Daily Archives: 18 August 2015

Exhibition of Interest @ Queensland Museum: Medieval Power: Symbols & Splendour

Medieval Power: Symbols & Splendour
Queensland Museum

Dates: 11 December 2015 – 10 April 2016
Cost: Adults: $22; Concession: $19; Children (3-15 years): $12; Family (2A + 2C): $59; Groups (10+): $18; Schools: $10

The might of Medieval Europe will storm the walls of Queensland Museum later this year, in an exclusive exhibition from the British Museum, Medieval Power: Symbols & Splendour.

In a coup for Queensland, the Queensland Museum will be the first museum in the world and only one in Australia and New Zealand to host this incredible new exhibition curated by the British Museum.

Spanning the period AD 400 to 1500, Medieval Power explores a time when many of the countries and cultures of modern Europe were formed.

Be amazed by the precious gold, jewellery, seals, sculptures, stained glass and many other symbols of courtly life alongside tools of war, objects of religious significance and humble items from everyday life dating back to AD 400.

For full details and to purchase tickets, please visit: http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/medieval#.VdKW9fS1doN

Self-Commentary in Early Modern European Literature – Call For Papers

Self-Commentary in Early Modern European Literature
Durham (UK)
26-27 February 2016

Conference Website

Writers the world over have often accompanied their texts with a variety of annotations, marginal glosses, rubrications, and explicatory or narrative prose in an effort to direct and control the reception of their own works. Such self-exegetical devices do not merely serve as an external apparatus but effectively interact with the primary text by introducing a distinctive meta-literary dimension which, in turn, reveals complex dynamics affecting the very notions of authorship and readership. In the Renaissance, self-commentaries enjoyed unprecedented diffusion and found expression in a multiplicity of forms, which appear to be closely linked to momentous processes such as the legitimation of vernacular languages across Europe, the construction of a literary canon, the making of the modern author as we know it, and the self-representation of modern individual identities.

The Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Durham University (https://www.dur.ac.uk/imems) invites proposals for 20-minute papers on any aspect of self-commentary and self-exegesis in Early Modern European literature, broadly defined as ca. 1400 – ca. 1700. The conference will be aimed specifically at bringing together both established scholars and early career researchers working on diverse Renaissance literary traditions (including Neo-Latin and Slavonic languages), and promoting cross-cultural dialogue.

A number of fundamental questions will be addressed, including:

  • How do authorial commentaries mimic standard commentaries?
  • If commentaries ordinarily aim to facilitate textual comprehension and bridge the gap between a text and its readership, in what ways can this be true of self-commentaries as well? What further motivations and strategies are at work?
  • How do writers of the Renaissance position themselves in respect of the classical tradition?
  • How do they progressively depart from the medieval scholastic practice of glossing texts?
  • How do self-commentaries interact with the primary text and contribute to its reception?

For consideration, please send a title and abstract of ~300 words as well as a one-page CV to francesco.venturi@durham.ac.uk no later than 15 October 2015.

Thanks to the sponsorship of the Society for Renaissance Studies (SRS), a limited number of bursaries (contribution towards travel/accommodation) will be available for postgraduate and early career researchers.

Confirmed speakers include: Carlo Caruso (Durham), Hannah Crawforth (King’s College – London), Martin McLaughlin (Oxford), John O’Brien (Durham), and Federica Pich (Leeds).