Britain and the World Conference 2016
Senate House, University of London, London, UK
23-25 June, 2016

This is the call for papers for the ninth annual Britain and the World Conference, which will be in London in June 2016. Paper and panel proposals should focus on Britain’s interactions with the world from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the present. Established scholars, scholars at the beginning of their careers, and graduate students are all equally welcome to apply and present at the conference.

The keynote speaker is Professor Catherine Hall (University College London), and the three plenary speakers are Professor Stephen Conway (University College London), Professor Margaret Hunt (Uppsala University), and Professor Philip Murphy (Institute of Commonwealth Studies).

The Britain and the World Conference is always a very sociable conference, and the 2016 conference will be no different, with the Conference Icebreaker on the Thursday evening, the Dinner Party on the Friday evening, and a post-conference night out in Soho beginning on the Saturday evening.

The conference accepts both individual paper and complete panel submissions. Submissions of individual papers should include an abstract of 200 words as well as a few descriptive keywords. Panels are expected to consist of three to four papers and should be submitted by one person who is willing to serve as the point of contact. Complete panels must also include a chair. In addition to abstracts for each individual paper, panel submissions should also include a brief 100-150 word introduction describing the panel’s main theme. The conference does not discriminate between panels and individual paper submissions.

All submissions for inclusion in the Britain and the World Conference must be received by Monday, 4 January 2016. Submissions should be made electronically to editor@britishscholar.org. Updates regarding the conference will be periodically posted to the Society website. It is hoped that participants will be able to call upon their departments for hotel and transportation expenses if necessary.

Britain and the World is the annual conference of The British Scholar Society. Our peer-reviewed journal – http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/brw – is published by Edinburgh University Press, and our book series – http://www.palgrave.com/series/Britain-and-the-World/BAW – with Palgrave Macmillan. Submissions are encouraged to each, and representatives of both publishers will be present at the conference. To receive the Society’s free monthly newsletter please sign up by visiting www.britishscholar.org, and please consider following @britishscholar on Twitter, and joining our Facebook group.

Information on hotel accommodation and conference registration will be forthcoming. It should be noted that becoming a member of The British Scholar Society entitles you to a discounted registration rate. We also offer a discounted registration rate for students. Membership in The British Scholar Society for 2016 will be available on The British Scholar Society website by visiting our membership page at www.britishscholar.org/british-scholar/membership beginning on 1 October. If you have any questions about the forthcoming conference, please contact the Conference Organizing Committee.

Authority Revisited: Towards Thomas More and Erasmus in 1516
Lectio International Conference
University of Leuven, Belgium
30 November-3 December, 2016

In the year 1516, two crucial texts for the cultural history of the West saw the light: Thomas More’s Utopia and Desiderius Erasmus’s Novum Instrumentum. Both of these works dealt freely with authoritative sources of western civilization and opened new pathways of thought on the eve of invasive religious and political changes.

Lectio and the University of Leuven, in collaboration with its RefoRC-partners the Johannes a Lasco Library Emden and the Europäische Melanchthon Akademie Bretten as well as other partners, will mark the 500th birthday of both foundational texts by organizing a conference, from November 30 through December 2, 2016. The university city of Leuven is a most appropriate place to have this conference organized, since it was intimately involved in the genesis and the history of both works.

The conference will be devoted to studying not only the reception and influence of Utopia and the Novum Instrumentum in (early) modern times, but also their precursors in classical antiquity, the patristic period, and the middle ages. The conference will thus lead to a better understanding of how More and Erasmus used their sources, and it will address the more encompassing question of how these two authors, through their own ideas and their use of authoritative texts, have contributed to the rise of modern western thought.

The conference also explicitly aims at enhancing our understanding of iconographic, book-, and art-historical aspects of the transmission of the texts under consideration, both before and after the publication of the two works.

This multidisciplinary Lectio conference wants to bring together international scholars working in the field of theology, art history, philosophy, history of science and historical linguistics.

Thomas More: Utopia Revisited

More’s colorful description of the allegedly recently discovered island of Utopia was so influential as to lend its name to a literary genre. At the same time, although the name Utopia is a neologism invented in More’s circle , the utopian tradition reaches back to antiquity.

