Showing posts with label medieval literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medieval literature. Show all posts

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.

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.

Tuesday 18 June 2013

CFP: DigiPal One-Day Symposium

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

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

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

How to propose a paper

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

The topics below might help guide potential submissions:

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

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

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

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

What is DigiPal?

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

Friday 29 March 2013

CFP: Romance in Medieval Britain

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

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

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

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

Saturday 2 March 2013

CFP: Shaping Authority

International Conference
Leuven 5-6 December 2013

Call For Papers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Registration: Registration is required before 29 November 2013

Contact: Marleen Reynders

Saturday 16 February 2013

Symposium: Isidore of Seville: Transforming Knowledge from Scriptorium to Cyberspace

Isidore of Seville (d. 636 CE) is a crucial figure in the preservation and propagation of Classical and Patristic learning. He put such learning to varied use in his own day, in the process ensuring that it could be made useful for future generations. Because of the depth of what he preserved and the breadth of its diffusion, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Isidore the patron saint of the Internet in 1997. This one day symposium looks at the sources on which Isidore drew, how he selected and arranged them for future use, and what posterity made of his legacy.

DATE: Thursday 18th April 2013

VENUE: Instituto Cervantes, 326/330 Deansgate, Campfield Avenue Arcade, Manchester 

PAPERS:

- Andy Fear (Manchester), A Grand Design: Isidore and the natural world

- Laura Carlson (Queen's University, Canada), The use of Isidore in the Opus Caroli

- Martin Ryan (Manchester), The Reception of the Writings of Isidore in the Atlantic Archipelago in the Early Middle Ages

- Amy Fuller, (Nottingham Trent), Archiving Idolatry: Isidore and the recording of native superstition in the New World

- Jamie Wood (Lincoln), LA Law: Isidore, late antique legal sources and the Carolingians

- Melissa Markauskas (Manchester), Rylands MS Latin 12: A Carolingian example of Isidore’s reception into the Patristic Canon?‏

Other contributors include: Mary Beagon (Manchester), Jeremy Lawrance (Nottingham), David Langslow (Manchester), Andrew Laird (Warwick) and Jeremy Tambling (Manchester).

Contact Jamie Wood for further information or if you would like to register for the symposium.

Thursday 14 February 2013

Workshop: Crusade Preaching and Propaganda

A Workshop on Primary Sources

29-30 March 2013, University of Kent, Canterbury

When the crusades became institutionalised by the end of the 12th century, so did the promoting of the crusades. Preachers and papal legates were sent out and manuscripts as well as works of art were commissioned and spread throughout Europe, all in order to achieve the ultimate goal: the recapture of Jerusalem. A workshop at Canterbury and two series of sessions at the Kalamazoo and Leeds International Congresses will be addressing crusade preaching and propaganda in the 13th century, as well as drawing comparisons with earlier and later periods, between different European regions, and between East and West.

Workshop Participants*

- Rania Abdellatif (Université Paris IV) - Saladin's Transformation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
- Stephen Bennett (Queen Mary, University of London) - Gerard of Wales
- Barbara Bombi (University of Kent) - Commentator
- Esperanza de los Reyes Aguilar (Universidad de León) - Bishop Jerónimo de Perigord and the Images of Power
- Frances Durkin (University of Birmingham) - Commentator
- Constantinos Georgiou (University of Cyprus) - Sermons of Pope Clement VI
- Martin Hall (Royal Holloway, University of London) - John of Garland
- Bernard Hamilton (University of Nottingham) - Commentator
- Elizabeth Lapina (University of Kent) - Mural Paintings of St. George Fighting Saracens
- Nicholas Morton (Nottingham Trent University) - First Crusade Charters
- Alan V. Murray (University of Leeds) - German Crusading Songs
- Marcello Pacifico (Università di Palermo) - The Letters of Frederick II
- Natalia Petrovskaia (University of Cambridge) - The Welsh 'Charlemagne Cycle'
- Valentin Portnykh (Novosibirsk State University) - Humbert of Romans
- Matthieu Rajohnson (Université Paris Ouest) - Crusade Liturgy
- Mahmoud Said Omran (Alexandria University) - The Armenian Propagandist Hayton of Croycus's Proposals to Recover Jerusalem (1307)
- Thomas Smith (Royal Holloway, University of London) - The Papal Registers of Honorius III (1216-1227)
- Carol Sweetenham - The First Crusade in Sermon Exempla
- Paul Trio (KU Leuven) - Medieval Dutch Pilgrim Literature
- Nickiphoros Tsougarakis (University of Kent) - Crusading Propaganda in Medieval Greece
- Jan Vandeburie (University of Kent) - Jacques de Vitry's 'Historia Orientalis'
- Benjamin Weber (Université de Toulouse) - 15th-Century Papal Bulls

