2nd Annual Indiana Medieval Graduate Student Consortium Conference
Call for Papers
Keynote Speaker: Professor Geraldine Heng
Perceval Fellow and Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, with a joint appointment in Middle Eastern studies and Women’s studies at the University of Texas at Austin
The students of the Indiana Medieval Graduate Student Consortium (IMGC) are pleased to announce that we are accepting submissions for the second annual IMGC conference, 'The Geographic Imagination: Conceptualizing Places and Spaces in the Middle Ages', to take place on 28 Feb-1 Mar 2014 at the University of Notre Dame.
The transnational turn in the humanities over the last two decades has put increasing pressure on our ideas of nationhood and has provided us with a liberating awareness of the constructedness of the spaces we study. New methodologies have developed in response to this pressure as scholars turn to comparative approaches, borderland studies, histoire croisée, studies of empire, and oceanic models in order to accommodate the ambiguities of nationhood and of conceptions of space. Suggested by seminal transnational studies, such as Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic, many critics now study “the flows of people, capital, profits and information.” Recently, David Wallace’s ambitious literary history of Europe has adopted a similarly fluid approach to culture, avoiding a study of “national blocks” of literature, organizing itself instead along transnational itineraries that stretch beyond the European sphere. The Middle Ages offer a particularly broad and rich era in which to encounter fluid notions of space, as any glance at a medieval map such as the famous Hereford mappa mundi invitingly suggests. We invite presentations from all fields to explore any aspect of the medieval “geographic imagination,” of conceptions of space, place, and nation: ideas of geography, cartography, transnational identities and networks, intercultural encounters, mercantile routes, travelogues, rural and urban spaces, religious places, and concepts of locality and local identities.
The IMGC is delighted to announce that our keynote speaker this year will be Dr Geraldine Heng, well known to many of us for her exhaustive and provocative study of medieval romance, Empire of Magic, and her subsequent work on race in the Middle Ages.
Please submit a 300 word abstract for a 15-20 minute paper by 15 Dec, 2013 on the conference website. Proposals should include the title of the paper, presenter's name, institutional and departmental affiliation, and any technology requests.
This conference is generously sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. The Nanovic Institute is committed to enriching the intellectual culture of Notre Dame by creating an integrated, interdisciplinary home for students and faculty to explore the evolving ideas, cultures, beliefs, and institutions that shape Europe today.
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Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts
Sunday 15 September 2013
Saturday 31 August 2013
CFP: The Health of the Realm: The Historical Context of Medicine in the Early Middle Ages
IMC Leeds 7-10 July 2014
While interest in medicine and medical texts has been growing in recent years, its historical context has largely been neglected. Illness and treatment do not exist in a vacuum: just as chronic stomach pain finds a place alongside Byzantine diplomacy and the Lombard threat in the letters of Gregory the Great, so the Anglo-Saxon Bald's Leechbook transcribes a remedy sent to a sick King Alfred, and Bede records the plague that brought the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow to its knees. Medical texts were the product of the circumstances, anxieties, and philosophies of their times, just as the times were shaped by the health of those who lived them.
This session hopes to explore the historical framework of illness, care, and the transmission of medical knowledge. We are looking for papers on any aspect of early medieval medicine that draws on broader themes, on topics including but not limited to:
- Cultural relations and the transmission of texts
- Trade and the market for materia medica
- The economy of medical care
- Transmission
- Vernacular and Latin sources
- Linguistic development and medical texts
- Leadership and Illness
- Death and illness, 'the Great Levellers'
- Soul, body, and the Church
Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to Christine Voth by September 10, 2013
While interest in medicine and medical texts has been growing in recent years, its historical context has largely been neglected. Illness and treatment do not exist in a vacuum: just as chronic stomach pain finds a place alongside Byzantine diplomacy and the Lombard threat in the letters of Gregory the Great, so the Anglo-Saxon Bald's Leechbook transcribes a remedy sent to a sick King Alfred, and Bede records the plague that brought the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow to its knees. Medical texts were the product of the circumstances, anxieties, and philosophies of their times, just as the times were shaped by the health of those who lived them.
This session hopes to explore the historical framework of illness, care, and the transmission of medical knowledge. We are looking for papers on any aspect of early medieval medicine that draws on broader themes, on topics including but not limited to:
- Cultural relations and the transmission of texts
- Trade and the market for materia medica
- The economy of medical care
- Transmission
- Vernacular and Latin sources
- Linguistic development and medical texts
- Leadership and Illness
- Death and illness, 'the Great Levellers'
- Soul, body, and the Church
Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words to Christine Voth by September 10, 2013
CFP: Sessions at Kalamazoo 2014
The 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 8-11, 2014
Please note: these CFPs are for different sessions at Congress. If you are intending to submit to an abstract, please pay attention to the contact details for that session and direct your emails to the correct person.
CFP: New Readings on Women in Old English Literature Revisited (A Roundtable)
It has been over twenty years since the publication of New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, edited by Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen (Indiana University Press 1990). That text was a landmark, the first to collect scholarship examining Old English texts, both canonical and those less frequently considered, from a feminist perspective. Many of the essays included are still valuable, but it is time for an updating of this important text. Much valuable work has been accomplished in the years since its publication, and more remains to be done. This session is a roundtable in which participants will discuss the state of scholarship that considers Anglo-Saxon texts from a feminist perspective, whatever that might mean today, and what direction an updating of the original volume might take. Helen Damico has agreed to serve as a respondent. This special session is a preliminary part of a project that looks towards producing a new volume of essays updating the original.
Please contact Yvette Kisor by September 15, 2013. Along with your proposal, please include a completed Participant Information Form, which is available on the ICMS website.
CFP: Give and Take: Exchange in Early Medieval English, Norse, and Celtic Literature
Gift-theory and theories of exchange continue to grant interesting insights into medieval literature, and medievalists have important perspectives to contribute to the body of theoretical scholarship on exchange. This session seeks papers exploring concepts of exchange in early medieval Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic literatures and is especially interested in papers that apply gift-theory beyond the simple exchange of gift-items. This means, for instance, considering exchange more broadly (exchanged violence, exchange between generations, exchange between the spiritual and temporal realms, symbolic exchange, etc.), or thinking through conceptual problems within gift-theory addressed by medieval sources: for example, how is meaning negotiated and guaranteed through exchange? Where are the lines are between gift, loan, and purchase? How does the gift reveal or hide intention? How is the extent of selflessness or self-interest determined or judged? How does the gift function as a test or revelation of character? What is the relationship between a thing given and its meaning?
