Print Networks Conference 2013
University of Chichester
23rd-25th July 2013

Theme: Travel, Topography, and the Book Trade

Guest speakers: Professor Bill Bell (Cardiff University) and Anthony Payne (Anthony Payne Rare Books & Manuscripts).

The thirty-first Print Networks Conference on the History of the British book trade will take place at the University of Chichester on 23rd-25th July 2013.

Due to the proximity of the conference venue to the south coast, ‘Travel, Topography and the Book Trade’ has been chosen as the theme for the conference. The theme is broadly defined, and any papers relating to the production, distribution and reception of texts and images about travel, imagined and real, from the Middle Ages to the modern era will be considered. Papers on travelling and migrating practitioners of the book trade, the physical movement of texts and travelling printing technology are also welcome. The geographical scope for the conference is Britain and the Anglophone world. Papers should be of 30 minutes’ duration.

An abstract of the offered paper should be submitted (preferably via email) by 31st January 2013 to Catherine Armstrong: C.M.Armstrong@mmu.ac.uk

Or by post to:

Dept. of History, Politics, and Philosophy
Manchester Metropolitan University
Geoffrey Manton Building Rosamund Street West,
Manchester M15 6LL

The Print Networks Conference also offers an annual fellowship to a postgraduate scholar whose research falls within the parameters of the conference brief, and who wishes to present a paper at the conference. The fellowship covers the cost of attending the conference and some assistance towards costs of travel. A summary of the research being undertaken accompanied by a letter of recommendation from a tutor or supervisor should be sent to the above address by 31st January 2013.

The papers presented will be considered for publication; details to follow at the conference. It is understood that papers offered to the conference will be original work and not delivered to any similar body before presentation at this conference.

En-suite accommodation will be provided on the Bishop Otter campus of the University of Chichester. In addition to a full programme of papers, there will be a conference dinner and a visit to the special collections of the University of Chichester library.

Revealing Records V
King’s College London
24 May 2013

Conference Website

Revealing Records V will be held at King’s College London on 24th May 2013. This postgraduate conference series brings together researchers working with a wide range of sources from across the medieval world; papers that adopt an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon palaeography, archaeology or other related disciplines are particularly welcome.

Postgraduate students who are interested in giving a paper should send an abstract of no more than 200 words, providing their name, institution, contact information, paper title and synopsis by Friday 14th December 2012.

For more information or to submit an abstract, please contact: revealingrecords@gmail.com

Genre, Affect and Authority in Early Modern Europe (1517-1688)
The University of Melbourne
11-12 July, 2013

Convenors: Justin Clemens and Anna Cordner, The University of Melbourne

Conference Website

Keynote Speakers: Professor Ian Donaldson and Professor James Simpson

This conference explores the struggle for political authority in early modern Europe through the creation and development of such influential media as public pamphleteering, anonymous libels and permanent popular playhouses. From the Protestant Revolution to the Glorious Revolution, the terms and technologies of political struggle are radically transformed, from late medieval disputes to recognisably modern debates. Recent scholarship has returned to the proliferation and cross-grafting of genres in early modern Europe, re-examining the very familiar (for example, Elizabethan-Jacobean tragedy and comedy), as well as the lesser-known (for example, the heroic drama of the Restoration stage). Such studies have shown how these genres emerge as partial responses to contemporaneous political, religious and media developments. Hence we see real political struggles for domination taken up as generic forces; for instance, in the anonymous libels of the period. We also see the five-act structure of new drama as not only a revivification of classical modes, but as tied to the efficient stage-management of permanent playhouses; for instance, as in the mnemotechnics and directions of Shakespeare plays. These new genres do not only emerge as symbolic responses to real political problems, but become forces of problem-creation in their own right. In doing so, they provoke, channel and modify affect, often even being directed towards the confection and control of certain emotions. The problem of authority — of symbolic authority, of authorization, of authorship — thereby receives a new and decisive impetus in early modern Europe. This conference will examine the relationships between genre, affect and authority in their historical context, as well as the continuing import that these early modern developments have for us today.

We welcome proposals for individual papers and themed panels on any aspect of genre, affect, and authority in early modern Europe. These could include papers on: the dynamics of printing and authority; the relationship of textual production to legislation governing forms of speech and language; the new science and its consequences for political authority; the changing status of genres of textual production and their relation to affect; the appropriation and refunctioning of religious discourses; the politics of the theatre; visual culture and the ‘image wars’ of royal authority.

Papers are to be 40 minutes in length with 15 minutes scheduled question-time.
Panels are to comprise 3 papers of 15 minutes each, with 10 minutes scheduled question-time.

Please send proposals of 200-250 words and a brief biography to Anna Cordner <cordnera@unimelb.edu.au> or Ruby Lowe <ruby.lowe@unimelb.edu.au> by Monday 10 December 2012.

Sharing Cultures 2013
Third International Conference on Intangible Heritage
Aveiro, Portugal
July 24-26, 2013

Conference Website

Sharing Cultures 2013 – Third International Conference on Intangible Heritage follows the path established by the previous Conference on Intangible Heritage (Sharing Cultures 2009 and 2011) and aims at pushing further the discussion on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), under the main topics proposed by the UNESCO Convention adding some new field of discussion, namely on what concerns management and promotion of ICH, educational matters and musealization (please refer to the list of Topics).

