Old Time Accomplices: Mentors & Mentees
The University of Melbourne
25-27 August, 2016

In his essay De auditu (On Listening to Lectures), Plutarch warned that “the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting – no more – and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth”. Once sparked, this fire requires feeding and care, a task often fulfilled by mentors. Mentors are fundamental figures in the history of thought and we know of their existence since antiquity. Already appearing in the Odyssey, the idea of mentoring owes much to the figure of Socrates.

Paradoxically, despite living in societies increasingly marked by individualism and selfishness, in the modern world we see an increase in mentoring programs. Mentoring is grounded on a mutual commitment towards professional and intellectual development and forges a bond between mentor and mentee. This pattern exists in the academic, professional and private sectors, where coaches of all kinds multiply. In this 3-day conference we wish to explore the mentor-mentee relationship in an interdisciplinary context. We invite papers which explore the theme and the practice of mentoring in literature, history, art, performing arts, social sciences and in the professional world. Papers can – but do not have to – address the following themes:

• Famous mentors & mentees
• Fictional mentors & mentees and/or the theme of mentoring in literature, music and performing arts
• The evolution of the mentor-mentee relationship
• Differences and similarities in the relationships between mentor-mentee, master-disciple, sponsor-sponsored, and master-apprentice
• Gender and mentoring
• Power and mentoring
• Mentoring and/for children
• Mentoring, creative ownership and intellectual property
• Rituals and ceremonies
• Access or elitism?
• Mentoring in context: differences across disciplines/workplace environments.

Mentoring Network for Postgraduate Students

The conference will host a special workshop and mentoring session for postgraduate students. One of the aims of the conference is that of providing a forum to establish a mentoring network. Interested postgraduate students are encouraged to submit a description of their PhD thesis and a written statement explaining what they expect from a mentor. A maximum of 10 statements will be selected and postgraduate students paired with the most appropriate mentor, selecting from the list of participants to this conference who wish to join this initiative. If interested, please submit the following documents:

1. Name, affiliation, contact details
2. Thesis (provisional) title
3. Discipline and specific field (if applicable)
4. 5 keywords
5. Description of PhD topic (250-300 words)
6. Stage of candidature
7. Your statement (70-100 words)

Information to be Included in Proposals

Submission of proposals for individual papers:

1. Length of proposals: 250-300 words (list of references excluded)
2. Include your name and affiliation, contact details (including preferred e-mail address), title and a 50-75 words bio-note
3. Indicate whether you will be requiring A/V equipment
4. Indicate whether you wish to be considered as a potential mentor for a mentoring session with a postgraduate student (session to take place during the conference)

For submission of proposals for panels, besides the above information, please also include the title of the panel and the details of the panel chair.

Submission Deadline

Proposals should be received by Friday 18 December 2015 (deadline extended).
All proposals should be sent to the following email address: manzing@unimelb.edu.au
Notification of acceptance will be sent bye-mail before the end of the year.

Contacts

For more information, please contact Veronique Duche-Gavet, Veronique.duche@unimelb.edu.au or Gregoria Manzin, manzing@unimelb.edu.au

Conference Convenors

• Prof. Veronique Duche-Gavet
• Dr Gregoria Manzin
• Ass. Prof. Lesley Stirling

Northern Renaissance Seminar: Communication, Correspondence and Transmission in the Early Modern World
University of Leeds
12-13 May, 2016

Conference Website

It is a commonplace that the advent of printing in Europe revolutionised communication and the transmission of ideas. This Northern Renaissance Seminar event seeks to complicate and move beyond the “printing revolution” narrative to consider the messy and multiplicitous facets of communication, correspondence and transmission in the early modern world. How was it conceptualised, theorised or deployed as metaphor? What were its geographical, temporal or linguistic limits? How might it be transgressive or disruptive, and who might try to circumscribe it? We welcome contributions from a range of disciplines, including history, literature, art history, archaeology, languages, and drama.

We are delighted to announce Dr Sara Barker (University of Leeds) as the event’s keynote speaker.

