Monday, December 22, 2008

Portals, Pathways, and Peregrinations: Concepts of Mobility and Exchange in the Long Middle Ages

Portals, Pathways, and Peregrinations: Concepts of Mobility and
Exchange in the Long Middle Ages

4th Annual Medieval Studies/Pearl Kibre Medieval Study
Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference

March 27, 2009: CUNY Graduate Center, New York

Over several hundred years, the medieval world saw increased
movement, mobility, and exchange, as well as greater flexibility in
the way these concepts were conceived. From the late Roman Empire to
the eve of the Reformation, the fragmentation and consolidation of
empires and shifting role of religion led to new contacts between and
among people and institutions. Meanwhile, the expansion of networks
of trade led to growth of cities and the development of new social
classes. Saints’ cults, which emphasized specific towns or
monasteries as particular loci of power, contributed to this movement
and exchange by developing the concept of pilgrimage and facilitating
the collection and translation of relics.
The changing landscape of the medieval world led to an increasing
complexity in human relationships. Whether in the political and
economic conflicts between the entrenched nobility and the nouveau
riche, or in the religious conflicts resultant from the proliferation
of heterodoxical or heretical groups, the Middle Ages involved
constant attempts to renegotiate and redefine relationships among
people and power structures.
We invite papers from graduate students in all academic disciplines
that address the role of movement, mobility, and exchange from late
antiquity through the early modern period. How do these concepts
intersect? How did the changes in economics, politics, religion, and
society affect and relate to each other? In what ways did medieval
literature make sense of these shifts and probe interactions with the
Other?

Topics may include but are not limited to:
currency
relics (invention, translation, and theft)
pilgrimage
crusade
portability
exchange
mobility
hybridity
contact
movement
diplomacy
war
travel narratives
exile
quest
rapture
metamorphosis/transformation
conversion
heresy
urbanization
colonization
excommunication
martyrdom
abduction
cartography
topography
navigation
textual translation
vernacular languages

Please submit abstracts of 250 words to medieval.study@gmail.com by
January 31, 2008.

Professor Evelyn Birge Vitz of New York University will deliver our
keynote address.

Comitatus Annual CFP

COMITATUS: A JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES, published annually under the auspices of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, invites the submission of articles by graduate students and recent PhDs in any field of medieval and Renaissance studies. We prefer submissions in the form of e-mail attachments in Windows format; paper submissions are also accepted. Please include an e-mail address.



SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR VOLUME 40 (2009): 1 FEBRUARY 2009.



The editorial board will make its final selections by early May. Please send submissions to sullivan@humnet.ucla.edu, or to Dr. Blair Sullivan, Publications Director, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,

302 Royce Hall, Box 951485, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1485.

Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts

It is with great pleasure that we would like to draw your attention to the Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts. Hosted by UCLA's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Catalogue seeks to provide a technological solution to a simple and rather delightful "problem": the breathtaking increase in the number of medieval manuscripts available on the web in their entirety, but in a bewildering range of venues and formats.

Currently, almost one thousand manuscripts, digitized and available in their entirety on the web, have been entered into the Catalogue. Users can search the Catalogue on basic information about manuscripts, such as the location, language, or date of a codex, or browse through the complete Catalogue.

We welcome feedback on your experience using the website, and particularly welcome suggestions for sites not currently represented in the Catalogue.

The Catalogue can be accessed at: http://manuscripts.cmrs.ucla.edu
More information about the project: http://manuscripts.cmrs.ucla.edu/about.php, or by contacting Matthew Fisher at fisher[at]humnet[dot]ucla[dot]edu

SIR ISRAEL GOLLANCZ MEMORIAL LECTURE

SIR ISRAEL GOLLANCZ MEMORIAL LECTURE

The Alfredian project and its aftermath: rethinking the literary history
of the
ninth and tenth centuries

Professor Malcolm Godden
University of Oxford

Thursday, 15 January 2009
5.30pm - 6.30pm, followed by a drinks reception
The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace,
London, SW1Y 5AH

Free Admittance

King Alfred’s preface on the state of learning in England quickly became
one of
the best-known Anglo-Saxon writings, and one of the key documents for writing
the cultural history of the period. But there is much that is doubtful
about the
programme of translation and book-production which has been deduced from the
preface, and the Alfredian initiative itself was possibly of limited scope
and
doubtful novelty. Instead, some of the texts traditionally associated with
the
king can be seen as part of a quite distinct and more ambitious initiative
engaging with more challenging ideas.

A poster for your notice board can be downloaded here:

Please visit our website for full details of our forthcoming events.
Telephone enquiries: 020 7969 5246 / Email: lectures@britac.ac.uk

Please note our ticketing and seating policy:

British Academy Lectures are freely open to the general public and
everyone is
welcome; there is no charge for admission, no tickets will be issued, and
seats
cannot be reserved. The Lecture Room is opened at 5.00pm, and the first 100
audience members arriving at the Academy will be offered a seat in the
Lecture
Room; the next 50 people to arrive will be offered a seat in the Overflow
Room,
which has a video and audio link to the Lecture Room. Lectures are
followed by a
reception at 6.30pm, to which members of the audience are invited.

This lecture was originally scheduled to take place on 2 October 2008 but had
to be postponed because of the lecturer's ill health.




The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH Tel: 020 7969
5200, Fax: 020 7969 5300, Web: www.britac.ac.uk

Marginalia CFP

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

“And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche”



MARGINALIA

AN INTERDSCIPLINARY GRADUATE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE AGES



In celebration of the 800th anniversary of the University of Cambridge, the theme for the 2009 issue of the journal will be ‘education’. We invite submissions from graduates working in all areas of medieval studies. The theme may be addressed via topics including:



* courtesy books
* grammars
* debate poetry
* fables
* the seven liberal arts
* artes praedicandi
* ars poetica
* pastoralia
* visual learning
* medieval studies and the academy



We invite submissions in the form of long articles (approximately 5,000 words) and shorter Notes and Queries style articles (approximately 1,000 words), which must conform to the MHRA style guide (available online at www.mhra.org.uk). Please see our Notes for Contributors for further details regarding style requirements.



Submissions should be sent via email no later than 31 January 2009 to the editors: marginalia.submissions@googlemail.com. We will be happy to see brief proposals and to answer queries before the deadline; please email proposals and queries to anb36@cam.ac.uk or rrr26@cam.ac.uk.



The editors of Marginalia are Cambridge graduate students, advised by a board of academics.

Friday, December 19, 2008

PEAA

Announcing the first annual Praemium Ephemeridis Aetheriae Auctoribus awards (Award for Authors of Ethereal Diaries). Ok, I'm not that caffeined (rhymes with fiend) yet, so if you have a better name or acronym, write in. Anyway, here's the deal. Nominate the best medieval blog *entry* of the year that is not one written by you. So: medieval, an entry, written by someone other than the person nominating. Here are some categories I've thought of:

Award for Best Blog Entry of the Year

Award for Blog Entry that Fueled Research

Award for Blog That Best Serves the Medieval Community

Recognition for Best Electronic Article on a Medieval Topic

Award for Best Entry Making Fun of Ourselves

Write suggestions and nominations to larsprec AT gmail dot com

I'll collate and between the 25th and the 1st announce things that are gaining votes and announce those whom we wish to recognize after the first of the year.

The prize contains nothing other than the approbation of fellow medievalists.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

ANGELIKI LAIOU, 1941-2008

ANGELIKI LAIOU, 1941-2008

Dumbarton Oaks announces with great sadness the death of its former
director, Angeliki Laiou, on December 11 after a valiant struggle
against a rare and aggressive form of thyroid cancer. Angeliki, who
directed this institution from 1989-1998, was associated with
Dumbarton Oaks for over a quarter century, from the time of her
appointment as Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History at
Harvard University in 1981. She served as a Senior Fellow from 1983-
1991 and from 1998-2008, and also acted as Director of Byzantine
Studies from 1989-1991 and from 1996-1997. She ensured institutional
support for several major scholarly projects, including the final
stage of production of The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (to which
she was an important contributor and member of the Adviusory Board),
the Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, vols. 4 and 5 of the
Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and
in the Whittemore Collection, the first three volumes of the
Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum
of Art, the Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation series, and the on-
line Byzantine Hagiography Database Project.
A brilliant scholar of Byzantine economic and social history,
Angeliki maintained an active scholarly agenda during her tenure as
director, despite the burden of her administrative duties. During the
1990s she organized or co-organized a number of colloquia and
symposia at Dumbarton Oaks which resulted in significant
publications: the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of the founding of
the program in Byzantine studies at Dumbarton Oaks (Byzantium, A
World Civilization [1991, published 1992], with Henry Maguire),
Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval
Societies (1992, published 1993), Law and Society in Byzantium, Ninth-
Twelfth Centuries (1992, published 1994, with Dieter Simon), Studies
on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire [1993, published
1998] with Hélène Ahrweiler, and The Crusades from the Perspective of
Byzantium and the Muslim World (1997, published 2001, with Roy
Mottahedeh). Angeliki also directed or co-directed two additional
symposia, whose papers were published in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44
(1990) and 58 (2004) : "The Byzantine Family and Household" in 1989
and "Realities in the Arts of the Medieval Mediterranean, 800-1500"
in 2002.
Last but not least, it should be noted that while she was still
director of Dumbarton Oaks Angeliki embarked on preparation of The
Economic History of Byzantium from the Seventh through the Fifteenth
Century, for which she served as editor-in-chief. This monumental
multi-authored work, in three volumes, was published by Dumbarton
Oaks in 2002 and in a Greek translation in 2006.
The passing of Angeliki Laiou is a great loss for the field of
Byzantine studies, for Harvard University, and for the community of
Dumbarton Oaks. Expressions of condolence may be sent to her son,
Vassili Thomadakis, at 43 Upland Road, Cambridge, MA 02140. Funeral
and burial services will be held in Greece, and a memorial service is
scheduled at Harvard some time in the month of January.