250-300-word abstracts should be sent to Stephanie Clark by September 15. Along with your proposal, please include a completed Participant Information Form, which is available on the ICMS website. Unless requested otherwise, proposals not used in this session will be forwarded on to the Congress committee for consideration for general sessions.
CFP: Single-Manuscript Texts: the Challenges and Opportunities of Uniqueness
For many theories of textual criticism, single-manuscript texts are a problem and anomaly, yet many of the most important works of medieval literature are known from single manuscripts. Within English literature alone, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, many of the lyrics in Harley 2253, and scores of other texts are unique. Moreover, medieval readers had to cope with lone texts at least as often as do modern scholars. The behavior of scribes, annotators, and translators working from damaged or otherwise problematic exemplars makes clear that in the Middle Ages, people often encountered texts that they could never expect to compare with others. The experience of uniqueness, then, was in fact a normal aspect of medieval book culture. But once we have stopped seeing single-manuscript texts as anomalies, how shall we proceed? Does uniqueness demand its own editorial practice? How should we read books that have no parallels?
With such questions in mind, we hope to bring together scholars working on a range of national languages and time periods to discuss the principles and methods guiding our study of single-manuscript texts, with the goal of understanding how unique manuscripts can be understood within medieval book culture and modern critical practice.
Abstracts and Participant Information Forms should be sent to Arthur W. Bahr.
Queries may also be directed to Emily Thornbury.
CFP: Strange Letters: Alphabets in Medieval Manuscripts
The letter, as most medieval grammatical texts will tell you, is the fundamental unit of language; if you want to know a language, you must know its letters. Throughout much of the western middle ages, knowledge of languages was primarily restricted to Latin and various European vernaculars, all of which were written with the Roman alphabet. Nevertheless, medieval scholars were well aware of other alphabets, and even knew the rudimentary connections among say the Roman, Greek, and Hebrew alphabets. Despite the general inability to interact with these and other languages in a sustained way, medieval scribes exhibit a fascination with a variety of non-Roman alphabets: Greek, and Hebrew, of course, but also Runes, Coptic, Arabic, and invented alphabets like that attributed to Aethicus Ister.
This session looks to bring together scholars working on these alphabets and those with interest in the topic to share each others' insights. Potential topics include but are not limited to:
- Alphabet Collections
- Ciphers and Codes
- Alphabetic/acrostic poetry
- The use of foreign - and pseudo - scripts in medieval art
- The use of letters in charms and magic
- Foreign marginalia
- Manuscript runes
Please send any queries as well as abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participation Form to session organizer Damian Fleming by September 15, 2013. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract. Abstracts not accepted for this session will be forwarded to the Congress committee which will consider the paper for inclusion in a general session.
Please note: these CFPs are for different sessions at Congress. If you are intending to submit to an abstract, please pay attention to the contact details for that session and direct your emails to the correct person.
CFP: New Readings on Women in Old English Literature Revisited (A Roundtable)
It has been over twenty years since the publication of New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, edited by Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen (Indiana University Press 1990). That text was a landmark, the first to collect scholarship examining Old English texts, both canonical and those less frequently considered, from a feminist perspective. Many of the essays included are still valuable, but it is time for an updating of this important text. Much valuable work has been accomplished in the years since its publication, and more remains to be done. This session is a roundtable in which participants will discuss the state of scholarship that considers Anglo-Saxon texts from a feminist perspective, whatever that might mean today, and what direction an updating of the original volume might take. Helen Damico has agreed to serve as a respondent. This special session is a preliminary part of a project that looks towards producing a new volume of essays updating the original.
Please contact Yvette Kisor by September 15, 2013. Along with your proposal, please include a completed Participant Information Form, which is available on the ICMS website.
CFP: Give and Take: Exchange in Early Medieval English, Norse, and Celtic Literature
Gift-theory and theories of exchange continue to grant interesting insights into medieval literature, and medievalists have important perspectives to contribute to the body of theoretical scholarship on exchange. This session seeks papers exploring concepts of exchange in early medieval Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic literatures and is especially interested in papers that apply gift-theory beyond the simple exchange of gift-items. This means, for instance, considering exchange more broadly (exchanged violence, exchange between generations, exchange between the spiritual and temporal realms, symbolic exchange, etc.), or thinking through conceptual problems within gift-theory addressed by medieval sources: for example, how is meaning negotiated and guaranteed through exchange? Where are the lines are between gift, loan, and purchase? How does the gift reveal or hide intention? How is the extent of selflessness or self-interest determined or judged? How does the gift function as a test or revelation of character? What is the relationship between a thing given and its meaning?
250-300-word abstracts should be sent to Stephanie Clark by September 15. Along with your proposal, please include a completed Participant Information Form, which is available on the ICMS website. Unless requested otherwise, proposals not used in this session will be forwarded on to the Congress committee for consideration for general sessions.
CFP: Single-Manuscript Texts: the Challenges and Opportunities of Uniqueness
For many theories of textual criticism, single-manuscript texts are a problem and anomaly, yet many of the most important works of medieval literature are known from single manuscripts. Within English literature alone, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, many of the lyrics in Harley 2253, and scores of other texts are unique. Moreover, medieval readers had to cope with lone texts at least as often as do modern scholars. The behavior of scribes, annotators, and translators working from damaged or otherwise problematic exemplars makes clear that in the Middle Ages, people often encountered texts that they could never expect to compare with others. The experience of uniqueness, then, was in fact a normal aspect of medieval book culture. But once we have stopped seeing single-manuscript texts as anomalies, how shall we proceed? Does uniqueness demand its own editorial practice? How should we read books that have no parallels?
With such questions in mind, we hope to bring together scholars working on a range of national languages and time periods to discuss the principles and methods guiding our study of single-manuscript texts, with the goal of understanding how unique manuscripts can be understood within medieval book culture and modern critical practice.
Abstracts and Participant Information Forms should be sent to Arthur W. Bahr.
Queries may also be directed to Emily Thornbury.
CFP: Strange Letters: Alphabets in Medieval Manuscripts
The letter, as most medieval grammatical texts will tell you, is the fundamental unit of language; if you want to know a language, you must know its letters. Throughout much of the western middle ages, knowledge of languages was primarily restricted to Latin and various European vernaculars, all of which were written with the Roman alphabet. Nevertheless, medieval scholars were well aware of other alphabets, and even knew the rudimentary connections among say the Roman, Greek, and Hebrew alphabets. Despite the general inability to interact with these and other languages in a sustained way, medieval scribes exhibit a fascination with a variety of non-Roman alphabets: Greek, and Hebrew, of course, but also Runes, Coptic, Arabic, and invented alphabets like that attributed to Aethicus Ister.
