Wednesday, February 19, 2014

CFP International Workshop 'Linking the Mediterranean: Regional and Transregional Interactions (300-800CE)' Vienna 11-13 December 2014

 
With apologies for any cross-posting:
We intend to host a workshop, on 11 to 13 December 2014, at Austrian Academy, Vienna. True to the nature of a workshop, the format will consist of a discussion of pre-circulated papers.
The political fragmentation of the Roman Empire also meant a reduction in the scope of economic, social and cultural relationships that had developed across different hierarchical levels and between distant places on Roman soil. New social and cultural relationships developed in the polities that followed the Roman Empire. Nonetheless, the survival of regional and interregional interactions assured certain homogeneity in political, cultural and social forms across post-Roman Europe. This phenomenon has been the topic of exciting academic debate in the last decade and different interpretations and methodological approaches have been proposed.
In this workshop, we intend to focus discussion especially on the issue of interactions beyond the local level between 300 and 800 CE in order to assess 1) to what extent these interactions were affected by the end of the Roman Empire as a political entity, and 2) how these connections contributed to lasting patterns that shaped the post-Roman world in social, cultural and political terms. We are interested in both Mediterranean-wide and smaller regional networks and would welcome papers that deal with all the regions of the (former) Roman Empire (including North Africa, Egypt, Syria, etc.) and its periphery (Ireland, Armenia, etc.).
The theme of this workshop has grown out of research undertaken through the ENFLAWE project (‘Episcopal Networks and Fragmentation in Late Antique Western Europe’). Funded by the EU-Marie Curie Actions and hosted at the Division for Byzantine Research (Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences-OEAW) this project analyses episcopal interactions in the late fourth and fifth century from a social network approach.
We would like to invite proposals from colleagues for papers on any of the following topics.
  1. Functioning and structure of regional and trans-regional networks (aristocratic, ecclesiastical,
    diplomatic, familiar, etc.):
    1. Tensions between individual agency and structural constraint: how did new social
      relationships and regional networks affect individuals’ social and political strategies?
    2. Interactions and social capital: how were extra-local networks used for constructing
      authority and prestige at the local level and beyond?
  2. Symbolic interactions (secular or episcopal letters, relic distribution, gift exchange, etc.):
    1. Interactions and identity: how effective were these extra-local relationships for constructing and displaying cohesion and belonging?
    2. Cultural mobility: critical evaluation of Greenblatt’s model of mimetic capital and Christopher Gregory’s work on gift and commodity exchange
  3. Changing horizons in the late- and post-Roman World:
    1. Tensions between centre and periphery: did the end of the Roman Empire change the
      relationship between centre(s) and periphery/ies?
    2. How did contemporaries conceptualise geographical distance and explain the process of
      fragmentation? 

 
 
Please feel free to distribute to those who might be interested.
 
With best wishes from Vienna,
 
David Natal

Registration open: 'Transforming Scripture' (Oxford, 29-31 May, 2014)

Registration open: 'Transforming Scripture' (Oxford,
29-31 May, 2014)
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2014 20:28:40 +0000

I am pleased to announce that registration is now open for 'Transforming
Scripture: Biblical translations and adaptations in Old and Middle
English' (Oxford, 29-31 May, 2014).

The conference programme and registration are available via
http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/transforming-scripture-biblical-translations-and-adaptations

If you have any questions about the conference please feel free to email
transforming-scripture@ell.ox.ac.uk

Dr Elizabeth Solopova
Faculty of English Language and Literature and Brasenose College, Oxford

Call for Papers (Extended) The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Southern African Society for 
Medieval and Renaissance Studies

22nd International 
Biennial Conference

28-31 August 2014, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Keynote Address: Professor Henry Woudhuysen, 
Lincoln College, University of Oxford

Deadline for proposals: 14 March 2014

The Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies 
promotes scholarly discussion in all disciplines concerned with 
Medieval and Renaissance studies. 


We invite proposals for papers on any aspect of Medieval and Renaissance 
studies addressing the conference theme - with the notion of 'reading'
interpreted as broadly as may be desired. We therefore welcome papers on
art and architecture, manuscripts, marginalia, iconicity, drama,
performance,
and any other topic in which the act of reading as interpretation is
involved.


