Monthly Archives: April 2013

Archive Journal Special Issue on “Publishing the Archive” – Call For Papers

Archive Journal is now accepting project and essay proposals for the “Archives, Remixed” section of its upcoming fourth issue, “Publishing the Archive.” This issue will examine how technological developments—from discrete digitization projects and databases to linked data and APIs for extensible machine-readability—are changing how we produce and publish archives and archival research.

The overarching question of this issue is: how do new forms of structured data and new modes for exhibiting archival materials constitute something more than straightforward repositories—becoming instead publications in their own right? And, a related question: What theoretical and operational changes occur when we think of archives and collections as data aggregations in need of publishing? In this sense the term “publishing” means “making public,” but it also means providing high-quality forms of access (as well as human- and machine-friendly metadata) for using, reusing, and remixing archival data.

We invite proposals that investigate the possibilities and limits of “publishing the archive.” Projects might include, but are not limited to:

  • Development of a specific archive-oriented API along with a narrative account of what the application seeks to achieve.
  • Textual and/or multimedia explorations of the challenges and promises of linked data with regard to specific archives, collections, or databases.
  • Examinations of the history of archival interoperability (for instance, thinking critically about how the evolution of metadata schemas has led to new archival structures and new ways of linking across archives).
  • Analysis, modeling, or development of new modes of presenting archives on the web, including new kinds of searchability, visualizations of data, and capacity for user-driven contributions.
  • Analysis, modeling, or development of new tools and platforms for working in archives and collections (e.g., an application that allows scholars to produce research–annotations, essays, or experimentations–in the same space as the cultural artifact).
  • Specific discussions not only about what can be published, but about what should be published. That is, in an environment where wholesale digital access is possible, do we need specific parameters for authoritative “editions” of the archive?
  • Discussions of how to effectively address copyright restrictions preventing archival material from being published.
  • Discussions about what happens to analog archives that do not have a digital presence. Or, related to this: what are the effects of the digital surrogate becoming increasingly de rigueur?

Submitting proposals

An open access, peer-reviewed journal, Archive Journal seeks content that speaks to its diverse audience of librarians, scholars, archivists, and technologists. We encourage proposals from humanities and social science researchers, archive developers and directors, and special collections librarians and library technologists. In your 500-1000 word proposal, please include:

  1. a description of the project’s argument and scholarly significance
  2. the archives, collections, or databases to be addressed in the project
  3. a description of the project components and format (e.g., traditional text or multimedia essay; a streaming media work; an archival tool, code or API, etc.; interactive visualization, etc.)

This issue is being guest edited by Anvil Academic. If you have any questions about your proposal, please feel free to contact Korey Jackson at kjackson@anvilacademic.org. Submit proposals to Fred Moody (fmoody@anvilacademic.org) by June 3, 2013. Proposals should include a brief (200-word) professional biography and current CV.

Seminar: When Was Early Modernity? The Language Of The Self

‘When Was Early Modernity? The Language Of The Self’
John Woolley Common Room, University of Sydney
Thursday 9 May, 2pm-5pm

Seminar Speakers:

  • Conal Condren (UNSW)
  • Hugh Craig (Newcastle)
  • Simon During (Queensland)
  • Antonina Harbus (Macquarie)

Chair:

  • Liam Semler (Sydney)

This is an interdisciplinary (and inter-period) seminar, drawing on expertise from medieval studies, early modern studies, and beyond. The focus is on a consideration of “languages of the self”, using this consideration to pose questions about the legitimacy of period boundaries and the work performed by periodization in our various disciplinary engagements with the past. The seminar is open to all, but prior registration is required. To register, contact either Huw Griffiths (huw.griffiths@sydney.edu.au) or Nicola Parsons (nicola.parsons@sydney.edu.au).

Mediterranean and Levantine Cultural History​ in the Byzantine, Medieval and Renaissance Periods – Call For Papers

Othello’s Island: The Annual Conference of Mediterranean and Levantine Cultural History​ in the Byzantine, Medieval and Renaissance Periods and their legacies​
Second Annual Conference
Cyprus
9-12 April 2014​
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Organised by the Cornaro Institute, Larnaca, in association with the University of Sheffield School of English

Following its successful launch in 2013 the new annual conference to explore the Medieval and Renaissance cultural history of the Mediterranean and Levant, Othello’s Island, returns in 2014.

