The Week's News

Texas researchers reveal secrets of a medieval Spanish altarpiece


Professor and author receives prestigious medieval studies award


Oil painting 'originated in East'


The Great Escape


and the antidote at In the Middle blog

A Distant Mirror

Ancient timbers restored by sugar

Time Team archaeologists dig deep to find ancient village

Germanic invaders 'did not bring apartheid' to Anglo Saxon Britain

AND

Germanic invaders may not have ruled by apartheid

Vikings acquitted in 100-year-old murder mystery

ANGLO-SAXON MOUND FIND IN SHERWOOD FOREST

VIKING ARCHAEOLOGY DIG IN SHERWOOD FOREST

Hoo goes there at Diss bookshop?

FIND COULD BE MEDIEVAL STAGE DOOR FOR SATAN


Remains found at toll road site

Stalemate for Lewis chessmen

Boy, 9, and grandfather find medieval silver treasure in Sweden

Medieval Academy 2009

Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting, Chicago, March 26-28, 2009.

The Medieval Academy of America invites paper proposals for its annual
meeting in Chicago, March 26-28, 2009. Among the topics, please note
“Matters of Exchange: Byzantine Art and the Mediterranean” (Organizer:
Cecily J. Hilsdale, Northwestern University).

The deadline for proposals is May 15, 2008; Proposals should be submitted,
in two copies, to Barbara Newman, Dept. of English, University Hall 215,
1897 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, IL 60208-2240. Full submission
guidelines are available from the Medieval Academy web site
(http://www.medievalacademy.org/). For further information, please
contact Cecily Hilsdale (cjhilsda@northwestern.edu).

Medieval Art Sessions

The International Center for Medieval Art will sponsor a session on
“Byzantine art as medieval lingua franca” for the College Art
Association Annual Conference in Los Angeles, February 25-28, 2009.

PROPOSALS DUE MAY 9, 2008

Session Statement:

In the Middle Ages the Byzantine formal idiom became a major lingua
franca, one that crossed conflicted geo-political borders and was employed
by neighboring, and often competing, cultures. This session explores how
visual aspects of Byzantium were exported to and/or adopted by other
medieval cultures. Papers will explore the circulation of Byzantine
artistic traditions (styles, iconographies, techniques, and objects).
Papers are invited to question the specific process of artistic
circulation as a means of affiliation, emulation, and legitimation.
Scholars working on all periods and areas of medieval art and architecture
are encouraged to submit abstracts. Possible topics include but are not
limited to the use of Byzantine traditions by such diverse courts/contexts
as the Visigothic, Umayyad, Ottonian, Ottoman, Norman, Venetian, and
Crusader. Papers addressing the relation of artistic practice to
diplomatic engagement, including gifts and trade of art objects, are also
welcome.

The deadline for proposals is May 9, 2008; please see CAA submission
guidelines (http://conference.collegeart.org/2009/). Please direct all
proposal materials and inquiries to the session chair: Cecily J. Hilsdale,
Northwestern University, Art History Department, 1880 Campus Drive, 3-400
Kresge Hall, Evanston, IL 60208-2208 (cjhilsda@northwestern.edu).

Texts and Contexts 2008

Call for Papers
Texts and Contexts: A conference at The Ohio State University,
sponsored by The Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies.

October 31 - November 1, 2008

The conference seeks to investigate the textual traditions of various
texts and genres, including texts in classical Latin, mediaeval
Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and the vernaculars. Preference
will be given to those abstracts which deal with newly discovered
texts and their manuscript settings, or which present new
perspectives on established textual traditions. We encourage graduate
students and newly established scholars to submit their work.

Plenary speaker: Keith Busby, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Please send abstracts to Professor Frank T. Coulson, Director of
Palaeography, 190 Pressey Hall, 1070 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210
or by email at epig@osu.edu.

Deadline for submission: August 15, 2008.

Patristic Carnival

I missed this earlier this month, I think: http://uperekperisou.blogspot.com/2008/04/patristics-carnival-x.html

News of the Week

ARCHAEOLOGISTS DIG UP MEDIEVAL ARROW HEAD AT BATTLE ABBEY

Dig team finds medieval gateway


Bejeweled Anglo-Saxon Burial Suggests Cult


Medieval ‘head’ discovered at dig

Medieval brooch unearthed in field


Bay could reveal Viking secrets


Digs reveal Anglo-Saxon settlements

A barbed compliment to the power of medieval warfare


European history in cod bones


Italy: Plague victims discovered after 1500 years


Rare artefact stolen from church

Only copy of sacred book from the 15th century to go on public display

Czech medieval crown jewels go on rare display


The Art of the Hunt, as Practiced Way Back When


Treasure hunter unearths ancient ring

Digital Resources for Humanities & Arts

> Dear all, with apologies for any cross posting, please note that
> the annual conference 'Digital Resources for Humanities & Arts' is
> taking place in Cambridge this year, from 14-17th September. The
> call for papers is now open - closing date 30th April - and details
> can be found at http://www.rsd.cam.ac.uk/drha08/.
>
> The aim of the conference is to: * Establish a site for mutually
> creative exchanges of knowledge. * Promote discussion around new
> collaborative environments and collective knowledge. * Encourage
> and celebrate the connections and tensions within the liminal
> spaces that exist between the Arts and Humanities. * Redefine
> disciplinary boundaries * Create a forum for debate around notions
> of the 'solitary' and the collaborative across the Arts and
> Humanities. * Explore the impact of the Arts and Humanities on ICT:
> design and narrative structures and visa versa.
>
> Please forward to any colleagues who might be interested. Many thanks
>
> Tamsin Pert
> Cambridge university
-- Dr Christopher Burlinson
Emmanuel College
Cambridge

edieval Association of the Pacific's Founder's Prize

As Chair of the Founder's Prize Committee and a Member of the Board of Councillors of MAP, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind those of you about the Medieval Association of the Pacific's Founder's Prize, which is open to graduate students who have presented papers at the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America last week in Vancouver, BC, and and who are members of the Medieval Academy and Medieval Association of the Pacific (MAP) in good standing.

