Three New Short-Term Fellowships @ I Tatti – Call For Applications

The deadline for all I Tatti Short Term Fellowships is 14 December.

Wallace Fellowships, for four or six months, are available for scholars who explore the historiography and impact of the Italian Renaissance in the Modern Era (19th-21st centuries). Projects could address a range of topics from historiography to the reaction to, transformation of, and commentary on the Italian Renaissance and its ties to modernity. Also welcome are projects on museum and collecting history, and on the survival of the Renaissance in modern art and architecture, in literature and music, and in philosophy and political thought.

Berenson Fellowships, for four or six months, are available for scholars who explore “Italy in the World”. Projects should address the transnational dialogues between Italy and other cultures (e.g. Latin American, Mediterranean, African, Asian etc.) during the Renaissance, broadly understood historically to include the period from the 14th to the 17th century.

Mellon Fellowships in the Digitial Humanities, for four or six months, are available for projects that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries and actively employ digital technology. Applicants can be scholars in the humanities or social sciences, librarians, archivists, and data science professionals. Projects should apply digital technologies such as mapping, textual analysis, visualization, or the semantic web to topics on any aspect of the Italian Renaissance.

See the I Tatti fellowships website for details about these and other grants, including:

Craig Hugh Smyth Fellowships, for three months, are available for curators and conservators. Projects can address any aspect of the Italian Renaissance art or architecture, including landscape architecture

David and Julie Tobey Fellowship, for three months, is awarded to support research on drawings, prints, and illustrated manuscripts from the Italian Renaissance, and especially the role that these works played in the creative process, the history of taste and collecting, and questions of connoisseurship.

ANZAMEMS Member News: Fiona O’Brien – Thoughts on the 10th ANZAMEMS Conference and PATS @ UQ, July 2015

Fiona O’Brien, Doctoral Candidate, The University of Adelaide

Thoughts on the ANZAMEMS Conference 2015

I was fortunate to attend my second ANZAMEMS in Brisbane this year, and I was particularly excited to deliver my first paper with thanks to the generosity of the ANZAMEMS bursary committee. I would also like to thank the committee at The University of Adelaide for The Bill Cowan Bar Smith Library Fellowship for the funding I received earlier this year, which also made my attendance possible.

Prior to the conference, I had been trying to clarify my thesis methodology, and used my paper to work through some of my ideas. I was a bit nervous as to how this would be received, but I received plenty of positive feedback, and was particularly lucky to have had Professor Laura Knoppers – who had delivered a keynote on Andrew Marvell – willing to offer some incisive suggestions for my own work on Marvell. This helped me to clarify the focus my thesis would take, and upon returning to Adelaide I was re-energized enough to complete a full draft incorporating these ideas.

The keynote by Professor Alexandra Walsham also sparked my interest with a paper exploring the “interconnections between material objects (in particular commemorative Delfware), religious identity and memory in Early Modern England. My own work takes a trans-disciplinary approach to studying the Anglo-Dutch war satires of John Dryden and Andrew Marvell, and Walsham’s work gave me a new perspective on how material objects can be analysed as an expression of religious and political identity. Listening to the variety of other papers further opened my eyes to new areas of research, some of which intersected with my own in ways I had not previously considered. The panel discussion on possible career directions post-PhD was also helpful, despite the outlook sounding rather bleak at times.

My time at the conference concluded with the PATS seminar. This was a valuable opportunity for a small group of postgraduate students to discuss their work with the conference keynote’s, as well as participating in discussions on a variety of interesting articles covering the themes of Representation, Religion and the History of Emotions. I left Brisbane with a new sense of focus, a desire to stay in touch with some of those I had met, and of course, to attending the next ANZAMEMS in Wellington in 2017.

Lichtenberg-Kolleg, the Göttingen Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences: 4 Early Career Fellowships – Call For Applications

The Lichtenberg-Kolleg, the Göttingen Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, invites applications for up to 4 Early Career Fellowships.