This session looks to bring together scholars working on these alphabets and those with interest in the topic to share each others' insights. Potential topics include but are not limited to:
- Alphabet Collections
- Ciphers and Codes
- Alphabetic/acrostic poetry
- The use of foreign - and pseudo - scripts in medieval art
- The use of letters in charms and magic
- Foreign marginalia
- Manuscript runes
Please send any queries as well as abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participation Form to session organizer Damian Fleming by September 15, 2013. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract. Abstracts not accepted for this session will be forwarded to the Congress committee which will consider the paper for inclusion in a general session.
Saturday 17 August 2013
CFP: Locating the Gothic
October 22-25, 2014
Limerick School of Art and Design and Mary Immaculate College, Limerick
The Gothic is a mode that is intimately connected to location. Sites and spaces both define and demarcate the limits of Gothic aesthetics and have shaped the way varieties of the Gothic have developed over time. From hazy moors and dense forests, to urban labyrinths, contemporary cyberscapes and postmodern dystopias, the Gothic has traversed many varied landscapes, both internal and external, historic and contemporary, from which fearful and disturbing atmospheres emerge. Psycho-geographical underpinnings in the Gothic are often the basis for key Gothic experiences such as the sublime and the uncanny. The correlations between space and identity, site and narrative, are central to this and evoke new and interesting approaches to Gothic art, literature, and culture. Thus, we seek to engage with the notion of location as it underpins the literary, artistic, and physical formations of Gothic, and as it may allow us to ‘locate’ the Gothic, or versions of the same in artistic, critical and cultural terms. We are particularly interested in papers which approach alternative forms of Gothic spatiality, particularly those which discuss the Gothic in contemporary art and media. Proposals should be e-mailed to Maria Beville and Tracy Fahey by 1st May 2014.
Themes suggested (but not limited to) the following:
- Urban Gothic/Rural Gothic
- Regional Gothic/National Gothic
- Gothic Utopias/Dystopias/Heterotopias
- Spatially based contexts of Gothic (i.e. mythology, folklore, oral traditions)
- Colonial/Postcolonial/Transcultural Gothic
- Dramatic spaces Gothic places and spaces; Psychogeography and the Gothic
- Gothic and Architecture
- Cartography and the Gothic Spatial structures of Gothic
- Cybergothic/Gothic and multimedia/digital media
- Limits and boundaries in the Gothic
- The Gothic and Domestic space
- Locating the Gothic in genre/locating the Gothic in culture
For more information about the conference and the linked festival, please click here.
Limerick School of Art and Design and Mary Immaculate College, Limerick
The Gothic is a mode that is intimately connected to location. Sites and spaces both define and demarcate the limits of Gothic aesthetics and have shaped the way varieties of the Gothic have developed over time. From hazy moors and dense forests, to urban labyrinths, contemporary cyberscapes and postmodern dystopias, the Gothic has traversed many varied landscapes, both internal and external, historic and contemporary, from which fearful and disturbing atmospheres emerge. Psycho-geographical underpinnings in the Gothic are often the basis for key Gothic experiences such as the sublime and the uncanny. The correlations between space and identity, site and narrative, are central to this and evoke new and interesting approaches to Gothic art, literature, and culture. Thus, we seek to engage with the notion of location as it underpins the literary, artistic, and physical formations of Gothic, and as it may allow us to ‘locate’ the Gothic, or versions of the same in artistic, critical and cultural terms. We are particularly interested in papers which approach alternative forms of Gothic spatiality, particularly those which discuss the Gothic in contemporary art and media. Proposals should be e-mailed to Maria Beville and Tracy Fahey by 1st May 2014.
Themes suggested (but not limited to) the following:
- Urban Gothic/Rural Gothic
- Regional Gothic/National Gothic
- Gothic Utopias/Dystopias/Heterotopias
- Spatially based contexts of Gothic (i.e. mythology, folklore, oral traditions)
- Colonial/Postcolonial/Transcultural Gothic
- Dramatic spaces Gothic places and spaces; Psychogeography and the Gothic
- Gothic and Architecture
- Cartography and the Gothic Spatial structures of Gothic
- Cybergothic/Gothic and multimedia/digital media
- Limits and boundaries in the Gothic
- The Gothic and Domestic space
- Locating the Gothic in genre/locating the Gothic in culture
For more information about the conference and the linked festival, please click here.
Tuesday 30 July 2013
CFP: Revisiting the Legacy of Boethius in the Middle Ages
Harvard University, March 13-15, 2014
For the conference website, please click here.
The legacy of Boethius in the Middle Ages has been enjoying a resurgence of interest in recent years, with new editions, translations, and studies that place his profound influence in a new light. The Alfredian Boethius project of Oxford University, to pick just one example, has produced a critical edition of the Old English Boethius (2009), and the spinoff database of the commentary tradition will almost certainly change our understanding of the broader reception of The Consolation of Philosophy across medieval Europe. Other recent work has revisited the legacy of Boethius in the fields of music, philosophy, poetry, and theology, and the Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (2012) will stimulate future scholarship and teaching.
This conference invites proposals on the early reception of Boethius and his influence on readers and writers in medieval England and continental Europe. Possible topics include vernacular translations and transformations; Neoplatonism and the philosophical tradition; adaptations of Boethian prosimetrum; Boethian afterlives in poetry, music, and the visual arts; and new findings from the Latin commentary tradition, among others.
The conference will be hosted by Harvard University’s English Department and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies, with support from the Morton Bloomfield Fund and the International Boethius Society. We are pleased to announce that Ann Astell (University of Notre Dame), Susan Irvine (University College London), and Eleanor Johnson (Columbia University) will be giving the conference’s plenary addresses. Presentations should be no longer than twenty minutes. Potential presenters should s_ubmit an abstract of approximately 250 words to the conference convenors. Abstracts are due by October 1, 2013.
For the conference website, please click here.
The legacy of Boethius in the Middle Ages has been enjoying a resurgence of interest in recent years, with new editions, translations, and studies that place his profound influence in a new light. The Alfredian Boethius project of Oxford University, to pick just one example, has produced a critical edition of the Old English Boethius (2009), and the spinoff database of the commentary tradition will almost certainly change our understanding of the broader reception of The Consolation of Philosophy across medieval Europe. Other recent work has revisited the legacy of Boethius in the fields of music, philosophy, poetry, and theology, and the Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (2012) will stimulate future scholarship and teaching.
