Shakespeare, Traffics, Tropics
Asian Shakespeare Association Conference
Manila
May 28-30, 2018

Shakespeare, Traffics, Tropics is the 3rd biennial conference of the Asian Shakespeare Association jointly hosted by the Ateneo de Manila University and the University of the Philippines Diliman. It features leading Shakespearean scholars and theatre practitioners from around the globe with a keen interest in Shakespeare as produced in and by Asia and a mini-festival of Shakespearean performances from Japan and the Philippines.

The conference is scheduled on May 28-30, 2018 at the Arete, the new creative and innovation hub of the Ateneo de Manila University and at the College of Arts and Letters of UP Diliman. Prof. Peter Holland, Chairman of the International Shakespeare Association, will deliver the keynote address. A second keynote speaker is also under consideration. The conference will include plenary, panel, and seminar sessions on several aspects of Shakespearean pedagogy, publication, translation, adaptation, and theatrical histories in various Asian locations.

Performances to be staged include:

• The Tempest by the Yamanote Jijoshe company of Tokyo directed by Masahiro Yasuda
• Taming of the Shrew by an Ateneo theater group to be directed by Prof. Ian McClennan (Thornloe University, Canada),
• Rdu3, a contemporary Philippine take on Shakespeare’s Richard III to be co-directed by Anton Juan (University of Notre Dame, USA) and Ricardo Abad (Ateneo de Manila)

Spread out over 7, 641 tropical islands speaking 78 languages, the Philippines has a rich history combining Asian, European, and American influences. It is no stranger to traffic, in various forms, and negotiating this vibrant, colorful, and sometimes chaotic mix, often entails giving in to an easygoing way of life and enjoying oneself along the way. Quezon City, the conference site, is the most populous city of Metropolitan Manila that acts as the country’s political, social, economic, cultural, and educational center. The adjacent university campuses of the Ateneo and UP are sprawling green spaces that offer a respite from the flurry of life in one of the world’s largest cities.

CALL FOR PAPER AND SEMINAR PROPOSALS

Traffic is both a product of robust movements but can also refer to points of entanglements, both flows and disruptions that arise from global exchanges in goods, people, and even, Shakespeare. The Conference welcomes papers that use the idea of traffic whether construed as mobility, immobility, trade, enterprise, translation, exchange –- licit or illicit — as a key concept to contemporize Shakespeare and his place in today’s world. It seeks to explore Shakespeare as both purveyor and product, as either agent or victim of commodification, as subject and object of a wide array of linguistic, theatrical, economic, political, and social transactions. Papers may also take off from the prologue in Romeo and Juliet—“the two-hours traffic of the stage” – and revolve around performance and intercultural movements implied in Asian Shakespearean performances. A secondary theme, Shakespearean Tropics, is not only a nod to the conference location but also seeks to explore tropical Asian Shakespeare as a potentially distinct body of work with unique connections to tropical worlds elsewhere.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• The Shakespearean Trade
• Shakespearean Entrepreneurs Shakespeare and Cultural Exchange
• Shakespeare and the Global Popular
• Shakespeare and/as Commodity Transactional Shakespeare
• Archives and Inventories
• Shakespearean stocks in global markets
• Shakespeare and Exploitation
• Theatrical Trades, Human Trafficking, and Migration
• Materialist Approaches to Shakespeare
• Shakespearean Performance Economies in Asia
• Shakespeare and the Book Trade
• The Travelling Theatre
• Shakespeare in the Tropics
• Hot Shakespeare

Selected papers from the conference will be published as a special issue of Kritika Kultura, a Thomson-Reuters-indexed and Scopus-listed internationally refereed online journal on literary, language and cultural studies published by the Ateneo de Manila University.

Submission Guidelines:

The conference includes both paper sessions and seminars. Graduate students are welcome.

1. Paper: please submit a 250-word abstract, plus a short, 100-word bio.
2. Seminar: please submit a 250-word description of the seminar, plus a short bio including a summary of your previous seminar experience.
3. Deadline: Deadline for submission is 15 September, 2017. Results will be announced in October 2017. A second call for seminar papers will also be released.

Contact:

Submissions and queries should be sent to asa2018@ateneo.edu or admin@AsianShakespeare.org.

For conference updates, please visit AsianShakespeare.org or the conference website at asianshakespeare2018.com.

The Pacific Partnership in Late Antiquity
University of Auckland, New Zealand
11-13 July, 2018

The Pacific Partnership in Late Antiquity would like to invite proposals for papers at a conference to be held at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, July 11-13 2018.

