Conference – Authorial publishing from the Carolingian period to the Renaissance

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Chris

Authorial publishing from the Carolingian period to the Renaissance  
October 29th and 30th, University of Helsinki 
Venue: Zoom (for the meeting ID and passcode, see below)    

Written transmission relies on the fact of ‘publication’, the step between the authorial process and reception. The papers in this colloquium ask what it meant for medieval and renaissance authors and their associates to publish. The contexts under scrutiny range from England to Italy, from hagiography to medicine, and from Carolingian monasteries to renaissance libraries.  

The programme is found below. The abstracts can be accessed in the Medieval Publishing website: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/medieval-publishing    

To obtain the Zoom meeting ID and passcode, please contact to Mr. Olli-Pekka Kasurinen (olli.kasurinen@helsinki.fi).   

The colloquium is organized by the projects Medieval Publishing from c.1000 to 1500 (ERC-716538) and Authorial Publication in the Early Medieval Period (Academy of Finland), and the University of Helsinki.

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Paul Szarmach Article Prize

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Chris

The Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University announces the fourth Paul E. Szarmach Prize, to be awarded in May 2021. It consists of an award of $500 to the author of a first article on a topic in the culture and history of early medieval England published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that is judged by the selection committee to be of outstanding quality.  To be eligible for the 2021 prize, the article must have appeared in a journal bearing a publication date of 2019. Application deadline: November 1.

https://wmich.edu/medieval/research/early-england/article-prize

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Ethiopian Studies Webinar

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Chris

The Beta Israel and Ethiopian Christian Views of Jews and Judaism

Nov 17, 2020 12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

https://theias.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CifXZdD4Qpmujc3jwsX7lw

Ethiopia has a long and complex history with Jews and Judaism. Perhaps most constitutive of the connection between the two is an Ethiopian tradition according to which the favor of the God of Israel, along with the ark of the covenant, was transferred from Israel to Ethiopia during the days of the biblical Solomon as a result of his amorous relationship with the Queen of Sheba. Earlier scholars invoked this tradition to explain everything from an alleged “Judaic component” of Ethiopian Christianity to the existence of the Beta Israel, or as they are sometimes called “Ethiopian Jews,” who lived in northern and north-western Ethiopia until their large-scale emigration to Israel between 1977 and 1991. In the last several decades, scholars have adopted a more critical approach to investigating Ethiopia’s interconnectedness with Jews and Judaism. In the present webinar, Steven Kaplan and Sophia Dege-Müller will address the status quaestionis of the Beta Israel and their origins as well as signal new directions in this area of research. Then Marcia Kupfer and Aaron Butts will explore how Ethiopian Christians have viewed Jews and Judaism in art and text, respectively, asking in particular what connections can be drawn between Ethiopian Christian views of Jews and Judaism and the Beta Israel. The webinar will conclude with a discussion addressing these and related questions.

This is the first event of a webinar series IAS Ethiopian Studies

Convenors: Suzanne Akbari (IAS), Aaron Butts (CUA/IAS), Samantha L. Kelly (Rutgers U/IAS), Sabine Schmidtke (IAS)

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Call for Papers – 20th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies

Posted on October 15, 2020 by Chris

20th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies
March 18-20th, 2021
Virtually at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

The 20th Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies will be held virtually March 18–20th, 2020 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The conference will take place over Zoom and will include Vagantes SWAG boxes, virtual workshops, professional development, and interactive activities. Abstracts are due Monday, November 30th, 2020.

Abstracts of 300 words, paper title, and a 1-2 page CV in one PDF asre due Monday, November 30th, 2020 to vagantesboard@gmail.com.

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Jobs for Medievalists

Posted on October 15, 2020 by Chris

Later Medieval English Literature – Associate Professor (1200-1500)
University of Toronto (St. George Campus)

Description:
The Department of English and the Centre for Medieval Studies in the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto invite applications for a joint full-time tenure stream position (75% English & 25% Centre for Medieval Studies) in the field of Later Medieval English Literature (1200-1500). The appointment will be at the rank of Associate Professor, with an expected start date of July 1, 2021.

Click here for more information.

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2021 CAARI Fellowships

Posted on October 15, 2020 by Chris

Encourage your colleagues, students, and friends to apply for CAARI’s fellowships. Information about each grant, including application forms, stipends, and expectations, is available at: www.caari.org/fellowships .

The grants include:

  1. Three graduate student stipends offering support for travel to Cyprus and lodging at CAARI. Application deadline: December 7, 2020.
  2. Two CAARI/CAORC postdoctoral fellowships that fund a month’s research in Cyprus: Application deadline: January 12, 2021.
  3. The postdoctoral fellowship in honor of Professor Eddie Peltenburg, that can support a full academic year’s research time on Cyprus. Application deadline: January 12, 2021.
  4. Scholar in Residence: Application deadline: January 12, 2021.

