Rhetorics of Plague: Early / Modern Trajectories of Biohazard CFP

CFP: PROPOSALS DUE 10 DECEMBER

Rhetorics of Plague: Early / Modern Trajectories of
Biohazard

A Symposium
University at Albany, SUNY
February 26-27, 2009

Call for Proposals

The threat of biological catastrophe—including that by
AIDS, ebola, irreversible global warming, avian
influenza, and species extinction—may seem the
specific and daunting provenance of late 20th- and
early 21st –century life, but it has in fact been a
crucial part of history since ancient times. It is
important to remember, for instance, that starting in
the 14th century and extending well into the 18th, the
bubonic plague (as the Black Death) ultimately took
the lives of at least 35% of the entire population in
Europe, as well as nearly that much in central Asia,
killing an estimated total of 75 million people.
Given these numbers, it could be argued that premodern
and early modern cultures had even more at stake in
articulating the role of plague—not to mention the
related phenomena of cholera, syphilis, small pox, the
so-called English Sweating Sickness, or extensive
urban infestations, which are only a few of the
shockwaves that preceded our own anxiety about
spectacular biological disaster. This symposium
therefore proposes rethinking the connections among
recent models, representations, or biocultures of
biological threat and their counterparts in the pre-
and early modern eras.

A focus on the “rhetorics” of plague highlights the
ways in which biological danger becomes conceptually
organized, ethically ordered, or socio-politically
oriented by the discourses that represent it. It can
also underscore the crossing or hybridization of
discourses, such as the ways in which early views of
medical pandemic, in the absence of a theory of germ
contagion, could be linked to models of ecological or
environmental dysfunction, or the manner in which
disease of the body natural could metaphorize the
maladies of the body politic. Furthermore, in
addition to accounting for the interrelated
scientific, literary, or philosophical conventions
invoked by such discourses, it is important to
acknowledge that, like the biological volatility they
describe, discourses about plague can undergo their
own kind of exponential proliferation, producing a
potential plague of rhetorics. While such discourses
may have predominantly originated in the metropolitan
centers of Europe, there is also the need to account
for their transformation or mutation when applied in
non-Western or colonial contexts, as well as for the
emergence of counter-discourses from non-European
sources—such as China or the Middle East—that may have
challenged European models of pandemic explanation,
particularly as they have undergirded imperial
ambitions.

The University at Albany, SUNY, calls for proposals
that forge connections between 21st-century contexts
and pre- and early modern periods (up to ca.1820) as a
way to foster fruitful conversations across
disciplinary, national, ethnic, geographical, and
historical boundaries. Papers may take up recent work
on biohazards, for example, to rethink responses to
plague in early periods; conversely, papers may
consider what early manifestations of and responses to
plague tell us about current pandemic episodes,
whether real or imagined, including biohazard as
political trope. We welcome approaches from the
sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and
encourage cross-cultural and transhistorical work;
papers focusing on biohazard discourses prior to the
nineteenth century are particularly desirable. We
encourage contributions from graduate students or
nonacademics who may be working in areas such as the
history of medicine, healthcare, and ecological
analysis.

All participants in the symposium will have the
opportunity to submit expanded versions of their
presentations for consideration as part of a special
journal issue planned for publication. More details
will soon appear on the symposium website.
More information about the symposium can be found at a
link at the Albany Department of English website:
http://www.albany.edu/english.

Paper proposals (1-2 pages) should be sent to
Professor Helene Scheck, hscheck@albany.com, or
Professor Richard Barney, rbarney@albany.edu, by no
later than December 10, 2008.

Plenary Speakers:

• Kathleen Biddick, Professor, Temple University, on
plague, sovereignty, and 21st-century political theory
• Graham Hammill, Associate Professor, University of
Buffalo, on the biopolitics of disease during the 17th
century
• Robert Markley, Professor and Romano Professorial
Scholar, University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, on
ecological disaster and disease in 18th-century
Britain


Topics to be considered at the symposium include:

• How recent logics of epidemic, trauma, virology, or
retrovirology find application to or analogues in
earlier historical patterns or discourses; how recent
logics continue to rely on and/or transform older
models of plague, contamination, or disease.

• The aesthetics of infection; the poetics of
contagion.

• The multiplicity of diseases as generator for
“plagues of rhetoric”—uncontrolled proliferation of
competing definitions, descriptions, or discourses;
or, in turn, the disseminating tendencies of
scientific discourse as an engine for an exponential
explosion of apparent symptoms, biological entities,
ecological effects.

• The investment of medical or ecological models of
pandemic thinking in juridical, legal, political,
literary, social, educational, or other pre- and early
modern domains.

• The role of pandemic rhetoric in the management of
early modern colonial enterprise or imperial conquest;
the relevance of similar biological discourses in
postcolonial or recently globalized contexts.

• The function of counter-discourses of pandemic that
emerged from non-Western sources—China, the Middle
East, the South Pacific, etc.—in response to European
scientific, political, or colonial efforts.

• The insertion of theological, political, or
sociological methodologies into scientific efforts to
diagnose massive medical or ecological dysfunction.

• Philosophy and/as pandemic.

• The animal—e.g., the bird or rodent—as liminal
figure of pandemic transportation or translation: as
biological “other” and/or as ambiguous representative
of anthropomorphized nature.

• The transformation of authoritative theological or
moral paradigms by emerging scientific analyses of
pandemic or contagion.

• The scientific empiricism of spiritual/moral
depravity; the spiritualization of scientifically
observed biological threat.

• The literature of pandemic (e.g., Bocaccio’s
Decameron, Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year); the
literary as pandemic (e.g., romance, the novel,
“scribbling women,” Gothicism).

• “Modernity”—pre-, early, or post- —as vital
historical threshold or suspect analytical crux for
narrating the development of plague rhetorics.

• The interpenetration of biology and culture—termed
“bioculture” in a recent special issue of New Literary
History (38.3 [Summer 2007])—as a peculiarly
postmodern feature of biological threat, or an
emergent pattern in pre- and early modern contexts.

More on Possidius' Life

A week or so ago I scanned and placed online Weiskotten's English
translation (1919) of Possidius' Life of St. Augustine:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/possidius_life_of_augustine_02_text.
htm

In response to request, I've now scanned the introduction by the
translator and placed it here:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/possidius_life_of_augustine_01_intro
.htm

For those who didn't see the original post, Possidius was a friend of
Augustine's, and his biography remains the principal source for the
life of the saint.

As ever, other English translations of the Fathers can be found in
the collection:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers

I also do a CDROM of the collection; if people would like to support
the site, you can purchase it from here:

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

Call for Papers: Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age

Call for Papers: Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age

The reproduction of the European cultural heritage into digital
resources is on its way. Among the various activities undertaken in
this field, online catalogues of manuscrips have become an important
research tool: Manuscripta Medievalia, for example, is a well
established central catalogue in Germany. Important European
libraries like the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the British
Library or the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana have published their
catalogues online. Directories with regional focus like the
manuscript catalogue of Tuscany (CODEX) are seen alongside the
European integrative project ENRICH. At the same time, the
digitisation of the manuscripts themselves has gained momentum. What
impact has this new situation on palaeographic and codicologic
research?

Successful projects have shown that data that emerges from such
cataloguing and digitising activities can be processed and enriched
by digital technologies: there are algorithms to compare character
patterns and enable palaeographic analyses. Comprehensive
codicological data is available via electronic catalogues to allow
statistical research on the archaeology of manuscripts. Digital
editions embed images of their underlying manuscripts. Online
resources enable web-based teaching of palaeography in a way far
beyond the traditional facsimile collections.

The Institute of Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) calls for
contributions to an anthology on "Codicology and Palaeography in the
Digital Age" to be published in Summer 2009. The purpose of this
volume is threefold. Firstly, it aims at recording forward-looking
digital work with manuscripts. This involves state-of-the-art
technology as well as realistic ideas for future implementations.
Secondly, it examines the field from the users’ perspective: how can
codicological and palaeographic work benefit from digital resources
and technologies? Are there new results that had not been possible
before? Or is there at least a significant increase in efficiency
compared to traditional methodology? We are therefore particularly
encouraging contributions that describe research based on such
digital resources. Finally, an outlook on the future development of
the digital research on manuscripts will be given.

Possible topics for contributions can include but are not restricted to:

* reports on research based on digital resources
* Integration of and statistical research on data from
manuscript catalogues
* palaeographic databases (scripts, scribes, characters)
* codicological databases (e.g. watermarks, book covers)
* (semi-) automatic recognition of scripts and scribes
* digital tools for transcriptions
* visions and prototypes of other digital tools
* teaching palaeography

The editors are open to proposals beyond these suggestions that fit
into the outlined purpose of the volume. Contributions can be made
either in German, Italian, English or French. The launch of the
volume will be accompanied by an international symposium to which the
IDE wants to invite the authors of the four best contributions to
present their work.