Dumbarton Oaks summer program in Byzantine numismatics and sigillography

A reminder that the application deadline for the Dumbarton Oaks
summer program in Byzantine numismatics and sigillography is January
15, 2009.

July 7–31, 2009

In July of 2009 Dumbarton Oaks will again offer a summer program on
Byzantine numismatics and sigillography, drawing upon its extensive
holdings of coins and seals. The program will be under the direction
of Dr. Cécile Morrisson, Advisor for Byzantine Numismatics, and Dr.
John Nesbitt, Research Associate, Byzantine Sigillography. A limited
number of places will be available for graduate students of any
nationality who are pursuing a doctoral degree in some field of
Byzantine studies. Applications will also be accepted from junior
faculty members teaching at least one course in Byzantine Studies at
a college or university.
Admission requirements

Applicants must be a doctoral student or junior faculty member in
some area of Byzantine Studies. Candidates will be expected to have a
reading knowledge of French and German and to have completed two
years of college level Classical Greek (or its equivalent).
Course offerings

The seminars are intended as introductions to the study and uses of
the auxiliary disciplines of numismatics and sigillography.

Numismatics. The course will include several seminar meetings, each
session of two and one-half hours in duration. Among topics to be
discussed will be bibliography, the basics of the discipline, coin
hoards and the use of coins as evidence for Byzantine political,
economic and art history. In separate workshop sessions students will
be instructed how to read Byzantine coins, date them and write a
catalog entry. Students who choose to focus on numismatics will
present to the group a pre-determined research topic or a group of
coins which they will have transcribed and dated by their own
efforts. [Participants may discuss their own material: e.g.
excavation documentation in the form of casts or photographs or even
better the coins themselves].

Sigillography. The course will include several seminar meetings, each
meeting of two and one-half hours in duration. Members will be
introduced to bibliography and will be instructed in the reading,
dating and cataloging of Byzantine lead seals. Students who choose to
focus on sigillography will present to the group a pre-determined
research topic or a group of seals which they will have transcribed,
dated, and interpreted by their own efforts. A further purpose of the
seminars is to consider how the seals aid research in Byzantine
history, literature and art.

As part of regular course work or in informal meetings a variety of
special topics will be examined, such as digital imagery,
construction of maps, and electronic programs for statistical
treatment.
Accommodation and expenses

Successful candidates will receive free housing (except for anyone
living in the greater Washington area) and breakfast at the Fellows
Building, in addition to lunch on weekdays. They will also be
entitled to unlimited reader passes to the library for the month of
July. They are, however, responsible for their own transportation
costs.

Faculty. Dr. Cécile Morrisson, C.N.R.S.-Collè ge de France; Dr. John
Nesbitt, Dumbarton Oaks.
Application procedure

Applicants must send a letter by January 15, 2009, to Dr. Alice-Mary
Talbot, Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks (1703 32nd
St., NW, Washington, DC 20007), describing their academic background
and listing specific reasons for wishing to be included in the summer
program. All applicants should include a curriculum vitae; doctoral
candidates should arrange for the sending of a transcript of their
graduate school record. Two letters of recommendation should be sent
separately, at least one of them from a faculty member who has
instructed the candidate in an area of Byzantine studies. Selection
criteria will include (but not be limited to) a demonstrated need for
the seminar and the candidates' present and future research projects.
For further information, write Alice-Mary Talbot, John Nesbitt or
Cécile Morrisson.

Director of Byzantine Studies

Dumbarton Oaks

1703 32nd St., NW

Washington, DC 20007

202-339-6941

Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic

Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic

Saturday, 7 March 2009

"Hidden Depths"

Call for Papers

The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of
Cambridge invites paper proposals for its annual interdisciplinary
postgraduate
conference, the theme of which is: "Hidden Depths."

We are pleased to announce that this year's keynote speaker shall be
Michael Winterbottom, Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of
Oxford. Professor Winterbottom will be discussing 'The Style of Bede's
Historia Ecclesiastica: How Simple is it?'

Papers should take no more than twenty minutes to deliver. Please submit
a 250-word abstract of your paper by 9 January 2009 to ccasnc@yahoo.co.uk

Registration shall be £5

Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts

Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts. Hosted by UCLA's
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Catalogue seeks to
provide a technological solution to a simple and rather delightful
"problem": the breathtaking increase in the number of medieval
manuscripts available on the web in their entirety, but in a
bewildering range of venues and formats.
> From the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) at UCLA:

Currently, almost one thousand manuscripts, digitized and available
in their entirety on the web, have been entered into the Catalogue.
Users can search the Catalogue on basic information about
manuscripts, such as the location, language, or date of a codex, or
browse through the complete Catalogue.

We welcome feedback on your experience using the website, and
particularly welcome suggestions for sites not currently represented
in the Catalogue. The Catalogue can be accessed at:
http://manuscripts.cmrs.ucla.edu. More information about the project:
http://manuscripts.cmrs.ucla.edu/about.php, or by contacting Matthew
Fisher at fisher[at]humnet[dot]ucla[dot]edu.

Alain Renoir, Professor Emeritus of English

Mark Amodio reports:

I am sorry to report that Alain Renoir, Professor Emeritus of English at
the University of California, Berkeley, passed away on December 12, 2008
following a short illness. He was 87.

Second Announcement: Marco Manuscript Workshop: “Textual Trauma: Violence Against Texts”

Second Announcement:
Marco Manuscript Workshop: “Textual Trauma: Violence Against Texts”
February 6-7, 2009
Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The University of Tennessee in Knoxville will host a two-day workshop
on manuscript studies on February 6-7, 2009. The workshop is
sponsored by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies and organized by Professors Roy M. Liuzza (English) and
Maura K. Lafferty (Classics). As in previous years, the workshop is
intended to be more a class than a conference; participants will be
invited to share both their successes and frustrations, and work
together to develop better professional skills for textual and
paleographical work.

This year’s workshop will explore acts of violence, deliberate or
otherwise, against texts. Aside from damage through accident or
neglect, many manuscripts have erasures or corrections by
contemporary or later scribes; words are deleted, names erased, text
cancelled. Erasures and other deletions call attention to
themselves, reminding the reader to remember to forget what has been
altered or removed. Damage and defacement may reveal as much about
reading practices, ownership (of individual books and of the meaning
of the text itself), claims of authority, assertions of power, the
circulation of texts, and the interactions of textual communities as
more positive marks like glosses, annotations, and colophons. Some
books fall apart from overuse; others are dismembered for scrap;
equally severe damage can result from a modern curator’s efforts to
preserve or recover faded readings. Texts can also be violated in
less physically damaging ways: rewritings can fundamentally alter
the text's meaning, sections can be extracted and placed in new
contexts, contradictory texts can be bound together, commentary that
attacks or distorts the text can be copied alongside it, and so on.
Arguably, even modern printed critical editions imposes this sort of
violence on the texts they hope to preserve. How should we regard
these many forms of violent engagement with texts? Is an act of
textual violence always a violation, the destruction of a privileged
original, a gap that must be repaired? Or can editors and readers
learn to regard the violence itself as an element of the text's
identity as a cultural and social construct? How can we read such
violence to understand the later use, appropriation, or abuse of the
text, and its new role(s) in a changing world?

All workshop events are open to scholars and students at any level
who may be interested in learning more about textual scholarship
through this discussion of practical examples. The cost of the
workshop is $50 for faculty and $25 for students; this fee includes
lunches on Friday and Saturday, and a reception on Friday evening.
The workshop dinner on Friday evening is available for an additional
charge. A schedule of sessions and registration form (in .pdf
format) is available for download at
.

For more information, please contact Roy M. Liuzza at .

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

North & South, East & West

Call for Papers and Posters

Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference



North & South, East & West

Movements in the Medieval World

30-31 May 2009



Migration, travel and trade, the development of ideas and establishment of
organisations - the medieval world was shaped by physical and ideological
movements.



The University of Nottingham's Institute for Medieval Research invites you
to submit abstracts for papers and posters for a two-day conference on
these and other aspects of this world in motion. Under this year's theme
of North & South, East & West, we aim to bring together the wide
geographic area, vast range of disciplines, and variety of techniques
which the study of the medieval world encompasses to explore new and
collaborative approaches.



The conference will be held over two days and will include paper
presentations, a poster session and two plenary lectures.



Costs: Students £10 Staff £20



This includes coffee, tea, and lunch for both days, and an evening
reception with a guided tour of the university's archaeological museum.



There is a possibility that the conference will result in

an on-line publication of the proceedings



Abstracts (maximum 300 words) are to be sent to Dayanna Knight
(acxdk1@nottingham.ac.uk) before 6th February 2009, stating clearly
whether you are offering a paper or poster.



If you have any queries, please contact Marjolein Stern

(aexms5@nottingham.ac.uk)

Symposium on Christian and Islamic Art

Here is some information on a Symposium on Christian and Islamic Art and Architecture which will take place THIS week in Leiden:

http://www.hum.leidenuniv.nl/godsdienstwetenschappen/symposium-christian-and-islamic-art-and-architecture.jsp

The symposium also serves as an introduction to the Summer Course “Christian and Islamic Art and Architecture – a heritage of religious interaction”, which will be given from 21 June – 16 July 2009 in the Netherlands Institute for Academic Studies in Damascus (NIASD), Syria. This course, open to BA and MA students with a relevant background (e.g. art history, archaeology, history, theology, Islamic studies, Arabic studies, etc.), offers in-depth classes and excursions focusing on Christian and Islamic art and architecture, with specific attention to the cultural interaction existing between these groups. Part of the papers presented during the symposium will be given by lecturers of the 2009 Summer Course. The symposium therefore offers an excellent introduction to students who are interested in participating in the 2009 course.