Opening its doors in 1737 Göttingen quickly established itself as one of Europe’s leading Enlightenment universities. Named after one of the most important and versatile representatives of the Göttingen Enlightenment, the Lichtenberg-Kolleg is an interdisciplinary research institute with a strong focus not only on the Enlightenment(s), but also on “bridges” between the human and natural sciences and the history of political thought.

For the period March 2016 to July 2017 we are inviting early career scholars to join one of the research groups for the study of either:

  • Globalising the Enlightenment: Knowledge, Culture, Travel, Exchange and Collections (1 Fellowship), or:
  • European Intellectual History / History of Political Thought (2 Fellowships), or:
  • Primate Cognition: Philosophical, Linguistic, and Historical Perspectives (1 Fellowship).

Deadline for applications: 7 January, 2016.

Further information: http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/501529.html

Ashmolean Museum, Research Assistant: Divination and Art in the Medieval and Early Islamic World – Call For Applications

Research Assistant, “Divination and Art in the Medieval and Early Islamic World” Project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust

Salary Grade 7: £30,434 – £32,277 p.a. depending on experience

Full time, Fixed term until October 2016

Post-holder must be able to start on 4 January 2016 and have the right to work in the U.K.

The Ashmolean Museum is seeking to appoint a research assistant to join the team of the Leverhulme Trust-funded project “Divination and Art in the Medieval and Early Islamic World (1200–1800)” directed by Dr Francesca Leoni. The project examines the multiple roles of “licit” divinatory arts (i.e. astrology, geomancy, bibliomancy, dream interpretation, physiognomy and ‘ilm al-huruf) in the medieval and early modern Islamic world through their impact on visual and material culture. The post-holder will provide support to the project’s Principal Investigator and the core research team, undertake independent research and assist with a range of tasks and outcomes, including publications and the organisation of a large-scale exhibition.

Candidates should have a doctoral degree or equivalent knowledge or experience in a relevant area, specialist knowledge of Islamic Art and have demonstrated experience in the museum sector. The successful post-holder will also have a significant research and publication record and have good working knowledge of at least one language amongst Arabic, Turkish and Persian.

Applications for this vacancy are to be made online.

You will be required to upload your CV, a supporting statement (max. 2 pages of A4) telling us how your skills, experience and knowledge meet our selection criteria, and a written sample of your published work (not to exceed 5,000 words) as part of your application. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.

To apply for this role and for further details, including a job description and selection criteria, please follow this link.

Closing date: 18th November 2015 (at midday)

Interviews will be held at the Ashmolean Museum on 25 November with a view to appointment starting in 4 January 2016.

Owing to the nature of this position, any offer of employment with the University will be subject to a satisfactory security screening.

Please note in normal circumstances only interview travel expenses within the UK will be reimbursed. We regret we cannot pay expenses for international travel.

Emotions, History and Philosophy in Cinema: Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (UWA Node) Free Symposium

Emotions, History and Philosophy in Cinema

Date: 4-5 December, 2015
Venue: ALR 4 (G.60, ground floor, Arts Building), The University of Western Australia
Registration: The symposium is free and open to the public. Registration is required for catering purposes though. Please contact Pam Bond (pam.bond@uwa.edu.au).

The symposium will address the following questions:

  • What kind of contributions does cinema make to the philosophy and history of emotions?
  • How does cinema construct the historical past in emotional terms?
  • How does cinema articulate a philosophy of emotions?
  • What are the philosophical implications of various styles of historical cinema?