For information about previous conferences, and the conference venue,
please
consult the society website:
<http://www.sasmarsnewsletter.blogspot.com>.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Upcoming ASSC Event

The Anglo Saxon Studies Colloquium
announces

a lecture and seminar


      *Joshua Davies*
      *(KIng's College, The University of London)*


        “‘Visions and Ruins: History, Temporality, and Affect in the
      Ruin and St Erkenwald"


*Friday, February 21st*
12:00-2:45 pm

lunch will be served

*at Columbia University*
754 Schermerhorn Extension
http://www.columbia.edu/about_columbia/map/schermerhorn_ext.html



****

To join our e-mail list, please send a message to:
ASSC@columbia.edu

ASSC Sponsored by: The Department of English and Comparative Literature,
Columbia University; Dean for the Humanities, New York University; The
Department of English, University of Rhode Island; The Department of
English, Rutgers University; King's College, The University of London;
The Department of English, UC Berkeley.

Writing Britain: CxP a reminder

*With apologies for cross-posting*
 
 
Dear Colleagues, 
 
 
This is just a note to remind interested scholars and students  about the deadline for abstracts for the Writing Britain conference to be held in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge under the auspices of the Centre for Material Texts. Please submit your abstract by Thursday 20 February by following this link https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/english/news/conferences/writing_britain/abstract-submission-form/fg_base_view_p3
 
Alternatively,  contact one of the organisers. Please, also do alert students about this event. 
 
The conference is generously sponsored by the Faculty of English and the University of Cambridge and the School of English at the University of Leicester.
 
We are looking forward to welcoming many of you in Cambridge
 
Orietta, Richard, Phil and Aidan.
 
**************************************************************************
 
Writing Britain: 500-1500 
University of Cambridge, Faculty of English, 30 June - 2 July 2014
Under the auspices of the Centre for Material Texts
Writing Britain is a biennial event which aims to draw on a range of approaches and perspectives to exchange ideas about manuscript studies, material culture, multilingualism in texts and books, book history, readers, audience and scribes across the medieval period. The 2014 iteration of the Writing Britain Conference will take place in the English Faculty at the University of Cambridge under the auspices of the Centre for Material Texts. Some of the topics which we are keen to explore are literary and non-literary agencies and their significance and/or relevance in the medieval period across British medieval written culture in English, French, Latin, Norse and the Celtic languages. More broadly, we are interested in other questions such as: How did local writers, compilers and readers use writing to inscribe regional identity within broader conventions or, on the other hand, impress 'universal' practices and constructs on local populations? What were the different markets for books? Can we characterize their developments and differences? What new or existing methodologies can be employed to localise texts and books across Britain? What is the role of the Digital Humanities in the study of medieval book culture?
 
Plenary speakers: Jonathan Wilcox (University of Iowa), Richard Beadle (University of Cambridge) and Simon Horobin (University of Oxford)
We welcome proposals from scholars working on any aspects of British medieval written culture up to 1500. Please visit our conference web site in order to submit an abstract (300 words or fewer) for a twenty-minute paper. Please send your abstract by 20 February 2014. Abstracts from postgraduate students are welcome and graduate rates will be provided.For further information please visit the website where contact details of the organisers will also be available. 
 
Conference website: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
***********************************
Dr Orietta Da Rold
University Lecturer in Literature and the Material Text: 1100 to 1500
Faculty of English
9 West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DP
01223 335089
 
Fellow of St John´s College
Cambridge, CB2 1TP
01223 768181
 
 

Historical Image Overlays for the St Chad Gospels

From Ansax-net. This is a terrific website: I'm sure many of you will also find it fascinating: 
Celia
 
 
On 2/12/14 7:59 AM, Endres, William F wrote: 
Dear Colleagues,

I am happy to announce that I now have available for viewing images taken over the last 125 years for nine pages of the 8th-century St Chad Gospels: https://lichfield.as.uky.edu . These images complement the RGB and multispectral images for the complete manuscript on the website and offer a sense for how the manuscript is aging. I've also included a brief discussion of some preliminary findings from the overlays.

All best,
Bill

--
Bill Endres
University of Kentucky
Division of Writing, Rhetoric & Digital Media
Lexington, KY 40506

859-257-8337

UCSB Graduate Conference in Medieval Studies

University of California, Santa Barbara Medieval Studies Annual Graduate Student Conference
Saturday, May 31st, 2014
UC Santa Barbara, HSSB 6020 (McCune Conference Room)

Call for Papers: “Movement and Mobility in the Middle Ages”
Keynote Speaker: Professor William Tronzo, Department of Visual Arts, UC San Diego

