FIRST BIENNIAL CONFERENCE Late Literature in the Sixth Century, East and West October 31/November 1-2, 2013 Brown University Providence, USA Building on the synergy of the bicoastal conference held at Rice and at Brown in 2011, David Bright, Scott McGill, and Joe Pucci founded the International Society for Late Antique Literary Studies (ISLALS) in early 2012 as a venue for sharing our collective work on later literary studies, east and west. 

We intend the category of "literature" to be capacious, encompassing Christian and secular texts, as well as traditionally high and low forms. As part of the process of s
If you would like to participate, please send an abstract of your paper via email attachment to the organizing committee by August 1, 2013: smcgill@rice.edu, Joseph_Pucci@brown.edu, dbright@emory.edu. 

Papers will be twenty minutes in length, with ten minutes of questioning/discussion to follow. We hope for a program of around 20 papers. ISLALS requires no dues and there is no registration fee for the conference. ISLALS will provide refreshments during the conference (morning continental breakfast and morning and afternoon breaks). ISLALS will also host a closing banquet for all conference participants. All other meals as well as lodging and travel will be the responsibility of participants. At the conclusion of the conference, we will hold a round-table discussion on the shape and governance of ISLALS and the dates, locations, and topics of future meetings. Please send queries about the conference to Joseph_Pucci@brown.edu. 

Queries about ISLALS may be sent to any member of the organizing committee.haring our work, we envision a conference (at least) every other year and are happy now to announce the First Biennial Conference of ISLALS, to be held on the campus of Brown University on October 31/ November 1-2, 2013 (Thursday-Saturday, inclusive). The theme of the conference is “Late Literature in the Sixth Century, East and West." A rich body of literary texts survives from this seminal century that touches on nearly every genre. We invite explorations of these texts from multiple perspectives and especially seek papers that focus on the Greek east or that take cognizance of the interplay of east and west. Papers that consider the influence of sixth-century texts are also welcome.

Information on IMC 2013 can be found at: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2014_call.html.

 

As you may know, the International Medieval Congress (IMC), which is the largest annual gathering of medievalists in Europe, focusing upon all aspects of the Middle Ages (c. 300-1500). Last year the IMC was attended by a record 1751 participants from 40 countries worldwide, with over half coming from outside the UK. Participants at the IMC present research in all areas of Medieval Studies, ranging from Art and Literature to Science and Technology.

 

The twentieth annual IMC will take place 1-4 July 2013 in Leeds on the University of Leeds main campus and will focus on the special thematic strand, ‘Pleasure’. Registration is now open and our programme is now available online. For more information, please see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2013.html. There is also an exciting range of ticketed events, excursions, and concerts that are open to the public. These items can be booked by clicking on the following link to the University of Leeds Online Store: http://store.leeds.ac.uk/browse/product.asp?catid=77&modid=2&compid=1.

 

A few of you have e-mailed to ask me about this year’s SEMA—the Southeastern Medieval Association—meeting.  Others of you may be awaiting the call for papers and or be interested in the conference, or know someone who may be and or to whom you could forward this e-mail and the cfp.  Others, just please forgive me for including you if you are not interested—or if I made an error in including you!

SEMA 2013 will take place Oct. 3-5, 2013 at Appalachian State University, Boone, NC.  I am attaching the call for papers sent to me by Mary Valente (because I was guilty of “bugging her” for it), one of the organizers, whom I have copied on this e-mail.  Proposals for sessions or abstracts (250 words or less) for papers are due to Mary Valante and Alison Gulley at medieval@appstate.edu  by June 14^th, 2013.  I hope you will consider attending—and friending SEMA on Facebook!

For those of you unfamiliar with SEMA, the Association will soon celebrate its 40^th anniversary as a conference for medievalists.  We have a journal, Medieval Perspectives, and yearly conferences—usually in October, but occasionally in September or November—at different host institutions.  Last year’s conference was hosted by the University of Southern Mississippi on the beautiful Gulf Coast and included a bonfire on the beach.  This year’s, as you can see, is at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC , at a beautiful time of the year.
 