Cyprus is a particularly appropriate location for the study of the Mediterranean and Levant during this period, as it was a time when the island what was arguably the zenith of its civilization and international influence. Under almost 400 years of French and Italian rule, Cyprus developed a unique courtly culture and trade links that extended throughout Europe, the Eastern and Western Mediterranean and the Near East. This had an immediate impact, but the legacy of this period lived on after the fall of Venetian Cyprus to the Turks in 1571, in literature and even musical forms such as opera.

Yet Cyprus is only one element of the Mediterranean and Levant of interest and the remit of the conference extends to the whole of the Mediterranean, Levant and North African region, and not simply Cyprus. Therefore papers dealing with topics relevant to the period from the wider Mediterranean and Levantine region are also welcome.

This multi-disciplinary conference aims to bring together academics, researchers and research students covering a wide range of topics, including art historians, social and economic historians, museum curators, archaeologists, literary historians and others, covering not only the Western Christian Mediterranean world, but also Byzantine culture, Muslim and other societies relevant to the region.

We would also welcome suggestions from individuals or groups for parallel strands and semi-autonomous conferences which might share some of the plenary sessions and social elements of the event. For example, a strand dealing specifically with Shakespeare and the Mediterranean might be big enough to require its own semi-autonomous event alongside the one we are organising.

If you are interested in giving a talk at the conference please submit a proposal for a paper. Papers can be as short as 20 minutes, up to a maximum of 50 minutes.

We are very open minded on the topic of papers, so if you have an idea for a presentation that is not covered by the suggestions given here please feel free to submit a proposal, or contact us first to discuss the idea.

Proposals for papers should comprise a cover sheet showing:

  1. Your title (eg. Mr, Ms, Dr, Prof. etc.) and full name
  2. Your institutional affiliation (if any)
  3. Length of time for your paper (min. 20 minutes, max. 50 minutes)
  4. Your postal address, e’mail address and telephone number
  5. The title of your proposed paper

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With this you should send a proposal/abstract for your paper of no more than 300 words and a copy of your CV/resume to michael@artcyprus.org with the subject line: OTHELLO 2014.

All papers must be delivered in English.

The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2013.

Manchester Medieval Sources Online – now online

Manchester University Press is proud to announce the launch of the new Manchester Medieval Sources Online (www.medievalsources.co.uk). The new platform developed with and hosted by our technology partners Metapress, incorporates the following new features:

  • Content available via a re-designed and fully searchable online platform
  • COUNTER compliant usage statistics
  • CROSSREF compliant content
  • RSS feeds and regular new content updates
  • Available for outright purchase or as a subscription

The new platform also boasts a wealth of new content including:

The world of El Cid: chronicles of the Spanish reconquest • Ottonian Germany: The chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg • The lives of Thomas Becket • The English manor c.1200-c.1500 • Popular protest in late-medieval Europe: Italy, France and Flanders • Joan of Arc: La pucelle • Saints and cities in medieval Italy • Eleventh-century Germany: The Swabian Chronicles • History and politics in late Carolingian and Ottonian Europe: The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm and Adalbert of Magdeburg • Crime, law and society in the later • Middle Ages • Monasticism in late-medieval England, c.1300-1535 • Friars’ tales: Sermon Exempla from the British Isles • The Papal reform of the eleventh century: Lives of Pope Leo IX and Pope Gregory VII

Manchester Medieval Sources Online is available to institutions as a one off purchase or as annual subscription. For further information on costs please contact Simon Bell, Director of Sales & Marketing (simon.bell@manchester.ac.uk).

Editor’s note: ANZAMEMS members, please note the link to access your free trial of Manchester Medieval Sources Online will be posted on our internal mailing list. Please contact Dr Marina Gerzic if you have not received this email and she shall send you the link to the free trial. Many thanks to Simon Bell at Manchester University Press for organising this free trial for our members!

Rethinking Early Modernity – Call For Papers

CRRS 50TH ANNIVERSARY ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Rethinking Early Modernity: Methodological and Critical Innovation since the Ritual Turn
Toronto, Ontario
June 26-27, 2014

Conference Website

The Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with a conference in honor of Edward Muir, whose innovative studies of Venetian politics and culture helped to establish cultural anthropology and ritual as major analytical frameworks for scholarship on early modern European history. Building from Muir’s contribution to the field, the conference hopes to focus on the significance of the methodological changes that have characterized early modern research in history, literature and art history over the last thirty years and to reflect upon how these changes have affected our understanding of the importance of the period.

