Dr. Robert Appelbaum, Free Public Lecture @ The University of Melbourne

“Shakespeare and Terrorism”, Dr. Robert Appelbaum (Uppsala University)

Date: Thursday 1 Dec, 2016
Time: 6:15pm–7:15pm
Venue: Macmahon Ball Theatre, Old Arts, The University of Melbourne
Register: Free, but registration required: http://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/7852-shakespeare-and-terrorism

The word ‘terrorism’ had not yet been coined in Shakespeare’s day, but Shakespeare and his contemporaries were immersed in a political world where what we now call terrorist violence was a common occurrence. Shakespeare’s response to terrorism is characteristically complex and ambivalent. He ‘resists the resistance’, as one scholar has put it, but he is also capable of entering the minds of terrorist conspirators and showing us sympathetically what happens in them. Shakespeare is especially alert to the problem of terrorist violence as a form of political speech. This paper looks at The Tempest, Macbeth, and above all Julius Caesar to examine how terrorism works as political language in Shakespeare’s world, and how difficult it is for that language to succeed in delivering its political message.

Dr. Robert Appelbaum received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently Professor of English Literature at Uppsala University Sweden.

Adapting Medieval and Early Modern Culture – Call For Papers

Adapting Medieval and Early Modern Culture
Centre for Adaptations
Trinity House, De Montfort University, Leicester
Friday 3 March, 2017

The convoluted histories of medieval and early modern monarchs, reformers and rebellions have inspired plays, novels, poems, fairy tales and a recent outpouring of popular medieval and early modern adaptations in novels, film and television, such as Merlin, The Game of Thrones, The Tudors and Wolf Hall. We invite proposals that discuss the adaptation of the medieval and early modern periods in film, television, animation, plays, novels and poetry.

Proposals of a maximum of 100 words should be sent to Cassandra Hunter (P11235624@my365.dmu.ac.uk) by 15 December, 2016.

Forms of the Supernatural on Stage: Evolution, Mutations – Call For Papers

Forms of the Supernatural on Stage: Evolution, Mutations
Université François-Rabelais de Tours, France
7-8 September, 2017

The subject presents an obvious specific interest in the English context, given the impact of the religious reforms (and counter-reforms) over the sixteenth century. On the one hand, the medieval biblical plays, miracles and moralities disappeared (though in chronologically and geographically uneven fashion), while, despite sporadic upsurges of a theatre of Protestant propaganda, the dramatic representation of sacred personages and explicitly religious themes became progressively more difficult, to the point of near-impossibility. On the other hand, from the development of the Elizabethan public theatre in the 1570s, playwrights found indirect and innovative means of dramatising spiritual issues and entities. With respect to dramatic works ranging from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, contributors to the Round Table will attempt to identify points of rupture and continuity in evolving dramaturgical practices, taking into account the operations of censorship, as well as questions of genre, the mentality of spectators, and staging techniques.

Proposals (200-300 words) for 30-minute papers in English should be directed to Richard Hillman (rhillman@free.fr) by 15 December, 2016.

University of Oxford: Postdoctoral Researcher, Music and Late Medieval Court European Cultures

University of Oxford – Faculty of Music and TORCH
Postdoctoral Researcher, Music and Late Medieval Court European Cultures

The Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, proposes to appoint a postdoctoral researcher for a period of 3 years, starting late January – early February 2017, to join an established team working on a new ERC Advanced grant, Music and Late Medieval European Court Cultures (MALMECC). The post will be based in the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities office (TORCH), Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford.

The project seeks to develop a new, post-national and trans-disciplinary method of studying pre-modern cultures; specifically, the focus will be on European courts of the ‘long’ 14th century, defined as 1250 – 1450. The project consists of the systematic collaboration of a team of scholars drawn from relevant disciplines (including but not limited to history, art history, architectural history, modern and classical languages, and music) under the leadership of the Principal Investigator (PI), Karl Kügle. The current team comprises an art historian (Dr Laura Slater), a literary historian (Dr David Murray), and a music historian (the PI).

