Monthly Archives: April 2014

Port Cities in the Early Modern World, 1500–1800 – Call For Papers

Port Cities in the Early Modern World, 1500–1800
Philadelphia
5–7 November 2015

Co-sponsored by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Program in Early American Economy and Society, and Temple University.

In the early modern period, advances in maritime technology redrew the global map-not only through the ‘discovery’ of new worlds, but by reorienting patterns of commerce and migration to transform what had been peripheries into vital nodes of exchange, power, and culture. Port cities rose to occupy a critical space, mediating between their own hinterlands and an oceanic world of circulation and exchange. Highly local institutions and networks influenced and reacted to global networks and the movements of people, goods, fashions, ideas, and pathogens. This conference will explore comparisons and connections among ports in the age of sail. Through broadly comparative papers and revealing case studies this conference provides a forum to explore comparisons and contrasts, diversity and congruence, competition and emulation, among far-flung port cities on a global scale. Among the topics the organizers hope to explore are socio-political organization, economic and labor patterns, and cultural productions

We seek proposals from scholars at all stages of their careers. Committed participants include Christopher Hodson, Richard Kagan, Willem Klooster, Christian Koot, Kris Lane, Ty Reese, Philip Stern, and David Wheat.

Paper proposals should include an abstract of no more than 500 words and a one-page curriculum vita. Papers, which will be pre-circulated, should be approximately 7,500 words in length. Please e-mail paper proposals to mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu by September 15, 2014. All queries should be sent to the conference organizer, Jessica Choppin Roney (roney@ohio.edu). The program committee will reply by December, 2014.

Some support for participants’ travel and lodging expenses will be available for paper presenters.

ARC Centre for the History of Emotions Collaboratory – The Voice & Histories of Emotion: 1500-1800 – Call For Papers

ARC Centre for the History of Emotions Collaboratory
“The Voice & Histories of Emotion: 1500-1800”
Department of Performance Studies, The University of Sydney
29 September- 1 October, 2014

Keynotes: Prof Will West, Northwestern University and Dr Richard Wistreich, Royal Northern College of Music

Focus:

The Centre for the History of Emotions (CHE) Performance Programme explores how emotions were performed and experienced within their historical contexts. The voice is a principal instrument of human communication and expression and as such, a crucial site of our investigation. Spoken, thundered, squeaked, screamed, coughed, solo or in chorus, on stage or in the street, the voice invites critical consideration as the circumstances and circulations of its performance as captured in archival, textual, imagistic traces are varied and variable. This collaboratory affords the opportunity to interrogate research methodologies available; question what research evidence of the ‘voice’ in history comprises – its validation processes and the problems it presents – and explore new theoretical and methodological approaches to ‘voice’ and the histories of emotion in which it operates. Though voice is a broad category embracing physiological and phenomenological concerns, this collaboratory proposes four main rubrics:

Skill and the Natural Voice
Skilled delivery is a significant component of musical and rhetorical performance through history, and yet ideas of naturalism are pervasive in vocal discourses. This rubric considers training programmes, manuals, exercises and the pedagogy or entrainment of the voice. It asks what attributes of voice were valued and developed and for what purposes or audiences as well as how conventions of naturalness were sought and produced in early modern Europe.

Material Histories of the Voice
The site of performance and its cultural context informs vocal performance. This rubric invites consideration of the embodied and situated voice asking how voice and emotion have been shaped by architecture, acoustics, physiology and gesture.

Harmonies and Disharmonies
What and where are the spaces between voices, between sounds and between voices and sounds (including musical instruments accompanying and/or emulating voices)? What happens in the cracks, breaks, and dissonances? And where does voice begin and end?

Audiencing: the generative work of listening to and interpreting the voice
To address any of the collaboratory’s questions we must problematize our own listening now as a historically delimiting factor. The evidence of our senses makes ‘truth claims’ that can seem compelling and even transhistorical. How might specific historical receptions of the voice be recuperated? Might the critical history of sense perception or ‘historical phenomenology’ be useful or necessary critical paths to take?

Proposals:

Participants are encouraged to collaborate in performance workshops, discussion forums as well as present more traditional papers in order to develop better insight into how to repopulate history with the oral/aural/gestural textures and complexities of voice as emotional communication. We are accepting proposals for workshops (90 mins), discussion panels (90 mins) or single paper presentations (20 mins). Written proposals must not exceed 400 words and include the following: Name of author(s), affiliation(s), names of other participants (e.g., performers), format of presentation (workshop, papers etc.), title, aims, context, method, technical requirements (i.e. performance space etc.). Note that in the case of workshops, we shall encourage delegate participation from the floor, but if actors, singers, instrumentalists are required, these need to be included as part of the author/presenter team and rehearsed appropriately in advance of the event. Working groups will be established in line with the overarching rubrics of the collaboratory- you may wish to indicate which you feel your work particularly responds to or builds on in your proposal, however, all participants will have the opportunity to explore all frameworks.

