Showing posts with label CFP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CFP. Show all posts

Tuesday 18 June 2013

CFP: DigiPal One-Day Symposium

Date: Monday 16th September 2013
Venue: King's College London, Strand
Co-sponsor: Centre for Late Antique & Medieval studies, KCL

It is with great delight that the DigiPal team at the Department of Digital Humanities (King's College London) announce their third Symposium.

We've built up a scholarly camaraderie over the last two years and much look forward to our annual opportunity to discuss and debate the computer-assisted study of medieval handwriting and manuscripts.

How to propose a paper

Papers of 20 minutes in length are invited on any aspect of digital approaches to the study of medieval handwriting and manuscripts.

The topics below might help guide potential submissions:

* terminology for describing handwriting
* visualisation of manuscript evidence and data
* meaning and mining in palaeography
* automatic letter-form identification
* methods for dating/localising script
* crowd-sourcing in palaeography
* the practical and theoretical consequences of the use of digital images
* examples of research that would benefit from a Digital Humanities (or DigiPal) approach

The above are only serving suggestions, so please don't feel limited to these topics.

To propose a paper, please email a brief abstract (250 words max.) to the symposium organizers.

The deadline for the receipt of submissions is 10.23pm on Wednesday 3rd July 2013

What is DigiPal?

For more information, please visit our website or dive in at the deep end.

Liturgy in History: International Study Day

Call for Participants

We are delighted to announce a call for participants for Liturgy in History, an international study day for graduate students and early career researchers at Queen Mary’s Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies.

Liturgy in History: a full-day workshop exploring liturgy in practice in the medieval and early-modern periods.
When: Tuesday 19th November, 9:30 – 17:00 (lunch provided)
Where: Queen Mary, Mile End Campus, room tbc

One of the most exciting developments in medieval, renaissance and early modern studies over the past decade has been a renewed historical appreciation of liturgical sources. Liturgies, so crucial to understanding the lived experiences of religion, were seedbeds for cultural production across Europe, and were deeply contested in the changing confessional landscapes of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Liturgy in History will provide a unique opportunity to engage with liturgical sources and access the expertise of researchers in the field.

Three speakers – Professor Nils Holger Petersen (University of Copenhagen), Professor Emma Dillon (King’s College London) and Dr. Beth Williamson (University of Bristol) – will guide participants through the structure and formulae of liturgical sources. The musical, visual, architectural and performative aspects of the liturgy will all be carefully considered and approaches to liturgy re-interrogated. The day will culminate in a trip to a nearby renaissance church which will help situate them in their context. We would be delighted to welcome international participants and students from diverse disciplines, to reflect the multidisciplinary focus of the day itself.

Participants will not only have the opportunity to learn more about the current state of liturgical research but will also be given the chance to offer their own insights into this pivotal aspect of medieval and early modern studies.

Please see below for a provisional schedule of the day.

If you would like to join us please email Hetta Howes. Attendance will be free of charge, but places are limited to ensure discussion and participation, so it is essential that you book your place.

Liturgy in History International Study Day, 19 November 2013

9:30–10:00 – Registration, tea and coffee

10:00–11:15 Professor Nils Holger Petersen (University of Copenhagen): An introduction to the structure and formulae of liturgical sources in the Christian West

11:15–11:25 – Coffee break

11:25–12:30 Professor Emma Dillon (King’s College London): Sung components of liturgy – how was liturgy was presented and experienced in medieval and early modern Europe?

12:30–13:10 – Lunch

13:10–14:25 – Dr. Beth Williamson (University of Bristol): Space and Sight in the Liturgy

14:25–14:35 – Coffee break

14:35–15:25 – Prof. Miri Rubin: Round Table discussion

15:25–17.00 – Visit to an historic church to consider liturgy within a church, how religious changes affected ritual, and to experience liturgical music from across the period

Wednesday 5 June 2013

CFP: Stage the Future: The First International Conference on Science Fiction Theatre

Saturday April 26, 2014
School of English, University of Royal Holloway

Keynote Speakers:
Jen Gunnels (New York Review of Science Fiction)
Dr. Nick Lowe (University of Royal Holloway)

Science Fiction Theatre doesn’t officially exist. You won’t find it listed as a sub-genre of either science fiction or theatre and you won’t find it on Wikipedia (though you will find a 1950s TV series with the same title – luckily, there is a theatre entry in the SF Encyclopaedia). Apart from that, there seems to be only one book on the subject so far, called “Science Fiction and the Theatre” and that was more than twenty years ago.

And yet Theatre itself was born out of the Fantastic. It began as a religious ceremony filled with metaphysical concepts and mythological beings, and it went on with fairy tales (especially as children’s theatre) and fantasy (see A Midnight Summer’s Dream, Faust, and many more), never denouncing its mystical roots. Even when it seemed to convert to Realism, it gave birth to the Absurd. Still one cannot help but notice that, though its performance has undergone major changes in the digital era, thematically theatre seems hesitant to take the next big step and follow cinema and literature to the science-fictional future.

This is strange because there have been many science fiction plays, some of them quite important in the history of theatre. Consider Beckett’s Endgame and its post-apocalyptic setting. Consider Karel Čapek who actually coined the term “Robot” in his science-fiction play “R.U.R.”, recently added to Gollancz’s “SF Masterworks” series. Consider even Rocky Horror Show and the Little Shop of Horrors.

But in the end, even if there was none of the above, even if there had been no robots, aliens or demigods in theatre so far, now would be the time for them to dominate the stage. In the age where real robots are sent to Mars, in the age of Star Wars, Avatar and the Matrix (and so many superhero films every year), theatre cannot stay behind.

