Monthly Archives: April 2014

Rome and Home: The Cultural Uses of Rome in Early Modern English Literature (EMLS Special Issue) – Call For Papers

Rome and Home: The Cultural Uses of Rome in Early Modern English Literature  (EMLS Special Issue)

Ancient Rome had a pervasive hold over the early modern imagination and its influence can be discerned in a variety of sources, discourses, and practices during the period. Episodes from Roman history provided the inspiration for numerous plays and narrative poems, as well as offering an effective means of interrogating such political and philosophical positions as republicanism, absolutism and stoicism. Roman history also provided a host of good and bad exemplary figures, as well as highlighting the dangers of civil war and political factionalism. Roman authors like Seneca, Juvenal, Horace, and Terence also had a considerable influence on the development of various literary genres during the period and many historical and political works were influenced by both the style and content of such commentators as Cicero and Tacitus. The influence of ancient Rome also had a bearing upon English national identity. The myth of the translatio imperii, as promulgated in the histories of Geoffrey of Monmouth, was often appropriated in propaganda as a means of legitimising England’s imperial ambitions. James I also set out to refashion himself as an Augustan ruler whose iconography owed much to the resonance of imperial Rome.

This special issue of EMLS will explore the influence of ancient Rome upon the literature and culture of early modern England and the related issues it provoked. We therefore welcome proposals for articles that consider any aspect of this subject; topics for discussion may include (but are not restricted to):

  • Roman history as a narrative source in early modern drama, satire, and narrative poetry.
  • Translation, rhetoric, and the influence of Latin.
  • The influence of republicanism and stoicism and the bearings of Roman political ideas upon debates relating to sovereignty, citizenship, and absolutism.
  • The relationship between ancient Rome and English (or British) national identity.
  • The use of imagery associated with the Roman Empire in royal propaganda and iconography.
  • The influence of Roman sources in debates relating to political factionalism and civil war.
  • The resonance of Roman culture compared with the influence of ancient Greece.
  • The links between Rome and Catholicism.

Please send abstracts (250-300 words) to Professor Lisa Hopkins (l.m.hopkins@shu.ac.uk), Dr Daniel Cadman (d.cadman@shu.ac.uk), or Dr Andrew Duxfield (a.duxfield@shu.ac.uk) by Friday 2 May 2014.

Teaching Early Modern Philosophy: New Approaches – Call For Papers

Most survey courses in early modern philosophy are informed by a familiar narrative, based on the development of empiricism and rationalism and their synthesis in Kant‘s philosophy. Over the last few decades, this narrative has come under heavy criticism and is now rejected by many scholars. The narrative focuses primarily on epistemological and metaphysical issues, whereas scores of early modern authors had little interest in epistemology and were driven by natural-philosophical, political, or theological concerns. The traditional classifications of empiricists and rationalists have been questioned. Many regard the standard account of developments within each camp (‘Locke begat Berkeley, Berkeley begat Hume‘) as inadequate.

A large body of scholarship has brought to light the historical relevance and intrinsic significance of numerous figures beyond the empiricist and rationalist triads. The omission of women philosophers from the canon is hard to justify and perpetrates deleterious stereotypes. Despite scholars’ dissatisfaction with the standard narrative, the narrative still informs most survey courses, manuals, and anthologies. A growing number of teachers are keen to try new approaches to the teaching of lower-level courses (in the American system, or undergraduate courses in the British system). Yet scholarly up-to-date, pedagogically well-thought-out models that they may follow or draw inspiration from are far and wide in between.

To remedy this, Metaphilosophy solicits papers illustrating new ways of teaching lower-level courses on early modern philosophy. The papers will be published in a symposium, guest-edited by Alberto Vanzo (University of Warwick). Submissions may address, among others, the following issues:

  • Should teachers focus on a narrow set of canonical authors and if so, which ones? If we should abandon the very idea of a canon and follow the contextualist approach that is popular in recent scholarship, what criteria should guide teachers‘ selection of philosophical problems, texts, and authors?
  • Scholarly developments have helped us make better sense of the relation of early modern philosophical doctrines with political events and with developments in a wide range of disciplines, from medicine to theology. Taking these developments into account has proven necessary to correctly understand several arguments of early modern philosophers. How much weight should teachers give to the ways in which philosophical developments were influenced by non-philosophical factors, vis-à-vis focusing on the internal logic of philosophers‘ arguments?
  • The early modern period saw significant shifts and disagreements on the nature, tasks, and methods of philosophy. How can these be highlighted in low-level courses, so as to familiarise students with competing stances on the nature of philosophy and its relation to the natural sciences?
  • Teachers are sometimes torn between competing demands and expectations: that they give students a historically accurate understanding of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophies, which include unpalatable or idiosyncratic claims, and that they highlight the continued relevance of those philosophies to current-day discussions, at the risk of reinventing (instead of merely reconstructing) early modern views when the gulf between past and present appears too wide. How should teachers balance these tendencies in low-level courses?
  • How can one effectively integrate areas, traditions, and figures that were traditionally marginalized (e.g. moral philosophy, women philosophers) within the curriculum, rather than simply juxtaposing them with standard topics and authors? How can teachers of lower-level courses give their due to the scores of Aristotelians, school philosophers, and other ‘losers‘ of early modern philosophy?