Proposals of not more than 500 words shall be send by 30 November 2008 to:

Institute of Documentology and Scholarly Editing
c/o Malte Rehbein
Moore Insitute
National University of Ireland, Galway
malte.rehbein@nuigalway.ie

---

The Institute of Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) is a
network of researchers working on the application of digital methods
on historical documents. Its members participate in important
international research activities. The IDE, established in 2006, sees
itself as a nucleus for IT technologies in the field of scholarly
editing and documentology, understanding a historical document as a
carrier for text as well as a physical object. To achieve this, IDE
members take an active part in ongoing discussions, contribute
reviews and research articles, organise conferences and workshops,
counsel trend-setting projects and teach academic junior scientists.

Website: http://www.i-d-e.de

The 15th Annual ACMRS Conference The Five Senses in the Middle Ages and Renaissance : DEADLINE EXTENSION!

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO NOVEMBER 3, 2008

Call for Papers

The 15th Annual ACMRS Conference



The Five Senses

in the Middle Ages and Renaissance



12 – 14 February in Tempe, Arizona

ACMRS invites session and paper proposals for its annual interdisciplinary conference to be held 12 – 14 February 2009 in Tempe, Arizona. We welcome papers that explore any topic related to the study and teaching of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and especially those that focus on this year’s theme of the five senses, both in its literal and metaphorical manifestations.



Selected papers related to the conference theme will be considered for publication in the conference volume of the Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance series, published by Brepols Publishers (Belgium).



The conference keynote speaker will be Stephen G. Nichols, James M. Beall Professor of French and Humanities and Chair of the Romance Languages and Literatures Department at The Johns Hopkins University. Among his many publications are Rethinking the Medieval Senses: Heritage / Fascinations / Frames, ed. with Andreas Kablitz and Alison Calhoun (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), Mimesis: >From Mirror to Method, Augustine to Descartes, ed. with John D. Lyons (The Davies Group, 2005), and Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography (Yale University Press, 1985). His two current publications are Seeing Voices: On Reading Troubadour Poetry (forthcoming), and Laughing Matters: The Enigma and Exasperation of Laughter (University of Chicago Press, in progress).



Before the conference, ACMRS will host a workshop on manuscript studies to be led by Timothy Graham, Director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of New Mexico. The workshop will be Thursday afternoon, February 12, and participation will be limited to 25 participants, who will be determined by the order in which registrations are received. Email acmrs@asu.edu with “conference workshop” as the subject line to be added to the list. The cost of the workshop is $15 and is in addition to the regular conference registration fee.



The conference registration fee is $90 ($45 for students) and includes welcoming and farewell receptions, two days of concurrent sessions (Friday and Saturday), and keynote address. Please note that there will be an opening reception Thursday evening, but there will be no sessions that day.



The deadline for proposals is 5:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on 15 October 2008. Proposals must include audio/visual requirements and any other special requests. Subsequent a/v requests may not be honored without additional charge. In order to streamline the committee review process, submissions will only be accepted at http://link.library.utoronto.ca/acmrs/conference/ from 1 May through 3 November 2008. Questions? Call 480-965-9323 or email acmrs@asu.edu.

Third Annual Sacred Leaves Graduate Symposium Reminder

Third Annual Sacred Leaves Graduate Symposium

February 19-20, 2009

University of South Florida, Tampa Library, Tampa, FL

Keynote Address sponsored by USF Humanities Institute: Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor, University of Chicago: “Mysticism, Longing and the Erotic in the Writings of 13th-century Sufi Master Ibn al-Arabi”

The Special Collections Department of the Tampa Library, University of South Florida seeks papers from graduate students and recent M.A. or Ph.D. recipients for its Third Annual Sacred Leaves Graduate Symposium. This year’s theme is “Comparative Mysticism of the Middle Ages: Textual Traditions, 600-1600.” We encourage topics on mystical _expressions in the medieval world comparing religions, cultures and/or gender.

Subjects for proposals may include, but are not limited to:

· Poetry and lyric

· Cross-cultural and religious influences

· Manuscript illumination

· Spain, Iberia and beyond

· Mystical forms of dissent and their repression

· The role of mystic in society



Please email an abstract of no more than 250 words to Dr. Jane Marie Pinzino, Symposium Coordinator at jpinzino@lib.usf.edu by November 14, 2008. Notification of acceptances will be emailed by November 28, 2008. Please include the title of your paper, name, affiliation and email address. Each paper selected will be allotted 20 minutes for presentation.



For more information, please visit: http://www.lib.usf.edu/public/index.cfm?Pg=AnnualSacredLeavesGraduateSymposium

Jane Marie Pinzino, MDiv, PhD

Sacred Leaves Symposium Coordinator

University of South Florida/Tampa Library

Special Collections Department

4202 E. Fowler Ave., LIB 122

Tampa, FL 33620-5400

813.974-2731 voice

813.396-9006 fax



http://sacredleavesgraduatesymposium.blogspot.com/

Heckman Stipends

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. Almost 100,000 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, India, Syria and elsewhere
in the Eastern Mediterranean. Consult the Library’s website (www.hmml.org)
for further information, including a partial electronic inventory of its
collections and a growing database of manuscript and book images
(Vivarium).

Reminder: MAMA CFP

CALL FOR PAPERS:MAMA 33



MAMA 33 (Mid-America Medieval Association) will host its annual conference

at UMKC, February 28, 2009. The theme of the conference will be: Urban Life and

Culture.



If you wish to give a paper, organize a panel, etc., send your one-page abstracts no later

than December 15, 2008 to: Dr. Shona Kelly Wray, President, 203 Cockefair Hall,

Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Missouri, 64110. Email copies to wrays@umkc.edu or fax 816-235-5723.

Although the theme is urban life and culture, topics on any medieval topic will be considered.



The keynote speaker will be Lester K. Little, Professor Emeritus of History, Smith

College: “Who did the heavy lifting in Italian cities?”



Graduate students who wish to compete for the Jim Falls Graduate Paper Prize should submit three copies of their paper (the one to be read at the conference) with handouts to

Jim Falls, 203 Cockefair Hall, Department of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 64110, no later than February 1, 2009.



We hope you will stay over Saturday as the Kansas City Friends of Chamber Music

will showcase Benjamin Bagby’s Beowulf at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral,

February 28, 2009, 8 PM. The Friends collaborated with MAMA at the last conference,

and it was a great success! (Check the Beowulf link for tickets.)



Check the MAMA website for other information. By October we should have the

hotel information available. www.midamericamedievalassociation.org.





Matthew Blankenship

Senior Secretary

Department of History

UMKC

blankenshipm@umkc.edu

(816)235-5959

Events around Boston and CFPs

EVENTS IN AND AROUND BOSTON

Thursdays, 23 and 30 October, 4:15 p.m.: Professor Carlo Ginzburg
(Scuola Normale di Pisa and Lauro de Bosis Visiting Lecturer at Harvard) will
give a series of lectures: October 23, "On (and Around) Geryon
(Inf. XVI-XVII)" - October 30, "Copies, Facsimiles, and the Invisible Text."
Harvard University, Humanities Center, Barker Center Room 133.

** PLEASE NOTE CORRECTED DATE - Thursday, 23 October, 5:30 p.m.: Jeffrey
Hamburger (Harvard University, History of Art and Architecture): "Openings"
- In an age of mechanical, and now virtual, reproduction, we have perhaps
lost sight of the basic visual unit that structures our experience of
the medieval book: the opening. From the origins of codex as a medium
in late antiquity, and in contrast to the scrolls used in the ancient
world, the confrontation of the verso and recto provided the visual
field within which scribes and illuminators operated. Openings also
made possible the visible elaboration of the word with figurated
initials, frames and full-page miniatures. Professor Hamburger will
explore the complex semantics and literally revelatory possibilities of
this new medium as it developed over the medieval millennium. Boston
University Luce Program in Scripture and Literary Arts. Boston
University School of Management, room 406, 595 Commonwealth Avenue,
Boston, MA. For additional information, please contact Program
Coordinator Cristine Hutchison-Jones at 617-358-1754 or crissy@bu.edu.

Friday, 24 October, 8:00 p.m.: Blue Heron Renaissance Choir: Music From the
Peterhouse Partbooks: Tallis, Taverner, Aston & Jones. Blue Heron's
annual fall
exploration of early 16th-century English music, featuring Jones's Magnificat,
splendid votive antiphons by Tallis, Taverner, and Aston, and a garland of
secular songs. Free pre-concert talk at 7:15 p.m. by Christopher
Martin (Boston
University). Pre-concert talk sponsored by the Cambridge Society for Early
Music. First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge,
MA. For more information, website: www.blueheronchoir.org; phone 617-960-7956;
email: office@blueheronchoir.org.

Monday, 27 October, 4:15 p.m.: Bernhard Jussen (Johan Wolfgang
Goethe-University of Frankfurt): "Between Lexicometrics and
Hermeneutics, or: was there a Carolingian State?" Harvard University,
Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Humanities
Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Monday, 27 October, 7:30 p.m.: Professor Daniel P. Maher (Assumption
College): "Contemplative Friendship in Nicomachean Ethics" - Boston College,
McGuinn Fifth Floor Lounge, McGuinn 521, Chestnut Hill, MA. Boston
Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy talk. Contact: Stephen F. Brown, email:
brownst@bc.edu, phone: 617-552-0436.

