Monthly Archives: September 2014

The Making of Charlemagne’s Europe

The Making of Charlemagne’s Europe project is a database of prosopographical and socio-economic data found in the more than four thousand legal documents surviving from Charlemagne’s reign. It covers material from all areas that were ever part of Charlemagne’s empire, dating from 25 September 768 to 28 January 814 AD. The emphasis is on the extraction and systematic classification of data for maximum comparability between regions. This will make the valuable information on institutions, people, places and objects contained in charters and other legal documents more easily accessible to researchers via faceted browsing, search queries and a mapping tool.

The project, which runs from 2012-2014, is being carried out at King’s College London by the Department of History and the Department of Digital Humanities and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

For more information, please visit: http://www.charlemagneseurope.ac.uk

University of Cambridge: Emmanuel College Research Fellowships 2015

The Governing Body of Emmanuel College invites applications for three stipendiary Research Fellowships in any subject; all three Fellowships are for a three-year fixed term, and will commence on 1 October, 2015.

Applications will be accepted from any graduate of a university within or outside the United Kingdom. Eligibility is restricted to those for whom the Research Fellowship would be their first substantial paid academic or research appointment (other than as a doctoral student).

These Fellowships are intended for outstanding researchers early in their careers: successful candidates are likely to be in the latter stages of their research leading to a PhD degree, or post-doctoral researchers who have been awarded their PhD degree after 1 October, 2013. Candidates should note that these Fellowships are extremely competitive.

For details and to apply please see http://resfell.emma.cam.ac.uk/rf_2015

Applications must be submitted online and received by 17:00 BST on Thursday 2nd October, 2014. Incomplete or late applications will NOT be accepted after this date.

“The Ethics of Empathy” Seminar

“The Ethics of Empathy” Seminar
Presented by the Sydney Node of The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, Europe 1100-1800

Date: Wednesday 22 October 2014
Venue: Dixson Room, State Library of NSW, Sydney
Convenor: Juanita Ruys (The University of Sydney)
Registration: Registration is free, however, as the event is catered, please email Craig Lyons at craig.lyons@sydney.edu.au to confirm your attendance by 8 October 2014. All welcome.

Empathy as a term is a modern concept, but the idea of a fellow-feeling with others has a long history. In the twenty-first century—in a world of global charities, tax-deductible donations, and instant outpourings of funds and expressions of grief in the wake of human and natural disasters—it might seem that empathy is the natural reaction to the suffering of others, an inherent good. But does this reflect the history of empathic feelings? Is there an alternative tradition in which empathy is seen as a dangerous emotion, one capable of derailing higher ethical imperatives, such as reason, justice, salvation? What is the relationship between empathy and sympathy and which of these —if either—should we be cultivating? What role does aesthetics play in initiating and motivating our empathic impulses? Can the creative arts— whether fine arts, film, or literature—trigger empathy-driven action, and do they have a duty to do so? If so, should they be aiming to elicit responses at the level of the individual conscience or produce a cultural phenomenon that subsumes the individual in group identity and action? Does religion relate to questions of empathy and its potential imperatives differently from philosophy, and how do these massive semiotic systems valorize the links between aesthetics, ethics, and action? These are some of the big questions to be addressed in ‘Ethics of Empathy’ symposium.

Keynote:

  • Robert Sinnerbrink (Macquarie University): “Empathic Ethics: Phenomenology, Cognitivism, and Moving Images”

Speakers:

  • Louise D’Arcens (University of Wollongong)
  • Helen Day (University of Central Lancashire)
  • Yasmin Haskell (The University of Western Australia)
  • Fincina Hopgood (The University of Melbourne)
  • Jay Johnston (The University of Sydney)
  • Andrew Lynch (The University of Western Australia)
  • Juanita Ruys (The University of Sydney)
  • Carolyn Strange (Australian National University)
  • Anik Waldow (The University of Sydney)

For full information, please visit: http://historyofemotions.org.au/events/ethics-of-empathy.aspx

Vagantes 2015 Medieval Graduate Student Conference – Call For Papers

Vagantes Medieval Graduate Student Conference
University of Florida
February 19-21, 2015

Conference Website

Vagantes, North America’s largest graduate student conference for medieval studies, is seeking submissions for its 2015 meeting at the University of Florida, February 19-21.

Since its founding in 2002, Vagantes has nurtured a lively community of junior scholars from across the disciplines. Every conference features thirty papers on any aspect of medieval studies, allowing for exciting interdisciplinary conversation and the creation of new professional relationships between future colleagues. Vagantes travels to a new university every year, highlighting the unique resources of the host institution through keynote lectures, exhibitions, and special events. Out of consideration for graduate students’ limited budgets, Vagantes never charges a registration fee.

The 2015 conference will feature exciting keynotes. Dr. Linda Neagley, of Rice University, will open the conference with: ‘Architectural counterpoint: Juxtaposition & opposition as a visual strategy in the Late Middle Ages.’ Dr. Nina Caputo of the University of Florida will close with a discussion of the unique challenge of transforming medieval history into a graphic novel. The conference will also feature an exhibition of medieval bestiaries: ‘The Beast in the Book,’ presented by Dr. Rebecca Jefferson of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica, and a roundtable session with University of Florida faculty on teaching the middle ages from a global perspective.

Several travel awards will be granted to the best papers in Jewish, Byzantine, and women’s studies. See the Vagantes website for further details: www.vagantesconference.org/travel-awards.

