Monthly Archives: January 2014

Byzantine Culture in Translation – Call For Papers

Byzantine Culture in Translation
Australian Association for Byzantine Studies XVIIITH Biennial Conference,
University of Queensland
28-30 November, 2014

Byzantine culture emanated from Constantinople throughout the Middle Ages, eastwards into Muslim lands and central Asia, north into Russian, Germanic and Scandinavian territories, south across the Mediterranean into Egypt and North Africa and westwards to Italy, Sicily and the other remnants of the western Roman Empire. Byzantine culture was translated, transported and transmitted into all these areas through slow or sudden processes of permeation, osmosis and interaction throughout the life of the Empire, from the fourth century to the fifteenth and far beyond. Various literary aspects of Byzantine culture that were literally translated from Greek into the local and scholarly languages of the Medieval West and Muslim Middle East include dreambooks, novels, medical and scientifica texts and works of Ancient Greek literature. Yet translation was a phenomenon that stretched far beyond texts, into the areas of clothing and fashion, the visual arts (especially icons) and architecture, military organisations, imperial court ceremonial, liturgical music and mechanical devices. This conference celebrates all aspects of literary, spiritual or material culture that were transported across the breadth of the Empire and exported from it. Papers are welcome on all aspects of Byzantine culture that exerted some influence – whether lasting or fleeting – and were translated into non-Greek-speaking lands, from the early Byzantine period to the present day.

Confirmed speaker: Maria Mavroudi, University of California – Berkeley

Convenor: Dr Amelia Brown, The School of History, Philosophy, Religion and
Classics, University of Queensland

Papers of 20 minutes are now sought on any of the topics mentioned above. Please send a title and abstract of 200 words along with your own email address, affiliation and title to the convenor at conference@aabs.org.au.

Closing date for submissions: 31 August.

Bursaries:

Two bursaries of $500 each will be offered to postgraduate students or postdoctoral fellows who present papers and are not residents of Queensland. Applications may be sent with abstract and CV to Bronwen Neil, President of AABS, at president@aabs.org.au. Please supply your residential address and a short (150 words max.) explanation of your financial circumstances, stage reached in your studies and any other relevant information. Membership of AABS is required for successful applicants; please see the web site at http://www.aabs.org.au/members/ for membership subscriptions. Deadline for bursary applications is 31 August.

Full details on the new AABS web site at http://www.aabs.org.au

16th-Century Manuscript Could Rewrite Australian History

“A tiny drawing of a kangaroo curled in the letters of a 16th-century Portuguese manuscript could rewrite Australian history.

The document, acquired by Les Enluminures Gallery in New York, shows a sketch of an apparent kangaroo (”canguru” in Portuguese) nestled in its text and is dated between 1580 and 1620. It has led researchers to believe images of the marsupial were already being circulated by the time the Dutch ship Duyfken – long thought to have been the first European vessel to visit Australia – landed in 1606.”

To read more about this discovery, click here

Error and Print Culture, 1500-1800 – Call For Papers

Error and Print Culture, 1500-1800
A One-Day Conference at the Centre for the Study of the Book
Oxford University
Saturday 5 July, 2014

Recent histories of the book have replaced earlier narratives of technological triumph and revolutionary change with a more tentative story of continuities with manuscript culture and the instability of print. An abstract sense of technological agency has given way to a messier world of collaboration, muddle, money, and imperfection. Less a confident stride towards modernity, the early modern book now looks stranger: not quite yet a thing of our world.
What role might error have in these new histories of the hand-press book? What kinds of error are characteristic of print, and what can error tell us about print culture? Are particular forms of publication prone to particular mistakes? How effective were mechanisms of correction (cancel-slips; errata lists; over-printing; and so on), and what roles did the printing house corrector perform? Did readers care about mistakes? Did authors have a sense of print as an error-prone, fallen medium, and if so, how did this inform their writing? What links might we draw between representations of error in literary works (like Spenser’s Faerie Queene), and the presence of error in print? How might we think about error and retouching or correcting rolling-press plates? What is the relationship between engraving historians’ continuum of difference, and letter-press bibliographers’ binary of variant/invariant? Was there a relationship between bibliographical error and sin, particularly in the context of the Reformation? How might modern editors of early modern texts respond to errors: are errors things to correct, or to dutifully transcribe? Is the history of the book a story of the gradual elimination of error, or might we propose a more productive role for slips and blunders?
Proposals for 20-minute papers are welcome on any aspect of error and print, in Anglophone or non-Anglophone cultures. Please email a 300-word abstract and a short CV to Dr Adam Smyth (adam.smyth@balliol.ox.ac.uk) by 14 April 2014.