* Tuesday, 28 October, 4:30 p.m.: Julia Smith (University of Glasgow):
"Separate Spheres? Gender and the State in the Early Middle Ages."
BROWN UNIVERSITY. Please join us for the next Medieval and Early Modern
History Seminar (MEMHS) meeting on October 28 at 4:30pm in the Pavilion
Room in the Dept. of History, Brown University, 79 Brown St., Providence, RI.
Our guest this month will be Julia Smith, Edwards Professor of
Medieval History at the University of Glasgow and currently at the
Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Professor Smith has
wide-ranging interests in late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,
with a particular focus in gender orders and in religion, notably
saints' cults and hagiography. She is the author of Europe After Rome:
A New Cultural History (Oxford UP, 2005) and the co-editor (with Leslie
Brubaker) of Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300-900
(Cambridge UP, 2004). Please note: there is a pre-circulated paper for
this event, as well as 3 very short additional texts. You can access the
documents at our website, http://blogs.brown.edu/project/medieval/ If you
do not already have the password, contact Tara_Nummedal@Brown.edu. For further
information about the Medieval and Early Modern History Seminar and other
related events at Brown University, see
http://blogs.brown.edu/project/medieval/
To subscribe to our monthly e-mail announcing events, go to
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/memhs.html

Monday, 10 November, 4:15 p.m.: Aviad Kleinberg (Tel Aviv University):
"Useful Trespasses" Harvard University, Barker Center, Thompson Room, 12
Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies
Seminar, in collaboration with Harvard University Press.

Thursday, 13 November, 5:00 p.m. A Jennifer Eastman Lecture, sponsored
by the Department of Classical Studies: John Bodel (Brown University):
"Death Loves Company: Collective Burial in Pagan and Early Christian Rome"
- Reception to follow, with light refreshments. BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY,
Pollack (Fine Arts) Auditorium, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA. For
further information: Ann O. Koloski-Ostrow (781-736-2183 or
aoko@brandeis.edu) or Janet Barry (781-736-2180 or jbarry@brandeis.edu).
Free and open to the public (for directions:
http://www.brandeis.edu/overview/directions.html).

Friday, 21 November, 4:00 p.m.: Professor M. Michelle Mulchahey
(Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies): "Introducing Peter Lombard
to Dominican Students in University Classrooms and in the Order's
Schools" - Boston College, Cushing Auditorium, Cushing 001 Lower Level,
Chestnut Hill, MA. Institute of Medieval Philosophy and Theology
lecture. Dinner and discussion to follow lecture in McElroy Faculty
Dining Room. Contact: Stephen F. Brown, email: brownst@bc.edu, phone:
617-552-0436.

* Friday 21 November, 4:15-6:00 p.m.: J. G. A. Pocock (The Johns Hopkins
University) "Gibbon and the Invention of Gibbon: Chapters 15 and 16 of the
Decline and Fall Revisited" - Sponsored by the Harvard Colloquia in
Intellectual
and Cultural History. For further information please contact David Armitage
(armitage@fas.harvard.edu). HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Lower Level Conference Room,
Center for European Studies, 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA.

Monday, 24 November, 4:15 p.m.: Baber Johansen (Professor of Islamic
Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School): "Syntax, Confession, and
Creation:
Reflections on Dante, Augustine, and Saussure" - Harvard University, Barker
Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center
Medieval Studies Seminar.

Monday, 8 December, 4:15 p.m.: Vincent Pollina (Tufts University)
Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy Street,
Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Monday - Thursday, 8-11 December, various times: The Carl Newell
Jackson Classical Lectures Series: "Isaac Casaubon: A Renaissance
Hellenist Meets the Jews" - Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) and
Joanna Weinberg (Oriental Institute, University of Oxford) Lecture 1:
"Rabbi Isaac Casaubon: A Hellenist Meets the Jews" - Monday, 8 December,
5:15 p.m. Lecture 2: "How Casaubon Read Jewish Texts" - Tuesday, 9
December, 5:30 p.m. Lecture 3: "Casaubon and Baronio: Early Christianity in a
Jewish Setting" - Wednesday, December 10, 5:15 p.m. Lecture 4: "The Teller and
the Tale: What Casaubon Learned from Jews" - Thursday, December 11, 5:15
p.m., reception to follow lecture 4. Sponsored by the Department of the
Classics; Harvard University, Cambridge MA - exact location TBD.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 3:30 p.m.: Nicholas Watson (Harvard
University, 2008-2009 Radcliffe Institute fellow): Radcliffe Institute
Fellows Presentation Series, "In Praise of Mediocrity: The Defense of
Imperfection in Late Medieval England" - Radcliffe Institute for
Advanced Study at Harvard University, Radcliffe Gymnasium, 10 Garden
Street, Radcliffe Yard, phone 617-495-8212.

Monday, 15 December, 4:15 p.m.: Emily Wood (Department of History,
Harvard University): "Partnerships in Papal Judicial Delegation: The
case of Peter of Celle and Dean Fulk of Reims, 1168-1176" - Harvard
University, Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA.
Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Saturday, 20 December, 8:00 p.m.: Blue Heron Renaissance Choir: Perotin/
Josquin: A French & Franco-Flemish Christmas, 1200/1500. Come celebrate a
Heron Holiday! Before intermission, Christmas motets by Josquin and his
Franco-Flemish contemporaries, c. 1500; in the second half, the astonishing
sounds of polyphony at Notre Dame de Paris, c. 1200. Free pre-concert talk at
7:15 p.m. by Sean Gallagher (Harvard University). Pre-concert talk sponsored
by the Cambridge Society for Early Music. First Church in Cambridge,
Congregational, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA. For more
information, website:
www.blueheronchoir.org; phone: 617-960-7956; email: office@blueheronchoir.org.

Monday, 2 February 2009, 4:15 p.m.: Chrisopher de Hamel (Corpus Cristi
College, Cambridge, UK): Harvard University, Lamont Library, Lamont
Room, Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar, in
collaboration with the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Monday, 23 February 2009, 4:15 p.m.: Bernd Nicolai (University of Bern,
Switzerland): Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy
Street, Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Monday, 9 March 2009, 4:15 p.m.: Mary A. and Richard H. Rouse (UCLA):
Harvard University, Barker Center, Thompson Room, 12 Quincy Street,
Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Friday, 13 March 2009, 8:00 p.m.: Blue Heron Renaissance Choir: Music by
Guillaume Du Fay & The French Court on Cyprus. A program exploring connections
between Du Fay, the court of Savoy, a musical manuscript from the French
Cypriot court, and a 1434 wedding attended by Binchois and the Burgundian
chapel--introduced by the world's leading scholar of Du Fay. Free pre-concert
talk at 7:15 p.m. by Alejandro Enrique Planchart (Professor Emeritus,
University of California). Pre-concert talk sponsored by the Cambridge Society
for Early Music. First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, 11 Garden Street,
Cambridge, MA. For more information, website: www.blueheronchoir.org; phone:
617-960-7956; email: office@blueheronchoir.org.

Monday, 20 April 2009, 4:15 p.m.: Amy Hollwood (Harvard Divinity
School): Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy Street,
Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Thursday - Sunday, 25-28 June, 2009: Merchants and Missionaries: Trade
and Religion in World History. 18th annual World History Association
conference: Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts. For further
details, see below under "CONFERENCES AND CALLS FOR PAPERS."


CONFERENCES AND CALLS FOR PAPERS

For a listing of upcoming "convocatorias" and other gatherings of
interest to medievalists (most are located in Spain or Latin America
and/or are Spanish-language proceedings), visit
http://medievalismo.org/congresos/congresos.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. Papers
will address 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? 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 and 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. Send inquiries to: Karen Fresco,
Director, Program in Medieval Studies, kfresco@uiuc.edu.

31 October-1 November 2008: Texts and Contexts: A conference at the Ohio
State University, sponsored by The Center for Epigraphical and
Palaeographical Studies. Call for Papers. 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.

7-9 November 2008: 27th Annual Charles Homer Haskins Society
Conference for Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Angevin and Viking History.
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The featured speakers will be
Paul Hyams (Cornell University), Mark Gardiner (Queens University of
Belfast) and Uta-Renate Blumenthal (Catholic University of America).
Further information and registration forms are available at
http://www.haskins.cornell.edu/Conf2008.html , or you can contact the
conference director, Jennifer Paxton, and paxtonj@georgetown.edu.

8 November 2008: Historical Texts, Cultural Contexts, Southern Connecticut
State University, New Haven. An interdisciplinary conference sponsored by
the Departments of English and Foreign Languages. Featured speakers: A.C.
Spearing (University of Virginia), William Caferro (history of Medieval and
Renaissance Italy), Marcia Colish (Oberlin College, Emeritus), Maryanne
Kowaleski (Fordham University), Nancy Partner (McGill University), Barbara
Newman (Northwestern University). For information and program,
http://www.southernct.edu/departments/foreignlanguage/medcon08/.

