Seminar: Making Poetry Collections by Hand and Creative Leisure

Join the Australian National University Centre for Early Modern Studies for a hybrid seminar with Professor Michelle O’Callaghan (University of Reading) on 3 September, 2024.

Making Poetry Collections by Hand and Creative Leisure

What can a focus on the work of the hand bring to the study of making poetry collections in early modern scribal cultures? Compiling poetry collections by hand depended on manual labour that required technical skills, was time-consuming, often intensive, and, in this sense, was work-like. In the case of those manuscripts compiled by the user, it was also work that was undertaken by choice, during leisure time, and, at some level, was satisfying. I am interested in how the category of productive leisure, which turns attention to the pleasurable work of the hand, can help to understand the kinds of making practised in scribal cultures in early modern England. The examples I will discuss were produced by scribes, working outside scriptoria and elite households, for whom penmanship was both work and recreation, and who make literary cultures beyond early modern London and the universities visible.

More details and bookings: https://events.humanitix.com/michelle-o-callaghan-making-poetry-collections-by-hand-and-productive-leisure

Koine and Biblical Greek Summer School

CHRISTOPHER DAWSON CENTRE
SUMMER SCHOOL IN KOINE AND BIBLICAL GREEK
13 – 17 JANUARY, 2025

This five-day intensive school is for beginners who want to experience the excitement of reading parts of the Bible and early Christian literature in the original language.  We shall read extracts from the Gospel and Epistles, as well as some important passages from the Septuagint (the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament), as well as some pieces from the early Fathers of the Church and the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom. 

This course is suitable for beginners, provided that they are willing to undertake preliminary work on the Greek alphabet (to be provided) before the course begins. 

Fr John Wall Community Library, in the rear of 31 Tower Road, New Town, Tasmania (about two kms from central Hobart – we will provide a map)

Monday 13 January to Friday 17 January 2025

9.00 am to 3.00 pm each day for five days

Tuition Fee $350 (concession available) includes workbook

Registrations are essential: email Dr David Daintree dccdain@gmail.com

Prior knowledge of Greek is not essential, but beginners are advised to purchase a self-instruction primer and work on the basics between now and the start of the course.  It is particularly important to begin the course with a comfortable recognition knowledge of the Greek alphabet, otherwise learning even basic grammar and vocabulary will be frustrating and inefficient.  Participants will never be embarrassed if their Greek is imperfect: the teaching method leaves the entire task of translation and exposition to the Lecturer. This approach has been useful to relative beginners as well as those who are more experienced.

Each intending participant should purchase, as soon as possible, a primer of New Testament Greek.  There are many available, but a good choice is Gavin Betts, Complete New Testament Greek: A Comprehensive Guide to Reading and Understanding New Testament Greek with Original Texts.  Langenscheidt’s pocket Greek Dictionary is also useful.

The Lecturer is Dr David Daintree who founded the Annual Latin Summer School in Hobart in 1993.   Proceeds from this course will go to support The Christopher Dawson Centre.  To enrol and for further information contact David Daintree at dccdain@gmail.com.

Medieval and Ecclesiastical Latin Summer School

CHRISTOPHER DAWSON CENTRE
35th ANNUAL SUMMER SCHOOL
IN MEDIEVAL AND LATER LATIN
NOTRE DAME PRIORY, COLEBROOK, TASMANIA
6 – 10 JANUARY, 2025

Latin is arguably the mother tongue of Europe.  Its literature is immensely rich. This course will offer a general introduction to Latin of all periods but with particular emphasis on the enormous body of medieval and later literature.  We shall read original passages of scripture, liturgy, history, theology and poetry, both secular and secular.  There will also be an introduction to palaeography, including an opportunity to handle original medieval manuscripts.  There will be a strong emphasis on the pronunciation of Latin in speech and music.

The course us designed for students who already have some Latin, but determined absolute beginners should purchase a self-instruction primer and work on the basics between now and the start of the course.  Participants will never be embarrassed by their shaky Latin: the teaching method leaves the entire task of translation and exposition to the Lecturer. This approach has been useful to relative beginners as well as those who are more experienced.

Where: Notre Dame Priory, Richmond Road, Colebrook 7027

When: Monday 6 January to Friday 10 January 2025

Time: 9.00 am to 3.00 pm each day for five days

Cost: Tuition $350.00.  Tea and coffee and lunch will be provided daily. 

Registrations are essential: email director@dawsoncentre.org.

THE PROGRAMME

There will be four lectures a day on each of the five days, from Monday 6th to Friday 10th, starting at 9.00 am. There will be only one lecture after lunch each day, to free up the afternoons for private study.

TOPICS COVERED

  • Liturgy and Scripture.
  • Latin prose narrative: including passages from the Venerable Bede, St Brendan, Peter Abelard, Isidore of Seville, Robert Grosseteste
  • Hymns, sequences and religious poetry, including works by St Ambrose, Venantius Fortunatus, Adam of St Victor, and St Thomas Aquinas.
  • Secular Poetry, including songs from the Carmina Burana. 
  • The Classical tradition, starting with passages from Virgil.
  • Theology and Patristics: St Augustine, Boethius, St Thomas Aquinas, St Benedict, St Patrick and Thomas a Kempis.
  • Palaeography – handling and interpreting manuscripts.