Proposals can be for papers in any area of late antique, early medieval, or Byzantine studies, and the conference is intended to provide a venue for scholars in these fields around the Pacific Rim.

Abstracts for 20 min papers should be 250-300 words in length and submitted to Lisa Bailey (lk.bailey@auckland.ac.nz) by 1 October, 2017.

Registration for the conference will be NZ$65 for academic staff, but will be free for graduate students thanks to a generous subsidy from the Australasian Society for Classical Studies. Details on registration will follow at a later point.

Please contact Lisa if you would like to be added to the mailing list for the Pacific Partnership in Late Antiquity.

EASA Biennial Conference: Nationalism Old and New: Europe, Australia and Their Others
University of Barcelona, Spain
17-19 January, 2018

We invite you to submit papers for the EASA Biennial Conference “Nationalism Old and New: Europe, Australia and Their Others”, organised by the Observatory: Australian Studies Centre (ASC) for the European Association for Studies of Australia (EASA) at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Barcelona, Spain, Wed 17 to Fri 19 January 2018.

We are very pleased to confirm the following keynote speakers: Baden Offord, Suvendrini Perera, Tabish Khair, Dolores Herrero, Bill Ashcroft and Shirley Steinberg

Please send your 250-word abstracts for 20-minute papers and 100-word bio notes in two separate Word files to easa2018bcn@gmail.com by 1 September, 2017 (2nd extended deadline). We also encourage panel proposals, which should be accompanied by a 100-word overall abstract and title in addition to the 250-word abstracts for a panel?s individual papers. Notification of acceptance/rejection of abstracts will be sent by 1 October 2017.

For more detailed information on the conference, see our full CFP at the conference webpage: https://easa2018barcelona.wordpress.com.

Call for Papers:  ‘Memories of Empire’
International Medieval Congress 2018, Leeds

Cerae is sourcing submissions to participate in a panel focused on ‘Memories of Empire’ for the IMC Conference at the University of Leeds (2-5 July, 2018). The focus of our panel is on the ways in which individuals or collectives used, or were influenced by, recollections and remnants of the Roman Empire.

Medieval ideas about education and civic duty were heavily influenced by Roman authors, for example, while Roman ruins were continuously used in Medieval buildings. Medieval theologians constantly grappled with the legacy of their ancient pagan forebears, while poets and playwrights sought to establish authority and prestige by placing themselves in the classical tradition through emulation and imitation. In Medieval memories and imaginations, the Roman Empire served as not only a past point of reference, but as an aspirational destination. In our panel, we would like to explore the relationship between memory, imagination and destiny. Submissions might focus on – but are not limited to:

• studies in the visual, literary and material culture of the Carolingian empire
• the birth of Renaissance humanism with its focus on classical notions of civic duty
• religious appropriations of the imperial claim to political supremacy
• medieval romance and epic as genres innovating on classical styles and themes
• the imperialist legacy in early colonial propaganda

Cerae is aiming to gather together panellists with varied disciplinary approaches, and submissions from scholars working in art history, literature, politics, intellectual history, social studies and beyond are encouraged.

Submissions by participants willing to write up their paper as an article for review and publication in 2018 as part of Cerae Volume 5 (of the same theme) will be prioritised. We can offer bursaries of $100 towards travel costs for postgraduates and ECRs travelling from Australia and New Zealand.

Please send a 250-300 word abstract along with a brief biography/publication list to  ceraejournal@gmail.com by 31 August, 2017.

The Past and the Curious: Re(viewing) History
The University of Sydney Postgraduate History Conference
Quadrangle, The University of Sydney
30 November-1 December, 2017

Some people call historians the detectives of the past. At the University of Sydney’s 2017 postgraduate history conference, we want to know: what are the mysteries you’re uncovering? What are you curiously (and furiously) researching? How are you re-framing our understanding of the established, and seemingly ordinary, past? This two-day conference will allow postgraduate historians from across Australia, and beyond, to share their investigations of the past — and to share in the spirit of historical curiosity.

Possible themes, covering the ancient to the twenty-first century, include (but are not limited to):

• (Re)viewing history through a transnational lens;
• Investigations through Oral History;
• (Re)viewing Race
• Delving into Digital Histories
• (Re)viewing Histories of Sexuality
• (Re)viewing Gender
• (Re)viewing Indigenous Histories
• Public Histories
• Histories of Emotion
• History and (Auto)Biography
• (Re)viewing Labor Histories

We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers exploring any of the above themes.