(*Titles of presentations are provisional. A final programme with abstracts will be sent out to all registered or interested attendees.)

Programme (provisional):

Thursday 28 March

Evening: Arrivals and Drinks

Friday 29 March

9.00-10.00: Arrivals / Registration

10.00-11.00: Carol Sweetenham, Nicholas Morton

Tea/Coffee

11.15-12.15: Esperanza de los Reyes Aguilar, Matthieu Rajohnson

12.15-13.15: Rania Abdellatif, Elizabeth Lapina

Lunch

14.00-16.00: Collections of the Cathedral Library

Tea/Coffee

16.15-17.15: Stephen Bennett, Martin Hall

17.15-18.15: Alan V. Murray, Paul Trio, Natalia Petrovskaia

Wine Reception

Dinner

Saturday 30 March

9.00-10.00: Mahmoud Said Omran, Nickiphoros Tsougarakis

10.00-11.00: Marcello Pacifico, Thomas Smith

Tea/Coffee

11.15-12.15: Valentin Portnykh, Jan Vandeburie

12.15-13.15: Constantinos Georgiou, Benjamin Weber

Lunch

Conclusions

*Afternoon Activity*

Collections of the Franciscan International Study Centre

Departures

Attending the workshop as non-participant is possible upon registration and cash/cheque payment of:
University of Kent Students: Free
Attendance Friday: 50 GBP / 30 GBP (Student Concession)
Attendance Saturday: 25 GBP / 15 GBP (Student Concession)
Included in the fee:
Registration and Welcome Pack
Participation in the visits to the Special Collections of the Franciscan International Study Centre and/or the Canterbury Cathedral Library
Coffee/Tea and Refreshments
Sandwich Lunch

Please note that places are limited!

Registration is possible until 15 March 2013

To register or for more information, please contact Jan Vandeburie 
Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Rutherford College, University of Kent
Canterbury CT2 7NX, UK

Further Events:

9-12 May 2013, 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo:
‘Jacques de Vitry: His Career, Writings, and Impact’

- Thieves of Time: The Usurer and the Prostitute in Jacques de Vitry's Exempla Stacie Vos (Yale)
- What Was Jacques de Vitry's Role in Christian-Muslim Relations While Resident in Acre? Elizabeth Binysh (Cardiff)
- ‘De Pollanis, Subole a Patribus Degeneri’ - Jacques de Vitry’s ‘Historia Orientalis’ and the Reform Movement of the Fourth Lateran Council Jan Vandeburie (Kent)
- Jacques of Vitry and the Medieval Universal History Caroline Wilky (University of Notre Dame)

1-4 July 2013, 20th International Medieval Congress, Leeds:
‘Ad Crucesignatos - Crusade Preaching and Propaganda’

- Reflections and Refractions of the First Crusade in Sermon Exempla Carol Sweetenham, University of Warwick
- Preaching the Crusades: Patterns and Impact of Recruitment Campaigns in the 11th and 12th Centuries Frances Durkin, School of History and Cultures, University of Birmingham
- 'Societas Christiana' and Its Unity in 12th-Century Crusade Propaganda Sini Kangas, Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki
- The Lord's Great Bargain: Explanations of the Effect of Crusade Indulgences in Sermons from Bernard of Clairvaux to Jacques de Vitry Ane L. Bysted, University of Aarhus
- Papal Legates and Crusade Preaching under Honorius III (1216-1227) Thomas William Smith, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
- De Peregrinatione Cruce Signatorum - Promoting the Crusade in Jacques de Vitry's 'Historia Orientalis' Jan Vandeburie, University of Kent
- Papal Propaganda and the Crusades, 1213-1253 Marcello Pacifico, Università degli Studi di Palermo
- 'Arma Crucemque Cano': John of Garland's Epic Crusading Appeal Following the Seventh Crusade Martin Hall, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
- Preaching War against the Turks in the Baltic Regions: Many Questions and Few Answers Benjamin Weber, Université de Toulouse