This conference invites proposals on the early reception of Boethius and his influence on readers and writers in medieval England and continental Europe. Possible topics include vernacular translations and transformations; Neoplatonism and the philosophical tradition; adaptations of Boethian prosimetrum; Boethian afterlives in poetry, music, and the visual arts; and new findings from the Latin commentary tradition, among others.
The conference will be hosted by Harvard University’s English Department and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies, with support from the Morton Bloomfield Fund and the International Boethius Society. We are pleased to announce that Ann Astell (University of Notre Dame), Susan Irvine (University College London), and Eleanor Johnson (Columbia University) will be giving the conference’s plenary addresses. Presentations should be no longer than twenty minutes. Potential presenters should s_ubmit an abstract of approximately 250 words to the conference convenors. Abstracts are due by October 1, 2013.
CFP: Religious Men in the Middle Ages: Networks and Communities
3-5 July 2014
University of Lincoln, UK
Call for Papers
This conference seeks to explore and re-evaluate the forms and functions of networks and communities for men in the middle ages. We invite papers which consider these in relation to professed religious men and/or laymen of any faith. Scholars are increasingly engaging with what religion, belief and devotion meant to men as men. Networks and communities both shape and express individual, relational, and collective identities, and therefore shed useful light on the experiences, perceptions or depiction of medieval men. This is the second conference under the auspices of The Bishop’s Eye Network – a research network between the Universities of Huddersfield and Lincoln. The first, ‘Religious Men in the Middle Ages’, was held at Huddersfield in 2012.
We invite abstracts from scholars at all career stages working on the interplay between men in networks and communities; how they are constituted and what they mean. Papers may focus on homosocial networks and communities or male involvement in female networks and communities.
Topics for discussion could include networks and communities defined by:
- Family and kinship
- Intellectual connections (e.g. textual communities, scholasticism)
- Profession and Occupation
- Orders, universities, monastic, mendicant, and secular houses
- Patronage and affinity
- Geography and location
- Guilds and confraternities
- Military experience (e.g. comitati, warbands, orders of chivalry)
- Friendship and emotional bonds (e.g. amicitia, love)
- Ethnicity and inter-cultural encounters
Papers could consider individuals or groups from any faith, religious tradition, monotheistic, pagan, or heretical, or could focus on men who rejected religion and faith. We encourage proposals from scholars working in any relevant field: history, literature and language, art history, musicology, archaeology, etc., and from any medieval period (c. 300–early 1500s) or geographical setting.
The conference will be held at the Brayford Campus, which is a few minutes’ walk from the train station, and within easy reach of the cathedral and castle. The conference organisers are Dr Philippa Hoskin and Dr Joanna Huntington. For further information on Lincoln please click here (a conference website is under construction).
We hope to publish a volume of essays based on a selection of the papers delivered at the conference.
Proposals, of 200-300 words, for papers of 20 minutes, should be submitted to the conference convenors by 30 September 2013.
University of Lincoln, UK
Call for Papers
This conference seeks to explore and re-evaluate the forms and functions of networks and communities for men in the middle ages. We invite papers which consider these in relation to professed religious men and/or laymen of any faith. Scholars are increasingly engaging with what religion, belief and devotion meant to men as men. Networks and communities both shape and express individual, relational, and collective identities, and therefore shed useful light on the experiences, perceptions or depiction of medieval men. This is the second conference under the auspices of The Bishop’s Eye Network – a research network between the Universities of Huddersfield and Lincoln. The first, ‘Religious Men in the Middle Ages’, was held at Huddersfield in 2012.
We invite abstracts from scholars at all career stages working on the interplay between men in networks and communities; how they are constituted and what they mean. Papers may focus on homosocial networks and communities or male involvement in female networks and communities.
Topics for discussion could include networks and communities defined by:
- Family and kinship
- Intellectual connections (e.g. textual communities, scholasticism)
- Profession and Occupation
- Orders, universities, monastic, mendicant, and secular houses
- Patronage and affinity
- Geography and location
- Guilds and confraternities
- Military experience (e.g. comitati, warbands, orders of chivalry)
- Friendship and emotional bonds (e.g. amicitia, love)
- Ethnicity and inter-cultural encounters
Papers could consider individuals or groups from any faith, religious tradition, monotheistic, pagan, or heretical, or could focus on men who rejected religion and faith. We encourage proposals from scholars working in any relevant field: history, literature and language, art history, musicology, archaeology, etc., and from any medieval period (c. 300–early 1500s) or geographical setting.
The conference will be held at the Brayford Campus, which is a few minutes’ walk from the train station, and within easy reach of the cathedral and castle. The conference organisers are Dr Philippa Hoskin and Dr Joanna Huntington. For further information on Lincoln please click here (a conference website is under construction).
We hope to publish a volume of essays based on a selection of the papers delivered at the conference.
Proposals, of 200-300 words, for papers of 20 minutes, should be submitted to the conference convenors by 30 September 2013.
CFP: Suffragette Legacy: How Does the History of Feminism Inspire Current Thinking in Manchester?
Saturday 8 March 2014
Call for Papers
From The Village and David Bowie’s Suffragette City to Femen activists and Pussy Riot, the suffragette legacy is everywhere in modern culture.
As part of the Manchester Wonder Women events celebrating International Women’s Day 2014, this one-day conference seeks to bring together academics, artists, politicians and activists to present and speak about how their work is affected by the suffragette legacy of feminism.
Welcoming academic papers, feminist theory, dance, music or other, this one-day conference wishes to bring together different people to reflect on the important, but often complex, legacy of the suffragettes. Within an interdisciplinary context we wish to explore if, how and why the movement still matters in politics, academia, the arts and other aspects of modern Manchester.
Papers or submissions are welcome from any background, but special consideration will be given to anyone who directly engages with the Manchester history of the women’s movement.
Send your proposed paper, project or idea to the conference convenors by 15 October 2013 at 12pm. We will let you know if you have been successful by 1st November. If your work has a particularly visual or performance element, do send us lots of details about it. We are hoping to display related materials, objects and artworks, so any visual output is welcome in the planning stages.
Venue: People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Spinningfields, Manchester M3 3ER. For directions, please click here.
Fee: £25/£15 (concessions, students or unwaged - proof required); bursaries may be available in the Autumn
Twitter: @wonderwomenmcr
Websites: Wonder Women and blog
Call for Papers
From The Village and David Bowie’s Suffragette City to Femen activists and Pussy Riot, the suffragette legacy is everywhere in modern culture.