If you presented your work at the joint MAA/MAP meeting in 2008, please do consider submitting your paper for consideration for the prize, which includes a monetary award as well as two publication opportunities: the winner's paper is guaranteed publication in MAP's Chronica and may also be submitted for publication consideration in Commitatus. The deadline for receipt of submissions will be in May. Papers should include all notes and be in polished form. More details along with a further announcement will be forthcoming. Please spread the word!

If you were unable to attend this year's MAA meeting, please remember that those of you who present your work at next year's meeting and who are members of the MAA and MAP in good standing, may submit your completed papers for consideration in next year's prize competition (deadline shortly after the 2009 meeting).

More information about MAP may be found at the following URL: http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/map/.

Please write to me at sjdudash@yahoo.com (off list) with any questions. I look forward to reading your submissions.

With my best wishes,
Susan

Susan J. Dudash
Assistant Professor of French, Medieval Studies
Fordham University and
Chair, Founder's Prize Committee and Board of Councillors,
Medieval Association of the Pacific

Moneta

The website Moneta (Moneta bvba <http://www.cultura-net.com/moneta>)
is updated with new pdf text, free to dowmload, mainly concerning
Celtic and Roman coins or achaeology.

The volume "moneta # 75" is now available.

Best wishes

Georges Depeyrot


Georges Depeyrot, CRH, CNRS, Paris

CFP

CALL FOR PAPERS

Religion, Society and Participation
PASSAGES FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MIDDLE AGES IV
August, 20-22, 2009, University of Tampere, Finland

Organized by: Trivium Centre for Classical, Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, Department of History and Philosophy, University of Tampere
in collaboration with the Finnish Historical Society and the
Classical Association of Finland
Abstract deadline: October 1, 2008

The fourth international Passages-conference focuses on religion in
its social context. Religion is seen as an active, ongoing process
involving society and community. We welcome papers which focus on
different religious acts and actors - communities, families or
individuals - and with sensitive approach to social differences:
gender, age and status. Important themes in the conference are the
differences and similarities between elite culture and popular
religion in Classical and Medieval society.
The conference aims at broad coverage not only chronologically
but also geographically and disciplinary (all branches of Classical
and Medieval Studies). We strongly encourage contributions from a
comparative and/or interdisciplinary perspective.

The conference will concentrate on:

* Religious rituals in everyday life
* Writing and reading religion vs. oral religious culture
* Devotional groups and their functions in society
* Official and nonofficial religious practices and practitioners
* Gendered participation
* Forms of devoted life: e.g. living as devoted child/man/ woman/couple
* Sacrifice and self sacrifice

A one-page abstract (setting out thesis and conclusions and
containing name, academic affiliation, postal adress, e-mail) should
be submitted preferably by mail-attachment to the conference
secretary, passages@uta.fi., or to the address below. The deadline
for abstracts is October, 1. 2008, decisions on the acceptance of
papers will be made in December 2008. Presentation of conference
papers preferably in English, although papers in other major
scientific languages are accepted if provided with English summary or
translation. Registration fee for all those attending or
participating: 60 ? (post-graduate students: 30 ?). For further
information, please contact passages@uta.fi or visit
http://www.uta.fi/trivium/ (see there also for information on
previous Passages-conferences).

On behalf of the Organizing Committee
Prof. Christian Krötzl & Assoc.Prof. Katariina Mustakallio
Department of History and Philosophy, FIN - 33014 University of
Tampere, Finland

There and Back Again

There and Back Again: Re-fashioning Journey and Place in the Middle Ages

An interdisciplinary symposium at Balliol College, Oxford, 7th June 2008
Confirmed speakers include Colin Morris (Southampton), John Blair (Oxford), John Hines (Cardiff), Kathryn Rudy (The Hague)

Images, imagination and the written word shaped medieval perceptions of the world just as much as direct experience and observation. By writing their own accounts, pilgrim authors re-encoded holy writ into a new framework of the holy places. Secular writings, architectural recreations of faraway buildings and artistic representations of journeys in illuminated manuscripts fed ideas about the world 'out there', while bringing the 'out there' very much into the realm of the 'right here'. Likewise, images, sagas, ballads, and travellers' tales changed, and were changed by, real-world experience.

This one-day symposium will bring together scholars in several disciplines to discuss how those throughout the middle ages chose to portray the reality they encountered—and constructed—through travel, whether in their own journeys or in journeys made by others.

Topics discussed will include:

journeys in literature
virtual pilgrimage
images and art
architecture and the Holy Sepulchre in the West

The day will also include a session held in the thirteenth–century shrine of St Frideswide in Christ Church Cathedral, reconstructed in 2002.

Organisers: Kathryne Beebe, Laura Varnam, Bernard Gowers.

