Monthly Archives: September 2015

World Shakespeare Bibliography Online PhD Student Fellowship – Call For Applications

World Shakespeare Bibliography Online PhD Student Fellowship

The World Shakespeare Bibliography is seeking doctoral fellows interested in early modern literature and/or digital humanities.

The selected fellow will be an incoming PhD student in English at Texas A&M University. The World Shakespeare Bibliography PhD fellow will serve as a graduate research assistant in the English Department at Texas A&M, which pays a monthly stipend and includes health insurance. The University pays tuition for students holding fellowships and assistantships.

The World Shakespeare Bibliography PhD fellow will work for the World Shakespeare Bibliography for one year. The fellowship is for nine months, with a strong likelihood of summer support. After the first year, students will be shifted to a graduate teaching assistantship in the English Department, at the same funding level. Students are also eligible for many additional funding opportunities, through the English Department, the College of Liberal Arts, the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies, Cushing Memorial Library and Archives and the Melbern C. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research). Graduate assistantships are renewable for a total of five years, contingent on good progress toward the degree.

The successful applicant will have the opportunity to learn about the cutting edge of Shakespeare scholarship and will gain work experience in a longstanding global digital humanities project. Fellows will have the opportunity to work in a vibrant department with strengths in early modern studies and digital humanities. World Shakespeare Bibliography fellows will be encouraged to take advantage of the rare book collection at the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives and opportunities available through the Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture. The World Shakespeare Bibliography PhD fellow will be eligible to apply for funded conference travel, a student exchange to Aberystwyth, Wales, and further training programs such as the Digital Humanities Summer Institute. Texas A&M is a member of the Folger Institute Consortium, and our students and staff regularly participate in Folger Shakespeare Library events.

Ideal applicants will be strong academic candidates with interest in early modern studies and/or digital humanities. Basic computer skills required: specific training will be given upon arrival. The strongest candidates will be self-motivated, detail-oriented students looking forward to gaining new research skills. Second languages are helpful but not required.

To apply, please complete the application for Texas A&M’s PhD in English (information here). In your statement of purpose, please include a sentence that indicates your interest in applying for the World Shakespeare Bibliography PhD fellowship. Please append a 150-word paragraph detailing why you would be a good candidate for the fellowship and why it appeals to you. Applications are due 15 December, 2015 for fall 2016 admission and start of fellowship.

If you have questions about graduate study in English at Texas A&M University, please contact Professor Sally Robinson. If you have questions about the World Shakespeare Bibliography, please contact Professor Laura Estill or Dr. Krista May.

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: International Visitor Scheme, 2016-17 – Call For Applications

CHE International Visitor Scheme: Call for Applications 2016-17 for Early Career, Mid-Career, and Distinguished International Scholars

As part of its international research collaboration, the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE) will fund outstanding international scholars in the field to visit one or more of the Australian nodes for a period of up to four weeks, to work with members of the Centre on a research program of their choice.

Since the object of the International Visiting Research Fellowships is primarily to promote collaborative research, Fellows will not be required to undertake any undergraduate teaching, but will be required to deliver at least one paper or lecture.

The Fellow will be provided with a return airfare from their home to Australia, accommodation, and travel between Australian nodes of the Centre. A contribution towards reimbursement of eligible living expenses may be negotiated.

Intending applicants are eligible to apply if they are based at a university outside Australia (note: this includes Australian citizens currently working at universities outside Australia).

CHE is now issuing a call for applications for International Visiting Research Fellowships, to be taken over the period 1 July 2016 to the last working day for the relevant university in 2017 (on or just before 22 December).

Applications close 30 September, 2015.

For full details, please visit: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/international-visitor-scheme-call-for-applications-2016-17.aspx

New Routledge Series: Themes in Medieval and Early Modern History – Call For Proposals

Call for Book Proposals 2015

New Routledge Series: Themes in Medieval and Early Modern History

Routledge are currently seeking book proposals for an exciting new series entitled ‘Themes in Medieval and Early Modern History’. The editorial team aim to attract single and multiple authors whose interests and research material straddles both medieval and early modern worlds, encouraging readers to examine historical change over time as well as promoting understanding of the historical continuity between events in the past, and to challenge perceptions of periodisation. The target audience will comprise academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students. As higher education courses in History are increasingly taught over a wide chronological span, we aim to meet the demand for conceptual or thematic topics across periodised boundaries which provide a more focused perspective than many current works allow.

