Events in Boston

EVENTS IN AND AROUND BOSTON

18 February-8 June: Exhibition: "Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics
from the Roman Empire." McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College. This
exhibition presents the reconstruction of an ancient mosaic floor
from a synagogue in Hammam Lif, Tunisia (the ancient town of Naro,
later called Aquae Persianae by the Romans). The mosaics, along with
contemporary jewelry, coins, marble statues, ritual objects, and
textiles from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection shed light on the role
of synagogues in the Diaspora during Late Antiquity, the development
of Jewish art in the Roman period, the importance of female patrons
in the ancient Jewish community, connections among early Christian,
Jewish, and Pagan symbolism in this period, and the relationship
between ancient and modern understanding of the synagogue as an
institution. The works of art in the exhibition reveal a society
where Jews were more integrated and accepted than ancient texts would
suggest. This exhibition is organized by the Brooklyn Museum and made
possible by the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Exhibition Fund.
Presentation at the McMullen Museum is underwritten by Boston College
with major support from the Lassor and Fanny Agoos Charity Fund.
Additional funding has been provided by the Patrons of the McMullen
Museum. Exhibition page at
www.bc.edu/artmuseum/exhibitions/archive/tree-off-paradise. Two hours
free parking available in the Commonwealth Garage. For directions see
www.bc.edu/artmuseum. The exhibition runs through 8 June.

Monday, 10 March, 4:15 p.m.: Steven Marrone (Tufts University)
"Medieval Magic, Superstition and Science: An Anthropological
Approach." Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar, Harvard
University. Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy
Street, Cambridge, MA.

Monday, 10 March, 7:30 p.m.: Sarah Coakley (Harvard University) "In
Persona Christi: Desire, Gender and The Eucharist." The Boston
Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy Lecture Series, Boston College,
McGuinn Third Floor Lounge, McGuinn 321, Chestnut Hill MA. Visitors
Parking: http://www.bc.edu/Offices/Transportation/Visitor.Html
Contact: geesh@bc.edu

Monday, 10 March, 8:00 p.m.: David Frankfurter (University of New
Hampshire) "Domestic Devotion and Religious Change: Theoretical
Perspectives and the Christianization of Egypt." Boston Area
Patristics Group, 5 Phillips Place, Cambridge, MA. Patristica
Bostoniensia is a colloquium of the Boston Theological Institute, an
association of nine theological schools in the Greater Boston area.
For more information, please, contact Annewies van den Hoek, Harvard
Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, or visit the
website at
http://www.bostontheological.org/academic/patristica_bostoniensia.htm

Thursday, 13 March, 5:00 p.m.: Patricia Dailey (Columbia) "Writing
Mystical Experience: Time, Memory, and Narrative in Hadewijch's
Visions." English Medieval Doctoral Conference, Harvard University.
Harvard University, Warren House, Kates Room (201), 12 Quincy St,
Cambridge, MA.

Saturday, 22 March, 1:30 p.m.: Paula Dietz (editor, The Hudson
Review, and cultural critic for the New York Times) "The Unicorn in
the Metropolis: The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Transformation of
Romanesque and Gothic Ruins into the Cloisters." Elements of five
medieval French cloisters collected by George Grey Barnard, and
augmented by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., were combined in a new
recreation of medieval style, inspired in part by Fenway Court. The
Cloisters with their interior gardens -- designed by Charles Collens
in 1938 -- are unified, serene spaces that extend the experience of
the museum's collection of medieval art. Part of the Landscape
Visions Lecture Series, Isabella Gardner Museum, 2 Palace Road,
Boston, MA. For more information and tickets,
http://www.gardnermuseum.org.

Wednesday, 2 April, 7:30 p.m.: Charles H. Manekin (University of
Maryland) "The Ambiguous Impact of Scholastic Philosophy on Medieval
Jewish Philosophy." The Boston Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy
Lecture Series, Boston College, McGuinn Fifth Floor Lounge, McGuinn
521, Chestnut Hill MA. Visitors Parking:
http://www.bc.edu/Offices/Transportation/Visitor.Html Contact:
geesh@bc.edu

*Thursday, 3 April, 1:30-5:30 p.m. and Friday, 4 April, 9 a.m.-4
p.m.: Gender and Religion: Authority, Power, and Agency. Radcliffe
Gymnasium, 10 Garden Street, Radcliffe Yard, Cambridge, MA. Admission
is free but registration is required online. The Radcliffe
Institute’s seventh annual gender conference, cosponsored by Harvard
Divinity School, examines the persistent entanglements of religion
and gender, with a particular focus on women’s agency. Panels will
address religious law, religion and the gendered body, challenges to
religious authority, and the complexities of freedom and submission
in religious contexts. The conference includes presenters who grapple
with gender both in their scholarship and as leaders within their
religious communities. Case studies will draw on medieval Japanese
Buddhism, contemporary India, nineteenth-century Sudan, Orthodox
Judaism, the Caribbean diaspora, and diverse Christian and Muslim
contexts. Speakers include medievalists Caroline Walker Bynum
(Princeton) and Fiona Griffiths (Columbia). Visit
http://www.radcliffe.edu/events/conferences/2008_religion.php to view
the full schedule and to register. For more information, contact
617-495-8600.

