Daily Archives: 11 December 2014

Early Modern Cross-Cultural Conversions Seminar Series – Call For Applications

Early Modern Cross-Cultural Conversions
Summer Research Seminar
University of Cambridge
June 28 to July 26, 2015

Sponsored by Early Modern Conversions: Cultures, Religions, Cognitive Ecologies headquartered at the Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, McGill University, and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada “Early Modern Cross-Cultural Conversions” is a summer seminar that addresses the theme of conversion by focusing on the mobility of people, things, and forms of knowledge across religious, social, and geographical boundaries. Cross-cultural interaction generated a rich archive of material and immaterial forms—music, clocks, textiles, clothes, books, instruments, diagrams, drawings, miniatures, portraits, maps, antiquities, paintings, performances—and opens up understanding of ways in which artifacts activated conversations and creativity. By exploring cross-cultural interaction in cosmopolitan centers, across regions, and across bodies of water, the seminar will explore conversion not only as a religious phenomenon but also as a form of early modern imagination and thinking.

Doctoral students in their final year, postdocs, and junior faculty are invited to apply to take part in the research seminar by defining projects that range in time from the late fifteenth- through the seventeenth century. Projects may attend to cross-cultural interplay and its potential to foster imagination and expressiveness, as well as ways in which play is constrained. Projects might engage with soundscapes, diplomacy, scientific exchanges, manufacturing, patterns and motifs, architectural materials, urbanism, travellers, ships, guidebooks, collecting, alchemy, geography, botany, musical repertories, instruments, and theatre. One premise of the seminar is that societies and cultures are always already entangled, and thus we aim to shift the focus away from terms of reference such as identity, otherness, and hybridity to processes of conversion—material and immaterial conversions, remediations, reorientations, and transformations. We will explore movement, wandering, migration, experimentation, improvisation, ornamentation, and sensation in dialogue with diverse media and spaces, as well as early modern social, religious, and political investments.

Usually meeting during the afternoons, the seminar will include discussions of readings and analysis of historical, literary, pictorial, material, and musical sources as participants refine their own projects. Cambridge allows for interaction with other researchers, including postdoctoral fellows associated with CRASSH. Fieldtrips during the seminar include King’s College Chapel and the Fitzwilliam Museum, with optional visits to Holkham Hall and the exhibition of artworks from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, then on display at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich.

Travel and accommodation will be provided by the Early Modern Conversions Project. Seminar participants will have rooms at Selwyn College for the duration of the seminar and team meeting. At the end of the seminar, participants will participate in the annual team meeting of the Early Modern Conversions project, in Cambridge, 23-26 July. Cambridge offers rich resources for study including King’s College Library, the University Library, and the city’s museums: http://www.cam.ac.uk/museums-and-collections.

Doctoral candidates in their final year of study, recent doctoral graduates, and junior faculty are invited to apply to participate. Candidate s should send a cover letter, CV, research proposal (max 5pp) and article-length writing sample to conversions@mcgill.ca by 15 December 2014. Two confidential letters of recommendation should be sent to the same address by the same deadline; referees are asked to indicate the name of the candidate in the subject line of their email. At least one referee should confirm time to completion for applicants who have not yet graduated.

Madness: Sacred and Profane – Call For Papers

Madness: Sacred and Profane
The Ninth International Conference of the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies
National Taiwan University
23-24 October, 2015

Conference Website

Madness, as one of the most intriguing of all cultural questions, has challenged thinkers since antiquity. For instance, Plato in Phaedrus pointed out that divine madness can be associated with creative insanity of seers and poets. In Greek tragedies, madness at times was perceived as the form of divine punishment to drive heroes mad. While Cicero stated that virtue is the only medicine for the diseased mind, Galen’s humoral theory construed the body as the main cause of madness. In courtly poetry, “fol’amor” (mad love) indicated unbridled passion. Thomas Hoccleve lived his madness as divine possession and a humoral imbalance. Hieronymus Bosch’s 1480 painting depicts a doctor cutting the stone of folly from the forehead of a madman. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia’s madness is demonstrated through sexual deviance.

To explore madness as an important question, this conference welcomes papers from scholars working in all fields within Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance studies. We are especially interested in papers that investigate ways in which madness, in all its forms, has been conceived, presented, and interpreted. We also encourage new theoretical frameworks within which to consider madness.

Topics for consideration may include (but are not limited to):

  • Critical explorations of madness/sanity/insanity
  • Politics of madness (the subversive/prophetic/unrestrained)
  • Boundaries of madness/normality/rationality
  • Visualization of madness
  • Sacred forms of madness
  • Madness and art
  • Madness and creativity
  • Madness and the emotions
  • Madness and gender
  • Madness and language
  • Madness and medicine
  • Madness and the moralistic/legislative
  • Madness and obsessions
  • Madness and sexuality
  • Madness and society
  • Madness and wizardry

TACMRS warmly invites papers that reach beyond the traditional chronological and disciplinary borders of Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies. Please submit proposals (250 words) along with a one-page CV to TACMRS.NTU@gmail.com by 1 February 2015.

The Conference will take place on 23-24 October 2015 at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. The conference will provide accommodation for all selected speakers from outside the Taipei area. The Conference is sponsored and administered by the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies (TACMRS). For more information, please visit the 2015 TACMRS Conference website: http://www.forex.ntu.edu.tw/tacmrs.