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Conference Calendar

2010

7–10 September 2010. "Les autographes du Moyen Âge - Medieval Autograph Manuscripts," is the theme of the Seventeenth Colloquium of the Comité International de Paléographie Latine (CIPL), at the National Gallery, Ljubjana. The Bureau of CIPL has decided to organize a poster session to which young researchers (up to 35 years) are invited to contribute posters related to their investigations in Latin palaeography, codicology and other areas connected to the "archaeology of the medieval book".

Posters will be displayed in the new hall of the National Gallery where several social events are to take place, so that all who attend the Colloquium will have an opportunity to see them.

Posters should address a range of themes related to Latin palaeography, codicology and other fields of research of mediaeval manuscripts, describing topics, problems and methods. The poster-session is an opportunity for presenting late-breaking results, ongoing research projects, new speculative or innovative works in progress or descriptions of recently completed work. Posters are intended to provide authors and participants with an opportunity to connect with each other and to engage in discussions about their work.

Submissions should be:

* Brief and clearly organized, containing no more than 1,000 signs with spaces

* Simple, with one obvious theme

* Written in one of CIPL's official languages (French, English, German, Italian, Spanish)

Submissions should contain:

* Title of the poster

* Author's name and affiliation

* Name of Professor / Mentor (unless the author is not an independent scholar)

* Textual presentation

Technical guidelines will be forwarded to the authors of the accepted poster submissions.

Important Dates:

* Deadline for submissions: 15th March 2010

* Notification of acceptance: 15th May 2010

* Deadline for providing final posters (in pdf. format): 15th July 2010

Submissions will be evaluated for acceptability by the reviewers. The selection will be based on relevance a) to the Latin palaeography, codicology and related medieval manuscript studies, b) to the originality, potential significance, topicality and clarity.

Poster submissions should be addressed to Dr Pamela Robinson, Secretary-General of CIPL (pamela.robinson@sas.ac.uk). Authors of accepted posters will be asked to send the proposed works by 15th July 2010 in pdf. format on the tempate, accesible in a due time on the web-page of CIPL.

The texts of all accepted posters will be published in an accompanying booklet of the XVIIth Colloquium. Authors are responsible for acquiring the copyright of images for presentation and publication. Well-designed posters should tell the story by themselves, but authors of posters are expected to be available to describe and discuss their work during the time scheduled by the programme. For further information regarding posters, please contact Dr Nataša Golob (natasa.golob@ff.uni-lj.si).

The registration form for our Colloquium in Ljubljana is now available (http://www.palaeographia.org/cipl/ljubljana/ljubForm_en.htm).

(http://www.palaeographia.org/cipl/ljubljana/ljubPosters.htm)

9–11 September 2010. "The (Dis)ambiguity of the Grapheme," the Second International Conference on Comparative Historical Graphemics, to be held at Munich University, in Munich, Germany.

While the first conference in Zurich in 2008 gave an overall introduction to the wide field of historical graphemics, we wish to focus on the grapheme including both positional and free allographs and their relationships regarding phonemes and allophones. We therefore welcome contributions relating to the historical stages of the European languages and writing systems, with regard to the following questions:

1. Depiction of sounds by characters: is it always the 'perfect fit' (one grapheme = one phoneme)?

2. Ways of reflecting language change by graphemes and allographs: Reduction or extension of the characters in the system.

3. New characters - obsolete characters: Necessity of creating new characters for the system or reactivating old ones?

Please send your abstract by 15 December 2009 to Gaby Waxenberger, Munich University (LMU), Department für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Schellingstr. 3/RG, 80799 Munich, Germany (soundandscript@googlemail.com).

10 September 2010. "Pontes ad Fontes: Sacred History in the light of Auxiliary Historical Sciences," an international students’ scientific conference organized by the Department of Auxiliary Historical Sciences and Archive Studies of the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University, will be held in Brno, Czech Republic. The conference is aimed at students of study programmes of all degrees and other young scholars, as well as university teachers from all over Europe.

Sources, either of written, pictorial or material character, are one of the most fundamental questions of studies of our past. On the basis of these sources, historians are able to reconstruct the past, describe processes and events happened in the past, and thus contribute to widening of awareness of cultural values in our society.

Various sources of religious origin form a significant part of all extant sources. And thanks to auxiliary historical sciences, which as a group dispose of scientific methods, we are able to interpret these sources, extract information that these sources contain and also assess them as such. Integration of research in the field of auxiliary historical sciences and sacred history brings new and enriching knowledge not only for history itself but also for fields that are only remotely related as well as for fields seemingly not related at all (law, economics, theology, history of arts, ethnology, demography).