Monday, 7 April, 4:15 p.m.: James McHugh (Harvard University)
"Punning Perfumes and Theological Riddles: Religion and
Connoisseurship in Medieval India." Humanities Center Medieval
Studies Seminar, Harvard University. Harvard University, Barker
Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA.

Monday, 14 April, 4:15 p.m.: Scott Lightsey (Associate Professor,
Medieval English Literature, Georgia State University) "Marvelous
Things: Object Lessons in Medieval Literature." Humanities Center
Medieval Studies Seminar, Harvard University. Harvard University,
Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA.

Monday, 14 April, 5:00 p.m.: Susan Crane (Columbia University) "What
is a Werewolf? Of Man and Animal and the Lay of Bisclavret." A
lecture at Boston College co-sponsored by the Department of Romance
Languages and Literatures and the Department of English. Boston
College (140 Commonwealth Ave., Chestnut Hill), Devlin 101.

Thursday, 17 April, 6:00 p.m.: Judith Herrin (King's College London)
"Seventh Century Christians and their Pagan Predecessors." Harvard
University, Humanities Center, Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy
Street, Cambridge, MA. A James Loeb Lecture sponsored by the
Department of the Classics.

Monday, 28 April, 4:15 p.m.: Cornelia Horn (Department of Theological
Studies, St. Louis University): "Multiformity of Apocrypha in
Byzantine and Early Islamic Traditions and the Making of Mary's
Book." The Annual Dumbarton Oaks Lecture, sponsored by the Committee
on Medieval Studies. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar,
Harvard University. Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 114, 12
Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA.

Thursday, 8 May, 4:30 p.m.: Monica Green (Arizona State University)
"Why Women Can't Be Doctors: The Medieval Origins of Women's Marginal
Status in Medicine." Harvard Medical School, Countway Library, Minot
Room (fifth floor).

CONFERENCES AND CALLS FOR PAPERS

14-15 March 2008: Power and Patronage in the Middle Ages: Centre for
Medieval Studies Annual Conference. University of Toronto. Any
inquiries can be directed to medieval.conference@utoronto.ca.

3-5 April 2008: "From Ignorance to Knowledge": Recognition from
Antiquity to the Postmodern and Beyond: 19th Annual Gradaute
Conference. The Centre for Comparative Literature, The University of
Toronto. This conference will explore the central theme of
recognition in a wide range of historical periods, regional
locations, and literary traditions. The Conference Committee invites
proposals from graduate students and all researchers on any topic
within the broad scope of this conference's central theme. Please
send a 500-word abstract as a Microsoft Word attachment no later than
1 October 2007 to recognition2008@gmail.com. Include any requests for
technical support and your CV stating your affiliations and listing
your degrees, publications, and recent positions if applicable. For
more information, please visit the colloquium webpage at
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/complit/colloquium.html.

3-5 April 2008: Medieval Academy of America 2008 Annual Meeting.
Hyatt Regency, Vancouver, BC. Hosted by the University of British
Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Victoria.
This is a joint meeting with the Medieval Association of the Pacific
and will coincide with the annual meetings of the UBC Medieval
Workshop and the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society. For more
information see:
http://www.medievalacademy.org/annualmeetings/annualmeetingcurrent.htm.

5 April 2008: Coming Together: Taverns, Leisure, and Public Gathering
in the Middle Ages: Princeton University Graduate Conference in
Medieval Studies. The Program in Medieval Studies at Princeton
University invites graduate students to submit paper proposals for
its annual graduate conference. We are pleased to announce this
year's keynote speaker, Margot Fassler, Robert Tangeman Professor of
Music History and Liturgy at Yale University. Opening with an address
by Professor Fassler on the Gamblers' Mass and liturgical parody in
the Carmina Burana collection, the conference invites students to
re-think the concepts of work and play and to study the different
ways in which public gatherings were woven into the social fabric of
the Middle Ages. 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: taverns and inns;
harvest boons; social and performative aspects of folklore or courtly
poetry; compositional play in literary, musical, or visual art;
hunting; liturgical drama; holy days; eating and feasting;
tournaments; games and sports; rustic mirth. In order to encourage
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. Please note that financial
assistance is not available for every participant; a committee will
assign subsidies to students who have the farthest distance 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 7 January 2008 to Jamie Kreiner
(jkreiner@princeton.edu) and Chris Kurpiewski
(ckurpiew@princeton.edu).