The concept of ICH gained its rightful place among the scientific community during the last decade and a significant amount of work has been done by a large number of researchers, academics and practitioners, leading to the recognition of ICH as fundamental piece for the comprehension of human societies, organisations and ways of living. Accordingly, scientific events that gather scholars, researchers and academics with on-going work on ICH are privileged moments to share experiences, problems, questions and conclusions. Sharing Cultures 2013 aims at being one of those events.

As in its previous edition, Sharing Cultures 2013 will include a number of workshops promoting some hands-on experience to all Delegates who will have the opportunity to learn traditional know-how from its owners and practitioners.

Authors intending to submit papers to Sharing Cultures 2013 are encouraged to address one of the following topics of the Conference by providing evidence of ongoing research work.

1. Oral traditions and expressions
2. Performing arts
3. Social practices
4. Traditional craftsmanship
5. Management and promotion of Intangible Cultural Heritage
6. Intangible Cultural Heritage and education
7. Musealization of Intangible Cultural Heritage
8. Special Chapter: Maritime Intangible Cultural Heritage

The Conference will welcome papers and presentations on field work, case studies and theoretical approaches to ICH.

Sharing Cultures 2013 is a peer reviewed conference.

Visit the conference website for full details about the conference scope, topics and submission procedures at: http://www.sc2013.greenlines-institute.org

Symposium on Reading and Health in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800
Medieval and Early Modern Research Group, Newcastle University
05-06 July, 2013

Symposium Website

Keynote speakers:

• Katharine Craik
• Helen Smith
• Richard Wistreich

This symposium will explore how early modern texts engage with the regulation of the body and mind through reading. It will investigate the connections between reading and health and consider how reading was understood as an embodied practice in the period with profound implications for both personal well being and conception of the healthy body politic.

We invite proposals that address the relationship between health and reading in any genre in print or manuscript in any European language. The genres might include medical, scientific, literary, religious, or pedagogical and rhetorical writings. We encourage proposals that recover diverse reading communities and practices and readers/hearers. We also welcome papers that consider problems of evidence: e.g. manuscript marginalia; print paratexts (and directions to readers); visual representations; non-material evidence (voice; gesture; touch).

Topics might include, but are not restricted to:

• Reading as therapeutic (devotional; recreational etc.)
• Reading medical writing
• The physiology of reading
• Reading and well-being
• Reading and disability
• Health and the senses
• Health as a literary theme
• Reading and the healthy body politic (censorship; free speech; reading communities etc.)

300-word abstracts for 20-minute papers from individuals and panels (3 speakers) to be sent to the conference organisers – Jennifer Richards (jennifer.richards@ncl.ac.uk) and Louise Wilson (elw5@st-andrews.ac.uk).

The deadline for abstracts is Thursday, January 31, 2013.

2013 Early Cultures Conference: Space and Displacement in Early Cultures
University of California, Irvine
April 12-13, 2013

Keynote: “The Acoustemology of Hell,” Drew Daniel, Assistant Professor of English at the Johns Hopkins University and co-founder of Matmos

This conference tracks the exchanges between spaces and displacement, with special attention to the organization of environments and place-making procedures in early cultures. From pilgrimage and crusades to exile and exploration, premodern cultures participated in a range of spatial practices that speak to our contemporary, globalized condition.

In theoretical contexts, non-place refers to the wastelands of supermodernity, from the pseudo-public spaces of malls and shopping courts to islands of exile and abandonment in prison camps and refugee harbors. However, these policed grounds of legal exception have a long history, sprouting from zones of jurisdictional torsion produced by premodern forest, maritime, and ecclesiastical law. Likewise, the complex contours of modern public spaces owe a legal and historical debt to the enclosure of the commons and the sea changes of early capitalism. As such, we practice open zoning, moving from heavily regulated urban spaces, sacred grounds, and the verge to the wild stretches of exception found in forests, liberties, and the high seas. In the absence of precise and coherent legal and cartographical instruments to map the use, nature, and ownership of space, premodern cultures produced broad taxonomies of environments, landscapes, and territories, from the wandering jurisdictions associated with the king’s presence to the shelters of sanctuary and pockets of protected illegality within urban spaces. This conference moves beyond the sometimes narrow focus on national territories to interrogate more broadly the fluid environments, mobilization, and organizational space in a range of early cultures.

Suggested topics include:

• Urban space, civic space, sovereign space 
• Sanctuary, refuge, refugees 
• Sacred and profane space 
• Pastoral landscapes 
• Forests, wilderness, wildlife 
• Soundscapes 
• Maritime scenes, oceans, and waterways 
• Enclosure and the commons 
• Cosmology and cartography 
• Utopia/dystopia/heterotopia 

Please email submissions to early.cultures.conference@gmail.com. Abstracts must be received by Monday, December 3rd to be considered for inclusion. Authors of accepted papers will be notified no later than February 1st. The UCI graduate community will make every effort to provide accommodations to submitters accepted from outside of the Orange County area