Graduate students in all disciplines are invited to submit a 300-word abstract on any medieval topic along with a 1-2 page C.V. to organizers@vagantesconference.org by November 3, 2014.

Folger’s Shakespeare Library Releases 80,000 Images Into the Public Domain

Thanks to the Folger Shakespeare Library, tens of thousands of high resolution images from their Digital Image Collection, including books, theater memorabilia, manuscripts, and art, are now available online. And they’re free to use under a CC BY-SA Creative Commons license.

For more information, please visit: http://collation.folger.edu/2014/08/free-cultural-works-come-get-your-free-cultural-works.

Empathy, Ethics, Aesthetics: Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar – Call For Applications

Empathy, Ethics, Aesthetics
ARC Centre for the History of Emotions (Sydney Node)
Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar (PATS)

Date: Thursday October 23, 2014
Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm
Venue: The Rogers Room, John Woolley Building, The University of Sydney, NSW

Places are limited, so please visit historyofemotions.org.au/events for details on how to apply.

For more information please contact: gabriel.watts@sydney.edu.au

Does your research deal with the relationship between empathy (or sympathy or compassion) and ethical problems? Do you find yourself thinking about the role of empathy in large cultural systems like the legal system, or how empathy relates to, creates, or even problematizes, cultural and behavioural norms? Are you interested in the function of shared emotions in literature or religion?

This Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar (PATS), run by the Sydney Node of the Centre for the History of Emotions, will bring students together with established scholars to discuss these issues and more.

Specialists in the fields of Philosophy, Literature, Early Modern Studies, and Religious Studies will speak from their own perspectives about the interplay of ethics, aesthetics and empathy, and you will have the opportunity to work through the particular issues that affect your research in conversation with them.

The PATS will take place the day after the Centre for the History of Emotions’ ‘Ethics of Empathy’ Symposium, to be held at the State Library of NSW on October 22. Both events are free and will provide you with two days of stimulating, focused discussion relating to your research.

Instructors

  • Prof Yasmin Haskell (UWA, CHE)
  • Dr Robert Sinnerbrink (Macquarie)
  • Dr Jay Johnston (Sydney)
  • Dr Helen Day (Central Lancashire)

Cost
There is no cost for this PATS, places are limited however to ensure the day is focused. Lunch and refreshments will be provided, please advise of any dietary requirements when applying.

Bursaries are available for students from outside the Sydney area. If you are intending to apply for a bursary please submit an application form plus a short academic reference before 2 October 2014. Applicants will hear back shortly after Oct 2.

Readings
Each workshop will focus on a short text, or selections from a text. Optional background reading may also be provided. The texts will be made available online shortly (for more information please email gabriel.watts@sydney.edu.au)

Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth – Call For Papers

Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth

While the late 14th c French prose romance by Jean d’Arras arguably remains the earliest and most-translated version of the story of Melusine—in which he envisions her as a foundress of the powerful Lusignan family—the figure of the fairy woman cursed with a half-human, half-serpent form traveled widely through the legends of medieval and early modern Europe. From Thüring von Ringoltingen’s German iteration of 1456, which gave rise to the popular chapbook, and related folktales that brought Melusine decisively to the European medieval imaginary, Melusine’s variants surface in countries and centuries beyond. One finds her entwined in the ancestry of several noble houses across Europe; a Melisende ruled as Queen of Jerusalem; and the philosopher Paracelsus writes of melusines as water sprites in search of a soul by means of human marriage. Regal serpent women proliferate in carvings and paintings decorating churches, castles, villas, and public buildings throughout Europe, and a cri de Mélusine, in the story the signal of her castle’s changing fortunes, entered the language as a common phrase. Today one finds Melusine in film, novels, comic books, the Starbucks logo, and as a character in the video game Final Fantasy. In short, the figure of Melusine, often compared to ancient goddesses and other fantastic creatures with serpentine forms, was and remains a powerful, multivalent symbol condensing the fears, myths, and cultural fantasies of a historical  period into a potent visual image.

We seek to assemble a volume of essays that examine the impact and legacy of the figure of Melusine in art, history, literature, and fields beyond. We envision a collection that charts the evolution of and investigates the many representative instances of this figure over time and space, with analyses that give consideration, in whole or in part, to the following questions:

  • What particular valence does the figure of the half-serpent Melusine hold for the time, place, and media in which she appears? How has the figure changed over time, and what forces have contributed to these changes?
  • How does the particular venue in which Melusine appears articulate a cultural approach to and embodiment of female power and its exercise?
  • How do the various installations of Melusine deal with the transgressiveness of her hybrid form, and the transformations which are an integral part of her story?
  • What about this figure resonates across time and space, and what meanings herald a particular historical moment?
  • What can Melusine teach us about reading history (or art, or indeed any sort of cultural artifact) and remaining open to the ways in which readers continually recreate meaning each time a  story is retold?

While any and all analyses that focus on Melusine will be given full consideration, essays that approach Melusines outside the work of Jean d’Arras are particularly welcome. We invite methodologies that are historically researched or theoretically grounded as well as descriptive in nature. Please send a proposal, including a short list  of projected sources, of 500-800 words along with a very brief CV to Misty Urban atmru4@cornell.edu by January 6, 2015. Final essays of 6-25 pages will be expected by December 31, 2015.