Papers are invited on the following topics:

The best known examples from classical antiquity are Plato’s descriptions of the ideal state. Yet there are other instances, such as the myth of the golden age, elaborated in many different ways by numerous ancient writers. In addition, More had a thorough knowledge of the works by Greek and Roman thinkers such as Plutarch, Lucian, Cicero, and Seneca. The conference aims to map these ancient representations of the ideal state and to study the way in which More was influenced by them.

Equally influential is the Christian tradition, most prominently laid down in Augustine’s City of God, a text of central importance that marks the transition from antiquity to the middle ages. Augustine’s eschatological view of the perfect City may, for example, be the subject of contributions to the conference. By extension, the various forms of the mythical account of Cockaigne enter the picture as possible topics.

Also of direct impact on Utopia were reports about the New World (for example in the letters of Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus, or Peter Martyr of Anghiera) and the images of the New World in Europe. It would be an interesting contribution to the conference to study in which ways the discovery and description of an “unspoiled” world and its inhabitants inspired More’s views.

Renaissance humanists also influenced More’s Utopia. The most renowned example is, of course, Erasmus. But the views of other humanists, like Pico della Mirandola, also shaped More’s thought. Similarly, the scholastic tradition deserves to be studied in at this juncture. Renaissance humanism and scholasticism were difficult to reconcile, according to More, and on more than one occasion he sets one over against the other.

The conference shall also pay due attention to the reception of Utopia in early modern times, both in the vernacular and in Latin. Authors such as Tommaso Campanella, Vasco de Quiroga, Francis Bacon, Johann Eberlin, Kaspar Stiblin, and Johann Valentin Andreae may be investigated in this regard, as well as the genre of the picaresque novel.

Of particular interest are iconographic, book-, and art-historical aspects of the transmission of Utopia as well as the works of More’s predecessors.

Erasmus: The New Testament Revisited

Erasmus’s revision of the New Testament text was groundbreaking. Obviously, however, Erasmus’s foundational work cannot be properly understood apart from his predecessors’ endeavors to translate the Bible and to comment on it, or to deal with the Bible from a text-critical perspective.

Papers are invited on the following topics:

Papers studying biblical exegesis in Christian antiquity and its reception in the works by Erasmus. More in particular, paper topics may include Jerome’s Vulgata, Origen’s Hexapla, and relevant commentaries on Scripture, such as those of Chrysostom and others. Erasmus’s recourse to classical language and culture in the Annotationes to his New Testament may also be the subject of paper proposals.

Medieval biblical exegesis: Even though self-declared pioneers like Erasmus and the Renaissance humanists were not keen to be associated with medieval biblical exegesis, this aspect of possible influences and sources cannot be neglected. The conference invites contributions on the biblical Renaissance of the twelfth century and later (among others, the Glossa ordinaria, Hugh of St. Victor and the Parisian Victorines, Peter Comestor, Peter Cantor and Stephen Langton, Hugh of St. Cher and Nicholas of Lyra). In sum, the conference aims to explore the extent to which Erasmus and his fellow humanists integrated the progress made by medieval biblical exegesis.

The link between Erasmus and Renaissance humanism, both in northern Europe (Agricola, Cornelius Gerardi Aurelius) and in Italy (Lorenzo Valla, Gianozzo Manetti). The main question is here how Erasmus’s Christian humanism did relate to the broader cultural historical current of renewed textual criticism.

The reception of Erasmus’s text-critical and exegetical work in the early modern era will be explored through the establishment of (new) authoritative version(s) of the New Testament and the debates that accompanied the process (Novum Instrumentum, Vulgata, Textus Receptus) as well as the elaboration of humanist, Protestant, and Catholic exegesis, from Luther and Melanchthon through Beza, from Dorpius, Franciscus Lucas Brugensis and Jansenius Gandavensis, via Estienne, Arias Montanus, through Maldonatus, etc. We further look forward to receiving papers on how Erasmus’ New Testament was used in the development of early modern vernacular versions, on all sides of the confessional spectrum.

Of particular interest are iconographic, book-, and art-historical aspects of the transmission of the texts, both of Erasmus’s predecessors and of Erasmus’s Novum Instrumentum.

Papers may be given in English or French and the presentation should take 20 minutes.
To submit a proposal, please send an abstract of approximately 300 words (along with your name, academic affiliation and contact information) to lectio@kuleuven.be by January 15, 2016. Notification of acceptance will be given by the end of March 2016.

