Babel News From Eileen

springtime is here, and there is much to report and to [hopefully] seduce you
into:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIXTH, we have new list-serv members to welcome:

Ian Aebel, University of New Hampshire
Mike Augustine, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Brantley Bryant, Sonoma State University
Miriam Jacobson, Wake Forest University
Kathleen Kelly, Northeastern University
Sara Ritchey, University of Louisiana, Lafayette
Will Stockton, Ball State University

*As always, please review your bios on the list-serv page, and let me know of
any adjustments:

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

And SEVENTH, finally [and also], we leave you with this excerpt from Spencer
Reese's "Ghazals for Spring" [from his book of poems "The Clerk's Tale"]:

"Pussy willows open their tattered pocketbooks like aristocrats escaping
who produce heirlooms at dawn and beg the border guards for political asylum.

Floorboards creak all night long in our house; the ghosts must go soon,
all night they tremble and fold their secrets in the growing heat of
the trees.

The mirror is smoke-colored, shadows flit across its surface like anxious
squirrels.
Shark-eyed, the mirror says, 'Unleash your opera.'

And when I think of spring, I think of love, I remember again
the night my roots exploded and mud sloshed in my guts.

O spring! Beautiful spring! How you resex the swinging trees
and sing our trembling skins to sleep."

Cheers, Eileen



--
Eileen A. Joy, Director of Graduate Studies
Dept. of English Language and Literature
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Peck Hall, Room 3206
Edwardsville, IL 62026-1431
(618) 650-3971
http://www.siue.edu/~ejoy
http://www.siue.edu/babel

Digital Medievalist

igital Medievalist announces the publication of a special Digital
Medievalist/Digital Classicist Issue: "Though much is taken, much
abides": Recovering antiquity through innovative digital methodologies,
Published in honour of Ross Scaife (1960-2008).
http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/4/).



* "Though much is taken, much abides": Recovering antiquity
through innovative digital methodologies: Introduction to the
Special Issue
Gabriel Bodard and Simon Mahony
* We are all together: On publishing a Digital Classicist issue of
the Digital Medievalist Journal Gabriel Bodard and Daniel Paul
O'Donnell
* The Inscriptions of Aphrodisias as Electronic Publication: a
user's perspective and a proposed paradigm Gabriel Bodard
* The Application of Network Analysis to Ancient Transport
Geography: A Case Study of Roman Baetica Leif Isaksen

* Towards a digital model to edit the different paratextuality
levels within a textual tradition Paolo Monella
* VLMA: a tool for creating, annotating and sharing virtual museum
collections Amy Smith, Brian Fuchs, and Leif Isaksen

Volume 4 has been edited by Arianna Ciula, Dot Porter for DM and Gabriel
Bodard and Simon Mahony for DC.


See also the first two articles in our currently open volume 3
(http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/3/):
* Palaeography and Image-Processing: Some Solutions and Problems
Peter A. Stokes
* Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music: The evolution of a
digital resource
Julia Craig-McFeely

Volume 3 is being edited by Murray McGillivray and Dan O'Donnell.

-dan
--
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD
Department Chair and Associate Professor of English
Director, Digital Medievalist Project http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
Chair, Text Encoding Initiative http://www.tei-c.org/

Department of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Vox +1 403 329-2377
Fax +1 403 382-7191
Email: daniel.odonnell@uleth.ca
WWW: http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/


Digital Medievalist -- http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/
Journal: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/
Journal Editors: editors@digitalmedievalist.org
News: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/news/
Wiki: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/wiki/
Discussion list: dm-l@uleth.ca
Change list options: http://listserv.uleth.ca/mailman/listinfo/dm-l

Outstanding" smugglers' tunnel unearthed beneath Castle Street

Russian archaeologists find 15th century griffin jug piece


EAST ANGLIA 500 - 869, LIFE AND DEATH OF A KINGDOM AT SUTTON HOO


Archaeologists find historic ditch in Lichfield

Archaeological sensation in Austria. Scientists from the University of
Vienna unearth the earliest evidence of Jewish inhabitants in Austria

