Boston College, 27-30 July, 2015

An international conference organised under the aegis of the International Association for Anselm Studies, the Institute for Liberal  Arts, Boston College, with sponsorship from Fairfield University, the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University, and the Philosophy and Theology Departments at Boston College.

Keynote Speakers

William Aird (Edinburgh)
Marcia Colish (Yale)
Burcht Pranger (Amsterdam)
Denys Turner (Yale)
Nicholas Watson (Harvard)

Call for Papers

The International Association for Anselm Studies invites proposals for its upcoming conference, to be held in Boston College, July 27-30, 2015.

The conference takes as its theme the wide variety of responses to Anselm’s life, and work, across many different periods, and in many different fields. At the same time it will ground the reception of Anselm with consideration of the context in which he lived, wrote and acted. Moving between his life and his reception, will allow fresh insight into the mechanisms and measures of his celebrity and influence.

The Association invites submissions in areas including but not limited to literature, history, art history, philosophy, and theology. It would especially welcome papers on Anselm’s sources; Anselm’s pupils; Anselm and church reform; the wider world of religious politics in the 11th and 12th centuries; Anselm in the vernacular; Reformation and Counter-Reformation views on Anselm; and Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox discussions.

The conference will receive an update on the new edition of Anselm’s letter collection under preparation by Dr Samu Niskanen. Papers connected to the letter collections, the Memorials of St. Anselm and historiographical readings of Anselm also are encouraged.

Proposals/abstracts

Please send proposed titles, with an abstract of 300 words for a twenty-minute paper together with your contact details (with academic affiliation, address and e-mail), by e-mail attachment to conference@anselmstudies.org.

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is March 1, 2015.

Graduate stipends

A number of graduate student stipends are available on a competitive basis to cover housing at Boston College and the conference registration fee. Graduate students submitting a proposal and wishing to be considered for funding should send their proposal and information detailing their student status (i.e., what institution they are attending and what year in the program) to John Slotemaker at johnslotemaker@gmail.com.

Applicants will be notified about the graduate student stipends along with their paper proposal (priority will be given to those who are in the process of writing their dissertation and who are traveling from greater distances).

For regular updates on the conference, including details of registration and accommodation, please visit:
http://www.anselm2015.blogspot.com/

Please note that conference registration and booking of Boston College accommodation will open in February 2015.

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

23-24 October 2015
National Taiwan University

Call for Papers

Madness: Sacred and Profane

Madness, as one of the most intriguing of all cultural questions, has challenged thinkers since antiquity. For instance, Plato in Phaedrus pointed out that divine madness can be associated with creative insanity of seers and poets. In Greek tragedies, madness at times was perceived as the form of divine punishment to drive heroes mad. While Cicero stated that virtue is the only medicine for the diseased mind, Galen’s humoral theory construed the body as the main cause of madness. In courtly poetry, “fol’amor” (mad love) indicated unbridled passion. Thomas Hoccleve lived his madness as divine possession and a humoral imbalance. Hieronymus Bosch’s 1480 painting depicts a doctor cutting the stone of folly from the forehead of a madman. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia’s madness is demonstrated through sexual deviance.

To explore madness as an important question, this conference welcomes papers from scholars working in all fields within Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance studies. We are especially interested in papers that investigate ways in which madness, in all its forms, has been conceived, presented, and interpreted. We also encourage new theoretical frameworks within which to consider madness.

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

Critical explorations of madness/sanity/insanity
Politics of madness (the subversive/prophetic/unrestrained)
Boundaries of madness/normality/rationality
Visualization of madness
Sacred forms of madness
Madness and art
Madness and creativity
Madness and the emotion
Madness and gender
Madness and language
Madness and medicine
Madness and the moralistic/legislative
Madness and obsessions
Madness and sexuality
Madness and society
Madness and wizardry

TACMRS warmly invites papers that reach beyond the traditional chronological and disciplinary borders of Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies. Please submit proposals (250 words) along with a one-page CV to tacmrs.ntu@gmail.com by 1 February 2015.

