of studies on sexuality and gender in the premodern world. In particular, men and masculinities have received considerable attention. Building on the theoretical perspectives provided by feminism, Foucault, and cultural studies, the study of men and masculinities is increasingly theoretically inflected and sophisticated. Studies have encompassed questions pertaining to men of various social statuses, secular and ecclesiastical, as portrayed in historical, literary, philosophical, theological, and art historical sources among others.

This conference aims to locate the study of premodern men and masculinities in its current richness and complexity. Our plenary speakers will be two of the most important scholars in the area of medieval/early modern masculinities: Patricia Simons (University of Michigan) and Patricia Cullum (University of Huddersfield, UK).

Papers are invited on all areas of study across the premodern world (500 to 1650 CE), crossing Europe’s religious and linguistic diversity, and encompassing its geographical breadth and beyond. Topics might include (but are not limited to):

• concepts of virility,
• patriarchy, marriage, fatherhood and procreative masculinities,
• social and political perspectives,
• medical and biological perceptions,
• celibacy, chastity, continence,
• monastic and clerical masculinity,
• sexual function and dysfunction,
• queer and non-binary masculinities,
• typologies of premodern men,
• masculinity and physical prowess; sports and athletics
• depictions of masculinity in literature and the arts

Proposals are invited for individual papers, panels, roundtables, and alternatives to traditional academic presentation models.

To submit a proposal, please include: speaker’s name and academic affiliation (or “independent scholar” as applicable); the title of the presentation; a 150-word abstract; full contact information (mailing address, telephone, email); and a one-page CV. In the case of proposals for complete sessions, this information must be provided for each presenter and the chair (if proposed).

Proposals should be emailed in Word format to both conference organizers:
Prof. Jacqueline Murray jacqueline.murray@uoguelph.ca
Prof. Konrad Eisenbichler at konrad.eisenbichler@utoronto.ca

Deadline for submission: 15 November 2019

Volunteers are invited to take part in a research project being held at the University of Sydney. The project aims to discover what are the current book publishing experiences, attitudes, behaviours and expectations among the academic staff in humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) in Australia in order to improve scholarly publishing operations in Australia, their publishing strategy and the skills required from their staff.

The study is being carried out by the following researchers:

• Dr Agata Mrva-Montoya, University of Sydney
• Mr Edward Luca, University of Sydney
• Dr Bhuva Narayan, University of Technology Sydney

The project involves a survey to be completed by HASS academic staff who have published at least one book in the past, as well as a second phase that includes interviews at a later date.

Full details of the research project are included in the Participant Information Statement included in the online survey. Participation is completely voluntary and will take up to 10 minutes.

You can access the survey here: https://redcap.sydney.edu.au/surveys/?s=93WR9TXWW8

If you have any questions about this project or would like to know more before distributing the information about the survey, please feel free to contact Dr Agata Mrva-Montoya.

The survey will be open until 31 July.

This study has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee, The University of Sydney 2018/180.

The European Academy of Religion (EuARe) is a new constellation in European scholarship which was established in 2016 with the support of the European Parliament. It aims to create an inclusive network, to act as an open platform, and to provide a framework to foster research, communication, exchange and cooperation concerning important religious issues for the academic world and society at large.

The 2019 EuARe Annual Conference will be hosted at Bologna from Monday 4 March to Thursday 7 March, 2019. The program of the EuARe Conference 2019 will be composed of plenary and working sessions (panels, book presentations, film or documentary
sessions).

In the location of the event, a display space reserved for publishers will be set up. Publishers are invited to organize book presentations with authors and to advertise their participation on their websites and in newsletters in order to draw public attention to their works and encourage attendance.

The Call, here attached, has been recently published on the EuARe website: there you will find all the information you need about the Conference program and your participation (deadlines, registration fees, travel grants and accommodation).

If you wish to contribute to the Conference by convening a panel or applying for a single paper,  the deadline for proposal submission is Friday, 15 June, 2018. For further information and the detailed call for proposals, see https://www.europeanacademyofreligion.org/

Registrations to the Conference will be open until 4 February, 2019. Early bird rates for registration will be available until 31 October 2018; regular rates until 2 February 2019. After this date only on-site registration will be possible.

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Bologna!

European Academy of Religion
Via San Vitale 114, 40125, Bologna, Italy
+39 051 239532
eu_are@fscire.it
www.europeanacademyofreligion.org

2019 Conference organized by Fscire
www.fscire.it

The committee of ANZAMEMS 2019 is delighted to call for expressions of interest in the Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar (PATS), which will precede the ANZAMEMS 2019 conference on February 4-5, 2019 at the University of Sydney.

No prior digital or manuscript studies skills are required for participation in these PATS.

ORGANISER

Professor Louise D’Arcens, Macquarie University

CONFIRMED GUEST SPEAKERS

Professor Elaine Treharne, Stanford University
Dr Francesco Borghesi, University of Sydney

STRAND 1: Digital Editing and the Medieval & Early Modern Manuscript

This two-day PATS strand will address the following topics:

• The Paleography and Codicology of Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts
• The Basics of Manuscript Transcription and Scholarly Editing
• Introduction to the Digital Edition: Challenges and Best Practices
• Collaborative Editing
• Text Encoding Fundamentals: XML and the TEI Schema
• Using Digital Editing Tools: The Graphical XML Editor oXygen

This PATS strand has been developed from a Yale-based graduate workshop series in digital manuscript studies, which takes as its focus non-standard manuscript materials such as rolls and fragments. As in its model, the work of our seminar focuses on learning digital and manuscript skills through the act of creating a digital edition.

Building a digital version of a manuscript, with accompanying searchable transcription and commentary, is thus our energizing goal. This fast-paced PATS emphasises input from participants as we work to build an online edition.

