Monthly Archives: January 2013

Europe After Wyclif – Call For Papers

Europe After Wyclif
Fordham University, New York
4-6 June, 2014

Discussions of religious controversy in late-medieval England have increasingly adopted a continental scope. We have begun to see how communication networks, both licit and illicit, connected England with sometimes unexpected parts of Europe; how the Wycliffites influenced, and were influenced by, continental writings; how English religious affairs drew the attention of continental observers; and how debate over Wyclif’s doctrines featured prominently at the 15th-century general councils. Seen from an even broader perspective, late-medieval English religious politics was both integrated with and stood in tense relation to that of continental Europe (as had long been the case). In other words, England was never as insular as some have thought it to be.

This conference aims to explore intersections—the points at which Wycliffism and English religious controversy meet with broader social, cultural, historical, literary, and material issues of European significance. One purpose of this gathering is to examine the place of L/lollard studies in terms of wider concerns in Europe, though not all papers are expected to address L/lollardy or Wycliffism directly.

This meeting will also provide a forum for re-examining the mission of the Lollard Society, its current emphases and future directions.

Plenary Speakers:
Vincent Gillespie (Oxford), Fiona Somerset (Univ. of Connecticut), John Van Engen (Notre Dame)

The organizers welcome submissions on the following topics, as well as others that may be proposed:

  • The Great Schism of the Western Church (incl. the events that preceded and followed)
  • 15th-century general councils
  • Manuscript culture, textual transmission, communication networks
  • Lay devotion
  • Religious movements on the European Continent
  • Preaching

Abstracts of approx. 150 words should be sent by e-mail to Michael Van Dussen (michael.vandussen@mcgill.ca) no later than 15 March 2013.

Conference Organizers:
J. Patrick Hornbeck II (Fordham University)
hornbeck@fordham.edu

Michael Van Dussen (McGill University)
michael.vandussen@mcgill.ca

Redmond Barry Fellowship 2013 – Call For Applications

The Redmond Barry Fellowship is named in honour of Sir Redmond Barry (1813-1880), a founder of the University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria. The first Fellowship was awarded in 2004 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his laying of the foundation stones for both institutions on 3 July 1854.

The Fellowship shall be awarded to scholars and writers to facilitate research and the production of works of literature that utilise the superb collections of the State Library of Victoria and the University of Melbourne.

Up to $20,000 shall be awarded to assist with travel, living and research expenses. Fellows will be based at the State Library of Victoria for three to six months. During this period, Fellows will be expected to pursue their own project, present a lecture or short seminar series open to the public, Library and University communities, and submit a brief report at the conclusion of their Fellowship. Fellowships are open to scholars and writers from Australia and overseas. The Fellow’s project may be in any discipline or area in which the Library and the University have strong collections.

For more information or to download an application form, visit the University of Melbourne website.

The deadline for applications is Friday 26 April 2013.

The Medici Archive Project: SFCT Fellowships for Graduate Students – Call For Applications

The Medici Archive Project (MAP) is offering three short-term fellowships for graduate students in any field of the humanities or social sciences who are in the early stages of their dissertation work:

The Medici Granducal Archive (Mediceo del Principato), comprising over four-million letters dating between 1537-1743, provides the most complete record of any princely regime in early modern Italy as well as an extraordinarily rich historical reservoir of European history. This collection offers an incomparable panorama of human history, expressed through the words of the people most immediately involved, opening new windows onto the political, diplomatic, gastronomic, economic, artistic, scientific, military and medical culture of early modern Tuscany and Europe.

The Medici Archive Project (MAP) (www.medici.org) believes that it is imperative to provide graduate and doctoral students from diverse disciplines with the opportunity to have exposure to original source materials and training in their use. For this reason MAP is offering three short-term fellowships sponsored by the SAMUEL FREEMAN CHARITABLE TRUST (SFCT) for graduate students in any field of the humanities or social sciences who are in the early stages of their dissertation work. The SFCT fellowships have been developed to enable students working on their dissertations to conduct primary research using the Mediceo del Principato and other collections housed in the Archivio di Stato in Florence. This scholarly residence will be of considerable benefit in helping the students to gain the necessary skills, experience and confidence to continue independent academic research in the later stages of their graduate trajectory. Fellowship recipients will attend the annual MAP Archival Studies Seminar. While undertaking primary research for their dissertation in the Florentine state archives the Fellows will benefit from the supervision of the MAP Staff, academics drawn from a variety of disciplines, who are experts in archival research, paleography and the digital humanities. The Fellows will also have the opportunity to expand their academic networks through contact with the many international scholars who regularly visit and collaborate with MAP.

