Daily Archives: 8 April 2016

ANZAMEMS Member News: Kriston Rennie – Medieval Monastic History

Dear members, please see the following letter from ANZAMEMS committee member Kriston Rennie:

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to you en masse to gather some intel about past, present, and future research endeavours in the field of medieval monastic history. In anticipation of a symposium to be held in Dresden later this year (27-29 October), I am trying to assemble a complete picture of the work being done in Australia and New Zealand. I have been asked by the Forschungsstelle für Vergleichende Ordensgeschichte (FOVOG) at TU Dresden to ‘represent’ our region, with a view to establishing more active and international networks with scholars from Europe (east and west), North America, and South America. Celebrating 20 years of study into comparative religious orders, the FOVOG would ideally like to assess the international state of research, ‘to generate and illustrate new perspectives on the exploration of vita religiosa in order to envisage new projects.’ The ‘workshop’ promises to gather 40-50 scholars from around the world; all have been tasked with the same responsibility.

There is a great interest in Germany about our respective countries, and I would like to represent our research ambitions, funding opportunities, and collaborations accurately. To my mind, this is an exciting opportunity to showcase our work (projects, grants, publications, etc.), to explain the current situation of our universities and funding systems, and ultimately to initiate some profitable connections. My thinking is not limited solely to our own research, but also to the work of our MPhil and PhD students, and post-docs. Discussion on ‘research clusters’ and ‘areas of expertise’ should also, in my opinion, take into account possible supervisory arrangements with other countries and institutions. I’m certain, for example, that colleagues here in Germany would be fascinated by the possibility of ‘linkage grants’ and the Australian-DAAD scheme, and to learn about our active society, biennial conference, and postgraduate training seminars. In other words, I don’t perceive this invitation as being about drawing Australia and New Zealand into a European framework; it offers the potential to work also in the other direction, to the benefit of all invested parties.

So, in essence, I am asking for expressions of interest – so to speak. If you have an interest in the field of medieval religious orders and/comparative religious history, please contact me to share your thoughts, ideas, and plans. If you have publications and/or current work in this field, please bring them/it to my attention. If you have a firm grasp of our strengths (e.g., Dominican, Cistercian), please share your thoughts. If you’ve already got some profitable links (formal or informal), please let me know. And if there is something or someone that you feel should must not be overlooked in our presentation to an international forum, I’d be extremely grateful for your insight and perspective.

I can be reached anytime through my work address: k.rennie@uq.edu.au.

I look forward to hearing from you soon (preferably before 1 August. 2016).

Sincerely,
Kriston Rennie

15th C. Middle European Illuminated MS From the BSB Collection – Bavarian State Library Online Exhibition

The Bavarian State Library in Munich has upcoming exhibition of 15th-c. Middle European illuminated manuscripts from the BSB collection. For more information about the exhibition in English, please visit: http://vm136.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/digitalscriptorium/news/april2016.html.

For those who are unable to attend in person, there is a virtual exhibition of some of the items online on the following link:

https://www.bilderwelten2016.de

Emeritus Professor Ian Donaldson and Professor Ian Gadd, The Death of Shakespeare – The University of Adelaide Free Public Lecture

The Death of Shakespeare Public Lecture

Date: Tuesday, 26 April 2016
Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Venue: Elder Hall, The University of Adelaide
Cost: Free but Bookings essential by Wednesday 21 April, 2016. Please click here to register your attendance

This year the world celebrates 400 years of William Shakespeare’s Legacy

At the time of his death on 23 April1616 Shakespeare was far from a celebrity. Beyond the country town of Stratford where he had been born and now was buried, his death appears to have occasioned little interest or attention. None of his fellow-poets chose to mourn his passing; no gatherings in his honour were held; no contemporary references to his death have survived. Why did the final exit of the man now acclaimed as the world’s most famous writer not attract more resounding applause? How was Shakespeare’s reputation established in the years after his death? How did his fame spread–through Europe, the British Empire, globally?

Speaker: Emeritus Professor Ian Donaldson, University of Melbourne
Response: Professor Ian Gadd, Bath Spa University
Musical Performance: Adelaide Baroque (Emma Horwood: Soprano; Anne Gardiner: Harpsichord; Graham Strahle: Viola da amba; Jayne Varnish: Recorders)
Chair: Dr Lucy Potter, The University of Adelaide

Emeritus Professor Ian Donaldson, FBA FRSE FAHA has had an outstanding academic and professional career and is one of Australia’s most energetic and effective champions of the importance and value of the Humanities. Currently an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, he has previously been Fellow and Lecturer of Wadham College, Oxford (1962-9), a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge (1995-2005), and has chaired the English Faculties of both these Universities. He was also Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature, Edinburgh University, perhaps the most distinguished and certainly the oldest Chair of English Language and Literature in the world. Resigning his Oxford fellowship to return to Australia in 1969, he was Professor of English at the ANU and also Head of Department (1969-91).

In the last three years Professor Donaldson has produced two related publications, the culmination of a life-time of scholarly work: his authoritative biography, Ben Jonson: A Life (Oxford: OUP, 2011), and his General Editorship of the Cambridge Edition of The Works of Ben Jonson (Cambridge: CUP, 2012). The Cambridge Works has been praised in the London Review of Books as ‘[a] formidable enterprise’ while the Times Literary Supplement has described it as an ‘outstanding edition’ and an ‘invaluable scholarly resource’. The biography, Ben Jonson: A Life, has also been published to critical acclaim.

Ian Gadd is Professor of English Literature at Bath Spa University and President of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP), the largest scholarly society in the world devoted to the study of the history of the book. His research focuses on the printing and publishing of books in England in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was the Charlton Hinman Fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, in 2011.