Research in the field of sacred history and also in the field of auxiliary historical sciences is nowadays taking place at all prestigious universities in Europe. It increasingly attracts interest especially of young specialists who deal with the topic in their diploma and doctoral thesis. The international conference Pontes ad fontes will be the first event of its kind in the Central Europe. We would particularly like to address not only experts and young scientists from the Czech Republic but also those from abroad who are concerned with research in the field of sacred history and auxiliary historical sciences from the Middle Ages to modern times. During the conference, they will have the opportunity to present their findings and conclusions from research works in front of the professional public, share their experience in the framework of a specified topic, and last but not least, establish contacts on an international level. The conference will surely enrich and broaden participants´ and attainders´ outlook in various fields of human knowledge, culture and thinking.

Further information is avail from PontesAdFontes@gmail.com (http://www.phil.muni.cz/wpvh).

16–17 September 2010. The annual Medieval Association of the Midwest (MAM) conference will be hosted by the University of Iowa, in Iowa City. This is a broad-ranging medieval conference, which brings together faculty, graduate students, and others from the full range of medieval disciplines to share their research and teaching interests and to interact informally.

Keynote speakers this year will be John D. Niles, the Frederic G. Cassidy Professor of Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who will be talking about Beowulf, and Carolyn Dinshaw, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and of English at New York University, who will be talking about approaches to the Middle Ages. There will also be an evening performance of Beowulf (in modern English) by Chris Vinsonhaler, a professional story-teller and Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa, and an exhibition of medieval manuscripts at the UI Main Library's Special Collections, complemented by presentations on medieval bookmaking techniques by members of the UI Center for the Book. For full details about the conference, see the conference website (http://www.uiowa.edu/~confinst/mam2010/).

Call for papers: We now encourage all members of the association to propose papers or panels for the conference to the special e-mail account at mam2010@uiowa.edu(for further details, see http://www.uiowa.edu/~confinst/mam2010/call-for-papers.html). If you know of colleagues and graduate students who might like to attend, please bring the conference to their attention and encourage them to join the MAM.

16–18 September 2010. "Les légendes des savants et des philosophes au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance" a conference to take place at the Centre d'études supérieures de la Renaissance, 59, rue Néricault-Destouches, BP 11328, 37013 Tours, Cedex 1, France (http//www.cesr.univ-tours.fr; http//umr6576.univ-tours.fr).

17–18 September 2010. "From Iberian Kingdoms to Atlantic Empires: Spain, Portugal, and the New World, 1250–1700," is an interdisciplinary, international conference on the history and literature of the Iberian Empires from the High Middle Ages through the conquest of the New World, sponsored by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, at the University of Notre Dame, in Notre Dame, Indiana.For details visithttp://iberiaconference.eventbrite.com.

18–20 September 2010. The next meeting of the Cooperative for the Advancement of Research through a Medieval European Network (CARMEN) will be held at Krems, outside Vienna.

22-23 September 2010. "Cataloguing Projects of Oriental Manuscripts: Evolution of Descriptive Criteria," the workshop of COMSt Team 4: Oriental Manuscript Cataloguing.

As always, you are most welcome to attend and to forward this invitation and the registration form attached to all those who you think may be interested. Please send the filled registration form directly to Witold Witakowski, the workshop convenor (Witold.Witakowski@lingfil.uu.se). If you have any questions you can also address him directly. COMSt covers participation costs for all Team 4 members, invited speakers and 1-2 selected members of each team (on the approval of Team Leader). In addition, three travel grants are available again for those willing to attend but, being outside COMSt and with no public fund access, unable to fund their travel - the application should be made online (http://www2.esf.org/asp/form/svgrants/sv_form.asp?id=206; check also http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/COMST/bandi.html ).

23–25 September 2010. The biennial conference of GEMELA (Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas, pre- 1800), will be hosted by Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley and UMass-Amherst, Massachussets. Please, see our webpage (http://www.gemela.org) for more information.

23–27 September 2010. Le 30e Congrès de l'Association Internationale des Historiens du Papier (IPH) se tiendra à Angoulême, sous l'égide de l'Association Française d'Histoire du Papier et des Papeteries (AFHEPP).

Les principaux thèmes abordés, inspirés par l'histoire locale de la production papetière en Angoumois, seront les suivants :

Fabrication du papier : artisanats et industries connexes;

Économie et commerce du papier : interactions nationales et internationales;

Usages du papier : gestes, discours, expertises.