Important dates:

  • Proposals submitted, Monday 14th April.
  • Outcomes of submission, Monday 12th May.
  • Registration deadline, Monday 4th August.
  • Collaboratory registration from 8am, Monday 29th September.
  • Collaboratory closing session, 3.30pm, Wednesday 1st October.

Up to 10 PG/ECR travel grants will be available up to a max of $500 per Eastern States applicant and $800 for WA applicants.

Cost information:

A registration fee will be applied to cover the cost of refreshments during the days of the collaboratory. Evening meals and accommodation are to be arranged independently by delegates.
Fee:

  • Full $175
  • Student/unwaged $95

Collaboratory organising committee:

  • Ian Maxwell, Glen McGillivray, Alan Maddox (University ofSydney hosts)
  • Jane Davidson, Penelope Woods (CHE)

Enquiries and submissions:

emotions@uwa.edu.au

‘Ideas and Enlightenment’: The Long Eighteenth Century (Down Under) – Travel Grants

(Post)Graduate Travel Grants
David Nichol Smith Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Studies XV
‘Ideas and Enlightenment’ at the University of Sydney

The 15th David Nichol Smith Seminar organizing committee is pleased to announce that they will be able to offer a limited number of travel grants to expand postgraduate participation in the 2014 ‘Ideas and Enlightenment’ conference. These are provided through generous funding contributions from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the Putting Periodisation to Use Group, and the Sydney Intellectual History Network at the University of Sydney. These scholarships are part of an extended postgraduate program at DNS XV, which will be supported by the newly formed DNS Graduate Caucus. We anticipate that the program will include paired mentoring between junior and senior colleagues at the conference and a professional development workshop. Those awarded scholarships travel grants would be expected to be actively involved in this program.

Conditions:

  • Travel grants (up to a maximum amount of $2000) will be awarded as reimbursement of travel expenses.
  • Funds may be used for transportation to and from the conference and accommodation only, not for meals).
  • Partial grants may be offered.
  • Recipients must attend the full conference and present a paper at the David Nichol Smith Seminar XV at the University of Sydney.
  • Costs incurred, up to the amount granted, will be reimbursed upon presentation of receipts. In certain cases, fares or other expenses may be paid directly by the DNS XV organizing committee through the office of the Sydney Intellectual History Network.
  • Applications from international and Australian postgraduate students are invited.

Eligibility:

The recipient must be actively engaged in full- or part-time doctoral study in eighteenth-century studies, in any field, at a recognised university.

Applications should include:

  1. A completed application form
  2. A copy of their DNS proposal for a 20 minute paper (250-word paper proposal and 2-page CV)

These materials must be sent as a single pdf document and attached to an email sent to the attention of the organising committee at: sihn.dns@sydney.edu.au. Inquiries about the scholarships should also be directed to members of the committee through this email. Application forms are available to download from the on the conference webpages: http://sydney.edu.au/intellectual-history/news-events/dns-conference-2014.shtml.

Closing date: 15 June 2014

Fons Luminis: Using and Creating Digital Medievalia – Call For Papers

Fons Luminis, a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal edited and produced annually by graduate students at the Centre for Medieval Studies in the University of Toronto, provides a forum in which to address, challenge, and explore the content and methodologies of our various home disciplines. We invite current graduate students to submit papers relating in some way to the 2015 journal theme, “Using and Creating Digital Medievalia.”

Since the mid-twentieth century, computing has been and continues to be a major factor in the medievalist’s research. From Father Busa’s creation of the Index Thomasticus in the 1940’s to current library and archival digitization projects, computational methods are essential aspects of the medievalist’s occupation. Papers are encouraged to address: medievalist use of digitally stored information; social scientists and librarians as creators and/or curators of knowledge about the Middle Ages; future directions of digital humanities; the importance of digital humanities to work in paleography, codicology, diplomatics, and text editing.

Articles may also focus on topics including (but not limited to) mapping and space, the impact of digitization on concepts of the archive, and digital tools in teaching. Contributions may take the form of a scholarly essay or focus on the study of a particular manuscript. Articles must be written in English, follow the 16th edition (2010) of The Chicago Manual of Style, and be at least 4,000 words in length, including footnotes. Quotations in the main text in languages other than English should appear along with their English translation. As usual, we continue to accept other submissions on any aspect of medieval studies and welcome longer review articles (approximately 1,500 words) on recent or seminal works in medieval studies.