CfP: Digital Diplomatics 2013: What is Diplomatics in the Digital Environment?
 Diplomatics has changed fundamentally in the last few decades due to dramatic developments in information technology. While consolidating itself as an autonomous science with its own centuries-old theory, methodology, analytical processes and tools, focused on research on medieval and early modern legal documents, it has also grown into an interdisciplinary field, expanding its area of inquiry to all kinds of textual traditions, documentary forms and creation processes through the use of sophisticated digital tools. "We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us", said Marshal McLuhan. 

Following the two conferences on Digital Diplomatics that took place in 2007 in Munich and 2011 in Naples, this conference, to be held in Paris, 14-16th november 2013, has the goal to further the scholarly reflection on the way in which diplomatics has developed as a result of both the opportunities offered by digital tools to study historical documents and the challenges presented by born digital documents and by the need to understand their structure and of the complex digital environments in which they reside.

You can find the full call for papers with all the necessary informations on how to send in your proposal at http://www.cei.lmu.de/digdipl13/call-for-papers. The deadline is set to 2013, March 15. We are looking forward to your proposals! in the name of the program committee: Georg Vogeler

The Belgian association for ancient and oriental languages, ABELAO, is pleased to announce its annual summer school at Louvain-la-Neuve (29th of July  to  the 9th of August) which includes courses in Syriac. Teaching is in French.
Details are enclosed and information is also available on http://www.abelao.be/

Euro-Balkan University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia 16th OHRID SUMMER UNIVERSITY 2013 International Summer School “UNDERSTANDING BYZANTIUM IN THE BALKANS: WHERE THE EAST MET/PARTED FROM THE WEST” 15 - 24 August 2013, Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia Call for Applications CONFIRMED LECTURERS: Professor Jonathan Shepard, University of Cambridge, Great Britain Professor Florin Curta, University of Florida, United States COURSES OFFERED: Course title: The gravitational fields of East and West across the medieval Balkans Course title: The beginning of the Middle Ages in the Balkans The Summer School “Understanding Byzantium in the Balkans: Where the East met / parted from the West” will explore the fascinating phenomenon of Byzantium and its enduring impact on Medieval Balkans. The objective of the Summer School is to address the complex socio-economic, cultural and political processes that led to the transformation of the Roman world and emergence of Byzantium and the Balkans as gravitational zones between East and West. The leading international scholars in the field of Byzantine and medieval Balkan studies will present the latest insights in addressing the 
various questions concerning the re-evaluation of issues of group identity and ethnogenesis in the Balkans, the concept of making of the Slavs, the examination of Byzantium as Superpower and Soft Power and as an enduring appeal to external elite, along with development of the Balkans as highway and flashpoint between Latin West and Byzantine East. Through appliance of new approach in historical and archaeological research the Summer School will explore Byzantine and Balkan studies in the Western Europe and United States and put them in a dialogue with those taking place in Southeastern Europe. The main goal is to stimulate the critical thinking and to raise the understanding of Byzantium and the Balkans and their place in international history, grasping them not as a factor of East-West division but as a integrative component of the European cultural history. Deadline Early application deadline: 15 April Late application deadline: 15 May Director of the Summer School Professor Mitko B. Panov Euro-Balkan University Address: Blvd. Partizanski Odredi 63, 1000, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia Tel/Fax. ++ 389 2 30 75 570 www.euba.edu.mk Please send your application to: 
Ivana Krajcinovik - Coordinator of the Summer School e-mail: ivana.krajcinovik@gmail.com  

Toller Lecture

MANCHESTER CENTRE FOR ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES

The Annual Toller Lecture

will be given by Leslie Webster

formerly of the British Museum on

'Anglo-Saxon Art: Tradition and Transformation'

at 6pm on Monday 4 March 2013

in the Historic Reading Room, John Rylands Library, Deansgate,

 Manchester, followed by a FREE wine reception