Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Marco Manuscript Workshop 2022 “Interventions” February 4-5, 2022 Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies The University of Tennessee, Knoxville The seventeenth annual Marco Manuscript Workshop will take place Friday, February 4, and Saturday, February 5, 2022, in person at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The workshop is organized by Professors Maura K. Lafferty (Classics) and Roy M. Liuzza (English), and is hosted by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. This year’s workshop explores the idea of “interventions.” Some manuscripts are pristine, their ink dark and their colors bright, their pages gleaming and unworn. They sit in our modern libraries as fresh as the day they emerged from their scriptorium; their deceptive newness dazzles the eye. Most manuscripts, however, bear signs of use or the marks of their eventful histories, the traces of their lives among readers and in libraries. Many readers worked with a pen, or a knife, in their hand, and they have left their marks on books in various ways—corrections, glosses, annotations, additions, emendations, censored passages, reordered pages and quires, attempts at restoration or refreshing a faded page, supplying missing text on new leaves, even breaking a manuscript apart into several separate books. Some of these readerly acts correct perceived deficiencies in the text, some seek to improve or update, while others try to repair the damage wrought by time and accident on the book. All these practices indicate that the reader thought the book contained some sort of difficulty that needed intervention; they mark the moment when a reader has stepped in to solve a problem. These signs of use and wear capture the intersection of two histories, the book and the reader; they track the process of reading and responding to the book, and help us reconstruct the life and afterlife of manuscripts and texts. As always, we welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined. The workshop is open to scholars and graduate students in any field who are engaged in textual editing, manuscript studies, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; participants will be asked to introduce their text and its context, discuss their approach to working with their material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. As in previous years, the workshop is intended to be more like a class than a conference; participants are encouraged to share new discoveries and unfinished work, to discuss both their successes and frustrations, to offer practical advice and theoretical insights, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and codicological work. We particularly invite the presentation of works in progress, unusual problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a $500 honorarium for their participation. The deadline for applications is September 24, 2021. Please note that this is an earlier deadline than in years past. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page abstract of their project to Roy M. Liuzza, preferably via email to rliuzza@utk.edu, or by mail to the Department of English, University of Tennessee, 301 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0430. The workshop is also open at no cost to scholars and students who do not wish to present their own work but are interested in sharing a lively weekend of discussion and ideas about manuscript studies. Further details will be available later in the year; please contact the Marco Institute at marco@utk.edu for more information. The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Physical Address: Greve Hall, 6th floor Mailing Address: 915 Volunteer Boulevard Dunford Hall, 6th floor Knoxville, TN 37996-4065 Tel. 865.974.1859 Fax. 865.974.3655 marco.utk.edu | @marcoinstitute

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Call for Papers: PhD Candidates and Early-Career Researchers Securing Power in the Sixth-Century Roman Empire Online Workshop, University of Cambridge, 7 December 2021 Imperial power in the sixth-century Roman empire could be fragile. ‘Every emperor had to perform a delicate balancing act to remain in power’ by responding to and accommodating the shifting demands of public opinion and various interest groups: senators, bureaucrats, bishops, soldiers and generals, urban factions, and more (Greatrex 2020; Meier 2016; Kaldellis 2015; Bell 2013; Pfeilschifter 2013). Each of these groups have individually assumed increasingly important roles in political narratives of the period, but comparatively little attention has been paid to how those in power – emperors, patriarchs, governors, magistrates, and others – were subjected to pressures and attempted to build power bases across these interest groups. In particular, modern scholarship has established a boundary between “secular” and “ecclesiastical” politics which sixth-century century political actors neither experienced nor refrained from crossing as they tried to secure or challenge power. The purpose of this workshop is to close these artificial divides and to explore how power was contested and secured “without limits”, in order to take better account of the interconnectedness of the sixth-century world, the flexible array of political pressures to which those in power were subjected, and the sometimes unexpected consequences of responding to these pressures. The goal of this approach is to produce a more holistic, comprehensive understanding of sixth-century power struggles. We invite PhD candidates and early career researchers to read the full call for papers and a list of suggested topics at the following link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I0WgdIvwhyMezCo2RRHaGyeXVxIgds70/view?usp=sharing The deadline for submitting abstracts is 31 August 2021 and the workshop will take place online on 7 December 2021. We envisage the publication of a volume based on the papers delivered at the conference, dependent upon a peer-review process. Please send questions and abstracts to the organisers: Matt Hassall (mh787@cam.ac.uk) and Silvio Roggo (sbr30@cam.ac.uk).