Please check out the website,

www.medieval.ox.ac.uk/tab

BSB: Codices iconographici

I would like to draw your attention tho the recently-completed
project of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich to catalogue and
digitize its holdings of early modern Codices iconographici
(pictorial manuscripts with little or no explanatory text):
http://www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs/laufende_projekte.htm
or directly at:
http://mdzx.bib-bvb.de/codicon/start.html

Within the project, 117 manuscripts dating from the 15th to mid-17th
centuries were catalogued and made available in digital reproduction
online. Further information on the collection, which currently
comprises c. 550 items, is provided from the inventory drawn up by
Johann Andreas Schmeller in the early 19th century, which was
converted into full electronic text.

The manuscripts were described by Dr. Marianne Reuter, who
characterizes the collection as follows:

"The items contained in this is pictorial "Realienkunde" date from
the 15th to 20th century with particular focus on the 16th to 19th
centuries. The places of origin are rarely known. With regard to the
provenances, the ducal and princely collections of the Munich and
Mannheim courts form the basis with 30 and 60 manuscripts
respectively. Some of the oldest items were already part of the
Munich court library at its foundation by Duke Albrecht Vth of
Bavaria in 1558. This includes the so-called "Kleinodienbuch"
(depictions of jewellery owned by the dukes, Cod.icon. 429), which
was recently also made available in facsimile:
Das Kleinodienbuch der Herzogin Anna von Bayern. Handschrift
Cod.icon. 429 der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München. Faksimile und
Kommentar in russischer und deutscher Sprache mit Beiträgen von Kurt
Löcher, Marianne Reuter, Irmhild Schäfer, Lorenz Seelig und Stefanie
Walker. Kindler Verlag Berlin 2008.

18 volumes come from the library of Johann Jakob Fugger at Augsburg,
which was acquired by Duke Albrecht Vth in 1571 and also comprised
the library of the Nuremberg humanist Hartmann Schedel (the author of
the 'Nuremberg chronicle'). Among the items from Mannheim are 4
manuscripts from the electoral library at Düsseldorf and 7 from the
collection of the Florentine humanist Petrus Victorius (died 1585)
and his descendants, which Elector Karl Theodor bought in 1779 in
Rome and which were transferred to Munich with the Mannheim court
library partly in 1783 and finally in 1803.

A further c. 20 items have been identified as formerly owned by
monasteries and another 6 from the city library of Regensburg, having
been transferred to Munich after the dissolution of monasteries in
the early 19th century. Subsequently, the collection was also
increased by purchases like the Parisian collection of the
orientalist Quatremère and the Augsburg collection of the banker Paul
Joseph von Cobres. Further noteworthy owners include Andreas Felix
Oefele, Anton Johann Lipowsky, Maximilian Joseph Graf Montgelas, the
travellers to South America Johann Baptist Spix and Carl Friedrich
Philipp von Martius, the architects Haller von Hallerstein and
Friedrich von Gärtner. For some 19th-century items, additional
materials are kept in the BSB's collection of modern papers (e.g.
Klenziana, Schlagintweitiana, Zieblandiana)."

Some prominent examples of this unusual collection, e.g. the globes
by Philipp Apian, can at the moment be seen at the exhiibition to
celebrate the 450th anniversary of the BSB and have been described in
the exhibition catalogue:
http://www.450jahre-bsb.de/

Library Position

VATICAN FILM LIBRARY RARE MATERIALS CATALOG LIBRARIAN

Saint Louis University, a Catholic, Jesuit university dedicated to
student learning, research, health care, and service invites
applications for the position of Rare Materials Catalog Librarian in
the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library, a unit in the
Department of Special Collections of Pius XII Memorial Library. For
information about the Vatican Film Library, please see
http://www.slu.edu/libraries/vfl/index.html.

BACKGROUND
The Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library is an internationally
recognized research library for medieval and Renaissance manuscript
studies that holds microfilm copies of 37,000 manuscripts from the
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, comprising major portions of the
Latin, Greek, and Western European vernacular collections, as well as
manuscripts from the Hebrew, Arabic, and Ethiopic collections. The
library additionally holds microfilm copies of 2,500 manuscripts, as
well as 52,000 color slides of manuscript illumination, from a
variety of other libraries. The library maintains an extensive
reference collection of manuscript catalogs, monographs, facsimiles,
and serial literature to support manuscript research, particularly in
the areas of paleography, codicology, illumination, and editing and
textual transmission.

The Vatican Film Library supports several important public programs.
Since 1957 it has published Manuscripta, a scholarly journal for
medieval and Renaissance manuscript studies. Since 1974 it has
organized the annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, an
international two-day conference on all aspects of manuscript
research. It also offers a fellowship program for visiting scholars
to make use of its collections. The Vatican Film Library is an active
participant in graduate and undergraduate education at Saint Louis
University and works closely with the University’s Center for
Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

DUTIES
Under supervision of the Director of the Vatican Film Library, and in
coordination with the Technical Services Department, has primary
responsibility for bibliographic control and original cataloging of
the library’s medieval and Renaissance manuscripts on microfilm in
OCLC and the local (Innovative Interfaces) integrated library system.
Prepares full MARC21 descriptive cataloging records using AMREMM.
Assigns subject and form/genre headings according to national
standards and local practices. Performs authority control,
establishing and revising author/title headings in the LC/NACO
Authority File according to NACO policies. Performs ILS and other
department database maintenance for manuscripts on microfilm, as well
as for an extensive print reference collection on manuscript studies.
Performs original bibliographical and textual research on manuscripts
as needed. Keeps abreast of other ongoing and developing
electronic/online cataloging projects for medieval and Renaissance
manuscripts world-wide.