As part of the Manchester Wonder Women events celebrating International Women’s Day 2014, this one-day conference seeks to bring together academics, artists, politicians and activists to present and speak about how their work is affected by the suffragette legacy of feminism.
Welcoming academic papers, feminist theory, dance, music or other, this one-day conference wishes to bring together different people to reflect on the important, but often complex, legacy of the suffragettes. Within an interdisciplinary context we wish to explore if, how and why the movement still matters in politics, academia, the arts and other aspects of modern Manchester.
Papers or submissions are welcome from any background, but special consideration will be given to anyone who directly engages with the Manchester history of the women’s movement.
Send your proposed paper, project or idea to the conference convenors by 15 October 2013 at 12pm. We will let you know if you have been successful by 1st November. If your work has a particularly visual or performance element, do send us lots of details about it. We are hoping to display related materials, objects and artworks, so any visual output is welcome in the planning stages.
Venue: People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Spinningfields, Manchester M3 3ER. For directions, please click here.
Fee: £25/£15 (concessions, students or unwaged - proof required); bursaries may be available in the Autumn
Twitter: @wonderwomenmcr
Websites: Wonder Women and blog
Thursday 18 July 2013
CFP: 15th Global Conference: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness
Saturday 22nd March – Monday 24th March 2014
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding evil and human wickedness. In wrestling with evil(s) we are confronted with a multi-layered phenomenon which invites people from all disciplines, professions and vocations to come together in dialogue and wrestle with questions that cross the boundaries of the intellectual, the emotional and the personal. Underlying these efforts there is the sense that in grappling with evil we are in fact grappling with questions and issues of our own humanity.
The complex nature of evil is reflected in this call for presentations: in recognising that no one approach or perspective can adequately do justice to what we mean by evil, so there is an equal recognition that no one form of presentation ought to take priority over others. We solicit contributions which may be
~ papers, panels, workshops, reports
~ case studies
~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings
~ works of art; works of music
We will also consider other forms of contribution. Successful proposals will normally be given a 20 minute presentation space. Perspectives are sought from all academic disciplines along with, for example, those working in the caring professions, journalism, the media, the military, prison services, politics, psychiatry and other work-related, ngo and vocational areas.
Key themes for reflection may include, but are not limited to:
-what is evil?
-is there ‘new’ evil, or are evil acts/events pretty much the same across time with only our interpretive lenses changing as cultures shift?
-the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
-evil animals? Wicked creatures?
-the places and spaces of evil
-crimes, criminals and justice
-psychopathic behaviour – mad or bad?
-villains, wicked characters and heroes
-vice and virtue
-choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
-social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
-political evils; evil, power and the state
-evil and gender; evil and the feminine
-evil children
-hell, hells, damnation: evil and the afterlife
-the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
-suffering in literature and film
-individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
-terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing
-fear, terror, horror
-the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
-the nature and tasks of theodicy
-religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
-postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
-ecocriticism, evil and suffering
-evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 10th October 2013. All submissions are at least double blind peer reviewed. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 17th January 2014. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word 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: Evil15 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). 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
Stephen Morris
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.
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.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations
This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference seeks to examine and explore issues surrounding evil and human wickedness. In wrestling with evil(s) we are confronted with a multi-layered phenomenon which invites people from all disciplines, professions and vocations to come together in dialogue and wrestle with questions that cross the boundaries of the intellectual, the emotional and the personal. Underlying these efforts there is the sense that in grappling with evil we are in fact grappling with questions and issues of our own humanity.
The complex nature of evil is reflected in this call for presentations: in recognising that no one approach or perspective can adequately do justice to what we mean by evil, so there is an equal recognition that no one form of presentation ought to take priority over others. We solicit contributions which may be
~ papers, panels, workshops, reports
~ case studies
~ performance pieces; dramatic readings; poetic renditions; short stories; creative writings
~ works of art; works of music
We will also consider other forms of contribution. Successful proposals will normally be given a 20 minute presentation space. Perspectives are sought from all academic disciplines along with, for example, those working in the caring professions, journalism, the media, the military, prison services, politics, psychiatry and other work-related, ngo and vocational areas.
Key themes for reflection may include, but are not limited to:
-what is evil?
-is there ‘new’ evil, or are evil acts/events pretty much the same across time with only our interpretive lenses changing as cultures shift?
-the nature and sources of evil and human wickedness
-evil animals? Wicked creatures?
-the places and spaces of evil
-crimes, criminals and justice
-psychopathic behaviour – mad or bad?
-villains, wicked characters and heroes
-vice and virtue
-choice, responsibility, and diminished responsibility
-social and cultural reactions to evil and human wickedness
-political evils; evil, power and the state
-evil and gender; evil and the feminine
-evil children
-hell, hells, damnation: evil and the afterlife
-the portrayal of evil and human wickedness in the media and popular culture
-suffering in literature and film
-individual acts of evil, group violence, holocaust and genocide; obligations of bystanders
-terrorism, war, ethnic cleansing
-fear, terror, horror
-the search for meaning and sense in evil and human wickedness
-the nature and tasks of theodicy
-religious understandings of evil and human wickedness
-postmodern approaches to evil and human wickedness
-ecocriticism, evil and suffering
-evil and the use/abuse of technology; evil in cyberspace
The Steering Group also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 10th October 2013. All submissions are at least double blind peer reviewed. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 17th January 2014. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word 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: Evil15 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). 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
Stephen Morris
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.
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: Gender and Medieval Studies Conference 2014
9‐11 January
The University of Winchester
Gender and Status
Keynote speaker: Barbara Yorke, Professor Emerita of Early Medieval History, University of Winchester
In a social hierarchy, gender and status are closely interrelated. These beliefs create constraining bonds, which can limit but also encourage attempts to circumvent them. We can discern different methods of both manoeuvring within social status and also breaking free of it.
The extent to which gender determines and informs status has led to different medieval explanations of this system. The 2014 Gender and Medieval Studies Conference welcomes a range of multifaceted or interdisciplinary approaches to the topic of Gender and Status in the Middle Ages. The examination of both femininities and masculinities, individually or in conjunction to each other, with theoretical or interpretive approaches from literature, history, art history, archaeology, music history, philosophy, theology or any related discipline are especially desired. We would also like to offer early‐stage postgraduate students the opportunity to share their research in progress through poster presentations.