Speakers:

  • Dr Damian Cox, Society and Design, Bond University
  • Dr Ned Curthoys, English and Cultural Studies, The University of Western Australia
  • Professor Louise D’Arcens, English Literatures Program, The University of Wollongong
  • Caterina Di Fazio, PhD Student in Philosophy, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Charles University in Prague
  • Professor Michael Levine, Philosophy, The University of Western Australia
  • Professor Martin Shichtman, Director of Jewish Studies, Eastern Michigan University
  • Dr Robert Sinnerbrink, Philosophy, Macquarie University
  • Emeritus Professor Richard Read, History of Art, The University of Western Australia
  • Dr Ika Willis, School of the Arts, English and Media, The University of Wollongong

Self-Nominations for the MAA Graduate Student Committee – Call For Applications

The Medieval Academy of America is currently accepting self-nominations for vacancies opening up on the Graduate Student Committee (GSC) for the 2016-2018 term. The GSC comprises five members appointed for a two- year term on a rotating basis. Self-nominations are open to all graduate students, worldwide, who are members of the MAA and have at least two years remaining in their program of study.

The GSC was founded more than ten years ago to represent and promote the participation of graduate student medievalists within the MAA and the broader academic community. In addition to fostering international and interdisciplinary exchange, the GSC is dedicated to providing guidance on research, teaching, publishing, professionalization, funding, and employment, as well as offering a forum for the expression of the concerns and interests of our colleagues. Our responsibilities, thus, include organizing pre-professionalizing panels and social events annually at ICMS Kalamazoo, the MAA Annual Meeting, IMC Leeds, and biennially at ANZAMEMS. We also run a successful and popular Mentorship Program that pairs graduate students with faculty to discuss any aspect of our profession such as teaching, publishing, finding a successful work/life balance, maneuvering the job market, and more. In addition, we seek to bring together graduate students through virtual communities such as the growing Graduate Student Group on the MAA website, Facebook, Twitter, the med-grad listserv, and this tri-annual newsletter.

GSC members are asked to attend the Committee’s annual business meeting at Kalamazoo for the duration of their term and to communicate regularly with the group via email and Skype. Ideal applicants are expected to work well both independently and as part of a team in a collaborative environment. Previous experience with organizing conference panels and social events, as well as facility with social and digital media are not required, but may be a benefit.

Interested applicants should submit the following by December 15, 2015:

  • The Nomination Form;
  • A brief CV (2 pages maximum) uploaded as part of the Nomination Form;
  • A recommendation letter from your faculty advisor, sent to the Executive Director of the Medieval Academy by mail or as a PDF attachment (on letterhead with signature, to LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org).

New members will be selected by the Committee on Committees and confirmed by the Council of the Medieval Academy at the 2016 Annual Meeting in Boston, February 25-27. If you have any questions, please contact us at gsc@themedievalacademy.org.

Courtly Pastimes – Call For Papers

Courtly Pastimes
The Fifteenth Triennial International Courtly Literature Society Congress
University of Kentucky, Lexington
24-29 July, 2016

Congress Website

Paper topics might include, but are not limited to:

  • Hunting, falconry, jousting and tournaments
  • Festivals, ceremonies and celebrations
  • Games and sports
  • Dance, music, songs and poetry
  • The Garden: Plants and Nature (real or symbolic, in treatises, in visual arts)
  • Animals (real, mythical, literary, heraldic, emblematic)
  • Domestic animals (horses, lap dogs, hunting dogs, household cats)
  • Exotic pets
  • Reading and writing
  • Sewing, embroidery, textile arts
  • Amorous dalliances
  • Courtly spaces: Decorous interiors, decorative objects, fabrics and furnishings
  • Warriors dismounted: Knights at court (courtly conduct, speech, dress)
  • Courtly Elements in Epic
  • Special Topic: 500 Years of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (anniversary of publication of the first edition

Additional topics concerning medieval and Renaissance era courts of any country are welcomed.

Papers may be presented in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese. Papers must not exceed 20-minutes in length (15-min. for panels of four). Organized sessions (4-paper maximum) or round tables are encouraged.