The publication of selected papers is planned in a volume to be included in the peer-reviewed LECTIO Series (Brepols Publishers).

Invited speakers:

• Gillian Clark (University of Bristol)
• Henk Jan De Jonge (Leiden University)
• Günter Frank (Europäische Melanchthon Akademie)
• Brad Gregory (University of Notre Dame)
• Quentin Skinner (Queen Mary University of London)

Venue: The Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe, Janseniusstraat 1, 3000 Leuven

Organising Committee:
Erik De Bom, Anthony Dupont, Wim François, Jan Papy, Marleen Reynders, Andrea Robiglio, Violet Soen, Gerd Van Riel

Scientific Committee:
Rita Beyers (U Antwerpen), Erik De Bom (KU Leuven), Anthony Dupont (KU Leuven), Wim François (KU Leuven), Günter Frank (Europäische Melanchthon Akademie, Bretten), Jan Papy (KU Leuven), Andrea Robiglio (KU Leuven), Herman Selderhuis (Johannes a Lasco Bibliothek, Emden), Violet Soen (KU Leuven), Gerd Van Riel (KU Leuven), Wim Verbaal (U Gent)

Contact:

Lectio KU Leuven
Faculties of Arts, Law, Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Blijde Inkomststraat 5
3000 Leuven
BELGIUM
+32 16 328778
lectio@kuleuven.be
www.ghum.kuleuven.be/lectio

The Ninth Australian Conference Of Celtic Studies
University of Sydney
27-30 September, 2016

Submissions are invited for twenty-minute papers addressing any scholarly aspect of Celtic Studies, including, but not limited to, the areas of: archaeology, folklore, history (including modern diaspora history), language, literature (including literature in English) and music. Abstracts of up to 250 words should be emailed to Professor Jonathan Wooding: jonathan.wooding@sydney.edu.au The final date for abstracts to be received will be Monday 2 May 2016. Acceptances will be communicated on Monday 16 May 2016. Potential contributors in need of earlier acceptance (for funding applications &c.) may request it with their submissions. Potential participants are invited to have their names added to a conference database from which we will send updates and reminders of approaching deadlines.

The 2016 Australian Conference of Celtic Studies is jointly sponsored by the Foundation for Celtic Studies of the University of Sydney and the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University. All sessions will be held on University of Sydney’s Main Campus in Camperdown, Sydney.

Those receiving this announcement are encouraged to make its contents known to anyone else who might be interested.

Cistercians, Chronologies, and Communities: The Legacies of Constance Hoffman Berman
Symposium in Honor of Constance Berman
Old Capitol Senate Chambers, The University of Iowa Pentacrest, Iowa City
May 20-21, 2016

Symposium Website

Students, friends and colleagues of Professor Constance H. Berman are invited to honor and celebrate her career at a symposium to be held on Friday and Saturday, May 20-21, 2016 in Iowa City. The theme of this symposium, “Cistercians, Chronologies, and Communities: The Legacies of Constance Hoffman Berman,” draws on a number of important threads in Constance’s work over the years.

In her books Medieval Agriculture (1986), The Cistercian Evolution (2000), Women and Monasticism in Medieval Europe (2002), and the forthcoming The White Nuns; edited volumes such as Medieval Religion: New Approaches (2005); and innumerable articles and conference papers, Constance broke new ground in medieval studies. As a scholar of the women, religion, and agriculture of the Middle Ages; as a member of the pioneering generation which helped to foreground the study of medieval women on university campuses and in scholarly works; and as an inspiration for another generation of medievalists, Constance has profoundly influenced her field.

The Symposium will be held in the historic Old Capitol Senate Chambers on the University of Iowa Pentacrest. On Friday evening, Constance will present a keynote lecture which reflects on her career and on the future of the field. On Saturday, the symposium will begin at 9:00am and end at 4:00pm; it will be followed by a reception and dinner.

If you plan to attend, please register using the form at this webpage by March 31, 2016: http://gradmed.org.uiowa.edu/bermansymposium

If you would like to present a paper at the Symposium, or propose a panel or roundtable discussion, please forward an abstract of 250-300 words to either yvonne-seale@uiowa.edu or heather-wacha@uiowa.edu by February 1, 2016.