14-15 November 2008: Global Encounters: Legacies of Exchange and
Conflict (1000-1700). University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The new
Program in MEMS (Medieval and Early Modern Studies) at UNC, Chapel Hill,
will host an interdisciplinary conference on topics of cultural
mediation, interchange, and conflict in the premodern world. Areas of
geographical concentration will 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). For further
information visit http://mems.unc.edu/global-encounters/, or direct
further questions to Professor Brett Whalen (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.

19-21 November 2008: "La creación de la imagen en la Edad Media: de la
herencia a la renovación" ["The creation of the image in the Middle
Ages: from heritage to renewal"]. Universidad Complutense de Madrid,
Spain. For more information, please visit
http://www.ucm.es/centros/webs/d437/index.php?tp=II%20Jornadas%20Complutenses%20de%20Arte%20Medieval&a=invest&d=14345.php

9-12 January 2009: 7th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts &
Humanities: Call for Papers/Abstracts/Submissions. Sponsored by:
University of Louisville, Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods;
The Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance. The 7th Annual Hawaii
International Conference on Arts & Humanities will be held at the Hilton
Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The conference
will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals from
arts and humanities related fields to interact with members inside and
outside their own particular disciplines. For more information:
http://www.hichumanities.org. Email address: humanities@hichumanities.org.

6-7 February 2009: Textual Trauma: Violence Against Texts - Annual
Manuscript Workshop of the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. The
deadline for applications to present is October 1, 2008. For more
information, please visit
http://web.utk.edu/~marco/workshop/manuscript.shtml.

6-7 February 2009: "Per Speculum in Mediaevum: Discourses of Mirroring
in the Middle Ages." Medievalists @ Penn (M@P) invites submissions for
the graduate conference in Medieval Studies at the University of
Pennsylvania. Keynote Speaker: Marina Brownlee. All abstract submissions
(max. 250-300 words) must be received by November 14th, 2008. All
submissions to mapmirrors@gmail.com. The figure captured in the Latin
word speculum, meaning both 'mirror' and 'encyclopedia,' is central to
medieval culture. From St. Paul's foundational "per speculum in
aenigmate" to Ovid's version of the Narcissus myth to Jean de Meun's
re-titling of the Romance of the Rose as Le Miroer aus Amoreus, the
problematic of reflection cuts across medieval regional and discursive
boundaries. This traveling topos pervades medieval cultural expression,
from religious thought to the production of visual and textual artwork
to music and philosophy. The implicit or explicit articulation of this
fascinating figure nevertheless differs as it enters (or is re-evaluated
within) varying discourses. This conference invites submissions
concerning one or more formations of the 'mirror.' We seek to encourage
a plurality of perspectives from medievalists of all disciplines in
recognition of the profound 'interdisciplinarity' of our common object
of study: the Middle Ages. Topics might include, but are not limited to:
encyclopedias and summae, advice for princes and conduct manuals,
scientific treatises and astrology, (Ciceronian) friendship,
reproduction and repetition, twins and doubling, vanity and the
Narcissus myth, reflection and replication, representation and mimesis,
specularity and visuality, recognition and self-consciousness, the
mirror of the soul and mysticism, mirror as distorted image, figura, and
metaphor.

19-20 February 2009: "Comparative Mysticism of the Middle Ages:
Textual Traditions, 1000-1600" - Third Annual Sacred Leaves Graduate
Symposium, University of South Florida, Tampa Library, Tampa, FL.
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor,
University of Chicago. The Special Collections Department of the Tampa
Library, University of South Florida seeks papers from graduate students
and recent M.A. or Ph.D. recipients for its Third Annual Sacred Leaves
Graduate Symposium. We encourage topics on mystical expressions in the
medieval world comparing religions, cultures and/or gender. Subjects for
proposals may include, but are not limited to: Poetry and lyric,
Cross-cultural and religious influences, Manuscript illumination, Spain,
Iberia and beyond, Mystical forms of dissent and their repression, The
role of mystic in society. Please email an abstract of no more than 250
words to Dr. Jane Marie Pinzino, Symposium Coordinator at
jpinzino@lib.usf.edu by November 14, 2008. Notification of acceptances
will be emailed by November 28, 2008. Please include the title of your
paper, name, affiliation and email address. Each paper selected will be
allotted 20 minutes for presentation.
http://www.sacredleavesgraduatesymposium.blogspot.com/.

5-7 March 2009: CALL FOR PAPERS: VAGANTES GRAD STUDENT CONFERENCE 2009
---The medievalists of Florida State University have the honor of hosting
the eighth annual Vagantes Medieval Graduate Student Conference on March 5-
7, 2009. Vagantes is now the largest conference in North America for
graduate students studying the Middle Ages. The goal of Vagantes is to
provide an open dialogue among young scholars from all fields of medieval
studies. It seeks to create a sense of community for junior medievalists
of diverse backgrounds within the margins of a graduate student budget.
For more information, please visit www.vagantesconference.org .

2-5 April 2009: Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity [ca. 200 -
700 AD]: Eighth Biennial Conference on Shifting Frontiers in Late
Antiquity. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. The confirmed
plenary speakers are Professors Jas Elsner (Corpus Christi, Oxford) and
Seth Schwartz (Jewish Theological Seminary). Call for papers: Beneath
the familiar political and religious narrative of late antiquity lies a
cultural history both more complicated and more fascinating. Late
antiquity was a time of intense cultural negotiation in which new
religious communities and new populations sifted through existing modes
of cultural expression, adopting many elements for themselves and
turning others aside. This conference seeks to understand how cultural
transformation occurred amidst the political and religious disruption
that can seem characteristic of late antiquity. To this end, we seek
contributions that explore three distinct areas of late antique cultural
history: 1) the interaction of "high" and "low" culture, 2) the impact
of changing and collapsing political centers on their peripheries, and
3) the emergence of hybrid literary, artistic, and religious modes of
expression. Possible contributions to these areas may highlight the
permeable division between elite and vernacular culture, the ease with
which cultural memes were transmitted across geographic and linguistic
boundaries, the adaptability of established cultures to new political
and social realities, and the degree to which newcomers were integrated
into existing cultural communities. As in the past, the conference will
provide an interdisciplinary forum for ancient historians, philologists,
Orientalists, art historians, archeologists, and specialists in the
early Christian, Jewish, and Muslim worlds to discuss a wide range of
European, Middle-Eastern, and African evidence for cultural
transformation in late antiquity. Proposals should be clearly related to
the conference theme. They should state both the problem being discussed
and the nature of the new insights or conclusions that will be
presented. Abstracts of not more than 500 words for 20-minute
presentations may be submitted via e-mail to Prof. Edward Watts,
shifting.frontiers.8@gmail.com (Department of History, Indiana
University, Ballantine Hall, Rm. 828, 1020 East Kirkwood Avenue,
Bloomington, IN 47405-7103, USA). The deadline for submission of
abstracts is October 15, 2008. The submission of an abstract carries
with it a commitment to attend the conference should the abstract be
accepted. For further information see http://www.indiana.edu/~sf8/index.php.

3-4 April 2009: "The City in Medieval Life and Culture" is the theme of
the 2009 (36th Annual) Sewanee Medieval Colloquium. The University of
the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. Call for papers: proposals are invited
for individual papers or sessions. The program will include 20-minute
papers from any discipline; papers may be related to the theme in any
way. Lecturers include John Najemy (Cornell University) and Pamela King
(University of Bristol). Please send abstract(s) of approx. 250 words
with brief c.v.(s) to sridyard@sewanee.edu no later than 1 October 2008.
Earlier submissions are encouraged. Papers accepted for the Colloquium
must be received in their final form no later than 27 Feb. 2009, in
order to reach their commentators in good time. For further details of
the Colloquium and the SMC Prize for best paper by a graduate student or
junior scholar, please see http://www.sewanee.edu/medieval/main.html.

* 4 April 2009: GRAD STUDENT CFP: AUTHORITY AND THE BOOK IN MEDIEVAL CULTURE.
Yale University, New Haven, CT. Abstracts from graduate students are now
being accepted for the 26th Annual New England Medieval Studies Consortium
Graduate Student Conference, the theme of which will be "Authority and the
Book in Medieval Culture." The conference will be held on April 4,
2009 at Yale
University. The organizers hope that this broad heading will elicit
proposals for papers from all disciplines of Medieval Studies. Of especial
interest are papers dealing with palaeography and manuscript studies;
hagiography; literary studies; art history; history and historiography;
gender studies; religious studies; musicology and medieval liturgical
studies; as well as biblical exegesis and the relationship between Latin
and various medieval vernaculars. Further, we look forward to receiving
proposals that take more theoretical approaches to ideas of authority in
the medieval period. We also hope to have one panel devoted to papers that
explore different aspects of the history of modern Medieval Studies.
Papers are to be no more than twenty minutes in length and read in
English. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent by e-mail to
Andrew.Kraebel@Yale.edu or SamanthaLily.Katz@Yale.edu; a hardcopy may be
mailed to: Andrew Kraebel, Department of English, Yale University, P.O. Box
208302, New Haven, CT 06520-8302. The deadline for submissions is December 1,
2008. Graduate students whose abstracts are selected for the conference will
have the opportunity to submit their paper in its entirety for consideration
for the Alison Goddard Elliott Award. The conference will also feature an
exhibition of manuscripts in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, and a plenary speaker, to be announced at a later
date. For
more information, see
http://www.yale.edu/medieval/documents/CallforPapersv1.pdf.

