Category Archives: Parergon

Call for Members: Parergon Journal Early Career Committee

Parergon, the journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS), seeks nominations for interested early career scholars within ANZAMEMS to participate as members of the 2025 Early Career Committee (ECC). The aim of this committee is to recognise and support early career researcher contributions to ANZAMEMS, and specifically, Parergon.

The ECC meets three times a year and offers an opportunity to provide advice to the Editorial team and gain a deeper understanding of the detailed intellectual and practical processes of production of a prestigious, peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

Additionally, participation in the ECC will provide valuable service experience for those interested in pursuing academic and publishing career pathways. Membership of the ECC is not a paid position.

Terms are for a calendar year, with a possible maximal renewal of an additional, immediate year.

Nominations are sought from late-stage doctoral students through to those five years post PhD or equivalent), who are current members of ANZAMEMS.

Applications should consist of a CV, and a covering email outlining disciplinary expertise to the Editors of Parergon, info@anzamems.org.

Doctoral students wishing to apply should also provide an email from their supervisor indicating support for their application.

Nominations close on Friday 7 March 2025. Successful candidates will be notified in late March.

Selection criteria:

  • Candidates are expected to be available to make 3 meetings a year by Zoom link.
  • No prior experience is necessary
  • The Editorial team will seek to achieve a broad disciplinary spread among the committee.

Parergon Early Career Committee
Terms of Reference
Version: 2 February 2024

  1. Purpose
    The Committee’s purposes are:
    a) to provide advice to the Editor and Reviews Editor on the content, production and promotion of Parergon.
    b) to give the opportunity for early career researchers to gain experience in the intellectual and practical processes of production of a high-quality international peer- reviewed journal.
    c) to support the aims of the association with regard to the publication of its journal.
  2. Membership
    The members of the Committee are:
    2.1 The Parergon Editor
    2.2 The Parergon Reviews Editor
    2.3 The ANZAMEMS Communications Officer
    2.4 Up to 12 persons appointed by the Editor and Reviews Editor for one year.
    Persons appointed in category 2.3:
    a) must be members of ANZAMEMS; and
    b) must be early career researchers (within five years of achieving a doctoral qualification) or currently enrolled doctoral students (with support of a doctoral supervisor)
    c) are eligible for reappointment for a further term of one year.
  3. Meetings
    3.1 The Parergon Editor is the Chair of the committee.
    3.2 The Committee normally meets three times a year.
    3.2 The Committee reports

Call for proposals: Parergon themed issue

Parergon: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Inc.)
www.parergon.org

The journal Parergon, in print since 1971, regularly produces one open issue and one themed issue annually.

Recent and forthcoming themed issues include:

  • 2022, 39.2 Cultures of Compassion in Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Music, guest-edited by Diana Barnes
  • 2023, 40.2 Women’s Agency in Early Modern Europe, guest-edited by Kate Allan and Nupur Patel
  • 2024, 41.2 Transforming the Archive, guest-edited by Rosalind Smith, Sarah Ross and Anna Welch
  • 2025, 42.2 Medieval English Attitudes to the External World, guest-edited by Matthew Firth, Erin Sebo and Cassandra Schilling

We now call for proposals for 2026 (43.2)

Parergon publishes articles on all aspects of medieval and early modern studies, from early medieval through to the eighteenth century, and including the reception and influence of medieval and early modern culture in the modern world. We are particularly interested in research which takes new approaches and crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Parergon asks its authors to achieve international standards of excellence. Essays should be substantially original, advance research in the field, and have the potential to make a significant contribution to the critical debate.

Parergon is available in electronic form as part of Project Muse (from 1983), Australian Public Affairs – Full Text (from 1994), Wilson’s Humanities Full Text (from 2008), and Gale Academic One File (from 2008); it is included in the Clarivate Analytics Master Journal List of refereed journals and in the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH), and is indexed for nine major database services, including ABELL, IMB and Scopus.

Themed issues contain up to ten essays, plus the usual reviews section. The guest editor is responsible for setting the theme and drawing up the criteria for the essays.