QUALIFICATIONS
Required
• Master’s degree from an ALA-accredited library and information
science program
• M.A. in relevant area of classical, medieval, or Renaissance studies
• At least two years’ MARC21 cataloging experience, using some
combination of AACR2R, AMREMM, DCRB, or DCRM(B)
• Knowledge of Library of Congress subject headings and genre/form analysis
• Reading knowledge of Latin, and either French, German, or Italian
• Must work with accuracy and attention to detail
Preferred
• Previous background or training in medieval manuscript studies
• Knowledge of scholarly manuscript cataloging conventions
• Reading knowledge of Greek
• Experience with NACO contribution

RANK/GRADE
Assistant Professor, annually renewable, 12-month non-tenure track
appointment.

SALARY AND BENEFITS
$42,000 minimum; starting salary commensurate with qualifications and
experience; Attractive benefits including retirement programs,
insurance, tuition remission, vacation, and paid holidays.

TO APPLY
Interested candidates must submit a cover letter, application,
current curriculum vitae, and list of references to
http://slu.jobs.edu. Please refer to Requisition Number 20080169.
Full job description posted at
http://libraries.slu.edu/libinfo/position/vflcatlibn03_08.html.
Review of applications will begin on May 15, 2008, and will continue
until position is filled. All other correspondence regarding this
position can be sent to Search Committee – VFL Rare Materials Catalog
Librarian, Saint Louis University, Pius XII Memorial Library, 3650
Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108.

Saint Louis University is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity
Employer (AA/EOE) and encourages nominations of and applications from
women and minorities.

-- Gregory A. Pass
Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections
Director, Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library
Editor, Manuscripta
Pius XII Memorial Library
Saint Louis University
3650 Lindell Boulevard
St. Louis, Missouri 63108
Tel. (314) 977-3096 / Fax (314) 977-3108
passga@slu.edu

HNistory Dept. Chair; Emory

The Department of History at Emory University invites nominations and
applications for the newly endowed Betty Gage Holland Chair in Roman
History. The department seeks an outstanding scholar with a
distinguished record of publication, teaching, and service. Scholars
at the level of full professor in all periods of Roman history,
including Late Antiquity, are welcome to apply. Ability to contribute
to both the undergraduate and graduate programs in ancient history is
required. A letter of application, c.v., and the names and addresses
of three referees should be sent to James L. Roark, Chair, Department
of History, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322. Review of
applications will begin in August. Emory University is an EEO/AA
employer.

Call for Papers

34th Annual Meeting: Southeastern Medieval Association
Bodies, Embodiments, Becomings
2-4 October 2008
Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri


Call for Papers: due May 30

In his book Medieval Identity Machines, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen writes that
we know the human body "is divisible into semidiscrete systems (nervous,
digestive, circulatory, excretory, reproductive), but that these
structures nevertheless form a bounded whole, a singular organism. The
human body is therefore described as a marvel of God or of evolution, a
system so autnomous from its environment that it can dream theology and
science in order to envision how it came to be the culminating creation in
a world of similarly distinct bodies and objects." But what if the body is
less than this idealization and also "more than its limbs, organs, and
flesh as traced by an anatomical chart"? What if it is "open and
permeable," and what if "corporeality and subjectivity--themselves
inseparable--potentially included both the social structures (kinship,
nation, religion, race) and the phenomenal world (objects, gadgets,
prostheses, animate and inanimate bodies of many kinds) across which human
identity is spread?" Cohen urges us to see bodies as "sites of
possibility" that are "necessarily dispersed into something larger,
something mutable and dynamic, a structure of alliance and becoming," and
which are always on the verge of escaping "the confines of somber
individuality" in order to connect with other bodies and other worlds.
Therefore, there is no "being," per se, only "becoming."

For the 34th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association, we
invite paper and session proposals on any topic relative to the Middle
Ages, but we especially encourage those proposals that address any and all
aspects of the body, embodiment, and becoming in medieval arts and
letters. Consider our definition of body to be wide open, to include human
and nonhuman bodies, bodies of language and manuscripts and texts, bodies
of history, bodies of knowledge, and bodies (of all types) as sites of
transformation and possibility, of departures and arrivals, of enclosure
and openness. Consider, also, if you will, the gendered body, the
racialized body, the phenomenological body, the sexualized body, the
colonial body, the medicalized body, the pathologized body, the animal
body, the erotic body, the loving body, the spiritual body, the abnormal
body, the medieval body, the communal body, the hybrid body, the
post/human body, and so on. Consider the relationships between body and
self-identity, between body and art, between body and mind, body and
culture, body and technology, body and world, and so on. Consider,
finally, the ways in which bodies and embodiment emerge out of historical
times and spaces, and out of historical processes of becoming
(coming-to-be through time and space).

Deadline for Submission: Friday, 30 May 2008

Send Paper or Session Abstracts to:

Eileen Joy
Department of English
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
ejoy@siue.edu

*Submissions must be made via email.