Plenary Speakers and Concert:

  • Lori Walters, The Florida State University, “Jeux à vendre: Poetic and Amorous Games in Christine de Pizan’s Queen’s Manuscript (London, BL, Harley 4431)”
  • Kristen Figg, Kent State University, “Blind Man’s Buff: From Children’s Games to Pleasure Gardens in late medieval France and England”
  • Pia Cuneo, University of Arizona, “Emblazoned Saddles: The Courtly Life of Horses in late medieval / early modern Germany”
  • Elizabeth Tobey, University of Maryland, “The Sport of Dukes: Palios, Stallions and Racing Stables in Renaissance Italy”
  • Courtly music in concert to be performed by Liber Ensemble for Early Music

All conferees must be members in good standing of their respective ICLS branch by the time of the Congress. Graduate students are kindly requested to include a letter of introduction from their supervising professor. Deadline for Submission of Papers (title and abstract, not over 300 words): 1 December, 2015. Abstracts will be posted electronically on the Congress webpage: http://icls2016.as.uky.edu. For particular concerns, contact the Congress organizer, Gloria Allaire: dr.gloria.allaire@hotmail.com.

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Study Day: The Heart – Call For Papers

ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions Study Day: ‘The Heart’

Date: 11 March, 2016
Venue: The University of Melbourne
Contact: Convenors Katie Barclay (katie.barclay@adelaide.edu.au) or Bronwyn Reddan (b.reddan@student.unimelb.edu.au)

The significance of the heart across time in Western culture is hard to underestimate. It is a beating heart that haunts Edgar Allan Poe’s murderous narrator; his guilt embodied as another’s heart. The relationship between conscience and the heart is encapsulated in the expression ‘black-hearted’ – disposed to evil; a metaphor that the contemporary author, Frank Peretti, captured in his horror fiction, where sin manifested as an oozing wound over the heart. Similarly, early modern Christians often imagined religious conversion as a change of heart, the physical embodiment of spiritual transformation. Here the heart was a space of conscience, cognition, morality; for others, it was closely tied to constructions of self. The practice of ‘heart burial’ across medieval and early modern world operated in part due to the association of the heart with the soul; the heart became a key organ that signified the person and enabled it to stand in place of them.

St Teresa of Avila’s heart became a reliquary, perhaps in part due to her famous and agonising visions of being stabbed in the heart, only to be left with an overwhelming love of God; whilst four hundred years later, the French Republican Leon Gambetta’s heart was used as a secular reliquary that encouraged patriotism amongst his followers. Here the heart signified the qualities of the deceased that enabled it to inspire devotion amongst worshippers.

Perhaps most famously, the heart has been associated with emotion. ‘Sweetheart’, ‘Dearhart’ were the most popular affectionate nicknames amongst seventeenth-century Scottish lovers, and hearts remain a key symbol of romantic love, found on Valentine Day’s cards and in numerous songs. Christ should be loved with your ‘whole heart’, the gospel of Mark reminds readers. Conversely, sorrow is often signified as an attack on the heart. The Virgin Mary, in the Marian play The Betrayal, felt her ‘hert hard as ston’ on hearing of Christ’s death. Richard the Lionheart reminds us that hearts were associated with courage, whilst Snow White’s evil stepmother had an ‘envious heart’ that led her to seek the murder of her stepdaughter. The heart then is a site of emotional experience, of conscience, character, self and soul – a physical organ that does considerable symbolic work, and an organ that in turn has been understood through metaphor, with heart disease and broken-heartedness, as illnesses, closely tied to emotional wellbeing and health.

This CHE study day seeks presentations that explore ‘The heart’ across time and place. Our aim is to facilitate an interdisciplinary conversation about the association between the heart and emotion. Papers might consider, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • how the heart is represented in art and culture;
  • how ideas of the heart effect experience and feeling;
  • the heart as a site of feeling, cognition, and being, and how such dimensions interact;
  • the relationship between the heart as a physical organ and its metaphorical dimensions;
  • the heart in interaction with other organs (the liver, the brain);
  • the religious or spiritual heart; the loving heart; or the heart as soul.

Presenters will be asked to give a short paper of 10-15 minutes, and then lead a discussion based on pre-circulated material such as the texts, images, or other media that their presentation draws on. It is intended that the papers presented at this study day will be published as a special edition of a journal.

