We warmly invite participants to a two-day conference on 24-25 July 2019 at Lancaster University that focuses on the value of material methodologies in the Medical Humanities. The event aims to connect postgraduate and ECR researchers working in a wide range of disciplines, including, but not limited to, History, Sociology, English Literature and Language, Archaeology, Art, and Medicine.

‘Material culture’ encompasses medical items and objects not ordinarily associated with medical knowledge, including objects of non-medical care and everyday objects which undergo transformations in clinical or care-giving settings.

Suggested topics for papers include, but are not limited to:

• Agency
• Consumer and self-help cultures
• The doctor/patient relationship
• Domestic medicine
• Medical institutions
• Medical technologies and equipment
• Medicine formulation and manufacture
• Medical packaging
• Architecture
• Art therapies

Keynote address given by: Dr Jennifer Wallis, Imperial College London.

This conference will include a training session on working with heritage groups and partners delivered by Christine Chadwick, a heritage consultant with extensive experience in working with medical heritage groups.

To apply, send an abstract of 250 words for a 20-minute paper and a short biographical statement to pgmedhumsnorthwest@gmail.comby 15 May 2019.

A limited number of postgraduate travel bursaries are available; please state if you wish to be considered when you submit your abstract.

For more information, see https://medicalhumanitieshub.wordpress.com/

The deadline for proposals for the 20^th Australasian Association for Byzantine Studies Conference, with the theme of Dissidence and Persecution in Byzantium, has been extended to 15 February. The conference will take place at Macquarie University, Sydney, July 19-21 2019.

Keynote speakers:
Professor David Olster (University of Kentucky)
Title: The Idolatry of the Jews and the Anti-Judaizing Roots of Seventh- and Early Eighth-Century Iconoclasm
Associate Professor Jitse Dijkstra (University of Ottawa
Title: The Avenging Sword?  Imperial Legislation Against Temples in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries

The Byzantine empire was rarely a stable and harmonious state during its long and eventful history.  It was often in strife with those outside its borders and with those within them, and with so much power invested in its political and ecclesiastical structures it was ready to implode at times.  This could result in persecution and the silencing of dissident voices from various quarters of society.  The mechanisms by which the authorities controlled civil disorder and dissent, as well as discouraging criticism of imperial policies, could be brutal at times.  In what sense was it possible, if at all, to enjoy freedom of speech and action in Byzantium?  Was the law upheld or ignored when vested interests were at stake?  How vulnerable did minorities feel and how conformist was religious belief at the end of the day?  The theme of the conference aims to encourage discussion on a number fronts relating to the use and abuse of power within the history of Byzantium.  Individual papers of 20 mins or panels (3 papers) will be accepted on the following or related themes:

. The rhetoric of persecution in hagiography and historiography

·         Monastic dissidence and dissidents

·         The persecution of minorities

·         Dissension in the military

·         Imperial usurpation and sedition

·         Discourses of violence and tyranny in literature

·         Popular uprisings and civil disobedience

·         Satire and literary subversion

·         Laws relating to prosecution and capital punishment

·         Depictions of persecution in Byzantine art

·         Slavery and manumission

·         The forced baptism of Jews and others

·         Heresy and the imposition of religious orthodoxy

·         The suppression and oppression of women

·         Persecution of philosophers and other intellectuals

·         Anti-pagan policies

·         Forced migrations and resettlements – Manichaeans and Paulicians

·         The liturgical celebration of martyrdom

Abstracts of 500 words should be emailed to the President of AABS, Dr Ken Parry: conference@aabs.org.au by the due date of 15 February 2019.

Panel convenors should outline briefly their theme (100 words), and (a) add all three abstracts to their application, or (b) list the three speakers on their panel with their own abstract, plus (c) nominate a chairperson.  Panelists should indicate clearly the title of their proposed panel if submitting their abstracts individually.

See the conference website for further information.

