Monthly Archives: June 2014

The Beauty of Letters: Text, Type and Communication in the Eighteenth Century – Call For Papers

The Beauty of Letters: Text, Type and Communication in the Eighteenth Century
Baskerville Society Conference
The University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham
14 March, 2015

In his preface to Paradise Lost (1758), John Baskerville described himself as ‘an admirer of the beauty of letters’. This conference takes his phrase as a starting point to explore the production, distribution, consumption and reception, not only of letters, but also words, texts and images during the long eighteenth century (c. 1688-1820). This conference will consider how writing, printing, performance and portrayal contributed to the creation of cultural identity and taste, assisted the spread of knowledge and contributed to political, economic, social and cultural change in Britain and the wider world.

Writing: teaching of writing and penmanship; styles of handwritten script; copybooks; shorthand; handwritten documents such as diaries, account books, letters, legal and parliamentary documents; the creation of texts by authors, poets and playwrights of the eighteenth century.*

Printing: printers and typefounders; technology and technology transfer; typefaces and typography; manufacture and distribution of texts; libraries, and education; publishing and bookselling; the production of different forms of print media: books, newspapers, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, conduct manuals, scientific and medical literature, histories, travel literature, religious, legal and political texts, ephemera and street literature.

Performance: the enactment and communication of text in theatre, music, politics and education through writing and performance of plays, ballad operas, songs and lyrics; the presentation of scripts and musical scores; censorship; theatre programmes; theatre merchandising; speeches; sermons; scientific lectures.

Portrayal: the visual representation of text in maps; scientific drawings; architectural drawings; astronomical sketches; political/satirical cartoons; posters, labels; signs and shop-fronts including both architectural and fascia lettering; advertising.

*please note the conference is not exploring literary criticism

The Conference organisers, Professor Caroline Archer and Dr Malcolm Dick are inviting contributions from academics, heritage professionals, research students, and independent scholars. Please send a suggested title, synopsis (200 words) and biography (100 words) via a word attachment to both: caroline.archer@bcu.ac.uk and m.m.dick@bham.ac.uk; by: 1 July 2014.

Professor Wendy Wheeler, Macgeorge Public Lecture

Macgeorge Public Lecture

“A Feeling for Life: Biosemiotics, Autopoiesis and the Orders of Discourse”, Professor Wendy Wheeler (London Metropolitan University)

Date: Thursday June 26, 2014
Time: 6:30-7:30 pm
Venue: Old Arts, Theatre D | University of Melbourne | map

This lecture will discuss some of the theoretical implications of using biosemiotics as a way of approaching art and culture, and especially literature. In order to do that, it will look at the rather surprising connections between semiotic theories of culture and art, the roots of structuralism in the work of Roman Jakobson, and biology. The structuralist, and hence post-structuralist, legacy has been long, but now it seems that this history, at least in part, needs rewriting with its proto-biosemiotic aspects taken into account. The lecture will focus on structuration as an organic process of growth in living systems, including that made up of both human and non-human systems as comprised of autopoietic readers, and upon the role of a feeling for life as affect constrained by form.

Wendy Wheeler is Professor Emeritus of English Literature and Cultural Inquiry at London Metropolitan University. She is also a Visiting Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London and RMIT in Melbourne, Australia. She has been a Visiting Professor on the Literature and the Environment programme at the University of Oregon, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh where she also collaborated on the Environmental Values project between 2008 and 2010. She is the author of four books, two on biosemiotics, and many essays on the topic in journals and edited collections. She is currently completing her fifth book The Flame and Its Shadow: Reflections on Nature and Culture from a Biosemiotic Perspective.

This free public lecture is supported through the Norman Macgeorge Bequest. All welcome.

Professor Linda Pollock, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Public Lecture

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Public Lecture
“Parents and Children in Early Modern England”, Professor Linda Pollock (Tulane University)

Date: Monday 7 July 2014
Time: 10:00am
Venue: University of Queensland Anthropology Museum, Level 1, Michie Building (9), UQ St Lucia
RSVP: Please RSVP by 30 June to Penny Boys, Outreach and Education Office, UQ Node Centre for the History of Emotions, uqche@uq.edu.au or (07) 3365-4913.