Print Networks Conference – Call For Papers

Print Networks Conference
St Anne’s College, Oxford
22-23 July, 2014

Keynote speaker: Professor Simon Eliot

The conference will take education and the book trade as its theme. Papers are invited on any aspect of printing, publishing, distribution and bookselling for education, broadly defined, since the beginnings of print until the present. How did the book trade and education mutually profit from and shape each other? What was the book trade’s impact on the the development of institutions of learning; the organization of knowledge; pedagogies and technologies of instruction; and on both formal and informal education, including self-help? Papers with an interest in the provincial book trades in Britain are particularly welcomed, as this has been the historical theme of the Print Networks series, but so too are papers on the relationship between metropolitan and provincial book cultures, national and transnational print economies, and on interactions between print and other media. Papers will be considered for publication in Publishing History, the journal of Print Networks.

An abstract of no more than 400 words of the proposed paper (of 25-30 minutes duration) should be submitted by 31 January 2014 to Giles Bergel via email (giles.bergel@ell.ox.ac.uk) or at the address below:

Faculty of English Language and Literature, University of Oxford
Manor Road
Oxford
OX1 3UL
United Kingdom

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.

Fellowship

The Print Networks Conference 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 and a recommendation from a tutor or supervisor should also be sent to the above email or postal address by 31 January 2014.

Accommodation and dining will be available at St. Anne’s College: information on this will be provided along with the conference programme after the closing date for submissions.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Text, Performance, and Culture – Free Online Short Course

Shakespeare’s Hamlet: text, performance and culture online course starts this week courtesy of Futurelearn. It is planned and delivered by the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford and features many of their expert Shakespearians.

About the Course

Started on 13 January
Duration: 6 weeks, 4 hours per week

This course introduces the many ways in which Hamlet can be enjoyed and understood. Six weekly videos discuss the play’s fortunes in print, and its own representations of writing and theatre; its place in the Elizabethan theatrical repertory; its representation of melancholia and interiority; its fortunes on the modern stage; its appeal to actors; and its philosophy.

Course Requirements

A basic ability to read and understand Hamlet is a must for all students. Otherwise, a curiosity about this play and why it has remained such an important and iconic element in Western culture for four centuries is the sole prerequisite for the course.

Professor Richard Strier, University of Melbourne, Free Public Lecture

University of Melbourne, Free Public lecture
“Mind, Nature, Heterodoxy, and Iconoclasm in the Winter’s Tale“, Professor Richard Strier (University of Chicago)

Date: Friday 24 Jan 2014
Time: 2:30–3:30PM
Venue: Room 106, John Medley Building, University of Melbourne**

The argument of this presentation is that the mind’s independence from determination by reality is presented as the source of tragedy in The Winter’s Tale. Richard Striers argument is that the play treats this issue with philosophical precision but also with an overwhelming sense of pathology. The realm of “belief” is the focus. This realm is shown to be both a source of terrible danger and a source of potential redemption, and the play provides a mechanism for moving from one to the other. The relation of nature to the mind turns out to be the heart of the play’s religious as well as its philosophical dimension.

Richard Strier is the Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor emeritus from the English Department, Divinity School, and the College of the University of Chicago, is the author of The Unrepentant Renaissance from Petrarch to Shakespeare to Milton (2011) – which won the Robert Penn Warren-Cleanth Brooks Award for Literary Criticism – Resistant Structures: Particularity, Radicalism, and Renaissance Texts (1995); and Love Known: Theology and Experience in George Herbert’s Poetry (1983).

He has co-edited a number of interdisciplinary collections including, most recently, Shakespeare and the Law: A Conversation Among Disciplines and Professions (with Bradin Cormack and Martha Nussbaum); Writing and Political Engagement in Seventeenth-Century England (with Derek Hirst); Religion, Literature and Politics in Post-Reformation England, 1540-1688 (with Donna Hamilton); The Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre and Politics in London, 1576-1649 (with David L. Smith and David Bevington); and The Historical Renaissance: New Essays in Tudor and Stuart Literature and Culture (with Heather Dubrow). He has published essays on Shakespeare, Donne, Luther, Montaigne, and Milton, and on formalism and twentieth-century critical theory.