7-9 April 2008: From Magnificat to Magnificence. The Aesthetics of
Grandeur: Medieval Art, Architecture, Literature, and Music. A
Symposium in the Series "Art and Its Effects in the Middle Ages"
A conference sponsored by the Program in Medieval Studies, the School
of Music, the School of Languages, Cultures and Literatures, and the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. Organizers: Emma Dillon, Music, University of
Pennsylvania; Beth Williamson, Art History, University of Bristol; C.
Stephen Jaeger, German and Comparative Literature, University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. All sessions will take place on the
Urbana campus in the Illini Union, 1401 West Green Street, Urbana,
IL, Room 209. Registration is not required. Attendees who wish to be
included in arranged meals, please contact Stephen Jaeger
(csjaeger@uiuc.edu) at least one week in advance. Lunch $10, Banquet
$35. Free and open to the public.

17-20 April 2008: Celtic Studies Association of North America Annual
Meeting, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York. Invited speakers
include Dylan Foster Evans (University of Wales, Cardiff) and Roisin
McLaughlin (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies).

25-26 April 2008: "The Secular Realm in the Age of Faith": The 29th
Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum. Plymouth StateUniversity,
Plymouth, NH. Sessions not necessarily limited to the central topic.
Proposals for papers/sessions are due 15 January 2008. For full
information, call for papers, and registration, please see
http://www.plymouth.edu/medieval and/or contact Dr. Naomi Kline, MSC
21, Plymouth State University, Plymouth, New Hampshire 03264,
nkline@mail.plymouth.edu.

25-26 April 2008: "Venus and the Venereal: Interpretations and
Representations from Classical Antiquity Through the Eighteenth
Century." The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at
Binghamton University invites papers for a conference to be held on
the Binghamton University campus. We welcome papers on any area
concerning Venus/Aphrodite--goddess, planet, allegorical figure,
etc.--from ancient times into the eighteenth century. The conference
organizers encourage submissions from scholars working in a broad
range of disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. Proposals for
individual papers should be no more than 500 words in length, and may
be sent either as an attachment in Microsoft Word format or as text
within an email message to cemers@binghamton.edu. Those wishing to
submit a hard copy should forward it to: CEMERS [ATTN.: Venus
Conference], Binghamton University, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, NY
13902-6000. We also welcome proposals for integrated panels. Panel
organizers are asked to send a brief statement of the organizing
principle of the panel, as well as abstracts, names, and affiliations
of each participant. A panel should consist of no more than three
papers, each of which will be twenty minutes in length. Selected
refereed papers will be published in Acta, a journal of the Center
for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Please submit abstracts by
Friday, November 30, 2007.

17 May 2008: Metamorphosis: The Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon,
Norse and Celtic. Room GR06-7, Faculty of English, University of
Cambridge. CCASNC is a graduate conference which covers the language
and literature, the history and archaeology, the culture and cultural
legacy of the medieval period of British Isles and Scandinavia.
Abstract submissions are currently
being accepted from MA, Mphil, and PhD students. The deadline is
March 31, 2008. The keynote speaker will be Daniel Huws, whose talk
will be “From Song to Script in Late Medieval Wales.” Contact: CCASNC
Committee at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, 9 West
Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DP. E-mail: ccasnc@yahoo.co.uk. For more
information and registration forms, see
http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/ccasnc.htm

5-8 June 2008: Medieval Relativism and Its Legacy, 1230 to 1450.
Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France. This
interdisciplinary conference seeks to investigate the resistance to
and spread of relativistic modes of thought and expression during the
later Middle Ages, from the first surviving Latin commentaries on
Aristotle's Metaphysics to the development of linear perspective in
art. In particular, we are interested in papers that focus on
relativistic ideas in theological, scientific, ethical and literary
works, as well as in the visual arts. For more information, please go
to our website (http://www.bowdoin.edu/conferences/mrl-2008/) or
contact either Dallas G. Denery II (ddenery@bowdoin.edu) or
Christophe Grellard (Christophe.Grellard@univ-paris1.fr).