Recent scholarship within medieval studies increasingly attends to the movements of peoples, objects, and ideas. Such concerns with mobility allow for a range of interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies in understanding how we track not only the transmission of material objects but also movement within seemingly fixed categories such as gender, class, and religion. Discourse on mobility in a medieval context provides a way of viewing the aforementioned categories as fluid, and thus provides rich opportunities for exploration and interpretation. This conference encourages discourse from all fields around the theme of movement in any aspect of the Middle Ages. For instance, how does an examination of the movement of objects, such as relics, challenge notions of regionalism and local identification? How is mobility determined by intersections of class, gender, and ethnicity? How do literature, medical treatises, and archeological finds inform an understanding of bodily movement?
Possible topics for consideration include but are not limited to:
  • Trade and commercial exchange: the movement of goods and currency
  • Travel literature and the movement of individuals within cultures
  • Fragmentation of objects, including the circulation and the transformation of visual
    images
  • Movement of material texts across borders, geographical space, and languages
  • Religious movements: conversions, infidels, and apostasy
  • Movement within dramatic performance: staging travel, social movements, and
    commerce
  • Influence of architectural structures on human movement
  • Physical disability and limitations of movement
  • Transmission of architectural styles, including landscape design
  • Ritual movement and processions
  • Cross dressing and movements across genders
  • Strategic movement in war campaigns; displacement in response to violence
  • Pilgrimage routes and the movement of pilgrims
  • Legally sanctioned movement or restrictions on movement, including banishment
  • Threshold spaces and movement across boundaries, including from ‘public’ to ‘private’
    and from ‘sacred’ to ‘profane’ space
  • Spread of germs, diseases, and plagues
  • Social mobility: titles, ranks, and their acquisition; apprenticeships and occupational
    training
Professor William Tronzo (UC San Diego and affiliate of Università degli Studi Roma Tre) has published extensively on the art and architecture of the Mediterranean world from Late Antiquity through the early Renaissance, as well as on problems of theory and method and historiographical issues such as the persistence of Antiquity and the afterlife of the Early Christian tradition in Rome. Although his training is in art history, the intellectual ethos of his work derives from the history of architecture and landscape, as manifest in the spatial imagination of the past. His edited collection, Fragments: An Incomplete History, published in 2009, brought together interdisciplinary scholarship on the motion of physical and narrative fragments. His most recent book, Petrarch’s Two Gardens: Landscape and the Image of Movement, was published in 2013 and received the David R. Coffin award from the Foundation for Landscape Studies. He has held research appointments at the American Academy in Rome, Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, CASV A at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Bibliotheca Hertziana, the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, the Huntington, the Clark Art Institute and the Stanford Humanities Center.
This conference is open to graduate students studying the Middle Ages (300-1500) in all disciples, geographical regions, and stages of research.
We welcome 250- to 300- word abstracts for presentations 20 minutes in length. Please submit your name, email, university, and departmental affiliation with your abstract to Shay Hopkins at s_hopkins@umail.ucsb.edu by February 21st,, 2014

Romanesque Research Award 2014


Romanesque Research Award 2014

Application deadline: Mar 15, 2014

Romanik-Forschungspreis 2014
Romanesque Research Award 2014 [english version below]
Prix de recherche de l‘Art roman 2014 [Texte en français plus bas]


Ausschreibung

Internationaler Nachwuchspreis des Europäischen Romanik Zentrums e.V.
für herausragende Forschungsarbeiten auf dem Gebiet der Romanik
gefördert durch die Stiftung der Saalesparkasse, Halle und Herrn Gerhard
Mauch, Ludwigshafen

Ziel der Preisvergabe ist die Nachwuchsförderung, insbesondere die
Auszeichnung junger Wissenschaftler/innen, die auf dem Gebiet der
Romanik (Kunstgeschichte, Archäologie, Geschichte, Kirchen- oder
Rechtsgeschichte) herausragende Forschungsleistungen erbracht haben.

Ausgezeichnet werden noch unveröffentlichte Forschungsarbeiten zur
Romanik (Dissertationen). Der Preis wird an Graduierte vergeben und
besteht aus einem Preisgeld von 2.000 €. Über die Vergabe entscheidet
eine international besetzte Jury, bestehend u.a. aus Mitgliedern des
internationalen Beirats des Europäischen Romanik Zentrums. Die Annahme
des Romanik-Forschungspreises verpflichtet zu einem öffentlichen Vortrag
des Preisträgers.

