Dear Friends of LAA,
 I am writing to cordially invite you to the next LAA meeting. It will be on the subject of burial and memorial in Late Antiquity, and is a thematic analysis of the topic, following on from  our fieldwork meeting on the subject last November. The conference will be held in Birkbeck, University of London on the 17 March 2018. Details are below. Please register via Eventbrite if you wish to attend: https://laaburial2018.eventbrite.co.uk. If  this is too difficult please reserve directly with me: michaelmulryan@gmail.com. An initial invitation via Eventbrite itself was sent out a week ago, so apologies if you are receiving this again.  Please feel free to distribute the attached poster (in three formats) for publicity within your institutions.
 Kind regards  Michael Mulryan and Luke Lavan
*******************
This conference reviews the state of late antique funerary practices, on a thematic basis, from scientific examinations of skeletons and their DNA, to treatments of the deceased body, to the nature of memorial structures and how they were treated over  time.
(A) DEMOGRAPHY
(i) OSTEOLOGY: LATE ANTIQUE LIVES FROM BONES
09.45-10.45 Flavio de Angelis (Sop. Arch. Di Roma) and Andrea Battistini (Sop. Arch. Di Roma) Lives from Bones: Anthropological Evaluation in the City of Rome
(ii) BIOMOLECULES IN LATE ANTIQUITY (ISOTOPES, DIET, MIGRATION, EPIDEMIC, ENDEMIC DISEASE)
11.00-11.30 Alexandra Chavarria (Padova) Northern Italy
11.30-12.00 Mathew Emery (McMaster) Southern Italy (Skype)
(B) RITUALS AND IDENTITIES: DEATH RITUALS AND TREATMENT OF THE BODY
12.15-12.45 Rhea Brettell (Bradford) Organic residues from mortuary contexts (Britain).
12.45-13.15 Thibaut Devièse (Oxford) Colourants and dyes
Respondent: Béatrice Caseau (Paris IV) Treatment of the body: Ointments and perfumes
(C) COMMEMORATION, MONUMENTS, FUNERARY TOPOGRAPHY
(i) MEMORIALS - LATE ANTIQUE COMMEMORATION,
14.00-14.30 Zsolt Magyar (Budapest) Mausolea in Pannonia
14.30-15.00 Chris Sparey-Green (Kent) Mausolea in NW Europe
(ii) SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS OF DEAD TO LIVING
15.15-15.45 Judit Ciurana Prast (Barcelona) Funerary Landscapes of Catalonia
15.45-16.15 Efthymios Rizos (Oxford) Christian elite burials in Anatolia / Constantinople & the cult of relics
(iii) MEMORIAL AND OBLIVION: SPOLIA AND ATTITUDES TO TOMBS
16.30-16.45 Luke Lavan (Kent) Spolia and the archaeology of memory
16.45-17.15 Douglas Underwood (Kent) City walls and tomb destruction  (Skype)
17.15-17.45 Nick Mishkovsky (Kent) City walls and tomb preservation  (Skype)
17.45-18.00 Conclusion.
All are welcome. Admission 25 GBP, 10 GBP Students. Registration is via Eventbrite:  https://laaburial2018.eventbrite.co.uk
Venue: Room 421 inside Birkbeck College, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX. Metro: Russell Square.
Conveners: L.Lavan/M.Mulryan (Kent) T.Penn (Edin.) R,Darley (Birkbeck).
Sponsors: University of Kent, Birkbeck (University of London), J.Beale, Brill.
We hope you can make it.
Best,Luke Lavan, Rebecca Darley, Michael Mulryan, Tim Penn
Dr Michael Mulryan
Editor - Late Antique Archaeology
Honorary Research Fellow
Centre for Late Antique Archaeology
University of Kent
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Symposium—Early Codices

Production, Destruction, and Modern Conservation

Date: February 23, 2018, 1:00 – 5:00 pm

Location: 38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall

Contact: academicevents@bgc.bard.edu

Cost: Free

This symposium, organized in conjunction with the exhibition The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity, aims to give an overview of the scholarship around the innovation of the codex in late antiquity and its gradual establishment as the standard form of the book until today. Speakers will focus on two distinct but complementary aspects—the historical, which derives primarily from the study of codices as texts, and the material, which derives from the study of codices as physical objects. The purpose of both the exhibition and the symposium is to merge different disciplines, points of view, and approaches in order to gain a better understanding of the early history and evolution of one of the most fascinating and culturally significant objects, the book.

Throughout history the number of books produced must have been huge, but the number of books lost is also substantial. Subtracting those destroyed from those created leaves us the number of books preserved today, which, especially for those produced in the earliest stages of the evolution of the book is frustratingly small. This scarcity of physical evidence is partly what makes the surviving codices from the early centuries extremely important, not just for their texts but also for their technical and material culture aspects. Conserving these precious relics is a challenge that poses both physical and theoretical problems, but at the same time grants a privileged access which enables a closer study and understanding of the technical history of codices.