Other relevant fellowship opportunities are listed on the Fellowships page, as well.

Browse the possibilities, and apply!

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Rare Book School Scholarship and Fellowship applications open!

Posted on October 14, 2020 by Chris

Rare Book School is now accepting applications for its 2020 scholarship and fellowship cycle. 

The deadline for RBS-awarded scholarships is Sunday, 1 November 2020. Scholarship applicants will be considered for all of the RBS-awarded scholarships for which they are eligible, including the new Access 2021 Scholarship. Created for use in the summer of 2021, this scholarship is intended to ensure that RBS courses are accessible to students who wish to attend, but whose usual professional development funds will be greatly limited or unavailable. More than 100 awards will be distributed for this scholarship!  For more information, visit https://rarebookschool.org/admissions-awards/scholarships/. 

Rare Book School’s Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB) invites applications for its 2021–23 cohort of Junior Fellows. The deadline is Monday, 2 November 2020. Continuing the work of the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Critical Bibliography (2012–17), this scholarly society works to advance the study of texts, images, and artifacts as material objects through capacious, interdisciplinary scholarship—and to enrich humanistic inquiry and education by identifying, mentoring, and training promising early-career scholars. Junior Fellows will be encouraged and supported in integrating the methods of critical bibliography into their teaching and research, fostering collegial conversations about historical and emerging media across disciplines and institutions, and sharing their knowledge with broader publics. For more information, visit https://rarebookschool.org/admissions-awards/fellowships/sofcb/. 

The M. C. Lang Fellowship in Book History, Bibliography, and Humanities Teaching with Historical Sources invites applications for its second cohort, due 30 November 2020. This fellowship is a two-year program designed to animate humanities teaching and equip educators (both library/curatorial staff and tenure or tenure-track faculty) to enlarge their students’ historical sensibilities through bibliographically informed instruction with original historical sources. Open to faculty and librarians at liberal arts colleges and small universities in the United States, this fellowship program will teach teachers how to discern and convey the human presences in original textual artifacts––and to inculcate wonder in their students through guided contact with original textual artifacts. For more information, visit https://rarebookschool.org/admissions-awards/fellowships/lang/. 

Applications for the second cohort of The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage are also due 30 November 2020. This three-year fellowship aims to advance multicultural collections through innovative and inclusive curatorial practice and leadership. Fifteen new fellows who identify with diverse racial or ethnic communities and/or who work primarily with collections that document minority, immigrant, and non-Western cultural traditions will be selected for the 2021–2023 cohort. The fellowship will seek to fulfill four core goals: 1) developing skills for documenting and interpreting visual and textual materials in special collections and archives; 2) raising awareness within professional communities about the significance of inclusive, multicultural collections, including their promotion, development, and stewardship; 3) building connections with diverse communities and publics through strategic programming, outreach, and advocacy; and 4) advancing careers for establishing new pathways and skills for professional growth. For more information, visit https://rarebookschool.org/admissions-awards/fellowships/mellon-diversity/. 

You can find more information about these scholarships and fellowships, including application instructions, by clicking on the links above. Please direct any questions to rbs_scholarships@virginia.edu. 

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Conference – Jewish Romance in the Middle Ages: Literature, Piety, and Cultural Translation

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Chris

Event time:
Sunday, October 25, 2020 – 11:00am to 2:00pm

Admission:
Free, but register in advance

For registration and schedule, please visit:
https://ism.yale.edu/event/conference-jewish-romance-middle-ages-literature-piety-and-cultural-translation

Event description:

This conference will be free and open to the public via Zoom Webinar. Registration is required.

In the late Middle Ages, Jewish authors engaged with non-Jewish, vernacular literature to create new texts for Jewish audiences in a style that resembles medieval romance. Drawing on the popular vernacular stories of King Arthur, Alexander the Great, and heroic knights, some Jewish authors employed a variety of techniques to make these texts appropriate for Jewish audiences, including references to biblical events or replacement of non-Jewish words with ones relating to the practice of Judaism. Other Jewish authors, however, avoided biblical or pious language when crafting their new versions, putting into question the common assumption of an inextricable link between medieval Jewish piety and culture.

The contribution of medieval Jews and their participation in the narration and transmission of courtly non-religious literature has been largely overlooked in the past. Only in the past few decades have scholars focused on texts that can be considered part of a corpus of Jewish romance.

This conference brings together scholars working on medieval Jewish literature from varied perspectives to enable a cross-disciplinary, trans-institutional, and international dialogue that aims to highlight understudied voices in medieval literature and their significance. This approach allows conversations between Jewish texts globally, rather than traditional distinctions between geographical regions. Our participants have affiliations in diverse university departments, including German Studies, Spanish and Portuguese Studies, English, and Medieval Studies, in addition to Jewish Studies. Their papers explore not only the role of cultural transmission and literary creativity in these Jewish texts but also the idea of narrative universality more broadly.