Training goals include the paleography and codicology of medieval and early modern manuscripts, digital editing and TEI markup, the use of XML editing tools, and project-based collaboration in the digital arena.

These goals combine in the design of the seminar: participants will work closely with one another to transform newly learned skills into a concrete digital artifact, and so prepare themselves to take on future digital collaborations.

Learning in this workshop is driven by participants themselves, through their active role in the process of edition creation.

Instructors:

Dr Katherine Hindley, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore, and Dr Anya Adair, Hong Kong University.

STRAND 2: Doing Digital Humanities: From Project Planning to Digital Delivery

This two-day PATS strand will address the following topics:

• Digital Project Planning and Project Management
• Building Collaboration Networks in the Digital Humanities
• Gaining Funding for (DH) Research Projects: Potential and Challenges
• Introduction to Current Digital Tools: Digital Editions, Digital Texts, Digital Databases, and other Digital Approaches
• Developing your own Digital Project
• Working with Digital Texts; Working with Digitised Artefacts

This PATS strand is aimed at developing the skills of digital humanities through working closely with participants’ own projects and ideas.

In this course, instructors will provide an overview of some of the tools and models available for undertaking digital humanities work; they will also discuss the practical challenges of undertaking and funding digital scholarship. But beside and in application of this new information, participants will be asked to bring their own project ideas and research questions: time in the workshop will be given to developing these projects into their second stage.

One particular focus will be on the digital research potential of manuscript materials housed in the university collections: participants will be introduced to many of these manuscripts

The energising foundation of this strand will be the participants’ own project ideas, which we will collectively work to develop and refine; the PATS will include several funding opportunities to work towards.

By applying the ideas of the PATS directly to project development – either in the form of project proposals, PhD chapter methodologies, or beginning the work of digital development itself, participants will leave the workshop having taken concrete steps towards furthering their own digital research.

Instructors:

Dr Mitchell Harrop, University of Melbourne, and Dr Anya Adair, Hong Kong University.

HOW TO APPLY:

Please go to https://anzamemsconference2019.wordpress.com/pats/ and complete the online application form 31 August 2018. You will need to provide:

• Your name, institutional affiliation, and year of HDR candidacy (MA, MRes, PhD) or ECR status (within two years of PhD completion).
• Your field of research
• A 250-word statement explaining your interest in participating in the PATS and how you believe participation will assist your research and/or career development.

A limited amount of financial assistance is available, to be distributed according to demonstrated need. Please indicate any such circumstances in the space provided in the online application form.

FURTHER INFORMATION

To keep up to date with full information on the ANZAMEMS 2019 conference and PATS, including keynote speakers, venue, and registration details please visit https://anzamemsconference2019.wordpress.com/

The Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS) and the organising committee invite proposals for presentations at the Association’s 12th Biennial Conference to be hosted at the University of Sydney from 5-8 February, 2019.

The theme for ANZAMEMS 2019 is Categories, Boundaries, Horizons. Categories and boundaries help us to define our fields of knowledge and subjects of inquiry, but can also contain and limit our perspectives. The concept of category emerges etymologically from the experience of speaking in an assembly, a dialogic forum in which new ways of explaining can emerge. Boundaries and horizons are intertwined in their meanings, pointing to the limits of subjectivity, and inviting investigation beyond current understanding into new ways of connecting experience and knowledge. Papers, panels, and streams are invited to explore all aspects of this theme, including, but not limited to:

• the limitations of inherited categorization and definition
• race, gender, class, and dis/ability boundaries and categories
• encounters across boundaries, through material, cultural, and social exchange
• the categorization of the human and animal
• national and religious boundaries and categorization
• the role of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research
• temporal boundaries and categories, including questions of periodization

Proposals for papers on all aspects of the medieval and early modern are also welcome.

SUBMITTING A PROPOSAL

Please send proposals to: anzamems2019@gmail.com by 31 August 2018.

You may submit a proposal for a paper (20 minutes), a session (normally three 20 minute papers) or a strand of sessions (normally limited to four sessions). Individual paper abstracts will be anonymised for peer review. When submitting a proposal, you will need to include the following information:

• Name
• Affiliation (if any)
• Preferred email
• Is this a proposal for a paper/session/strand?
• Is there a day(s) of the conference on which you will NOT be able to give your paper? (The committee will work to accommodate your request.)
• Do you have any audiovisual requirements?
• Paper/Session/Strand Title
• Abstract (up to 300 words)

Abstracts submitted for strands or sessions should indicate the name of the strand or session proposed. Proposals for strands should indicate the number of sessions required (each session will normally have three 20 minute presentations).

Strand and session organisers are encouraged to be mindful of the ANZAMEMS Equity and Diversity guidelines which state that “ANZAMEMS’ preference is for diversity among the speakers in an individual session or panel”. For more information on Equity and Diversity at ANZAMEMS, see:

https://anzamems.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ED-Conference-Guidelines-Committee-Changes-Feb-2018.pdf

PATS: POSTGRADUATE ADVANCED TRAINING SEMINAR

A PATS is to be held in conjunction with ANZAMEMS 2019. This will take place on 4-5 February at the University of Sydney. For more information and to apply, see https://anzamemsconference2019.wordpress.com/pats/

To keep up to date with full information on the conference including keynote speakers, venue, and registration details please visit https://anzamemsconference2019.wordpress.com/

A PDF copy of the ANZAMEMS 2019 call for papers is provided below. Please feel free to circulate this widely. We look forward to seeing you at ANZAMEMS 2019.

[gview file=”https://anzamems.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ANZAMEMS-2019-Call-for-Papers.pdf”]