Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment
The Sixteenth David Nichol Smith Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Studies
Griffith University and the University of Queensland, Brisbane
13-15 December, 2017

The Australian and New Zealand Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies is pleased to announce that the sixteenth David Nichol Smith Seminar, Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment, will be held in Brisbane, Australia, at Griffith University and the University of Queensland on the 13th to 15th December 2017.

The following keynote speakers will be presenting at the conference:

• Deidre Lynch (Harvard University)
• Jan Golinski (University of New Hampshire)
• Georgia Cowart (Case Western Reserve University)
• Sujit Sivasundaram (University of Cambridge)

We welcome proposals for papers or panels on the theme ‘Natures and Spaces of Enlightenment’, broadly conceived as referring to the plurality of Enlightenments as well as the ideas and uses of nature which they endorsed, and the spaces in which they developed. In the inclusive spirit of the David Nichol Smith Seminar, proposals may address any aspect of the long eighteenth century. Especially relevant topics include:

• Enlightenment and religion or science
• Enlightenment and empire or gender
• Popular, moderate and radical enlightenments
• Regional, national and global enlightenments
• Climate, the environment and the Anthropocene
• Emotion, sentimentalism and feeling
• Theories of human nature and civil society
• Trade, commerce and improvement
• Travel, exploration and discovery
• Philanthropy and the culture of reform
• Spaces of sociability
• Urban and rural spaces
• Ideas of landscape and forms of land use
• Nature in art, literature and music
• Natural history, natural philosophy, natural law
• Nature in economic and political writing
• Medicine, sexuality and the body
• Botany, geology and geography
• Representations and uses of animals
• Work, leisure, technology and industrialisation

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers and panels comprising 3 x papers. Please submit an abstract of 250 words (maximum) and a 2-page CV via email as a pdf attachment to dnsconferenceqld@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions as been extended until: 1 September, 2017.

Website: https://anzsecs.com/conference/dnsxvi.

Email: dnsconferenceqld@gmail.com

Renaissance Border Crossings: Documented and Undocumented
Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society Conference
Portland, Oregon
October 19-22, 2017

Plenary speakers:

• Fran Dolan, Distinguished Professor of English, UC Davis
• Daniel Vitkus, Professor of Literature, UC San Diego

In an era of rising nationalism manifested in contentious plans to ban immigration and erect walls, it is fitting that the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society, which spans a region encompassing two countries and is devoted to a historical period of always-contested boundaries, should devote a conference to the theme of border crossings.

This year’s meeting, hosted by Portland State University and co-sponsored by Marylhurst University, invites papers that engage borders – disciplinary, ideological, formal, national/ethnic, textual, etc. – and that consider, in the broadest sense, how we encounter the in-between spaces of contact, conflict, and possibility in the Renaissance. Some possible topics could be (but are not limited to):

• Historicizing the categories of “East” and “West”
• Nationality before the nation state
• Migrants, nomads, vagrants, refugees
• Borders, crossings, and early modern space/place
• Xenophobia amidst globalization
• Hospitality and the stranger
• Periodization and queer temporalities
• Genre crossings
• Global Shakespeares, “Ethnic” Shakespeares
• Intertextual Crossings
• Corporeal boundaries, gender crossings, trans studies
• Interdisciplinarity, intersectionality
• Empathy and intersubjectivity
• Reputation, rumor, censorship, “fake news”
• Allegiance and alliance across difference

The PNRS treats “Renaissance” more generously than merely British Literary Studies 1500-1660 and seeks to work actively with all Northwest scholars of European and transatlantic culture and society from 1300-1700, including art historians, economists, historians, scholars of religion, historians and practitioners of the performing arts, scholars in the history of science and medicine, political scientists, and comparatists.

Deadline for submission of abstracts, session, and roundtable proposals: June 1, 2017.

Please send proposals via email to: Eliza Greenstadt, Associate Professor of Theater + Film, Portland State University, at greens@pdx.edu, Subject line: PNRS Submission, Word Count: 250 words.