Open to:
General Public

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Call for Papers – Princeton Medieval Studies Graduate Conference

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Chris

Princeton Medieval Studies Graduate Conference 
March 6, 2021  

“Reclaiming Losses: Recovery, Reconquest, and Restoration in the Middle Ages” 

Loss can be accepted or contested. This conference will consider how perceptions of legacy and entitlement stirred ambitions to reassert lost claims from Late Antiquity through the Late Middle Ages. From the last great war of antiquity between Persia and Rome to Charlemagne’s Roman renovatio, Byzantine expansion, contestation over Iberia, and the later crusades, many medieval conflicts were justified as campaigns to reconquer and restore past order. Beyond political and territorial pursuits, contemporaries sought to reclaim losses of all kinds, whether legal, economic, intellectual, social, cultural, physical, emotional, or spiritual.  

This conference will explore the circumstances under which medieval people made claims to past legacies, how they asserted those claims, and what it meant to express them as calls for restitution. How did contemporary understandings of legacy and entitlement factor into perceptions of loss? How did the motive to restore a loss—whether real or imagined—shape contemporary choices and their outcomes? When was loss understood as a fundamental challenge to individual or collective identity and what resulted from such challenges? 

To this end, we invite 300-word proposals for fifteen- to twenty-minute talks on topics examining recovery, reconquest, and restoration in the Middle Ages. We welcome proposals covering any region of the world reflecting the time frame encompassing approximately 500-1500 CE. Please submit proposals or requests for more information to emedawar@princeton.edu.  Proposals should be submitted by November 6, 2020, and applicants will be notified of decisions by November 16, 2020. 

The conference will be held on March 6, 2021 and will take place over Zoom.  Participation from any location is, therefore, warmly welcomed.

For further information, please visit our website: https://princetongradconference.princeton.edu/ 

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Rethinking Health and Power during Times of Crisis

Posted on October 13, 2020 by Chris

Oct 29, 2020

Part 2 of Virtual Panel Series Racism in History and Context | 3pm – 4:30pm ET | Panelists: Manuela Boatcă (University of Freiburg), Teresa Koloma Beck (Bundeswehr University Munich), Monica Muñoz Martinez (UT Austin), and Kathryn Olivarius (Stanford) | Moderators: Elisabeth Engel (GHI Washington) and Leti Volpp (UC Berkeley)

This is part 2 of the panel series “Racism in History and Context” presented by the German Historical Association, the German Historical Institute Washington and its Pacific Regional Office, and the Institute of European Studies at University of California, Berkeley
> Register Here

The risk of physical harm posed by both the coronavirus pandemic and US police officers’ ongoing willingness to use violence against African Americans has been quickly conceived as a major feature of the current crisis. Governments and citizens in the U.S., Europe, and beyond squarely agree that ethnic and racial minorities are disproportionately imperiled due to longstanding and systemic disadvantages. We observe a long tradition of this phenomenon. Crises and, foremost, pandemics reveal predetermined breaking points of societies, including structural racism. Going back to the 14th century with the outbreak of the bubonic plague, pandemics have exposed social bias. Due to such structures, people have shaped starkly different and clashing responses to pandemics. Currently, apparent racial disparities in access to physical safety prompt fierce protest movements among citizens, on the one hand, and strong measures to control them on the part of governments and local authorities, on the other. Thus, health and power are at stake on either side of the conflict.

The panel aims to inquire into the role of racism in the history of epidemics and the history of state violence. This brings to light very specific problems in the various countries. Even though the overall phenomenon has characteristic features in every society, it is the result of specific historical processes and must therefore be understood and discussed in the respective historical contexts. Thus, the German Historical Association (Verband der Historiker und Historikerinnen Deutschlands e.V., VHD), the German Historical Institute Washington with its Pacific Regional Office, and the Institute of European Studies at University of California, Berkeley, have invited Manuela Boatcă (University of Freiburg), Teresa Koloma Beck (Bundeswehr University Munich), Monica Muñoz Martinez (UT Austin), and Kathryn Olivarius (Stanford) to trace the ways in which racism has figured as an aspect of their respective subjects of research.

The event is part two of the panel-discussion series “Racism in History and Context,” which brings together scholars from various fields to explore the histories of racism that have been constructed in current debates about the coronavirus pandemic and violent police confrontations. What and who defines the deeper and historically longer-term contexts of the present phenomenon? How do the various discourses and memories of racist violence differ in quite diverse national contexts and narratives, and what interdependencies can we discern? How do social and cultural tensions take form under the pressure of condemning racism in moments and historical narratives of crises? The first panel “Rethinking Memory and Knowledge during Times of Crisis” is available on our Vimeo channel.

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