AD 900 - The Origins of the English Village


Why Richard I shared his bed with the king of France

Medieval church damaged by fire


Wall in Medieval Rhodes collapses

The dazzling walls of medieval England deserve a bold restorer

Statehood and State Formation in Late Antiquity and the Early Modern Period

"Statehood and State Formation in Late Antiquity and the Early Modern Period"
A Conference at the Heidelberg Academy of Applied Sciences and Humanities

3rd to 5th April 2008

Organisation: Peter Eich (Potsdam), Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner
(Heidelberg), Christian Wieland (Freiburg)
Program: www.staatlichkeitskonferenz.uni-hd.de

In recent years, the emergence of the "state" and the development of
"state power" in early modern Europe have provoked strong interest
among historians. Central to this interest has been the effort to
describe the stages and patterns in the structural development of
European states, to connect these stages and patterns to the
relentless expansion of the claims of state sovereignty, and to
analyse the conditions of, and reasons for, that expansion. The aim
has been to explain the origin of the highly developed, intrusive
modern state. The period under consideration has been the entire
development of the European state--starting in the late medieval
period, but with a particular focus on the Early Modern period, when
these striking developments gained real momentum.

Yet amidst all this interest, it is not generally noticed that a
comparable development had already taken place earlier in European
history. The political system of the Roman Empire underwent, over
several centuries, a development strikingly parallel to what can be
observed between 1500 to 1800. A similar gradual expansion of the
claims of state sovereignty can be observed at Rome, and here too
this expansion was accompanied by the consolidation of state power.
The period in which this development is most dramatically visible is
Late Antiquity. The Roman state of that epoch was characterised by a
degree of centralisation and complexity that has no parallel in
antiquity, and displays instead a number of parallels, remarkable in
retrospect, to the bureaucratic states that came into existence in
the Early Modern period.

As of yet, no serious attempt at a comparative analysis of the
process of state formation in these two periods of history has been
made either by ancient historians or by early modernists. By
discussing the structural changes involved and analysing their
similarities and differences--as well as the reasons for them and the
circumstances in which they arise--this comparative conference aims
to remedy this omission.

For the program and more information see
www.staatlichkeitskonferenz.uni-hd.de. Guests are welcome, there is
no participation fee.

--

Dr. Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner
Seminar für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik der
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Marstallhof 4 D - 69117
Heidelberg Telephon 0049 / 6221 / 54 22 38 Fax 0049 / 6221 / 54 22 34
www.alte-geschichte.uni-hd.de.

April 1 Lecture

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Henry Charles Lea Lecture

Jonathan S. C. Riley-Smith, University of Cambridge

"Some Modern Approaches to the History of the
Crusades"


5:00PM, Rosenwald Gallery
6th floor, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library

Jonathan S. C. Riley-Smith is the most distinguished
historian of the Crusades in the Anglophone world. He
has published fifteen books and hundreds of scholarly
articles on all aspects of Crusades history.

Making the Rounds

http://katewombat.blogspot.com/2008/01/medieval-simpsons.html

CFP: "The Hidden and the Revealed in Medieval and Early

CALL FOR PAPERS

"The Hidden and the Revealed in Medieval and Early
Modern Culture."

We invite papers exploring revelation and concealment,
presence and absence in medieval and early modern
texts, images and music.

We are especially interested in papers from multiple
perspectives and disciplines that interrogate medieval
and early modern conceptions of hiddenness, revelation
and presence: How did medieval and early modern
cultures apprehend and reveal the hidden? How does
the hidden reinforce the presence of the revealed?

The keynote address will be given by Dr.Ingrid
Rowland from the University of Notre Dame at the
American Academy in Rome, author of "The Culture of
the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in
Sixteenth-Century Rome" and the forthcoming "Giordano
Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux.)

Presentations should be 20 minutes long.

Deadline for submission of Abstracts: May 1

Conference date: February 11, 2009

For more information about preparing your abstract,
please contact: medievalconference@rider.edu

This conference is sponsored by Rider University and
the Delaware Valley Medieval Association.