Medieval Academy of America Announces New Fellows

The Medieval Academy of America is pleased to announce the 2016 Class of
Fellows and Corresponding Fellows:

FELLOWS:
Lisa Bitel (Univ. of Southern California)
Theodore Evergates (McDaniel College)
Dorothy Glass (Emerita, Univ. of Buffalo)
Joel Kaye (Barnard College/Columbia Univ.)
Conrad Rudolph (Univ. of California, Riverside)
Alison Stones (Emerita, Univ. of Pittsburgh)
Nicholas Watson (Harvard Univ.)

CORRESPONDING FELLOWS:
David d’Avray (University College London)
Alexander Patschovsky (Emeritus, Univ. of Constance)
Susan Rankin (Univ. of Cambridge)

These scholars are being honored for their notable contributions to the
field of Medieval Studies. More information about the Fellows of the
Medieval Academy of America is available here.

New Fellows will be officially inducted during the upcoming Annual
Meeting  of the Medieval Academy in Boston. The induction ceremony will take place at
3:45 PM on Saturday, 27 February, in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt
Regency Boston.

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Post-Classical Latin Fellowship at UCLA

The UCLA Department of Classics is pleased to announce a fully funded and annual stipend of $18,000 for the 2016-17 academic year for the third and final year of a grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the preparation and training of young scholars in post-classical Latin for graduate programs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

The post-baccalaureate program in post-classical Latin is intended for students who have completed B.A. degrees and who are intending to pursue Ph.D. programs requiring study and proficiency in late Latin texts and documents. A cohort of four or five students will be chosen by a faculty subcommittee. All university fees and a stipend of $18,000 will be provided to allow the admitted students to spend a year at UCLA participating in the post-classical Latin curriculum as well as taking existing courses in Classical Latin and, more broadly, in undergraduate and graduate courses in Medieval and Renaissance Studies related to their research interests. Participating departments include English, Art History, History, Italian, Philosophy, French and Francophone Studies, and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

The program offers a pro-seminar in the Fall Quarter to introduce students to UCLA faculty and to prepare them for successful applications to top-ranked Ph.D. programs. Students interested in the post-baccalaureate program should submit the following:

  1. the application form will be on UCLA Department of Classics’ website at http://www.classics.ucla.edu/index.php/mellon-program-in-post-classical-latin ;
  2. official transcripts of undergraduate institutions (including non-degree or M.A. programs where you have taken relevant courses, especially in Latin);
  3. two letters of recommendation; and,
  4. 2-page personal statement on current preparation and plans to apply to Ph.D. programs where post-classical Latin will be required.

The committee will begin to review applications on April 1 but will continue to read dossiers until the program has reached capacity. Materials should be sent electronically to tkim@humnet.ucla.edu, or mailed to the UCLA Department of Classics, ATTN: Tanya Kim, Mellon Program in Post-Classical Latin, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Dodd 100, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1417.

All inquiries should be addressed directly to Professor Robert Gurval, UCLA Department of Classics, Director of the Mellon Program in Post-Classical Latin at gurval@humnet.ucla.edu.

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Call for Papers – Science at Court 1285-1450

Science at Court, 1285-1450
An interdisciplinary conference at Newnham College
3-4 June, 2016

Call for Papers

http://www.scienceatcourt.org/about/

 From the anonymous Middle English Court of Sapience to Nicole Oresme’s Livre du ciel et du monde to the lavishly illustrated copies of Pliny’s Natural History produced for the Visconti family, medieval scientific discourse was often inflected by – and constructed around – literary, musical, and artistic forms present at court.  This conference invites abstracts on what it means to “do science at court” in the late medieval period, particularly in the context of literature, music, and the arts.

How do tradition, law, and power dictate the boundaries of science? How do ethics or political science affect natural philosophy? How do didactic poems or works of counsel, conduct, and governance blur the boundaries between science and mimesis?  What is the relationship between empiricism and narrative or visual forms? How does music do mathematical and political work?

Science at Court welcomes proposals on any aspect of art at court in the context of late medieval science.

Due to the generous support of Newnham College, travel subsidies will be available for attendees who may have difficulty obtaining funds.

Please send abstracts to tlb33@cam.ac.uk  by 31 January, 2016.