For more information on the 2009 Course contents, admission procedures, etc., see:

http://www.niasd.org/nl/Cristian%20Islamic%20Art.php

New Latin Online Reading Group on Bede

The notice below was posted to Classics-L and Mediev-L
by Sally Winchester (e-mail: bcuthill@US.NET ), and I
forward it here on her behalf. Please direct any
replies or questions to her address, remembering to put
"Bede" in your subject-line. For information about the
Latinstudy list, on which the group will be run, see

http://www.quasillum.com/study/latinstudy.php

and to join go to

http://nxport.com/mailman/listinfo/latinstudy

---

Salvete omnes,

As the year is ending, I noticed that the SaintC group
is getting moribund, to say the least. So I propose
that with the New Year almost upon us, that we drop
Saint C. and his wretched death predictions and turn to
something really fun in British Latin, viz. Bede's A
History of the English Church and People. This is a
terrific book that starts with the Romans in Britain
and goes up to Bede's own time (9th c.). It's not dry
chronology though but lots of interesting stories about
monastery life and the making of the British Church and
country.

Anyone may join. British Latin is quite a bit easier
than Classical Latin so if you've finished Wheelock (or
an equivalent) or are close to finishing, you might
want to give us a looksee. I shall be taking our text
from that of the Latin Library, to be found at:

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bede.html

I also recommend the two volume Loeb Bede but it's not
required. There are lots of sites online about Bede,
one of the most interesting being Bede's World:

http://www.bedesworld.co.uk/

I propose that we do 15-20 lines a week, with
assignments going out each Sunday to be due the
following Saturday. I shall be using Kirk's wonderful
collation software to do each week's collation, so if
you haven't been in a Latinstudy group before not to
worry; instructions about formatting will be included
with assignments.

If anyone is interested in joining do let me know. Am
planning on sending out the first assignment on 11
January. That should give folks time to get books and
recover from the holidays. Any questions about the
group should be sent to me at the above address. As
there are many different study groups on the Latinstudy
list, we have a convention of using a tag in the
subject line of every post connected to the group. For
our group it will be 'Bede'. So whether writing to me
or to the list, be sure that Bede is in your subject
line. Anyone is welcome to join the group at anytime.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and a
terrific new year and that there will be lots of folks
interested in joining the group. This is something I've
been wanting to do for a long time.

Valete,
SallyW

Saturday, December 6, 2008

What the Anglo-Saxons Ate

Princeton Society

Archaeological Institute of america

Lecture co-sponsored with

The Program in Medieval Studies, Princeton University





Wednesday, December 10, 2008 Pamela Crabtree

5:30 p.m., McCormick Hall 106 New York University

What the Anglo-Saxons Ate



This talk will describe how archaeologists use animal bone remains and other artifacts to study Anglo-Saxon animal husbandry practices, hunting patterns, and diet. All are invited.



All lectures will be on the Princeton University Campus. A reception will follow each lecture. Admission is free and open to all.



For a map of the campus go to http://www.princeton.edu/%7Epumap/ .

For parking, see http://www.princeton.edu/main/visiting/aroundcampus/parking/ .



Please join the Archaeological Institute of America. For information on membership categories, many at discounted rates, go to: www.archaeological.org .



Updates to this schedule will appear at http://www.princeton.edu/~astahl/AIA . For further information, contact astahl@princeton.edu .

LRBS

The London Rare Books School (LRBS) is a series of five-day,
intensive courses on a variety of book-related subjects to be taught
in and around Senate House, which is the centre of the University of
London's federal system.



The courses will be taught by internationally renowned scholars
associated with the Institute's Centre for Manuscript and Print
Studies, using the unrivalled library and museum resources of London,
including the British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria and
Albert Museum, the University of London Research Library Services,
and many more. All courses will stress the materiality of the book so
you can expect to have close encounters with remarkable books and
other artefacts from some of the world's greatest collections. Each
class will be restricted to a maximum of twelve students in order to
ensure that everyone has plenty of opportunity to talk to the
teachers and to get very close to the books.



In 2009, the LRBS will run for two weeks: 20 July to 24 July and 27
July to 31 July. The courses planned are:



Week One: 20 - 24 July



1. The Book in the Ancient World

Course Lecturers: Dr Irving Finkel, Dr Matthew Nicholls, Dr Marigold
Norbye and Alan Cole, Curator of the Museum of Writing.



2. The Medieval Book

Course Tutor: Professor Michelle Brown.



3. The Printed Book in Europe 1450-2000

Course Tutor: Professor John Feather.



4. A History of Maps and Mapping

Course Tutors: Dr Catherine Delano-Smith and Sarah Tyacke.



5. An Introduction to Bibliography

Course Tutor: Professor Tony Edwards.



6. Children's Books

Course Tutor: Jill Shefrin.



Week Two: 27 - 31 July



1. Type and its Uses 1455-1830

Course tutor: Professor James Mosley



2. A History of Bookbinding

Course tutor: Professor Nicholas Pickwoad



3. Modern First Editions

Course tutor: Laurence Worms



4. Maps and Mapping in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries:
Society, Nation, Empire, War.

Course tutors: Dr Catherine Delano-Smith and Sarah Tyacke.



5. The Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian Book, c.600-1050 Course tutor:
Professor Michelle Brown



6. Publishing Today

Course Tutor: Professor Iain Stevenson



Each course will consist of thirteen seminars amounting in all to
twenty hours of teaching time spread between Monday afternoon and
Friday afternoon. There will be timetabled 'library time' that will
allow students to explore the rich resources of the University's
Senate House Library, one of the UK's major research libraries. There
will also be a full evening programme with an opening reception and
talk, a book history lecture, and receptions hosted by major London
antiquarian booksellers.



Postgraduate credit is available for these courses at the Institute,
which is one of the ten member-Institutes of the University of
London's School of Advanced Study. In order to achieve the award of
credit a student will have to complete and pass a 5,000 word essay
within two months of the course (an extra fee to cover marking and
other costs will be charged).



The fee will be in the region of £500 which will include the
provision of lunch, and coffee and tea throughout the week. It is
likely that a small number of bursaries will be available, details
will be provided later.



A range of different sorts of accommodation will be available
including cheap student housing (on a bed and breakfast basis) close
by Senate House; Senate House is next to the British Museum in the
heart of Bloomsbury.



Application forms will be available by early January but you are
invited to register your interest in a course or courses now (given
the likely demand you would be well-advised to list a second choice).
Those who register now will be the first to receive application
forms. You can register your interest in LRBS 2009 by emailing your
name and address (with an indication of preferred courses) to:
cmps@sas.ac.uk.



Further details can be found at http://ies.sas.ac.uk/

Thomas Northcote Toller Memorial Lecture

Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies is pleased to announce that the
Thomas Northcote Toller Memorial Lecture on Monday 2 March 2009 will be
given by Professor Michelle Brown on 'Tha Anglo-Saxon
Contribution to the History of the Book'. It will be held in the
Historic Reading Room of the John Rylands Library, Deansgate,
Manchester at 6.30 p.m.

The lecture will be followed by a wine reception to which all are
welcome and by a dinner for which advanced booking is necessary.

Further information from:
alex.rumble@manchester.ac.uk

Wilfrid, Saint and Bishop: 709-2009

Wilfrid, Saint and Bishop: 709-2009

A conference to mark the thirteenth century of the death of Wilfrid will
be held at Manchester from 15-17 April 2009. Speakers will
include: Nicholas Brooks, Katy Cubitt, W.Trent Foley, Sarah Foot, Paul
Fouracre, Mark Laynesmith, Clare Stancliffe, Alan Thacker and Alex Woolf.

For details please contact

nick.j.higham@manchester.ac.uk

Kluge Prize Announcement: Medievalists!!!!

Historians Peter Brown, Romila Thapar Named Recipients of $1 Million 2008 Kluge Prize for Study of Humanity

Via ISAS net:: Congratulations to Martin Foys! MLA Price for a First Book

In Virtually Anglo-Saxon: Old Media, New Media, and Early Medieval Studies
in the Late Age of Print, Martin K. Foys offers a path-breaking
exploration of the relations between contemporary advances in
information technology and Anglo-Saxon studies. What does it mean to
remediate—to transform through a change in the medium of its
transmission—a cultural artifact? How has print technology shaped the
medieval past, and how might new media “adapt and transform the nature of
our work, the medieval past we produce, and eventually even
ourselves”? Moving from manuscripts to tapestries to maps to sculpted
crosses, Foys offers a provocative challenge to all scholars to rethink
what they know of and how they come to know the worlds and the objects
they study.

The MLA Prize for a First Book was established in 1993. It is awarded
annually for the first book-length publication of a member of the
association: a literary or linguistic study, a critical edition of an
important work, or a critical biography. The members of the selection
committee were Mary Baine Campbell (Brandeis Univ.); Jody Greene (Univ. of
California, Santa Cruz); Michael Lucey (Univ. of California,
Berkeley), chair; Priscilla Walton (Carleton Univ.); and Raymond L.
Williams (Univ. of California, Riverside).

(FYI: Martin also published an excerpt of his book in The Heroic Age here.

Ninth Century San Gallensis online

The Swiss e-codices project has now linked in a copy of Δ on-line.

Terms of Use: http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/terms
Project Home Page: http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en

http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/csg

In the Choose collection box: Select "St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek"
In the Quick Selection box: Select "Cod. San. 48"

(For pages in german, replace the 'en' with 'de' in the above URL's)

It's now possible to compare the San Gallensis with the Bormeranius
from the comfort of your own computer (the latter is available at
http://digital.slub-dresden.de/sammlungen/titeldaten/274591448/ )

NEH Seminar: Disease in the Middle Ages

NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers: "Disease in the
Middle Ages," 5 July to 8 August 2009


Monica Green (Arizona State University) and Walton O. Schalick, III
(University of Wisconsin) have received funding from the National Endowment
for the Humanities to run a Summer Seminar for College and University
Teachers in London this coming summer, July 5 - August 8, 2009. Based at the
Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College,
London, and the Wellcome Library, the seminar "Disease in the Middle Ages"
will gather scholars from across the disciplines interested in questions of
health, disease and disability in medieval Europe. A primary goal will be to
explore how the new scientific technologies of identifying pathogens
(particularly leprosy and plague) can inform traditional, humanistic methods
(historical, literary, art historical, and linguistic) of understanding
cultural responses to disease and disability.