Please be sure to include: Name, professional affiliation, address, phone number, and e-mail address with each abstract, whether submitted individually or as part of a session/roundtable proposal.

Papers must be kept to a twenty-minute reading time, including any technical and electronic support. All papers are to be essentially new and never before presented in public.

Oceanic Memory: Islands, Ecologies, Peoples
Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand
30 November – 2 December, 2017

Hosted by the University of Canterbury College of Arts and the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies in conjunction with Memory Research in Aotearoa Network

Keynote Speakers: Ross Gibson (University of Canberra), Elizabeth Deloughrey (University of California, Los Angeles), Sudesh Mishra (University of the South Pacific), Steven Ratuva (Macmillan Brown Centre, University of Canterbury), Sacha McMeeking (Aotahi Maori and Indigenous Studies, University of Canterbury)

The conference also includes a Postgraduate Workshop DAY, 29 November, as well as performances, readings and screenings (tba)

Memories are complex, selective and evolve over time. Some memories are hegemonic and powerful and some are subordinate and marginalized. The dominant stories of the Pacific are usually told by foreign historians, anthropologists, development economists, political scientists, journalists and travel writers, who often define Pacific societies using very narrow disciplinary and cultural prisms that cast the Pacific in deficit terms. These narratives are often at odds with how Pacific peoples see themselves, live their lives and frame their collective and individual meanings.

This conference seeks to address the complex politics of cultural memory in the Pacific, attending to the range of contexts that shape memory and its articulation.  On the one hand, the threat of climate change is the most recent escalation of a long process of environmental destruction and economic exploitation that includes the effects of colonisation, war, nuclear testing and global tourism.  On the other hand, Pacific societies and cultures display strength, resilience and agency in facing the challenges of the new millennium and developing new visions of the future.  Memory plays a vital role in these processes of survival and transformation.

Questions of memory have been taken up by a wide range of disciplines, including literary, film and media studies, art history and theory, cultural studies, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, history, law and psychology, and are always inflected by the historical, political and intellectual contexts in which they are posed. This conference asks how can a focus on memory be brought into dialogue with the wider issues facing the region? How might our history and cultural location in the Pacific inform how memory is articulated in both research and in public discourse? How might memory in the Pacific, including the politics, the poetics or aesthetics, the practices, and the technologies of memory, contribute to understandings and interventions that address cultural, social, geopolitical, ecological, and other concerns for the region?

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• Indigenous cultures of memory
• Colonial and postcolonial formations of memory
• Memory, place, landscape, environment
• Pacific diasporas and globalisation
• Te Ao Maori and the Pacific
• Modernity, memory and the Pacific
• Migration, navigation, exploration, exile
• Natural history, climate change, and ecological disaster
• Testimony and catastrophe
• Species memory, extinction and extermination
• Remembering nuclear testing
• War in the Pacific
• Military bases, Prisons, and Refugee Camps
• Pacific Time: Alternative Temporalities
• Cultural amnesia and other forms of memory loss
• The Arts of memory: literature, film, music, digital media and the visual arts
• Curating memory: Museum, archive, gallery

Organising Committee: Chris Prentice (University of Otago), Allen Meek (Massey University), Alan Wright (University of Canterbury), Steven Ratuva (University of Canterbury), Paul Millar (University of Canterbury).

ABSTRACTS

Please send a 300 word abstract with short bio to alan.wright@canterbury.ac.nz by 1 June, 2017.

Voices of the Australian Migrant and Minority Press: Intercultural, Transnational and Diasporic Contexts
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba
22-23 November, 2017

This Conference is timed to mark developments in Australia’s migrant and minority printed press since 1967. It has been fifty years since Miriam Gilson and Jerzy Zubrzycki’s ground-breaking study on the foreign-language press in Australia. Australia’s cultural landscape has transformed significantly as a result of increasing understanding of, and services in support of, the diverse multilingual and multicultural communities across Australian society. Analysis of the printed press of such communities has also advanced through multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research from several substantial historiographical influences, including discourses of postcolonialism and methodological developments in cultural history and world history approaches.