This conference is the first of its kind and hopes to raise awareness of the need for a new theatre that is already here; a theatre that has its roots in the past and its eyes on the future.

This event aims to bring together scholars, critics, writers and performers for the first international academic conference on Science Fiction Theatre. Papers are welcome on any topic related to speculative theatre. Topics might include, but are not limited to:

-Depictions of future times
-Utopia and Dystopia
-Proto-science-fiction in theatre
-Ancient Speculative Theatre (Prophets, Monsters, Gods)
-Theatrical adaptations of science fiction novels and films
-Science and Theatre
-Science and the Human
-Performing the Non-Human and the Post-Human
-Temporality, SF and Theatre
-Dramaturgical Analysis of the Unknown
-Space Opera and Science Fiction Opera
-Theatre and the Weird
-Other fantastical theatres (Horror, Fantasy, Supernatural)

The conference welcomes proposals for individual papers and panels from any discipline and theoretical perspective. Please send a title and a 300 word abstract for a 20 minute paper along with your name, affiliation and 100 word professional biography to the conference convenors by 28 February 2014.

The conference is organised by Christos Callow, PhD candidate, Department of English, University of Lincoln and Susan Gray, PhD candidate, Department of English, University of Royal Holloway.

Tuesday 4 June 2013

CFP: Caietele Echinox/Echinox Journal - Fantasy and Science Fiction

Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Caietele Echinox
Volume 26 (2014)

Caietele Echinox/Echinox Journal is a biannual academic journal in comparative literature, dedicated to the study of the social, historical, cultural, religious, literary and arts imaginaries. It is edited by Phantasma, the Center for Imagination Studies of the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, Romania. It is accredited by ERIH (European Research Index for the Humanities – NAT) and CNCS (The Romanian Nacional Council for Scientific Research) and indexed in EBSCO Publishing, CEEOL (Central and Eastern European Online Library), MLA International Bibliography and FABULA.

The possibility to build other worlds, different from those we live in, is emphasised in two important streams of modern literature: fantasy and science-fiction. Fantasy literature became famous in the second half of the 20th century. Developing the theoretical hallmark set by J. R. R. Tolkien in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” (1947), researchers like C. N. Manlove, W. R. Irwin, Eric S. Rabkin, Roger C. Schlobin, Brian Attebery, Rosemary Jackson, Kathryn Hume, and more recently Lucie Armitt and Farah Mendlesohn tried to define this type of literature, by establishing its historical and cultural roots, and disclosing fictional/ rhetorical/ imaginary mechanisms that enable the construction of “secondary worlds” (in Tolkien’s own words). There are still questions that need answers and any theoretical contribution and attempt to clarify concepts in this field are welcome. How do space and time function in fantasy fiction? Which methods and concepts work best to interpret this type of fiction? How far can we go to establish its roots? How did the narrative structure of fictions about possible and impossible worlds change throughout time? What kind of relationship can emerge between fantasy literature, the digital environment that creates alternative worlds, and the filmic portrayal of well-known stories such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Neverending Story, Harry Potter, and so on? What relevance does fantasy literature have for the modern and postmodern individual?

In what concerns the science-fiction literature, the call envisages papers focusing both on different subgenres of SF and on the borderline works between SF and other genres. The first category includes articles that discuss and analyse works by the so called ‘Hard SF’ authors (such as, but not limited to, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, David Brin, Gregory Benford, Hal Clement or Stephen Baxter), ‘soft’ and social SF that revolve around themes connected to economics, social sciences, political science, psychology and anthropology (Arthur C. Clarke, The Strugatsky Brothers, Stanislaw Lem, Janusz Zajdel), utopian / dystopian fiction (developed by or related to George Orwell, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Doris Lessing, Aldous Huxley or Karel Capek), Cyberpunk, Biopunk, Steampunk and Dieselpunk fiction (William Gibson, Steve Stiles, Bruce Sterling, Neil Stephenson, Pat Cadigan, and others), feminist SF (Ursula Le Guin or Margaret Atwood), time travel narratives similar to those written by H.G Wells, military SF (John Ringo, David Drake, David Weber or S.M Stirling), uchronias and alternate history novels (Ward Moore, Philip K. Dick or Murray Leinster), superhuman or apocalyptic Science-Fiction (Olaf Stapledon, A.E van Vogt, George R. Steward or Ridley Walker) or Space Opera (L. Ron Hubbard, Edward E. Smith or Joss Wheedon). Bordeline SF includes horror stories by authors that have incorporated in their narratives science fictional elements (such as Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley or Edgar Allan Poe), works that combine SF with fantasy elements (Ann McAffrey), or with mystery (Kurt Vonnegut and others).

Deadline: January 1, 2014
Please follow Echinox Style Sheet

Send your papers to Corin Braga

Monday 6 May 2013

Contributors Wanted for Two Academic Collections

So, some of you may have seen Twitter. Two contributors have recently withdrawn from a collection I'm putting together, and I thought I'd put out a more general request to make contact with interested writers. I would appreciate it if people could pass this information on to colleagues who might be interested/available to contribute to the collections.

A couple of things to mention: these are academic collections, and I am looking to hear from people whose research interests mesh with the collections' focus. The collections are at the proposal stage, and will be pitched to an established UK academic publisher once the contents are finalized (details to follow). The majority of the collections' contents are already finalized, so it may be that I already have a chapter on your proposed subject. If you have any questions, it's best just to get in touch with me.

Afterlife of Alice edited collection

A collection of essays exploring interpretations and adaptations of Lewis Carroll's Alice novels. This collection is inspired by the Hic Dragones Afterlife of Alice conference, which ran in December 2011. 