The original historiographical debate over whether or not there was a concept of childhood in the past, whether or not children were severely disciplined, and whether or not parents were bonded to their children now seems overly narrow, and rather unimaginative. New research has moved the field beyond the categorization of the history of parenting in terms of domination or affection, and has tackled neglected facets of the history of childhood. The original focus on parents, especially mothers, parental authority, and on the wealthier sectors of society provided a limited picture of parents and children in the past. The history of childhood, for example, was reduced to the history of parenting, or the history of ideas about children rather than the history of children. Fatherhood in concept and practice was virtually ignored.

Scholars have only recently begun to explore the complexities involved in bringing up children who could successfully navigate their cultural milieus. Masculinity in early modern England, for example, was based
on personal autonomy, independent judgement and self command. These qualities could be acquired and practised only by knowing the world. Keeping sons in a state of domestic dependence would stunt the development of proper masculine values, but sending young men out into the world with all its temptations could easily endanger a family’s dynastic and financial security. Submission to duty and male authority was one of the most important lessons imparted to girls, yet at the same time, girls had to be capable of independent thought and action.

The sibling relationship is one of the most durable of family ties but it is only now beginning to attract scholarly attention. The emotional and financial interactions of siblings, positioned as they were somewhere between hierarchy and equality, offer a new way to look at family. The material circumstances of family life also mattered. The parenting practices of the poor need to be understood on their own terms. Bringing up a child involved financial costs and immense physical labor and poverty could prevent poorer parents from realizing even the basics of father providing and mother nurturing. All of this new work on such topics as the child’s perspective, fatherhood, gender socialization, sibling interaction and poor families has greatly enriched the field.

Linda Pollock is a historian of early modern England. She specializes in social history topics such as childhood, the family, religion and medicine. Her current research is on the history of emotions 1550 to 1700. She is Professor of History at Tulane University and author of A Lasting Relationship: Parents and Children over Three Centuries (University Press of New England, 1987) and Forgotten Childhood: Parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900 (University of Cambridge Press, 1983). Professor Pollock will be conducting a masterclass entitled “Interpreting Early Modern Affect”, at the Australian Historical Association (AHA) “Conflict in History” Conference in Brisbane, July 7-11. For more information: www.theaha.org.au/conferences.html

2014 ANZAMEMS Travel Bursaries Recipients Announced

The Committee is delighted to announce the recipients of the 2014 ANZAMEMS Postgraduate Travel Bursaries.

We extend our congratulations to the following postgrad/ECR members, all of whom will receive a bursary to facilitate their attendance at a conference this year.

Patricia Alessi (Music, University of WA)
Luke Bancroft (History, Monash University)
Linda Zampol D’Ortia (Theology and Religion, University of Otago)
Stephen Joyce (Religion and Theology, Monash University)
Stephanie Jury (History, Monash University)
Shannon Lambert (English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide)
Hilary Locke (History, University of Adelaide)
Charlotte-Rose Millar (History, University of Melbourne
Fiona O’Brien (English, University of Adelaide)
Maree Shirota (History, University of Canterbury, NZ)

Forms of Life, Forms of Death – Call For Papers

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, indexed in the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, is a
peer-reviewed journal published two times per year by the Department of English of National
Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan. The journal is devoted to offering innovative perspectives on literary and cultural issues and advancing the transcultural exchange of ideas.

For the March 2015 issue, Concentric will co-publish a special issue on the theme “Forms of Life, Forms of Death” with Outis! Revue de philosophie (post)europénne, a European journal of political philosophy which publishes primarily in French and Italian and occasionally in English and Spanish (http://outis.eu). In this collaboration project, the two journals will each make its call for papers in accordance with its own editorial agenda, and will exchange articles (in translation in some cases) following the review process. The purpose is to tap into and share resources of each editorial team, and to open up dialogue between communities whose geopolitical, linguistic, and disciplinary differences may prove to be more superficial than substantial.