With the kind support of:
University of Kent:
School of History
Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East

Friday 18 January 2013

Call for Submissions: Wounds, Torture and the Grotesque

Hortulus: The Online Graduate Journal of Medieval Studies

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

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

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

Contact details:
Facebook
Twitter 
Website 
Email

OUT NOW: Dark Chaucer: An Assortment (Punctum Books, 2012)

Edited by Myra Seaman, Eileen Joy and Nicola Masciandaro



A new title from open-access publisher, Punctum Books, Dark Chaucer: An Assortment is now available in both print and digital formats. The open-access eBook is available for free, and the paperback edition is priced at $15 - both are available direct from the publishers. If you download the eBook, please also consider making a donation to support the publishers in fostering and developing new and innovative scholarship.

About the book:

Although widely beloved for his playfulness and comic sensibility, Chaucer's poetry is also shot through with dark moments that open into obscure and irresolvably haunting vistas, passages into which one might fall head-first and never reach the abyssal bottom. Opting to dilate rather than cordon off this darkness, this volume assembles a variety of attempts to follow such moments into their folds of blackness and horror, to chart their endless sorrows and recursive gloom, and to take depth soundings in the darker recesses of the Chaucerian lakes in order to bring back palm- or bite-sized pieces (black jewels) of bitter Chaucer that could be shared with others... an assortment, if you will. Not that this collection finds only emptiness and non-meaning in these caves and lakes. You never know what you will discover in the dark.


Contents:

'and here we are as on a darkling plain' - Gary J. Shipley
'Dark Whiteness: Benjamin Brawley and Chaucer' - Candace Barrington
'Saturn's Darkness' - Brantley Bryant and Alia
'A Dark Stain and a Non-Encounter' - Ruth Evans
'Chaucerian Afterlives: Reception and Eschatology' - Gaelan Gilbert
'Black Gold: The Former (and Future) Age' - Leigh Harrison
'Half Dead: Parsing Cecelia' - Nicola Masciandaro
'In the Event of the Franklin's Tale' - J. Allan Mitchell
'Black as the Crow' - Travis Neal and Andrew Richmond
'Unravelling Constance' - Hannah Priest
'L'O de V: A Palimpsest' - Lisa Schamess
'Disconsolate Art' - Myra Seaman
'Kill Me, Save Me, Let Me Go: Custance, Virginia, Emelye' - Karl Steel
'The Physician's Tale as Hagioclasm' - Elaine Treharne
'The Light Has Lifted: Trickster Pandare' - Bob Valasek
'Suffer the Little Children, or, A Rumination on the Faith of Zombies' - Lisa Weston
'The Dark is Light Enough: The Layout of the Tale of Sir Thopas' - Thomas White

About the publisher:

Punctum Books is an open-access and print-on-demand independent publisher dedicated to radically creative modes of intellectual inquiry and writing across a whimsical para-humanities assemblage. For more information, please visit the Punctum Books website.

Sunday 13 January 2013

CFP: Borderlines XVII: Occupying Space

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Upcoming Conference: Stasis in the Medieval World

13th-14th April 2013
The Institute of Archaeology, University College London

'Had people ever been as nasty, as self-indulgent, as dull, as miserable, as cocksure, as bad at art, as dismally ludicrous, or as wrong as they'd been in the Middle Age(s)?' Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim

Continuing the discussion begun by the University of York’s ‘Transition in the Medieval World’ conferences in 2012, the Early Medieval Interdisciplinary Conference Series (EMICS) is pleased to present ‘Stasis in the Medieval World’.

