Monthly Archives: October 2014

ANZAMEMS Conference Panel: Facial Feeling – Call For Papers

Call for Papers for a panel session at Tenth Biennial ANZAMEMS Conference, to be held at the University of Queensland on the 14–18 July 2015:

Facial Feeling

How does the face signify or express emotion in medieval and early modern culture? Papers are invited for one or perhaps two multidisciplinary panels that would consider the face as a site of passionate or emotional feeling in medieval and early modern culture, whether in textual, visual or material form. How do medieval and early modern poets, dramatists, musicians, writers, thinkers, artists, philosophers and theologians conceptualise the face (human? divine? angelic? demonic? animal?) and its capacity to express, signify, or conceal emotion? How does the face “speak” to us? What is the relationship between iconic, indexical and individualised emotions?

Papers may wish to consider the following topics:

  • Emotional encounters between the faces of the human and the non-human, or faces of different ethnicities
  • The relation between text and image in the representation of emotion (e.g. banderoles expressing words or lyrics in visual images, emblem books, etc. )
  • Visual representations of the faces of the virtues, vices and passions (in manuscripts, printed books, woodcuts, painting, sculpture, stained glass, etc.)
  • Metaphors, similes, and other forms of rhetorical discourse about the face
  • Literary and dramatic descriptions and characterisations of facial emotion
  • Medieval and early modern philosophical, theological, scientific or medical discourse about the face

Preliminary inquiries are welcome, but the final deadline for a 200-word proposal and brief biographical note (not more than 50 words) is Monday, October 27th, Inquiries and/or proposals should be emailed to: sjtrigg@unimelb.edu.au.

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-projects/speaking-faces-describing-the-facial-expression-of-emotion.aspx?tax_3140=3151&page=2

ANZAMEMS Conference website: http://anzamems.org/?page_id=186

The History of the Body – Call For Papers

The History of the Body: Approaches and Directions
One day Colloquium
Institute of Historical Research, London
May 16, 2015

Many historians have pointed out that “the body” is a worryingly broad historical theme, covering topics as diverse as medicine, dancing, gesture, clothing, sexuality, gender, childhood, animals, ageing, class, death, food, race, sport, and spirituality. This one day colloquium asks if any broader approaches and directions hold these themes together. Following on from the colloquium ‘What is the History of the Body?’, held at the Institute of Historical Research in March 2014, we invite proposals for papers on any aspect of the history of the body.

Has the history of the body run its course, or are there topics that remain under-explored? How have the sources historians turn to changed, and how have their theoretical motivations evolved? Does ‘experience’ still matter, or are discourses the central concern? What relationship does the history of the body have to other recent historiographical trends, such as the history of emotions and the history of the senses? What different shapes has the historiography of the body taken in different parts of the world? Is there value to a ‘post-human’ turn in the history of the body, and in what senses do monsters, animals, supernatural beings, or machines belong to the history of the body? These questions point to a fundamental problem: is there, or should there be, a history of the body?

Papers should consist of case studies with wider implications for how historians do history about bodies. We particularly invite postgraduate and early career researchers to submit proposals, and welcome papers on a variety of geographical areas and periods.

Proposals for 20 minute papers should be sent to Kate Imy (Rutgers) and Will Pooley (University of Oxford) at historyofthebodyihr@gmail.com by December 1, 2014.

Supported by the Institute of Historical Research.

Emotions and Feelings in the Middle Ages – Call For Papers

Literature Compass invites contributions for a special issue on emotions and feelings in the Middle Ages. We are seeking submissions that treat medieval emotions and feelings from a variety of cultures and literatures. Submissions may be concerned with issues such as:

  • literary descriptions of emotional states; the meanings and significations of emotions
  • the engagement of the audience’s emotions; affective literacy; mediated emotions
  • methodological and archival challenges in approaching emotions in the Middle Ages
  • rhetorics, languages and social conventions concerning the emotions and medieval definitions of emotion; medieval conventions of ‘interiority’ or ‘subjectivity’
  • communal events and processes (for example, liturgy, drama, pilgrimage) involving emotional engagement and response; social consequences of emotional performance
  • the critical history of medieval emotions, and the post-medieval discussion of emotion in medieval culture; continuities and discontinuities between medieval and post-medieval emotions
  • the relationship between emotions and the body in medieval culture

Inquiries and Proposals should be sent to both editors of the special issue by:
 December 1, 2014 (later inquiries are acceptable provided the article submission deadline will be honored). 

Article submissions by: March 1, 2015.

More information on Literature Compass can be found here: http://literature-compass.com/
For more details on submission and the manuscript review process,
 please see: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1741-4113/homepage/ForAuthors.html
Editors: Anthony Bale (a.bale@bbk.ac.uk) and Lynn Ramey (lynn.ramey@vanderbilt.edu).

Dr Loretta Dolan, UWA: PMRG / CMEMS Public Lecture

“‘Compelled bie his father’: the phenomenon of child marriage in sixteenth-century northern England,” Dr Loretta Dolan (UWA)

Date: 5 November, 2014
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Webb Lecture Theatre (Geography & Geology Building), University of Western Australia

All welcome!

