Monthly Archives: October 2012

King’s College – Lecturer in Medieval English Literature (pre-1300) – Call For Applications

Lecturer in Medieval English Literature (pre-1300)
Department of English Language and Literature/ Arts and Humanities
King’s College, London

The Department seeks an outstanding lecturer on medieval English literature and language with expertise in literature before 1300. The successful candidate will have an outstanding record of research and publication as well as exceptional potential as an emerging research leader in the field. Applications from candidates with research interests either in earlier Middle English or Old English literature are encouraged, but candidates will be expected to have broad interdisciplinary research and teaching interests as well. The successful candidate will will be expected to engage in and develop research projects in the literature and culture of the Middle Ages; to cultivate academic networks; to secure research funding and to develop the impact of research; and to attract and supervise PhD candidates. The candidate will design and deliver teaching for undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes including the MAs in Medieval English and Medieval Studies.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 12 November 2012 at midnight.

For full details and to apply: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/pertra/vacancy/external/pers_detail.php?jobindex=12379

Jane Hardie: Public Lecture – University of Sydney Library

University of Sydney Library Lecture Series 2012
“Hands on Manuscripts: An Introduction to the Spanish Liturgical Music Manuscript Collection”, Dr Jane Hardie, University of Sydney

Date: Wednesday, 31 October 2012  
Time: 5.30 to 6.30pm followed by light refreshments
Where: Rare Book Library, Level 1, Fisher Library
Cost: Free event but registration required

Since the Friends of the Library have played an integral part in the building of this collection you are invited to an informal session in which these manuscripts will be introduced. The manuscripts date from the thirteenth to the late eighteenth centuries, with the bulk of them dated from the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

You will get an opportunity to take a private guided tour through the collection, to learn a little about them, to touch them and to ask questions about them. You do not need a knowledge of music to appreciate these treasures from a bygone era, but you might be surprised at how much we can learn from them.

These manuscripts are currently being studied by an international group of scholars led by Dr Jane Morlet Hardie at the Medieval and Early Modern Centre.

Numbers are limited, as this session will take place in the Rare Book Room, so please book early.

RSVP: by Friday 26 October
Email: library.rsvp@sydney.edu.au or phone 9114 0866.
Web: http://sydney.edu.au/library/about/friends/index.html

Max Weber Fellowships – Call For Applications


The Max Weber Programme is the largest postdoctoral programme for young researchers in the social sciences, funded by the European Commission (DG Education). Max Weber Fellowships are for 1 or 2 years and are open to candidates of all nationalities who have received a doctorate in the social sciences (economics, law, political science, sociology, history and related fields) within the last 5 years.

The Max Weber fellowships are designed for junior post-docs who would like to pursue an academic career, concentrate on their own research and enhance their academic practice in a multidisciplinary environment. Fellows are selected on the basis of their research accomplishments and potential, their academic career interests, and the availability of the EUI faculty to provide mentorship. Each year approximately 45 postdoctoral fellows are part of the programme.

The Fellowships are awarded for 12 or 24 months

Fellows are required to live in Florence for the duration of their Fellowship in order that they may take an active part in the programme and in the academic activities of their department.

The basic grant is € 2,000 per month.

The deadline for applications for the academic year 2013-2014 is 25 October 2012

For more information and how to apply please see: www.eui.eu/MWF

La Trobe University – Medieval Italian Literature Lecture Series

La Trobe University
Medieval Italian Literature Lecture Series
Co.As.IT, 189 Faraday Street Carlton
6.00-7.00pm Mondays (22nd October – 12th November)

Lecture Series website

Presented by Dr Nicole Prunster, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at La Trobe University

22nd October

The turbulent world of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1348-52): Chivalry, love and the Church – Part One

What is typically medieval about the Decameron, a collection of 100 short stories that sits comfortably between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance? In this lecture, we will consider the structure of Boccaccio’s masterpiece and then identify several themes in it that are typical of the Middle Ages.

29th October

The turbulent world of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1348-52): Chivalry, love and the Church – Part Two

How does Boccaccio view love in the Decameron? How is the Church represented? In this lecture we will see why Boccaccio’s work ran afoul of the Church censors during the sixteenth century.

