Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum Vol. 6 (2012) – Now Online via Open Access

Volume 6 (2012) of the journal Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum is now available online via open access at the website:http://www.medieval.udl.cat/en/imagotemporis.

Imago Temporis. Medium Aevum aims to contribute to renewing studies into the medieval period, with special attention to the different conceptual aspects that gave rise to the medieval civilisation, and especially to the study of the Mediterranean area.

Volumes 1-5 (from 2008 onwards) of Imago Temporis are also available to view via open access at the above website.

Celebrating Word and Image 1250–1600

For those members in Perth, or who may be coming to Perth for the PMRG/CMEMS conference in November this exhibition may be of interest.

Celebrating Word and Image 1250–1600
Illuminated Manuscripts from the Kerry Stokes Collection New Norcia Museum and Art Gallery
4 October 2013 to 17 March 2014

Rare medieval manuscripts from the Kerry Stokes Collection will be exhibited for the first time at the New Norcia Museum and Art Gallery from October 2013 to March 2014.

The Kerry Stokes Collection is one of the most extensive and significant private collections of art and historical material in Australia. Celebrating Word and Image 1250–1600 will give Western Australians unprecedented access to these unique manuscripts.

For full details, please see the media release: http://www.newnorcia.wa.edu.au/cms/resources/MediaReleaseV2.pdf

Heckman Stipends – Call For Applications

Heckman Stipends, made possible by the A.A. Heckman Endowed Fund, are awarded semi-annually. Up to 10 stipends in amounts up to $2,000 are available each year. Funds may be applied toward travel to and from Collegeville, housing and meals at Saint John’s University, and costs related to duplication of HMML’s microfilm or digital resources. The Stipend may be supplemented by other sources of funding but may not be held simultaneously with another HMML Stipend or Fellowship. Holders of the Stipend must wait at least two years before applying again.

The program is specifically intended to help scholars who have not yet established themselves professionally and whose research cannot progress satisfactorily without consulting materials to be found in the collections of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library.

Applications must be submitted by November 15 for residencies between January and June of the following year.

Applicants are asked to provide:

  • a letter of application with current contact information, the title of the project, length of the proposed residency at HMML and its projected dates, and the amount requested (up to $2,000)
  • a description of the project to be pursued, with an explanation of how HMML’s resources are essential to its successful completion of the project; applicants are advised to be as specific as possible about which resources will be needed (maximum length: 1,000 words)
  • an updated curriculum vitae
  • a confidential letter of recommendation to be sent directly to HMML by an advisor, thesis director, mentor, or, in the case of postdoctoral candidates, a colleague who is a good judge of the applicant’s work 

Please send all materials as email attachments to: fellowships@hmml.org, with “Heckman Stipend” in the subject line. Questions about the Stipends may be sent to the same address.

University of Sydney, Workshop – Themes in Early Modern Mathematics and Medicine

Themes in Early Modern Mathematics and Medicine
University of Sydney
Kevin Lee Room, Level 6, Quadrangle A14 (enter via MacLaurin Hall Stairway)
8 November 2013

Program:

  • 9.30 Charles Wolfe (Ghent): ‘Early modern medical empiricism’ (60 mins paper & discussion inclusive)
  • 10.30 Alan Salter (Sydney): ‘Richard Lower’s model heart. The diagram as object of inquiry in early modern anatomy’
  • 11.30 Coffee
  • 12.00 Anik Waldow (Sydney): ‘Experience and its explanatory role’
  • 1.00 Lunch (provided) in Main Quad N293
  • 2.30 Peter Anstey (Sydney): ‘Mathematical principles as models’
  • 3.30 Laura Kotevska (Sydney): ‘Geometry at Port-Royal: some remarks on Arnauld’s Nouveaux éléments de géométrie’ (45 mins paper & discussion)
  • 4.15 Roundtable discussion
  • 5.00 Wind up

Space is limited. To register contact Professor Peter Anstey by 6 November (peter.anstey@sydney.edu.au).

Mapping Our World: Terra Incognita to Australia

A free exhibition is opening soon at the National Library of Australia in Canberra, which may interest members.

Mapping Our World: Terra Incognita to Australia

Exhibition Website

Date: 7 November 2013 to 10 March 2014
Opening hours: Open from 10.00am daily with last entry at 5.00pm (closed Christmas Day)

Treasured items from some of the world’s greatest map collections will tell the remarkable story of how Australia came to be on the map, and will reveal the history and struggle to imagine and document the world; from the earliest imaginings of the earth and the night sky through to Matthew Flinders’ landmark General Chart of Terra Australis or Australia in 1814.

The exhibition will take you on a spiritual, artistic and scientific journey, showing how European explorers gradually unravelled the secrets of the south land. Highlights of the exhibition include the magnificent Fra Mauro, Map of the world; the remarkable Boke of Idrography presented to Henry VIII; an intricate world map by the Benedictine monk Andreas Walsperger (1448); a fifteenth-century Ptolemy manuscript; magnificent and controversial ‘Dieppe’ charts; one of only four surviving copies of Mercator’s groundbreaking 1569 projection and original manuscript charts by Pacific navigators including Louis de Freycinet, James Cook and Matthew Flinders.

Mapping our World is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see rare and unique cartographic treasures from around the world.

Actor Russell Crowe, who has an interest in maps, will open the exhibition on November 7. Entry is free however bookings are required.

Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of London: The Warburg Institute – Call For Applications

Post-Doctoral Researcher
Encounters with the orient in early modern European scholarship (EOS),
University of London -The Warburg Institute

Applications are invited for a 0.5 part time research assistantship, as part of a major research project funded by the HERA. The post is available from 1 November 2013 for a fixed term until 30 September 2016.