1 pm

Peter N. Miller
Dean and Professor, Bard Graduate Center
Ivan Gaskell
Professor, Curator and Head of the Focus Gallery Project, Bard Graduate Center
Welcome

Georgios Boudalis
Head of the Book and Paper Conservation Laboratory, Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki, Greece
Introduction

1:20 pm

Brent Nongbri
Independent Scholar
The Emergence of the Codex in the Roman Empire

2 pm

Dirk Rohmann
Lecturer, University of Wuppertal
Canon Formation: Book-Burning and the Christian Codex in Late Antiquity

2:40 pm

Coffee Break

3 pm

Francisco H. Trujillo
Associate Book Conservator, Morgan Library and Museum
Incipient Forms: Codicology of the Coptic Bindings Collection at the Morgan Library & Museum

3:40 pm

Maria Fredericks
Drue Heinz Book Conservator, Thaw Conservation Center, Morgan Library and Museum
The Coptic Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum: Conservation Then and Now

4:20 pm

Georgios Boudalis
Head of the Book and Paper Conservation Laboratory, Museum of Byzantine Culture
Codex as Craft: Can a Book be Compared to a Sock?

5 pm

Reception

This event will be livestreamed. Please check back the day of the event for a link to the video. To watch videos of past events please visit our YouTube page.

CALL FOR PAPERS 2018

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association

Conference Dates: October 4-6

Little America

Cheyenne, Wyoming

This is call for papers for 2018

Deadline for Abstracts: March 1, 2018

I am looking for paper on topics in Old English language or literature. Please send me your abstracts by March 1, 2018 at the email below.

Elizabeth Howard

Professor

Department of English

Fellow

Institute for Bibliography and Editing

Kent State University

Kent, OH 44242

ehoward@kent.edu

CFP: "Where does it end?": Limits on imperial authority in Late Antiquity
Organizer: Jacqueline Long, Loyola University Chicago
Sponsored by the Society for Late Antiquity

At the meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in San Diego, California, JANUARY 3–6, 2019, the Society for Late Antiquity will sponsor a session on limits to imperial authority in Late Antiquity.

No other mortal man commanded more authority in empire. The late-Roman emperor was source of law, head of government, victor of his armies' wars (whether or not he led in battle), exemplar and enforcer of orthodoxy even after repudiating his ancient presidency over state cults, because public order relied on him. How was such a man to “remember [he was] mortal”? If the famous triumphal counterpoint was no more than a Christian interjection to the tradition of ceremony (Beard, Roman Triumph [2007] 85-92), nevertheless it had currency amid the ideological and historical changes of the later Empire. Its question generalizes: what limits on imperial power were recognized, after Roman imperialism proved its geographical limit? The Society for Late Antiquity seeks to compose a panel of papers addressing this multifarious question. Both events and ideas are welcome for consideration. How were usurpers able to reject rivals' rule and claim imperial title for themselves? What failed when they fell short? In what ways could laws rein in rulers? Could criticism or consent regulate their actions, or only opposed force? What cultural values shaped judgment of reigning and past emperors; did such judgments matter? How did alternative organs of empire-wide power, such as bureaucracy or armies or Church, or local constituencies seeking accommodation, work with emperors so as to achieve ends of their own?

Abstracts for papers requiring a maximum of twenty minutes to deliver should be sent no later than February 16, 2018 by email attachment to Mark Masterson at Mark.Masterson@vuw.ac.nz (Note: please don't mail abstracts to the organizer of this panel). All submissions will be judged anonymously by two referees. Prospective panellists must be members in good standing of the SCS at the time of submission and must include their membership number in the cover letter accompanying their abstract. Please follow the SCS’s instructions for the format of individual abstracts: https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/guidelines-authors-abstracts. The submission of an abstract represents a commitment to attend the 2019 meeting should the abstract be accepted. No papers will be read in absentia and the SLA is unable to provide funding for travel to San Diego.

NEW SCHOLARS SERIES AT BATES COLLEGE

NEW APPROACHES TO THE ANCIENT GRECO - ROMAN MEDITERRANEAN

A GRADUATE SYMPOSIUM

September 28–30, 2017

The Program in Classical and Medieval Studies at Bates College invites papers on any topic

related to new approaches to the cultures of the ancient Greco - Roman Mediterranean, for a day - long graduate symposium showcasing the work of emerging scholars (recen t PhD or ABD) from historically underrepresented groups.  The symposium will showcase new work by individuals from underrepresented groups in the professoriate, specifically defined as including African Americans, Alaska Natives, Arab Americ ans, Asian Ame ricans, Latinx , Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders.

We seek papers that examine how people (ancient through modern)  have maintained or deployed the power and prestige of Greek and/or Roman culture  through texts, objects,  rituals,  or other means . In the ancient world, Greeks and Romans interacted with each other, and with many other populations, and in these layered interactions they negotiated identities, cultural hierarchies, and relationships including to their own past . We will consider papers on such layered interactions as well as historical or contemporary adaptations of classicism. We are interested also in papers that expand the theoretical lens through which such cultural and linguistic interactions  -- ancient or mod ern  —  are studied. Fields may include literature, history, medicine, philosophy, religion, art, linguistics ,  or politics, among others.  