Areas that could be explored (but are not limited to) include:
- Economics
- Social status
- Mobility
- Employment
- Corpus Christi
- Spheres of influence
- Life cycles
- Access to power
- Authority
- The concept of ‘status’
- Servitude and slavery
- Marital status
- Sexuality
- Poverty
The GMS 2014 will include a round table on gender and pedagogy, and we are seeking academics with teaching experience from a wide range of disciplines to participate.
We invite proposals for 20‐minute papers or posters on any aspect of this topic. Please e‐mail proposals of approximately 250 words, including your contact details and affiliation (if applicable), to the conference convenors by 2 September 2013. For session proposals, please include all participants’ names, affiliations, paper titles and abstracts. If you would like to participate in the pedagogy round table, please express your interest to the committee at the same email address.
The University of Winchester
Gender and Status
Keynote speaker: Barbara Yorke, Professor Emerita of Early Medieval History, University of Winchester
In a social hierarchy, gender and status are closely interrelated. These beliefs create constraining bonds, which can limit but also encourage attempts to circumvent them. We can discern different methods of both manoeuvring within social status and also breaking free of it.
The extent to which gender determines and informs status has led to different medieval explanations of this system. The 2014 Gender and Medieval Studies Conference welcomes a range of multifaceted or interdisciplinary approaches to the topic of Gender and Status in the Middle Ages. The examination of both femininities and masculinities, individually or in conjunction to each other, with theoretical or interpretive approaches from literature, history, art history, archaeology, music history, philosophy, theology or any related discipline are especially desired. We would also like to offer early‐stage postgraduate students the opportunity to share their research in progress through poster presentations.
Areas that could be explored (but are not limited to) include:
- Economics
- Social status
- Mobility
- Employment
- Corpus Christi
- Spheres of influence
- Life cycles
- Access to power
- Authority
- The concept of ‘status’
- Servitude and slavery
- Marital status
- Sexuality
- Poverty
The GMS 2014 will include a round table on gender and pedagogy, and we are seeking academics with teaching experience from a wide range of disciplines to participate.
We invite proposals for 20‐minute papers or posters on any aspect of this topic. Please e‐mail proposals of approximately 250 words, including your contact details and affiliation (if applicable), to the conference convenors by 2 September 2013. For session proposals, please include all participants’ names, affiliations, paper titles and abstracts. If you would like to participate in the pedagogy round table, please express your interest to the committee at the same email address.
Tuesday 16 July 2013
CFP: Ghosts, Gremlins and Jedi: Fantasy and Film in the Long 1980s
Manchester, United Kingdom
Friday 25th – Saturday 26th April 2014
Call for Papers
From sci-fi epic to swords and sorcery, from urban ghosts to time travel, fantasy dominated the cinema of the 1980s. Hand-in-hand with these wild flights of imagination came the rise of new technologies of spectatorship (particularly VHS and the home VCR) and dramatic political change in both the West and the East. This two-day conference aims to interrogate the place of fantasy in the history of the 1980s – its construction, context and legacy.
Abstracts are sought for 20-minute papers that consider any aspect of fantasy and film in the long 1980s (roughly understood as 1977-1992, though films that fall outside these dates may be considered). Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Cinematography and special effects
- Soundtracks and music
- Gender and sexuality in fantasy
- The family in film
- Fantasy film in political and social contexts
- The end of the Cold War – fantasy in the run-up to 1989
- The video generation – technologies of viewing
- Spin-offs, tie-ins and novelizations
- Visions of the future
- Representations of technology
- Fantasy’s legacy – what came next?
Papers may consider individual films, or take a broader view of film and genre. Papers on non-Hollywood or non-Anglophone films are particularly welcome.
Please send abstracts (200-300 words) to Rob Shedwick by Tuesday 24th December 2013. Any enquiries should be sent to the same address.
This conference is organized by Hic Dragones. For more information about our work, and about past conferences, please visit the website.
Friday 25th – Saturday 26th April 2014
Call for Papers
From sci-fi epic to swords and sorcery, from urban ghosts to time travel, fantasy dominated the cinema of the 1980s. Hand-in-hand with these wild flights of imagination came the rise of new technologies of spectatorship (particularly VHS and the home VCR) and dramatic political change in both the West and the East. This two-day conference aims to interrogate the place of fantasy in the history of the 1980s – its construction, context and legacy.
Abstracts are sought for 20-minute papers that consider any aspect of fantasy and film in the long 1980s (roughly understood as 1977-1992, though films that fall outside these dates may be considered). Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Cinematography and special effects
- Soundtracks and music
- Gender and sexuality in fantasy
- The family in film
- Fantasy film in political and social contexts
- The end of the Cold War – fantasy in the run-up to 1989
- The video generation – technologies of viewing
- Spin-offs, tie-ins and novelizations
- Visions of the future
- Representations of technology
- Fantasy’s legacy – what came next?
Papers may consider individual films, or take a broader view of film and genre. Papers on non-Hollywood or non-Anglophone films are particularly welcome.
Please send abstracts (200-300 words) to Rob Shedwick by Tuesday 24th December 2013. Any enquiries should be sent to the same address.
This conference is organized by Hic Dragones. For more information about our work, and about past conferences, please visit the website.
Wednesday 10 July 2013
CFP: Old and Middle English Studies: Texts and Sources
3-5 September 2014
Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London
A joint international conference with Keio University, Tokyo
Call for Papers
The study of Old and Middle English sources is critical for an understanding of medieval language and literature in the British Isles. This joint conference aims to open up and explore new ways for intellectual exchange and collaboration between scholars working in any aspect of medieval English, in London and Japan especially. The theme for the 2014 conference is ‘Texts and Sources’. Papers will be selected for their ability to link various branches of learning that touch upon Old and Middle English studies, including such topics as history, language, literature, philology, to name just a few. The conference will be accompanied by a special exhibit of manuscripts from medieval and early modern times curated with a view to illustrating the central theme of the proceedings.
Conference organizers, Keio University (Tokyo) and the Institute of English Studies (London), invite scholars to submit abstracts of up to 250 words directly to ieskeio.conference@gmail.com, not later than 1st December 2013.
Papers on the following topics with special emphasis on Japanese and/or British research will be encouraged, although papers with wider scope will not be excluded:
- Digital humanities and virtual libraries
- Interconnections between Old and Middle English scholarship
- Manuscript studies
- Medievalism
- Teaching Old and Middle English
- Translating Old and Middle English into modern languages
Other general topics might include:
- Multiculturalism/multilingualism in the Middle Ages
- Old and Middle English literature and literary culture
- Old and Middle English philology: texts and contexts
- Old and Middle English: synchronic and diachronic studies
- Old and Middle English translations and their sources
- Sources for Old and Middle English culture
The School of Advanced Study is part of the central University of London. The School takes its responsibility to visitors with special needs very seriously and will endeavour to make reasonable adjustments to its facilities in order to accommodate the needs of such visitors. If you have a particular requirement, please feel free to discuss it confidentially with the organiser in advance of the event taking place.