Plenary Speakers

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington University (author and editor: Of
Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages; The Postcolonial Middle Ages;
Medieval Identity Machines; Thinking the Limits of the Body; and Identity,
Hybridity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles)

Steven F. Kruger, Queens College, CUNY Graduate Center (author and editor:
Queering the Middle Ages; AIDS Narratives: Gender and Sexuality, Fiction
and Science; Dreaming in the Middle Ages; Approaching the Millennium:
Essays on Angels in America; and The Spectral Jew: Conversion and
Embodiment in Medieval Europe)


For more information, go to:

http://www.siue.edu/babel/SEMA2008CallForPapers.htm

Nestorian Material online

Mark DelCogliano translated into English the second and third letters
that Nestorius wrote to Pope Celestine (published in the original in
Loofs, "Nestoriana") a couple of years ago. As far as I know no other
translation in English exists.

He has very kindly sent them to me, for upload onto the web, and has
also kindly placed them in the public domain so everyone can use them
freely.

The translations are here:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/nestorius_two_letters_01.htm

Some News from BABEL

FIRST, the special issue of "Journal of Narrative Theory" [v. 37, no. 2],
"Premodern to Modern Humanisms: The BABEL Project" is now available
for viewing and downloading at Project Muse:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_narrative_theory/toc/jnt37.2.html

SECOND, the formerly-behemoth and now recently slimmed-down BABEL
essay volume,"Fragments For a History of a Vanishing Humanism," is going forward with Ohio State University Press, and the prospectus and table of contents can be viewed
here:

http://www.siue.edu/babel/ProspectusFragmentsVolume.htm

THIRD, BABEL has two organized roundtable sessions at Kalamazoo this
year, "What Is the Place of the Present in Medieval Studies?" and "Is There a
Theory in the House of Old English Studies?" [plus there is a session organized by Nicola Masciandaro which is very BABEL-y, "Why Am I Me? On Being Born in the Middle
Ages I" which we want to tout here], and more information on those
can be found here:

http://www.siue.edu/babel/Kalamazoo08Panels.htm

FOURTH, along with Saint Louis University and Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville, BABEL is co-hosting the 34th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern
Medieval Association [theme: "Bodies, Embodiments, Becomings"; plenary speakers:
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Steven Kruger] from October 2-4, 2008 [on
the downtown campus of Saint Louis University], and the Call for Papers is here
[be there or forever break our hearts]:

http://www.siue.edu/babel/SEMA2008CallForPapers.htm

FIFTH, as part of her mission to advance [and to keep re-formulating]
the BABEL "mission" in various stealth maneuvers, Eileen recently presented the
so-called "second chapter" of the BABEL manifesto-cum-loveletter at a Medieval
Club of New York-sponsored panel on "The Subjects of Friendship, Medieval and
Medievalist,"and the text of that second chapter can be found here:

http://www.siue.edu/~ejoy/BetweenWhatIsOurs.htm

*The "third chapter" of the so-called BABEL manifesto-cum-love letter will be
presented by Eileen at another event worth advertising here: the 2nd
International Workshop of the Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium (of Princeton,
Columbia, Rutgers, and NYU), to be held on May 23 and 24 at Kings College
London, "Anglo-Saxon Futures 2: About Time," and the program for that can be
found here:

http://www.siue.edu/~ejoy/AngloSaxonFutures2Programme.html

Archaeologies of Byzantium conference

FWD from Veronica Kalas, Wayne State University

The Archaeologies of Byzantium
41st Spring Symposium of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies

School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
4-6th April 2008


This will be the first Spring Symposium directly focused on Byzantine
Archaeology and aims to consider the differing approaches to the
archaeologies of the Byzantine world as well as highlighting some
important discoveries of recent years. It will cover the archaeology of
the Byzantine world from the death of Justinian to the fall of the
city in 1453. We hope to consider how an understanding of material
culture of
Byzantine has been moulded by the differing cultural and national
perspectives of those who have inherited former Byzantine lands,
especially Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria.

Major themes will include:
• Spanning the divide, Archaeology and History
• Nautical Archaeology
• The Archaeologies of Buildings
• National Narratives
• Material world ceramics, coins etc.
• The Borders of Byzantium: Italian and Islamic perspectives
• Technology
• Peoples and Lands: settlement, landscape and geoscience

For more information, including details for registration go to:

http://www.byzantium.ac.uk/frameset_symp41.htm


On Friday 4th April, at 5.30p.m., there will be a public lecture by Dr
Ismail Karamut, Director of the Istanbul Archaeological Museums, who will
talk on the Recent Excavations in the Harbour of Theodosius (Yenikapi) and
the discovery of 27 ancient ships, in Lecture Theatre 270, Old College.
To be followed by a wine reception in F1, F2b, The Old High School,
sponsored by Ashgate Books to view 'Encounters of Arts and Crafts
Architects in Byzantium', an exhibition based on the The Byzantine
Research Fund Archive from the British School at Athens. The exhibition
will be displayed over the three days of the symposium. For the BSA
archive project see:
http://www.bsa.ac.uk/archive/index.htm?brf/main
Posters:
Poster 1 | Poster 2

Bookbinding Conference

the programme of the annual conference organized by the German
'Arbeitskreis Einbandforschung (AEB)' is now available under

http://aeb.sbb.spk-berlin.de

The conference will be held from 25-27 September 2008 in the Herzogin
Anna Amalia Bibliothek Weimar.

More details, hotel information etc. can be found on the website.

Sacred Voices Workshop

As some of you will know, in Newcastle we are currently working on a
digital edition of the extant manuscripts from the medieval library
of the Cistercian nunnery of Medingen (near Hannover, Germany. For a
first glance of the project see http://research.ncl.ac.uk/medingen/,
though at the moment we can't make the material available online due
to copyright issues).