Abstract: The purpose of my research on child marriage is to give a clearer understanding of how the practice of child marriage affected the nurture of the child. By analysing the emotional responses and reactions of children to their marriages, we are able to appreciate the practice from the perspective of the child. This gives children a voice though which we can observe conflicts with authority and how children exercised agency in relation to their marriages. Ecclesiastical depositions form the basis of my research with the evidence given by the witnesses in matrimonial court cases providing social detail as well as the circumstances surrounding the marriage. They reveal why child marriages had occurred. All hinge on agreements between parents and other adults whilst none identify the agency of the child in choosing their own marriage partner. Evident are negotiations concerning debts, identification of one of the parties as being a ‘good bargain’, the marriage of stepchildren due to the union of their parents, marriage of wards, coercion of the child by adults other than their parents, and lastly, compulsion of family and friends. All were considered valid motives for the marriages to take place. Depositions themselves also allow for a considerable range of social class situations to be analysed. Reputation and honour was of paramount concern to people who used the services of the Church courts, and all were eager to defend their reputations.

ANZAMEMS Conference Panel: The Land and Landscapes of Emotion in War – Call For Papers

Call for Papers for a panel session at Tenth Biennial ANZAMEMS Conference, to be held at the University of Queensland on the 14–18 July 2015:

The Land and Landscapes of Emotion in War

The thematic relation of war to ideas of ‘the land’ is surpassingly long-lived: from the Medieval through the Romantic periods, war can – and must – be read in the natural landscape. In numerous medieval and early modern literary and historical texts, the ravages of war are recorded in descriptions of the wasteland: the land laid waste, or its agricultural potential futilely ‘wasted’, by the effects of war. Land itself can become a record of war, and a space in which war’s emotions can be inscribed and interpreted. We invite contributions of 20-minute papers to a session on the land and landscapes in war writing, focusing on the ways in which land represents, commemorates, or even rejects the desolation and destruction of war. We invite papers that pay particular attention to textual associations of the land with emotional affect, whether before, during or after wartime. In what ways might the emotions of war and the effects of violent conflict be written and read in the landscape? How and where can land itself be said to emote? What is the relationship between the physical land and earth, death or burial; or idealised land as patria, yearned for and lamented, as well as fought over or on?

Papers may wish to consider these or other aspects of the land and emotion in literary and historical records of war, from the medieval period up to the eighteenth century, and might include medieval or early modern versions of the classical and early medieval associations of land and war; or might approach the subject in post-1800 ‘medievalist’ or ‘early modernist’ texts, including, but not limited to, poetry, novels, theatre and film.

Wider topics linking war and land could address:

  • War in Georgic and Pastoral traditions
  • War burial and commemoration
  • ‘Waste’ and ‘wasted’ land: war and agriculture
  • ‘Grim war’ and ‘smiling peace’: land, embodiment and personification in war
  • Dispossession, depopulation and trauma in war
  • Bleeding earth: the land in civil war
  • Exile and nostalgia in war
  • Viewing the land at war / in war
  • War, nature and ecology
  • Weather, seasons and the ‘atmosphere’ of war
  • The cartographic / topographic imaginary of war
  • ‘Ownership’, use and possession of land in war
  • National landscapes of war

Please submit a 200-word proposal and brief biographical note (not more than 50 words) by Friday, October 24 to:

andrew.lynch@uwa.edu.au; stephanie.downes@unimelb.edu.au; or katrina.oloughlin@uwa.edu.au

Conference website: http://anzamems.org/?page_id=186
ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/research-projects/the-emotions-in-medieval-war-literature.aspx

Prof. Zygmunt G. Baranski, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Public Lecture

“Mind over Affect: Some Thoughts on Dante and Emotions” Prof. Zygmunt G. Baranski (Cambridge, UK/Notre Dame, USA)

Date: Wednesday 22 October
Time: 6:30pm
Venue: Webb Lecture Theatre (Geography & Geology Building), University of Western Australia

The study of the emotions has become increasingly central to medieval studies. The lecture begins by discussing the unsystematic contribution that Dante scholarship has made to the question since the early twentieth century, and addresses some questions of method relating to the analysis of the poet’s engagement with contemporary ideas on the ties between reason and passion. It will then focus on two areas – one ideological, the nature of heavenly beatitude, the other poetic and rhetorical, the poet’s addresses to the reader in the Commedia – in which Dante’s representation of the interplay between the intellect and the emotions effectively illustrates his thinking on each, as well as their interconnections.

Zygmunt G. Barański is Serena Professor of Italian Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and Notre Dame Chair of Dante & Italian Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has published extensively on Dante and on medieval and modern Italian literature and culture, and is currently completing a book on Dante’s intellectual formation. For many years he was senior editor of The Italianist, and currently holds the same position with Le tre corone.