The Programme Committee of the 2021 World Shakespeare Congress welcomes proposals for panels, roundtables, seminars, and workshops responding to the conference theme ‘Shakespeare Circuits’.

The trope of circuits draws attention to the passage of Shakespeare’s work between places and periods, agencies and institutions, positionalities and networks of production, languages and mediums. Topics may include, but are not restricted to:

• Renaissance circuits: socio-cultural economies, ecologies, and performance practices
• Transmissions: textual transfer, translation, intermediaries
• Colonial and postcolonial Shakespeares and their intertwining
• Shakespeare in virtual networks, computing, and the digital humanities
• Intercultural, transnational, diasporic engagements
• Media, intermedial and cross-platform circulations
• Relationships among performances and texts over four centuries of afterlives
• Tracking and tracing: quotation, allusion, echo, revision, reference
• Circulations of identity and difference within or between plays and their appropriations
• Failures, distortions and blockages in transmission
• Nodal points and their relations: festivals, centres, exhibitions, venues, and archives
• Relations conducted via Shakespeare among broader historical events, eras, or period

All proposals must be submitted to http://wsc2021.org
The deadline for all proposals is 1 July 2019.

Please see the guidelines (downloadable PDF) for full details on submitting programme proposals.

The call for papers is now open for the 14th annual Limina conference, which will be held at the University of Western Australia on 18-19 July 2019. The theme of this interdisciplinary conference is ‘HUMANIFESTO: Dissecting the Human Experience’. We invite submissions for 20 minute presentations for any topic relating to the intersection of the physical body and the expression of humanity. 

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

– performing bodies / body as spectacle / body art

– social / cultural / political expectations

– identity: race, religion, gender, age, sexuality

– augmented reality / artificial intelligence / genetic manipulation

– rights and rituals / funerary practices

– dysmorphia / alienation

– unembodiment / ghosts / haunting / manifestations

– dehumanisation / othering / objectification

– medicine / public health

– sport / human achievement

Please send submissions with the subject line ‘Humanifesto 2019’ to liminajournal@gmail.com, including a title, abstract (200 words), and short biography (50 words) in a single document.

Deadline for submission is 31 March, 2019.

This conference of the Australian Early Medieval Association invites papers on the broad theme of legitimacy. In a modern world dominated by deeply polemical counter narratives not afraid to adjust facts to claim dominance and, thereby, legitimacy, we look at the ways in which modern forms of the pursuit of legitimacy evolved in the early Middle Ages. Legitimacy can have several meanings, covering aspects of authenticity, legality, validity, and conformity. While it literally refers to something that meets the requirements of the law, this legal aspect is not inherent: something can be legitimate without being legal, or be legal without being legitimate.

In the context of the early medieval period, who legitimated? What was their reasons for doing so? Conversely, what was set aside in the process of illegitimisation? And what do these dominant and counter narratives mean for the presentation of history? 

Legitimacy implies dominant views on authority, cultural legitimacy, status, and control of the means to ensure dominance, such as publication. It can create hidden communities and counter-narratives. Even though the early medieval period continues to exist in the popular imagination as backward and insular, in many ways it is a period marked by innovations in both the practice and pursuit of legitimacy, innovations which still resonate to this day. This conference aims to challenge the perception that the modern world is particularly modern in the way it contests legitimacy. 

We invite submissions on the following topics: 

·        Politics and Culture

·        Individuals and Institutions

·        Law and Justice 

·        Status and Inheritance

·        Authenticity and Fraud

·        Orthodoxy and Heresy

·        Truth and Propaganda 

·        Dominant and Counter Narratives

·        Objects and Spaces

·        Modern (re)interpretations of the Early Medieval 

AEMA also welcomes papers concerned with all aspects of the Early Medieval period (c. 400–1150) in all cultural, geographic, religious and linguistic settings, even if they do not strictly adhere to the theme. We especially encourage submissions from graduate students and early career researchers.