HMML Fellowships

HECKMAN RESEARCH STIPENDS

Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

Collegeville, Minnesota 56321

PURPOSE: For research at the Library

ELIGIBILITY: Graduate students or scholars who are
within three years of completing a terminal master’s
or doctoral degree.

DURATION: Two weeks to six months.

AMOUNTS: Variable up to $2,000.



DEADLINES: Twice a year. April 15 for research
conducted from July 1-December 31. November 15 for
research conducted from January 1-June 30.



APPLICATION: Submit a letter of application, c.v., a
one-page description of the research project including
proposed length of stay, an explanation of how the
Library’s resources will enable you to advance your
project, and a confidential letter of recommendation
from your advisor, thesis director, mentor, or, in the
case of postdoctoral candidates, a colleague who is a
good judge of your work.



SEND: All inquiries and materials to The Committee on
Research, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Box 7300,
Saint John’s University, Collegeville, MN 56321-7300
or directed to hmml@csbsju.edu, or fax (320) 363-3222.




The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library houses extensive
resources for the study of manuscripts and archives.
More than 90,000 manuscripts are available on
microfilm and in digital format. HMML has microfilmed
extensively in Austria, Germany, Spain, Portugal,
Malta, and Ethiopia, and is currently digitizing
manuscripts in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Eastern
Mediterranean. Consult the Library’s website for
further information, including a partial electronic
inventory of its collections and a growing database of
manuscript and book images (Vivarium).



http://www.hmml.org



Hill Museum & Manuscript Library

Saint John's University

Collegeville, MN 56321-7300



Phone: 320-363-2217

Fax: 320-363-3222

www.hmml.org

Digitation Workshop

Digitization of Primary Materials for Medievalists: A Workshop

Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America's Committee on
Electronic Resources
Hosted by the Western Michigan University Libraries' Digitization Center

Friday, May 9, 1:30-5:00

The process of digitization project planning is essential for
endeavors large and small. Every project to digitize medieval primary
sources, whether undertaken by major libraries or by individual
scholars, must take into account issues of legality (can I post these
digital images on the web?), equipment (can I use a flatbed scanner,
or should I use a camera?), specifications (300 or 600 dpi? And what's
dpi??) and metadata standards (what's metadata?). Our seminar,
"Elements of Digitization Project Planning" will describe why a
Digitization Project Plan is essential for every project, and will go
over what each element of a project plan entails. We will discuss the
nine elements of successful project planning, and show resources and
references for developing digitization project plans. Experienced
professionals, including librarians and image experts, will share
their expertise and provide examples of previous successful project
plans. We will also cover other important aspects of digitization
technology, including the methodology and technology of digital
preservation.

Registration is $50 for MAA members and $65 for non-members.
To register, contact Dot Porter at dporter@uky.edu.
Space is limited to 35.


--
***************************************
Dot Porter, University of Kentucky
#####
Program Coordinator
Collaboratory for Research in Computing for Humanities
http://www.rch.uky.edu
Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments
http://www.vis.uky.edu
dporter@uky.edu 859-257-1257 x.82115

Scriptorium

I would like to announce the Phase 1 launch of Scriptorium: Medieval and
Early Modern Manuscripts Online, an AHRC-funded project based at the
Faculty of English, Cambridge University.

http://scriptorium.english.cam.ac.uk

Scriptorium will comprise full digital facsimiles of at least twenty late
medieval and early modern manuscript miscellanies and commonplace books,
along with descriptions, transcriptions and bibliographical information; a
set of research and teaching resources for students and scholars working on
manuscript studies; and an enhanced version of English Handwriting: An
Online Course, our interactive palaeography tool:

http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/

All parts of the site will remain freely and publicly available.

Currently, the resource includes images of St Johns College, Cambridge, MS
S.23, an early seventeenth-century poetic miscellany. More images and
information will be added progressively in the coming weeks and months, as
the site is enhanced, expanded and developed.

We hope that the resource will be useful to the wide scholarly community.


-- Dr Christopher Burlinson
Emmanuel College
Cambridge

Senior Research Associate
Scriptorium: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Online
http://scriptorium.english.cam.ac.uk
Faculty of English
9 West Road
Cambridge

Biblical Carnival

Biblical Carnival is up

Barnard Conference

The Twenty-First Barnard
Medieval and Renaissance Conference

The Shape of Time in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Saturday, 6 December 2008

Barnard College, New York City


A one-day interdisciplinary conference exploring how
time was measured, represented, and imagined in the
Middle Ages and Renaissance. The organizers seek
papers to address a range of topics including the
technology of measuring and organizing time; calendars
and almanacs ; astronomical, natural, and liturgical
models of time; the expression of time in literature,
fine arts, music, theater, historiography, law and
science.

Abstracts of up to one page in length with c.v. should
be sent to the Conference Organizer,

Laurie Postlewate,
Department of French
Barnard College
3009 Broadway
New York, NY 10027

or by email to lpostlew@barnard.edu.

CFP

Call for Papers

26th Annual
Art History Graduate Student Symposium
Florida State University

Keynote Speaker: Pamela Sheingorn, Professor of
History, Medieval Studies, and Theatre at The Graduate
Center, City University of New York


The Art History faculty and graduate students of
Florida State University will host their Twenty-Sixth
Annual Symposium for Graduate Students in the History of
Art on October 17-18, 2008. Graduate students are
invited to present twenty-minute papers which will then be
submitted for publication in Athanor, a nationally
distributed periodical sponsored by the Department of Art
History and the College of Visual Arts, Theatre, and
Dance.