What I'm looking for: essays on adaptations, interpretations or the use of elements from Carroll's novels in 'popular' or 'high' culture. For instance, John Logan's Peter and Alice, psychedelic Alices, Alice merchandise and collectibles, Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland, fan fic, non-Anglophone Alices (except Japanese).
What I'm not looking for: essays on Carroll's novels or translations, essays on adaptation theory (though more than happy for essays to use this as a framework), essays on Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell, essays on Gothic subcultures and fashions, essays on Disney.
Timescale: I'll need an abstract of 300-500 words ASAP, and then deadline for full chapter (7000 words) can be negotiated.

Afterlife of Dorothy edited collection

A collection of essays exploring interpretations and adaptations of L. Frank Baum's Oz novels. This collection is inspired by the Hic Dragones Afterlife of Dorothy conference, which ran in February 2013.

What I'm looking for: essays on adaptations, interpretations, revisions or the use of elements from Baum's novels in 'popular' or 'high' culture. For instance, The Wiz (I would really like a chapter on this!) , fan fic, graphic novels, non-Anglophone Dorothys.
What I'm not looking for: essays on Baum's novels, essays on the MGM film adaptation, essays on Gregory Maguire's Wicked novels and the musical adaptation, essays on Return to Oz or Oz: The Great and Powerful.
Timescale: I'll need an abstract of 300-500 words ASAP, and then deadline for full chapter (7000 words) can be negotiated.

If you're interested in contributing to either collection, please email me (Hannah Priest) in the first instance. Just introduce yourself, give me an idea of your research background/interests and let me know what your proposed chapter would focus on. We can take it from there.

Monday 22 April 2013

Call for Submissions: Hauntings: An Anthology

Short Story Submissions Wanted

A memory, a spectre, a feeling of regret, a sense of déjà vu, ghosts, machines, something you can’t quite put your finger on, a dark double, the long shadow of illness, your past, a nation’s past, your doppelgänger, a place, a song, a half-remembered rhyme, guilt, trauma, doubt, a shape at the corner of your eye, the future, the dead, the undead, the living, a grey cat, a black dog, a ticking clock, someone you used to know, someone you used to be.

We are all haunted.

Submissions wanted for a new anthology of short stories based around the theme of haunting.

What we want: Edgy, dark and weird fiction. Any interpretation of the theme is welcome – and we have no preconceptions about what ‘haunting’ might mean. Any genre considered: dark fantasy, urban fantasy, Gothic, horror, sci fi, steampunk, cyberpunk, biopunk, dystopian, slipstream. We’re looking for original and fresh voices that challenge and unsettle. (And, please remember, we do not publish misogyny, misandry, homophobia, transphobia or racism.)

Editor: Hannah Kate
Publisher: Hic Dragones

Word Count: 3000-7000
Submission Guidelines: Electronic submissions as .doc, .docx or .rtf attachments only. 12pt font, 1.5 or double spaced. Please ensure name, story title and email address are included on the attachment. Email submissions to Hic Dragones. Submissions are welcome from anywhere, but must be in English.

Submission Deadline: Thursday 31st October 2013

Payment: Contributor copy: 1 copy of paperback, eBook in ePub and/or mobi format; permanent 25% discount on paperback (resale permitted); 1 free eBook from our catalogue

For more information, see the publishers' website or email Hic Dragones

Important Information:
This is a non-paying market. Hic Dragones is currently a micro-press with plans to become a small press, and we acknowledge that this is not the market for everyone. We feel that what we offer – professional and thorough developmental editing and copy-editing, support and exposure (from IRL and virtual platforms) – will benefit emerging writers; however, we welcome submissions from more established writers (see previous anthologies). We value transparency and communication, so if you would like to know more about our business model, our background or our plans for the future, please email Hic Dragones or chat to us on Twitter or Facebook.

CFP: Anchorites in their Communities

The 5th International Anchoritic Society conference, in association with the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Research (MEMO), Swansea University
April 22-24, 2014
Greygnog Hall, Newtown, Powys, Wales

Keynote Speakers:

Diane Watt (Surrey)
Tom Licence (UEA)
Eddie Jones (Exeter)

Postgraduate/Postdoctoral Manuscript workshop:

Eddie Jones (Exeter)
Bella Millett (Southampton)

Much of the work undertaken in the field of medieval anchoritism, particularly within an English context, has concentrated on the vocation’s role within the history of Christian spirituality, its function as a locus of (gendered) sacred space and its extensive ideological cultural work. Indeed, in the hundred years since Rotha Mary Clay’s foundational 1914 study of English anchoritism, The Hermits and Anchorites of England (1914), only sporadic attention has been given to the English anchorite as part of a community – whether social, intellectual, spiritual or religious – and as part of a widespread ‘virtual’ community of other anchorites and religious or ‘semi-religious’ figures spread across England and beyond.

In its focus on anchorites within their multifarious communities, this conference seeks papers attempting to unpick the paradox of the ‘communal anchorite’ and the central role often played by her/him within local and (inter)national political contexts, and within the arenas of church ideology, critique and reform. It also seeks contributions for a Roundtable discussion on any aspect of Mary Rotha Clay’s work, its lasting legacies and the debt to her scholarship owed by new generations of scholars in the twenty-first century.