The Conference brings together the latest research on Australia’s migrant and minority press from the colonial era to the present day, with an emphasis on themes of belonging, community and conflict. The convenors welcome papers exploring any aspects concerning Indigenous, migrant and/or minority community newspapers (print or digitalised) in Australia, as well as their intercultural, transnational and diasporic contexts. Papers speaking to multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches are also of interest.

Keynote Speakers:

• Doctor Simon Potter, Reader in Modern History, University of Bristol
• Professor Bridget Griffen-Foley, Professor of Media and Director of the Centre for Media Studies, Macquarie University

Call for Abstracts:

We invite abstracts for individual papers and panel sessions. Each presenter will have 20 minutes to present, followed by 10 minutes’ discussion time. The convenors intend to publish a selection of the best papers from the Conference as a special edition of a high quality, peer-reviewed journal.

Anticipated Streams:

• Colonial and early Federation newspapers
• Interwar migrant newspapers
• Displaced Persons and post-war migrant newspapers
• More recent refugees and asylum seekers’ newspapers
• Newspapers of other minority groups (Indigenous, religious, commercial associations, gender, trade union, etc.)
• National Library of Australia’s current and future digitisation of newspapers (Trove)

Please submit abstracts (250 words) and a short biography (100 words) by Friday, 23 June, 2017 via https://artsworx.usq.edu.au/learn/educational-learning/voices-of-the-australian-migrant-and-minority-press.

Please note that there will be a small registration fee for the Conference. Registrations will open in mid-August 2017.

Any questions regarding the conference can be directed to:
Catherine Dewhirst: catherine.dewhirst@usq.edu.au | Jayne Persian: jayne.persian@usq.edu.au | Mark Emmerson: mark.emmerson@usq.edu.au

Charlemagne’s Ghost: Legacies, Leftovers, and Legends of the Carolingian Empire
The 44th Annual New England Medieval Conference
MIT, Cambridge, MA
October 7, 2017

Keynote speaker: Simon MacLean (The University of St. Andrews): “What Was Post-Carolingian about Post-Carolingian Europe?”

It is well known that the Frankish emperor Charlemagne (768-814) and his dynasty – the Carolingians – played an important role in the formation of Europe. Yet scholars still debate the long-term consequences of the collapse of the Carolingian empire in 888 and the diverse ways in which Charlemagne’s family shaped subsequent medieval civilization. This conference invites medievalists of all disciplines and specializations to investigate the legacies, leftovers, and legends of the Carolingian empire in the central and later Middle Ages. We welcome papers that consider a wide array of Carolingian legacies in the realms of kingship and political culture, literature and art, manuscripts and material artifacts, the Church and monasticism, as well as Europe’s relations with the wider world. We urge participants to reflect on the ways in which later medieval rulers, writers, artists, and communities remembered Charlemagne and the Frankish empire and adapted Carolingian inheritances to fit new circumstances. In short, this conference will explore the ways in which Charlemagne’s ghost haunted the medieval world.

Please send an abstract of 250 words and a CV to Eric Goldberg (egoldber@mit.edu) via email attachment. On your abstract provide your name, institution, the title of your proposal, and email address. Abstracts are due July 1, 2017.

Gender, Identity, Iconography
Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford
8-10 January, 2018

The glittering beauty of the Alfred Jewel, the rich illustration of the Lindisfarne Gospels, the dominating Great West Window of York Minster, the intricate embroidery of the Bayeux Tapestry, the luminous Maestà of Duccio, the opulent Oseberg ship burial, and the sophisticated imagery of the Ruthwell cross are all testament to the centrality of the visual to our understanding of a range of medieval cultures.

Constructed at and across the intersections of race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, national identity, age, social class, and economic status, gendered medieval identities are multiple, mobile, and multivalent. Iconography – both religious and secular – plays a key role in the representation of such multifaceted identities. But visual symbols do not merely represent personhood. Across the range of medieval media, visual symbolism is used actively to produce, inscribe, and express the gendered identities of both individuals and groups.