The Middle Ages are popularly represented as an age of repetition and stagnation in terms of their political, religious, and artistic culture. Medieval Studies bear the burden of popular conceptions of the ‘Dark Age’, before the flowerings of the Renaissance ushered a return to the progressive wisdom of the Classical era. The reality familiar to scholars and students of the Middle Ages – that theirs was a time of immense transition and transformation – requires no rehearsal. But is there an extent to which medievalism’s reaction to this marginalization has generated a desire to emphasize the period as one of change and development? Might there be equal value in reexamining those things which, conversely, remained static?

This conference approaches the theme of stasis in the broadest possible terms, from the early Anglo-Saxon period to the late medieval. Papers will seek to establish what really did remain static in the medieval period, and how the political and cultural upheavals generated stasis in the form of deadlock or preservation of traditions. The validity of the terms ‘stasis’ and ‘transition’ will be discussed, as well as current perceptions of medieval studies as themselves ‘static’, and the effects of disciplinary constraints.

Registration is essential
Attendance both days (including wine reception): £20.00 waged / £15 unwaged
For enquiries and registration please contact Victoria Symons, Mary Wellesley or Martin David Locker

This conference is organised as part of the Early Medieval Interdisciplinary Conference Series (EMICS)

Thursday 15 November 2012

CFP: Gender and Transgression in the Middle Ages

2nd - 4th May 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Homosexuality, sexual deviancy and cross-dressing.

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

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

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

EVENTS TONIGHT - ALL WELCOME

Two events tonight at the University of Manchester...

Dress and Textile Discussion Group

Dr. John Peter Wild: Roman Textiles
5pm,Studio 5, Samuel Alexander Building

Manchester Medieval Society

Dr. William Rossiter (Senior Lecturer, Liverpool Hope University): 
Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio: The Trecento Anxiety of Influence?
6pm, Room A102, Samuel Alexander Building

Friday 2 November 2012

CFP: Literature in English Symposium (Poznan, Poland)

21 April 2013

'I am an exile from heaven beating on its closed doors'*:
Saints and Sinners: Postmodernism, Feminism and Medievalism in Literature in English

'I am a stranger in this world' says the nun, the narrator of a story of a forbidden book by Marguerite Porete. The year is 1340, thirty years after Marguerite was burned at the stake for writing and disseminating her heretical work, The Mirror of Simple Souls. The place is England, a Cistercian nunnery where she tells her story the night before her death, knowing that the book irretrievably changed but also shortened her life. But the idea of being a stranger in the world is not an uncommon one for many other Michele Roberts’ characters.

From the early feminists to postmodern protagonists her novels rewrite medieval saints and sinners, Victorian mediums and contemporary visionaries, offering us new perspectives on well known stories and motifs. As Michele Roberts herself will be our guest of honor at the Faculty of English, her work is the inspiration for our 2013 Literature in English Symposium but we welcome papers about topics related to postmodern rewriting of history and culture as well as the feminist standpoint on both contemporary and earlier literature in English.

The conference will take place at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland (Niepodleglosci Street). The deadline for abstract submissions is 15th December 2012. Please send your proposals and a short bio to Dr Katarzyna Bronk.

*The quotation comes from Michele Roberts, The Book of Mrs Noah (1999: 125). London: Vintage.

Wednesday 5 September 2012

CFP: Sensing the Sacred: Religion and the Senses, 1300-1800

The University of York
21-22 June 2013

Confirmed keynote addresses from:

Nicky Hallett (University of Sheffield)
Matthew Milner (McGill University)
& Chris Woolgar (University of Southampton)

Religion has always been characterised as much by embodied experience as by abstract theological dispute. From the sounds of the adhān (the Islamic call to prayer), to the smell of incense in the Hindu Pūjā (a ritual offering to the deities), the visual emblem of the cross in the Christian tradition, and the ascetic practices of Theravada Buddhism, sensation is integral to a range of devotional practices. At the same time, the history of many faiths is characterised by an intense suspicion of the senses and the pleasures they offer.

This international, interdisciplinary conference, to be held at the University of York from 21 to 22 June 2013, will bring together scholars working on the role played by the senses in the experience and expression of religion and faith in the pre-modern world. The burgeoning field of sensory history offers a fertile ground for reconsideration of religious studies across disciplinary boundaries. We welcome papers from anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, historians, literary scholars, musicologists, philosophers, theologians, and any other interested parties. Possible topics might include, but are by no means limited to:

- Synaesthesia: how do religious rituals blur sensory boundaries, and challenge sensory hierarchies?