Offers of 20-minute papers are sought on any aspect of medieval anchorites in their communities including (but not restricted to):

Spiritual circles
Communities of discourse
Anchoritic/lay interaction
Anchorites and church reform
Networks of patronage
Networks of anchorites
Anchorite case studies
Anchoritic friendship groups
Book ownership/ borrowing/ lending/ circulation
Communities of texts: ‘anchoritic’ miscellanies/ textual travelling companions
Textual translation, circulation and mouvance
Non-insular influence
Gendered communities

Abstracts of up to 500 words should be sent to Dr Liz Herbert McAvoy by Friday, August 30th 2013

Wednesday 10 April 2013

CFP: Literary Dolls: The Female Textual Body from the 19th Century to Now

8 March 2014
University of Durham

This one-day conference held on International Women’s Day 2014 assesses the ways in which women’s physical form has been depicted in artworks from the nineteenth century to the present day.
“Lucky I have nice hands if nothing else,” says Ella at last, very dry. He comes to her, picks up her hands, kisses them, wearily, rake-like: “Beautiful doll, beautiful.” Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
Through history women’s bodies have been the subject of artistic presentation, ostensibly to celebrate the beauty of the female form, but also to fetishize, to dismember and to control women both within the arts and in the wider world. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to appraise the depiction of women’s physical form in artworks, as well as how artistic presentation has informed other disciplines, from the Nineteenth Century to Now, in order to assess how far the arts have changed in line with apparent developments in the treatment of women, over the comparable historical gulf. We are also keen to consider the social impact the arts have had, and continue to have, on the treatment of women.

Keynote speakers at the conference will include Pulitzer Prize winning author, Jane Smiley; Professor Jo Phoenix (University of Durham); Dr Kate MacDonald (University of Ghent).

We welcome abstracts of three hundred words for twenty minute papers discussing any textual presentation of women’s bodies. This includes literary depictions, but also those in film, television, digital media, the visual arts and the applied social sciences. Topics may include, but are not limited to the following:

The romanticised female form
Femininity vs. Femaleness vs. Womanliness
The historicized figure
The broken form
Fetishized body parts
Females made inanimate, e.g. as dolls or statues
Media representations of femaleness
The social impact of textual bodily representation
The sexual figure
The body in motion
Woman as goddess or muse
The maternal female
Females ensnared in the text
Violence on the body
Queering the body
Females made inanimate, e.g. as dolls or statues
Media representations of femaleness
The social impact of textual bodily representation

The conference will run at Durham University on 8th March 2014, International Women’s Day. It is organised in association with the University of Durham’s Centre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities.

Please send abstracts to the conference convenors by 1st June 2013.

For more information, please see the conference website.

Friday 29 March 2013

CFP: Romance in Medieval Britain

14th Biennial Conference
12-14th April 2014
Clifton Hill House, Bristol

Papers are invited on all aspects of medieval romance. The conference marks the conclusion of an AHRC-sponsored research project on the Verse Forms of Middle English Romance, and papers that address questions of verse form are particularly welcome.

To propose a paper, please send a brief abstract to one of the two conference organizers, before 31 September 2013:
Dr Judith Jefferson, English Department
Prof. Ad Putter, English Department

Further information about the conference will be made available on the website.

Saturday 2 March 2013

CFP: Shaping Authority

International Conference
Leuven 5-6 December 2013

Call For Papers

How did a person become an authority in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance?

The cultural and religious history from Antiquity through the Renaissance may be read through the lens of the rise and demise of auctoritates. Throughout this long period of about two millennia, many historical persons have been considered as exceptionally authoritative. Obviously, this authority derived from their personal achievements. But one does not become an authority on one’s own. In many cases, the way an authority’s achievements were received and disseminated by their contemporaries and later generations, was the determining factor in the construction of their authority. We will focus on the latter aspect: what are the mechanisms and strategies by which participants in intellectual life at large have shaped the authority of historical persons? On what basis, why and how were some persons singled out above their peers as exceptional auctoritates and by which processes did this continue (or discontinue) over time? What imposed geographical or other limits on the development and expansion of a person’s auctoritas? Which circumstances led to the disintegration of the authority of persons previously considered to be authoritative?

We invite interdisciplinary and innovative scholarly case studies that document these processes. They may focus on one (group of) source(s) to analyse its contribution to shaping the authority of a historical person or they may take a longue durée perspective on the rise (and demise) of a person’s auctoritas.

Thematic clusters one can think of may include (1) Biography, historiography and hagiography as grounds for authority; (2) The role played by manuscript transmission and production; (3) The contribution of non-textual sources; (4) Biblical characters as authorities. Papers are invited from fields as diverse as philosophy, classical studies, Oriental and Byzantine studies, history, theology and religion, art history, manuscript studies and hagiography.

The papers selected for presentation at the conference will preferably be case studies which contain the following elements in some combination: (1) Presentation and analysis of the sources and their context; (2) Analysis of the strategies for the “making of authority”; (3) Description of the long term success (or failure) of these enterprises.

Papers may be given in English, French of German and should be twenty minutes long. To submit a proposal, please send an abstract of your paper and a brief curriculum vitae (max one pag. each) by e-mail to the conference organizer before 20 April 2013.

The publication of selected papers is planned in a volume to be included in the peer-reviewed LECTIO Series (Brepols Publishers).