Submissions must be received by July 1, 2014 in order to be considered for publication. Inquiries and submissions (as a Word document attachment) should be sent to the editors.

S. Ernest Sprott Fellowship 2014 – Call For Applications

The late Samuel Ernest Sprott, from Tasmania, was an academic in the department of English at Dalhousie University, Canada and was best known for his work on John Milton, notably Milton’s Art of Prosody, his first book, which appeared in nine editions between 1953 and 1978, and John Milton, A Maske: the Earlier Versions. His book Suicide: The English Debate from Donne to Hume was published in 1961. He also published a collection of poems in 1955.

The S. Ernest Sprott fellowship is to be awarded annually to an Australian citizen who is an outstanding scholar less than Forty-five (45) years of age at the time of the award for scholarly study outside of Australia intended to lead to a book relating to dramatic or non-dramatic English Literature of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries.

Applicants must demonstrate an outstanding record of scholarship. They must outline a program of scholarly study outside Australia, leading to a book relating to dramatic or non-dramatic English literature of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. It is recommended that the applicant seek some kind of formal affiliation with a relevant library or university. Fellowship funds will be paid in quarterly installments providing that the committee is satisfied with the progress of the candidate who will submit quarterly reports.

For further details and eligibility visit: http://arts.unimelb.edu.au/award/sernest-sprott-fellowship
Enquiries: artsprizes-info@unimelb.edu.au or ph: (03) 9035 4317.

Closing Date: Monday, 19 May 2014
Edit: The closing date for applications for The S. Ernest Sprott Fellowship has been extended to Monday 16 June 2014.
Approximate value: $40,000

34th Annual Harvard Celtic Colloquium – Call For Papers

34th Annual Harvard Celtic Colloquium
Harvard University
The Thompson Room (Room 110), Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street
10-12 October, 2014

The Harvard Celtic Department cordially invites proposals for papers on topics which relate directly to Celtic studies (Celtic languages and literatures in any phase; cultural, historical or social science topics; theoretical perspectives, etc.) for the 34th Annual Celtic Colloquium, to take place at Harvard University, October 10-12, 2014.

Papers concerning interdisciplinary research with a Celtic focus are also invited. Attendance is free. Presentations should be no longer than twenty minutes. There will be a short discussion period after each paper. Papers given at the Colloquium may later be submitted for consideration by the editorial committee for publication in the Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium.

Potential presenters should send a 200-250 word abstract, plus a brief biographical sketch.
Submissions should be sent by e-mail to hcc@fas.harvard.edu, faxed, or posted to the departmental address; submissions in the form of RTF or Word Document email attachments by May 1, 2014.

Further information available at the website: http://www.hcc.fas.harvard.edu

The Medieval Globe – Call For Papers

The Medieval Globe explores the modes of communication, materials of exchange, and myriad interconnections among regions, communities, and individuals in an era central to human history. It promotes scholarship in three related areas of study:

  1. the direct and indirect means by which peoples, goods, and ideas came into contact
  2. the deep roots of allegedly modern global developments
  3. the ways in which perceptions of “the medieval” have been (and are) constructed and deployed around the world.

Contributions to a global understanding of the medieval period need not encompass the globe in any territorial sense. The Medieval Globe advances a new theory and praxis of medieval studies by bringing into view phenomena that have been rendered practically or conceptually invisible by anachronistic boundaries, categories, and expectations: these include networks, communities, bodies of knowledge, forms of movement, varieties of interaction, and identities. It invites submissions that analyze actual or potential connections, trace trajectories and currents, address topics of broad interest, or pioneer portable methodologies.

The Medieval Globe (TMG) is a peer-reviewed journal to be launched in 2014-15 with a special issue on the Black Death as a global pandemic, edited by Monica Green (Arizona State University). It will be published in both print and digital formats. Themed issues will alternate with issues composed of articles submitted for consideration on a rolling basis. Future issues might address such topics as: pilgrimage, diasporas, race and racializing technologies, maritime cultures and ports-of-call, piracy and crime, knowledge networks, markets and consumerism, entertainment, spoils and spolia, global localities, comparative cosmographies, sites of translation and acculturation, slavery and social mobility.

The Editorial Board is currently seeking submissions. It encourages innovative and collaborative work in a variety of academic genres: full-length articles, scholarly dialogues, multi-authored discussions of critical problems, review essays, and editions or translations of source materials.

Questions? Please contact Carol Symes: symes@illinois.edu