- Iconography and iconoclasm: how might we conceive the ‘rites of violence’ in sensory terms? How does iconography engage the non-visual senses?

- The senses and conversion: how are the senses used to elicit conversion?

- Material cultures of religion: what role do the senses play in mediating between bodies and sacred objects?

- The senses and gender: are sensing practices gender specific?

- The inner (spiritual) senses: how do they relate to the external (bodily) senses?

- Sensory environments: to what extent do environments shape devotional practices and beliefs, and vice versa? How do we use our senses to orient ourselves in space?

- Affect: what role do the senses play in the inculcation of religious affect?

Proposals (max. 300 words) for papers of 20 minutes are welcomed both from established scholars, and from postgraduate students. Applications from panels of three speakers are encouraged, as well as individual proposals.

They should be sent to conference organisers Robin Macdonald, Emilie Murphy, and Elizabeth Swann by 6pm on 5 November 2012.

Sunday 17 June 2012

CFP: Gender and Medieval Studies Conference 2013

Gender in Material Culture

Corsham Court, Bath Spa University
4th-6th January 2013


Keynote Speakers
Prof. Catherine Karkov, University of Leeds
Dr Simon Yarrow, University of Birmingham

From saintly relics to grave goods, and from domestic furnishings to the built environment, medieval people inhabited a material world saturated with symbolism. Gender had a profound influence on production and consumption in this material culture. Birth charms and objects of Marian devotion were crafted most often with women in mind, whilst gender shaped the internal spaces of male and female religious houses. The material environment could evoke intense emotions from onlookers, whether fostering reverence in religious rituals, or inspiring awe during royal processions. How did gender influence encounters with these objects and the built environment? Seldom purely functional, these items could incorporate complex meanings, enabling acts of display at every level of society, in fashionable circles at European courts or amongst civic guilds sponsoring lavish pageants. Did gender influence aesthetic choices, and how did status shape the way that people engaged with their physical surroundings? In literary texts and in art, the depiction of clothing and objects can be used to negotiate symbolic space as well as class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity. Texts and images also circulated as material objects themselves, with patterns of transmission across the British Isles, the Anglo-Norman world, and between East and West. The exchange of such objects both accompanied and enacted cross-fertilisation in linguistic, political and cultural spheres.

The Conference will consider the gendered nature of social, religious and economic uses of ‘things’, exploring the way that objects and material culture were produced, consumed and displayed. Papers will address questions of gender from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives, embracing literature, history, art history, and archaeology.

Themes will include:
• adornment, clothing and self-fashioning
• the material culture of devotion
• objects and materialism
• the material culture of children and adolescents
• the material culture of life cycle
• emotion, intimacy and love-gifts
• entertainment and games
• memory and commemoration
• pleasure, pain, and bodily discipline
• production and consumption
• monastic material culture
• material culture in literary texts

Please e-mail proposals of approximately 300 words for 20 minute papers to the GMS committee by 14 September 2012. Please also include your name, research area, institution and level of study in your abstract.

Monday 4 June 2012

CFP: Putting England in Its Place: Cultural Production and Cultural Relations in the High Middle Ages

33rd Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus, Manhattan
March 9-10 2013

Keynote Speakers

Oliver Creighton
Elizabeth Tyler
Julia Crick
Carol Symes
Robert W. Hanning
Paul R. Hyams
Sarah Rees Jones
Kathryn A. Smith

Call for Papers

The rich culture of England’s mid-eleventh to thirteenth centuries is central to some disciplinary narratives for the High Middle Ages (for example, the political history of its ruling dynasties, analyses of visual and material
culture and of Latin historiography), but omitted from others (the period is often assumed, for instance, to have little to do with the history of English literature). This interdisciplinary conference aims to look in a fresh and integrated way at cultural production and cultural relations within England between England and other locales in order to explore what kind of place England as a region, a changing political entity, and a culture or set of cultures might occupy in our accounts of the High Middle Ages. We welcome papers dealing with England's cultures (local, regional, general) in themselves and in their many connections (diplomatic, economic, artistic, etc…) with further areas of the British Isles and other medieval regions.