22-25 April 2009: Saint Anselm of Canterbury and His Legacy: An
International Conference to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the
death of Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109). University of Kent,
Canterbury, UK. Organised by the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, Durham University, UK and the Canterbury Centre for Medieval
and Early Modern Studies. Call for papers: The conference organisers
welcome proposals for papers on all aspects of Anselm's life and
thought, as well as their subsequent investigation and interpretation.
Proposed paper titles and abstract of 300 words are due in mid-October
2008. Full details are available at:
http://www.dur.ac.uk/cmrs/conferences/anselm2009. For more information,
please contact Dr Giles Gasper, Durham University, at:
g.e.m.gasper@dur.ac.uk.

24-25 April 2009: In Vino Veritas: A Symposium on Wine and the Influence
of Bacchus from Classical Antiquity through the Eighteenth Century, Binghamton
University. The Center for Renaissance and Medieval Studies (CEMERS) at
Binghamton University invites papers for a symposium to be held on the
Binghamton University campus. Papers may address any area of scholarship
concerning wine, its symbolic import, its appearance in or impact on
cultural production (from painting to poetry), and its effects--social,
political, economic, therapeutic or remedial. Papers are also welcome
on Dionysus/Bacchus, the god of wine, from classical antiquity to the
eighteenth century. We encourage submissions in a broad range of
disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. Proposals for individual
papers (20 minutes maximum) 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 e-mail message to cemers@binghamton.edu
("Re: IN VINO VERITAS Conference). Those wishing to submit a hard copy
should forward it to: CEMERS [Attn.: IN VINO VERITAS Conference],
Binghamton University, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000. We
also welcome proposals for integrated panels. Panel organizers should
describe the organizing principle of the panel and send abstracts,
names, and affiliations of each participant. A panel should consist of
no more than three papers, each 20 minutes in length. Selected papers
will be published in Acta, a journal of the Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies. Submission deadline: Please submit abstracts by
December 15, 2008. For additional information please contact the
Director's office (607-777-2730 or cemers@binghamton.edu) or visit our
website (www.cemers.binghamton.edu).

7-10 May 2009: The 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies,
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. The Congress is an annual gathering
of over 3,000 scholars interested in Medieval Studies. It features over 600
sessions of papers, panel discussions, roundtables, workshops, and
performances. There are also some 90 business meetings and receptions
sponsored by learned societies, associations, and institutions. The exhibit
hall boasts nearly 70 exhibitors, including publishers, used book dealers,
and purveyors of medieval sundries. The Congress lasts three and a half
days, extending from Thursday morning until Sunday at noon. The CALL
FOR PAPERS (paper proposals deadline: September 15) is available on the
Congress Web site. For information, see
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/index.html.

7-10 May 2009: Transmission and Reception of Saints Lives’: English
and Continental Contexts:Special Session, 44th annual International
Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Dr. Lindsay Craig of
the University of Minnesota has issued a call for papers for this
special session. The study of saints' lives is central to scholarly
understanding of medieval piety and devotional practice. This sessions
inquires how authors, translators, and audiences understand
and react to vitae sanctarum et sanctorum's negotiations of
institutional anxieties about orthodoxy and of social discourses of
holiness. Our interests include retellings of saints' lives, from brief
exempla to long catalogs of lives like the Legenda Aurea, and their
rehabilitation or deprecation of earlier vitae; the ways in which
hagiographic impulses inflect other genres; reworkings of contemplative
texts in later literature; the intersections and conflations of
spiritual and secular literary transmission; and contested spaces of
transmission. We welcome studies spanning broad chronological and
geographical spectra. The session subtitles "English Contexts" and
"Continental Contexts" do not exclude cross-channel studies, but rather
provide us with a way to group papers on a topic with wide-ranging
relevance according to main interest area. Please submit abstracts and
cover materials to Lindsay Craig at lcraig@umn.edu by September 15th for
full consideration.

12-13 June 2009: Intermixti spiritus oris: the interface between
rhetoric and poetry in Late Antiquity (from the age of Diocletian until
Arcadius): University of Ghent, the Netherlands. Please visit
http://www.latijnengrieks.ugent.be/intermixti for more information about
the call for papers and the topic.

25-28 June 2009: Merchants and Missionaries: Trade and Religion in World
History: 18th annual World History Association conference: Salem State
College, Salem, Massachusetts. In honor of Salem's rich history of
overseas involvement, the conference's theme will be "Merchants and
Missionaries: Trade and Religion in World History." Proposals on all
aspects of trade, religion, and related issues in world history are
invited. Further information concerning the 2009 conference, including
proposal submission forms, accommodations and registration can be found
on the WHA website, www.thewha.org.


----------------------------------------------------------------------

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/


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* New

** Details Modified


EVENTS IN AND AROUND BOSTON

Thursdays, 23 and 30 October, 4:15 p.m.: Professor Carlo Ginzburg
(Scuola Normale di Pisa and Lauro de Bosis Visiting Lecturer at Harvard) will
give a series of lectures: October 23, "On (and Around) Geryon
(Inf. XVI-XVII)" - October 30, "Copies, Facsimiles, and the Invisible Text."
Harvard University, Humanities Center, Barker Center Room 133.

** PLEASE NOTE CORRECTED DATE - Thursday, 23 October, 5:30 p.m.: Jeffrey
Hamburger (Harvard University, History of Art and Architecture): "Openings"
- In an age of mechanical, and now virtual, reproduction, we have perhaps
lost sight of the basic visual unit that structures our experience of
the medieval book: the opening. From the origins of codex as a medium
in late antiquity, and in contrast to the scrolls used in the ancient
world, the confrontation of the verso and recto provided the visual
field within which scribes and illuminators operated. Openings also
made possible the visible elaboration of the word with figurated
initials, frames and full-page miniatures. Professor Hamburger will
explore the complex semantics and literally revelatory possibilities of
this new medium as it developed over the medieval millennium. Boston
University Luce Program in Scripture and Literary Arts. Boston
University School of Management, room 406, 595 Commonwealth Avenue,
Boston, MA. For additional information, please contact Program
Coordinator Cristine Hutchison-Jones at 617-358-1754 or crissy@bu.edu.

Friday, 24 October, 8:00 p.m.: Blue Heron Renaissance Choir: Music From the
Peterhouse Partbooks: Tallis, Taverner, Aston & Jones. Blue Heron's annual fall
exploration of early 16th-century English music, featuring Jones's Magnificat,
splendid votive antiphons by Tallis, Taverner, and Aston, and a garland of
secular songs. Free pre-concert talk at 7:15 p.m. by Christopher Martin (Boston
University). Pre-concert talk sponsored by the Cambridge Society for Early
Music. First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge,
MA. For more information, website: www.blueheronchoir.org; phone 617-960-7956;
email: office@blueheronchoir.org.

Monday, 27 October, 4:15 p.m.: Bernhard Jussen (Johan Wolfgang
Goethe-University of Frankfurt): "Between Lexicometrics and
Hermeneutics, or: was there a Carolingian State?" Harvard University,
Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Humanities
Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Monday, 27 October, 7:30 p.m.: Professor Daniel P. Maher (Assumption
College): "Contemplative Friendship in Nicomachean Ethics" - Boston College,
McGuinn Fifth Floor Lounge, McGuinn 521, Chestnut Hill, MA. Boston
Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy talk. Contact: Stephen F. Brown, email:
brownst@bc.edu, phone: 617-552-0436.

* Tuesday, 28 October, 4:30 p.m.: Julia Smith (University of Glasgow):
"Separate Spheres? Gender and the State in the Early Middle Ages."
BROWN UNIVERSITY. Please join us for the next Medieval and Early Modern
History Seminar (MEMHS) meeting on October 28 at 4:30pm in the Pavilion
Room in the Dept. of History, Brown University, 79 Brown St., Providence, RI.
Our guest this month will be Julia Smith, Edwards Professor of
Medieval History at the University of Glasgow and currently at the
Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Professor Smith has
wide-ranging interests in late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,
with a particular focus in gender orders and in religion, notably
saints’ cults and hagiography. She is the author of Europe After Rome:
A New Cultural History (Oxford UP, 2005) and the co-editor (with Leslie
Brubaker) of Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300-900
(Cambridge UP, 2004). Please note: there is a pre-circulated paper for
this event, as well as 3 very short additional texts. You can access the
documents at our website, http://blogs.brown.edu/project/medieval/ If you
do not already have the password, contact Tara_Nummedal@Brown.edu.For further
information about the Medieval and Early Modern History Seminar and other
related events at Brown University, see http://blogs.brown.edu/project/medieval/
To subscribe to our monthly e-mail announcing events, go to
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/memhs.html

Monday, 10 November, 4:15 p.m.: Aviad Kleinberg (Tel Aviv University):
"Useful Trespasses" Harvard University, Barker Center, Thompson Room, 12
Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies
Seminar, in collaboration with Harvard University Press.