The Conference will take place on 23-24 October 2015 at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan, featuring keynote speakers: Prof. William V. Harris, Prof. Ruth Evans, and Prof. Peter Holbrook. The conference will provide accommodation for all selected speakers from outside the Taipei area. The Conference is sponsored and administered by the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies (TACMRS).

TACMRS Official Website: http://tacmrs.org.tw/main.php
TACMRS Call for Paper (PDF)

Important Dates
Paper proposal due: February 1, 2015
The full paper due: September 20, 2015
Conference Date: October 23-24, 2015

Contact 
Ms. Annie Cheng
Email: tacmrs.ntu@gmail.com

42nd Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, 16–17 October 2015

Vatican Film Library—Saint Louis University Libraries Special Collections
St. Louis, MO

The Vatican Film Library invites paper submissions or session proposals for the 42nd Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, to be held at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO, 16–17 October 2015. The conference is organized annually by the Vatican Film Library and its journal, Manuscripta, and is the longest running conference in North America devoted exclusively to medieval and Renaissance manuscript studies. The two-day program each year offers sessions on a variety of themes relating to medieval book production, distribution, reception, and transmission in such areas as paleography, codicology, illumination, textual transmission, library history, cataloguing, and more.

Guest Speaker for 2015:
Stella Panayotova (Keeper, Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)

Papers or session proposals should address the material aspects of late antique, medieval, or Renaissance manuscripts. Submissions may address an original topic or one of the session themes already proposed (see below). Papers are 20 minutes in length and a full session normally consists of three papers. If you are interested in organizing one of these sessions, or wish to suggest a paper or session of your own, please contact us as soon as possible.

Proposed Sessions

Submissions are welcome for any of the following sessions already proposed.

• Old Book, New Book: Refurbished Manuscripts in the Middle Ages
  Even when they were tailored to the taste of specific patrons, it was understood that manuscripts would outlast their owners: they were future family heirlooms, to be circulated in networks of gift exchange, inheritance, and resale. In what ways did the patrons and producers of manuscripts anticipate the inevitable change of hands? Under what circumstances did new owners expand or alter legacy manuscripts, and how did they respond to the taste of previous owners? This session calls for papers that examine the social, political, and intellectual import of secondhand medieval books.

• Gravity vs. Levity
  “Man is a rational, moral animal, capable of laughter.” (Notker Labeo, d. 1022). While this may be considered a truism by some, the question of the role played by humor in medieval manuscripts remains somewhat indistinct. Is a joke in a manuscript ever just a joke? Subversive, witty, parodic, didactic, and broadly entertaining imagery is the focus of this session.  What role did humor play in society and how is that displayed in a concrete fashion within the pages of books?

• A Good Read: The Production of Vernacular Texts in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Italy and their Public
  While there is a great deal of documentary evidence for the production and readership of vernacular texts in Italy in the fifteenth century, we know relatively little about their thirteenth- and fourteenth-century patronage and the process of their production. Nonetheless, a considerable number of prose and verse manuscripts written in French, Franco-Italian, or Franco-Venetian survives, often resplendently illustrated and obviously produced for wealthy patrons. See the Fordham University website created to explore this topic. This panel seeks papers that consider the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century production and circulation of these manuscripts in Italy, discuss their patrons and readers; and examine the organization of their production by individuals or workshops based in urban, court, or private milieus. At this time university textbooks were being produced under university supervision for quality control; what evidence can we find for the regulation of quality in this manuscript genre?

Please send a title and an abstract of not more than 200 words to Susan L’Engle (lengles@slu.edu) by 1 March 2015. Those whose proposals are accepted are reminded that registration fees and travel and accommodation expenses for the conference are the responsibility of speakers and/or their institutions.

For more information, contact Erica Lauriello, Library Associate for Special Collections Administration, at 314-977-3090 or elauriel@slu.edu. Conference information is posted at http://libraries.slu.edu/special_collections/stl_conf_manu.