Symposium papers may come from any area of the history
of art, architecture, and photography. Students
working toward an MA or PhD degree may participate.

Deadline for one- to two-page double-spaced abstracts
is September 2, 2008.

Please supply complete contact information (including
email address), an indication of the student’s
graduate level, and the title of the proposed talk. Paper
sessions will take place on Friday afternoon, October
17, and all day Saturday, October 18, with
presentation of the selected papers followed by critical
discussion.


Abstracts should be mailed or faxed to:
Prof. Karen A. Bearor
Graduate Symposium Coordinator
Department of Art History
220-D Fine Arts Building
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1151

From Ansax

John Houghton sent the following to Ansax:

Hi, all--

There was some discussion on the list about a month ago of this
service, held for the reburial (well, placement in an ossuary) of A-S
period skeletons removed from the churchyard.

The complete order of service has been posted here:
http://www.vary.freeuk.com/religion/bonesbarton.html

and there is a photo here:
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/03/requiem-service.html

and, finally, an essay about the whole business and its liturgical
implications here:

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/liturgy/why_liturgy_works_and_why_it_d.php

Boston Area

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.

Tuesdays, 1, 8, & 15 April, 11:00 a.m.: Thomas F. Kelly (Morton B.
Knafel Professor of Music, Harvard University): "A Fine Song and
Dance: Renaissance Music Played, Sung, and Discussed": Three Lectures
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Castiglione's Book of the Courtier
makes it clear that any well-bred courtier should be able to play his
instrument, sing in a group at sight, and dance a fine galliard. We
will consider all those things in this series of live performances
with commentary. Each lecture will feature a distinguished ensemble,
and we will see and hear how musicians of the Renaissance adopted the
favorite tunes of the day for various occasions; balls, festivals,
banquets, private recreations. A few favorite songs will appear in
all three lectures. April 1. Venuswith a lute; with the Venere Lute
Quartet. April 8. Viols and voices; with Parthenia, a consort of
viols. April 15. Singing as recreation; with the vocal ensemble
Sprezzatura. Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, The Metropolitan Museum
of Art. For tickets please go to
http://12.151.120.44/tickets/calendar/view.asp?id=2241.

Wednesday, 2 April, 5:00 p.m.: Reception to celebrate the publication
of Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its Reformation
Opponents by James Simpson (Harvard University). Harvard University
Press and the Seminar on the History of the Book at the Harvard
Humanities Center cordially invite you to a reception to celebrate
the publication of Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its
Reformation Opponents by James Simpson. Thompson Room, Barker Center,
12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Light refreshments will be served.
For more information please contact Ian Stevenson,
ian_stevenson@harvard.edu, or Leah Price, lprice@fas.harvard.edu.

Wednesday, 2 April, 7:30 p.m.: Helen C. Evans (Metropolitan Museum of
Art) "Byzantium and Armenia: The Larger Picture." Tufts University,
Cabot (Asean) Auditorium, Medford, MA. Presented by the Graduate
Student Council, Perseus Project and Past & Present. Reception to
follow. For more information contact David Proctor
(david.proctor@tufts.edu). Co-sponosored by the Fares Center,
Department of Art History, Department of History, Department of
Classics, Archaeology Program, Phi Beta Kappa (Delta Chapter of
Massachusetts), and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Education.

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.

Thursday, 3 April, 5:30 p.m.: Dr. Jeremy Johns (Director, Khalili
Research Center, University of Oxford) ""Translation or Invention?
The Formation of the 'Saracenic Style' in Norman Sicily." Part of the
Aga Khan Program Lecture Series. Harvard University, Sackler Museum,
Room 318.

Thursday, 3 April, 6:00 p.m.: Patricia Dailey (Columbia) "Subjects of
Hospitality--Agency and Embodiment in Hadewijch and Aelfric." English
Medieval Doctoral Conference, Harvard University. Warren House, Kates
Room (201), 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA.

*Friday, 4 April, 5:00 p.m. Dr. Margo Griffin-Wilson: "Praise and
Blessings in the Wedding Poems of Dáibhí Ó Bruadair". This is a
Celtic Literature and Culture seminar, sponsored under the auspices
of The Humanities Center in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Room
024, Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge.

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.

*Wednesday, 16 April, 4:00 p.m. Dean Abernathy (IATH, University of
Virginia) "Digital Models of Ancient Rome." Harvard University, IIC,
60 Oxford Street, Room 330, Cambridge, MA.

*Wednesday, 16 April, 4:30 p.m. Dr. Paul Russell (Department of
Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, University of Oxford): "Ghosts,
Words, and Ghost Words: Editing Sanas Cormaic". This is a Celtic
Literature and Culture seminar, sponsored under the auspices of The
Humanities Center in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Room 133,
Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge.

Thursday, 17 April, 5:00 p.m.: Sarah McNamer (Georgetown) "The Future
of Medieval Emotion." English Medieval Doctoral Conference and
Medieval Studies Workshop, Harvard University. Warren House, Kates
Room (201), 12 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA.

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.

Tuesday, 22 April, 12:00-2:00 p.m.: Piero Boitani (University of
Rome) "Dante's Images of Nature." English Medieval and Renaissance
Doctoral Conferences, Harvard University. Barker 133, 12 Quincy St,
Cambridge, MA.