Deadline for submissions is 1 October 2014. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelines available at http://bit.ly/metaphl and should be submitted via email or regular mail to:

Metaphilosophy
Department of Philosophy
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515, USA
Email: metaphil@southernct.edu

For information, please email Alberto Vanzo (alberto.vanzo@email.it).

UWA IAS/CMEMS Masterclass and Lecture: Dr Craig Taylor (The University of York)

Sponsored by CMEMS and the Institute of Advanced Studies, Dr Craig Taylor (The University of York) is coming to visit UWA in late June 2014. As well as taking part in the PMRG/CMEMS/CHE Symposium, ‘In Form of War: Emotions and Warfare in Writing, 1100-1820′, we can look forward to a Postgraduate Masterclass on ‘Chivalry’ and a public lecture on ‘The Trials of Joan of Arc’ on 26 June.

IAS/CMEMS Postgraduate Masterclass: ‘Chivalry’

In this masterclass, I will be asking students to consider the fundamental confusions that beset our modern use of the term ‘chivalry’. In general usage, the term now carries a set of romantic connotations that barely reflect neither the reality of aristocratic behaviour during the middle ages, nor the more complex representations offered by medieval commentators and writers. We will therefore consider how far such anachronistic assumptions prevent real engagement with the medieval past, as well as the deeper problem of defining chivalry simultaneously as the textual representation of knightly values and the wider aristocratic culture.

Registration details coming soon.

IAS/CMEMS Public Lecture: ‘The Trials of Joan of Arc’

This lecture will explore the two great trials of the celebrated French heroine, firstly at Rouen in 1431 while in the hands of her enemies and then between 1455 and 1456, when a posthumous investigation nullified the verdict of the original trial. Given the rejection of the original trial as a sham, it is natural that modern scholars have offered increasingly sophisticated analyses of the records of Joan’s public and private interrogations at Rouen in 1431; under such careful scrutiny, these sources raise fascinating questions regarding the ‘truthfulness’ of medieval records and of Joan’s story, as well as different kinds of insights into wider questions of religion and gender in late medieval society. Yet the records of the second trial have not received as careful attention, in large part because they remain pivotal to undermining the credibility of the original heresy trial. In this lecture, I will therefore turn the spotlight into the second trial, suggesting new ways in which scholars might approach these familiar records.

Craig Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of York, and a Fellow of both the Société de l’Histoire de France and the Royal Historical Society. Craig is currently Chair of the Graduate Board of Studies in the Department of History at the University of York, and in October 2014will become Director of the internationally-renowned Centre for Medieval Studies.

His research focuses upon the political, aristocratic and martial cultures of late medieval France and England, and in particular the intellectual and cultural representations of chivalry and warfare in the age of the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). His publications include Joan of Arc, La Pucelle (Manchester University Press, 2006), Debating the Hundred Years War: Pour ce que plusieurs (La loi salicque) & A declaracion of the trew and dewe title of Henrie VIII (Camden Series, 2007) and Chivalry and the Ideals of Knighthood in France during the Hundred Years War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Craig is also a co-investigator on a major AHRC-funded project on England’s Immigrants which runs until February 2015. This explores the extensive archival evidence about the names, origins, occupations and households of a significant number of foreigners who chose to make their lives and livelihoods in England in the era of the Hundred Years War, the Black Death and the Wars of the Roses. The project will contribute creatively to the longer-term history of immigration to England, and help to provide a deep historical and cultural context to contemporary debates over ethnicity, multiculturalism and national identity.

 

Herakles Inside and Outside the Church – Call For Papers

Herakles Inside and Outside the Church: From the First Apologists to the End of the Quattrocento
An International, Interdisciplinary Conference
University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
23-26 June, 2015