The 2018 Gender and Medieval Studies Conference welcomes papers on all aspects of gender, identity and iconography from those working on medieval subjects in any discipline.
Papers may address, but are not limited to:

• Sight and Blindness
• Visible and Invisible Identities
• Visual Languages
• Colour and Shade
• Icons and Iconoclasm
• Light and Darkness
• Collective and Individual Identities
• Orthodox and Heretical imagery
• Aesthetics
• Subject and Motif
• Convention and Innovation

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers. Please email proposals of approx. 200 words to gmsconference2018@gmail.com by Monday 4 September, 2017. We will also consider proposals for alternative kinds of presentation, including full panel proposals, performance and art; please contact the organisers to discuss.

A conference for everyone

Corpus Christi College’s auditorium is fully wheelchair accessible, has accessible toilets, and features a hearing loop for those using hearing aids. Please contact us if you have specific accessibility needs you would like to discuss. We plan to provide a private lactation space.

It is hoped that the Kate Westoby Fund will be able to offer a modest contribution towards (but not the full costs of) as many postgraduate student travel expenses as possible. We are exploring other avenues to make the conference financially feasible for postgraduates and early career scholars to attend.

Placeless Memories: Digital Constructions of Memory and Identity
Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past Conference
University of York
14 July, 2017

Conference Website

We invite proposals for 20 minute papers on any aspect of the digital construction of memory and identity, and the use of digital resources as source material for scholars studying these issues. Suggested topics include:

1. What is the nature of digital memories and identities?

• How are memories and identities shaped online and in peer-to-peer discussion?
• How do individuals from different backgrounds or ‘groups’ interact with others online, particularly across historically antagonistic or fragile boundaries?
• How do people draw on – or borrow or appropriate – the memories of others in digital settings?
• How (and why) do certain historical tropes (such as references to Hitler or Nazism) become commonplace rhetorical tools in online debates?

2. Is ‘online memory’ different from ‘offline memory’

• To what extent does ‘online memory’ replace, or substitute for, physical access to sites of memory?
• Are digital discourses particularly raw, spontaneous, and uncritical, as is often supposed?
• Do cross-cultural dialogues on the Internet strengthen or undermine national and local memories?
• Are these emerging forms of digital memory more ethical or ‘democratic’, or do they replicate the exclusion of certain groups and memories found in more ‘traditional’ memory forums?

3. How does the researcher approach these digital constructions of memory and use them in their work?

• How does the researcher use these new sources of knowledge?
• How do they filter the mass repositories of comments and responses on sites such as YouTube or Facebook?
• How do they manage, mediate, and process their own reactions to the sometimes highly emotive content?
• As a source of information, how do these digital dialogues differ from archival sources or ethnographic observation?

Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words to huw.halstead@york.ac.uk by 31 May, 2017.

The Society for the History of Emotions Conference
Emotions of Cultures/Cultures of Emotions: Comparative Perspectives
The University of Western Australia, Perth
11‒12 December, 2017

Convenor: Jacqueline Van Gent
Submissions and enquiries: societyhistoryemotions@gmail.com

The Society for the History of Emotions (SHE) is an international and interdisciplinary professional organisation. SHE promotes a deeper understanding of the changing meanings and consequences of emotional concepts, expressions and regulation over time and space and across cultures. The Society is committed to fostering interdisciplinary international dialogue on all aspects of humanities-based emotions research.

The historical and cultural conditioning of emotions – including their expression, regulation and performance, and their gendered, ethnic, class-based and contingent nature – is a methodologically rich field. This conference encourages discussion across disciplines, cultures and historical periods, with a particular focus on broadening emotions history beyond its hitherto largely Western context. For the inaugural conference of SHE we now invite papers that address one or more of the following themes:

Emotions of Cultures – Comparative Perspectives

• How can we extend the cultural and geographical scope of current emotions research?
• In what ways can we develop our methodologies, especially with regard to comparative studies?
• How can postcolonial perspectives, indigenous positions and North-South dialogues be better integrated into historical emotions research?