Funded by HERA the project will document the scholarly European encounter with Oriental culture between c 1500‐1800. The ‘Orient’ explored in this context is, first of all, a Biblical Orient, covering the religious area of Islam, Eastern Judaism and Christianity. Interest in this cultural, religious and linguistic area arose from Scripture Studies and theological and missionary concerns with the Eastern Churches and Islam. These delineate the early modern concept of ‘Orient’, and also determine our use of the concept. In a number of case studies, conferences, and exhibitions, the project will explore the early modern scholarly European encounter with the Orient.

There is no application form. Candidates should submit with their letter of application a full curriculum vitae giving contact information (including e-mail address), details of qualifications, previous experience, current salary (if any) and the names, addresses and e-mail addresses of two referees (present/previous employers or academic references).

For full details and to apply, please visit: http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/home/vacancies/post-doctoral-researcher

Closing date for receipt of applications: Monday, 21 October 2013

Chaucerian Manuscripts Across Time – Call For Papers

From glass case to cyber-space: Chaucerian manuscripts across time / Syrffio’r silff: hynt a helynt llawysgrifau Chaucer
National Library of Wales / Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru 
14-16 April, 2014

Conference Website

To celebrate the digitization of the Hengwrt manuscript of The Canterbury Tales (available from April 2014 on the National Library’s Digital Mirror), The School of English, Bangor University and IMEMS (the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Bangor and Aberystwyth Universities) is delighted to host an interdisciplinary conference devoted to Chaucerian manuscripts and editions of Chaucer’s works.

Abstracts are welcomed from postgraduates and colleagues on all aspects of Chaucerian studies, and from a broad range of disciplines, including history, book history, literature, art history, and the digital humanities.
Papers are particularly welcome on, but not limited to:

  • The palaeography and codicology of Chaucerian manuscripts
  • From manuscript to printed text; Chaucer and his contemporaries
  • Owners and users of Chaucer’s works
  • Chaucer and medieval Wales
  • Medieval story telling
  • Post-medieval production and reception of Chaucer’s works
  • Digitizing medieval manuscripts
  • Digital Chaucer in the classroom
  • Chaucer in the Twenty-first century

In addition to the panels, confirmed speakers include Lorna Hughes (University of Wales), Ceridwen Lloyd Morgan (Bangor and Cardiff Universities), Andrew Prescott (King’s College, London), Liv Robinson (Oxford University) and Estelle Stubbs (Sheffield University). We are pleased also to announce that the conference will include a tour of the multi-faceted exhibition at the National Library of Wales showcasing the Hengwrt Chaucer – one of the treasures at the National Library of Wales. Papers submitted may also be considered for a special edition of English: The Journal of the English Association (OUP).

Please send abstracts of 200-300 words, for papers lasting 20 minutes, or proposals of panels comprising three papers, no later than 1 December 2013 to Dr Sue Niebrzydowski, for consideration by the conference committee.

Trinity College Digitized MSS.

Trinity College, Cambridge is digitizing its medieval manuscripts, and making them freely available on the Web. A few years ago, M.R.James’s catalogue of the manuscripts was put up on the Library’s website, with some updates. This is now being used as the index tool for searching for digitized volumes. So far, about 150 of the thousand or so manuscripts have been copied, in a programme that is part-funded by the College’s alumni.

For access, go to the Library’s website http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=9

Click on ‘Early manuscripts’, and then ‘The James catalogue’. From there follow the links to the manuscript you wish to see. The descriptions of those manuscripts that have been digitized are headed with access to the relevant images. Priority is being given to manuscripts that are most in demand. The Librarian (Professor David McKitterick) will be glad to receive suggestions for further manuscripts that might be treated early in the programme.

Thanks to the MEMC for passing on this resource.

Forms and Formats: Experimenting with Print, 1695-1815 – Call For Papers

Forms and Formats: Experimenting with Print, 1695-1815
University of Oxford
8-9 September, 2014

Plenary Speakers (TBC): Dr Christine Ferdinand (Magdalen College, University of Oxford), Prof. James Raven (University of Essex)

From broadside ballads and Lilliputian folios to printed engravings and manuals, from newspapers and pamphlets to abridgements and anthologies, a vast variety of print circulated in eighteenth-century Britain and its colonies. How did authors, printers, engravers or booksellers experiment with new forms of publication and with what results? To what extent did regulations related to copyright, taxation, or postal distribution affect the choices of authors and publishers? How did changes in printing format (octavo, duodecimo, etc.) alter the experiences of readers and reveal the modifications of the book trade?

Papers may examine a specific text or image as it appeared across different formats, or consider a particular category (the monthly magazine, the advertisement, the abridged novel, etc.) in relation to its material form(s). Whether focusing on the evolution of techniques and materials or the changing habits of readers, authors are especially encouraged to include analysis of works held by one of the host libraries: The Bodleian Library, Jesus College Fellows’ Library, and Oriel College Senior Library. Copies of relevant works will be displayed during the conference.

Please supply a 300-word proposal and a one-page C.V. by 15 January 2014 to: formsandformats2014@gmail.com 

View this CFP online: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/?a=151534 

Medium Ævum Essay Prize 2013

In 2007, The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature established the Medium Ævum Essay Prize. The competition is run annually, with postgraduates and those recently graduated with a higher degree invited to submit an essay on a topic that falls within the range of the interests of Medium Ævum in the medieval period (up to c. 1500). The prize is £250. In addition, the winning article may be considered for publication in Medium Ævum, subject to the usual editorial procedures of the journal.

A list of previous Essay Prize Winners is downloadable here.

The deadline for Essay Prize is 12 December. The rules of the competition are available here. It is a requirement to submit an entry with a completed cover sheet, which is available, in Word doc format. Any queries can be directed to Executive Officer of the Society.