**Professor Richard Strier will also be delivering this lecture at the University of Sydney (4 Feb.)

SAIMS/TMJ Essay Prize – Call For Applications

The St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies (SAIMS) invites entries for its annual Essay Competition, submitted according to the following rules:

1. The competition is open to all medievalists who are graduate students or have completed a higher degree within the last three years. For PhD students the time period of three years begins from the date of the successful viva, but excludes any career break. Any candidate in doubt of their eligibility should contact the Director of SAIMS at saimsmail@st-andrews.ac.uk.
2. A candidate may make only one submission to the competition.
3. The submission must be the candidate’s own work, based on original research, and must not have been previously published or accepted for publication.
4. Submissions are welcomed on any topic that falls within the scope of medieval studies.
5. The submission should be in the English language.
6. The word limit is 8,000 words, including notes, bibliography, and any appendices.
7. The text should be double-spaced, and be accompanied by footnotes with short referencing and a full bibliography of works cited, following the guidelines on the TMJwebpage: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/saims/tmj.htm. An abstract of 200 words should preface the main text.
8. The deadline for submissions is 31 March 2014.
9. The essay must be submitted electronically to saimsmail@st-andrews.ac.uk, in both Word and pdf formats, to arrive by the deadline.
10. The submission must be accompanied by a completed cover sheet and signed declaration; the template for this is available at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/saims/tmj.htm.
The candidate’s name should not appear on the submission itself, nor be indicated in any form in the notes.
11. Decisions concerning the Competition lie with the Editors and Editorial Board of The Mediaeval Journal, who can, if they consider there to have been appropriate submissions, award an Essay Prize and in addition declare a proxime accessit. In the unlikely event that, in the judges’ opinion, the material submitted is not of a suitable standard, no prize will be awarded.
12. The value of the Prize is £500.
13. A candidate whose entry is declared proxime accessit will be awarded £100.
14. In addition to the Prize, the winning submission will be published within twelve months in The Mediaeval Journal, subject to the usual editorial procedures of the journal.

Any queries concerning these rules maybe directed to the Director of SAIMS who can be contacted at:

Department of Mediaeval History,
71 South Street,
St Andrews, Fife KY16 9QW

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/saims
saimsmail@st-andrews.ac.uk

50th Anniversary of the New Fortune Theatre, University of Western Australia

50th Anniversary of the New Fortune Theatre, University of Western Australia

Date: Wednesday 29 January 2014
Time: 7:00pm
Venue: The New Fortune Theatre in the Arts Building at the University of Western Australia

Many hundreds of students, academics and lovers of theatre have fond memories of either performing or watching a variety of plays and events in the New Fortune Theatre over the past 50 years. Come along and celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the only replica Elizabethan theatre in the southern hemisphere, hear about the construction and opening night and enjoy performances by the Graduate Dramatic Society including a scene from the first performed play on the stage, Shakespeare’s Hamlet (on opening night in 1964 messages were received from Sir John Gielgud, Sir Lawrence Olivier and many esteemed actors.)

This is a free event but because of limited seating, please RSVP to Jenny Pynes by Wednesday 22 January. Tickets will be allocated by first responses until run out!

2015 Issue of Horti Hesperidum: Living Images – Call For Papers

2015 Issue of Horti Hesperidum: Living Images

The biannual journal Horti Hesperidum intends to devote the first issue of 2015 to ‘Living Images’. Literary texts can serve as a source for documenting an anthropological phenomenon during Classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Age: images perceived as living beings, capable of talking, acting and interacting with us. Special attention will be paid to the following topics:

  1. The relationship between believers and devotional images
  2. Ekphrastic descriptions of living, talking, ‘real’ images
  3. Iconoclasm, i.e. the desire to ‘kill’ images in each historical age.

The titles of proposed contributions, together with an abstract of not more than 2500 characters (including spaces) and a CV, should be e-mailed to the journal’s editors by 28th February 2014 (horti-hesperidum@libero.it).

Whenever an abstract is accepted, the editorial board will consider the complete paper by 31 July 2014. This should not exceed 65,000 characters, including spaces, and may be accompanied by up to 10 images at a resolution of 300 dpi. If protected by copyright, permission to reproduce images should already have been obtained.

Beyond Authorship – Call For Papers

Beyond Authorship
University of Newcastle, Australia
24-27 June, 2014

This symposium seeks to move beyond authorship as the primary focus of corpus-based studies in early modern literature, to consider broader questions of language and style, genre and form, influence and adaptation; to interrogate the new literary histories enabled by electronic text corpora, and the new methods of analysis they make possible.

Confirmed speakers include: Douglas Bruster, Gabriel Egan, Jonathan Hope, MacDonald P. Jackson, Lynne Magnusson, and Michael Witmore.

The convenors, Hugh Craig and Brett D. Hirsch, invite proposals for long and short papers (20/40 min) and quick-fire poster presentations (5 min). For consideration, abstracts should be received by email to hugh.craig@newcastle.edu.au and brett.hirsch@uwa.edu.au before 1 February 2014.

To download a poster/flyer and for more details, visit: http://notwithoutmustard.net/beyond-authorship