Enquiries: Events Officer, Institute of English Studies, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel +44 (0) 207 664 4859; email.
Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London
A joint international conference with Keio University, Tokyo
Call for Papers
The study of Old and Middle English sources is critical for an understanding of medieval language and literature in the British Isles. This joint conference aims to open up and explore new ways for intellectual exchange and collaboration between scholars working in any aspect of medieval English, in London and Japan especially. The theme for the 2014 conference is ‘Texts and Sources’. Papers will be selected for their ability to link various branches of learning that touch upon Old and Middle English studies, including such topics as history, language, literature, philology, to name just a few. The conference will be accompanied by a special exhibit of manuscripts from medieval and early modern times curated with a view to illustrating the central theme of the proceedings.
Conference organizers, Keio University (Tokyo) and the Institute of English Studies (London), invite scholars to submit abstracts of up to 250 words directly to ieskeio.conference@gmail.com, not later than 1st December 2013.
Papers on the following topics with special emphasis on Japanese and/or British research will be encouraged, although papers with wider scope will not be excluded:
- Digital humanities and virtual libraries
- Interconnections between Old and Middle English scholarship
- Manuscript studies
- Medievalism
- Teaching Old and Middle English
- Translating Old and Middle English into modern languages
Other general topics might include:
- Multiculturalism/multilingualism in the Middle Ages
- Old and Middle English literature and literary culture
- Old and Middle English philology: texts and contexts
- Old and Middle English: synchronic and diachronic studies
- Old and Middle English translations and their sources
- Sources for Old and Middle English culture
The School of Advanced Study is part of the central University of London. The School takes its responsibility to visitors with special needs very seriously and will endeavour to make reasonable adjustments to its facilities in order to accommodate the needs of such visitors. If you have a particular requirement, please feel free to discuss it confidentially with the organiser in advance of the event taking place.
Enquiries: Events Officer, Institute of English Studies, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; tel +44 (0) 207 664 4859; email.
Friday 5 July 2013
CFP: Kalamazoo 2014 Sessions
The 49th International Congress of Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA
May 8-11, 2014
Three sessions at next year's International Congress of Medieval Studies - please note that different sessions are organized by different people, so please use the correct contact details if submitting abstracts.
Shock! Horror! Didacticism and Diversion in Medieval Biblical Narratives
This session will address the functions and effects of the amplification of “shock” and “horror” in medieval vernacular and visual adaptations of Old and New Testament narratives. They will ask where the opening up of the Word of God for the spiritual edification of the “lewd [common] man” meets up with the exploiting of the dramatic potential in biblical stories for diversion and entertainment – or even titillation. It has been appreciated that Latin works such as Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica (c. 1173) in a sense legitimized the Bible as an “entertaining narrative” (James Morey, 1993); however, assumptions concerning and/or emphases on the moralizing quality of biblical re-imaginings have arguably prevented scholars from considering in detail where vernacular and visual works may be located along what might be termed a “didacticism-diversion spectrum.” This somewhat neglected area of research calls for a multi-disciplinary engagement and dialogue. Papers are sought from across literary studies, art and visual studies, and drama and performance studies. The sessions will appeal to scholars interested in: textual and cultural transmission of biblical stories; the burgeoning study of emotion; the interrelationships of text, image and drama; and the development of popular theology. Papers addressing poetry, prose or drama in the English vernaculars – both Old and Middle English – are especially encouraged, though other vernacular languages will also be considered, particularly if the paper has a comparative approach. Papers addressing visual studies should focus on biblical narrative artwork from England (e.g. The Illustrated Old English Hexateuch; the Holkham Bible), though insular and European continental works may also be considered if they are addressed comparatively with English works. “Shock” and “horror” may be interpreted fairly broadly, but emphasis on the deployment of violence and/or sex will especially be appreciated.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participation Form (available here) to session organizer Chris Monk by September 15, 2013. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract. Abstracts not accepted for this session will be forwarded to the Congress committee for consideration of inclusion in general sessions, as stipulated in Congress policy.
Monsters I: Monstrous Gender
Sponsored by MEARCSTAPA (Monsters: the Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory And Practical Application)
Recent trends in monster scholarship are developing a strong focus on the imbrications of monstrosity and gender. We are looking for papers that address the intersection of gender and monstrosity in interesting, unusual, provocative and meaningful ways. We especially encourage papers that seek to move beyond the more traditional uses of monster and gender theories in medieval studies to consider how these categories of thinking can intersect, challenge, problematize, corroborate, support, and inform one another. Interdisciplinary approaches including but not limited to the consideration of monstrous gender in literature, language, history, art history, architecture, philosophy, religion, politics, and/or cultural studies are highly welcome.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form (available here) to session organizers Melissa Ridley Elmes or Asa Simon Mittman by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. Abstracts will be posted to the MEARCSTAPA blog, and all abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.
Monsters II: Parallel Worlds: Monstrous Voyages, Monstrous Visitors
Sponsored by MEARCSTAPA (Monsters: the Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory And Practical Application)
Refraction, reflection, intrusion, illusion, overlay, visitation, wandering, straying: parallel worlds double and haunt medieval landscapes, providing voyage destinations and otherworldly visitors. Medieval worlds are not unitary or univocal, as refugees seek Torelore and the Pays de Cocagne; as chroniclers record or imagine far-off Carthage and Jerusalem; as the secular world finds itself invaded by hellish demons or heavenly angels; as saints and mystics simultaneously inhabit this world and the next. What can other worlds, or other temporalities, tell us about how medieval cultures understood the quotidian or secular world? How does the ingress of or egress to various worlds beyond establish or erode the definition of the here-and-now? Are all such intrusions monstrous? Does monstrosity necessitate intrusion from beyond? We invite papers from all disciplines and national traditions, on topics that might include the double presence of life and death, profane and sacred, self and other, animal and human, native and foreigner, male and female, straight and queer, past, future, and present.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form (available here) to session organizers Stefanie Goyette or Asa Simon Mittman by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. Abstracts will be posted to the MEARCSTAPA blog, and all abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA
May 8-11, 2014
Three sessions at next year's International Congress of Medieval Studies - please note that different sessions are organized by different people, so please use the correct contact details if submitting abstracts.