We welcome abstracts from honours students, postgraduates and early-career researchers involved in history, although they may take an interdisciplinary approach. Applicants from other states and universities are also encouraged to apply. Abstracts should be no more than 200 words accompanied by a 100 word bio, and are to be submitted via our website: http://usydhistoryconference.wordpress.com.

The deadline for submissions is by the extended deadline of the close of business on 15 August, 2017.

Please note that we have some funds available for travel bursaries for honours and Masters students travelling from outside the Sydney area. More information is available on our website.

We also warmly welcome those who simply wish to attend but ask that you go to the website and register for catering purposes. There is no registration fee levied.

Please direct any related inquiries to historypgconference@gmail.com.

Women’s Negotiations of Space, 1500-1900
University of Hull
Thursday 18th January 2018

(9.30am to 5pm, to be followed by a wine reception and conference dinner)

Keynote Speakers: Dr Ruth Larsen (University of Derby) and Dr Nicola Whyte (University of Exeter)

Doreen Massey argued that ‘particular ways of thinking about space and place are tied up with, both directly and indirectly, particular social constructions of gender relations.’[1] This conference will investigate how women have used their agency to negotiate gender constructions in space-time; and the ways in which women’s agency has been curtailed through constructed spatial limitations.

Due to generous funding from the Women’s History Network and the University of Hull Graduate School, we are able to offer a number of small travel or accommodation bursaries to PG students and ECRs. Details will be available shortly.

Possible themes include, but are not limited to, women’s roles and experiences in:

• Mobility and travel across space and life-cycles
• Domestic spaces and families
• Working and professional spaces
• Negotiations in legal spaces and engagement with the law
• Experiences of property ownership and relationships with property
• Agriculture, estate and land management
• Movements and impact on political spaces
• Social spaces and networks
• Building, renovating, and managing country houses and estates
• Geographical, social and familial networks of and between women
• Women’s histories in heritage spaces and public history: reflections and methodologies

Please send an abstract of up to 350 words for 15 minute papers, including a short biography, to the conference organisers at: womensspace18@outlook.com by 30 September, 2017.

Organisers: Stormm Buxton-Hill, Helen Manning, Lizzie Rogers, Sarah Shields, Alice Whiteoak.

[1] Doreen Massey, Space, Place and Gender, (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1994), p. 2.

Movable Goods and Immovable Property. Gender, Law and Material Culture in Early Modern Europe (1450‒1850)
9th Conference of the European network “Gender Differences in the History of European Legal Cultures”
German Historical Institute London
19-21 July, 2018

Conveners: Annette Cremer (Gießen), Hannes Ziegler (London)

The history of material cultures offers important new ways of studying the significance of gender differences in the history of legal cultures by exploring new relationships between gender, law and material culture. Material and immaterial possession informs the self-image of individuals and societies, dynasties and families. A threefold scheme of legal distinction differentiates between usufruct (1), possession (2), and property (3). Yet these relationships between individuals and objects are not only relevant to civil law, but correspond to political regimes. While usufruct, possession and property thus correspond to different forms of authority and society, they also have a bearing on gender relations on different levels of society. Usually, these gendered aspects of material culture are the products of traditional proximities between certain areas of activity and related groups of objects. Communities in early modern Europe can thus be said to have a gendered and often legally sanctioned relationship to the material world and the world of objects.
Our assumption is that this situation led to social rivalries and gender-informed conflicts between individual members of societies regarding usufruct, possession, and property. The action of taking possession of something is thus more than just a way of achieving material security, but a form of social practice and a way of self-assertion: in order to gain social status, as a way of accumulating social capital or broadening one’s personal or dynastic room for manoeuvre. In this respect, the single most important event is the distribution of goods in generational succession. Despite their chronologically wide applicability, we would like to explore these questions with respect to early modern history.

The starting point for our conference is objects and groups of objects, that is to say, mobile and immobile resources, and their relationships with gender, structures of power, estate orders, customs and legal norms. Perspectives from social and legal sciences will thus be combined with approaches from material culture studies. Our basic assumption is that ways and forms of usufruct, possession and property regarding certain objects inform the self-image and the prospects of individuals and families. What changes and dynamics can be observed in relation to the correlations between gender and objects? What differences occur between different forms of societies?

