Monthly Archives: February 2020

AAH Grants and Prizes: Applications now open

Applications are now open for a range of grants and prizes offered by the Australian Academy of the Humanities. These include the Humanities Travelling Fellowships, the Publication Subsidy Scheme, the Medal for Excellence in Translation, the Crawford Medal, the Ernst and Rosemarie Keller Fund and the John Mulvaney Fellowship.

Applications close at 5pm AEST on Monday 20 April 2020.

CFP Adaptation in the Humanities: Reimagining the Past, Present, and Future

3-4 October 2020 | The University of Western Australia, Perth

Our knowledge of the world — imagined, experienced, or learned — is constantly in flux. As humans, we change, adapt, and mould the environments around us, the knowledge systems we use and the items we create. Adaptation can be forced through the presentation of an obstacle, or it can occur symbiotically within a group.

In 2020 Limina: The Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, the Perth Medieval and Renaissance Group (PMRG), and Medieval and Early Modern Studies at The University of Western Australia are joining forces to provide a forum for the presentation of the myriad of ‘adaptations’ worlds, individuals, languages, ideas, and peoples, real or otherwise, experience.

The conference will be held at The University of Western Australia from the 3–4 October 2020. It will consist of a masterclass, opening plenary address and reception on 2 October. The main conference will take place on 3–4 October 2020.

The conference committee invites proposals for 20-minute papers or panels (of no more than three speakers) from the breadth of humanities research to explore the products of adaptations, and the processes that bring them into being.

Papers topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Literary and popular culture adaptations (e.g. text to screen; children’s literature and YA adaptations of texts, graphic novel and video-game recreations of literary classics);
  • Adaptations throughout history (e.g. Cultural adaptations, reception, neoclassicism, medievalism, early modernism, Neo-Victorianism, Gothic revival, science fiction, utopianism, etc.);
  • Adaptation of memory (e.g. emotion or event based i.e. historical re-enactments, responses to crises/trauma/adversity/oppressive systems);
  • Translation studies (e.g. translations of medieval manuscripts or ancient papyri);
  • Adaptation and electronic literature (e.g. going beyond re-mediation to interface and recreate the text)
  • Childhood studies (e.g. learning; education; “adapting to and through the world”);
  • Critical studies on visual adaptations (e.g. interpretive dance; interactive artworks);
    Adaptations of the self (e.g. biographies; auto-biographies, con-artists, fakes, forgeries and
  • scams);
  • Adaptation and embodiment (e.g disability, immaterial bodies, in/corporality, disability; cyborgs, AI);
  • Adaptations of reality (e.g. sci-fi; hallucinogens, VR);
  • Museum and Material Studies (e.g. displaying/reinterpreting/rehousing material artefacts to contemporary audiences, heritage studies and technology, 3D modeling/printing);
  • Environmental adaptations (e.g. permanently or temporarily adapting the environment to suit the needs of humans, artificial environments, biospheres/biodomes);
  • Adaptation of space and place (e.g. rehabilitation, renovation, renewal, gentrification, repatriation).

Conference abstract submissions should consist of:

-A title
-An abstract (max. 200 words);
-A short biography (max. 50 words).

Submit abstracts to: adaptationconference2020@gmail.com by the 31 May 2020. The committee aims to have responses returned by 14 June 2020.

Limina and PMRG also welcome themed panel or workshop session proposals for the conference. Proposals should consist of:

-Panel Title;
-Proposed Chair (if available);
-Details of each presenter and paper as described above.

Submit panel/workshop proposals to: adaptationconference2020@gmail.com by 31 May 2020.

For more information see the conference website.

ANZAMEMS 2021 Bursaries and Prizes

Applications for the following ANZAMEMS 2021 conference bursaries and prizes are now open:

ANZAMEMS Conference Travel Bursaries

To enable current or recent Postgraduates and Early Career Researchers who are currently not in full-time employment to attend the ANZAMEMS Biennial Conference and deliver a paper at a session, travel bursaries will be offered.