Guest speakers will include Michael R. McVaugh, PhD (University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Emilie Savage Smith, PhD (Oxford University),
and Anne L. Grauer (Loyola University, Chicago). Meetings will be held at
the Wellcome Trust Centre in London, with trips to Bath, the Chelsea Physic
Garden, and the Human Bioarchaeology Centre, Museum of London. Special
emphasis will be placed on assisting participants with independent research
projects relating to the History of Medicine, especially, but not restricted
to, those based on unpublished primary sources.

Eligibility: We encourage applications from humanists, social
scientists, and basic scientists across the disciplines who are interested
in exploring issues of health, disease and disability in premodern
societies. Although the Seminar is focused on Europe and the Mediterranean
basin, scholars wishing to pursue cross-cultural comparisons are welcome. As
an NEH-sponsored event, the Seminar is open to U.S. citizens, permanent
residents, or foreign nationals who have been residing in the United States
or its territories for at least the three years immediately preceding the
application deadline. The Seminar is intended for college and university
faculty in U.S. institutions, though applications will be considered from
unaffiliated scholars and other academic professionals. The deadline for
applications is March 2, 2009. A stipend of $3800 is provided to all
participants.

For further information, contact the Arizona Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies (ACMRS), 4th Floor, Lattie F. Coor Hall, Arizona State
University, P.O. Box 874402, Tempe, AZ 85287-4402, Phone: (480) 965-4661,
Fax: (480) 965-1681, MedievalSeminar2009@asu.edu,
http://medievalseminar2009.asu.edu

For further information on the NEH Seminars and Institutes program
in general, go to http://www.neh.gov/projects/si-university.html

Exciting News, via Celia Chazelle

Exciting news!

Two historians--Princeton's Peter Robert Lamont Brown and Romila
Thapar, emeritus professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University--will share
the Library of Congress's $1 million Kluge Prize. The award "honors
lifetime achievement in studies not covered by the Nobel, including
history, philosophy, politics, anthropology, sociology, religion,
criticism in the arts and humanities, and linguistics."

Brown, called among "the greatest historians of the last three
centuries," is best-known for his book The World of Late Antiquity
(Norton) and The Rise of Western Christendom (Wiley-Blackwell), while
Thapar's A History of India (Penguin) and Early India (U. of
California Press) "were breakthrough works, replacing a static view
of Indian traditions with one that featured the dynamic interplay of
political, economic, social, religious and other factors, the library
noted."
Post

Mid America Medieval Association

A quick reminder; the deadline for abstract submissions for the Mid America Medieval Association’s annual conference is December 15th. If you have not already done so, please:

Send one-page abstracts:

Dr. Shona Kelly Wray, President

203 Cockefair Hall

Department of History

University of Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri 64110

Email copies to wrays@umkc.edu or

fax (816) 235-5723

For more information visit our website at http://www.midamericamedievalassociation.org/
This is to announce that for the first round of post-doctoral teaching
fellowships (in Byzantine art, architecture and/or archaeology), Dumbarton
Oaks will be partnering with The Catholic University of America, which
already has strong programs in Early Christian Studies and in Medieval and
Byzantine Studies. Since this is the first year that such a fellowship has
been offered, we have decided to extend the deadline for application to
January 1, 2009, in order to attract a wide range of applicants. If you
have any questions about this fellowship opportunity, please contact
Alice-Mary Talbot, Director for Byzantine Studies (talbotam@doaks.org).

Global Middle Ages

I would like to bring your attention to an exciting new project: The
Global Middle Ages website:

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/gma/portal/

This is the website of three ambitious initiatives: the Global Middle Ages
Project (GMAP, pronounced "g-map"), the Mappamundi cybernetic initiative,
and the Scholarly Community for the Globalization of the Middle Ages
(SCGMA, pronounced "sigma").

Each initiative brings together a cluster of scholars, universities,
institutes, and centers who are working toward the goal of transforming
how we see and understand the world across macrohistorical time: a
thousand years of history, literature, technology, cultural encounters and
crossings, ideas, movement, and change.

GMAP is our teaching and research initiative. Mappamundi is a digital
entity with a planetary reach that we will build online in stages, with
the help of supercomputing centers. SCGMA is the actively growing
community of scholars and technologists whose members are the driving
force of all the initiatives. SCGMA's people are drawn from many
disciplines, focus on all parts of the world, and teach, conduct research,
and work across numerous zones and chronologies. The three initiatives, of
course, share substantial overlap in energies, talents, ideas, and people.

We are conscious that collecting our initiatives under the name of any
kind of
"Middle Ages", even a global one, marks an imperfect choice. We welcome
the continued critical problematization of what the 21st century and
earlier eras understand the "Middle Ages" to be. A global Middle Ages,
nonetheless, signals an intent to study and teach a world without a
center, and without an assumption of privilege for any location on the
globe.

Our timeline of 1,000 years is flexible, and not meant to restrict. The
investigations we undertake often begin long before 500 c.e. and proceed
long past 1500 c.e. Also, since we are continually adding partners and
collaborators, the names you encounter on this site represent only our
most active contributors, the tip of a growing iceberg.

Welcome to the global middle ages.

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATION 2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATION
2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES
9-12 APRIL 2009, ATHENS, GREECE


The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) organizes an
International Conference on Mediterranean Studies in Athens, Greece,
9-12 April 2009. The conference website is:
www.atiner.gr/docs/Mediterranean.htm.

The registration fee is 250 euro, covering access to all sessions, two
lunches, coffee breaks, and conference material. Special arrangements will
be made with local hotels for a limited number of rooms at a special
conference rate. In addition, a number of special events will be
organized: a Greek night of entertainment, a special one-day cruise in the
Greek islands and a half-day tour around the wider area of Athens
(Attica).

The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars, researchers and
students from all areas of Mediterranean Studies, such as history, arts,
archaeology, philosophy, culture, sociology, politics, international
relations, economics, business, sports etc. Special sessions will be
devoted to Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean Countries. Panel
organizers are encouraged to submit their proposals by inviting other
scholars that do research in the area.

Please submit an abstract (using email only to: atiner@atiner.gr) by
December 8th, 2008 to: Dr. Gregory A. Katsas, Head, Sociology Research
Unit, ATINER and Associate Professor, The American College of Greece-Deree
College, Greece. Abstracts should include: Title of Paper, Full Name (s),
Affiliation, Current Position, an email address and at least 3 keywords
that best describe the subject of your submission. Decisions are reached
within 4 weeks. If you want to participate without presenting a paper,
i.e. chair a session, review papers to be included in the conference
proceedings or books, contribute to the editing of a book, or any other
contribution, please send an email to Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos,
(gtp@atiner.gr) Director, ATINER.

The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER) was established
in 1995 as an independent academic organization with the mission to become
a forum, where academics and researchers, from all over the world, could
meet in Athens and exchange ideas on their research and discuss the future
developments of their discipline. Since 1995, ATINER has organized more
than 100 international conferences and has published over 80 books have
been published. Academically, the Institute is organized into four
research divisions and nineteen research units. Each research unit
organizes at least an annual conference and undertakes various small and
large research projects.

list of Breton scribes from Pecia

A list of Breton scribes (XIV/XVe s.)

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pecia/copistes_et_libraires_bretons_au_moyen_age_272.htm

Call for Papers: Digitizing Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture Aain

Call for Papers: Digitizing Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture

Editors Brent Nelson (University of Saskatchewan) and Melissa Terras
(University College London) invite submissions for a collection of
essays on “Digitizing Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture” to
be published in the New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance
Studies Series edited by Ray Siemens and William Bowen.

This collection of essays will build on the accomplishments of recent
scholarship on materiality by bringing together innovative research
on the theory and praxis of digitizing material cultures from roughly
500 A.D. to 1700 A.D. Scholars of the medieval and early modern
periods have begun to pay more attention to the material world not
only as a means of cultural experience, but also as a shaping
influence upon culture and society, looking at the world of material
objects as both an area of study and a rich source of evidence for
interpreting the past. Digital media enable new ways of evoking,
representing, recovering, and simulating these materials in
non-traditional, non-textual (or para-textual) ways and present new
possibilities for recuperating and accumulating material from across
vast distances and time, enabling both preservation and comparative
analysis that is otherwise impossible or impractical. Digital
mediation also poses practical and theoretical challenges, both
logistical (such as gaining access to materials) and intellectual
(for example, the relationship between text and object). This volume
of essays will promote the deployment of digital technologies to the
study of material culture by bringing together expertise garnered
from complete and current digital projects, while looking forward to
new possibilities for digital applications; it will both take stock
of the current state of theory and practice and advance new
developments in digitization of material culture. The editors welcome
submissions from all disciplines on any research that addresses the
use of digital means for representing and investigating material
culture as expressed in such diverse areas as:

• travelers’ accounts, navigational charts and cartography
• collections and inventories
• numismatics, antiquarianism and early archaeology
• theatre and staging (props, costumes, stages, theatres)
• the visual arts of drawing, painting, sculpture, print making, and
architecture
• model making
• paper making and book printing, production, and binding
• manuscripts, emblems, and illustrations
• palimpsests and three-dimensional writing
• instruments (magic, alchemical, and scientific)
• arts and crafts
• the anatomical and cultural body

We welcome approaches that are practical and/or theoretical, general
in application or particular and project-based. Submissions should
present fresh advances in methodologies and applications of digital
technologies, including but not limited to:

• XML and databases and computational interpretation
• three-dimensional computer modeling, Second Life and virtual worlds
• virtual research environments
• mapping technology
• image capture, processing, and interpretation
• 3-D laser scanning, synchrotron, or X-ray imaging and analysis
• artificial intelligence, process modeling, and knowledge representation

Papers might address such topics and issues as:

• the value of inter-disciplinarity (as between technical and
humanist experts)
• relationships between image and object; object and text; text and image
• the metadata of material culture
• curatorial and archival practice
• mediating the material object and its textual representations
• imaging and data gathering (databases and textbases)
• the relationship between the abstract and the material text
• haptic, visual, and auditory simulation
• tools and techniques for paleographic analysis

Enquiries and proposals should be sent to brent.nelson[at]usask.ca by
10 January 2009. Complete essays of 5,000-6,000 words in length will
be due on 1 May 2009.