The fellowships last for a period of two-and-a-half months to be carried out continuously during the period between 1 April 2013 and 15 July 2013. The SFCT Fellows will undertake their dissertation research on-site in the Archivio di Stato, Florence. The candidates will have the following qualifications: a completed M.Phil (or equivalent) in any field of early modern humanities and fluency in English and Italian. Preference will be given to those applicants whose dissertation topic is immediately relevant to the content of these archives. The stipend is $5,000 plus an allowance for travel expenses.

To apply for this fellowship, the following material should be sent electronically to Elena Brizio (ebrizio@medici.org):

  1. A copy of the candidate’s dissertation proposal (or a final draft) 
  2. A short essay (two pages maximum) on how a candidate’s topic may benefit from archival research.  
  3. A complete and up-to-date curriculum vitae. 
  4. The name and email contact details of one scholar, preferably the candidate’s supervisor, who can comment on the applicant’s qualifications and the merits of the research proposal (please do not include letters of recommendation with the application). 

The application deadline is: 13 March 2013 at noon.

Further information:

  1. All materials submitted by the applicant should be in English.
  2. All materials should be in a single pdf file.
  3. Please do not include supplementary material (publications, papers, syllabi, etc.). 

For further information contact:
Dr. Elena Brizio
Vice Director The Medici Archive Project
ebrizio@medici.org

Nature, Utopia, and the Garden Symposium – Call For Papers

EARTH PERFECT? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden Symposium
The University of Delaware
June 6-9, 2013

Symposium Website

Since time immemorial, gardens have been key in humanity’s quest to define an ideal relation to nature. Gardens have been sources of nourishment for the body and the soul, they have been symbols of wealth and power, they have served as barriers against the wild, and much more. This interdisciplinary symposium focuses on the importance and meaning of gardens in the past, present, and the future, and that from a wide range of perspectives, including, but not limited to the following disciplines: art, art history, architecture, anthropology, agriculture, philosophy, literature, history, horticulture, botany, landscape architecture, garden design, nutrition, and law as well as earth and life sciences more generally.

Please submit proposals for:
a) individual, 20-minute presentations and b) roundtable discussions or panels on a special theme.

Abstracts (approx. 250 words) should be submitted by e-mail as file attachments in Microsoft Word to both earthperfect@art-sci.udel.edu and Naomi_Jacobs@umit.maine.edu.
These should include:
1) name and affiliation, 2) e-mail address, 3) title of paper, 4) abstract, 5) three keywords, 6) multimedia requirements, 7) any conference schedule restrictions.

Abstracts and proposals for papers and panels due March 4, 2013.

Please see the symposium website for more details regarding venues, programming, lodging, and registration: http://www.udel.edu/earthperfect.

Cambridge University: Lecturer in Italian Renaissance Art – Call For Applications

The Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge is seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Italian Renaissance Art. This is a permanent, established post, details of which may be found at: http://www.hoart.cam.ac.uk/jobs/university-lectureship-in-history-of-art

We welcome applications from suitably qualified candidates specialising in any aspect of Italian painting, sculpture and graphic arts, 1400-1600.

The closing date for applications is 1 March 2013.

Pedagogical Approaches to Medieval and Early Modern Studies – Call For Papers

Pedagogical Approaches to Medieval and Early Modern Studies
UCLA MEMSA Graduate Student Conference 
UCLA,  Los Angeles – CA
June 7, 2013

The last two decades have seen radical revisions to curricula at universities and colleges around the world. But have curricular changes been accompanied by pedagogical developments? When it comes to teaching, graduate students often learn by doing. By virtue of their experiments and their proximity to the undergraduate curriculum, they are among the most innovative educators on their campuses. The Medieval and Early Modern Students Association at UCLA invites graduate students to share their experience at a conference on June 7 that deals with teaching Medieval and Early Modern material in the undergraduate classroom. Papers may address, but are not limited to, the following topics and lines of inquiry:

  • Methodological approaches that lend themselves to Medieval and Early Modern Studies
  • Classroom conditions (ideological, practical, technological, social/cultural, financial, theoretical) that shape approaches and assumptions in literary study
  • Accessibility of older material to today’s undergraduates
  • Student-directed learning and the canon
  • The learning goals of an historical curriculum
  • Presentism and productive anachronism
  • Reception history and the critical heritage
  • Challenges and opportunities of teaching older material
  • Textual criticism and the literary archive
  • Digital approaches and 21st-century technology in the Medieval and Early Modern classroom
  • Surveying the survey course
  • Transformative pedagogy and Medieval and Early Modern studies
  • Creating dialogues across the curriculum
  • Performance studies
  • Synthesizing research and reading with other undergraduate disciplines
  • Seminar learning vs/and lecture learning
  • Teaching writing in the Medieval and Early Modern studies
  • Translation and multilingualism (teaching in translations vs. original languages)
  • New Historicism and student learning
  • Politics and pedagogy (teaching race, gender, ethnicity, class, and sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern studies)
  • Theory in Medieval and Early Modern studies