Interested scholars are invited to submit a paper proposal on topics that exemplify new directions of critical inquiry spurred by the methodological developments over this period, including, but not limited to, the meaning of popular culture, the role of gender, micro-history, the discovery of the body, the importance of ritual, etc. Topics are also welcome that consider how methodological innovations in early modern scholarship—particularly in recent years—have informed changes in the nature of humanities inquiry, broadly conceived. We welcome papers from all disciplines, geographical areas, and periods housed within the rubric of early modern Europe. Scholars of all ranks are welcome to submit papers, including graduate students.

The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2013.

Please submit a title, short abstract (250 words maximum), and brief CV to Mark Jurdjevic and Rolf Strom-Olsen at crrs50th@gmail.com.

Further information about the event will be posted on the conference website. Scheduling, travel and hotel information will be available in early 2014.

Personification: Embodying Meaning and Emotion – Call for Manuscripts

Intersections is a peer-reviewed series on interdisciplinary topics in early modern studies. Each volume focuses on a single theme and consists of essays that explore new perspectives on the subject of study. The series aims to open up new areas of research on early modern culture and to address issues of interest to a wide range of disciplines.

More information on Intersections: brill.com/inte

We are now soliciting manuscripts for a special volume in the series on:

Personification: Embodying Meaning and Emotion

Personification, or prosopopeia, the rhetorical figure by which something not human is given a human identity or ‘face’, is readily spotted, but the figure’s cognitive form and function, its rhetorical and pictorial effects, have rarely elicited scholarly attention. As a communicative device it is either taken for granted or dismissed as mere convention. The aim of the proposed volume is to formulate an alternative account of personification, to demonstrate the ingenuity with which the multifaceted device was utilized by late medieval and early modern authors and artists. The fact that literary and pictorial genres designed to appeal to large audiences, such as festival plays and royal entries, often utilize allegorical personification, indicates that the figure was seen to accommodate a wide spectrum of tastes and expectations. Personification operates in multiple registers— sensory and spiritual, visible and invisible, concrete and abstract—and it deals in facts, opinions, and beliefs. With reference to the visible, current events and situations were represented by means of personifications that objectified various social groups and institutions, as well as their defining ambitions and the forces that motivated them. As regards the invisible, processes of thinking, feeling, and experiencing were bodied forth by means of personifications that revealed how these modi operandi were constituted.

Our interest in personification is motivated by several trends that have emerged over the last decade in cultural (historical) studies, whereby artistic expression is approached from the point of view of the body, performance, and cognition. Seen in light of these trends, personification (along with the texts and artifacts that employ the figure) offers many research opportunities. In methodological terms, personification is susceptible to an approach that balances a more semiotic analysis, concentrating on meaning effects, and a more phenomenological analysis, focusing on presence effects. This approach would entail foregrounding the full scope of prosopopeic discourse – not just the what, but also the how, not only the signified, but also the signifier.

The editors welcome contributions in English from multiple disciplines (literature, history, art history, etc.) that address the topic, contextualizing it within a wide range of geographical regions and languages. Papers may be written on one or more of the following questions:

The Theory of Personification: What ideas about allegorical personification allegory circulated in late medieval and early modern times? How were its principles and workings described, either explicitly or implicitly? How can modern neuropsychological insights concerning metaphorical thinking be linked to theories of personification based in contemporary literary theory and philosophy?

The Perception of Personification: How did contemporary audiences perceive and interpret personifications? How did they react to them and make use of them? Did the device fulfill instructive, persuasive, propagandistic, mnemonic, or even meditative and contemplative functions? To what extend did personification stimulate the imagination or the inner eye? What about the element of playfulness?

The Means of Personification: How was the device constituted? What (self-)descriptive naming procedures were involved? What kind of visual and verbal interactions were involved? What clothes, attributes, gestures, facial expressions, positions and actions? What courses of events or chains of thought, aided either by dialogue (in plays) or inscriptions (on prints)?

The Context of Personification: What were the wider circumstances within which personification and genres based on personification allegory came to be employed, and how do these circumstances help to explain both the contents and effects of the device in practice? Did particular religious, social, and political situations stimulate its use?

A separate colloquium is being planned. Alternatively, in order further to develop the topic and to foster prospective contributions, clusters of authors will be invited to participate in a series of panels on the theme of personification, to be proposed for the Renaissance Society of America’s 2014 Annual Meeting in New York. Similar panels may also be proposed for the 2014 Sixteenth Century Studies Conference in New Orleans.

The final collection of essays will appear in 2015. The editors are Bart Ramakers and Walter S. Melion.