*Friday, 25 April, 4:30 p.m. Dr. Natalie A. Franz (Department of
Celtic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University): "Gender,
Justice, and Gwerzioù: Women's Voice in Breton Narrative Song
Traditions". This is a Celtic Literature and Culture seminar,
sponsored under the auspices of The Humanities Center in the Faculty
of Arts and Sciences. Room 114, Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street,
Cambridge.

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.

*Monday, 5 May, 4:10 p.m.: Alexis Wilkin (University of Liège and
Harvard University) “Negotiating material and spiritual matters:
problems in the studying of economical rationality of ecclesiastical
communities in the Middle Ages." Humanities Center Medieval Studies
Seminar, Harvard University. Harvard University, Barker Center, 12
Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA, Room TBA.

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

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

10-12 October 2008: The 28th Annual Harvard Celtic Colloquium. Call
for papers: The Harvard Celtic Department cordially invites proposals
for papers or works-in-progress on topics which relate directly to
Celtic studies (Celtic languages and literatures in any phase;
cultural, historical or social science topics; theoretical
perspectives, etc.). Papers concerning interdisciplinary research
with a Celtic focus are also invited. Attendance is free.
Presentations should be no longer than twenty minutes. There will be
a short discussion period after each paper. Papers given at the
Colloquium may later be submitted for consideration by the editorial
committee for publication in the Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic
Colloquium. Potential presenters should send a 200-250 word abstract
suitable for reproduction, plus a brief biographical sketch (one-half
page max, not a full CV). We encourage online responses, but
submissions may also be sent by e-mail to hcc@fas.harvard.edu, faxed,
or posted to the departmental address. If submitting proposals by
e-mail, please provide all the required information requested on the
Reply Form, including the abstract and biographical information, in
the body of the message. Further information and online submission
form available at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hcc/. Closing date for
proposals: May 3, 2008.

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.

Monsters and Monstrous Conference

6th Global Conference

Monsters and the Monstrous:
Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil

Monday 22nd September - Thursday 25th September 2008
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ati/Monsters/M6/cfp.html


This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary
conference seeks to investigate and explore the
enduring influence and imagery of monsters and the
monstrous on human culture throughout history. In
particular, the project will have a dual focus with
the intention of examining specific 'monsters' as well
as assessing the role, function and consequences of
persons, actions or events identified as 'monstrous'.
The history and contemporary cultural influences of
monsters and monstrous metaphors will also be
examined.

Perspectives are sought from those engaged in the
fields of literature, media studies, cultural studies,
history, anthropology, philosophy, psychology,
sociology, health and theology. Ideas are welcomed
from those involved in academic study, fictional
explorations, and applied areas (e.g. youth work,
criminology and medicine).

Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are
invited on issues related to any of the following
themes:

The "monster" through history
Civilization, monsters and the monstrous
Children, childhood, stories and monsters; monsters
and parents
Comedy: funny monsters and/or making fun of monsters
(e.g. Monsters Inc, the Addams Family)
Making monsters; monstrous births
Mutants and mutations
Technologies of the monstrous
Horror, fear and scare
Do monsters kill because they are monstrous or are
they monstrous because they kill?
How critical to the definition of "monster" is death
or the threat of death?
human 'monsters' and 'monstrous' acts? e.g, perverts,
paedophiles and serial killers
the monstrous and gender
Revolution and monsters; the monstrous and politics;
enemies (political/social/military) and monsters
Iconography of the monstrous
The popularity of the modern monsters; the Mummy,
Dracula, Frankenstein, Vampires
The monster in literature
the monstrous in popular culture: film, television,
theatre, radio, print, internet. The monstrous and
journalism
Religious depictions of the monstrous; the monstrous
and the supernatural
Metaphors and the monstrous
the monstrous and war, war reportage/propaganda
monsters, the monstrous and the internet; monstrous
virtualities
monsters, gaming and on-line communities
Papers will also be accepted which deal solely with
specific monsters. We also welcome proposals for
pre-formed panels which specifically explore the
themes of hybridity or themes of monstrous parents and
families. Papers which examine the theme of hope (for
joint sessions with the Hope project running at the
same time) are also wlecome.

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300
word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 9th May
2008. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a
full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 8th
August 2008.

300 word abstracts should be submitted to both
Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word,
WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:
author(s), affiliation, email address, title of
abstract, body of abstract.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain
from using any special formatting, characters or
emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We
acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals
submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week you should assume we did not receive your
proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest,
then, to look for an alternative electronic route or
resend.

Stephen Morris
smmorris58@yahoo.com

Project Co-Leader
Independent Scholar
New York, USA
USA

The conference is part of the ‘At the Interface’
series of programmes organised by ID.Net. The aim of
the conference is to bring together people from
different areas and interests to share ideas and
explore various discussions which are innovative and
exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at
this conference are eligible for publication in an
ISBN eBook. Selected papers will be developed for
publication in a themed hard copy volume.

Augustine Sermons Found

A twelfth-century English ms has been discovered in
Erfurt. It contains 6 previously unknown sermons of St. Augustine. Here
is the press release:
http://www.uni-erfurt.de/presse/archiv/pressemitteilungen/2008/doc/
49_08.htm

News

The last charge (the Templars)

Anglo-Saxons honoured their dead with household objects

Gold coins of rebel British Emperor uncovered

Barbary lions were part of medieval Tower of London zoo

Viking treasure found on Silloth beach