The keynote lecture will be delivered by Prof. John Van Engen (Notre Dame Indiana USA)

Detailed information about the conference can be found on the website. http://ghum.kuleuven.be/lectio

Scientific Committee: Pieter De Leemans, Sylvain Delcomminette, Russell Friedman, Peter Gemeinhardt, Michèle Goyens, Johan Leemans, Brigitte Meijns, Jan Papy, Gert Partoens, Stefan Schorn, Steven Vanderputten, Peter Van Deun, Gerd Van Riel

Organizing Committee: Johan Leemans, Brigitte Meijns, Gerd Van Riel, Shari Boodts, Marleen Reynders

Keynote Lecture: Prof. John Van Engen (Notre Dame Indiana USA)

Registration: Registration is required before 29 November 2013

Contact: Marleen Reynders

CFP: The Common Denominator 2014

A Postgraduate Conference in British Cultural Studies

20-22 March 2014
Universität Leipzig
Institut für Anglistik

Call for Papers

In ancient Greece, the Pythagoreans worshipped perfect numbers and turned them into musical scales. Two thousand years later, Nicolaus Copernicus still heard their sound in the perfection of the universal spheres. Numerologists, alchemists and the Gnostics all attempt to explain the mysteries of the universe with the precision and beauty of mathematics. And what would the voluptuous garments displayed in Renaissance painting be without the clear lines and structured order of geometry? Already these few examples show that mathematics has always been more than is commonly represented in popular culture in the wider British context. Organised by members and PhD students of the Institute for British Studies of Leipzig University, the aim of this three-day interdisciplinary conference is to bring together researchers from diverse academic and professional disciplines. By establishing mathematics as the common denominator between the individual panels, the links between mathematics and cultural studies are brought into focus. The conference will explore the reception and representation of mathematical concepts across such diverse fields as popular culture, literature, linguistics and didactics.

We invite proposals of 250-300 words for papers of 20 minutes length from postgraduate students and established scholars. Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to the following fields:

• Philosophy: mathematics in history, philosophy and religion, e.g. John Dee

• Politics: mathematics and gender, the British Empire, and Bletchley Park

• Popular Culture: mathematics and their influence on everyday life, recreational mathematics

• The Arts: representations of mathematics in film, the Fine Arts, music, architecture, the aesthetics of mathematical symbols

• Literature: representations of mathematics and mathematicians in literature, mathematical imagery

Proposals should include up to four keywords and indicate a critical approach or theoretical framework. Owing to the international character, the conference language is English. Please e-mail your submissions either as a word document or PDF by 30 June 2013 to the conference email address. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the organizers, Felicitas Hanke, Franziska Kohlt, Andrea Radziewsky, Rita Singer, and Kati Voigt.

Friday 18 January 2013

Call for Submissions: Wounds, Torture and the Grotesque

Hortulus: The Online Graduate Journal of Medieval Studies

Hortulus is a refereed, peer-reviewed, and born-digital journal devoted to the culture, literature, history, and society of the medieval past.

For the spring issue we are highly interested in reviews of books which fall under the current special topic. Our upcoming issue will be published in the spring of 2013, and concerns itself with the theme: wounds, torture, and the grotesque. These subjects have become increasingly popular in medieval scholarship. Hortulus invites full-length articles which consider these themes either individually or in tandem. We particularly encourage the submission of proposals that take a strongly theoretical and/or interdisciplinary approach, and that examine new and previously unconsidered aspects of these subjects.

Possible topics may be drawn from any discipline. Submission guidelines can be found on our website. Contributions may be submitted to the editors via email and are due February 15, 2013. If you are interested in submitting a paper but feel you would need additional time, please send an email and details about an expected time-scale for your submission.

Contact details:
Facebook
Twitter 
Website 
Email

Sunday 13 January 2013

CFP: Borderlines XVII: Occupying Space

19th-21st April 2013
Long Room Hub, Trinity College Dublin

Trinity College Dublin are very pleased to announce the call for papers for this year’s Borderlines postgraduate conference kindly funded by the School of English, the Department of History, the Medieval History Research Centre and the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) TCD.

The theme of Borderlines XVII will be Occupying Space. There is arguably no greater link to our past than that which is tactile. The castles and cathedrals which still occupy our urban and rural spaces are a bridge between the medieval and the modern. The manuscripts and books which have lasted centuries can tell us as much as the contents within. The tools, toys, weapons, clothes and everyday objects our forebears took for granted do not simply embellish historical events, they tell stories all by themselves.

In this conference, we hope to delve into material culture and the concept of physical presence, be it animate or inanimate, from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period. We welcome papers from researchers in the fields of Anthropology, Archaeology, Codicology, Drama, Film Studies, Folklore, History, History of Art, Languages, Literature, Music, Paleography, Philosophy and Theology. Topics may include (but are not limited to):

-Human relation to objects
-Tools and objects in daily life
-Musical instruments
-Architecture
-Devotional objects
-Art and sculpture
-The body – living or dead
-Weaponry and warfare
-Manuscripts and books
-Clothing and costumes

Check out the website, Facebook and Twitter for info and updates.

Abstracts of 250 words plus a short bio for a 20-minute paper or poster are welcomed from postgraduates (MA, PhD and Postdoctoral students) and should be submitted by Friday February 22nd 2013 to the conference convenors.

Monday 10 December 2012

CFP: 11th Global Conference: Monsters and the Monstrous

Thursday 18th July – Saturday 20th July 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations

This inter and trans-disciplinary project examines all things monstrous; whether real or imagined, ideological or cultural, historic or futuristic. Building on the discussion points of the previous meeting, this year’s event will focus upon points of concentration within issues raised at last years events as well as examining certain aspects of the current ubiquity of particular monsters in contemporary popular culture.

Presentations, papers, reports, work-in-progress, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:

-Humans as monsters and monsters as humans: Popular media sensationalism and fascination around humans as mass murderers, serial killers and paedophiles (Hitler, Ted Bundy, etc.) and films such as Saw and Hostel where monsters are very much part of our everyday evironment whilst figures such as Dexter and vegetarian vampires, that only kill animals or bad people, are considered heroes.