Thursday, 13 November, 5:00 p.m. A Jennifer Eastman Lecture, sponsored
by the Department of Classical Studies: John Bodel (Brown University):
"Death Loves Company: Collective Burial in Pagan and Early Christian Rome"
- Reception to follow, with light refreshments. BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY,
Pollack (Fine Arts) Auditorium, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA. For
further information: Ann O. Koloski-Ostrow (781-736-2183 or
aoko@brandeis.edu) or Janet Barry (781-736-2180 or jbarry@brandeis.edu).
Free and open to the public (for directions:
http://www.brandeis.edu/overview/directions.html).

Friday, 21 November, 4:00 p.m.: Professor M. Michelle Mulchahey
(Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies): "Introducing Peter Lombard
to Dominican Students in University Classrooms and in the Order's
Schools" - Boston College, Cushing Auditorium, Cushing 001 Lower Level,
Chestnut Hill, MA. Institute of Medieval Philosophy and Theology
lecture. Dinner and discussion to follow lecture in McElroy Faculty
Dining Room. Contact: Stephen F. Brown, email: brownst@bc.edu, phone:
617-552-0436.

* Friday 21 November, 4:15-6:00 p.m.: J. G. A. Pocock (The Johns Hopkins
University) "Gibbon and the Invention of Gibbon: Chapters 15 and 16 of the
Decline and Fall Revisited" - Sponsored by the Harvard Colloquia in Intellectual
and Cultural History. For further information please contact David Armitage
(armitage@fas.harvard.edu). HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Lower Level Conference Room,
Center for European Studies, 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA.

Monday, 24 November, 4:15 p.m.: Baber Johansen (Professor of Islamic
Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School): "Syntax, Confession, and Creation:
Reflections on Dante, Augustine, and Saussure" - Harvard University, Barker
Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center
Medieval Studies Seminar.

Monday, 8 December, 4:15 p.m.: Vincent Pollina (Tufts University)
Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy Street,
Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Monday - Thursday, 8-11 December, various times: The Carl Newell
Jackson Classical Lectures Series: "Isaac Casaubon: A Renaissance
Hellenist Meets the Jews" - Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) and
Joanna Weinberg (Oriental Institute, University of Oxford) Lecture 1:
"Rabbi Isaac Casaubon: A Hellenist Meets the Jews" - Monday, 8 December,
5:15 p.m. Lecture 2: "How Casaubon Read Jewish Texts" - Tuesday, 9
December, 5:30 p.m. Lecture 3: "Casaubon and Baronio: Early Christianity in a
Jewish Setting" - Wednesday, December 10, 5:15 p.m. Lecture 4: "The Teller and
the Tale: What Casaubon Learned from Jews" - Thursday, December 11, 5:15
p.m., reception to follow lecture 4. Sponsored by the Department of the
Classics; Harvard University, Cambridge MA - exact location TBD.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 3:30 p.m.: Nicholas Watson (Harvard
University, 2008–2009 Radcliffe Institute fellow): Radcliffe Institute
Fellows’ Presentation Series, "In Praise of Mediocrity: The Defense of
Imperfection in Late Medieval England" - Radcliffe Institute for
Advanced Study at Harvard University, Radcliffe Gymnasium, 10 Garden
Street, Radcliffe Yard, phone 617-495-8212.

Monday, 15 December, 4:15 p.m.: Emily Wood (Department of History,
Harvard University): "Partnerships in Papal Judicial Delegation: The
case of Peter of Celle and Dean Fulk of Reims, 1168-1176" - Harvard
University, Barker Center, Room 133, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA.
Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Saturday, 20 December, 8:00 p.m.: Blue Heron Renaissance Choir: Perotin/
Josquin: A French & Franco-Flemish Christmas, 1200/1500. Come celebrate a
Heron Holiday! Before intermission, Christmas motets by Josquin and his
Franco-Flemish contemporaries, c. 1500; in the second half, the astonishing
sounds of polyphony at Notre Dame de Paris, c. 1200. Free pre-concert talk at
7:15 p.m. by Sean Gallagher (Harvard University). Pre-concert talk sponsored
by the Cambridge Society for Early Music. First Church in Cambridge,
Congregational, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA. For more information, website:
www.blueheronchoir.org; phone: 617-960-7956; email: office@blueheronchoir.org.

Monday, 2 February 2009, 4:15 p.m.: Chrisopher de Hamel (Corpus Cristi
College, Cambridge, UK): Harvard University, Lamont Library, Lamont
Room, Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar, in
collaboration with the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Monday, 23 February 2009, 4:15 p.m.: Bernd Nicolai (University of Bern,
Switzerland): Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy
Street, Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Monday, 9 March 2009, 4:15 p.m.: Mary A. and Richard H. Rouse (UCLA):
Harvard University, Barker Center, Thompson Room, 12 Quincy Street,
Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Friday, 13 March 2009, 8:00 p.m.: Blue Heron Renaissance Choir: Music by
Guillaume Du Fay & The French Court on Cyprus. A program exploring connections
between Du Fay, the court of Savoy, a musical manuscript from the French
Cypriot court, and a 1434 wedding attended by Binchois and the Burgundian
chapel--introduced by the world's leading scholar of Du Fay. Free pre-concert
talk at 7:15 p.m. by Alejandro Enrique Planchart (Professor Emeritus,
University of California). Pre-concert talk sponsored by the Cambridge Society
for Early Music. First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, 11 Garden Street,
Cambridge, MA. For more information, website: www.blueheronchoir.org; phone:
617-960-7956; email: office@blueheronchoir.org.

Monday, 20 April 2009, 4:15 p.m.: Amy Hollwood (Harvard Divinity
School): Harvard University, Barker Center, Room 114, 12 Quincy Street,
Cambridge, MA. Humanities Center Medieval Studies Seminar.

Thursday - Sunday, 25-28 June, 2009: Merchants and Missionaries: Trade
and Religion in World History. 18th annual World History Association
conference: Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts. For further
details, see below under "CONFERENCES AND CALLS FOR PAPERS."


CONFERENCES AND CALLS FOR PAPERS

For a listing of upcoming "convocatorias" and other gatherings of
interest to medievalists (most are located in Spain or Latin America
and/or are Spanish-language proceedings), visit
http://medievalismo.org/congresos/congresos.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. Papers
will address 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? 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 and 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. Send inquiries to: Karen Fresco,
Director, Program in Medieval Studies, kfresco@uiuc.edu.

31 October-1 November 2008: Texts and Contexts: A conference at the Ohio
State University, sponsored by The Center for Epigraphical and
Palaeographical Studies. Call for Papers. 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.

7-9 November 2008: 27th Annual Charles Homer Haskins Society
Conference for Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Angevin and Viking History.
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The featured speakers will be
Paul Hyams (Cornell University), Mark Gardiner (Queens University of
Belfast) and Uta-Renate Blumenthal (Catholic University of America).
Further information and registration forms are available at
http://www.haskins.cornell.edu/Conf2008.html , or you can contact the
conference director, Jennifer Paxton, and paxtonj@georgetown.edu.

8 November 2008: Historical Texts, Cultural Contexts, Southern Connecticut
State University, New Haven. An interdisciplinary conference sponsored by
the Departments of English and Foreign Languages. Featured speakers: A.C.
Spearing (University of Virginia), William Caferro (history of Medieval and
Renaissance Italy), Marcia Colish (Oberlin College, Emeritus), Maryanne
Kowaleski (Fordham University), Nancy Partner (McGill University), Barbara
Newman (Northwestern University). For information and program,
http://www.southernct.edu/departments/foreignlanguage/medcon08/.

14-15 November 2008: Global Encounters: Legacies of Exchange and
Conflict (1000-1700). University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The new
Program in MEMS (Medieval and Early Modern Studies) at UNC, Chapel Hill,
will host an interdisciplinary conference on topics of cultural
mediation, interchange, and conflict in the premodern world. Areas of
geographical concentration will 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). For further
information visit http://mems.unc.edu/global-encounters/, or direct
further questions to Professor Brett Whalen (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.

19-21 November 2008: "La creación de la imagen en la Edad Media: de la
herencia a la renovación" ["The creation of the image in the Middle
Ages: from heritage to renewal"]. Universidad Complutense de Madrid,
Spain. For more information, please visit
http://www.ucm.es/centros/webs/d437/index.php?tp=II%20Jornadas%20Complutenses%20de%20Arte%20Medieval&a=invest&d=14345.php

9-12 January 2009: 7th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts &
Humanities: Call for Papers/Abstracts/Submissions. Sponsored by:
University of Louisville, Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods;
The Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance. The 7th Annual Hawaii
International Conference on Arts & Humanities will be held at the Hilton
Hawaiian Village Beach Resort & Spa, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The conference
will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals from
arts and humanities related fields to interact with members inside and
outside their own particular disciplines. For more information:
http://www.hichumanities.org. Email address: humanities@hichumanities.org.