The network “Gender Differences in the History of European Legal Cultures” operates in a diachronic and comparative way. We are therefore looking for papers engaging with the relationships between objects, gendered self-images and rights of ownership on the basis of textual, pictorial and material sources in Europe between 1450 and 1850. Despite this emphasis on early modern history, we also encourage proposals that highlight transitions from the Middle Ages. Papers should engage with one or more of the following themes and questions:

1. How can the distinction between movables and immovables be explained? On what experiences and everyday considerations is it based?
2. When does the category of movables become relevant? Is the understanding of the house as immovable based on its material aspects, e.g. fabrics?
3. Does the gendered coding of movables and immovables exist in different legal areas? How is the attribution of gendered codes argued for?
4. What are the consequences of gendered attributions of objects and resources? Does the distribution of resources lead to specific hazards or profits?
5. What objects are especially disputed? We are looking for examples of individuals trying to take possession of mobile and immobile, material and immaterial resources.
6. Can tensions be discerned between the aims and interests of households and family units and the superior interests of the manorial system, the economies of cities and states, or the public weal?
7. Does the distinction between mobiles and immobiles extend beyond legal norms? How is it handled in Common or Roman Law?
8. What are the strategies of testators for distributing their property? How binding were marriage contracts and last wills in the case of succession?
9. What institutions are resorted to in case of conflicts?
10. How is the value of mobiles and immobiles assessed? How relevant are market values,
    auctions and valuers?
11. What is the role of gender, marital status, age, social standing, and religious
    confession for pursuing one’s interest and the chances of success in the case of judicial
    conflicts?
12. What is the influence of the distribution of wealth on power relations within the
    family?
13. And finally: what is the shape of households that have been reorganised by gavelkind,
    single heir rule and other mechanisms of distribution? In other words: how is the redistribution of goods handled within households?

Keynotes will be presented by:

• Amy Erickson (Cambridge) and Margareth Lanzinger (Wien)

Please send your proposals for papers (appr. 1 page/300 words) together with a short academic CV by 15 October, 2017 to: annette.cremer@geschichte.uni-giessen.de and ziegler@ghil.ac.uk.

Call for Papers: For the sessions on THE MEDIEVAL HORSE at the International Medieval Congress 2018 at Leeds, 2-5 July 2018

Palfreys and rounceys, hackneys and packhorses, warhorses and coursers, not to mention the mysterious ‘dung mare’ – they were all part of everyday life in the Middle Ages. Every cleric and monk, no matter how immersed in his devotional routine and books he would be, every nun, no matter how reclusive her life, every peasant, no matter how poor his household, would have some experience of horses. To the medieval people, horses were as habitual as cars in the modern times. Besides, there was the daily co-existence with horses to which many representatives of the gentry and nobility – both male and female – were exposed, which far exceeds the experience of most amateur riders today. We cannot reconstruct or re-experience the familiar and casual communication between humans and equids of the Middle Ages – or can we? At our sessions on the Medieval Horse, we will try to deduce, describe and debate the place of the horse in medieval society.

We welcome submissions on any aspect of medieval equestrianism and engagement with horses and similar beasts of burdens, whether in military, civilian, industrial or agricultural context, from a variety of disciplines as well as papers that approach the subject using experimental and reconstruction methodologies.

In particular, we would be interested in contributions on the following themes:

• Archaeological approaches to horse equipment and harness
• Osteological research into remains of equids from medieval contexts
• Equids and other ridden animals in medieval society and thought (including donkeys and mules, as well as camels, elephants and other exotic ridden animals, and even fantastic creatures – the unicorn, the centaur, the hybrids and grotesques in the marginalia, etc.)
• Horses in the oriental culture
• Medieval veterinary and hippiatric care and farriery
• Employment of the horses for hunting, parade, travelling and agricultural activity
• Military horses and their typology
• Horses in literature and art
• Post-medieval representation of the medieval horse

We have already hosted a number of sessions on medieval equestrianism and the horse at IMC 2016 and 2017, which generated considerable response both from researchers and from the audience attending the sessions.

At IMC 2018, we intend to open the scope of the discussion by organising a Round Table on the theme “Reconstructing the Medieval Horse”, in line with the Congress theme for the next year – Memory. We invite contributions to the Round Table, commenting on the reconstruction of the medieval horse from any perspective: whether as practitioners, consultants, participants in medieval themed equestrian events. More generally, we would like to discuss the extent to which the medieval horse can be reconstructed – if at all – and ways in which aspects of medieval equestrian culture and lore (chivalric, veterinary, breeding, training, horse care, etc.) can be applied in the modern world.