The primary aim of the series is to publish investigations into overarching themes such as reform, culture, society, economics, politics and warfare. In each case, the emphasis should be on continuity as well as change, and authors should seek to demonstrate how historical processes can be cyclical, as well as linear. Another key aim is to offer scholars the opportunity to expand their research, to challenge traditional boundaries and to present a fuller understanding of how historical processes develop. The chronological extent of the series is envisaged as ranging from the sixth to eighteenth centuries. We are keen to expand the geographical scope to non-European works or those which cross territorial boundaries, and the titles of individual books should reflect chronological or periodised terminology appropriate to the subject matter.

Suggested themes include: Military Revolutions; Conquest; Religious Conflict; Kingship and/or Queenship; Revolt and revolution; Culture and society; Renaissance; Witchcraft; Death; Poverty; Science; the Environment; Gender; Family; Childhood; Food; Disease; Trade; Material Culture. We are also happy to accept proposals relating to specific geographical areas. Any scholar or scholars who wish to contribute to the series will be asked to make sure that they address broad themes which resonate across medieval, renaissance and early modern boundaries.

For more information about the series and the proposal process, please contact the series editor Dr. Natasha Hodgson at Natasha.Hodgson@ntu.ac.uk

ANZAMEMS Member News: Aidan Norrie – Thoughts on the 10th ANZAMEMS Conference @ UQ, July 2015

Aidan Norrie, Doctoral Candidate, The University of Otago, NZ

Thoughts on #ANZAMEMS2015

I had been looking forward to attending the 2015 ANZAMEMS conference since UQ was announced as the venue. After moving from UQ to the University of Otago in New Zealand to undertake my postgraduate research, I was especially excited to come back and visit UQ, and to engage with the vibrant Medieval and Early Modernist scene that New Zealand is sadly lacking. Professor Laura L. Knoppers’ keynote on Andrew Marvell and the Aesthetics of Disgust served as my welcome to the conference – and what a welcome it was! It was a fascinating lecture that was supported by a visually rich PowerPoint: thank-you to the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions for sponsoring Professor Knoppers’ visit. The first panel I attended during the day – ‘Dissecting the Body’ – was very interesting. All three presenters gave lively and engaging presentations: and given the rather grim nature of their topics, this was no easy task. The other panel I attended – ‘In Sickness and In Health’ – was well beyond the bounds of my own research interests, but was nevertheless a fascinating and engaging experience that got me thinking about my own period in different ways. Karin Sellberg’s presentation was particularly thought provoking, and served as a timely reminder that anachronistic views of the past as ‘primitive’ when compared to the present have no place in modern historiography.

Professor Alexandra Walsham’s keynote on the Thursday of the conference was definitely a highlight for me. Her masterful analysis of the intersection between collective memory and material culture shows how fruitful interdisciplinary work can be. The Centre for the History of European Discourses did us all a great favour in sponsoring her visit. I particularly enjoyed being able to sit in on CHE’s session, ‘Facial feeling in Early Modern England,’ as all three speakers gave fascinating talks on very different aspects of the intersection of emotions and Early Modern England. The afternoon panel, ‘Late Medieval Masculinities,’ was also beyond the bounds of my research, but was deeply interesting. As I tweeted during the session, it was particularly refreshing to listen to Deborah Seiler’s presentation that moved beyond the ridiculous obsession with Edward II and the hot poker! Amanda McVitty’s presentation on early fifteenth-century treason trials was also well delivered and informative. The conference dinner on Thursday night was also an excellent networking opportunity, and I’d again like to thank CHE for sponsoring postgraduate attendees, as I would not have been able to attend the dinner otherwise.

My presentation was up on Friday afternoon. While this was by no means my first conference presentation, it was the first delivered at a conference with such a large group of Early Modernists present. Not only did the various pieces of technology all agree to work simultaneously, I also received some insightful and helpful questions after my presentation. I was also particularly grateful to Kiera Naylor for live-tweeting my presentation (you can check it out here: https://storify.com/mskieralouise/anzamems-2015-day-4).

The widespread and co-ordinated use of the conference hashtag – #ANZAMEMS2015 – was particularly noteworthy, and has definitely helped me connect with sessions I wasn’t able to attend due to clashes (although I would suggest we all put our thinking caps on and try to come up with a hashtag that doesn’t take up almost 10% of our character limit). Finally, I would like to extend my admiration to the organising committee – and in particular, the conference chair Dolly MacKinnon – for the outstanding organisation and running of the conference. It was a pleasure to attend such a well-coordinated event: ANZAMEMS 2015 at UQ has set the bar high for Victoria University of Wellington in 2017!