The study of the reception of classical figures into Christianity is a recently renewed scholarly trend which overcomes decades of isolation between classicists and medievalists, while drawing attention to an often overlooked fact: the early Christian masses were none other than the recently converted, dissatisfied pagan citizens of the faltering Roman Empire. In those early days, Christian theologians zealously took up the task of debating and defining the self-projections of their flocks against the backdrop of pagan outrage typically embodied by the Roman emperors. However, in addressing their followers, early Christian theologians could not ignore the wealth of classical literature and philosophy as points of reference, recognizable by their audiences and powerful enough to warrant modification. Indeed, the majority of early Christian writers were themselves products of the pagan educational system and hence, well versed in pagan traditions. Their handling of Heracles, the most quintessential pagan hero known for his strength, his twelve labours, and his civilizing efforts as well as for his quick temper, lust, and frenzied violence, the hero idealized by emperors such as Nero, Commodus and Maximian, is indicative of the urgency to reform pagan models in the Christian context, but, also, of the affinities between pagan and early Christian intellectual debates. Centuries later, while the Church was proclaiming the death of paganism, it was continuing to appropriate many pagan gods and heroes, including Heracles, into its service.
Our conference seeks papers on any aspect of the adoption/adaptation of Heracles from Late Antiquity to the end of the Quattrocento, including the use of his image in Christian and non-Christian context, and the use of his mythology in Christian and non-Christian literature (poetry, prose, didactic, polemic, libretti, etc.). Panel proposals would be welcome.

For individual papers please send an abstract of 300 words with tentative title by June 15, 2014, to both:
Arlene Allan (arlene.allan@otago.ac.nz)
and
Evangelina Anagnostou-Laoutides (eva.anagnostoulaoutides@monash.edu)

For panels proposals, we would request that the panel leader first collect the 300-word abstracts and then submit them as a group with a proposed panel name to the above email addresses by 30 June, 2014.

CARMEN: The Worldwide Medieval Network – Annual General Meeting 2014

CARMEN is a worldwide network of medievalists, its name being an acronym for the “Co-operative for the Advancement of Research through a Medieval European Network”. It links a number of research institutions, universities, interest groups and individuals with common scholarly interest in the study of the Middle Ages. While based in Europe, it reaches out to all continents to create an open and truly international platform of co-operation in the field of medieval research and teaching. We bring together scholars from universities and academic organisations who are actively involved in research on the Middle Ages (c. 400-1500 AD/CE). We access half of the global body of about 20,000 researchers, with important contributions from Europe, North America, East Asia, Australasia and Latin America. CARMEN successfully promotes the construction of major scholarly collaborative projects. Its Executive Group directs strategies, disseminates information, reports to national associations and major conferences, and organises an annual meeting. It assists nascent projects to reach critical mass and tries to pro-actively shape research agendas.

Between 11 and 14 September 2014 CARMEN is holding its Annual General Meeting in Scotland, the first time it has visited this country. The meeting is being hosted by Dr Alasdair Ross (University of Stirling) and CARMEN is grateful to acknowledge financial support from the School of Arts and Humanities and the Stirling Centre for Scottish Studies (both University of Stirling). A dedicated CARMEN 2014 web page has been provided by the host where practical information about the meeting is currently available and where information about the programme will be posted in the coming weeks:

CARMEN 2014 practical information

To find out more information about the Annual Meeting or to register your attendance please contact Claire McIlroy (CARMEN Congress Manager). Registration closes on 31 July 2014.

And please also click on the link for more information about CARMEN.

Fear and Loathing – Call For Papers

“Fear and Loathing”
9th Annual Limina Conference
University of Western Australia,
Friday, June 20 2014

Conference Website

The conference aims to foster a supportive environment in which postgraduates and early career researchers can present their work. The Limina Editorial Collective is calling for conference submissions from postgraduates and early career researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences which engage with the theme of ‘Fear and Loathing’.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

  • Social and/or Immigration Policy
  • Gender and/or Sexuality
  • Fear and Loathing in the Australian Context
  • Experiences of Difference
  • Digital and/or Popular Culture
  • Anthropology
  • Identity(ies)
  • Religion
  • Narratives of the Self
  • Stigma

Abstracts (not more than 250 words) should be submitted to liminajournal@gmail.com before Thursday, 1 May 2014.

In Form of War: Emotions and Warfare in Writing 1300-1820, Symposium

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotion Symposium
In Form of War: Emotions and Warfare in Writing 1300-1820

Symposium Website

The focus of this symposium is on the ways in which writings in various forms – including chronicle, autobiography, romance, epic, theatre, treatise, letter and journal – have responded to the emotional experience of war. Bringing together leading scholars in medieval, early modern, eighteenth-century and Romantic studies,’In Form of War’: Emotions and Warfare in Writing, 1300-1820 will trace continuities and changes in the emotional register of violent conflict as it has been mediated and transmitted to modernity in the written record of the European past.’In Form of War’ covers English and French examples from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, seeking to trace the development of key discourses of emotion in and about war into the present day. The participants will consider how traditional and emergent forms of writing have shaped the emotional significance of war for readers in successive historical periods, and how emotions have been enlisted in the service of particular wartime agendas. Their collective purpose is to analyse the emotions of war from various viewpoints: representations of the emotional experience of combatants, civilians and spectators; textual, literary and theatrical productions which adapt war themes for particular emotional effects, including propaganda; studies of generic, historiographical and performance traditions of the emotions involved in war; and studies that reflect on the historical, philosophical and thematic frameworks in which war writing is constructed emotionally.