Monday, June 21, 2021

Delaware Valley Medieval Association Graduate Workshop October 17, 2021 Villanova University Villanova, Pennsylvania Location TBD 10am-3pm The DVMA invites 250-word abstracts for 20-minute talks or 5-minute flash presentations by graduate students in any discipline and on any topic that pertains to medieval studies. Global medieval submissions are welcome and encouraged! The purpose of this event is to provide graduate students with an opportunity to connect with an interdisciplinary community of graduate students and professors who specialize in the Middle Ages from other universities in the region, to gain experience presenting in a conference setting, and to receive feedback on their work in a casual environment. Hence, this call for papers is intentionally open-ended: the work you present at this event could include a developing chapter in your dissertation, a completed seminar paper, a work in progress, or simply a new line of inquiry that you would like to pursue. This year’s event will be held in conjunction with the 46th annual Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Conference at Villanova University. To submit a proposal or request more information please contact Ailie Posillico and Margo Weitzman at APosill3@villanova.edu. The deadline to submit an abstract is July 19. To join or for more information about the DVMA visit http://dvmamedieval.com.

Monday, June 7, 2021

 The Fifth Glenstal History Conference takes place from 2-4 July, 2021. 

The theme is Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland and the programme includes contributions by leading Irish, British and American archaeologists, historians and theologians.

This is a free online event and tickets may be booked through Eventbrite at 


Please feel free to circulate this link to colleagues and professional networks. 
We would be delighted to see you at what promises to be a very interesting occasion.

If you require any further information or would like a copy of the programme and abstracts, please contact historyconf@glenstal.com

Friday, June 4, 2021

 # Digital Classicist Seminar Berlin: Call for Papers (EN) 2021


We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the eighth series of
the Digital Classicist Seminar Berlin, organised by the “Zentrum
Grundlagenforschung Alte Welt” of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of
Sciences and Humanities together with the Berliner Antike-Kolleg. The
seminar will run during the winter term of the 2021/22 academic year.

We invite submissions on any kind of research that innovatively employs
digital methods, resources or technologies in order to enable a better
or new understanding of the ancient world. We especially encourage
contributions which show how computer assisted technologies provide
answers to questions intrinsic to a field of research or to questions of
interdisciplinary interest.

Presentations may cover one of the following topics which make the
cultural heritage accessible and deepen our understanding of it: machine
learning, linked open data and the semantic web, spatial and network
analysis, natural language processing, image processing and
visualisation, 3D developments, techniques to be used for an open
science, digital (critical) editions, and any other digital or
quantitative methods. Other and new ideas are very welcome!

Abstracts of 300-500 words maximum (bibliographic references excluded)
should be uploaded as PDF file by midnight (CEST) on 31 July 2021 to
https://nebula.bbaw.de/s/QMiQixSN6ja3aXt. Please note your contact
details on the first (otherwise empty) page. We do accept abstracts
written in English as well as in German, and the presentations can also
be held in either language. When submitting the same proposal for
consideration to multiple venues, please do let us know.

Seminars will run fortnightly on Tuesday evenings (16:15-17:45) from
October 2021 until February 2022. The full programme will be finalised
and announced in August. We endeavour to provide accommodation for the
speakers and contribute towards their travel expenses. If possible, we
prefer a physical presence of the lecturer, but of course a digitally
held lecture is also possible. Unless it is absolutely necessary to do
without presence, the seminar will always take place in hybrid form.