The Deadline for Submissions is September 5, 2012

Please send an abstract and cover letter with contact information to Center for Medieval Studies, FMH 405,
Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458, or by email, or by fax to (718) 817-3987.

OUT NOW: Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles, c. 450-1450



The eagerly-awaited Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles, c. 450-1450, edited by Gale Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth and Maria Hayward and published by Brill, is now available to buy. I'm proud to say I have an entry on 'Cross-Dressing' (co-written with Gale Owen-Crocker) in the encyclopedia, which is one of over 500 entries.

From the publisher's website:

The single volume Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450 is a unique work that intends to bring together in 582 signed articles the latest research from across the range of disciplines which contribute to our knowledge of medieval dress and textiles.

There has been a long-standing interest in the subject, which has recently manifested itself in a flowering of research and publications, including activities by the editors of the Encyclopaedia: the foundation of DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics and Fashion) as an umbrella organization for the presentation of papers at the major medieval congresses in Kalamazoo and Leeds (Netherton and Owen-Crocker); the establishment of the annual journal Medieval Clothing and Textiles (Netherton and Owen-Crocker); the Manchester Medieval Textiles Project (Coatsworth and Owen-Crocker); and the AHRC Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project (Owen-Crocker and Sylvester).

There is a clear need for an interdisciplinary reference work which will introduce readers to various sources of evidence, and give clear information about the most recent discoveries and interpretations and bibliographical guidance to readers. The Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450 contains also over 100 plates and diagrams to illustrate the text.


For more information, please click here. A free sample fascicle is available from the publisher's website.

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Welcome (once more) to the Ancient and Medieval Carnival!

Slightly unexpected, but here I am hosting this month’s ancient/medieval edition of Carnivalesque: a blogroll of the latest posts related to premodern history. Hope you enjoy...

Ancient


There’s a post on Hellenism and Christianity on Mike Anderson’s Ancient History Blog and Purple Motes has a piece on a Hellenistic ‘coronis’ epigram. A Blog About History has a short piece on the Trefael Stone, which has been revealed to be an ancient burial chamber cap, and Zenobia: Empress of the East asks Questions About the Queen of Sheba’s Gold. Spanning ‘ancient’ and ‘medieval’, the History Books Review has a review of Edward Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire.

Early Medieval


The History Blog has a story about an early Christian curse/cure stone found on a Hebrides island, and Heavenfield features a post this month on St. Michael, the Plague and Castel Sant’ Angelo. On Saints, Sisters and Sluts (Famous and Infamous Women in History), there’s a post on Emma of Normandy, Queen of England, The Renaissance Mathematicus tells the story of Gerbert d’Aurillac – a mathematician who became pope – and Leslie Hedrick writes on The Rebellion of Magnus Maximus in Britain. The Norse Mythology Blog posts A Middle School Student Asks About Norse Mythology and Norse Religion, and Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog has a piece on Procopius, Brittia and Britain.

Late Medieval


Esmeralda’s Cumbrian History & Folklore has a post on A Medieval Knight at Rest, Executed Today gives us the story of Peter von Hagenbach, executed in 1474 and L’Historien Errant has a post on Late Medieval Cityscapes. We also have some posts on life as a medievalist: Meshalim/Amthal/Exiemplos offers more Notes from the Life of a Medievalist, and, on In the Middle, Karl Steel bravely posts an outline (or a ‘prospectus of a prospectus’) of his new book, which follows on from the epilogue of How to Make a Human.

Other Stuff


For those who like their literature (and baked goods) inspired by the Middle Ages, there’s a video promo for K.A. Laity’s collection of short stories Pelzmantel on Bookreel.tv, a chance to win a copy of Blood Lance: A Medieval Noir on Getting Medieval, some information on Nicola Griffith’s forthcoming novel about Hild of Whitby (on Gemæcca), and these gorgeous illuminated initial cookies on Luminarium.

And finally, this month saw the arrival of the Manchester Medieval Society’s new blog. So far, only a ‘hello’ message, but more is promised soon.

Next month’s Carnivalesque will be an early modern edition, and will be hosted by Wynken de Worde. You can nominate posts for this edition via the Carnivalesque website.