Abstracts of no more than 200 words, and a short bio, should be emailed to both Katie Barclay, (katie.barclay@adelaide.edu.au) and Bronwyn Reddan (b.reddan@student.unimelb.edu.au) by 30 November, 2015. Questions or queries can also be addressed to the above.

Lancaster University: Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature – Call For Applications

Lancaster University – English and Creative Writing
Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature

Location: Lancaster
Salary: £33,242 to £45,954 pay award pending
Hours: Full Time
Contract Type: Permanent
Job Ref: A1392

The Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster is a world-class department currently ranked 11th in the UK, with 40% of our research rated as 4* in REF 2014. We seek to appoint a full time permanent Lecturer in English Literature with a specialism in Medieval/Early Modern and an ability to teach in both periods. You will be able to demonstrate excellent teaching abilities at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, be willing to give lectures, design specialist courses and have the potential to supervise postgraduate students. You should have a strong research profile with the potential for publication in top journals and the making of successful grant applications. Your research should also be able to contribute to larger impact within society and culture. We welcome applicants from a range of backgrounds.

Informal enquiries may be made to Sally Bushell, Head of Department: s.bushell@lancs.ac.uk

For further information and to apply, please visit: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AMF455/lecturer-in-medieval-and-early-modern-literature

Applications close: 20 November, 2015.

Witchcraft and Emotions: Media and Cultural Meanings – Draft Programme Online, Registration Now Open

Witchcraft and Emotions: Media and Cultural Meanings
Graduate House, 220 Leicester Street, Carlton, The University of Melbourne
25-27 November, 2015

Registration now open: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/witchcraft-and-emotions/

Download the draft programme HERE.

Witchcraft is an intensely emotional crime. The crime of witchcraft fundamentally concerns the impact of emotional states on physical ones. Anger, envy or hate of one person towards another could manifest itself in a variety of physical ailments and even death. In early modern Europe, women’s passions and lusts were sometimes said to make them more prone to witchcraft than their male counterparts. It was not just the witch who was intensely emotional: the Devil could also play the role of jealous lover or violent master. So too the families, relations, friends, and sometimes the community as a whole, would be drawn into the complex web of emotional claim and counter claim from which developed accusations and condemnations of witchcraft.

Yet despite the path-breaking work of Lyndal Roper and Diane Purkiss on the emotional self-representation and imagination of accused witches and their accusers, an emotional history of witchcraft remains relatively unexplored. This conference seeks to bring together scholars from a number of different fields, including history, art history and anthropology, to probe further into the relationship between witchcraft and emotions through an inter-disciplinary perspective.

Confirmed speakers include: Victoria Burbank (Anthropology, University of Western Australia), Johannes Dillinger (History, Oxford Brookes), Iris Gareis (Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt), Malcolm Gaskill (History, University of East Anglia), Eliza Kent (University of New England), Isak Niehaus (Anthropology, Brunel University), Abaigéal Warfield, (History, University of Adelaide), Jan Machielsen (History, University of Oxford), Patricia Simons (Art History, University of Michigan), Julian Goodare (History, University of Edinburgh), Sarah Ferber (Anthropology, La Trobe University), Deborah Van Heekeren (Anthropology, Macquarie University), Charlotte-Rose Millar (History, University of Melbourne), Laura Kounine (History, Max Planck Institute Berlin), Jacqueline van Gent (History, University of Western Australia), Charles Zika (History, University of Melbourne) and Sarah Ferber (History, University of Wollongong).

The symposium will run from Wednesday 25th – Friday 27th November and will be held at Graduate House, 220 Leicester Street, Carlton. The conference dinner at Il Vicolo Carlton will be at 7pm on Wednesday the 25th and there will be a free, public film screening of the 1922 film ‘Haxan: Witchcraft through the Ages’ at 7.30pm on Thursday the 26th in the Singapore Theatre (B120), The School of Melbourne Design, the University of Melbourne.

This symposium is the first of two, the second of which will be held in Berlin in June 2016.