Concentric invites submissions that address issues raised in its call for papers. Articles accepted by Concentric will appear in Concentric and may be selected to be published in Outis! upon the author’s consent.

Concentric invites critical reflections on form pertaining to life and/or death as a problematic that can help to recast terms of debate in the humanities today. We also welcome papers that work on forms of life and/or forms of death as thematics in literature, film, and art works.

Submissions are due June 30 2014. For submission information and the full call for papers, please visit: http://www.concentric-literature.url.tw/calls_for_papers.php

Studies in Medievalism XXIII (2014) – Call For Papers

Studies in Medievalism, a peer-reviewed print and on-line publication, seeks 3,000-word essays about medievalism on the margins.

Submissions may concentrate on the borders of the field and its relationship to neighboring disciplines, such as medieval studies, on the traditional geography of its focus and its relationship to other territory, particularly outside of Europe, on the relationship of medievalism to traditionally marginalized groups, such as the LBGTIQ community, or on some combination of the three. Contributors are welcome to give examples but should focus on the theoretical implications of those examples rather than the examples themselves. Authors should also anticipate a wide-ranging audience comprising generalists as well as specialists, including non-academics, and submissions should be sent in English and Word as an e-mail attachment on or before August 1, 2014 to the editor, Karl Fugelso (kfugelso@towson.edu). Please follow the Style Sheet when preparing your submission for consideration.

The Material Culture of Magic – Call For Papers

The Material Culture of Magic
Book Project Edited by Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie and Leo Ruickbie

Proposals due by 1 August 2014

Magic is a wide field of research comprising what we might call the occult, paranormal events, anomalous experience, spirituality and other phenomena throughout human history. However, research has often been focused more narrowly on the historical analysis of written sources, or the anthropology and occasionally sociology of practitioners and their communities, for example. What is often overlooked are the physical artefacts of magic themselves.

In all areas of research, ‘material culture’ is becoming increasingly important—the ‘material turn’ as it has been labelled. This is particularly the case for disciplines that traditionally have not focused on object studies but on theory such as historical or social sciences. However, it is self-evident that the objects emerging from a culture provide valuable information on societies and their history. This is also and particularly the case for magic and related phenomena. Magic, especially, became divorced from its concrete expressions as academic study focused on problems of rationality and functionalist explanation.

When studying magic it is crucial to look at the objects that have been produced and what purpose they had, who made them and in what period, whether they represent only a certain historical period or are a long-lasting phenomenon, etc. This volume hence aims to ‘re-materialise’ magic, to re-anchor it in the physical things that constitute ‘magic’ and recover the social lives, even biographies, of these things.The envisaged academic book aims to cover a wide range of subjects, periods, geographical areas, as well as methods: firstly, because an interdisciplinary approach is essential to adequately encompass the subject; secondly, to investigate whether similar objects were used in different cultures in parallel or over a long period; and thirdly, to serve as a starting point for future research. This will be the first book on the material culture of magic and consequently has the potential to become a foundational text.

Therefore, we invite contributors from different disciplines such as anthropology, archaeology, art history, ethnology, folklore, parapsychology, religious studies, sociology and others. Subjects could be, for example, case studies focusing on particular objects, museum collections, or mass market items labelled as magical; analysis of classes of embodied magical functions, such as charms, amulets, talismans, magical jewellery, icons, relics, poppets (Voodoo dolls), etc.; consideration of classes of materials, such as bone, wood, metal, precious and semi-precious stones, etc. In addition, it is important to understand people-object relations, spatial-temporal aspects of magical objects, the dialectics of transference (projection and introjection), the role of narratives and social performance, cultural trajectories, and the processes of commodification and fetishisation (reification). These can be addressed in a variety of contexts from traditional religion to popular culture, and historically situated anywhere from prehistory to the present day. Any physical representation of magical ideation or anything imbued with supernatural meanings by its creator, such as found objects, animal/human parts, and man-made artefacts, can be considered in this context. What matters is a central focus on the physicality of the magical object; its material existence.