-The Zombie Apocalypse: the ubiquity of the zombie in popular culture both of what we are now and what we will/might become. As a political, ideological figure but also its continuing humanification in literature and film (Warm Bodies, Breathers, Wasting Away, Zombie Neighbour etc.)

-Contagion, infection and disease: The continual fears around over population, invasion and infection causing, or caused by ecological, biological or technological viruses. Hybridity, mutation and cultural death-drive.

-Translation, appropriation and interpretation: The movement of monsters across time and cultures. How historical monsters have changed in later manifestations and how different cultures view, appropriate and reinterpret monsters from other nations (i.e. vampires moving from Europe to the USA, to Japan and back again).

-Children and monsters: Children as the target of monsters, children and childhood as monstrous. Monstrous babies & births, adults in children’s bodies. Child vampires, zombies, demons and ghosts.

-Possession: The popularity of films and narratives around the theme of possession and mind control and the resultant anxieties over identity and the ‘true’ self. Demon possession, as in Paranormal Activity and The Devil Inside, Compelling, glamouring and mind control, as in Vampire Diaries and True Blood.

-The resurgence of faeries and fairy tales, as seen in series such as True Blood, Once Upon a Time, Grimm and Haven, and how not all monsters are bad or can only exist in relation to a pre-existing script?

-The continuing use of Nazis and Nazism as a short-hand for cultural and ideological monstrosity, as in Frostbite, Dead Snow, Hellboy 1 & 2, Iron Sky.

All of the above can also be considered in relation to, cultural and geographical specificity, gender and sexuality, ethnicity and historical approaches.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 15th March 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 31st May 2013. Abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords

E-mails should be entitled: Monsters11 Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication.We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:

Rob Fisher 

Simon Bacon 

The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please click here.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 5th Global Conference: Fashion

Monday 9th September – Thursday 12th September 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Presentations

Fashion is a statement, a stylised form of expression, which displays and begins to define a person, a place, a class, a time, a religion, a culture, subcultures, and even a nation. This inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary conference seeks to explore the historical, social, economic, political, psychological and artistic phenomenon of fashion, a powerful component of contemporary culture. Fashion lies at the very heart of persons, their sense of identity and the communities in which they live. Individuals emerge as icons of beauty and style; cities are identified as centres of fashion; the business of fashion is a billions of dollar per annum global industry, employing millions of people. The project will assess the history and meanings of fashion; evaluate its expressions in politics, business, pop culture, the arts, consumer culture, and social media; determine its effect on gender, sexuality, class, race, age, nation and other sources of identity; and explore future directions and trends.

Building on the foundations of previous meetings, publications and collaborations, the conference will be structured around 5 main areas of focus. Each area will have the opportunity to enjoy specific as well as whole group sessions. Papers, presentations, demonstrations and workshops are invited on the following themes:

1. Understanding Fashion

- Fashion, Style, Taste-Making, and Chic
- Fashion and Fashionability
- Fashion and Zeitgeist
- History of Fashion
- The Future of Fashion

2. Learning and Fashion

- Tools and Methodology
- Theorizing Fashion: Disciplines and Perspectives
- Fashion Education and Fashion Studies
- Identifying, Defining and Refining Concept(e.g., ‘style,’ ‘fashion,’ ‘look,’ ‘fad,’ ‘trend,’ ‘in & out’)
- Studying and Documenting Fashion (curatorial practice, collections, archives, and museums)
- Fashion Specialists (e.g., pattern makers, fitters, embroiders, tailors, textile experts)
- The Materials of Fashion

3. Representing and Disseminating Fashion

- Fashion Icons
- Designer and Muses
- Stylists
- Style Guides and Makeover Shows
- Fashion Photography
- Fashion Magazines, Blogs, and Social Media
- Films and Documentaries about Fashion
- Fashion and the Performing Arts, Music and Television
- Celebrities as Fashion Designers

4. Identity and Fashion

- Fashion and Identity (e.g., class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, nation, transnationalism, religion, etc.)
- Fashion: (Sub)Cultures
- Fashion, Politics, and Ideology: e.g., ‘message’ fashion; political platform, regimes, and revolutions)
- Ethical Issues in Fashion (e.g., cruelty free fashion, eco-fashion, exploitative labour, the ‘fakes’ market)
- Fashion as Performance
- Fashion, the Body, and Self-Fashioning (e.g., beauty standards, body art, weight, plastic surgery, etc.)

5. The Business of Fashion

- Fashion Professions and Trades
- Fashion Cities, Fashion Weeks, Fashion’s Night Out
- Fashion Marketing (e.g., brands, flagship stores, guerilla stores, eCommerce)
- Fashion Models
- Fashion Forecasting
- Marketing Platforms (e.g., communication, streaming video, social media, etc.)
- Fashion Markets: Vintage, Nostalgia, Mass, Luxury, Emerging
- Producing Displaying Fashion (production sites, showrooms, runways, window displays, websites, etc.)
- The Rise of the Accessory as a Driving Force of Fashion

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.

What to Send:

300 word abstracts are due by Friday 15th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 21st June 2013. Emails containing the abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords

E-mails should be entitled: FASHION5 Abstract Submission.

Please Note: In this email please attach TWO versions of your abstract as follows:

1) One with title and body of abstract only (no identification of the author—this version will be for our blind peer review process).