Timeline

Proposals for the 2026 issue (43.2) should be submitted to the Editors by Monday 16 September 2024 (Please note this is an extended deadline).

Proposals should contain the following:
1. A draft title for the issue.
2. A statement outlining the rationale for the issue.
3. Titles and abstracts of all the essays.
4. A short biographical paragraph for the guest editor(s) and for each contributor.

Proposals will be considered by a selection panel drawn from the Parergon International Editorial Board who will be asked to assess and rank the proposals according to the following criteria:
• Suitability for the journal
• Originality of contribution to the chosen field
• Significance/importance of the proposed theme
• Potential for advancing scholarship in a new and exciting way
• Range and quality of authors

Guest editors will be notified of the result of their application by the end of September 2024.

The Editorial Process
Once a proposal has been accepted:

The guest editor(s) will commission and pre-select the essays before submitting them to the Parergon Editors by an agreed date.

The guest editor(s), in consultation with the Parergon editors, will arrange for independent and anonymous peer-review in accordance with the journal’s established criteria.

Occasionally a commissioned essay will be judged not suitable for publication in Parergon. This decision will be taken by the Parergon Editor, based on the anonymous expert reviews. Essays that have already been published or accepted for publication elsewhere are not eligible for inclusion in the journal.

Parergon’s Accessibility
Parergon is available in electronic form as part of Project MUSE (From Volume 1 (1983)),
Australian Public Affairs – Full Text (from 1994), and Humanities Full Text (from 2008)

Parergon is included in the Clarivate Analytics Master Journal List of refereed journals and in the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH), and is indexed for nine major database services, including ABELL, IMB and Scopus.

Parergon has an Open Access policy. Authors retain their own copyright, rather than
transferring it to Parergon/ANZAMEMS; and can make the “accepted version” of their article freely available on the Web.

Please send enquiries and proposals to the Editors, Prof Rosalind Smith and Prof Sarah Ross at editor@parergon.org.

Winners of the ANZAMEMS Publication Prizes for 2023 and 2024 announced!

It is with great pleasure, ANZAMEMS can announce the winners of the Association’s Publication Prizes for 2023 and 2024!

Congratulations to all the Prize winners, and thank you to all those who took the time to enter. The judges have reported back that the quality of all the publications was extremely high, which made their jobs very difficult!

Thank you to the judges of each prize: we greatly appreciate your service to the Association.

Finally, a big thank you to the chair of the ANZAMEMS Prizes sub-committee, Prof Andrew Brown, who brilliantly co-ordinated the judging for all the Prizes!

2023 Philippa Maddern ECR Publication Prize winner:

Dr Jessica O’Leary (Australian Catholic University) for:

“The Uprooting of Indigenous Women’s Horticultural Practices in Brazil, 1500–1650”, in Past and Present 262.1 (2024) [published online in March 2023]: https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtac047

2023 Patricia Crawford Postgraduate Publication Prize winner:

Dr Georgina Pitt (The University of Western Australia) for

“Alfredian military reform: the materialization of ideology and the social practice of garrisoning,” in Early Medieval Europe 30.3 (2022) : https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/emed.12560

2023 Anne M. Scott Parergon Journal Prize winner:

Dr Kirk Essary (The University of Western Australia) for

“‘The Bloody Sweat of Our Minds’: (Dis)embodied Emotions in Erasmus, More, and Calvin,” in Parergon 38.1 (2021): https://muse.jhu.edu/article/799947

2024 Constant Mews Early Career Publication Prize winner

Catherine Rosbrook (Ghent University) for

“Ascetic Instruction in the Life of John of Gorze”, in Journal of Medieval History 49.4 (2023): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03044181.2023.2235355

Parergon Volume 40.2

Issue 40.2 of Parergon went to print in December and will soon be making its way to members’ mailboxes. This is special issue guest edited by Kate Allan and Nupur Patel on the subject of women’s agency in Early Modern Europe. Kate and Nupur have written a post for the Parergon blog about the issue, how it came together, and its aims and contents. Enough to keep you going until the journal arrives!

https://parergon.org/index.php/parergon/announcement/view/1