Bewerbungen (Lebenslauf, Zeugnisse, Publikationsliste) und ein Exemplar
der Forschungsarbeit (incl. Abstract, Gutachten) werden erbeten bis zum
15.03.2014 an den:

Direktor des Instituts Europäisches Romanik Zentrum
Domplatz 7
06217 Merseburg

http://www.romanik-zentrum.eu

———————-

Announcement

The Reseach Award of the European Center of the Romanesque (Europäisches
Romanik Zentrum, ERZ) supports outstanding research works on Romanesque
art and architecture. It is donated by Stiftung Saalesparkasse (Halle)
and Mr Gerhard Mauch (Ludwigshafen).

The award especially aims to promote, honor and encourage graduated
junior researchers contributing to the study of Romanesque art, history,
archaeology, Church history as well as history of the law.

Only unpublished research works will be considered (PhD thesis). The
award is valued at 2000 Euro. The awarding itself is co-judged by
international members of the ERZ's board of advisors. Accepting the
award, the winner is encouraged to give a public lecture at the ERZ.

Until March 15th 2014, the application (CV, certificates, references,
list of publications) as well as one piece of his/her research works
including an abstract and the academic evaluation is to be send at:

Direktor des Instituts Europäisches Romanik Zentrum
Domplatz 7
06217 Merseburg
Germany

http://www.romanik-zentrum.eu

———————-

Appel d‘offres

Ce prix de recherche international du Centre européen d'art roman
(Europäisches Romanik Zentrum, ERZ) pour des travaux de recherche
exceptionnels dans le domaine de l'art roman est parrainé par la
fondation de la caisse d'épargne „Saalesparkasse“ de la ville de Halle
et par Monsieur Gerhard Mauch de la ville de Ludwigshafen. Le but de
l'attribution du prix est l'encouragement de la jeune génération de
chercheurs, en particulier la distinction de jeunes scientifiques
fournissant des résultats de recherche exceptionnels dans le domaine de
l'art roman (histoire de l'art, archéologie, histoire, histoire de
l'Église et du droit).

Le prix doté de 2.000 € est décerné à des doctorants pour des travaux de
recherche inédits (thèses de doctorat) traitant de l'art roman.

L'attribution est faite par un jury international, composé notamment de
membres du conseil consultatif du centre européen d'art roman. Le
lauréat acceptant le prix de recherche d'art roman s'engage à donner une
conférence publique.

Les candidatures (C.V., certificats, liste des publications) ainsi qu'un
exemplaire du travail de recherche (incl. résumé, expertises) peuvent
être déposées jusqu'au 15 mars 2014 à l'attention du directeur de
l'institut.

Direktor des Instituts Europäisches Romanik Zentrum
Domplatz 7
06217 Merseburg
Allemange

http://www.romanik-zentrum.eu

Clothing sacred scripture Zurich 9-11 Oct 14

Deadline: Feb 25, 2014

International Conference. Zurich, October 9-11 2014

Organizers:
Prof. Dr. David Ganz (University of Zurich)
Prof. Dr. Barbara Schellewald (University of Basel)

In a traditional perspective, book religions are seen as agents of
logocentrism, establishing a sharp dichotomy between scripture and
aesthetics, religion and art. This judgment was based primarily on
dogmatic assumptions and posterior idealizations, however. In the light
of their material, performative and artistic practice, religions of the
book show a surprisingly strong tendency to evolve their
own »aesthetics of inlibration«. Especially in pretypographic
cultures, »clothing« sacred texts with precious materials and ornate
forms was a powerful instrument for creating a close relation between
the divine words and their human audience.

The questions this conference aims to address grow from a comparative
and transcultural approach to religious book culture. Whereas
traditional research on book art has focused on single textual
communities within exclusive religious frameworks, we propose to look
beyond these boundaries. Our discussion of various strategies for
clothing sacred scripture shall include objects and practices from all
Abrahamic religions. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam developed
different approaches to the aesthetics of inlibration. By analyzing and
comparing these practices of religious book art, we aim to better
understand their cultural and historical specificity within a broader
spectrum.

To which extent the choice of materials, book formats, and artistic
patterns mark religious difference and shape religious identity is one
of several questions this conference will address. Yet »Clothing« the
book could also produce the contrary effect. Since it was based on
practices of circulation and exchange between different religious
cultures, it could also undermine claims of religious identity and
absolute truth.

Furthermore, addressing questions of materiality and mediality should
not obfuscate the conflicts and tensions that arise at times between
the visual and tactile dimension and the invisible and intangible
dimension of sacred books. In this respect, the activity of adorning
holy scripture appears to be located between two extremes that
characterize the concept of the book. On the one hand, the book is a
visible and tangible container of God’s animate speech, on the other,
the book is a threshold that leads to the invisible and immaterial
realm of God’s holy words.