2) The other with the following information about the author(s): affiliation, email, title of abstract, title and body of abstract.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs:

Jacque Lynn Foltyn 

Dr Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Critical Issues series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please click here

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

CFP: 3rd Global Conference: Re-framing Punishment and the Body

Sunday 1st September – Tuesday 3rd September 2013

Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations

What is Punishment? Is it about hurting the body? Or is it about pleasure? Or is it neither? There are those who argue that punishment is a mechanism for controlling deviance and deterring crime. Others argue that it is a method that balances the scales of justice. While still others argue that it is a form of controlling behaviour and an expression of power. Accordingly research today is often focused on punishment in terms of offenders, the offence, the state and legal codification. Yet in the 19th century the French sociologist Durkheim maintained that rituals of punishment were not necessarily concerned with the criminal. He argued that punishment involved reordering or making amends for a situation in a way that demonstrated group norm and strengthened moral boundaries – it rebuilt solidarity and social order. More recently Smith (2008) argued that ‘punishment is an activity and communicative process involving the sending and receiving of messages, ambiguity or the analysis of multiple and intersecting, complex and layered systems of meaning’. Overall this suggests that the concept of Punishment is a meaningful site of contestation. Therefore the aim of the project is to develop different ways of understanding the complexity of punishment and/or the body from a variety of perspectives, approaches and practitioner experiences. We encourage unique approaches to punishment in terms of the body and boundary control, whether it is control of evil, the politically subversive, the economically disruptive, or punishment in pursuit of system stability or marginalisation of the liminal. Papers might also consider the operation and consequences of wrongdoing and various forms of societal/social punishment. Accordingly the project welcomes papers, work-in-progress and pre-formed panels from diverse areas of academic study, as well as practitioners. Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited, but not limited to, issues broadly related to any of the following themes:

-Changing notions of punishment over time or in particular spaces
-Punishment issues relating to defining the contours of disgust, desire, dread, or the abject
-Body horror and forms of Punishment
-Desire and Punishment (addiction, BDSM, modification, fashion)
-Punishment and its relationship with Pain, Fear and Death
-Punishment, Ritual and Religion/spirituality
-Punishment and Strategies of Control /Order in everyday life or business
-Punishment, War, Enforcement, Education and/or the Family
-Literature, Art, Popular culture and Punishment
-Cultural approaches to punishment
-Abuses of Punishment

What to Send:

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 22nd March 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 21st June 2013. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words. E-mails should be entitled: PUNISH3 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Shona Hill and Shilinka Smith 

Rob Fisher 

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

For further details of the conference, please click here

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Sunday 9 December 2012

CFP: Virgin Envy: Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Virginity

Eds. Jonathan A. Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr

Contemporary culture has seen a renewed interest in virgins, from Bella Swan and Edward Cullen to Anastasia Steele to Steve Carrell’s infamous 40-old-virgin to the rise of Purity Clubs. How do we understand these discussions and representations of virginity? Do these texts “re-invent” virginity? Or, do these texts merely repeat “standard” treatments of virginity?

This edited volume aims to work through the poetics and politics of virginity in narrative, poetry, cinema, and popular culture. This volume treats virginity as an area of theoretical, intellectual, and cultural concern in modern texts. The goal is to position virginity as an interdisciplinary matter that must be studied from the widest possible range of perspectives. The editors believe that any study of virginity demands and interdisciplinary and/or intercultural perspective precisely because it is inculcated by so many discourses: religious, cultural, psychological, sociological, anthropology, ethnographic, philosophical, etc. The volume will ideally include essays from the humanities and social sciences, but the editors would welcome papers from outside of the humanities and social sciences.

We welcome papers that recognize the complexity and diversity of virginity. We are especially interested in papers that move beyond normative definitions and understandings of virginity:

• Purity Clubs, Abstinence, and the Silver Ring Thing
• Celebrity Culture and Virginity
• Queer Virginities (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, etc.)
• Male virginities
• Defining virginity lost (and found)
• Hymenoplasty, re-virginization, vaginal rejuvenization, medical interventions
• Cross-­cultural analyses of virginity
• Psychoanalytic, Psychological, Sociological, Philosophical Approaches and the study of Virginity
• Virginity in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture
• Virginity and Identity, Identifying as Virgin, Epistemology of the Virgin’s Closet
• The commodification of virginity, virginity auctions, virginity pornography
• Virginity and confession, religious contexts, psychotherapeutic contexts
• Virginity and Romance

Please send abstracts (500 words, including proposed bibliography) and a brief CV (1-2 pages) by March 1, 2013 to Cristina Santos, Jonathan A. Allan, and Adriana Spahr.

Completed article-length papers (5,000 words, MLA Style) will be due by August 1, 2013. All papers will undergo a peer-­review process before final acceptance and publication.

Thursday 22 November 2012

CFP: Psalm Culture and the Politics of Translation

Charterhouse Square, QMUL, London
15-17 July 2013

We invite paper and session proposals for an interdisciplinary conference on English responses to the Psalms, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Civil War. Keynote addresses to be given by Daniel Anlezark (Sydney), Brian Cummings (Sussex), Vincent Gillespie (Oxford), Hannibal Hamlin (Ohio State), James Simpson (Harvard) and Eric Stanley (Oxford).

The Psalms have been at the centre of English religious life, language and identity since the Augustinian mission. This conference aims to bring together scholars working in different periods and disciplines to open up new avenues of discussion and debate. We are interested in all aspects of the English Psalm tradition, from the conversion to the Civil War, and possible areas of exploration might include:

■The authority of the vernacular, and the controversy of translation
■Specific contexts for translation (monastic production, translations by prisoners, etc.)
■Psalms as political commentary
■Musical settings of Psalms, on the page and in performance
■Psalm books as physical objects and works of art
■Iconography
■Ecclesiastical and private devotion
■Psalms and the formation of an English literary canon
■Literary borrowings and intertextuality
■Reading, annotating and glossing
■Comparative analysis of individual Psalms across languages and periods
■The Psalms as a site of inter-cultural dialogue (between faiths, between countries)

We welcome proposals for papers (no more than 20 minutes) and panels (of 3 papers) from both established scholars and graduate students. It is envisaged that selected papers will be considered for publication in an edited, peer-reviewed collection.