Proposals are now being invited for 20-minute papers. Topics to consider may include, but are not limited to:

• Guides to written or spoken communication
• Reading and interpreting private correspondence
• Transmission of knowledge and circulation of news
• Swift and delayed communications
• Visual and other non-verbal communication
• Transmission of ideas and physical texts across geographical boundaries
• Transmission of narratives between texts
• The dedicatory epistle
• The body as communicative
• Secret communication and manuscript coteries
• Transmission of disease and infection, real and metaphorical
• Poetry as correspondence
• Geographical and cultural isolation from communication
• Disordered, dysfluent or unclear communication
• Accents and languages
• Miscommunication and mistranslation

Please email proposals of no more than 300 words to nrsleeds2016@gmail.com by Friday 15 January, 2016. All queries should also be directed to this address. Please also include biographical information detailing your name, research area, institution and level of study (if applicable). Sessions will be held on the afternoon of Thursday 12th May and during the day on Friday 13th May 2016. The conference will also include opportunities to visit the Royal Armouries and see the early modern treasures of Special Collections at the Brotherton Library.

The Pre-Modern Book in a Global Context: Materiality and Visuality
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY
October 21-22, 2016

The twenty-first century has witnessed the transformation of the study of the history of the book. Technology has given us new methods for the study of papyri, manuscripts, and early printed books: everything from x-rays to DNA analysis now provides data regarding the production and use of the book in the pre-modern era. In addition, digital humanities now allows for the precise capture and reproduction of texts in all their visual specificity as well as the compilation of vast databases for “distant reading.” Yet, as any scholar of the book recognizes, these artifacts retain an aura that technology cannot duplicate or fully explain: an encounter with a pre-modern book is an encounter with a textual presence in all its ineffable alterity.

The year 2016 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMERS) at Binghamton University; in celebration of fifty years of research in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, CEMERS will host a conference on the materiality and visuality of the pre-modern book (from late antiquity until 1600). Papers are invited on all aspects of the book as artifact. The conference aims to bring together the sub-disciplines currently involved in the history of the book in order to facilitate inter-disciplinary dialogue.

Papers should be twenty minutes in length. Send abstracts (with a brief cv) to cemers@binghamton.edu (with subject line History of the Book). For further information, contact Marilynn Desmond, Director, CEMERS, mdesmon@binghamton.edu. Deadline: April 15, 2016.

Against the Medici: Art and Dissent in Renaissance Italy (Contro i Medici: arte e dissenso nell’Italia del Rinascimento)
Archivio di Stato – Florence
26-27 May, 2016

As patrons of art, the Medici left a legacy that is unrivalled. Their well-known narrative lies at the center of Renaissance scholarship. The Medici patronized painters and sculptors, founded academies, preserved and curated their collections, and used both artists and artworks as political tools to convey their agendas and augment their prestige amongst the courts of Italy and Europe. Yet, just as Medici identity was expressed in terms of this cultural patrimony, so too were the attacks of their enemies. A rich corpus of anti-Medicean works of art remains underappreciated and understudied: works of art that communicated messages of opposition, hostility and even hate that struck at the very heart of the political identity of the Medici dynasty. Recognizing the role that art, artists, and artistic patronage played in opposing the Medici (roughly from Cosimo the Elder to the end of the sixteenth century), this two-day event, sponsored by the Medici Archive Project and the Archivio di Stato in Florence, will address this lacuna.

The organizers of the conference, Alessio Assonitis and Stefano Dall’Aglio, invite proposals for 25-minute papers that pertain to subjects including, but not limited to:

• Anti-Medici Patronage in the Quattrocento
• Savonarola and the Piagnoni: aesthetics, patronage and artistic production
• Michelangelo: between pro-Medici and anti-Medici
• Anti-Medici art and patronage in Rome · Art and architecture in the time of the Republic(s)
• Dissent and absolutism under the Medici Dukes
• Anti-Medicean sentiment in academies, workshops, and confraternities
• Graffiti and vandalism
• Florentine patronage in exile
• Duplicity and dissimulation
• Censorship and Damnatio Memoriae

The keynote speaker will be Paolo Simoncelli (Sapienza – Università di Roma).

Scholars interested in participating should send an abstract in English or Italian (no more than 200 words) and a one page C.V. to conference@medici.org by 1 January, 2016. The papers can be presented in English or Italian.

Selected participants will receive partial funding for travel and accommodation.