Reporting to the project PI, the postdoctoral researcher will pursue an individual research project within their specific selected sub-project, in collaboration with the project team. They will be expected to collaborate with all members of the team and participate in the preparation of relevant research publications, as well as representing the project at internal and external meetings, contributing ideas and engaging in dissemination. Ability and willingness to collaborate across the disciplines of medieval studies will be essential, along with high-level competencies in at least one relevant language (Latin, French, German, Czech, Italian).

Candidates must have a PhD or equivalent and may come from any of the disciplines relevant for the period 1250-1450 except art history, literary history, and musicology (which are already represented by the research team). The MALMECC team is particularly interested in candidates with a doctoral qualification in history.

Candidates may apply for one of the following sub-projects: (1) the courts of ecclesiastic princes in France and southern Europe; (2) the artistic patronage of the Luxembourgs in Germany and the Czech lands.

More information about these sub-projects can be found in the Further Particulars.

The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on 2 December 2016.

For full information, and to apply, please visit: http://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=126071

University of Exeter: Lecturer in Medieval Mediterranean History – Call For Applications

University of Exeter – College of Humanities, History
Lecturer in Medieval Mediterranean History (Education and Research)

Location: Exeter
Salary: £33,943 to £38,183
Hours: Full Time

Combining world class research with very high levels of student satisfaction we are a member of the Russell Group and now have over 19,000 students. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) Exeter was ranked 16th nationally with 98% of its research rated as being of international quality. We are ranked 9th in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide league table, 13th in The Complete University Guide and 11th in the Guardian University Guide.

The College wishes to recruit a full time Lecturer in Medieval Mediterranean History. The post is available from 1st September 2017 on a permanent basis. The post of Lecturer in Medieval Mediterranean History will contribute to extending the research profile of medieval history at Exeter, particularly in areas related or complementary to the history of the medieval Mediterranean, c.500-c.1350.

The successful applicant will hold a PhD (or nearing completion) or equivalent in medieval European history and have an independent, internationally-recognised research programme in an active field of medieval historical research related or complementary to existing Exeter strengths. He/she will be able to demonstrate the following qualities and characteristics; a strong record in attracting research funding, or demonstrable potential to attract such funding, teamwork skills to work in collaboration with existing group members, an active and supportive approach to inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research that will help to foster interactions and links both within the University and externally, the attitude and ability to engage in continuous professional development, the aptitude to develop familiarity with a variety of strategies to promote and assess learning and enthusiasm for delivering undergraduate programmes.

Applications should be made via our website. For more information and to apply online please go to www.exeter.ac.uk/jobs Please quote reference number P54941 in any correspondence. Applications close 1 December, 2016.

For further information please contact Professor Richard Toye, e-mail R.Toye@ex.ac.uk or telephone (01392) 723296.

The University of Exeter is an equal opportunity employer which is ‘Positive about Disabled People’. Whilst all applicants will be judged on merit alone, we particularly welcome applications from groups currently underrepresented in the workforce.

Hamlet and Emotions: Then and Now – Call For Papers

Hamlet and Emotions: Then and Now
St Catherine’s College, The University of Western Australia
10–11 April, 2017

Enquiries: Paul Megna (paul.megna@uwa.edu.au)
Organisers: Paul Megna and Bob White
Registration: This is a free event, but registration is required. Register online here.

Ian McEwan’s recent novel Nutshell (2016), in which Hamlet is an unborn foetus, is only the latest in a line of appropriations of Shakespeare’s plays stretching back to 1600. Hamlet itself stretches beyond the seventeenth century, drawing on sources that date back to twelfth-century Denmark, and referring within itself to relics of older drama that Shakespeare may have seen as a boy in Stratford. Hamlet looks both backwards and forwards in time. The play also covers a remarkable range of emotional states, including anger, love, hatred, grief, melancholy and despair. Indeed, Hamlet stages a plethora of emotional practices: a funeral and a marriage, a vindictive ghost in purgatory, a young woman whose mental equilibrium has been dislodged by the murder of her father by her own erstwhile lover, an inscrutable monarch under suspicion of murder, a couple of mordantly cheerful gravediggers, and a young prince back from university and grieving for his deceased father. This symposium invites new readings of the play, focusing on any aspect of its emotional life in the widest sense.