Invited speakers will have their travel expenses covered and will be guests of the College fromthe evening of 9/28 through breakfast on 9/30 , with all paper presentations to occur on 9/29 .

Twenty -  minute papers will be grouped into thematic panels, with additional roundtable and Q&A formats running throughout the day. We aim to create an intellectually enriching experience for all interlocutors, including the selected speakers and the faculty and students of Bates College.

What to Submit:

A 300- word abstract describing the paper ’s argument, critical context, and significance.  

A current cv  

A brief statement confirm ing self  -  identification as a member of a historically  underrepresented group  

Where to Submit:  Abstract, cv, and statement should be submitted in PDF format by email to lmaurizi@bates.edu  by April 1  .

Speakers will b e notified of acceptance by  the end of May .

The Marco Institute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, invites you to its 13th annual Manuscript Workshop: "Transmission." Sessions will  be held February 2-3 in the Great Room of the UT International House (1623 Melrose Ave.). The event is free and open to the public. For details and to view the program, please visit http://marco.utk.edu/ms-workshop/. Featuring Presentations By: Scott Bruce (University of Colorado, Boulder) Andrew Dunning (University of Toronto) Martin Foys (University of Wisconsin) Leslie Lockett (The Ohio State University) Kathryn A. Lowe (University of Glasgow) Julia Marvin (University of Notre Dame) Patrick Naeve (Cornell University) Sarah Sprouse (Texas Tech University)

The Textual Heritage community and Vienna University are pleased to invite submissions of abstracts for the El’Manuscript-2018 international conference on the creation and development of information systems for storage, description, processing, analysis, and publication of medieval and early modern handwritten and printed texts and documentary records. Any person involved in the creation or application of these resources—including researchers; instructors; staff of libraries, museums, and archives; programmers, and undergraduate and graduate students—is welcome to participate.
El’Manuscript-2018 is the seventh in a series of biennial international conferences entitled “Textual Heritage and Information Technologies” that brings together linguists, specialists in historical source criticism, IT specialists, and others involved in studying and publishing our textual heritage. Along with the lectures, a summer school will be part of the conference, which will allow practitioners to become familiar with various systems and methods for working with manuscripts and texts.
The working language of the 2018 conference is English. In the philological sections talks in Russian are welcome, but should be accompanied by powerpoint slides in English. Papers presented at the conference will be published in a volume of proceedings and on the textualheritage.org website.

Conference topics
1. The physical document – Material and technology
- Codicology
- Instrumental analysis
- Visual observation of documents
- Recognition of relevant features of historic book binding techniques
- Water mark data base
- DNA analysis
- Isotope analysis
2. The script and writing system
- Photographing
- Visualization
- Digitisation
- Handwritten Text Recognition, Optical Character Recognition
- Digital Palaeography
- Digital Graphemics
3. The text, Its processing and presentation
- Textology and textual criticism
- Digital editions
- Digital publishing
- Text mark-up formats
- Lemmatisation and morphological mark-up
4. Beyond document, script, and text – Analytics and interpretation
- Digital libraries and databases
- Corpora
- Storage formats
- Long term storage
- Lexicography
- Data mining
- Quantitative and statistical analysis
- Navigation and access
- Web technologies
- Open science

**General Information**
Conference dates: 14-18 September 2018
Venue: Department of Slavonic Studies, Vienna University; European Research
Centre for Book and Paper Conservation-Restoration, Centre for Cultural Property

Protection, Department for Building and Environment, University for Continuing Edu-
cation, Krems

Postal Address: Institut für Slawistik der Universität Wien, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 3, A-
1090 Vienna; Dr. Karl Dorrekstrasse 30, A-3500 Krems

Organization Committee Chair: Prof. Dr. Viktor A. Baranov, Prof. Dr. Heinz Miklas, Dr. Patricia Engel, Dr. Juergen Fuchsbauer
Contact person: Dr. Juergen Fuchsbauer, phone +43 664 39 13 812
E-mail (Organization Committee): elmanuscript2018.slawistik@univie.ac.at
Conference Website: http://textualheritage.org/elmanuscript2018

**Abstract submission**
Abstracts are limited to 200 words and should be sent in both .DOC/.DOCX/.ODT and PDF formats to elmanuscript2018.slawistik@univie.ac.at. The following information has to be included:

- Paper title;
- 5-10 keywords;
- Author’s (authors’) first and last names;
- Affiliation (institution);

Deadline for abstracts: 28 February 2018.
Reviewing: The abstracts submitted to the conference will be peer-reviewed. The Programme Committee will reject papers not meeting the conference themes or quality requirements. The reviewers’ comments will be transmitted to the authors.

Notifications of acceptance by the Program Committee will be sent by email before 15 March 2018. The accepted abstracts will be published before the conference.

Registration opens 15 Mai and ends 31 August 2018.