Bursaries will be awarded on a competitive basis and are scaled on the basis of distance from the venue (up to $300 for recipients travelling from regional WA; $500 from other Australian states and territories; and $1000 for those travelling internationally). Delegates from Perth are ineligible to apply.

It is not expected that Conference Convenors will be able to offer a bursary to every eligible applicant. In the event of there being more eligible applicants than can be supported, the ANZAMEMS Conference Committee will rank applicants according to distance travelled, financial need, current employment status, and access to other sources of funding.

Kim Walker Postgraduate Travel Bursary

One of the conference bursary applicants will be selected for the Kim Walker Travel Bursary, which is awarded in honour of Kim Walker, who taught in the English program at Victoria University of Wellington. The prize is currently set at $AUD 500.

Postgraduate students from New Zealand who have applied for a Travel Bursary before the relevant deadline will automatically be considered for the Kim Walker Postgraduate Travel Bursary. A separate application is not necessary.

George Yule Essay Prize

The George Yule Prize is awarded to the best essay written by a postgraduate. It is awarded biennially, at each ANZAMEMS Conference. The winner will receive a travel bursary for assistance in attending the conference, $AUD 500 in prize money, and a year’s free subscription to Parergon.

For more information and application forms please see https://www.anzamems2021.com/busaries-prizes

The deadline for all bursary and prize applications is 31 July 2020.

‘Warfare, Weapons, Wounds – An Interdisciplinary Workshop’ 10-11 December 2020, University of Auckland, New Zealand

If death and injury are central to warfare, so are the tools that cause bodily harm. This inter- disciplinary workshop, hosted by the University of Auckland’s ‘War in Context’ research hub, explores the cultures of violence and control that form around military weaponry by focusing on the wounds they inflict and the (at least perceived) pain and suffering they provoke. It investigates the ways in which individuals, communities, states, and militaries imagine, represent, adapt, and receive military technologies in the context of their wounding capacity.

We invite proposals for papers (30min, followed by 10min for questions and discussion) that focus on particular weapons (or types of weapons), the context in which they are used, and the ‘wounds’ they cause. We welcome papers from any historical period, including today, and hope to attract scholars from a wide range of disciplines and cultural perspectives. As such, ‘wounds’ can, and indeed should, be interpreted in a broad way and can encompass not only physical, but psychological, social, cultural, and political damage.

It is planned that the workshop will form the core of a publication – either an edited collection or special edition of an academic journal.

Proposals should include a title, an abstract (no more than 250 words), and a brief biography (no more than 250 words). We welcome proposals from scholars at all stages of their careers, including graduate students and early career scholars.

Proposals should be submitted through this submission portal by 1 June 2020.

There may be a small registration fee to help cover catering and other costs. If you would like to attend, even if not offering a paper, please also note your interest here by 1 June 2020 and you will be sent registration information once that is available.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact one of the conference organizers: Maartje Abbenhuis (m.abbenhuis@auckland.ac.nz), Jeremy Armstrong (js.armstrong@auckland.ac.nz), and Thomas Gregory (t.gregory@auckland.ac.nz).

CFP Australian Early Medieval Association Conference

Australian Early Medieval Association conference, 30 Sept-2 Oct 2020, The University of Western Australia

The conference committee invites papers on the theme Journeys: Discovery and Belonging. The period we study was marked by the disintegration of established political and social orders, widespread migrations and incursions, and rising competition between religious ideologies. Developing forms of inter-cultural contact and exchange gave rise to new ways of conceptualising and articulating identity and alterity, but while new boundaries – physical and ideational – were established, all boundaries remained porous. People, objects and ideas continued to circulate, to take journeys. How did existing communities and new migrants adapt to, or resist, each other? How were institutions modified to include, accommodate or exclude new worldviews? What was the role of material culture in holding fast to the old, and in legitimising and promoting new polities, new ethnicities, and new ideologies? How did cross-cultural contacts in the early medieval period shape history?