Shock! Horror! Didacticism and Diversion in Medieval Biblical Narratives
This session will address the functions and effects of the amplification of “shock” and “horror” in medieval vernacular and visual adaptations of Old and New Testament narratives. They will ask where the opening up of the Word of God for the spiritual edification of the “lewd [common] man” meets up with the exploiting of the dramatic potential in biblical stories for diversion and entertainment – or even titillation. It has been appreciated that Latin works such as Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica (c. 1173) in a sense legitimized the Bible as an “entertaining narrative” (James Morey, 1993); however, assumptions concerning and/or emphases on the moralizing quality of biblical re-imaginings have arguably prevented scholars from considering in detail where vernacular and visual works may be located along what might be termed a “didacticism-diversion spectrum.” This somewhat neglected area of research calls for a multi-disciplinary engagement and dialogue. Papers are sought from across literary studies, art and visual studies, and drama and performance studies. The sessions will appeal to scholars interested in: textual and cultural transmission of biblical stories; the burgeoning study of emotion; the interrelationships of text, image and drama; and the development of popular theology. Papers addressing poetry, prose or drama in the English vernaculars – both Old and Middle English – are especially encouraged, though other vernacular languages will also be considered, particularly if the paper has a comparative approach. Papers addressing visual studies should focus on biblical narrative artwork from England (e.g. The Illustrated Old English Hexateuch; the Holkham Bible), though insular and European continental works may also be considered if they are addressed comparatively with English works. “Shock” and “horror” may be interpreted fairly broadly, but emphasis on the deployment of violence and/or sex will especially be appreciated.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participation Form (available here) to session organizer Chris Monk by September 15, 2013. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract. Abstracts not accepted for this session will be forwarded to the Congress committee for consideration of inclusion in general sessions, as stipulated in Congress policy.
Monsters I: Monstrous Gender
Sponsored by MEARCSTAPA (Monsters: the Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory And Practical Application)
Recent trends in monster scholarship are developing a strong focus on the imbrications of monstrosity and gender. We are looking for papers that address the intersection of gender and monstrosity in interesting, unusual, provocative and meaningful ways. We especially encourage papers that seek to move beyond the more traditional uses of monster and gender theories in medieval studies to consider how these categories of thinking can intersect, challenge, problematize, corroborate, support, and inform one another. Interdisciplinary approaches including but not limited to the consideration of monstrous gender in literature, language, history, art history, architecture, philosophy, religion, politics, and/or cultural studies are highly welcome.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form (available here) to session organizers Melissa Ridley Elmes or Asa Simon Mittman by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. Abstracts will be posted to the MEARCSTAPA blog, and all abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.
Monsters II: Parallel Worlds: Monstrous Voyages, Monstrous Visitors
Sponsored by MEARCSTAPA (Monsters: the Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory And Practical Application)
Refraction, reflection, intrusion, illusion, overlay, visitation, wandering, straying: parallel worlds double and haunt medieval landscapes, providing voyage destinations and otherworldly visitors. Medieval worlds are not unitary or univocal, as refugees seek Torelore and the Pays de Cocagne; as chroniclers record or imagine far-off Carthage and Jerusalem; as the secular world finds itself invaded by hellish demons or heavenly angels; as saints and mystics simultaneously inhabit this world and the next. What can other worlds, or other temporalities, tell us about how medieval cultures understood the quotidian or secular world? How does the ingress of or egress to various worlds beyond establish or erode the definition of the here-and-now? Are all such intrusions monstrous? Does monstrosity necessitate intrusion from beyond? We invite papers from all disciplines and national traditions, on topics that might include the double presence of life and death, profane and sacred, self and other, animal and human, native and foreigner, male and female, straight and queer, past, future, and present.
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form (available here) to session organizers Stefanie Goyette or Asa Simon Mittman by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. Abstracts will be posted to the MEARCSTAPA blog, and all abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.
Tuesday 18 June 2013
Medieval and Early Modern Student Association Postgraduate Conference - The Mutilated Body
8-9 July 2013 at St John's College, Durham University
MEMSA is proud to announce its seventh annual postgraduate conference, an event designed to bring together postgraduate and early career researchers in interdisciplinary dialogue. This year's topic is the Mutilated Body, where delegates will explore aspects of destruction, disability, and personhood in the medieval and Early Modern periods, investigating medical humanities and hagiography, as well as interpretations of the conceptualisation of mutilated corporeality, as typified by books, the nation-state and kingship, or Christendom. Keynote speakers will be Professor Faith Wallis (McGill University) and Professor Charlotte Roberts (Durham University). Delegates will also have the option to tour the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition, following a talk by Professor Richard Gameson (Durham University).
Please click here to register online.
MEMSA is proud to announce its seventh annual postgraduate conference, an event designed to bring together postgraduate and early career researchers in interdisciplinary dialogue. This year's topic is the Mutilated Body, where delegates will explore aspects of destruction, disability, and personhood in the medieval and Early Modern periods, investigating medical humanities and hagiography, as well as interpretations of the conceptualisation of mutilated corporeality, as typified by books, the nation-state and kingship, or Christendom. Keynote speakers will be Professor Faith Wallis (McGill University) and Professor Charlotte Roberts (Durham University). Delegates will also have the option to tour the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition, following a talk by Professor Richard Gameson (Durham University).
Please click here to register online.
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.
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.
Monday 22 April 2013
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
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.
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.
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 NotebookThrough 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
Birkbeck Medieval Seminar: Landscape and Belief
Saturday 27 April, 2013
10am–5pm
Rooms G15 and G16, Main Building, Birkbeck
Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX
Birkbeck Medieval Seminar 2013
featuring
John Blair (Queen’s College, University of Oxford)
Catherine Clarke (University of Southampton)
Stefan Brink (University of Aberdeen)
Alfred Hiatt (Queen Mary, University of London)
This event is free, and all are welcome to attend.
To reserve a place, email the organizers.
To learn more, visit the website.
10am–5pm
Rooms G15 and G16, Main Building, Birkbeck
Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX
Birkbeck Medieval Seminar 2013
featuring
John Blair (Queen’s College, University of Oxford)
Catherine Clarke (University of Southampton)
Stefan Brink (University of Aberdeen)
Alfred Hiatt (Queen Mary, University of London)
This event is free, and all are welcome to attend.
To reserve a place, email the organizers.
To learn more, visit the website.
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.
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
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.
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.
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