The volume will present an overview of current research in this field. It will comprise approximately 20 of the best and most relevant contributions on this subject. Contributors will be asked to submit a finished chapter of around 6,000 words (including references) with publication planned for 2015. In the first instance, an abstract of no more than 300 words should be sent, together with a brief biography, to the editors before 1 August 2014 at Bosselmann-Ruickbie@uni-mainz.de. We are also happy to answer any questions.

Dr Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie is a lecturer in the Department for Christian Archaeology and Byzantine Art History, Institute for Art History and Musicology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.
Dr Leo Ruickbie is the published author of several books, as well as the editor of the Paranormal Review, the magazine of the Society for Psychical Research, and a Committee Member of the Gesellschaft für Anomalistik (Society for Anomalistics).

Sixth International Piers Plowman Conference – Call For Papers

Sixth International Piers Plowman Conference
University of Washington, Seattle
23-26 July, 2015

The International Piers Plowman Society announces the Sixth International Piers Plowman Conference, to be held at the University of Washington, Seattle, 23-26 July 2015. Please send abstracts or panel proposals by 1 September 2014 to IPPSinSeattle2015@gmail.com.

There will be a Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper to be presented at the conference (eligible to those enrolled as of 1 June 2014), the award being free access to a selection of Brepols journals (Viator, New Medieval Literatures) plus membership in the IPPS for a year. Students should submit abstracts as normal, and then a complete copy of the essay to IPPSinSeattle2015@gmail.com by 1 June 2015.

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Masterclass: Weird Reading

The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800) presents:
“Weird Reading”, a masterclass run by Eileen Joy

Date: Tuesday 24 June 2014
Time: 2:00-4:00pm
Venue: Linkway Room, 4th floor, John Medley Building, The University of Melbourne
Registration: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1cRd32hOxh8ad8r5ZxwccJvI9WhivJnYsxgWYavuA2BA/viewform
Reading packs will be distributed after close of registration on 14 June 2014
For more information: contact Jessica Scott at: Tel: +61 3 8344 5152 or jessica.scott@unimelb.edu.au

This workshop will explore descriptive reading modes as forms of attention (which would also be a type of care) to texts in order to try to capture the traces of the strange voluptuosity and singular (and unique) tendencies of textual objects. What might happens when we start looking for things in texts that don’t typically get observed because they don’t easily correspond or answer to traditionally humanist questions and concerns. The idea might then be, not to necessarily “make sense” of a literary text and its figures (human and otherwise) — to humanistically re-boot the narrative by always referring it to the Real (context, historical or otherwise, for example, or human psychology) — but to better render the chatter and noise, the gestures and movements, the appearances and disappearances of the weird worlds that are compressed in books, and to see better how these teeming pseudo-worlds are part of our brains already, hard-wired into the black box of a kind of co-implicate, enworlded subjectivity in which it is difficult and challenging to trace the edges between “self” and “Other.” This would be a reading practice that would multiply and thicken a text’s sentient reality and might be described as a commentary that seeks to open and not close a text’s possible “signatures.” In her late essay, “The Weather in Proust,” Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick wrote,

For Proust, the ultimate guarantee of the vitality of art is the ability to surprise — that is, to manifest an agency distinct from either its creator or consumer. “It pre-exists us” is one of the ways he describes the autonomy of the work, and only for that reason is it able to offer “celestial nourishment” to our true self.

For Sedgwick, Proust’s work offered access to a psychology of “surprise and refreshment,” one which emphasizes the “transformative powers of the faculties of attention and perception.” Aesthetics may constitute a domain of illusions, but these illusions posses their own material reality and are co-sentient with us. As Timothy Morton has written, the existence of an object is irreducibly a matter of coexistence. How to better reckon this state of affairs in our encounters with texts, which are also events that “pre-exist” us in the way Proust believed?