We invite submissions on the following topics:

• Exchange across borders- trade, culture, and human trafficking  • Maintaining and modifying identity • Maritime exploration • Invasion, settlement, assimilation. • Cultural geography: significant space and place • The book as traveller / the reader as voyager • Imagined otherworlds / imagined others • The idea and material expression of homelands • Emotions and journeys / emotional journeys • Pilgrimage and adventure • Travel narratives • First
contacts • Reading race and ethnicity: conflict and co-existence • Conversion and religious conflict • Accommodation and defiance—tensions in the quest to belong • Translation, adaptation, linguistic change • Viewing ‘Europe’ from outside • Afterlives of the early medieval in modern identity formation.

AEMA also welcomes papers concerned with all aspects of the Early Medieval period (c. 400–1150) in all cultural, geographic, religious and linguistic settings, even if they do not strictly adhere to the theme.

We especially encourage submissions from graduate students and early career researchers.
Abstracts of 150-200 words for 20-minute papers should be submitted via email to conference@aema.net.au by 31 May 2020.

Please see below for a downloadable copy of the conference CFP, and an additional call for contributions for a proposed panel at the conference on ‘Medieval Recreations’.

Download (PDF, 1.79MB)

Download (DOCX, 20KB)

Australian Academy of the Humanities Grants and Awards

The Australian Academy of the Humanities has a number of grants and awards open this year to Australian scholars: the Humanities Travelling Fellowships, the Publication Subsidy Scheme, the Medal for Excellence in Translation, the Crawford Medal, the Ernst and Rosemarie Keller Fund and the John Mulvaney Fellowship.

Applications for these awards will open on Monday 24 February and close Monday 13 April. For more details about AAH grants and awards see their website or subscribe to the AAH newsletter.

CFP ‘Reception, Emotion and the Royal Body’ panel at #ANZA21

This panel will convene at the Thirteenth Biennial Conference of the Australia and
New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (#anza21), to be
held at The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, from 8-12 February
2021. https://www.anzamems2021.com/

The idea of the ‘king’s two bodies’, a duality predicated on the idea that a
monarch possessed two bodies, a body natural and a body politic–the former
mortal, the latter an embodiment of both the nation and the authority of
sovereignty–has long been of interest to scholars of medieval and early modern
monarchies.

The body of a monarch remains a contest site, with the life, health, fertility, and
sexuality of kings or queens continuing to be an important part of politics. Royal
scandal graces the covers of newspapers and magazines and trends on social
media, and royal weddings, births, and deaths continue to capture the public’s
imagination and interest.

We seek papers that examine the significance of the royal body, in particular, the
reception of the royal body across time periods, cultures, and media and how
royal bodies both convey and elicit emotions:

Topics may include, but are not limited to:
• Historiography
• Iconography and representation
• Drama and literature
• Political theory
• Divine bodies
• Rituals and ceremony
• Effigies and monuments
• Age, health and pregnancy
• Fertility, chastity, virility
• Royal births and deaths
• Christenings, coronations, weddings and funerals
• Regicide
• Royal touch
• Deformity and disability
• Royal Dress
• Sex and Scandal
• Gender
• Sexuality
• Race
• Medievalism and early-modernism
• Performance
• Audiences
• Popular culture
• Film and television
• Comics and graphic novels
• Fandom
• Celebrity

Proposals for 20-minute conference papers should consist of:
1. A title
2. An abstract (max. 200 words)
3. A short biography (max. 50 words)

Submissions should be emailed (as a Word document attachment) to:
mgerzic@gmail.com by 30 June 2020.

ANZAMEMS Seminar: Call for Expressions of Interest

The committee of ANZAMEMS 2021 is delighted to Call for Expressions of Interest in the
ANZAMEMS Seminar ‘Vectors of Emotion’, which will precede the conference on
Monday 8 February 2021 from 11am–4pm (lunch and afternoon tea will be included).

Seminar Leader: Assoc. Prof Kathryn Prince (The University of Western Australia).

About the Seminar

Drama relies on the palpable circulation of emotions onstage and in the audience, which is
one reason for its reliable function as a vector of emotion between the moment of its creation
and of its performance. Working with medieval and early modern scripts, participants in this
Seminar will apply various History of Emotions approaches to the performance of selected
scenes in order to develop an understanding of the emotional practices within plays of
various genres, styles, and periods from the medieval to the early modern.