Abstracts of 250-300 words for 20-minute papers should be submitted via email to conference@aema.net.au by 5 April 2019.

Limited financial assistance is available to AEMA members on acceptance – please direct all enquiries the conference committee.

In response to inquiries, the organisers are pleased to announce an extended deadline for proposals to the 2019 Scientiae conference (June 12-15th, Queen’s University, Belfast). Proposals will now be accepted until 25 January, 2019.

Scientiae is the interdisciplinary conference on intellectual culture, 1400-1800. It is centred on, but not limited to, developments in the early-modern natural sciences. Philosophers, historians, literary scholars and others are invited to share their perspectives on this vital period. Belfast 2019 will be our 8th annual meeting.

Our plenary speakers at Belfast will be Ingrid Rowland (Notre Dame/Rome) and Rob Iliffe (Oxford).

Scientiae 2019 will also feature two plenary panel sessions: One presented by Subha Mukherji (Cambridge) on “Forms of Knowing,” with Torrance Kirby (McGill), Sorana Corneanu (Bucharest) and Anupam Basu (Washington); and the other co-presented by Marco Sgarbi, Pietro Daniel Omodeo, and Craig Martin (all from Ca’ Foscari, Venice) on “Early-modern Aristotelianisms.”

Other confirmed speakers for Scientiae 2019 include: Raz Chen-Morris, Antonio Clericuzio, Alix Cooper, Peter Hess, Kevin Killeen, W.R. Laird, Nancy McLoughlin, Robert Morrison, Cesare Pastorino, and Vladimir Urbanek.

Proposals are invited for:

• Individual (20-minute) papers: Please submit a descriptive title, 250-word abstract, and one-page CV.
• Complete panels: Same as above for each paper, plus 150-word rationale for the panel. Maximum four panellists, plus chair (and/or respondent).
• Workshops: One-page CV for each workshop leader, plus 250-word plan for the session: topic, techniques, hands-on resources, etc.
• Seminars: One-page CV for each seminar leader, plus 250-word rationale for the session: its topic, and its suitability for treatment in seminar format.

For more information, and the conference poster, see http://scientiae.co.uk.

All proposals should be sent to pertransibunt@gmail.com.

The Durham Centre for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (http://dcamp.uk) is hosting a two-day workshop on Britain’s Early Philosophers on 1-2 April, 2019. The organisers are seeking abstracts for contributed talks on any aspect of philosophy and philosophers born in or living in Britain before 1000.

Who were Britain’s earliest philosophers? What were Alcuin of York’s contributions to philosophy? To what extent can we consider thinkers such as Hild, Bede, Cuthbert, Gildas, and Cædmon philosophers? How did philosophy reach Britain? Who was reading it, who was writing it, who was teaching it, who was learning it? In this seminal exploratory workshop, we will be considering these questions as well as other questions such as: What counts as philosophy in the early medieval British period? What are the boundary/ies between philosophy and
theology? Is there a specifically/uniquely early British philosophical tradition? Just who was reading Alfred’s translation of Boethius?

In this two-day workshop, we will have plenary talks given by:

     Dr. Fred Biggs (Connecticut)
     Dr. Barbara Denison (Shippensburg)
     Dr. Helen Foxhall Forbes (Durham) (tbc)
     Dr. Mary Garrison (York) (tbc)

These talks will set the stage by focusing on some of the intellectual context of early medieval Britain and the contributions of leading figures in early British intellectual history, including Bede, Alcuin, and Hild.

We would like to supplement these invited talks with around 12 contributed talks from scholars (especially junior scholars) from all disciplines, so long as they touch on the matter of philosophy and philosophical writing, teaching, and learning.

Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Dr. Sara L. Uckelman, s.l.uckelman@durham.ac.uk, by 30 January, 2019. Responses to decisions on abstracts will be communicated by February 15, 2019.

For more information, see http://www.dcamp.uk/britains-early-philosophers/