5th November

Comedy in sixteenth-century Italy: 1500-1550

Comedy early in sixteenth-century was heavily indebted to the Roman comedy of Plautus: and then there appears Niccolò Machiavelli’s formula-bending dark comedy, The Mandrake Root (1518). In this lecture we will look at the develop-ment of Renaissance comedy in Italy prior to the Counter-Reformation.

12th November

Comedy in sixteenth-century Italy: 1550-1600

In this lecture we will consider the effects that the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent had on learned Italian comedy. Time permitting, we will also look at a parallel form of popular comedy, the commedia dell’arte.

Participants are encouraged to read the texts being discussed prior to attending each lecture. Readings, however, are not essential to understanding the lectures.

Lectures cost $23/$27 each or $85/$95 for the full series. Lectures are held at Co.As.IT, 189 Faraday Street Carlton and are brought to you by La Trobe University.

Online bookings can be made through the website at: http://www.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/about/events/ancient-mediterranean-lecture-series. Payment can also be made at the venue on the night with cash (exact change only), credit card or cheque.

Speaker Biography: Nicole Prunster is a senior lecturer in Italian Studies at La Trobe University. She began her studies and teaching career at the University of Sydney before taking up a teaching position at the University of Toronto where she completed a PhD with a thesis on the theatre of the sixteenth-century Neapolitan dramatist Giambattista Della Porta. At La Trobe University she teaches language and culture, in particular medieval and Renaissance literature. She regularly accompanies students to Prato (near Florence) where she teaches a subject on Renaissance Italy.

Please contact the program coordinator Sarah Midford for more information about this lecture series.

Sarah Midford
Research Associate
School of Historical and European Studies
La Trobe University, Melbourne AUSTRALIA 3086

t: +61 (0) 3 9479 3466
f: +61 3 9479 1453
e: s.midford@latrobe.edu.au

University of Sydney: Medieval and Early Modern Centre Lecture Series – Upcoming Public Lectures

University of Sydney
Medieval and Early Modern Centre Lecture Series

A few more additions to the fascinating MEMC lecture series:

The venue for all lectures is the Rogers Room, John Woolley Building, University of Sydney.

Friday 26 October
1-3pm

Claire Hansen (PhD candidate, University of Sydney)
‘”[L]ike a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered”: the complexity of dance and the edge of chaos in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

Wednesday 21 November
12.30-2pm

Steven Mullaney (University of Michigan)
‘What’s Hamlet to Habermas? Spatial Literacy, Theatrical Publication, and the Publics of the Early Modern Stage’

Friday 30 November
1-2.30pm

C. Stephen Jaeger (Gutsgell Professor Emeritus, Departments of Germanic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
‘Charismatic Art and the Literature of the Fantastic: Chrétien de Troyes, Cervantes, Goethe’

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions – Collaboratory: Faces of Emotion: Medieval to Postmodern

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions 
Collaboratory: Faces of Emotion: Medieval to Postmodern

The University of Melbourne
5th – 7th December, 2012

Collaboratory Website

This interdisciplinary collaboratory, hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, will analyse the expression and communication of emotion, using the face as a central medium. Papers will range from medieval Europe to contemporary global culture, and the conference will include a public lecture on the evening of December 5 by Professor C. Stephen Jaeger on the 2011 ‘silent’ film, The Artist, reflecting on various emotive, expressive and charismatic faces of earlier periods and their impact on an audience.

Convenors:

Stephanie Downes (stephanie.downes@unimelb.com.au)
Stephanie Trigg (sjtrigg@unimelb.edu.au)

RSVP and further enquiries:
Jessie Scott (jessica.scott@unimelb.edu.au)

Further information:

What’s in a face? And how do faces communicate emotion?

The Mona Lisa captivates us again and again, not only for what her smile communicates, but also for what it leaves unspoken and unreadable. Faces can express emotions, or withhold them, just as they both invite and resist our scrutiny. Many academic disciplines and artistic and cultural practices are fascinated by the face and its capacity to express emotion, from art, literature, cinema, photography, drama and biography to sociology, politics, psychology, cultural studies and anthropology. Questions of performance, historical change and cultural difference further complicate the relationship between emotions and the face.

This interdisciplinary collaboratory, hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, will analyse the expression and communication of emotion, using the face as a central medium. Papers will range from medieval Europe to contemporary global culture, and the conference will include a public lecture on the evening of December 5 by Professor C. Stephen Jaeger on the 2011 ‘silent’ film, The Artist, reflecting on various emotive, expressive and charismatic faces of earlier periods and their impact on an audience.