Correcteur Orthographique pour le Latin

via Wendy Hofnagle


COL (Correcteur Orthographique pour le Latin) est un outil gratuit
offrant une aide à la vérification de l'orthographe d'un texte
latin. Disponible pour MS Word, OpenOffice et AbiWord, il intègre un
dictionnaire d'environ 400 000 formes latines (latin classique et
médiéval). Pour correspondre au mieux aux différentes pratiques, COL
est paramétrable: l'utilisateur peut notamment choisir une graphie
particulière (comment représenter les diphtongues, ou les voyelles u
et i lorsqu'elles ont une valeur de consonne). Il fonctionne comme
les correcteurs orthographiques d'autres langues: lorsqu'un mot n'est
pas dans le dictionnaire, il est souligné en rouge. Ce correcteur
orthographique n'a bien évidemment pas la prétention d'être
exhaustif, ni de "normaliser" les graphies du latin. Il a été créé
essentiellement comme une aide pour faire gagner du temps et
faciliter le travail de tous ceux qui doivent saisir des textes
latins (pour la
transcription de manuscrits par exemple), ou corriger des textes
latins scannés et traités par OCR avec généralement de nombreuses
fautes.

COL est le produit de la collaboration de deux personnes: Philippe
BASCIANO-LE GALL (développeur de la partie logicielle) et Marjorie
BURGHART (gestionnaire de la liste de formes latines).

URL : http://latin.drouizig.org
Contacts:
Philippe BASCIANO-LE GALL (Association An Drouizig) : drouizig@drouizig.org
Marjorie BURGHART (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - UMR
5648) : marjorie.burghart@ehess.fr

Gender and Medieval Studies

It is still possible to register for the 2009 Gender and Medieval Studies
Group conference which will be held at King's College London, January 8-10
2009, and follow the theme of 'Locating Gender'.

The conference will explore conceptions of location, temporality,
geography, belonging and association in relation to the study of medieval
genders and sexualities across the disciplines that make up medieval
studies.

Plenary lectures will be given by James A. Schultz (UCLA) and Diane Watt
(Aberystwyth).

Full programme is available at www.medievalgender.co.uk

Sunday, November 30, 2008

MANCASS Anglo-Saxon Texts and Writers CFP

Call for Papers

M A N C A S S
5th Annual Postgraduate Conference
2nd - 3rd March, 2009

Anglo-Saxon Texts and Writers


We are inviting postgraduate students in all disciplines to submit
proposals for 20-minute papers for the 5th Annual MANCASS Postgraduate
Conference, 2nd- 3rd March, 2009. This year's conference will focus on:

-- The nature of Anglo-Saxon texts (literary, legal or religious) with
special reference to the manuscripts and codices used in their
transmission.
-- The influence and distribution of these texts and their authors in
other insular and continental cultures.
-- Post-medieval usages and interpretations of the Anglo-Saxon texts and
manuscripts.

Proposals should not exceed 300 words. Selected papers will be
published in the online journal, The Proceedings of the Manchester
Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies Postgraduate Conference.

All proposals should be directed to Fran Álvarez at
Fran.Alvarez@manchester.ac.uk

The deadline for proposals is 23 January, 2009

via Old Irish net

I just came across 3 important works of Old Irish grammatical
scholarship that have been placed online. I'm not sure if people are
aware of them, so I thought I'd send the links to the list.

1) O Maille's 'contributions to the history of the verbs of
existence in Irish' (1911)
http://www.archive.org/details/contributionstoh00mrich

2) Strachan's 'substantive verb in the glosses' (1899)
http://www.archive.org/details/transact189900philuoft

while rather old, these two do have a lot of interesting things about
the development and usage of the substantive verb and the copula from
Old Irish to Modern Irish.

FROM THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF BYZANTINE MUSIC AND HYMNOLOGY

SECOND NOTICE:


FROM THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF BYZANTINE MUSIC AND HYMNOLOGY


In preparation for the Second International Conference to be held in
Athens in June of 2009, the Society and the co-organisers, are
preparing an audiovisual album entitled "BYZANTINE CHOIRS OF THE
HELLENIC DIASPORA". Canada and Europe will be represented by a number of
Byzantine Choirs who have already confirmed participation.

The Society has requested participation from Byzantine choirs across the
Hellenic Diaspora including Europe, Africa, the US and Australia, in
communication with the Archdioceses and the Metropolises.

This communication serves as an auxiliary notification-request, the
first has already been received by your hierarchs who have hopefully
communicated it to you, to individuals and choirs who wish to
participate in this historically unique and relevant album.


To be considered, choirs should select traditional Byzantine music
material of a theme (and in a language) of their choice (duration no
longer than one hour) and preferably recorded in live video-DVD format
(i.e. choir should be visible; recorded in an empty church or other
ecclesiastically-relevant place). Alternatively, audio is acceptable in
CD form. The material should be new (and not from other published
projects or previous copyrighted recordings).

Accompanying the audiovisual material should be a description of the
choir and its history, a short bio of the director and a list of all
current and past choristers.

As part of the Conference events, this album will be unveiled at an
evening event attended by diplomats from embassies of the participants,
musicians, musicologists, academics, writers, artists, poets, and other
people of the Greek fine arts Diaspora.

When the Conference website is up, we also encourage a representative of
each choir to register to attend the meeting to receive a plaque of
recognition for their role in preserving and disseminating Byzantine
music in the Diaspora.

The deadline to submit the materials is February 1st, 2009.

Please let us know as soon as possible about your intent to participate
by email. Our website is currently under reconstruction, but should
be up before
the end of the month (www.asbmh.pitt.edu) with an electronic version
of all papers
of the 1st Conference, video of the speaker sessions of the 1st conference
and a lot more useful information.

Please submit DVD/CD material and all accompanying letters to:

The American Society of Byzantine Music and Hymnology
c/o Dr. Nick Giannoukakis
Center for Russian & East European Studies
University Center for International Studies
4400 Wesley W. Posvar Hall
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
USA

Lindsay Young Visiting Fellowships

The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies announces the first Lindsay Young Visiting Fellowships. Thanks to the generosity of the Aslan Foundation, the Institute will offer Visiting Fellowships beginning January 1, 2009. These non-service Fellowships are intended to bring scholars from Tennessee and the neighboring region to UTK, where they can make use of research resources in medieval and Renaissance fields to further their research agendas and take part in the intellectual life of the Institute. Fellowships are open to scholars at all regional institutions of higher education and credentialed independent scholars, but preference will be given to faculty teaching in the state of Tennessee. The tenure of the Visiting Fellowship is variable according to the requirements of an individual's research plan and will carry a stipend of $600/week for a period of between one and ten weeks. The costs of travel to and from Knoxville are also covered by the Fellowship. Vi siting Fellows are encouraged to arrange their plans to take advantage of the various symposia and workshops offered by the Institute (a schedule can be viewed at http://web.utk.edu/~marco/ ). Fellows will have library privileges for the duration of their Fellowship and are expected to acknowledge the support of the Institute in publications arising from their tenure of the Fellowship. Applications, including curriculum vitae and a detailed research plan, should be sent to Prof. Michael Kulikowski, Riggsby Director, Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Carnivalesque 45

Carivalesque 45 for Things Medieval is up at CrankyProfessor.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Newberry Library Fellowships in the Humanities, 2009-2010

Newberry Library Fellowships in the Humanities, 2009-2010

The Newberry Library, an independent research library in
Chicago,Illinois, invites applications for its 2009-2010 Fellowships
in the Humanities. Newberry Library fellowships support research in
residence at the Library, and all proposed research must be
appropriate to the collections (excluding the Terra Foundation
Fellowship and certain short-term awards). Our fellowship program
rests on the belief that all projects funded by the Newberry benefit
from engagement both with the materials in the Newberry’s collections
and with the lively community of researchers that gathers around
those collections. Long-term residential fellowships are available
for periods of six to eleven months to postdoctoral scholars who must
hold the Ph.D. at the time of application. The stipend for these
fellowships ranges from $25,500 to $70,000. In 2008-2009 the Library
inaugurated a new Terra Foundation for American Art Fellowship in Art
History carrying an academic-year stipend of $70,000 for a full
professor (or its equivalent outside the academy) and $50,400 for all
other awardees. Short-term residential fellowships are intended for
postdoctoral scholars or Ph.D. candidates from outside the Chicago
area who have a specific need for Newberry collections. The tenure of
short-term fellowships varies form one week to two months. The amount
of the award is generally $1600 per month. Applications for long-term
fellowships are due January 12, 2009; applications for most
short-term fellowships are due March 2, 2009. For more information or
to download application materials, visit our website at:
http://www.newberry.org/research/felshp/fellowshome.html

If you would like materials sent to you by mail, write to the
Committee on Awards, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, Il 60610-3380.
If you have questions about the fellowships program, contact
research@newberry.org or (312) 255-3666.