Emotions: Movement, Cultural Contact and Exchange, 1100-1800 – Call For Papers

Emotions: Movement, Cultural Contact and Exchange, 1100-1800 – Call For Papers
Freie Universität Berlin
30 June – 2 July, 2016

Speakers:

  • Professor Lyndal Roper, Regius Professor of History University of Oxford
  • Professor Monique Scheer, Historical and Cultural Anthropology, University of Tübingen
  • Professor Laura M. Stevens, Department of English, University of Tulsa

Conference Committee:

  • Professor Daniela Hacke (Freie Universität Berlin)
  • Professor Claudia Jarzebowski (Freie Universität Berlin)
  • Professor Andrew Lynch (University of Western Australia)
  • Associate Professor Jacqueline Van Gent (University of Western Australia)
  • Professor Charles Zika (University of Melbourne)

Emotions: Movement, Cultural Contact and Exchange, 1100-1800 is an international conference jointly sponsored by the Freie Universität Berlin and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, Europe 1100-1800, with the further involvement of scholars from The Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin. It will draw on a broad range of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary expertise in addressing the history of emotions in relation to cross-cultural movement, exchange, contact and changing connections in the later medieval and early modern periods. The conference thus brings together two major areas in contemporary Humanities: the study of how emotions were understood, expressed and performed in pre-modern contexts, both by individuals and within larger groups and communities; and the study of pre-modern cultural movements, contacts, exchanges and understandings, within Europe and between non-Europeans and Europeans.

The period 1100-1800 saw a vast expansion of cultural movement through travel and exploration, migration, mercantile and missionary activity, and colonial ventures. On pilgrimage routes to slave routes, European culture was on the move and opened up to incomers, bringing people, goods and aesthetic objects from different backgrounds into close contact, often for the first time. Individuals and societies had unprecedented opportunities for new forms of cultural encounter and conflict. One major question for the conference to consider is finding the appropriate theory and methodology that will account for the place of emotions in this varied history.

Such cross-cultural encounters took place within a context of beliefs – popular, religious and scientific – that were propagated in literary, historiographical and visual sources, with a heritage reaching back to the classical period, and with a long religious tradition. One strand of the conference will deal with the changing literary and visual cultures that mediated European understandings of African, Mediterranean and Asian peoples, practices and environments, and which reveal the image of Europe and Europeans in other regions. Literary works (travel narratives, histories, epics and romances, hagiography), theatrical performances, visual artefacts and musical compositions were highly important in forming the emotional character of cross-cultural contacts, and the nature of literary, visual and performance culture. They responded to new cultural influences and created the emotional habits and practices through which cultural understandings were received and interpreted.

The conference will also explore the role emotions played in shaping early modern and late colonial encounters between indigenous peoples and Europeans. This might include the emotions embedded in missionary work and conversion, as viewed from both sides of these transactions, and in European settlements built on slavery. Evidence is provided by the accounts of participants, in the records of European and colonial government sponsoring and regulating their populations, in personal correspondence, and also in the associated visual and material record, including maps and ethnographic illustrations, propaganda and other responses by indigenous subjects.

Tracing emotional cultural movements also invites consideration of the variety of spaces – ships, villages, churches, courts, rituals and dreams – in which cultural movements and contacts occurred, and emotive responses to environmental features. This might also include the emotional responses of non-Europeans who found themselves in European environments.

More generally, the conference will consider the affective strategies of early modern Europeans in the acquisition, exchange and display of colonial objects. What emotional transformations did objects undergo in their passage across Europe and between European and other societies? What was the role of emotions in the formation of early ethnographic texts and collections, and in the museum culture of early modern Europe?

This last question leads to the issue of retrospective emotions, as observers in modernity look back on the long history of cross-cultural contact and write its course. How have their desires and emotional projections influenced understanding and reception?

Emotions: Movement, Cultural Contact and Exchange, 1100-1800 will extend over two-and-a-half days, including three plenary sessions by distinguished invited speakers, several Round Table discussion groups, and numerous panels consisting of three 20 minute papers plus discussion. One or more refereed publications of essays based on proceedings are expected.

Paper proposals

For individual paper proposals, individuals should submit a paper title, abstract (c. 250 words), your name, brief biography (no more than 100 words), institutional affiliation and status and contact details. For panel proposals, the organiser of the panel should submit the same information for each of the three speakers, and the name of the person to chair the panel. Please send the proposals to Ms Francisca Hoyer (FU Berlin) and Ms Pam Bond (CHE) by 31 October, 2015.