Presentations and performances in the collaboratory will address these wider research questions:

  • historical change: what narratives, patterns, contrasts, or contradictions emerge over time? What mental, social and cultural processes help us order and recognise faces and emotions?
  • racial, cultural and linguistic encounters: how do European and Indigenous understandings, representations and definitions of facial emotion compare or conflict?
  • textual, performative and visual representations: how might various forms of art, past and present, translate facial emotion? Does formal portraiture hinder or flatten emotion?

Presenters have been invited to meditate on the broader methodological implications of the material they present. We hope for a lively exchange of ideas over the course of the collaboratory, and have left plenty of time for discussion about emotions and the face to range beyond the papers themselves: the full participation of presenters and audience members is actively encouraged.

Confirmed participants include Eileen Joy, Jonathan Lamb, Stephen Knight, Paul James, Louise d’Arcens, Kim Phillips, Vivien Gaston, Joanna Gilmour, Charles Zika, Meredith Jones, Ottmar Lipp and others.

REGISTRATIONS OPEN NOW

To download the full program and a registration form, please go to: http://historyofemotions.org.au/upcoming-events/faces-of-emotion-medieval-to-postmodern.aspx

Subversion And Censorship From Plato To Wikileaks – Call For Papers

Subversion And Censorship From Plato To Wikileaks
University of Adelaide, South Australia
October 2-4, 2013

Papers are invited from scholars and researchers in all areas of the Humanities and all periods of history to explore important themes on the limitations of freedom of expression (in act, thought or speech). Instead of the more traditional focus on censorship ‘from above’, we especially invite papers dealing with the responses to repression – that is, any works or activities which aim at subversion, coded dissent and veiled criticism (i.e. forms of self-censorship).

The conference is organised by members of the Classics discipline at the University of Adelaide, South Australia (also the venue): Professor Han Baltussen, Associate Professor Peter Davis and Dr Mark Davies (Postdoctoral Researcher) with a view to expanding the theme of their ARC funded project “The Dynamics of Censorship in Antiquity” (2011-2013/DP 110100915).

Proposals on topics from any period of history and from areas such as classical antiquity, history, politics, literature, law, media and music are welcome. Panels of three papers under one theme are an option.

Please send inquiries and abstracts (up to 150 words by January 15 2013) to both:

Discovering the Italian Trecento in the Nineteenth Century – Call For Papers

Discovering the Italian Trecento in the Nineteenth Century
March 1 and 2, 2013, London at the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection
and
November 15 and 16, 2013, Venice

The growing interest in the early Italian Renaissance during the course of the ‘long’ nineteenth century has, in recent years, become a major and developing area of study, for students of both the Renaissance itself and the nineteenth century. These two conferences on the Italian trecento aim to take these studies further by concentrating on the ‘discovery’ of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy, the age of Dante and Petrarch, Giotto and the Pisani.

The conferences will cover such themes as the ways in which the concept of the ‘primitive’ changed during the nineteenth century, the nineteenth-century’s interpretation of the age of the Italian city states and the way in which this period became an inspiration for the fine and applied arts and architecture of the nineteenth century.

The conferences will be truly interdisciplinary and international – the impact of the Italian trecento went beyond Europe. Contributions are invited from the fields of history and art history, Italian language and literature, research in the early Renaissance as well as of the nineteenth century itself. It is expected that the papers will be published.

The conferences will be held on Friday and Saturday, March 1 & 2, 2013 in London at the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection and on Friday and Saturday, November 15 & 16, 2013 in Venice. It will be possible to attend either or both of these.

The conferences are being organised by the Collecting and Display Seminar Group at the Institute of Historical Research and John Law, Swansea University in collaboration with the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection and the University of Warwick.

Proposed Topics include:

  • The history of trecento Italy and its interpretation in the 19th century
  • Art criticism in the 19th century and its understanding of the Italian trecento
  • Collecting and connoisseurship: including early manuscripts, sculpture, ivories and the decorative arts
  • Education, in terms of manuals on design, drawing, painting and cast collections
  • Literature and its translation
  • Tourism, travel guides, diaries
  • Recreating the trencento in the arts and its influence on 19th century sculpture, painting, architecture and the decorative arts
  • The rediscovery of early Renaissance artistic techniques
  • Issues of conservation, restoration and display arising from research into the trecento.
  • The influence of the trecento on the 19th century – for example on social and religious thought
  • The influence of the trecento on Romantic composers

Please send a 300-word summary of your proposal for a 25-minute presentation to either of the convenors by 30th November, 2012, heading your proposal Trecento. Please indicate if you are only able to attend either the London or the Venice session.

