Monthly Archives: October 2024

CFP: Ghosts in Britain and Ireland, c.1500-1950

Mary Immaculate College, Limerick
June 26th – 27th 2025

For much of the past five hundred years, ghosts have dominated the supernatural landscape. The ways in which the dead have been perceived by the living has changed significantly over time, both in terms of their various guises and the contexts in which they appear. But despite this, and the potential ghosts have to shed light on key historical moments, they still remain understudied. While ghosts have attracted considerable attention within cultural, critical, and literary studies, it is only recently that ghosts have started to be studied for what they can tell us about religious, social, gendered, spatial or emotional dynamics. Older studies have often been dominated by folklorists, or have centred on the medieval period. Much recent scholarship has focused on the modern world, or on the ghost and ‘hauntedness’ as theoretical constructs, or rhetorical or narrative devices.

This two-day conference seeks to explore representations of the revenant dead in historical context. Through taking a broad chronological scope it hopes to shed light on how representations of ghosts changed over time, and how they can illuminate specific historical moments. It aims to place ghost beliefs and accounts of sightings of or engagements with the dead within their historical context and to consider how these stories were shaped by ideas about religion, community, neighbourhood, gender, space and place, emotion, and the supernatural more broadly. We are especially interested in work which takes a historical perspective, regardless of the researcher’s discipline.  

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

Spatial dynamicsCollecting ghosts
Emotional resonancesSpecific case studies
Materialities and immaterialitiesMedical and scientific and pseudoscientific explanations
Gendered dynamicsChanging understandings over time
Defining the ghostReligious impacts
Notions of classNarrative strategies
Conflict and change

The organisers – Dr Charlotte-Rose Millar (Melbourne), Dr Andrew Sneddon (Ulster) and Dr Clodagh Tait (Mary Immaculate) – aim to publish a special issue out of the conference.

Proposals for 20 minute papers or for full panels should be submitted to ghostconference2025@gmail.com by January 10th. Abstracts should be between 150-200 words. We also ask authors to submit a brief bio of 2 or 3 sentences. We aim to communicate decisions by February.

Please note that this is an in-person conference and virtual papers will unfortunately not be possible.

Call for Committee Members – Cerae Journal

Cerae is looking for new committee members for Volume 12!

Ceræ is an open-access, award-winning, peer-reviewed journal directed by a committee of international graduate students and early career researchers. We are united in our commitment to open access publishing, the innovative possibilities of the digital humanities, and to forging a strong community of medieval and early modern scholars.

A commitment to serving on the Ceræ committee is 15 months (one volume year with three overlapping months for handover), and has an averaged weekly time commitment of 1-5 hours, depending on the role and time of year.

Ceræ currently has openings for several new office holders for Volume 12:

  • Deputy Editor(s)
  • Deputy Book Reviews Editor
  • Social Media Manager
  • Fundraising Officer

The deadline for expressions of interest has been extended to 25 October 2024. Please email ceraejournal@gmail.com to nominate yourself for an office-holder position, or to express interest in joining as a general committee member.

For further details, see: https://ceraejournal.com/2024/10/02/call-for-committee-members-volume-twelve/

MA and PhD Programs at University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies

The Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto is currently accepting applications to both the MA and PhD Programs for the 2025-2026 academic year. See below brochure about their graduate programming which includes information about funding packages, collaborative specialisation, and opportunities, that may be of interest.

More details can be found at:

https://www.medieval.utoronto.ca/graduate/prospective-graduate-students

Palaeography Courses at Durham University Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies

The Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS) at Durham University is delighted to announce a new series of online palaeography courses to run from 25th November – 6th December 2024:

  • Latin European Medieval Palaeography with Dr Manuel Muñoz García.
  • Early Modern English Palaeography (1500-1700) with Dr Arnold Hunt. 

You can find full details and application forms on their website: www.imemsdurhamlearn.com

The courses provide quality skills training to facilitate working with manuscripts, whether at graduate level or for those working in a professional environment as a librarian, archivist, etc. Feedback from former students highlights the quality and breadth of the content, the flexibility of the course and the opportunity to engage with a great range of optional videos.

The courses will run 25th November – 6th December. These are online, full-time courses that consist of asynchronous content and daily live sessions, which are duplicated to allow students from multiple time zones to join. Students will receive feedback on a portfolio of transcriptions after the course, as well as continued access to the asynchronous material for two months.  

There are limited spaces (24 students per course) and applications are now open. We would appreciate it if you could circulate this announcement via your networks. Please get in touch if you have any questions or queries. 

The final deadline for applications is November 10th 2024, but we encourage early applications as places will be offered to successful candidates on a first-come, first-served basis.

Folger Institute Short-Term Fellowships

Folger Institute Short-Term Fellowships for 2022-2026

Each year the Folger Institute awards research fellowships to create a high-powered, multidisciplinary community of inquiry. This community of researchers may come from different fields, and their projects may find different kinds of expression. But our researchers share cognate interests in the history and literature, art and performance, philosophy, religion, and politics of the early modern world.

For the 2025-26 fellowship year, short-term fellows will have the option to take their fellowship fully onsite, fully virtual, or a combination of the two. Applicants may propose any research schedule that best fits their project’s needs.

Short-term fellowships support scholars whose work would benefit from significant primary research for one, two, or three months, with a monthly stipend of $5,000 per month in residence and $4,000 per month for virtual. These fellowships are designed to support a concentrated period of full-time work on research projects that draw on the strengths of the Folger’s collections and programs.

The deadline for short-term fellowship applications is January 15, 2025.

https://www.folger.edu/research/the-folger-institute/fellowships/apply-for-a-fellowship/short-term-fellowships

ANZAMEMS Reading Group

The next session of the 2024 ANZAMEMS ECR/Postgraduate reading group is scheduled for Tuesday, October 22. This will be a session on the topic of Witch Trials and Emotion. See schedule below.

All readings and any updates to the schedule will be shared through the reading group’s Google Drive folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Qi0W8i-38w0Dgwia9jJ0aDCh5OEQjpRF?usp=sharing

Please contact the convenors with any queries: Alexandra Forsyth (University of Auckland), afor784@aucklanduni.ac.nz, and Emily Chambers (Murdoch University), emily.chambers@murdoch.edu.au.

ANZAMEMS Postgraduate Peer Support Group

The next cycle of the ANZAMEMS Peer Support Group will begin on Monday 4 November. The Peer Support Group is a writing and discussion space for postgraduate members of ANZAMEMS. The group will run online, via Zoom, and is open to postgraduate members at any stage from honours to PhD. Attendance across all sessions is not mandatory. This is an informal support group, and we welcome drop-ins as much as regular attendance. See our website for further information.

If you would like to participate or have any questions, please contact ANZAMEMS Postgraduate Representative (AUS) Jenny Davis Barnett at j.barnett@uq.edu.au