Professor Anthony Bale, UWA CMEMS / PMRG / CHE Public Lecture

UWA Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Studies / PMRG / ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Public Lecture:
“Where did Margery Kempe Cry?” by Professor Anthony Bale (Birkbeck, University of London)

Date: Friday 11 September 2015
Time: 6:00pm-7:00pm
Venue: Austin Lecture Theatre (First Floor, Arts Building), UWA

RSVPs not required – just come along!

The medieval English mystic Margery Kempe (c. 1373–c. 1439) is famous for having been given ‘the gift of tears’ – this caused her to cry, wail, scream, weep, and sob, uncontrollably and publicly. This lecture will describe the ’emotional geography’ of Kempe’s tears, and focus on providing a detailed account of two of Kempe’s moments of weeping during her pilgrimage to Palestine.

For info about Professor Bale, see: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/…/our-st…/full-time-academic-staff/bale

Courtly Pastimes: The Fifteenth Triennial International Courtly Literature Society Congress – Call For Papers

Courtly Pastimes: The Fifteenth Triennial International Courtly Literature Society Congress
University of Kentucky, Lexington
24–29 July, 2016

Paper topics may include, but not be limited to:

  • Hunting, falconry, jousting and tournaments
  • Festivals, ceremonies and celebrations
  • Games and sports
  • Dance, music, songs and poetry
  • The Garden: Plants and Nature (real or symbolic, in treatises, in visual arts)
  • Animals (real, mythical, literary, heraldic, emblematic)
  • Domestic animals (horses, lap dogs, hunting dogs, household cats)
  • Exotic pets
  • Reading and writing
  • Sewing, embroidery, textile arts
  • Amorous dalliances
  • Courtly spaces: Decorous interiors, decorative objects, fabrics and furnishings
  • Warriors dismounted: Knights at court (courtly conduct, speech, dress)
  • Courtly Elements in Epic
  • Special Topic: 500 Years of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (anniversary of publication of the first edition)

Additional topics concerning medieval and Renaissance era courts of any country are welcomed.

Papers may be presented in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese.
Presenters are asked to respect a twenty-minute limit on three-person panels.
Organized sessions (4-paper maximum) or round tables are encouraged.

Plenary Speakers and Concert

  • Lori Walters, The Florida State University, “Jeux à vendre: Poetic and Amorous Games in Christine de Pizan’s Queen’s Manuscript (London, BL, Harley 4431)”
  • Kristen Figg, Kent State University, “Blind Man’s Buff: From Children’s Games to Pleasure Gardens in late medieval France and England”
  • Pia Cuneo, University of Arizona, “Emblazoned Saddles: The Courtly Life of Horses in late medieval / early modern Germany”
  • Elizabeth Tobey, University of Maryland, “The Sport of Dukes: Palios, Stallions and Racing Stables in Renaissance Italy”
  • Courtly music in concert to be performed by Liber Ensemble for Early Music

All conferees must be members in good standing of their respective ICLS branch by the time of the Congress. Graduate students are kindly requested to include a letter of introduction from their supervising professor. Deadline for Submission of Papers (title and abstract, not over 300 words): 1 December, 2015. Abstracts will be posted electronically on the Congress webpage: http://icls2016.as.uky.edu. For particular concerns, contact the Congress organizer: dr.gloria.allaire@hotmail.com

We invite your participation!

Shakespeare and Our Times – Call For Papers

“Shakespeare and Our Times”
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA.
April 14-16, 2016

Conference Website

An interdisciplinary, international conference on the significance of Shakespeare in the early twenty-first century

Plenary speakers:

  • Jonathan Dollimore, Independent Scholar of Early Modern Studies and Shakespeare, Editor of Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism
  • Ania Loomba, Catherine Bryson Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania, Author of Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism
  • Leah Marcus, Edwin Mims Professor of English, Vanderbilt University

What does William Shakespeare mean to us today, and what traces of his thinking can still be seen in our lives? In the context of a week-long, multi-faceted investigation of Shakespeare’s continued presence in our cultural landscape, this three-day conference will probe contemporary manifestations of the Bard. To mark the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death we will seek his footprint as we question the legacy of the early colonial mindset in the twenty-first century. Why does this figure among all others endure so persistently? At stake are questions of global imperialism and how it intersects with race, ethnicity, gender, and Shakespeare’s extended influence in what were, for him, newly-emerging colonial locales. How, then, is Shakespeare performed, translated, analyzed today?