Participants should bring both a grammar and a small dictionary to class each day.

Any Latin grammar can be used, but F Kinchin Smith’s Teach Yourself Latin (out of print, but copies are available from  www.abebooks.com) is particularly recommended.  A free digitised version is available at https://archive.org/details/TeachYourselfLatin_201810/mode/2up.  

All requests for accommodation should be directed to the Priory at: guestmaster@notredamemonastery.org.

All proceeds from this course go to the Christopher Dawson Centre (http://www.dawsoncentre.org).

For further information contact director@dawsoncentre.org.

ANZAMEMS Postgraduate Peer Support Group

The first session of the ANZAMEMS Peer Support Group will be on Friday 9 August. 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

ANZAMEMS Reading Group, July session: Decolonisation, Race, and the Global Middle Ages

The next session of the 2024 ANZAMEMS ECR/Postgraduate reading group is scheduled for Tuesday, July 30. This will be a session on: Decolonisation, Race, and the Global Middle Ages. Please see the 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 register your attendance at https://www.trybooking.com/CTPIZ.

All ANZAMEMS members are welcome, especially postgraduates and ECRs!

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.

Reading Group Schedule to July 2024Download

Call for proposals: Parergon themed issue

Parergon: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Inc.)
www.parergon.org

The journal Parergon, in print since 1971, regularly produces one open issue and one themed issue annually.

Recent and forthcoming themed issues include:

  • 2022, 39.2 Cultures of Compassion in Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Music, guest-edited by Diana Barnes
  • 2023, 40.2 Women’s Agency in Early Modern Europe, guest-edited by Kate Allan and Nupur Patel
  • 2024, 41.2 Transforming the Archive, guest-edited by Rosalind Smith, Sarah Ross and Anna Welch
  • 2025, 42.2 Medieval English Attitudes to the External World, guest-edited by Matthew Firth, Erin Sebo and Cassandra Schilling

We now call for proposals for 2026 (43.2)

Parergon publishes articles on all aspects of medieval and early modern studies, from early medieval through to the eighteenth century, and including the reception and influence of medieval and early modern culture in the modern world. We are particularly interested in research which takes new approaches and crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Parergon asks its authors to achieve international standards of excellence. Essays should be substantially original, advance research in the field, and have the potential to make a significant contribution to the critical debate.

Parergon is available in electronic form as part of Project Muse (from 1983), Australian Public Affairs – Full Text (from 1994), Wilson’s Humanities Full Text (from 2008), and Gale Academic One File (from 2008); it is included in the Clarivate Analytics Master Journal List of refereed journals and in the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH), and is indexed for nine major database services, including ABELL, IMB and Scopus.

Themed issues contain up to ten essays, plus the usual reviews section. The guest editor is responsible for setting the theme and drawing up the criteria for the essays.

Timeline

Proposals for the 2026 issue (43.2) should be submitted to the Editors by Monday 16 September 2024 (Please note this is an extended deadline).

Proposals should contain the following:
1. A draft title for the issue.
2. A statement outlining the rationale for the issue.
3. Titles and abstracts of all the essays.
4. A short biographical paragraph for the guest editor(s) and for each contributor.

Proposals will be considered by a selection panel drawn from the Parergon International Editorial Board who will be asked to assess and rank the proposals according to the following criteria:
• Suitability for the journal
• Originality of contribution to the chosen field
• Significance/importance of the proposed theme
• Potential for advancing scholarship in a new and exciting way
• Range and quality of authors

Guest editors will be notified of the result of their application by the end of September 2024.

The Editorial Process
Once a proposal has been accepted:

The guest editor(s) will commission and pre-select the essays before submitting them to the Parergon Editors by an agreed date.

The guest editor(s), in consultation with the Parergon editors, will arrange for independent and anonymous peer-review in accordance with the journal’s established criteria.

Occasionally a commissioned essay will be judged not suitable for publication in Parergon. This decision will be taken by the Parergon Editor, based on the anonymous expert reviews. Essays that have already been published or accepted for publication elsewhere are not eligible for inclusion in the journal.

Parergon’s Accessibility
Parergon is available in electronic form as part of Project MUSE (From Volume 1 (1983)),
Australian Public Affairs – Full Text (from 1994), and Humanities Full Text (from 2008)

Parergon is included in the Clarivate Analytics Master Journal List of refereed journals and in the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH), and is indexed for nine major database services, including ABELL, IMB and Scopus.

Parergon has an Open Access policy. Authors retain their own copyright, rather than
transferring it to Parergon/ANZAMEMS; and can make the “accepted version” of their article freely available on the Web.

Please send enquiries and proposals to the Editors, Prof Rosalind Smith and Prof Sarah Ross at editor@parergon.org.

Call for Applications: ANZAMEMS Seminar

The MEMS group at The University of Western Australia invites postgraduate students and ECRs to apply to present at an ANZAMEMS Seminar to be held on Tuesday 26 November 2024 (as part of the larger CHASS Congress). The seminar, “Intercultural encounters and materialities in the medieval and early modern period,” will explore the methodological and theoretical challenges in researching inter-cultural encounter histories for MEMS scholars.

Abstracts (ca 150 words) for seminar papers (20 mins duration) are now invited and must be received by 15 September 2024. A limited number of bursaries will be available. For further details, see the ANZAMEMS website.