EPISCOPAL ELECTIONS IN LATE ANTIQUITY (CA. 250 - CA. 600 AD) CFP

CALL FOR PAPERS

International Conference
26-28 October 2009

EPISCOPAL ELECTIONS IN LATE ANTIQUITY (CA. 250 - CA. 600 AD)

Hosted by the Faculty of Theology
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Keynote speakers include:

Pauline Allen (ACU, Brisbane), George Bevan (Queen’s, Kingston),
Philippe Blaudeau (Paris XII), Peter Bruns (Bamberg), Bruno Dumézil
(Paris X), Geoffrey Dunn (ACU, Brisbane), Rudolf Haensch (DAI, München),
David G. Hunter (Kentucky), Hartmut Leppin (Frankfurt), Veit Rosenberger
(Erfurt), Claire Sotinel (Tours), Raymond Van Dam (Michigan), Eckhard
Wirbelauer (Strasbourg), Ewa Wipszycka (Warsaw)

Organising Committee: Boudewijn Dehandschutter (Leuven), Johan Leemans
(Leuven), Peter Van Nuffelen (Exeter), Shawn Keough (Leuven), Carla
Nicolaye (Leuven – Aachen)

URL: Episcopal Elections and Episcopal Succession in Late Antiquity
Conference Secretary: Dr. Shawn Keough: shawn.keough@theo.kuleuven.be

It is well known that episcopal elections in the later Roman Empire were
often a complicated and complicating event, as the controversy (and even
violence) attendant upon the elections and successions of many bishops
indicates. This conference will approach the phenomenon of episcopal
elections and succession from the broadest possible perspective,
examining the varied combination of factors, personalities, rules and
habits that played a role in the process that eventually resulted in one
specific candidate becoming the new bishop, and not another. The many
diverse and even conflicting aspects of this phenomenon will be
addressed: the influence of doctrinal conflicts, the relationship
between Church and State, patronage, local habits and regional
differences, chronological developments, ethnic identity. Also relevant
is the development of images of the ideal bishop, especially the manner
in which such idealized representations shaped the outcome of contested
elections and affected the character and exercise of episcopal authority
in late antique society.

Proposals for papers approaching the broader theme by any number of
perspectives and methodologies are welcome: particular elections,
specific bishops, geographical surveys (e.g. a city or a province), and
concrete texts (e.g. legislation – both civil and canonical, or,
hagiography) are all legitimate points of entry shedding valuable light
upon a relatively little studied phenomenon.

English will be the primary conference language, although proposals for
papers in French and German are equally acceptable. Following the
conference there will be opportunity for participants to submit their
papers for peer review, as the conference organizers intend to edit the
conference proceedings for publication.

Paper proposals should be sent to the conference secretary by 15 May
2008. Proposals should consist of a title and an abstract of up to 300
words providing a clear indication of the paper’s thesis, sources and
methodology.

All those interested are encouraged to contact the conference secretary,
Dr. Shawn Keough [shawn.keough@theo.kuleuven.be].

Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm

SIR ISRAEL GOLLANCZ MEMORIAL LECTURE : Rescheduled

SIR ISRAEL GOLLANCZ MEMORIAL LECTURE

The Alfredian project and its aftermath: rethinking the literary history of
the ninth and tenth centuries

Professor Malcolm Godden
University of Oxford

Thursday, 15 January 2009
5.30pm - 6.30pm, followed by a drinks reception

The British Academy,
10 Carlton House Terrace,
London, SW1Y 5AH

Free Admittance

King Alfred's preface on the state of learning in England quickly became one
of the best-known Anglo-Saxon writings, and one of the key documents for
writing the cultural history of the period. But there is much that is
doubtful about the programme of translation and book-production which has
been deduced from the preface, and the Alfredian initiative itself was
possibly of limited scope and doubtful novelty. Instead, some of the texts
traditionally associated with the king can be seen as part of a quite
distinct and more ambitious initiative engaging with more challenging ideas.

Please visit our website
Id=7646239>
for full details of our forthcoming events.
Telephone enquiries: 020 7969 5246
Email: lectures@britac.ac.uk

Please note our ticketing and seating policy:
British Academy Lectures are freely open to the general public and everyone
is welcome; there is no charge for admission, no tickets will be issued, and
seats cannot be reserved. The Lecture Room is opened at 5.00pm, and the
first 100 audience members arriving at the Academy will be offered a seat in
the Lecture Room; the next 50 people to arrive will be offered a seat in the
Overflow Room, which has a video and audio link to the Lecture Room.
Lectures are followed by a reception at 6.30pm, to which members of the
audience are invited.

This lecture was originally scheduled to take place on 2 October 2008 but
had to be postponed because of the lecturer's ill health.

Graduate Conference in Medieval Studies at Princeton University

Graduate Conference in Medieval Studies at Princeton
University

Law and Legal Culture in the Middle Ages

4 April 2009

Call for Papers
The Program in Medieval Studies at Princeton
University invites graduate students to submit paper
proposals for its sixteenth annual graduate
conference.

We are pleased to announce this year's keynote
speaker, Robin Stacey, Professor of History at the
University of Washington. Opening with an address by
Professor Stacey that investigates the intersection of
law and literature through the example of
thirteenth-century Welsh law books, the conference
invites students to discuss the social and cultural
aspects of law in the Middle Ages.

In an effort to better understand how people conceived
of and used codes of behavior and judicial recourse in
their communities, this conference explores ways that
law was identified, upheld, challenged, idealized, and
reinvented in a period of great legal diversity and
innovation.

In keeping with the Program's aim to promote
interdisciplinary exchange among medievalists, we
encourage proposals from a variety of chronologies,
geographies, and disciplines. Topics could include,
but are of course not limited to:

ƒ{ƒ{ƒnƒndispute resolutions
ƒ{ƒ{ƒnthe intersection of law and literature
ƒ{ƒ{ƒnmodes of proof and legal technologies
ƒ{ƒ{ƒnreligious prescription
ƒ{ƒ{ƒncustom and codification
ƒ{ƒ{ƒnmanorial courts, by-laws, and rural society
ƒ{ƒ{ƒnlaw and gender
ƒ{ƒ{ƒnthe profits of justice
ƒ{ƒ{ƒnlegislative idealism
ƒ{ƒ{ƒnlegal commentary and criticism

In order to support participation of speakers from
outside the northeastern United States, we are
offering a limited number of modest subsidies to help
offset the cost of travel to Princeton. Financial
assistance may not be available for every participant;
funding priority goes to those who have the furthest
to travel. Every speaker will have the option of
staying with a resident graduate student as an
alternative to paying for a hotel room.

Papers should take no more than twenty minutes to
deliver.

Please submit a 250-word abstract of your project by
16 January 2009 to Jamie Kreiner
(jkreiner@princeton.edu) or Mary Campbell
(mmcampbe@princeton.edu).

Call for Papers: Digitizing Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture

Call for Papers: Digitizing Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture

Editors Brent Nelson (University of Saskatchewan) and Melissa Terras
(University College London) invite submissions for a collection of
essays on “Digitizing Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture” to
be published in the New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance
Studies Series edited by Ray Siemens and William Bowen.

This collection of essays will build on the accomplishments of recent
scholarship on materiality by bringing together innovative research
on the theory and praxis of digitizing material cultures from roughly
500 A.D. to 1700 A.D. Scholars of the medieval and early modern
periods have begun to pay more attention to the material world not
only as a means of cultural experience, but also as a shaping
influence upon culture and society, looking at the world of material
objects as both an area of study and a rich source of evidence for
interpreting the past. Digital media enable new ways of evoking,
representing, recovering, and simulating these materials in
non-traditional, non-textual (or para-textual) ways and present new
possibilities for recuperating and accumulating material from across
vast distances and time, enabling both preservation and comparative
analysis that is otherwise impossible or impractical. Digital
mediation also poses practical and theoretical challenges, both
logistical (such as gaining access to materials) and intellectual
(for example, the relationship between text and object). This volume
of essays will promote the deployment of digital technologies to the
study of material culture by bringing together expertise garnered
from complete and current digital projects, while looking forward to
new possibilities for digital applications; it will both take stock
of the current state of theory and practice and advance new
developments in digitization of material culture. The editors welcome
submissions from all disciplines on any research that addresses the
use of digital means for representing and investigating material
culture as expressed in such diverse areas as:

• travelers’ accounts, navigational charts and cartography
• collections and inventories
• numismatics, antiquarianism and early archaeology
• theatre and staging (props, costumes, stages, theatres)
• the visual arts of drawing, painting, sculpture, print making, and
architecture
• model making
• paper making and book printing, production, and binding
• manuscripts, emblems, and illustrations
• palimpsests and three-dimensional writing
• instruments (magic, alchemical, and scientific)
• arts and crafts
• the anatomical and cultural body

We welcome approaches that are practical and/or theoretical, general
in application or particular and project-based. Submissions should
present fresh advances in methodologies and applications of digital
technologies, including but not limited to:

• XML and databases and computational interpretation
• three-dimensional computer modeling, Second Life and virtual worlds
• virtual research environments
• mapping technology
• image capture, processing, and interpretation
• 3-D laser scanning, synchrotron, or X-ray imaging and analysis
• artificial intelligence, process modeling, and knowledge representation

Papers might address such topics and issues as:

• the value of inter-disciplinarity (as between technical and
humanist experts)
• relationships between image and object; object and text; text and image
• the metadata of material culture
• curatorial and archival practice
• mediating the material object and its textual representations
• imaging and data gathering (databases and textbases)
• the relationship between the abstract and the material text
• haptic, visual, and auditory simulation
• tools and techniques for paleographic analysis

Enquiries and proposals should be sent to brent.nelson[at]usask.ca by
10 January 2009. Complete essays of 5,000-6,000 words in length will
be due on 1 May 2009.

NEH Seminar on History of the Book

John N. King and James K. Bracken of The Ohio State University will direct a
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College and
University Teachers on continuity and change in the production,
dissemination, and reading of Western European books during the 200 years
following the advent of printing with movable type. In particular, they plan
to pose the governing question of whether the advent of printing was a
necessary precondition for the Protestant Reformation. Participants will
consider ways in which adherents of different religious faiths shared common
ground in exploiting elements such as book layout, typography, illustration,
and paratext (e.g., prefaces, glosses, and commentaries) in order to inspire
reading, but also to restrict interpretation. Employing key methods of the
History of the Book, our investigation will consider how the physical nature
of books affected ways in which readers understood and assimilated their
intellectual contents. This program is geared to meet the needs of
teacher-scholars interested in the literary, political, or cultural history
of the Renaissance and/or Reformation, the History of the Book, art history,
women’s studies, religious studies, bibliography, print culture, library
science (including rare book librarians), mass communication, literacy
studies, and more.