International Visitors:

  • Kevin Curran (University of Lausanne)
  • Richard Meek (University of Hull)
  • Kathryn Prince (University of Ottawa)
  • Naya Tsentourou (University of Exeter)

We envisage papers from a range of disciplines and points of view, which may contribute to any of the Centre’s four research programs – Meanings, Change, Performance or Shaping the Modern. Some possible areas of discussion are mentioned below, but they are by no means exclusive. We aim at producing a book proposal, so completed papers ready for publication will save time when approaching a publisher. Please send proposals for 20-minute papers, including a title and presenter details, to Paul Megna (paul.megna@uwa.edu.au) by Tuesday 28 February, 2017

Possible topics:

  • How scholarship on the history of the emotions can help us to better understand Hamlet and vice versa
  • Emotional regimes, communities and practices in Hamlet
  • Emotions and language
  • Hamlet, melancholy and depression
  • Female consciousness
  • Revenge and anger in Hamlet
  • Hamlet and non-Shakespearean Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre and literature
  • Emotional accounts of the afterlife and other religious ideas in Hamlet
  • Hamlet’s emotional medievalism and allusions to medieval drama
  • Nostalgia in Hamlet, as well as nostalgia for Hamlet in adaptations, appropriations and re-writings
  • Gendered emotion in Hamlet and its descendants
  • Emotional reactions to Hamlet through the centuries
  • Hamlet’s influence on theories of emotion
  • Emotions in adaptations of Hamlet (including novels, movies, popular culture).
  • Staging of passions, perturbations, affections, etc.

Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium – Registration Now Open

Dreams, Memory and Imagination in Byzantium
Australian Association for Byzantine Studies 19th Conference
Monash University Law Chambers, 555 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
24-26 February, 2017

Registration is now open; abstracts and programme are published. Full details on the conference web site at: http://www.aabs.org.au/conferences/19th

In the last two decades, the role of dreams, memory and the imagination in the ancient world and its cultural productions have come to receive increased attention, along with the importance of emotions in the Greco-Roman and medieval worlds. This conference will focus on the ways that the Byzantine imagination shaped its dreams and memories from the fourth to fifteenth centuries and the many ways in which these were recorded in the Byzantine world, in its historiography, literature, religion, art and architecture.

Guest speaker: Professor Derek Krueger, Greensboro University, North Carolina

Convenor: Dr Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Monash University

Enquiries: conference@aabs.org.au

The Jo-Anne Duggan Prize – Call For Applications

Australasian Centre for Italian Studies – The Jo-Anne Duggan Prize

Jo-Anne Duggan (1962-2011) was a great artist and a great friend of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS). Her artistic practice left what is arguably the richest and most compelling recent collection of photographs by an Australian artist to engage with Italian culture, history and art. Her work demonstrates not only artistic rigour and depth but also remarkable breadth, spanning from public spaces/places of Italian diaspora in Australia to enquiries into the re-contextualisation and museification of Renaissance art, from Australian archives of Italian migration to complex case studies on the legacy of the Gonzagas. In her research-led and interdisciplinary endeavour, Jo-Anne asked crucial questions and opened up original paths with regard to the construction of space/place, our relationship with the past and its reception, and the role of photographic art in mobilising and questioning the viewer’s gaze, starting from what she called her ‘postcolonial eye’.

To honour her memory, ACIS, with the generous support of Kevin Bayley, The Colour Factory and the editorial committee of Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, established a biennial Jo-Anne Duggan Essay Prize which was awarded for the first time in 2015. The aim of the Prize is to foster and expand Jo-Anne’s rich creative, artistic and scholarly legacy in order to maintain enquiry into the nexus between creative practice and research, especially among younger/emerging scholars. The Prize is designed to keep Jo-Anne’s questions alive in order to continue to learn from her own answers.