This conference will explore both sides of the nexus between sacred
scripture and art. How did art shape the religious practice of books,
and how did the central importance of religious books shape the
evolution of artistic practices? The organizers welcome contributions
from a wide range of medievalist research, discussing topics such as:

- the spatial and temporal structure of books. How do books articulate
the process of opening, unfolding, and closing, and how does their
physical or visual structure contrast exterior with interior spaces,
beginnings with endings? How do these elements create different spheres
and times of revelation?

- the performativity of book rituals. Which kind of ritual activities
(in the broadest sense) involve sacred books? How does book art answer
to the dynamics of animating the letter by reading, singing,
displaying, carrying, illuminating and writing or burying books?

- materiality and its transformation. Which materials were chosen for
creating sacred books, which semantic values and transformative forces
were ascribed to them, and in which ways did these materials contribute
to mediate between human and divine spheres?

- ornament and its rejection. Analyzing the art of sacred books can
lead to a more nuanced understanding of ornamental practices. In some
contexts, traditional ornament is rejected in favor of scripture in its
purest form, thus generating a kind of anti-ornamental décor for the
book. So when was ornamentation considered merely a mundane practice?
And which arguments were put forward to propagate ornament as evocation
of divine beauty?

- iconicity and aniconicity of decorated books. Recent scholarship has
underlined analogies between the cult of books and the cult of images.
This approach has opened new avenues of thought for perceiving books as
objects and not just as texts. Some book religions tend to contrast
books with images, however, and treat books as alternative solutions
for worship. How is the clothing of books related to these contrasting
principles of iconicity and aniconicity?

Please send Please send proposals of up to 300 words for 30min papers
and a short CV to:
David Ganz (david.ganz@uzh.ch <mailto:david.ganz@uzh.ch>) and Barbara
Schellewald
(Barbara.Schellewald@unibas.ch <mailto:Barbara.Schellewald@unibas.ch>)
by February 25 2014

Sunday, February 2, 2014

DH Awards 2013: voting open!

It is my pleasure to announce that the DH Awards 2013 is open for voting!
 
 
Digital Humanities Awards are a set of entirely open annual awards given in recognition of talent and expertise in the digital humanities community and are nominated and voted for entirely by the public. These awards are intended to help put interesting DH resources in the spotlight and engage DH users (and general public) in the work of the community. Awards are not specific to geography, language, conference, organization or field of humanities that they benefit. There is no financial prize associated with these community awards. There were many nominations and the international nominations committee (http://dhawards.org/dhawards2013/committee/) reviewed each nomination. We're sorry if your nomination was not included, all decisions are final once voting opens. Please see http://dhawards.org/dhawards2013/faqs2013/ for this and other frequently asked questions.
 
Anyone is allowed to vote, yes anyone, but please only vote once.
 
Please cast vote by looking at the nominations and following the link to voting form at http://dhawards.org/dhawards2013/voting/ before midnight (GMT) on Friday 14 February 2013 when voting will be closed.
 
Good luck!
 

11th Annual Marco Symposium at UT, Knoxville - March 6-8, 2014

<Attachment1.2.2>
 
 
The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is pleased to announce the 11th Annual Marco Symposium, “Reconceiving Pre-Modern Spaces,” March 6-8, 2014, on the UT campus.
 
This year’s Symposium addresses the rich ways in which pre-modern peoples conceived of space: as physical reality, philosophical idea, and topic of artistic expression. The Symposium will be engaged with recent scholarship on landscape, urbanism, geography, cartography, soundscape, and ecocriticism, which all variously acknowledge how realities and readings of space fundamentally shaped the lands, populations, and cultures of late antique, medieval, andrenaissance peoples.
 
Invited speakers include Benjamin Anderson (Cornell University), Ellen Arnold (Ohio Wesleyan University), Matthew Canepa (University of Minnesota), Megan Cassidy-Welch (Monash University), Margot Fassler (University of Notre Dame), Gregor Kalas (University of Tennessee), Louisa Mackenzie (University of Washington), Craig Monson (Washington University in St. Louis), Ricado Padrón (University of Virginia), and John Wall (North Carolina State University).
 
Diane Favro, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, will present the keynote address, “Bricks into Marble: Reverse Engineering Augustan Rome,” on March 6 at 7:00 p.m. A reception in Hodges Library will follow.
 
Please see attached and contact marco@utk.edu or 865-974-1859 for further information.