6-7 February 2009: “Textual Trauma: Violence Against Texts.” Annual
Manuscript Workshop of the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee. The
deadline for applications to present is October 1, 2008. For more
information, please visit
http://web.utk.edu/~marco/workshop/manuscript.shtml.

6-7 February 2009: "Per Speculum in Mediaevum: Discourses of Mirroring
in the Middle Ages." Medievalists @ Penn (M@P) invites submissions for
the graduate conference in Medieval Studies at the University of
Pennsylvania. Keynote Speaker: Marina Brownlee. All abstract submissions
(max. 250-300 words) must be received by November 14th, 2008. All
submissions to mapmirrors@gmail.com. The figure captured in the Latin
word speculum, meaning both 'mirror' and 'encyclopedia,' is central to
medieval culture. From St. Paul's foundational "per speculum in
aenigmate" to Ovid's version of the Narcissus myth to Jean de Meun's
re-titling of the Romance of the Rose as Le Miroer aus Amoreus, the
problematic of reflection cuts across medieval regional and discursive
boundaries. This traveling topos pervades medieval cultural _expression,
from religious thought to the production of visual and textual artwork
to music and philosophy. The implicit or explicit articulation of this
fascinating figure nevertheless differs as it enters (or is re-evaluated
within) varying discourses. This conference invites submissions
concerning one or more formations of the 'mirror.' We seek to encourage
a plurality of perspectives from medievalists of all disciplines in
recognition of the profound 'interdisciplinarity' of our common object
of study: the Middle Ages. Topics might include, but are not limited to:
encyclopedias and summae, advice for princes and conduct manuals,
scientific treatises and astrology, (Ciceronian) friendship,
reproduction and repetition, twins and doubling, vanity and the
Narcissus myth, reflection and replication, representation and mimesis,
specularity and visuality, recognition and self-consciousness, the
mirror of the soul and mysticism, mirror as distorted image, figura, and
metaphor.

19-20 February 2009: "Comparative Mysticism of the Middle Ages:
Textual Traditions, 1000-1600" - Third Annual Sacred Leaves Graduate
Symposium, University of South Florida, Tampa Library, Tampa, FL.
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor,
University of Chicago. The Special Collections Department of the Tampa
Library, University of South Florida seeks papers from graduate students
and recent M.A. or Ph.D. recipients for its Third Annual Sacred Leaves
Graduate Symposium. We encourage topics on mystical _expressions in the
medieval world comparing religions, cultures and/or gender. Subjects for
proposals may include, but are not limited to: Poetry and lyric,
Cross-cultural and religious influences, Manuscript illumination, Spain,
Iberia and beyond, Mystical forms of dissent and their repression, The
role of mystic in society. Please email an abstract of no more than 250
words to Dr. Jane Marie Pinzino, Symposium Coordinator at
jpinzino@lib.usf.edu by November 14, 2008. Notification of acceptances
will be emailed by November 28, 2008. Please include the title of your
paper, name, affiliation and email address. Each paper selected will be
allotted 20 minutes for presentation.
http://www.sacredleavesgraduatesymposium.blogspot.com/.

5-7 March 2009: CFP: VAGANTES GRAD STUDENT CONFERENCE 2009
---The medievalists of Florida State University have the honor of hosting
the eighth annual Vagantes Medieval Graduate Student Conference on March 5-
7, 2009. Vagantes is now the largest conference in North America for
graduate students studying the Middle Ages. The goal of Vagantes is to
provide an open dialogue among young scholars from all fields of medieval
studies. It seeks to create a sense of community for junior medievalists
of diverse backgrounds within the margins of a graduate student budget.
For more information, please visit www.vagantesconference.org .

2-5 April 2009: Shifting Cultural Frontiers in Late Antiquity [ca. 200 -
700 AD]: Eighth Biennial Conference on Shifting Frontiers in Late
Antiquity. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. The confirmed
plenary speakers are Professors Jas Elsner (Corpus Christi, Oxford) and
Seth Schwartz (Jewish Theological Seminary). Call for papers: Beneath
the familiar political and religious narrative of late antiquity lies a
cultural history both more complicated and more fascinating. Late
antiquity was a time of intense cultural negotiation in which new
religious communities and new populations sifted through existing modes
of cultural _expression, adopting many elements for themselves and
turning others aside. This conference seeks to understand how cultural
transformation occurred amidst the political and religious disruption
that can seem characteristic of late antiquity. To this end, we seek
contributions that explore three distinct areas of late antique cultural
history: 1) the interaction of "high" and "low" culture, 2) the impact
of changing and collapsing political centers on their peripheries, and
3) the emergence of hybrid literary, artistic, and religious modes of
_expression. Possible contributions to these areas may highlight the
permeable division between elite and vernacular culture, the ease with
which cultural memes were transmitted across geographic and linguistic
boundaries, the adaptability of established cultures to new political
and social realities, and the degree to which newcomers were integrated
into existing cultural communities. As in the past, the conference will
provide an interdisciplinary forum for ancient historians, philologists,
Orientalists, art historians, archeologists, and specialists in the
early Christian, Jewish, and Muslim worlds to discuss a wide range of
European, Middle-Eastern, and African evidence for cultural
transformation in late antiquity. Proposals should be clearly related to
the conference theme. They should state both the problem being discussed
and the nature of the new insights or conclusions that will be
presented. Abstracts of not more than 500 words for 20-minute
presentations may be submitted via e-mail to Prof. Edward Watts,
shifting.frontiers.8@gmail.com (Department of History, Indiana
University, Ballantine Hall, Rm. 828, 1020 East Kirkwood Avenue,
Bloomington, IN 47405-7103, USA). The deadline for submission of
abstracts is October 15, 2008. The submission of an abstract carries
with it a commitment to attend the conference should the abstract be
accepted. For further information see
http://www.indiana.edu/~sf8/index.php.

3-4 April 2009: "The City in Medieval Life and Culture" is the theme of
the 2009 (36th Annual) Sewanee Medieval Colloquium. The University of
the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. Call for papers: proposals are invited
for individual papers or sessions. The program will include 20-minute
papers from any discipline; papers may be related to the theme in any
way. Lecturers include John Najemy (Cornell University) and Pamela King
(University of Bristol). Please send abstract(s) of approx. 250 words
with brief c.v.(s) to sridyard@sewanee.edu no later than 1 October 2008.
Earlier submissions are encouraged. Papers accepted for the Colloquium
must be received in their final form no later than 27 Feb. 2009, in
order to reach their commentators in good time. For further details of
the Colloquium and the SMC Prize for best paper by a graduate student or
junior scholar, please see http://www.sewanee.edu/medieval/main.html.

* 4 April 2009: GRAD STUDENT CFP: AUTHORITY AND THE BOOK IN MEDIEVAL CULTURE.
Yale University, New Haven, CT. Abstracts from graduate students are now
being accepted for the 26th Annual New England Medieval Studies Consortium
Graduate Student Conference, the theme of which will be "Authority and the
Book in Medieval Culture." The conference will be held on April 4, 2009 at Yale
University. The organizers hope that this broad heading will elicit
proposals for papers from all disciplines of Medieval Studies. Of especial
interest are papers dealing with palaeography and manuscript studies;
hagiography; literary studies; art history; history and historiography;
gender studies; religious studies; musicology and medieval liturgical
studies; as well as biblical exegesis and the relationship between Latin
and various medieval vernaculars. Further, we look forward to receiving
proposals that take more theoretical approaches to ideas of authority in
the medieval period. We also hope to have one panel devoted to papers that
explore different aspects of the history of modern Medieval Studies.
Papers are to be no more than twenty minutes in length and read in
English. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent by e-mail to
Andrew.Kraebel@Yale.edu or SamanthaLily.Katz@Yale.edu; a hardcopy may be
mailed to: Andrew Kraebel, Department of English, Yale University, P.O. Box 208302
New Haven, CT 06520-8302. The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2008.
Graduate students whose abstracts are selected for the conference will have
the opportunity to submit their paper in its entirety for consideration for
the Alison Goddard Elliott Award. The conference will also feature an exhibition
of manuscripts in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, and a plenary speaker, to be announced at a later date. For more
information, see http://www.yale.edu/medieval/documents/CallforPapersv1.pdf.

22-25 April 2009: Saint Anselm of Canterbury and His Legacy: An
International Conference to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the
death of Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109). University of Kent,
Canterbury, UK. Organised by the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, Durham University, UK and the Canterbury Centre for Medieval
and Early Modern Studies. Call for papers: The conference organisers
welcome proposals for papers on all aspects of Anselm's life and
thought, as well as their subsequent investigation and interpretation.
Proposed paper titles and abstract of 300 words are due in mid-October
2008. Full details are available at:
http://www.dur.ac.uk/cmrs/conferences/anselm2009. For more information,
please contact Dr Giles Gasper, Durham University, at:
g.e.m.gasper@dur.ac.uk.