THE PRIZE

Up to three awards may be made:

  • $1,000 for the best entry (essay or creative work with accompanying exegesis); it will also be mentored for submission in a top quartile journal for publication;
  • $250 each for two highly-commended entries (essay or creative work with accompanying exegesis)

All three award-winners will be invited to present their submissions at the ACIS biennial conference at the Monash Prato Centre (Italy), 4-7 July 2017, for which their full conference registration will be paid.

One award will be reserved for an entry of sufficient merit by a student.

CATEGORIES

The assessment criteria will be weighted appropriately for each of the two categories:

1) Essay category

Originality; argument; conceptual framework (cultural and/or historical context); approach/methodology; engagement with any aspect of Duggan’s research or creative output; knowledge of scholarship in field; critical analysis; focus; written expression/style; structure; referencing.

2) Creative work with accompanying exegesis category:

Creative work: originality; competence in the specialized medium and its artistic/industry standards;

Exegesis (a critical interpretation informing the creative work): purpose/process of the creative practice/product; conceptual framework (artistic, cultural and/or historical context); approach/methodology; engagement with any aspect of Duggan’s research or creative output; knowledge of scholarship in field; focus; written expression/style; structure; referencing.

GUIDELINES

The details of the GUIDELINES for eligibility and submissions for the 2017 Prize are available:
https://acis.org.au/guidelines-for-2017-jo-anne-duggan-prize

CALL FOR ENTRIES BY: 3 MARCH, 2017

ENQUIRIES

 

Transience, Garbage, Excess, Loss: The Ephemeral, 1500–1800 – Call For Papers

Transience, Garbage, Excess, Loss: The Ephemeral, 1500–1800
University of California, Santa Barbara
April 21–22, 2017

The Early Modern Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara invites proposals for our annual conference, “Transience, Garbage, Excess, Loss: The Ephemeral, 1500–1800,” to be held on April 21 and 22, 2017.

We are happy to announce our two keynote speakers: Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook (UC, Santa Barbara) and Jonathan Goldberg (Emory).

We invite presentations that connect broadly to our theme of ephemerality in early modernity. With the present rise of ephemera studies, we hope to investigate the limits, depths, and abilities of the ephemeral as it may pertain to literature, art, music, history, religion, philosophy, or other fields of inquiry. How is the ephemeral intimately connected to our study of early modernity? And what is at stake in plumbing what is, by definition, “short-lived” or “transitory”? Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Im/permanence; im/materiality
  • Sanitation, disease, sickness, plague, sewage or early modern plumbing
  • Trash or the trashy
  • Fragility or frailty
  • Excessive femininity, sensibility, or emotional states
  • Social production, overpopulation, over crowding
  • Scavengers, pests, pestilence
  • Food, consumption, intoxication
  • Scarcity vs. plenty
  • The exile, itinerant, or transient
  • The pilgrim or pilgrimage
  • Textuality; the ephemerality of print
  • Art, artistry, or ornamentation
  • The object vs the subject
  • The transatlantic
  • Environmental stakes

We invite abstracts of 300 words or less and a 1-page CV to be sent to EMCConference@gmail.com by December 15, 2016. In the spirit of the ephemeral, we envision both traditional conference presentations and also roundtables that engage with panelists, respondents, and audience. Please feel free to contact the conference organizer, Jeremy Chow, at emcfellow@gmail.com with any questions you may have.

ANZAMEMS 2017 – Registration Now Open

A reminder that registration is now open for the 11th Biennial Conference of the Australian & New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, to be held at Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand from Tuesday 7 – Friday 10 February 2017.
To register, please visit: https://anzamems2017.wordpress.com/registration

Please note that we are asking all speakers to register by 30 November, 2016 so that the final programme can be devised with certainty. (If this causes a particular problem with institutional funding deadlines, please contact the conference organisers at: anzamems2017@gmail.com).