CET Academic Programs

CET Academic Programs is accepting applications for the summer 2011
Crossroads of Islam, Judaism and Christianity program in Avila,
Spain. The 8-week program focuses on Spain's medieval history and
also includes an academically oriented traveling seminar to Morocco.
The rigorous curriculum includes 9 credits of course work. Classes
are taught in Spanish, and special measures are taken to make the
lectures and assignments accessible to students with intermediate
Spanish language skills. The program pre-requisite is two semesters
of college-level Spanish. Applications must be submitted by March 1.
For more details, please visit
www.cetacademicprograms.com.

Rachel Howard
Senior Manager, Czech Republic and Spain Programs
CET Academic Programs
rhoward@academic-travel.com
www.cetacademicprograms.com

The University of Manchester Medieval Postgraduate Conference

The University of Manchester Medieval Postgraduate Conference
Education and Ignorance:
The Use of Knowledge in the Medieval World c.550-1550

John Rylands Library, Deansgate
Monday 6 - Tuesday 7th June 2011

CALL FOR PAPERS

Modern historiography has often depicted the Middle Ages as a period of
ignorance, dogma and superstition– a period in which knowledge stagnated
and education was both restricted to a privileged minority and dominated
by the institutional and ideological authority of the Church. From the
Carolingian Renaissance and the rise of the medieval universities to the
condemnations of heretical teachings and the intellectual and spiritual
ferment of the Reformation, the reality about education and knowledge in
the medieval world is undoubtedly far more complex and contested than this
picture suggests. This two day conference seeks to explore that reality
through a diverse range of disciplines and across the full historical span
of the period. We aim to address the questions – How was education
theorised, institutionalised and practiced throughout the middle ages? How
was knowledge controlled, transmitted and transformed? and To what uses
were they put both by established ecclesiastical and feudal powers and the
social and religious formations that opposed them?
With these questions in mind, we invite proposals for twenty minute papers
from postgraduates and early career researchers on a variety of topics
including but, not limited to –
- the losses and restoration of Classical knowledge in the early
Middle Ages
- the development of the medieval universities
- the educational role of the monasteries and the mendicant orders
- scholasticism, scepticism and humanism
- heresy, censorship and reformation ideas about education
- didacticism in medieval literature, drama, art and architecture
- material culture and education: manuscripts, libraries, printing
etc.
- theories and methods of learning – memory and scriptural exegesis
- unconventional and popular learning –alchemy, folk, and occult
practice

Please e-mail abstracts of 250-300 words to
mancmedievalconference2011@gmail.com along with your name, affiliation
and title of paper. All queries should also be directed to this address.

The deadline for submission is 31st March 2011. Selection of papers will
be made by 15th April.

Crossroads of Islam, Judaism and Christianity

CET Academic Programs is accepting applications for the summer 2011
Crossroads of Islam, Judaism and Christianity program in Avila,
Spain. The 8-week program focuses on Spain's medieval history and
also includes an academically oriented traveling seminar to Morocco.
The rigorous curriculum includes 9 credits of course work. Classes
are taught in Spanish, and special measures are taken to make the
lectures and assignments accessible to students with intermediate
Spanish language skills. The program pre-requisite is two semesters
of college-level Spanish. Applications must be submitted by March 1.
For more details, please visit
www.cetacademicprograms.com.

Call for Presentations: The Digital Classicist

Call for Presentations

The Digital Classicist will once more be running a series of seminars in
Summer 2011, on the subject of research into the ancient world that has
an innovative digital component. Themes could include, but are by no
means limited to, visualization, information and data linking, digital
textual and linguistic studies, and geographic information and network
analysis; so long as the content is likely to be of interest both to
classicists/ancient historians/archaeologists and information
scientists/digital humanists, and would be considered serious research
in at least one of those fields.

The seminars run on Friday afternoons (16:30 - 19:00) from June to
mid-August in Senate House, London, and are hosted by the Institute of
Classical Studies (University of London). In previous years collected
papers from the DC WiP seminars have been published in an online special
issue of Digital Medievalist, a printed volume from Ashgate Press, a
BICS supplement (in production), and the last three years have been
released as audio podcasts. We have had expressions of interest in
further print volumes from more than one publisher.

We have a budget to assist with travel to London (usually from within
the UK, but we have occasionally been able to assist international
presenters to attend, so please enquire).

Please send a 300-500 word abstract to gabriel.bodard@kcl.ac.uk by April
15th, 2011. We shall announce the full programme at the end of April.

http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/index.html

(Coörganised by Will Wootton, Charlotte Tupman, Matteo Romanello, Simon
Mahony, Timothy Hill, Alejandro Giacometti, Juan Garcés, Stuart Dunn &
Gabriel Bodard.)

The study of medieval legal documents (charters, deeds, instruments ...)
makes increasingly use of digital tools. The massive growth of documents
online - as images, as calendars, as texts - and the attempts made to
analyze and discuss diplomatics in the web has motivated us to organize
a second international conference on "Digital Diplomatics". It will take
place in Naples 29.9.-1.10.2011 and we are looking for proposals. You
can find the full presentation of the conference at

http://www.cei.lmu.de/digdipl11/

We would like to encourage in particular young scholars and graduate
students to present their ideas and projects on using the new
technologies for studying old documents. Travel grants will be provided.