Cultures of Emotions – History of Emotions and Contemporary Issues

• How can comparative studies in the history of emotions further our understanding of contemporary issues and problems?
• How can such comparative perspectives contribute to public debates about cross-cultural and cross-religious issues?
• What problems do we encounter when teaching the history of emotions, and how can we ensure our teaching is cross-disciplinary?

Individual papers and themed panels are invited. For individual papers, please send a title, abstract (c.250 words) and a short bio (max. 150 words) to societyhistoryemotions@gmail.com.

For panels, please send a panel title, brief description and outline of panel format, and titles, abstracts and short biographical statements for each presenter, to societyhistoryemotions@gmail.com.

Submission deadline: 31 July, 2017.

News Reporting and Emotions, 1100–2017: Change Program Collaboratory 2017
The National Wine Centre, Adelaide
4‒6 September 2017 (beginning with a public lecture on the evening of 4 Sept)

Convenors: David Lemmings, Amy Milka, Abaigéal Warfield

More info: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/news-reporting-and-emotions-1100-2017-change-program-collaboratory-2017

In the last year, a number of television reporters made headlines after becoming emotional during live reports. BBC news anchor Kate Silverton was reduced to tears while reporting on the aftermath of airstrikes in war-torn Syria. Following her emotional outburst, Ms Silverton took to Twitter to say that her job was to be inscrutable and impartial, “but I am also human”. The story about this crying anchor made it into several newspapers, with a number of readers commenting online about whether or not they felt her behaviour was acceptable.

Much like historians and judges, received wisdom expects journalists to be objective and impartial or, simply put, not emotional. This is not always the case, and perhaps it never has been. Increasingly, journalists acknowledge the emotional and ethical difficulties of their work, and the ways that emotions can be harnessed in reporting. This begs the question: How has the relationship between news and emotion ebbed and flowed across time and space? Why has it changed? And where will it go in the future?

At the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, scholars from a range of disciplines come together to ask how emotions shape history and inspire change. As individual, community and national identities shift and evolve, so too do forms of emotional expression. News reporting both instigates and reflects changing emotional landscapes. New technologies and improved lines of communication have affected the way news is produced, disseminated and consumed. Reporting styles have been influenced by different genres of popular literature, fluctuating fashions and consumers’ tastes. The emotional agendas of news outlets have been influenced by sponsorship, institutional affiliation, social, political or religious motives and, of course, sales. As we move into what has been labelled a ‘post-factual’ age, or what some have termed ‘post-truth politics’, where political campaigns are forged on emotional grounds, these issues are particularly pressing. Claims of objectivity and reliability can often be found side by side with subjective commentary, satire or polemic; in the news, emotions were (and are) everywhere.

We are delighted to announce four distinguished keynote speakers from a variety of disciplines:

• Professor Charlie Beckett (Director, POLIS; Media and Communications, London School of Economics)
• Professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen (Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University)
• Dr Cait McMahon (Director, Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma Asia Pacific, Melbourne)
• Dr Una McIlvenna (History, The University of Melbourne)

This collaboratory seeks to anatomise the relationship between news and emotion from the medieval period to the present day. We welcome abstracts from practising journalists and contributions from the fields of sociology, history, literary studies, media studies, psychology, philosophy and elsewhere.

Individual paper proposals (20mins) and proposals for panels or sessions with alternative formats are welcome.

Potential topics include:

• Journalists ‘managing’ their emotions, past and present
• How different mediums and genres limited or enabled the emotional element of news, e.g.
• Handwritten avvisi, printed non-periodical reports, periodical reports, daily newspapers, broadcast news on radio and television
• History of emotions in news
• How news media helps to contribute to emotional norms
• Emotions between the lines, on blending fact and emotion, rituals of emotionality
• Training journalists, ethics, emotions and impartiality
• Democracy, free press and emotion
• Audience responses to news, and their role in creating and selecting content; the interactive nature of news.

Abstracts of 300 words and brief bios to be sent to amy.milka@adelaide.edu.au by the new extended deadline of 15 May, 2017.

‘News Reporting and Emotions: 1100‒2017’ is the 2017 Collaboratory of the Change Program of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, Europe 1100‒1800.