Speakers include:
Craig Taylor (York); Catherine Nall (Royal Holloway, London); Tracy Adams (Auckland); Penelope Woods (UWA); Bob White (UWA); Katrina O’Loughlin (UWA); Andrew Lynch (UWA); Stephanie Downes (Melbourne); Neil Ramsey (UNSW); Peter Sherlock (MCD University of Divinity).

The symposium will be preceded by a public lecture in the evening of June 26 by Craig Taylor on ‘The Trials of Joan of Arc’.

For further information contact Pam Bond at:
Tel: +61 8 6488 3858 or pam.bond@uwa.edu.au

Dr Massimo Rospocher and Dr Rosa Salzberg – ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions joint lectures

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions joint lectures: “Street Singers and Emotions in Early Modern Italy”

“Murder Ballads and Songs of War: Street Singers and Emotions in Early Modern Italy”, Massimo Rospocher, University of Leeds

and

“Pity, Patience or Protest? Singing About Poverty in Renaissance Italy”, Rosa Salzberg, University of Warwick

Date: Thursday 17 April 2014
Time: 1-3pm
Venue: Rogers Room, Woolley Building, University of Sydney
Further information: Craig Lyons, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, Sydney Node; +61 2 93516859; craig.lyons@sydney.edu.au

‘Murder Ballads and Songs of War: Street Singers and Emotions in Early Modern Italy’

Street singers were familiar figures on the piazzas of early modern Italian cities, among the most important providers of information and entertainment to urban publics. On the faultlines between orality and print, between performance and text, singers of tales are key to understanding the fears, anxieties, interests and desires of ordinary people in Renaissance Italy. Focusing on two specific genres performed and sold by street singers – murder ballads and songs of war – this paper explores how these itinerant figures played on the emotions of their audiences to engage them with current events and ultimately to sell their pamphlets.

‘Pity, Patience or Protest?: Singing About Poverty in Renaissance Italy’

Throughout the Renaissance, there was a long tradition of popular street performance concerning wealth and poverty. Sometimes the singer lamented his own poverty; sometimes he voiced the plight of the lower classes in general. In the sixteenth century, in the face of terrible dearth and economic decline, a number of such works were printed in cheap pamphlets, sometimes commissioned by the performer himself to sell after his show to the public assembled in the piazza or street. This paper
examines how such ideas were expressed in oral and printed forms by looking at a number of popular works from this period that commented on or complained about the growing social inequality of Italian society, the careless prodigality of the rich and the suffering of the poor. It asks to what degree popular performers broadcast a direct critique of wealth and luxury and how this engaged with elite discourses on the subject.

CRASSH: 8 New Research Associate Posts (Early Modern Period) – Call For Applications

Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences And Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge has announced a new constellation of projects centred in the Early Modern period.

Eight new post-doctoral fellows will be appointed. Recruitment is now open for the first six of these posts.

Three post-doctoral fellows, each for 4.5 years, will be working on a new project on Genius before Romanticism, led by Alexander Marr from the Department of History of Art and funded by the European Research Council.

Three further 4.5 year fellowships will be offered to work on the theological, natural philosophical and economic strands of a second project funded by the European Research Council, on ‘Crossroads of Knowledge in Early Modern England: the place of literature’. This is led by Subha Mukherji from the Faculty of English, joint host of this project (with CRASSH).

The seventh postdoctoral fellow will be appointed for 3.5 years on the legal strand of the Epistemic Intersections project.

The eighth postdoctoral fellow, a three-year position, will be working on digital ways of exploring the textual and visual archive of the era as part of the work of a new digital initiative at CRASSH.

The projects are interdisciplinary and collaborative, and will coincide with CRASSH’s interdisciplinary programme in collaboration with McGill University, on Conversion in the Early Modern period (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada), which will have annual visiting fellows and a seminar series. They will be further complemented by CRASSH’s highly successful research groups with an early-modern focus, such as the ‘Things’ seminars in material culture and the ‘Seeing Things’ programme, a collaboration between CRASSH and the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute.

Center of Researches for Medieval Studies (CESCM): Semaines D’études Médiévales 2014

Centre of Research for Medieval Studies (CESCM)
Semaines D’études Médiévales 2014 CESCM
16-27 June, 2014

Every year in June, the CESCM (Centre of research for medieval studies) of the Université de Poitiers organises conferences and visits during two weeks called “Semaines d’études Médiévales”. These international and pluridisciplinary sessions gather students and scholars of all around the world.

Please visit the following link for the schedule of the sessions (June 16-27), and all other details (the registration deadline is the 30 of April): http://cescm.hypotheses.org/1891?lang=en_GB