PhD Studentship: Digital Resource of Palaeography

PhD Studentship: Digital Resource of Palaeography

The Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London, is pleased to announce a PhD studentship in digital palaeography funded by a European Research Council project, Digital Resource of Palaeography. The studentship is to be held in the CCH as part of a PhD in Digital Humanities.

Context

The aim of Digital Resource of Palaeography is to bringing the methods and resources of digital humanities to bear on palaeographical exploration, citation and teaching. It involves a web resource which will allow scholars to rapidly retrieve digital images, verbal descriptions, and detailed characterisations of the writing, as well as the text in which it is found and the content and structure of the manuscript or charter. It will incorporate different ways of searching, using images, maps, timelines and image-processing as well as conventional text-based browsing and searching. The palaeographical content will focus on a case-study of vernacular English script from the eleventh century, but the project will allow scholars to test and apply new general developments in palaeographical method which have been discussed in theory but which have hitherto proven difficult or impossible to implement in practice. Some further details of the project are available on the KCL news page s.

The studentship

Applicants should propose a research project which can benefit from and contribute to the Digital Resource in Palaeography project but which remains distinct from it. Possibilities may include the detailed study of a particular manuscript or small group of manuscripts from the corpus of eleventh-century vernacular English script. A comparative study could apply the research methodologies of the ERC project to a different corpus, perhaps focusing on the products of a single scriptorium or scribe, looking at variance and variation in script; or focusing on a corpus that has proven difficult to manage with conventional approaches, such as manuscript fragments. Another possibility may be more methodological, focusing on the possibilities and limits of Digital Humanities in palaeographical scholarship.

The student will be based at King’s College London, in the Centre for Computing in Humanities and will benefit from the CCH PhD Seminar. A second supervisor will be assigned according to the requirements of the project. It is also expected that the student will maintain contact with other departments in King’s, such as History or English. The student will also have access to resources and seminars across the University of London more widely, including Senate House Library and its Palaeography Room, the Institute of Historical Research’s seminars and library, and seminars and expertise at the Institute of English Studies.

Value

For the three years of the studentship (starting no later than October 2011) the grant is c.￡14,000 per annum. Students liable to pay fees at the overseas rate are welcome to apply, but should make sure that they can cover the difference between the award and the full overseas fee. The studentship must be held full-time.

Eligibility, Timetable & Application Process

Applicants for these awards are expected to begin PhD study on 1 October 2011. Applicants should hold (or have nearly completed) a Master’s degree or equivalent in Old English, Anglo-Saxon/early Anglo-Norman history, or another relevant area of medieval studies. A good knowledge of the language(s) of the manuscripts under study is required (Old/Middle English and/or Latin), and a background or demonstrable interest in manuscript studies is highly desirable.

Applicants must submit the following documentation by the deadline of 1 March 2011:

1. An Admissions Application form & all supporting documents – submitted to the Centre for Arts & Sciences Admissions (CASA) via the online admissions portal at www.kcl.ac.uk/graduate/apply/
2. A one page statement of interest including a description of the proposed research, submitted to peter.stokes@kcl.ac.uk
3. A one-page statement of your research training, background and suitability to the project, submitted to peter.stokes@kcl.ac.uk
4. A sample of written work (3000-5000 words), submitted to peter.stokes@kcl.ac.uk

An interview will be arranged with shortlisted applicants, either face to face or by teleconference, after the closing date.

Enquiries

Please email Dr Peter Stokes or telephone him on +44 (0)20 7848 2813 in the first instance with any queries about this studentship.

Posted by: Peter Stokes (peter.stokes@kcl.ac.uk).



URL: http://digitalmedievalist.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/phd-studentship-digital-resource-of-palaeography/

International Association for the History of Religions Special Conference 2012

International Association for the History of Religions Special Conference 2012

Religions, Science and Technology in Cultural Contexts: Dynamics of Change

Venue: NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 1-3 March 2012

In current public and academic debates, the complex relationships between ‘religion’ and ‘science’ tend to be reduced into one between monolithic entities. By exploring historical and contemporary interactions between religions, science and technology, a more complex understanding may be reached of the areas and ways in which they overlap, correspond, challenge and conflict with each other.

This conference seeks to explore how religions, science and technology interact and generate change (progressive, reactive, regressive), particularly in relation to such issues as the environment and climate change; the economy; welfare; life expectancy; popular representation; and sexual equality.

Of particular interest are explorations of dynamic relationships between worldviews/cosmologies, socio-cultural practices and technologies; and of ‘the politics of change’, i.e. how different actors seek to convince the public of the benefits of their own approaches or of the detriment of ‘the others’ approaches.

The conference is organized by the Department of Archaeology and Religious Studies of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

Registration fee until 1 December 2011 is 250 EUR, which includes conference materials, lunches and refreshments. There will also be bursaries for participants from lower income countries.

Abstracts of 200 words and affiliation details should be submitted by 1st August 2011. For submitting your abstracts and for any type of inquiries, you are welcome to contact the Conference secretary, Filip Ivanovic (filip.ivanovic@ntnu.no).