This seminar will meet from 22 June until 24 July 2009. During the first
week of this program, we shall visit 1) Antwerp, Belgium, in order to draw
on resources including the Plantin-Moretus Museum (the world’s only
surviving early modern printing and publishing house) and 2) London,
England, in order to attend a rare-book workshop and consider treasures at
the British Library. During four weeks at Oxford, where we shall reside at
St. Edmund Hall, we plan to draw on the rare book and manuscript holdings of
the Bodleian Library and other institutions.

Those eligible to apply include citizens of USA who are engaged in teaching
at the college or university level and independent scholars who have
received the terminal degree in their field (usually the Ph.D.). In
addition, non-US citizens who have taught and lived in the USA for at least
three years prior to March 2009 are eligible to apply. NEH will provide
participants with a stipend of $3,800.

Full details and application information are available at
http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/king2/Reformationofthebook/. For further
information, please contact rankinmc@jmu.edu. The application deadline is
March 2, 2009.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

S 10 POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS FOR ACADEMIC YEAR 2009/2010

BSANA Listserv FWD

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
10 POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS FOR ACADEMIC YEAR 2009/2010

The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Fritz
Thyssen Foundation and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
invite scholars to apply for ten post-doctoral fellowships
for the research program

EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE EAST - THE MIDDLE EAST IN EUROPE

This research program seeks to rethink key concepts and
premises that link and divide Europe and the Middle East.
The project draws on the international expertise of scholars
in and outside of Germany and is embedded in university
and extra-university research institutions in Berlin.
'Europe in the Middle East ? The Middle East in Europe'
supports historical-critical philology, rigorous engagement
with the literatures of the Middle East and their histories,
the social history of cities and the study of Middle Eastern
political and philosophical thought (Christian, Jewish, Muslim,
and secular) as central fields of research not only for area
or cultural studies, but also for European intellectual
history and other academic disciplines. The program explores
modernity as a historical space and conceptual frame. The
program puts forward three programmatic ideas:
1) supporting research that demonstrates the rich and
complex historical legacies and entanglements between
Europe and the Middle East;
2) reexamining genealogical notions of mythical 'beginnings',
'origins', and 'purity' in relation to culture and society;
and
3) rethinking key concepts of a shared modernity in
light of contemporary cultural, social, and political
entanglements that supersede identity discourses as well
as national, cultural or regional canons and epistemologies
that were established in the nineteenth century.
The program 'Europe in the Middle East - The Middle East
in Europe' is funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
It supports and builds upon the following interconnected
research fields:

CITIES COMPARED: COSMOPOLITANISM IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND
ADJACENT REGIONS
This research group is directed by Ulrike Freitag and
Nora Lafi, both of the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies,
Berlin. It contributes to the debate on cosmopolitanism
and civil society from the historical experience of
conviviality and socio-cultural, ethnic, and religious
differences in the cities around the Mediterranean;

ISLAMIC DISCOURSE CONTESTED: MIDDLE EASTERN AND EUROPEAN
PERSPECTIVES
This research group is directed by Gudrun Kraemer, Institute
for Islamic Studies, Freie Universitaet Berlin. It analyzes
modern Middle Eastern thought and discourses in the framework
of theories of multiple or reflexive modernities;


PERSPECTIVES ON THE QUR'AN: NEGOTIATING DIFFERENT VIEWS
OF A SHARED HISTORY
This research group is directed by Angelika Neuwirth,
Seminar for Arabic Studies, Freie Universit?t Berlin, and
Stefan Wild, Universitaet Bonn. It situates the foundational
text of Islam within the religious landscape of late
antiquity and combines a historicization of its genesis
with an analysis of its reception and perception in Europe
and the Middle East;

TRAVELLING TRADITIONS: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON NEAR
EASTERN LITERATURES
This research group is directed by Friederike Pannewick,
Centrum fuer Nah- und Mitteloststudien, Philipps-Universitaet
Marburg, and Samah Selim, IREMAM, Aix-en-Provence. It
reassesses literary entanglements and processes of
canonization between Europe and the Middle East.

TRADITION AND THE CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY: SECULARISM,
FUNDAMENTALISM AND RELIGION FROM MIDDLE EASTERN PERSPECTIVES
This a special forum, directed by Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin,
Ben Gurion University, that attempts to rethink key
concepts of modernity like secularity, tradition, or
religion in the context of the experiences, interpretations,
and critiques of Jews, Arabs, and Muslims in the Middle
East and in Europe.

PREREQUISITES AND APPLICATION PROCEDURE

The fellowships are intended above all for scholars of history,
literature, philology, political philosophy, religion and
sociology who want to carry out their research projects in
connection with the Berlin program. Fellows gain the
opportunity to pursue research projects of their choice
within the framework of one of the above-mentioned
research fields and in relation to the program 'Europe
in the Middle East - the Middle East in Europe'. In Berlin,
they will be integrated into a university or non-university
research institute. The working language of the research
program is English.
Fellows will receive a monthly stipend of 1.800 Euro (supplement
for accompanying spouses: 250 Euro), and are obliged to work in
Berlin and to help shape the seminars and working discussions
related to their research field.
As a rule, the fellowships begin on 1 October 2009 and end
on 31 July 2010. The applicant's doctorate should have been
completed no earlier than 2001.
An application should be made in explicit relation to one of
the research fields and consist of 1.) a curriculum vitae,
2.) a 2 to 4 page project sketch,
3.) a sample of scholarly work (maximum 20 pages from an article,
conference paper, or dissertation chapter) and
4.) a letter of recommendation by one university instructor.

The application should be submitted by e-mail as word document
or PDF File in English and should be received by 11 January 2009,
sent in to:

E-mail: eume@wiko-berlin.de
Europe in the Middle East - the Middle East in Europe
c/o Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
Attn: Georges Khalil
Wallotstrasse 19, 14193 Berlin
Fax +49 30 - 89 00 12 00
E-mail: khalil@wiko-berlin.de

For further information on the program 'Europe in the
Middle East - The Middle East in Europe' and for detailed
information on the research fields, please see:
www.eume-berlin.de


For information on the research institutions in Berlin
participating in the program, please visit:
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences:
www.bbaw.de/
Center for Literary Research:
www.zfl.gwz-berlin.de/
Centre for Modern Oriental Studies:
www.zmo.de/
Institute for Islamic Studies: userpage.fu-berlin.de/~islamwi/
Seminar for Arabic Studies: web.fu-berlin.de/semiarab/
Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin:
www.wiko-berlin.de/

A Scandal to the Whole Clergy': Priests and their Partners

Subject: [medren] Friday, Nov. 21: Ruth Karras, Lea Lecture


Please mark your calendars: we hope you will be able to attend the
Henry Charles Lea Lecture for 2008-09:

Ruth Mazo Karras, Professor of History, University of Minnesota,
author of Sexuality in Medieval Europe (2005).

"'A Scandal to the Whole Clergy': Priests and their Partners"

Date: Friday, November 21, 2008
Time and location: 5:00PM, Rosenwald Gallery, 6th floor, Van
Pelt-Dietrich Library

More information on the annual Lea Lecture is available here:

http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/lectures/lealecture.html

Monday, November 17, 2008

Mapping the Medieval City: space, place and identity

Mapping the Medieval City: space, place and identity
An Interdisciplinary Colloquium
Swansea University, 30-31 July 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

This colloquium, held to mark the completion of the AHRC-funded
research project 'Mapping Medieval Chester'
(www.medievalchester.ac.uk), will launch the digital materials
produced by the project and provide a forum for wider discussion of
place and identity in the medieval city, as well as concepts of
'mapping' in the Middle Ages and today. The colloquium will feature
papers on medieval Chester, but we are also seeking inter-disciplinary
contributions relating to the medieval city more generally.

The 'Mapping Medieval Chester' project has brought together scholars
working in the disciplines of literary studies, geography, archaeology
and history to explore how material and imagined urban landscapes
construct and convey a sense of place-identity. The focus of the
research project itself is the city of Chester and the identities that
its inhabitants formed between c.1200 and 1500. A key aspect of the
project is to integrate geographical and literary mappings of the
medieval city using cartographic and textual sources and using these
to understand more how urban landscapes in the Middle Ages were
interpreted and navigated by local inhabitants. We hope the colloquium
will use our research on Chester as the basis for broader discussions
centering on the project's themes, methods and theoretical
preoccupations.

We therefore invite 20-minute paper proposals (abstracts of around 300
words) on any subject relating to the project's broad themes of place
and identity in the medieval European city. These might include:

- Place and identity in medieval Chester
- Writers and texts of medieval Chester (e.g. Lucian, Higden, The
Cycle Plays, Bradshaw, medieval Welsh poetry)
- Place and identity in the medieval city

- Medieval border towns and/or border writing
- Writers and texts of the medieval city (e. g. Benedict's Mirabilia
urbis Romae, William FitzStephen, Richard Devizes, vernacular drama
and verse)
- Multilingualism and the medieval city

- Theories of space, place and mapping

Proposals should be sent to Mark Faulkner (mailto:m.j.faulkner@swan.ac.uk) by
23 February 2009.

For further information on the 'Mapping Medieval Chester' project,
please visit www.medievalchester.ac.uk or contact Mark.