19-21 June 2008: The Oral, The Written, and Other Verbal Media:
Interfaces and Audiences: A Conference and Festival. University of
Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. For full details, see
http://www.usask.ca/english/news/Orality%20CFP.pdf. The first
international, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and
trans-historical conference and festival focusing on the interface of
the oral and the written. In keeping with the plentitude of modes and
forms of oral and textual discourse, the organizers will welcome
diverse modes of presentation, including, but not limited to, oral
performances, academic talks and panels, readers' theatre (dramatized
readings of scholarly dialogues), workshops, and projects-in-process
sessions. Our goal is to generate conversations among performers,
audiences, and scholars, including graduate students, from a wide
range of academic disciplines, cultures, and historical periods, and
to foster opportunities for collaboration among those interested in
speech and other voicings on the page. Because Saskatoon is located
in a territory highly populated with Indigenous peoples whose oral
traditions are still vital and developing, the festival will
highlight Aboriginal performers in a Crow Hop Cafe featuring
storytelling, Indigenous Hip Hop, music, an other oral performances.
For full details, see http://www.usask.ca/english/news/Orality
CFP.pdf. Inquiries to either Professor Susan Gingell, Department of
English, University of Saskatchewan, sag178@mail.usask.ca, or
Professor Neal Mcleod, Department of Indigenous Studies, First
People's House of Learning, Peter Gzowski College,
nealmcleod@trentu.ca.

24-26 June 2008: Blood in Medieval France: Fifth Annual Symposium of
the International Medieval Society, Paris. Paris, France. Keynote
speaker: Miri Rubin (Queen Mary, University of London). The
International Medieval Society of Paris (IMS-Paris) is soliciting
abstracts for individual papers and proposals for complete sessions
for its 2008 Symposium organized around the theme of "Blood in
medieval France." Blood had profound but multivalent significance in
medieval culture. As recent work has shown, it could variously serve
as a sign of life, or of death; a marker or status, or of shame; and
a signifier of holiness, or of culpability. This symposium will offer
a multi-disciplinary venue in which to consider the diversity of
blood's meanings and function in France and as it relates to the
broader European context from c. 500 to c. 1500. Papers might address
such topics as: the iconography of blood; blood libel and European
Jewry; lineage and genealogy; violence, including warfare and the
Crusades; the blood of Christ, which might encompass such issues as
the Eucharist, the wounds of Christ, and even the Grail; blood relics
and the stigmata; blood in the history of medicine, including humoral
theory, blood-letting, and menstruation; as well as narratives,
hagiographies and musical, artistic or architectural productions
related to blood. Critical and historiographic papers treating
scholarship on the subject of blood will also be welcome. Papers
should address France, Francia, or post-Roman Gaul in some way, but
they need not be exclusively limited to this geographic area. We
encourage submissions from a variety of disciplines. Abstracts of no
more than 300 words for a 20-minute paper should be e-mailed to
contact@ims-paris.org no later than 15 January 2008. In addition to
the abstract, please submit full contact information, a CV, and a
tentative assessment of any audiovisual equipment required for your
presentation. For more information, please visit: www.ims-paris.org.

11-13 July 2008: Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium,
University of Cambridge. Chronicles are a fertile area of academic
research focusing on a genre of historical literature written mainly
in a time before departments of English and History had yet come into
existence. The Cambridge International Chronicle Symposium is an
interdisciplinary conference organized to promote research and to
strengthen the network of chronicle studies worldwide. The aim of the
Cambridge ICS is to allow scholars from various departments of
learning and critical approaches to meet, present new research,
demonstrate new critical approaches and discuss prospects for
ongoing, collective research between scholars and academic
institutions. The symposium will take place over two and a half days
beginning on the afternoon of July 11 at the English Faculty
Building, 9 West Road, Cambridge. The structure of the following days
takes the form of open sessions organized according to period and
theme. Papers read at the conference will be strictly limited to
twenty minutes in length and sessions will be chaired by academics in
the field. For information, registration, accommodation, conference
programme, http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/cics-cfp.htm. If you have
questions, contact Cambridge ICS, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse
and Celtic, 9 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DP; fax: 01223 335092;
e-mail: CambridgeICS@gmail.com.

13-16 July 2008: The Age of Gower 1408/2008: The First International
Congress of the John Gower Society. Queen Mary and Westfield College,
Mile End. The year 2008 marks the 600th anniversary of John Gower's
death. To commemorate this event, the John Gower Society, in
conjunction with Cardiff University, Queen Mary and Westfield
College, University of London, and Southwark Cathedral, announce the
First International Congress of the John Gower Society. Sessions will
be held on the campus of Queen Mary and Westfield College, Mile End.
Meals and housing accommodations will also be available on campus.
For more information, http://www.johngower.org/conference/index.html.