Please submit all proposals and correspondence via the website or email the conference convenors.

Deadline for proposals: 1st December 2012

Organisers: Ruth Ahnert (QMUL), Tamara Atkin (QMUL), Francis Leneghan (Oxford)

Saturday 17 November 2012

CFP: New Perspectives on the Gothic in the Age of Terror(ism): The Horror? The Horror!

A special issue of Gothic Studies journal

This special issue will examine what happens to the Gothic as a literary and filmic genre along its main thematic lines in the post 9/11 era and its age of terror(ism):

• the staging of the Other (the irrational, the monstrous, the uncanny)
• the staging of death and violence (light vs. darkness, good vs. evil, tragic vs. abject)
• the staging of community and the social (including the border and the law)
• the instability of the modern subject

1. What ‘happens’ to these themes? How are they modified? altered? Has 9/11 and the pervasive sense of global terror changed our understanding of terror? What about the place of capitalism and the crisis? What images and protagonists has this new Gothic proposed in what can be called an ‘imagination’ of disaster?

2. What new fears are being addressed and represented by the Gothic, including visually within the cinema and in the recent proliferation of television series? What loss? What guilt?

3. What is the place of race and ethnicity in this epistemological landscape? Can the concepts of ‘mimicry’ (Bhabha) and ‘differAnce’ (Derrida) be used to revisit the theoretical foundations of the Gothic? Can we talk about a ‘racial Gothic’ as Leonardo Cassuto spoke of a ‘racial grotesque’?

4. The case of the Southern Gothic, and the encounter with what has been left at the margin, could be explored within the theoretical framework proposed by Kristeva in the Powers of Horror, by Anzaldúa in Borderlands or by Agamben in Homo Sacer. Can we also talk about a New Southern Gothic?

5. How does the Gothic engage with religion in our increasingly secular and yet religiously polarized world?

6. What happens to the question of ‘knowledge’?

7. How does the commercial success and mainstreaming of Gothic in the last decade affect its ability to figure terror and resistance to terror?

8. How has the Gothic responded to the constant state of war since 2001? What about the weaponization of various technologies, including video games? How have drones, Predators, Reapers and other mechanized death machines impacted the Gothic imagination?

9. How have Gothic texts outside of the US responded to the attack on the World Trade Center and America’s militarized and violent response? How does Canadian Gothic position itself in relation to the politics of post-9/11 America? What about Mexican or South American Gothic?

10. How have new technologies impacted the literary or visual Gothic? For example, the explosion of hand-held camera horror films, night vision sequences and closed-circuit video imagery?

Proposals (500 words) and brief CVs should be addressed to both editors of the volume by 1 June 2013.

Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet (University of Lausanne) and Marie Lienard-Yeterian (Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis)

Thursday 15 November 2012

CFP: Gender and Transgression in the Middle Ages

2nd - 4th May 2013

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for Gender and Transgression in the Middle Ages 2013, a three-day interdisciplinary conference for postgraduate and early career researchers hosted by The University of St Andrews Institute of Medieval Studies (SAIMS). Now in its fifth year, the conference aims to create a lively and welcoming forum for speakers to present their research, make contacts, and participate in creative discussion on the topics of gender and transgression in the Middle Ages.

This year’s keynote speaker will be Professor Pauline Stafford, Emeritus Professor in Early Medieval History at the University of Liverpool, who will be speaking on reading gender in chronicles, with special reference to the old English vernacular. We invite postgraduate, postdoctoral and early career researchers from departments of History, Modern and Mediaeval Languages, English, Art History, Theology and Divinity, in addition to scholars working in any other relevant subject area, to submit a paper of approximately 20 minutes that engage with the themes of gender and/or transgression in the mediaeval period. Possible topics for papers might include, but are by no means limited to gender and/or transgression in the fields of:

• Politics: kingship, queenship, the nobility, royal/noble household, royal favourites and mistresses, royal ritual, display and chivalry.

• Legal Studies: men, women and the law, court cases, law-breaking, marriage and divorce.

• Social and economic history: urban and rural communities, domestic household, motherhood and children, widows, working women, prostitution and crime.

• Religion: monastic communities, saints and saints' lives, mysticism and lay religion.

• Literature: chivalric texts, romances, poetry, vernacular works.

• Visual culture: depictions, architecture, art, material culture and patronage.

• Masculinity and femininity in the middle ages and their application in current historiography.

• Homosexuality, sexual deviancy and cross-dressing.

To mark the launch of St Andrews Centre for Mediaeval and Early Modern Law and Literature (CMEMLL) we shall be holding a session on medieval law and literature within the broader conference theme of gender and transgression and therefore particularly welcome papers within this field.

Those wishing to give a paper please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words to the conference convenors by Monday 11 February 2013. Your abstract should be attached to your email as a Microsoft Word or PDF file and include your name, home institution and what stage of your postgraduate or postdoctoral career you are currently at.

Registration for the conference will be £5 for students/unwaged, £10 for staff, which will cover tea, coffee and lunch on two days, and two wine receptions. All delegates are also warmly invited to the conference meal on Friday 3 May, the cost of which will be covered for speakers. Further details can be found at our website as they come available and we can be followed on Twitter.