If you are interested in contributing to either the sessions or the Round Table (or both), please send the following to the organisers, Dr. Timothy Dawson (levantia@hotmail.com) and Dr. Anastasija Ropa (anastasija.ropa@lspa.lv):

1. For the thematic sessions: Short bio (70-100 words, including name, surname, affiliation, research interests and any other relevant information), proposed paper title and abstract (250-300 words). The duration of the paper is 15-20 minutes, followed by questions.
2. For the Round Table: Short bio (70-100 words, including name, surname, affiliation, research interests and any other relevant information), proposed theme and description (150-200 words)

The deadline for submitting a proposal is 1 September, 2017.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 20 September, 2017.
NB: An individual can present only one paper at the IMC and act as a speaker at the Round Table.

If you have any enquiries or want to discuss your proposed contribution, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Buccaneers, Corsairs, Pirates and Privateers – Connecting the Early Modern Seas
International Symposium
Bielefeld University, Germany,
13-14 April, 2018

Until recently manifestations of piracy as well as of its state-sanctioned counterpart, privateering, were mostly discussed as geographically isolated cultural phenomena. Depictions of armed robbery at sea in the early modern period have traditionally tended to focus on specific regions associated with seemingly distinct types of seafarers and their piratical practices of prize-taking. Scholars of literature, culture and history have treated spatially and temporally dispersed occurrences of piracy such as Elizabethan privateers attacking the Spanish treasure fleet, Muslim corsairs capturing English merchant ships in the Mediterranean, Caribbean buccaneers taking part in the English project of nation-building and local English pirates roaming the coastlines of the British Isles as distinct and discrete naval phenomena. This trend to slot piracy into different conceptual categories is echoed by the associated designations – pirates, corsairs, privateers, buccaneers – each carrying its own set of geographical and historical associations. However, researchers have recently begun to question such compartmentalization. Over the last ten years, increasing attention has been devoted to the various affinities and intersections between different forms of (trans)atlantic and mediterranean piracy and their cultural imaginations.

Inspired by this development we suggest a comprehensive approach in literary and cultural studies as well as in history, which looks at the connection between pirates and other seafarers who navigate the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic in the early modern period and the cultural products they inspire. Such an approach not only includes a transatlantic perspective, it also allows us to revisit the literary negotiation of piracy by focusing on different aspects like the appearance of piratical protagonists in diverse geographical locations, changing negotiations of pirate identity, and the fluid boundary between illegal piracy and state-sanctioned privateering. With this symposium, we want to establish a dialogue between scholars working on diverse topics connected with literary, cultural and historical representations of piracy and seafaring. In this way, we want to explore the cultural as well as the ideological impact and function of the pirate figure in early modern popular culture.

Papers could focus on (but are not limited to) topics such as:

• regional, national and transnational aspects of piracy
• representations of pirates across different genres
• piracy and gender: viragoes, damsels in distress, and (hyper)masculinity
• maritime law: legal aspects of piracy and privateering
• heroes and villains: the pirate as a criminal and rebel
• piracy, adventure, and popular entertainment
• the relationship between piracy and privateering
• Muslim corsairs in the English imagination
• Caribbean buccaneers and the formation of Empire
• piracy and early modern politics

If you are interested in contributing, please send a brief abstract (max. 300 words) for a 30-minute paper to the organizers by August 9, 2017:

• Dr Susanne Gruss (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg): susanne.gruss@fau.de.
• Dr Marcus Hartner (Universität Bielefeld): marcus.hartner@uni-bielefeld.de.

Texts and Contexts Annual Conference
Ohio State University
October 20–21, 2017

Texts and Contexts is an annual conference held on the campus of the Ohio State University devoted to Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, incunables, and early printed texts in Latin and the vernacular languages. The conference solicits papers particularly in the general discipline of manuscript studies, including palaeography, codicology, reception and text history.

In addition to the general papers (of roughly 20 minutes), the conference also hosts the Virginia Brown Memorial Lecture, established in memory of the late Virginia Brown, who taught paleography at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies for some 40 years.

We also welcome proposals for sessions of two to three papers which might treat a more focused topic. Please send abstracts to epig@osu.edu.

Deadline for abstracts: August 1, 2017.

Virginia Brown Memorial Lecture 2017: James Hankins, Harvard University