Proposals (300 words) for contributions should be sent electronically no later than June 1, 2013 to:

St John’s College, Oxford – Research Associate – Call For Applications

Research Associate: Publishers and Writers in Shakespeare’s England
St John’s College, Oxford -St, John’s College Research Centre

Applications are invited for a one-year fixed-term position as a Research Associate at the St John’s College Research Centre in Oxford University. The successful applicant will work with Dr John Pitcher, Fellow in English at St John’s and Dr Freya Cox Jensen, History Department, University of Exeter, on a study of the economics of book production in early modern England, exploring the relationship between publishing, writing, and social status.

The successful applicant will have a doctorate in early modern English history or literature, with particular reference to print culture and book history (applications will be considered from candidates who have submitted their doctoral thesis by the date of the appointment). He or she will be numerate, know how to use a database, generate spreadsheets and keep good records of calculations, be capable of detailed examination of type and settings of early modern books and able to work independently. The Research Associate will also contribute to the project’s development in other respects, by assisting with the preparation of a monograph and by drafting applications for developing and funding the project beyond 2014. The post is full-time for one year from 1st October 2013. Salary will be on the University’s Grade 7 for Academic and Academic-related staff, currently starting at £29,541 p.a.

Applications (original plus three copies) consisting of a covering letter, curriculum vitae, list of publications and a succinct (1 – 3 page) statement outlining research interests and experience should be sent to the Academic Administrator, St John’s College, Oxford OX1 3JP to arrive no later than Friday 26 April 2013.

Further details are available at: http://www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/460/Academic%20positions.html

Reading and Rereading Chaucer and Spenser – Call For Papers

Dan Geffrey with the New Poete: Reading and Rereading Chaucer and Spenser
An international conference at the University of Bristol
Friday 11th-Sunday 13th July, 2014

Conference Website

Supported by the Department of English and the Centre for Medieval Studies.

Confirmed Plenary Speakers:

  • Prof. Judith Anderson, Indiana University, Bloomington
  • Dr. Helen Barr, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford
  • Prof. Helen Cooper, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge

There is a persistent discussion between scholars of the medieval and early modern periods about how both periods are conceptualised and about the interrelations between them. How can reading, or rereading, the connections between these two poets contribute to this discussion? Chaucer is customarily read as a poet of the High Middle Ages, whose valorisation of the vernacular had a profound influence on the poetry of subsequent centuries. Spenser is often read as a poet of the High Renaissance for whom continuity with the past (literary and historical) was a paramount issue. What are the connections between these poets and how can they help to shape revisionist discussions about the periodisation of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance? This conference aims to reread the connections between Chaucer and Spenser, in the light of recent critical methodologies and reformulations of historical continuity and difference. The organisers hope to publish a selection of the resultant papers as a single volume, so the following questions seek to elicit contributions that collectively have a sense of coherence, without constraining what contributors wish to discuss.

  • How has the relationship between Chaucer and Spenser been read and how can it be re-read?
  • How do these two poets together help us periodize / deperiodize / reperiodize the medieval and the early modern?
  • What kind of continuum do they share? Is their relationship continuous, radically other, both or neither? Can we reconceptualise descriptions of poetic similarity or difference through discussing Chaucer and Spenser together?
  • Can we think of their connection in terms of anticipation as well as influence?
  • What can we learn about the phenomenon of intertextuality by rereading the connections between these two poets?
  • Does Spenser present us with one Chaucer or many? How has this affected later versions of Chaucer?
  • Do these two poets take analogous approaches to the task of making poetry?
  • How do earlier fifteenth- and sixteenth-century readings and adaptations of the Chaucerian canon affect Spenser’s readings of it?
  • How might a greater variety of critical approaches reveal new connections between the poets? (e.g. ecocriticism, posthumanism, studies of material cultures, studies of the digital humanities, cognitive approaches, histories of the emotions, disability studies)
  • How does Chaucer imagine his poetic followers? What would Chaucer think of Spenser?

Please send 300 word proposals for 20 minute papers to chaucerspenser@gmail.com, including 5-10 keywords highlighting the content of the paper. The deadline for receipt of proposals is Monday, 28th October 2013.

New software program allows dating of medieval manuscripts from popular words

Of interest to our members, a fascinating article on a new software program allows dating of medieval manuscripts from popular words.

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies and the Documents of Early England Data Set (DEEDS) Project have developed software that can carefully and reliably determine the dates of medieval British documents based on the appearance of popular words or phrases.

To read about the project: http://www.medievalists.net/2013/04/02/new-software-program-allows-dating-of-medieval-manuscript-from-popular-words