21 to 25 July 2008: The 5th International Conference on the Medieval
Chronicle. Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK. Presented by the
Institute of Byzantine Studies within the School of History and
Anthropology of Queen’s University Belfast. The format of this the
fifth conference will follow in broad outline the previous four
conferences. The aim is to allow scholars who work on the various
aspects of the medieval chronicle (historical, literary,
art-historical) to meet, announce new findings, present new
methodologies and discuss the prospects for collaborative research.
The main themes of the conference are: 1. Chronicle: history or
literature? 2. The the chronicle 3. The form of the chronicle 4. The
chronicle and the ‘reality’ of the past 5. Art and Text in the
chronicle Papers in English, French or German are invited on any
aspect of Medieval Chronicle [If you would like to give a paper but
feel unable to present a paper in any of the three main conference
languages, please contact the conference organiser.] The organisers
particularly invite papers which address the relationships between
chronicles in the western (Latin) and eastern (Byzantine Greek)
traditions; papers which address the link between art and text; and
papers which deal with the Polish chronicle traditions. Papers will
be allocated to sections to give coherence and contrast; authors
should identify the main theme to which their paper relates. Papers
read at the conference will be strictly limited to twenty (20)
minutes in length. The deadline for abstracts is 1st February 2008
(maximum length one (1) side A4 paper, including bibliography).
Letters of acceptance of proposed papers will be sent out on or
before St Patrick’s Day [17th March] 2008. Registration will begin on
the afternoon of Monday 21st July 2008. For further information,
please contact: Dr Dion C. Smythe Institute of Byzantine Studies
Queen’s University, Belfast BELFAST N. Ireland BT7 1NN UK
dionsmythe@hotmail.com Traditionally the Conference has been well
executed and attracts a very high standard of presentations. Papers
selected from the Medieval Chronicle Conference are published in a
journal by Rodopi. Programme available at
http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/cics-cfp.htm

28-29 October 2008: Translating the Middle Ages: An International
Conference sponsored by the Programs in Medieval Studies and Center
for Translation Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Call for papers: We invite submissions for papers on the theory and
practice of translation in the Middle Ages, including textual and
visual translation. Who translates what, how and why, and to what
effect? Papers may address, for example, genre and translation
(poetic translations, romance, hagiography, chronicle, scientific, or
biblical texts--what gets translated), the cultural context of
translation (patronage, circulation, gender, canon formation--who
translates for whom), or the practice of translation in the Middle
Ages (dictionaries, the transition from manuscript to print, the
voice of the translator--how is translation performed in the Middle
Ages). The scope is interpreted broadly to include Europe, Iceland,
Byzantium and the Islamic Mediterranean. Featured speakers include
Christopher Kleinhenz, Brian Merrilees, Rita Copeland, Jeanette Beer,
Lars Boje Mortensen, Catherine Batt, and Aden Kumler. An evening
event will focus on translations of medieval texts and culture by two
renowned contemporary authors who will read from the discuss their
work: W.S. Merwin, poet and translator of Dante's Purgatorio and
former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky, translator of Dante's
Inferno. Participants will submit completed papers by 1 October to be
circulated to the other members of their panel. Selected papers will
be published in a volume. Deadline for receipt of abstracts (300
words): 15 April. Notification of acceptance by 15 May. Send
abstracts and inquiries to: Karen Fresco, Director, Program in
Medieval Studies, kfresco@uiuc.edu.

14-15 November 2008: Global Encounters: Legacies of Exchange and
Conflict (1000-1700). University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Call
for papers: The new Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies
(MEMS) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, seeks papers
from scholars in a wide variety of disciplines. Papers dealing with
topics of cultural mediation, interchange, and conflict are
especially welcome. Possible areas of geographical concentration
include Europe, the Atlantic world, the Mediterranean, the Middle
East, Africa, and Asia. Key-note addresses will be offered by
Professor Karen Ordahl Kupperman (Silver Professor of History, New
York University), and by Professor Alfred J. Andrea (Professor
Emeritus of History, University of Vermont). The deadline for paper
proposals is 1 April 2008. Proposals should include a title, a 250
word abstract, a brief (two-page maximum) C.V., and full contact
information. Proposals should be submitted to MEMS Organizing
Committee, c/o Professor Brett Whalen, chair (bwhalen@email.unc.edu).
This conference is supported by: the College of Arts and Sciences;
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Program in Medieval and Early
Modern Studies at UNC; Associate Provost for International Affairs,
UNC Chapel Hill; the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
Duke University.

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The Committee on Medieval Studies
Harvard University
201 Robinson Hall
Cambridge, MA 02138.
tel: 617 495 8993
fax: 617 496 3425
http://medieval.fas.harvard.edu/