Abstracts and panel proposals welcome on these and other topics:

  • Shakespeare and Popular Culture
  • Gender/Sexuality in Shakespeare
  • Shakespeare and the Idea of the Posthuman
  • Shakespeare’s Cities
  • Shakespeare and International Relations
  • Shakespeare and the Sciences
  • Why Shakespeare? Shakespeare for Whom?
  • Shakespeare and Disaster Management
  • Shakespeare and Contemporary Censorship
  • Translating Shakespeare
  • The Rhetoric of Shakespeare
  • Shakespeare and America, Shakespeare in America
  • Shakespeare’s Music
  • Staging Shakespeare, Filming Shakespeare, Now
  • Shakespeare and Language
  • Theorizing Shakespeare in the Twenty-First century

250-word abstracts for individual 20-minute papers, or 3-paper panel sessions can be submitted online at http://goo.gl/forms/Cd582zZpa1 by September 15, 2015. Advanced graduate students welcome to apply.

Inquiries about the conference can be sent to:

Franklin Research Grants – Call For Applications

Since 1933, the American Philosophical Society has awarded small grants to scholars in order to support the cost of research leading to publication in all areas of knowledge. In 2014–2015 the Franklin Research Grants program awarded $491,700 to 97 scholars, and the Society expects to make a similar number of awards in this year’s competition. The Franklin program is particularly designed to help meet the costs of travel to libraries and archives for research purposes; the purchase of microfilm, photocopies, or equivalent research materials; the costs associated with fieldwork; or laboratory research expenses.

Franklin grants are made for noncommercial research. They are not intended to meet the expenses of attending conferences or the costs of publication. The Society does not pay overhead or indirect costs to any institution, and grant funds are not to be used to pay income tax on the award. Grants will not be made to replace salary during a leave of absence or earnings from summer teaching; pay living expenses while working at home; cover the costs of consultants or research assistants; or purchase permanent equipment such as computers, cameras, tape recorders, or laboratory apparatus.

Eligibility: Applicants are expected to have a doctorate or to have published work of doctoral character and quality. Ph.D. candidates are not eligible to apply, but the Society is especially interested in supporting the work of young scholars who have recently received the doctorate.

Award: From $1,000 to $6,000.

Deadlines: October 1, for a January 2016 decision for work in February 2016 through January 2017
December 1, for a March 2016 decision for work in April 2016 through January 2017

Full information and access to the application portal is available at www.amphilsoc.org/grants/franklin

Uni of Melbourne, Ian Potter Museum – Rothschild Prayer Book: Exhibition and Free Public Lectures

An Illumination: the Rothschild Prayer Book & other works from the Kerry Stokes Collection c.1280-1685
The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne
28 Aug-15 Nov 2015

Opening hours
Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm
Saturday and Sunday 12 noon to 5pm
Monday closed

FREE ADMISSION

An Illumination: the Rothschild Prayer Book & other works from the Kerry Stokes Collection c.1280-1685 provides an opportunity for Australian audiences to view this specific aspect of the Kerry Stokes Collection for the first time. While Mr Stokes has assiduously built his private collection for over forty years, many of the works included in this exhibition, such as the luminous examples of medieval stained glass, the representation of gilt and polychrome medieval sculpture and the Pieter Brueghel the Younger painting Calvary (1615), reflect an acquisitions program stimulated by the purchase of the extraordinary Rothschild Prayer Book (c.1505-1510) in early 2014.

The Rothschild Prayer Book is a masterpiece of Flemish Renaissance art. One of the finest illuminated manuscripts in private hands, this jewel-like Book of Hours originated in Ghent in the southern Netherlands, and contains lavish illustrations by recognised hands, including some of the most renowned illuminators of their day.

The Kerry Stokes Collection contains many pieces that date from the time of the Enlightenment, and a number of items that were created from the period that witnessed the inception of the book and the cultural evolution that followed. Along with the Rothschild Prayer Book, An Illumination contains 40 other manuscripts and decorated incunabula (books, pamphlets or other documents that are printed, and not handwritten) and a selection of over 20 paintings and sculptures; encompassing portraits, devotional panels, crafted furniture and stained-glass sequences. As such, the exhibition provides an invaluable context for the development, creation and use of its centerpiece, the Rothschild Prayer Book, while providing a multi-layered experience of the late Medieval and Renaissance period through a selection of significant religious and secular objects and art works.

To accompany the exhibition the University of Melbourne is offering a series of free public lecturers and floor talks that will bring to life many of the extraordinary items on display. For more details please visit: http://events.unimelb.edu.au/illumination.