DARC/CCH Symposium: Digitization of the Gutenberg Bible - Retrospect & Prospect

DARC/CCH Symposium: Digitization of the Gutenberg Bible - Retrospect
& Prospect
Saturday 22 November 2008
Venue: Room 2B08, Strand Campus, King's College London

Note: attendance by pre-registration
(http://armour.cc/tinc?key=VRk38phB&formname=DARC_Symposium_2008)

9:15 Introduction and welcome
Chair: Toshiyuki Takamiya (Director of DARC)

9:30-10:15 Facsimiles of the Gutenberg Bible as Research Tools (Paul
Needham, Princeton)

10:25-10:45 Discussion

10:45-11:00 Coffee/tea

11:05-11:30 The Digital Gutenberg Bible and the Incunable Collection
at the British Library (John Goldfinch,BL); respondent: William Hale
(Cambridge University Library)

11:45-12:10 Incunable Digitization at Munich: From the Gutenberg Bible
to Mass Digitization (Bettina Wagner, BSB); respondent: William Hale
(Cambridge University Library)

12:25-12:45 Discussion

12:45-13:00 Closing address (Harold Short, CCH)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Medieval Academy Website Down Temporarily

For various reasons, a link to the Medieval Academy website came up
on Old Norse recently and to list members surprise, the link didn't
work.

I contacted Paul E. Szarmach and he asked if I would pass this
information along to all and sundry and request crossposting to all
lists concerned.

"There was a problem on our host's end. We contacted support and
they have fixed the problem. It will take anywhere between 24 and 72
hours before we're back up and running.


(There seems to have been a mixup in our DNS resolutions and they
take several hours to days to propogate throughout the Domain servers
around the world which is how people type in medievalacademy.org and
reach us.)"

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Anglo-Saxon Kent Electronic Database

The ADS, the AHRC and the Leverhulme Trust are pleased to announce the
online launch of the Anglo-Saxon Kent Electronic Database (ASKED):

http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/archive/asked_ahrc_2008/

This database was created by Stuart Brookes and Sue Harrington to facilitate
their respective PhD researches at UCL Institute of Archaeology, from
1998-2000. This online subset of the data acts as the pilot for a larger
corpus of material currently being gathered under the aegis of the 'Beyond
the Tribal Hidage Project'
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/project/tribal-hidage/index.htm) - a
Leverhulme funded research project undertaken at UCL Institute of
Archaeology by Martin Welch with Sue Harrington. This further dataset will
also be deposited with the Archaeology Data Service in late 2009, in the
same fully searchable online format as this version of ASKED.

The resource at the heart of ASKED is the archaeological evidence for the
Anglo-Saxon populations of east and west Kent AD 400-750. The evidence
consists of the human skeletal remains, the grave goods and the burial
structures from inhumation cemeteries. ASKED brings together various sources
in one unified and accessible dataset. A subset of 53 cemetery sites are
prioritised here together with isolated burials, settlements and find spots.
Whilst the user may not find, for example, a complete list of every artefact
found in Kent, they will find all coherently published examples.
This database already represents a fantastic new resource for the study of
Anglo-Saxon Kent and England more broadly, and it will continue to grow both
in size and usefulness with further deposits of data in the coming months.

Friday, November 7, 2008

The Monastic Research Bulletin is a newsletter which aims to provide a point of contact between individuals interested in a variety of monastic studies (historical, archaeological, art historical, literary etc) and contains news of academic research in progress, descriptions of new projects, information about the sources for monastic history in national and local repositories, details of theses completed and current, and an annual bibliography of publications on monasticism in Britain.

Partially available online: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/bihr/Publications/MRBfront.htm
The Monastic Research Bulletin is a newsletter which aims to provide a point of contact between individuals interested in a variety of monastic studies (historical, archaeological, art historical, literary etc) and contains news of academic research in progress, descriptions of new projects, information about the sources for monastic history in national and local repositories, details of theses completed and current, and an annual bibliography of publications on monasticism in Britain.

Partially available online: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/bihr/Publications/MRBfront.htm

Presentation at "Insel der Information

Presentation at "Insel der Information", November 25th, 2008:
Bettina Wagner (SL: Bettina Ethaniel):
Incunable digitization at Munich: From the Gutenberg Bible to mass
digitization

We would like to invite you to the SIM of the Bavarian State Library
for a talk with the title "Incunable digitization at Munich: From
the Gutenberg Bible to mass digitization".
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Insel%20der%20Information/132/23/22.
The presentation will be held on 25/Nov/08, at 6pm CET, 9:00 AM SLT
by Dr. Bettina Wagner in English and follows up a symposium organized
by the Humanities Media Interface Project, Keio University, Tokyo, on
22 November in London, UK.
Abstract:
The talk will demonstrate how the Munich Gutenberg Bible is presented
online and how users can search for descriptive information in the
electronic catalogue, thus placing the Bible in various contexts,
e.g. of 15th-century Bible production, of incunable illumination or
of provenance. In addition, access points for printed illustrations
in incunabula will be shown.

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich holds the world*s largest
collection of incunabula, which currently amounts to c. 20.000 copies
of c. 9700 editions. The Munich copy of the Gutenberg Bible is one of
the most important treasures of the library. In cooperation with the
HUMI team, the Bible was digitized in October 2005 and was made
accessible freely on the internet.
In Munich, digitization of incunables and online access to the
catalogue descriptions have proceeded in close parallel. The first
digitization project started already in 1998 and focussed on
illustrated incunabula; a project for the digitization of broadsides
followed in 2000. At the same time, the printed incunable catalogue
was converted into a database and made accessible online in 2004. The
catalogue database serves as central access point to incunables and
integrates all digital images as well as additional metadata
generated in such projects. In 2008, a project for the complete
digitization of the collection was begun, and eventually, as a
complete electronic facsimile will be generated for every
15th-century edition now held in Munich. The results are not only
made accessible through the incunable catalogue database, but also
through the Bavarian union catalogue and the ISTC and GW databases.

Call for Papers IFLA-conference Milan 2009

Call for Papers IFLA-conference Milan 2009
IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section,
Preservation and Conservation Section,
Library History Section


Theme:
Dispersed cultural collections
Preservation, reconstruction and access

The IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, the Preservation and
Conservation Section, and the Library History Section jointly invite
proposals for presentations at the Sections* programme in Milan,
23-27 August 2009.
Following the main theme of the conference "Libraries create futures:
Building on cultural heritage", papers should focus on dispersed
cultural collections and their preservation and conservation,
reconstruction, and access to them, preferably in electronic form.
* Dispersed cultural collections comprises libraries and other
collections formerly held by institutions or private collectors which
were dispersed through political events (wars, dissolution of
monasteries) or through auctions and duplicate sales, and are today
held in various public institutions (libraries, archives, museums) or
in different sections of such institutions. The dispersed materials
may be in different formats (manuscripts, printed books, archival
documents, photographs) and may date from any period. Papers about
individual collectors and dealers will also be considered
* Preservation and conservation deals with aspects of the physical
assessment of an object for the better understanding of its contexts,
with special regard to provenances. The role of the conservator
should be given particular consideration, including procedures for
preserving and documenting features relevant for the history of an
item during conservation, such as provenance marks and former
shelfmarks.
* Reconstruction should cover questions of identifying individual
items which once belonged to such a collection; of investigating the
survival of historical collections; or of maintaining inventories or
archives of collections that have been dispersed. Papers should
discuss methods of reconstruction, i.e. through identification of
provenances, through matching of historical inventories with
surviving items, or through digitization as well as methods for the
creation of virtual libraries or databases of dispersed materials.
* Access refers to the questions concerning the needs of
target-groups of such projects (from researchers to the general
public), the standards applied for cataloguing and presentation and
problems of overcoming heterogeneous standards for diverse materials;
technical solutions for their presentation; and also raising
awareness and funds for such projects.

Papers should place particular emphasis on issues of project
management and methodology, e.g. policies regarding preservation and
digitization; standards for cataloguing and recording provenances;
cross-institutional cooperation (national and international).
Materials presented should be placed in a broader cultural-historical
context in order to demonstrate their relevance to a wide range of
(academic) subjects and users, taking up the theme of IFLA president
Claudia Lux for 2007-9: "Libraries on the Agenda*.
* Papers can be given in any of the official IFLA languages (English,
French, German, Russian, Spanish), but abstracts should be submitted
in English.
* Papers should not be longer than 15 pages.
* The oral presentation of each paper should not exceed 20 minutes.

The proposals must be submitted in an electronic format and must contain:
Title of paper
Summary of paper (250 - 350 words max)
Speaker*s name, institutional affiliation, address, telephone
Important dates:
deadline for submission of abstract 31 December 2008
notification of acceptance March, 2009
deadline for submission of paper: 1 May 2009

All submissions should be sent via email to:

Bettina Wagner, Rare books and Manuscript Section chair, Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek:
bettina.wagner@bsb-muenchen.de
Per Cullhed, Preservation and Conservation Section chair, Uppsala
University Library:
per.cullhed@ub.uu.se
Hermina G.B. Anghelescu , Library History Section chair, Wayne State
University:
ag7662@wayne.edu

Please send your proposal to all three addresses.

Please note that the IFLA sections have no funds for financial
assistance to prospective authors: abstracts should only be submitted
on the understanding that the expenses of attending the conference
(including travel expenses and conference fee) and registration and
hotel bookings will be the responsibility of the presenter(s) of
accepted papers. Some national professional associations may be able
to help fund certain expenses, and a small number of grants for
conference attendance may be available at:
www.ifla.org/III/members/grants.ht



_______________________________________

Dr. Bettina Wagner
Abteilung fuer Handschriften und Alte Drucke
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
Ludwigstr. 16
D-80539 Muenchen
Germany
email: bettina.wagner@bsb-muenchen.de
Tel. +89 / 28638-2982
Fax. +89 / 28638-12982 oder 2266
postbox: D-80328 Muenchen
_______________________________________

Inkunabelkatalog der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek (BSB-Ink) online:
http://mdz1.bib-bvb.de/cocoon/bsbink/start.html
_______________________________________

IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section:
http://www.ifla.org/VII/s18/index.htm
_______________________________________

Programm zum 450jährigen Jubiläum der BSB:
http://www.450jahre-bsb.de/