24-25 April 2009: In Vino Veritas: A Symposium on Wine and the Influence
of Bacchus from Classical Antiquity through the Eighteenth Century, Binghamton
University. The Center for Renaissance and Medieval Studies (CEMERS) at
Binghamton
University invites papers for a symposium to be held on the Binghamton
University campus. Papers may address any area of scholarship
concerning wine, its symbolic import, its appearance in or impact on
cultural production (from painting to poetry), and its effects--social,
political, economic, therapeutic or remedial. Papers are also welcome
on Dionysus/Bacchus, the god of wine, from classical antiquity to the
eighteenth century. We encourage submissions in a broad range of
disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. Proposals for individual
papers (20 minutes maximum) 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 e-mail message to cemers@binghamton.edu
("Re: IN VINO VERITAS Conference). Those wishing to submit a hard copy
should forward it to: CEMERS [Attn.: IN VINO VERITAS Conference],
Binghamton University, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000. We
also welcome proposals for integrated panels. Panel organizers should
describe the organizing principle of the panel and send abstracts,
names, and affiliations of each participant. A panel should consist of
no more than three papers, each 20 minutes in length. Selected papers
will be published in Acta, a journal of the Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies. Submission deadline: Please submit abstracts by
December 15, 2008. For additional information please contact the
Director's office (607-777-2730 or cemers@binghamton.edu) or visit our
website (www.cemers.binghamton.edu).

7-10 May 2009: The 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies,
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. The Congress is an annual gathering
of over 3,000 scholars interested in Medieval Studies. It features over 600
sessions of papers, panel discussions, roundtables, workshops, and
performances. There are also some 90 business meetings and receptions
sponsored by learned societies, associations, and institutions. The exhibit
hall boasts nearly 70 exhibitors, including publishers, used book dealers,
and purveyors of medieval sundries. The Congress lasts three and a half
days, extending from Thursday morning until Sunday at noon. The CALL
FOR PAPERS (paper proposals deadline: September 15) is available on the
Congress Web site. For
information, http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/index.html.

7-10 May 2009: Transmission and Reception of Saints Lives’: English
and Continental Contexts:Special Session, 44th annual International
Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Dr. Lindsay Craig of
the University of Minnesota has issued a call for papers for this
special session. The study of saints' lives is central to scholarly
understanding of medieval piety and devotional practice. This sessions
inquires how authors, translators, and audiences understand
and react to vitae sanctarum et sanctorum's negotiations of
institutional anxieties about orthodoxy and of social discourses of
holiness. Our interests include retellings of saints' lives, from brief
exempla to long catalogs of lives like the Legenda Aurea, and their
rehabilitation or deprecation of earlier vitae; the ways in which
hagiographic impulses inflect other genres; reworkings of contemplative
texts in later literature; the intersections and conflations of
spiritual and secular literary transmission; and contested spaces of
transmission. We welcome studies spanning broad chronological and
geographical spectra. The session subtitles "English Contexts" and
"Continental Contexts" do not exclude cross-channel studies, but rather
provide us with a way to group papers on a topic with wide-ranging
relevance according to main interest area. Please submit abstracts and
cover materials to Lindsay Craig at lcraig@umn.edu by September 15th for
full consideration.

12-13 June 2009: Intermixti spiritus oris: the interface between
rhetoric and poetry in Late Antiquity (from the age of Diocletian until
Arcadius): University of Ghent, the Netherlands. Please visit
http://www.latijnengrieks.ugent.be/intermixti for more information about
the call for papers and the topic.

25-28 June 2009: Merchants and Missionaries: Trade and Religion in World
History: 18th annual World History Association conference: Salem State
College, Salem, Massachusetts. In honor of Salem's rich history of
overseas involvement, the conference's theme will be "Merchants and
Missionaries: Trade and Religion in World History." Proposals on all
aspects of trade, religion, and related issues in world history are
invited. Further information concerning the 2009 conference, including
proposal submission forms, accommodations and registration can be found
on the WHA website, www.thewha.org.

Town dig unearths medieval treasures


Gladiator' tomb is found in Rome


Project aims to make French literature more accessible

The Big Question: What was the Holy Grail, and why our centuries-old
fascination with it?


Archaeologists rethinking history of 1,000-year-old Alaska village

Medieval relic to be displayed in region


Ancient Spindle with Runes Discovered in Reykjavík

Gold brooch find a first for Norfolk

Finding Hidden Tomb Of Genghis Khan Using Non-Invasive Technologies

Rome reveals tombs of dark ages city


Sun reveals cross carved into stone slab on St Kilda


Novgorod Archeologists Find 12th Century Hoard

Clue to medieval church uncovered

New dig to 'discover' St Edmund



French accuse English of war crimes and exaggeration over Agincourt


Excavated ancient burials reveal Vikings' way of life


Jelling stones in danger


Dig finds delight but ancient friary keeps its secrets

And another on St Gall's library digitation, with pictures:
Bringing a Trove of Medieval Manuscripts Online for the Ages

Medieval News

Coroner declares brooch is a medieval treasure


1,700-year-old jewels uncovered in Ephesus


More on:
Uncovering north's Christian past


ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG TO UNCOVER THE MYSTERIES OF CARISBROOKE CASTLE


Rescue plan to help Doncaster monument

Timbers from a Viking home found in Hungate dig

Hampton Court medieval hall was burned down after 'Edward III knees-up'

Rare finds unearth Teesside link with royalty

teesside-link-with-royalty-84229-22029051/
Descubren restos de un edificio del siglo XII en pleno centro de Berlín

The treasure trove making waves


Police thwart attempt to smuggle historical manuscripts

Timothy I, was invited by the Abbassid Caliph al-Mahdi

In 781 AD the East Syriac Catholicos, Timothy I, was invited by the
Abbassid Caliph al-Mahdi to answer a series of questions about
Christianity over two days. The questions and his replies are extant
in Syriac. I've placed the English translation by Alphonse Mingana
online here:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/timothy_i_apology_01_text.htm

Introduction here:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/timothy_i_apology_00_intro.htm

Timothy I was an interesting man, heavily involved in the Nestorian
evangelism which ultimately reached China. He also was involved in
biblical textual criticism, and his letters record the discovery of
some old manuscripts of the Psalms in the region of the Dead Sea; a
possible precursor of the modern Dead Sea Scrolls discovery.

The text above is public domain: please copy freely. It now forms
part of my collection of public domain patristic texts available here:

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

For those who would like to support the work of the site, you can buy
a CDROM of the translations from here:

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

International Conference
"Faire de l'Anthropologie Historique du Moyen Age aujourd'hui" that will
take place at the EHESS on 21-22 november 2008.

For further information :
http://calenda.revues.org/nouvelle11240.html
or write to :
anthroologie.historique@hotmail.fr


There's no registration fee but, if you are planning on attending, it
would be helpful to us if you register writing to
anthropologie.historique@hotmail.fr
.

We hope to see many of you there!

Women's Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC - AD 800

I am happy to announce that the electronic version of Women's Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC - AD 800, by Roger Bagnall and Raffaella Cribiore, with contributions by Evie Ahtaridis, has finally appeared as part of the Humanities E-book Project of the American Council of Learned Societies.

For the coming month, it will be available free of charge at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb90014.
After a month, it will be moved "inside the wall" and be available only to those with institutional licenses for HEB. As quite a bit of other material on ancient history is available in HEB, those whose institutions do not currently have subscriptions to this resource might want to suggest it to their libraries.

The electronic version of the book has digital images wherever these were available to us, as well as links to texts in the Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri (and images of texts for the Demotic and Coptic texts). Because final corrections were done befor the Papyrological Navigator became available, the links are at present to the Perseus version of the DDbDP. This will be changed in a later release. The electronic version also contains quite a few letters not included in the print version, and a much more extensive version of the introduction to the volume.

Blog Bleg

I'm taking a few weeks here to slowly but surely update and in fact create a blog roll for this blog.

I am also slowly but surely updating the links pages for The Heroic Age. I thought it was high time that the links page included a section of late antique and early medieval bloggers. I know whom I read, and I know some of you have extensive blogrolls from whom I'll borrow. So let me lay out a couple things:


Links:
1) To be included in the LINKS section at The Heroic Age, the blog must deal with Late Antiquity and Early Medieval NW Europe between 300ish to 1200ish.

2) the blog must in the main be academic oriented: the majority of the time deal with the field rather than solely personal material

3) the blog should on average be updated at least every couple months

I will also be including some of the more wide reaching blogs such as In The Middle, Modern Medieval, Medieval Art, Medieval Material Culture, Homilaria etc that stretch over a larger period than HA covers, but do cover things in our period. And while technically A Corner of Tenth Century Europe deals with a corner of Europe outside the journal's purview, Jonathan Jarrett talks about subjects that really concern every medievalist, indeed, every early medievalist that of course I'll be including it.

This blog's blogroll:

To be a part of this blogs blogroll, I can be more general
1) Highlighted will be those blogs by Heroic Age board members
2) a blog that mostly deals with medieval shtuff
3) that is updated at least every 6 months or so

If you'd like to be included either in the blogroll here or in the Links page at The Heroic Age leave a comment, send an email, or otherwise get in touch with me.