Law, Custom and Ritual in the Medieval Mediterranean – Call For Papers

Law, Custom and Ritual in the Medieval Mediterranean
Fourth biennial conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean
University of Lincoln
13-15 July, 2015

Conference Website

We are pleased to announce that the fourth biennial conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean will take place at the University of Lincoln from Monday 13 July to Wednesday 15 July, 2015.

The theme of the conference is “Law, Custom and Ritual in the Medieval Mediterranean” and the keynotes will be delivered by Professor Maribel Fierro (CSIC, Madrid: “Obedience to the ruler in the Medieval Islamic West: legal and historical perspectives”) and Dr Andrew Marsham (University of Edinburgh: “Rituals of accession in early Islam: a comparative perspective”).

We welcome both individual papers and panel proposals (please, fill in this form).

Those who are interested in presenting at the conference might consider the following sub-themes when putting together their abstracts (but are by no means limited to them):

  • Roman, Canon and municipal law in the medieval Mediterranean
  • Lawyers: their identities, status and practice
  • Disputes, dispute settlement
  • Legal agreements (e.g. charters, treaties)
  • Law codes and codification
  • Manuscripts of law codes, charters, etc.
  • Legal training in the medieval Mediterranean
  • Ritual sites and ritual objects
  • Law, treaties and rituals in visual and material culture
  • Trading and other contractual agreements
  • Oath-making and oath-breaking
  • Outlaws, criminals and rebels
  • Scribal practices and legal record-keeping

We are also interested in papers that propose to take a more openly theoretical look at law, ritual and custom in our period, digital humanities approaches to the topic, and would also consider proposals that discuss the (contemporary) teaching of law, ritual and custom in the medieval Mediterranean.

We invite 200-300 word abstracts for individual 20 minute papers relating to the conference theme. Participants are also encouraged to submit proposals for sessions of 3 papers – in this case, the session proposer should collate the three abstracts and submit them together, indicating clearly in a covering letter/ email the rationale behind the planned session. Please, fill in this form.

Abstracts for individual papers and proposals for sessions should be emailed to the conference email address smmconference2015@gmail.com by the end of the day on Saturday 18 October, 2014.

We will offer up to 10 bursaries for MA and PhD students who are interested in presenting at the Conference. The bursaries, which will cover the Conference fees, will be assigned to those proposals which best fit the theme of the Conference. If you would like to apply for a bursary, please specify in your emails that you are PhD students in need of assistance.

Presenters will be invited to submit their papers for publication in the Society’s journal, Al Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean, published by Taylor and Francis. Previous conferences have resulted in the publication of special issues of the journal as well as individual articles.

Specific questions about the conference can be directed to the conference organisers, Dr Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo and Dr Jamie Wood at the conference email address: smmconference2015@gmail.com.

Fellowships at The Huntington, 2015-2016

The Huntington is an independent research center with holdings in British and American history, literature, art history, and the history of science and medicine. The Library collections range chronologically from the eleventh century to the present and include seven million manuscripts, 420,000 rare books, 275,000 reference works, and 1.3 million photographs, prints, and ephemera. The Burndy Library consists of some 67,000 rare books and reference volumes in the history of science and technology, as well as an important collection of scientific instruments. Within the general fields listed above there are many areas of special strength, including: Middle Ages, Renaissance, 19th- and 20th-century literature, British drama, Colonial America, American Civil War, Western America, and California. The Art Collections contain notable British and American paintings, fine prints, photographs, and an art reference library. In the library of the Botanical Gardens is a broad collection of reference works in botany, horticulture, and gardening.

The Huntington will award to scholars over 150 fellowships for the academic year 2015-2016. These fellowships derive from a variety of funding sources and have different terms. Recipients of all fellowships are expected to be in continuous residence at the Huntington and to participate in and make a contribution to its intellectual life.

Application deadline for all fellowships: Nov. 15, 2014. (Please note this is an earlier deadline than in past years.)

For more information on the fellowships and how to apply, please visit: http://www.huntington.org/WebAssets/Templates/content.aspx?id=566

Ceræ – Volume 1 Online Now! Submissions for Volume 2 – due Oct 15, 2014

Ceræ: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies is delighted to present its inaugural issue on the theme of ‘Emotions in History’, now available online at http://openjournals.arts.uwa.edu.au/index.php/cerae/issue/current. The contributions to this volume cover an exciting (and impressive) range of subjects which is a testament to the complexity and scope of this topic—watch this blog for future feature discussions on individual articles. We are also pleased to be able to present a number of reviews of both books and digital humanities projects.

We are also happy to announce that the deadline for submissions to Volume 2 has now been extended to 15 October, and that we are currently accepting both non-themed contributions, and submissions on the theme of ‘Transitions, Fractures and Fragments’. Submissions can be made online. Thanks to the generosity of the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at UWA, we will be offering a prize of $400 for the best article by a graduate student or early career researcher published in this volume.

The link to the volume itself is available here: http://openjournals.arts.uwa.edu.au/index.php/cerae/index

The blog post is available here: http://ceraejournal.com/2014/10/03/volume-1-2014-emotions-in-history-launch/