Anglo-Saxon Secular Learning in the Vernacular

Call for essays (Apologies for cross-posting.)

Anglo-Saxon Secular Learning in the Vernacular

The new edition of Ælfric's De temporibus anni by Martin Blake
(Cambridge, 2009) and the proceedings of the research projects
Storehouses of Wholesome Learning and Leornungcræft demonstrate that
the fruits of Anglo-Saxon learning continue to captivate
Anglo-Saxonists and scholars of natural science and medicine. To
consolidate this ongoing interest in scholarship by Anglo-Saxons, we
would like to invite Anglo-Saxonists to contribute essays to a volume
dedicated to secular learning in the vernacular in the Anglo-Saxon
period. The volume will be published in the series Amsterdamer
Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik.
The field of secular learning in the vernacular has been
delimited by Stephanie Hollis and Michael Wright in Old English Prose
of Secular Learning (Cambridge, 1992) and comprises subjects from all
three classes of the medieval arts, particularly from the artes
mechanicae and magicae. We would like to concentrate on scientific
and magico-medical writings and welcome essays on the following
topics: agriculture, arithmetic, astronomy, charms, chronology,
computus, cosmology, grammar, herbalism, horticulture, incantations,
magic, medicine, meteorology, notes and prognostication.
Contributions may focus on one or a combination of the above topics,
or may explore the relationship between vernacular learning and
non-vernacular sources, as long as emphasis lies on (the relevance
of) Old English as a vehicle of learning.
Prospective contributors are asked to submit a brief
abstract for an essay of 15-25 pages to Bryan Carella or Sándor
Chardonnens, preferably before 30 September 2009. Detailed submission
guidelines will be given upon acceptance of the abstract. Publication
of the volume is scheduled in late 2010, so first drafts of the
article are asked to be submitted to the editors in February 2010.

For any questions related to the volume, please feel free to contact
one of the editors:

Bryan Carella, Assumption College, Worcester, MA
László Sándor Chardonnens, Radboud University Nijmegen