CFP

MEPlease forward to all and sundry.


The Heroic Age is currently inviting papers on the following topics:

LAST CALL: Issue 16: Alcuin and His Impact

Alcuin spans the Anglo-Saxon and Continental worlds and his influence is
felt far beyond his own period and place. This issue seeks to explore
the man, his times, and his influence on his contemporaries and on
subsequent generations.

Articles should be 7000 words including bibliography and endnotes, and
conform to The Heroic Age's in-house style. Instructions may be found
under Submission Instructions. All submissions will be reviewed by two
readers according to a double-blind policy. All submissions should be
sent to Larry Swain.

Issue 17: Carolingian Border-Lands

This issue seeks to explore the lands and peoples surrounding the
Carolingian kingdom(s) and the relationship between empire and
"periphery". Possible topics might include, but not be limited to: the
Spanish March, Carolingians and England and Ireland, the Scandinavian
countries, Carolingian "foreign policy" and trade,
cross-border/cultural/linguistic influences, Italy, Byzantine Empire and
the Carolingians, Saxons, Avars and Slavs just to name a few. The focus
is on the regions surrounding the Carolingians and possibly Carolingian
relationships with those borderlands whether political, religious, or
cultural.

Articles should be 7000 words including bibliography and endnotes, and
conform to The Heroic Age's in-house style. Instructions may be found
under Submission Instructions. All submissions will be reviewed by two
readers according to a double-blind policy. All submissions should be
sent to Larry Swain.

Issue 18: Occitan Poetry

We would like to invite submissions for the special 2012 issue of HA on
Occitan poetry, edited by Anna Klosowska (Miami U. of OH). We are
interested in submissions including but not limited to the following
topics and approaches:

editions or translations of a short text or texts or a portion of a
longer text (especially lesser known texts)
transnational and postcolonial approaches, Jewish, Arabic,
Mediterranean, Near Eastern, and cultural studies
feminism, queer theory, Marxism, psychoanalysis, history of emotions,
history of subjectivity, critical animal studies
philology, musicology, poetics, manuscript study, material history and
history of ideas, medievalism
Publication: June 2012 (online)
Final revisions due: March 1, 2012
Response from anonymous readers by: December 1, 2012
Submission due: July 1, 2011

Submissions should be 3000 words including bibliography and endnotes,
and conform to The Heroic Age's in-house style. Instructions may be
found under Submission Instructions. All submissions will be reviewed by
two readers according to a double-blind policy. All submissions should
be sent to Anna Klosowska, Special Issue Editor.
--
Larry Swain

Specular Reflections: The Mirror in Medieval and Early Modern Culture"

"Specular Reflections: The Mirror in Medieval and Early Modern Culture"
The Early Romance Studies Research Cluster, along with the Committee for Medieval Studies at the University of British Columbia, solicits contributions for the 40th Annual UBC Medieval Workshop, to be held on March 16-17, 2012. The conference will be held at Green College on the beautiful UBC campus in Vancouver, Canada.

As Margot Schmidt suggests in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité, the mirror's multiple uses as an object translate into highly diversified symbolic functions. Thus, while they have long been associated with scientific exploration, knowledge, and contemplation, owing largely to analogies with their instrumental use-analogies that lead to the book as speculum, as explored by Herbert Grabes, for example--reflective surfaces also function as metaphors for the illusory nature of representation. They can create false, shadowy, or deformed images of earthly reality, as suggested both by the ubiquitous Ovidian theme of Narcissus at the fountain and the Pauline per speculum in aenigmate. The contradictory uses of mirrors in iconography mean they can stand as figures of virtue or vice, depending on whether they accompany Prudence or Venus, or represent Mary--the speculum sine macula--or Eve. Mirrors are not only ambivalent, but also Janus-like: whether examined as objects, in their instrumental, decorative, or other functions, or as visual or textual figures, mirrors have fascinated humankind, not least because they seem to serve as a kind of threshold phenomenon allowing for the contemplation of inner and outer worlds, as well as the otherworldly. While these thresholds promise access to other worlds--earthly, imaginary, or divine--they are also suggestive of the limitations of human perception, knowledge, and wisdom.

We are looking for papers dealing with any aspect of 'specular reflections' through text, image, music or any branch of learning, especially those that engage with the paradoxical ways mirror images are used in all periods, places, and disciplines from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Areas of interest might include, but are in no way limited to: literature, translation, history, art history, philosophy, science and optics, musicology, etc.

Submissions are invited for 20-minute papers and full panels (three papers and a chair). Selected papers from the workshop will be collected as part of a thematic volume of proceedings to be published with a major scholarly press. Proposals (250 words) for papers and panels should be sent by August 1, 2011 to:

Nancy Frelick, Chantal Phan, or Juliet O'Brien
Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies
University of British Columbia
797-1873 East Mall
Vancouver BC V6T 1Z1
CANADA

or by email to: ubcmedievalworkshop@gmail.com

For further details and updated information check: http://ubc2012medieval.blogspot.com

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Kornbluth Photography

A very worthy website to visit for pictures of historical places and objects.

http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/archive-1.html