Our intention is to offer speakers all in-conference expenses (not including accommodation). We can endorse speaker’s individual applications for outside funding. Furthermore we hope to contribute to some travel expenses.

John Law
Swansea University
j.e.law@swansea.ac.uk

Adriana Turpin
Collecting & Display
a.turpin@iesa.edu

Theatrum Mundi: Latin Drama in Renaissance Europe – Call For Papers

Theatrum Mundi: Latin Drama in Renaissance Europe
Magdalen College, University of Oxford,
12-14 September, 2013

Organized by the Society for Neo-Latin Studies in tandem with the Centre for Early Modern Studies, Oxford, the conference will bring together scholars to discuss early modern Latin drama, a form pivotal to the development of educational practice and literary composition across Europe. Culturally conspicuous, often ideologically engaged, original Latin plays were the pedagogical lifeblood of Renaissance schools, colleges, academies and universities. Scholars of Renaissance drama tend to focus on vernacular plays while overlooking the fact that many dramatists honed their talents at, for instance, institutional theatres constructed at the Elizabethan universities or nurtured at the French Jesuit colleges by the ancient régime. Our conference aims both to remedy such oversight and to stimulate new thought about this pan-European dramatic phenomenon.

Confirmed speakers include:

  • Thomas Earle (Oxford)
  • Alison Shell (UCL)
  • Stefan Tilg (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, Innsbruck)

Proposals are sought for twenty-minute papers on any aspect of early modern Latin drama, which might discuss but are not limited to the following topics:

  • Student life
  • Religious conformity and dissent
  • Philosophical engagement
  • Relationships between Latin and vernacular plays
  • Pedagogy and rhetorical training Patronage and support

Please send your proposal and any questions about the conference to Sarah Knight, University of Leicester (sk218@le.ac.uk) by December 31 2012. Proposals should include a provisional title, approx. 150-200 words outlining your paper, and contact details.

Postgraduate and post-doctoral bursaries may be available, and some accommodation has been pre-booked at Worcester College, Oxford: if you would like to be considered either for a bursary or for college accommodation, please indicate this when you submit your proposal.

University of Sydney: Medieval and Early Modern Centre Lecture Series – Upcoming Public Lectures

University of Sydney
Medieval and Early Modern Centre Lecture Series

The next two MEMC lectures are:

Wednesday 10 October: Joseph Millan-Cole (PhD candidate, Department of History, University of Sydney), ‘Monastic Peace and Lay Piety in the Life and Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux’ (see below for abstract).

Wednesday 17 October: Dan Anlezark (Department of English, University of Sydney), ‘Doctrine, Influences, and the Dream of the Rood’.

The venue for both lectures is the Rogers Room, John Woolley Building, University of Sydney, 1-2pm.

All welcome

—-

Joseph Millan-Cole
PhD candidate, Department of History, University of Sydney

“Monastic Peace and Lay Piety in the Life and Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux”

Abstract

Bernard of Clairvaux (ca. 1090-1153) is one of the most familiar figures from the twelfth century. By the time of his death, he had established secular and ecclesiastical contacts throughout France, the British Isles and Scandinavia, the Empire, Rome and Italy, Eastern Europe, Christian Spain, and the Holy Land. The once-young layman from Burgundy attained a public presence in Christendom that was the envy of a Gregorian Papacy. Yet, the interpretation of Bernard’s celebrity and influence in his own times remains centered on the cultic perception(s) that he was either (or both) a saint or a charismatic, political mystic – the Abbot’s rise from obscurity is yet to be explained beyond these largely supra-mundane parameters. This paper will present a sample of research from my dissertation, which explores Bernard’s earliest religiosity and his (at first local) career as an ecclesiastical activist. It will discuss three key issues: the sources for his biography and the tools necessary for their interpretation; his largely underestimated transformation from a layman with followers to an Abbot disciplining monks (and himself); and the context for his enduring sympathy with the lives of laymen and women, who remained ever central to the monastic mission that he pursued as an Abbot who never quite left the world behind him.