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Call for Papers – The 10th International Conference of the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies

The 10th International Conference of the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies

21-22 October 2016

National Pingtung University, Taiwan

Encounters: Friends, Foes, and Companions

Human civilization often entails various kinds of encounters. One of the most fundamental is interpersonal contact from which friendship, animosity, and companionship are born. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, friendship is defined in terms of ethical virtues, while in patristic writings friendship refers to a shared sense of being children of the one Father and brothers in Christ. From the Renaissance down to the modern era, there have been engaging discussions about forbidden friendships. In contrast, hostile feelings, especially jealousy and hatred, have long been favorite topics for writers such as Shakespeare who draws from the book of Proverbs in Julius Caesar and Othello to represent how the kisses of an enemy may be profuse.

On a broader scale, encounters can also be examined with reference to the contacts among different cultures and subsequent ideological transmission, conflict, hybridity, assimilation, and transformation. Ever since Classical Antiquity, communication between the East and the West has triggered a series of crucial cultural exchanges and interfaith interactions that can be inexhaustible subject matters for profound deliberation and academic research.

In addition to investigations into encounters in human societies, surveys of cross-species and eco-critical perspectives are welcomed so as to stimulate dialogue on environmental problems from both the viewpoints of the exploiters and the exploited. This discourse may help elucidate how human beings envision environments as their companions or adversaries and how human preconceptions determine the literary representation of human-animal and human-environment relationships. Therefore, aside from conventional approaches, this conference also aims to look at how the works of pre-modern environmental advocates square with the more popular drama, poetry, and even political discourse of the time and how these matters form an important part of literary, cultural, social, and environmental histories.

Within the purview of human contacts with the physical world, we would also welcome studies concerning engagement with nonphysical entities–the demonic and the heavenly—to shed light on the supernatural or transcendental perception of human encounters via different religious beliefs.

Within this four-stratum framework, this conference aims to proffer a forum for investigating human encounters that engender affection and enmity.

Topics for consideration may include (but are not limited to):

Philosophy of friendship in various cultures

Friendship from Classical Antiquity to the Renaissance

Forbidden friendship & homosexuality

Male friendship and female friendship

Friendship and patronage

Friendship and betrayal

Affiliation and politics

Human-nonhuman relationships

Humanism vs. anthropocentrism

Environmental encounters

Pre-modern environmental imagination

Representation of landscape and dreamscapes

Environmental impact on human psychology

Utopian imagination and new world order

Cross-species encounters

Bestiary and animal studies

Cross-boundary encounters

Wars and cultural encounters

Commerce and cultural encounters

Cosmography and the human world

Cosmology east and west

Pilgrimages and healing environments

Exorcism vs. healing practices

Interfaith encounters

Religious notions of friendship and relationship

TACMRS cordially invites papers that reach beyond the traditional chronological and disciplinary borders of Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies. Please submit abstracts of 250 words and a one-page CV to Sandra Yu or Phoebe Yang at 2016tacmrs.nptu@gmail.com with a subject line stating “Submission for the 10th TACMRS Conference” by 3 February 2016.

For more information, please visit the 2016 TACMRS Conference website: http://www.english.nptu.edu.tw

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Ana Maria Aldama Roy VI International Prize for a Doctoral Thesis

The Ana Maria Aldama Roy Foundation, which has the principal aim of promoting Latin Studies, invites applications for its Sixth International Prize for Doctoral Theses.  This is open to unpublished doctoral theses on Christian, Medieval or Renaissance Latin, which have been defended in Spanish or foreign universities and research centres between the 1st of October 2014 and the 30th of September 2015.

The winner will be awarded 2000 euros and the thesis will be published.

The theses may be presented in English, German, Basque or any of the romance languages, and must be submitted by email to contactar@fundacionamar.es, in pdf format, before the 28th of February 2016.

A jury of specialists will publish the results of the Foundation’s website (www.fundacionamar.es) before the 31st of May 2016.

The author undertakes to publish the thesis still unpublished, in line with the editorial standards laid down by the Foundation which will act as the publisher.

Madrid, December 2015

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UCLA-CMRS 2015-16 Program Booklet Now Available Online

For many years, MAA members in the US and Canada have received a copy by mail of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies’ annual program booklet. Beginning this year, the booklet will no longer be mailed but will instead be available for download from CMRS’s website at http://cmrs.ucla.edu/wp-content/pdfs/annual_brochure_15-16.pdf. If you would still like to receive a printed copy of the booklet, please contact the CMRS staff at cmrs@humnet.ucla.edu.

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Harvard Univ. Committee on Medieval Studies Visiting Scholars Program

http://medieval.fas.harvard.edu/visiting-scholars-program

In order to promote scholarly research, exchange, and conversation about the medieval world, the Committee on Medieval Studies welcomes a small number of Visiting Scholars each academic year. Visiting Scholars may work in any field dealing with some aspect of medieval society, religion, or culture in Europe, Africa, or Eurasia, and are welcomed as full members of Harvard’s rich intellectual and social community of medievalists.