No performance skills are required or expected, and the workshop is designed to engage
anyone with an interest not only in theatre but also in cultural and intellectual history,
scholarly editing, music, art, and literature. Participants will gain an understanding of the
relationship between theories of emotions and their practice, both in performance and more
broadly.

Because this Seminar will involve various kinds of active participation, applicants should
advise the organiser of any accessibility requirements, which will be quietly and cheerfully
accommodated.

How to Apply

Expressions of Interest should consist of:

  1.  Your name, institutional affiliation, and year of HDR candidacy (MA, MRes, PhD) or
    ECR status (with priority to those who have not yet found permanent employment);
  2. Your field/s of research;
  3. A 250-word statement explaining your interest in participating in the Seminar and
    how you believe participation will assist your research and/or career development;
  4. Any accessibility requirements.

Please email Expressions of Interest for the ANZAMEMS Seminar (as a Word document
attachment) to: anzamems2021@gmail.com (with the email title ‘Vectors of Emotions
Seminar Application’) by 31 July 2020.

CFP ANZAMEMS 2021

The Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
conference committee seeks proposals for its 2021 conference on the theme ‘Reception and
Emotion’, to be held in Perth, Australia at The University of Western Australia from 8–12
February.

The committee welcomes all approaches to topics related to ‘reception and emotion’ broadly
conceived (and conceived either together or separately: i.e., on reception and emotion, or on
either reception or emotion), including but not limited to: trans-cultural, trans-temporal,
trans-disciplinary, translation, global studies, creative misreadings, theatrical and literary
revivals, forgeries, homages, cultural counter-strikes, regimes of periodisation, etc. We
welcome proposals considering the usefulness or otherwise of reception history as a
methodology: is ‘transformation’ more helpful than ‘reception’, for example, for appreciating
the active role of the audience of a text, play, or idea?

Work on emotions can be similarly broad, covering, e.g., what’s evidenced from the
‘receivers’ and from the ‘received’ (thinking of work, for example, on how Indigenous
people have received missionaries and their doctrines; how medievalists have reacted and
acted in relation to the worrying associations of their discipline; even how humanities
scholars feel about their reception in contemporary political circles; Jan Plamper’s suggestion
that historians should keep ‘field diaries’ about their personal response to work in the
archives; are there ‘objective’ studies?). What’s been the value and downside of the
‘emotional turn’ in humanities studies? How do we as scholars of the past deal with presentist
notions of ‘relevance’, and need we consider past scholarship as ‘outdated? How can we
marry approaches from humanities and life sciences in ‘emotions history’?

Call for Papers

The conference committee invites proposals for 20-minute papers, 90-minute themed panels
(of no more than 4 speakers) or workshops. Paper topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • The reception of ideas about emotion in medieval/early modern texts;
  • Reception and transformation of ideologies across time and space;
  • The emotions of an audience in the reception of a play or sermon;
  • The emotional impact of a text on a reader;
  • Rituals and practices of receiving guests and dignitaries (and their emotional
    effects?);
  • The reception of the past: medievalism and early-modernism;
  • The reception of bodies / emotions and bodies / embodiment;
  • Reception / emotion and sexuality;
  • Reception / emotion and race;
  • Reception / emotion and gender;
  • Reception / emotion and music / art

Proposals for 20-minute conference papers should consist of:

  1. A title;
  2. An abstract (max. 200 words);
  3. A short biography (max. 50 words).

The conference committee welcomes themed panel or workshop session proposals for the
conference. Proposals should consist of:

  1. Panel/Workshop Title;
  2. Proposed Chair (if available);
  3. Details of each presenter and paper as described above.

NB: Workshops will be allotted 90 minutes, 30 of which should be reserved for general
discussion. We suggest a maximum of 6 speakers.

Submissions should be emailed (as a Word document attachment) to:
anzamems2021@gmail.com. Deadline for submissions: 31 July 2020.

NB: Should you require early acceptance of your proposal please highlight this in your email
and the committee will do our best to accommodate your request.

For more information please visit the conference website.