We welcome abstracts from a variety of fields within or adjacent to Medieval and Early Modern studies. While specific teaching techniques are encouraged, we’d like papers that include a broader theoretical and pedagogical scope. Abstracts of less than 500 words for 20-minute papers should be emailed to memsa.ucla@gmail.com by March 15 with the subject line CONFERENCE ABSTRACT. Papers should be timed to less than 20 minutes.

The Two Gents Theatre Company: “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” and “Kupenga Kwa Hamlet”

The Two Gents Theatre Company from Harare/London kick off their first Australian tour at the New Fortune Theatre in UWA with performances of The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Kupenga Kwa Hamlet from Tuesday 26 February to Saturday 2 March. More information and tickets are available here: http://www.theatres.uwa.edu.au/events#verona

If WA is too far to travel you may be able to catch the Two Gents on tour at:

The Merrigong Theatre, Wollongong, NSW
6-9 March
http://merrigong.com.au/shows/two-gentlemen-of-verona.html

The Riverside Theatre, Parramatta, NSW
12-16 March
http://www.thestreet.org.au

The Street Theatre, Canberra, ACT
19-21 March
http://riversideparramatta.com.au/show/two-gentlemen-of-verona-2

The Two Gents performed as part of the Globe to Globe festival for the Cultural Olympiad last year. For more information about the company please visit their website: http://www.twogentsproductions.com

Gamma-ray burst ‘hit Earth in 8th Century’

A fascinating Middle Ages-related news item released this week:

“In 2012 researchers found evidence that our planet had been struck by a blast of radiation during the Middle Ages, but there was debate over what kind of cosmic event could have caused this. Now a study suggests it was the result of two black holes or neutron stars merging in our galaxy. This collision would have hurled out vast amounts of energy.

The research is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society“

To read this news story in full: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21082617

Observing the Scribe at Work Workshop: Macquarie University – Call For Papers

Observing the Scribe at Work: Knowledge Transfer and Scribal Professionalism in Pre-Typographic Societies
Macquarie University, Sydney
27-28 September, 2013

Prior to the typographic revolution of the 15th century, the figure of the scribe was one of the keys by which civilisations were able to disseminate their power, culture and beliefs beyond their geographic, temporal, and even linguistic limits. Our access to the pre-modern world is mediated by the material and technological remains of scribal activity, the manuscript as an artefact of culture and administration. Every text preserved prior to the advent of printing bears witness to the activities of scribes. Yet as a social and professional group they are frequently elusive, obscured by other professional titles, reduced to mention in a colophon, or existing within a private sphere into which our sources do not reach. While much attention has been given to the scribe as a literary figure, the manuscripts offer a unique point of access to this group without the distortions of the literary tradition. This perspective, however, has frequently been restricted to a catalogue of errors, reducing the scribe to the transmission of an acceptable text, without recourse to the physical characteristics of the manuscript itself.

This workshop is built around the Australian Research Council funded project ‘Knowledge Transfer and Administrative Professionalism in a Pre-Typographic Society: Observing the Scribe at work in Roman and Early Islamic Egypt’. The project sets aside the often futile search for the historical figures of the scribe in favour of a focus on observable phenomena: the evidence of their activity in the texts themselves. Recognizing that the act of writing can be a quotidian and vernacular practice, it explicitly includes the documents of everyday life as well as the realms of the copying of literature, seeking paths back to an improved understanding of the role and place of scribes in pre-modern
societies.

‘Observing the Scribe at Work’ will bring together specialists in pre-modern societies of the Mediterranean world and adjoining cultures, from the ancient Near East, through the Egyptian and Classical worlds to Byzantium and Renaissance Europe. The papers will contribute to a deeper understanding of the processes that drive the operation of pre-printing cultures, and transmit knowledge and traditions forward in human societies.

The workshop will be held at Macquarie University on 27-28 September 2013. Macquarie University cannot offer full funding for all participants traveling to Australia from overseas, but partial financial assistance will be awarded to select abstracts which closely address the themes of the workshop. Decisions to this effect will be made by the end of April.

We call for abstracts of up to 300 words that address the objectives of this workshop. These should be sent to jennifer.cromwell@mq.edu.au by 31 March 2013.

Inquiries: Malcolm Choat (malcolm.choat@mq.edu.au); Jennifer Cromwell (jennifer.cromwell@mq.edu.au)