Visiting Scholars may be appointed to terms ranging from three to six months. They enjoy full access to Harvard libraries and many other university facilities, an email account, and shared office space during the period of their appointment. They are expected to be engaged in research projects that draw upon Harvard’s manuscript, library, and other resources; to remain in residence in the Cambridge/Boston area during their appointment; to participate fully in the seminars, colloquia, and other activities of the Committee on Medieval Studies; and to share the results of their research in a seminar or other public venue.

Click here for more information on how to apply.

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Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies

Click here for the program and schedule.

(See our calendar for more conferences)

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Call for Papers – Beyond Borders: Mutual Imaginings of Europe and the Middle East (800-1700)

Beyond Borders: 

Mutual Imaginings of Europe and the Middle East (800-1700)

Barnard College’s 25th Biannual Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Call For Papers

Recent scholarship is challenging the stark border between Europe and the Middle East during the long period between 800-1700.  Rather than thinking of these areas in isolation, scholars are revealing the depth of their mutual influence. Trade, war, migration, and scholarly exchange connected Europe and the Middle East in ways both cooperative and adversarial. The distant world was not only an object of aggression, but also, inextricably, of fantasy and longing. Jewish, Muslim, and Christian thinkers looked to each other to understand their own cultural histories and to imagine their futures.  Bringing together art historians, literary scholars, historians, scholars of the history of science, and scholars of religious thought, this interdisciplinary conference will explore the real and imaginary cultural interchanges between Europe and the Middle East during their formative periods. The conference will feature plenary lectures by Professors Nancy Bisaha of Vassar College, and Nabil Matar of the University of Minnesota.

This conference is being organized by Professors Rachel Eisendrath, Najam Haider, and Laurie Postlewate of Barnard College.

Please send an abstract (with title) of approximately 200 words and CV to lpostlew@barnard.edu. Presentations should be 20 minutes. Deadline: April 10, 2016.

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London International Palaeography Summer School

Applications are open for the London International Palaeography Summer School (LIPSS), running 13 – 17 June 2016.

The London Palaeography Summer School is a series of intensive courses in palaeography and manuscript studies, held at the Institute of English Studies, Senate House, University of London. Courses  are given by experts in their respective fields, from a wide variety of institutions.

Full-day course fee: £95 | Half-day course fee: £55

Block bookings discounts and discounts for full-time MA/PhD students are available.

Monday 13 June

Pre-Norman British and Irish Psalters (Dr Carol Farr)

History of Latin Scripts I: Antiquity to Caroline Minuscule (Dr James Willoughby)

English Palaeography, 1500-1900 (Christopher Whittick)

How Medieval Manuscripts Were Made (Patricia Lovett)

Introduction to Greek Palaeography I (Dr Laura Franco)

 

Tuesday 14 June

Introduction to Anglo-Saxon Palaeography (Dr Debby Banham)

History of Latin Scripts II: Protogothic to Humanist (Dr James Willoughby)

Introduction to Visigothic Script (Dr Ainoa Castro Correa)

Codicology: An Introduction for Beginners (Dr James Freeman)

Introduction to Greek Palaeography II (Dr Laura Franco)

 

Wednesday 15 June

The Insular System of Scripts to AD 900 (Professor Julia Crick)

Introduction to Latin Palaeography (Dr Marigold Norbye)

Reading & Editing Renaissance English Manuscripts I (Dr Chris Stamatakis)

Codicology: An Introduction to Cataloguing (Peter Kidd)

 

Thursday 16 June

Introduction to Welsh Palaeography (Dr Helen McKee)

Intermediate Latin Palaeography (Dr Marigold Norbye)

Reading & Editing Renaissance English Manuscripts II (Dr Chris Stamatakis)

Codicology & Cataloguing: A Hands-On Workshop (Dr James Freeman & Peter Kidd)

Vernacular Editing: Chaucer and his Contemporaries (Professor Anthony Edwards)

 

Friday 17 June

Approaches to the Art of Insular Manuscripts (Dr Carol Farr)

The Transitional Script of the Long Twelfth Century (Dr Erik Kwakkel)

Writing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts: Folio Layouts in Context (Dr Anna Somfai)

Painting a Medieval Miniature (Patricia Lovett)

German Palaeography (Dr Dorothea McEwan & Dr Claudia Wedepohl)

 

Questions? Contact the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London at IESEvents@sas.ac.uk or +44 020 7862 8679

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