Contact: Denis Peaucelle, Musée du Papier, IPH Congress, 134 rue de Bordeaux, 16000 Angoulême, France (denis.peaucelle@afhepp.org).

24–25 September 2010. "Negotiating Trade: Commercial Institutions and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Medieval and Early Modern World," an interdisciplinary conference presented by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Binghamton University, in Binghamton, New York.

With the ongoing development of trans-regional commerce, trade in the medieval and early modern periods required an increasing number of institutions (social, economic, legal, and administrative) to mediate between local and foreign merchants, and among merchants, state officials, creditors, money exchangers, and brokers. Such institutions protected those who traveled long distances and assisted them in unfamiliar systems of exchange even as they permitted local polities to control and profit from the activities of this growing merchant class. Alongside these institutions may be counted the increasingly international systems of credit and banking, which operated above or beyond the sphere of states issuing currencies, and a growing class of agents who served "on the ground," as it were, translating local languages and practices for traveling merchants.

The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMERS) at Binghamton University invites papers for a conference to be held on the Binghamton University campus to explore the institutions that facilitated and accommodated long-distance trade and the globalizing of capital in the medieval and early modern world. The conference organizers conceive "institutions" as a broad category that includes formal, informal, permanent and temporary organizations, associations, conventions, and practices. The scope of the conference is global; papers may concentrate on particular localities or regions, or they may present cross-regional comparisons and convergences. We encourage submissions from a broad range of disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to,

-Permanent sites of trade, such as harbors, marketplaces, customs houses, banks, and exchanges

-Hostels, warehouses, and other spaces used by merchants for temporary residence and storage

-The development of regional markets (urban and rural) and international fairs

-Permanent and ephemeral architecture associated with trade

-Social and economic conventions that governed commercial transactions

-State administrative policies relating to trade and commercial travel

-Supra-state networks of trade (social, cultural, geo-political and economic implications)

-Cross-cultural systems of banking and credit

-Translation across linguistic and cultural boundaries -Modes of determining creditworthiness across regional boundaries

-The practices of brokers and creditors

-Methods of accounting and documenting transactions

-Strategies (individual and corporate) for adapting to foreign systems of trade

-Modifications in commercial institutions with the expansion of early modern trade networks

-The politics of merchant tribute

-The relationship of merchants, companies, banks, and brokers to states minting currency

-The emergence and operations of legal institutions adjudicating disputes concerning trade

-Religious stances towards cross-cultural commercial endeavors

-The representation of commercial institutions in art and literature

Proposals for individual papers (20 minutes maximum) should be no more than 500 words in length and may be sent by e-mail, with a current CV, to cemers@binghamton.edu (Re: 2010 Conference). Those wishing to submit hard copies of the proposal and CV should forward them to: CEMERS [ATTN.: 2010 Conference], Binghamton University, P.O. Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000. We also welcome proposals for integrated panels. Panel organizers should describe the theme of the panel and send abstracts with names and affiliations of all participants along with current CVs. A panel should consist of no more than three papers, each twenty minutes in length. Selected papers may be published in Mediaevalia, a journal of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Submission Deadline: Please submit abstracts by 30 October 2009. Please send all inquiries to cemers@binghamton.edu. For information about CEMERS, please visit our website (http://cemers.binghamton.edu).

24–26 September 2010. Just a reminder that you still have a little less than one week to send in abstracts and to register for the 2010 Texas Medieval Association's 20th annual conference. Our plenary addresses are by Seth Lerer, Laura Weigert, and Bruce Brasington from Friday evening Sep 24 through early Sunday evening 26th. This year's theme is "Majesty, Memory, and Mourning in the Middle Ages," but we still welcome submissions on any aspect of medieval literature, history, art history, philosophy, and religion. Held September 24th-26th at SMU in Dallas in conjunction with the Dallas Museum of Art's exhibition of the Mourners from the Dijon tomb of John the Fearless, this year's conference will feature Texas BBQ, a Spanish themed-dinner at SMU's Meadows Museum (with a visiting El Greco show) and of course Texas music, and buses to take us to a closing despedida on Sunday afternoon at a nearly ranch (swimming, water-skiing, food, maybe a little riding), with Tex-Mex fiesta, a museum-quality folk art collection, and some magnificent, prize-winning horses. Our conference rate for those who sign up at the Doubletree Hotel has been extended through midnight on August 31st, so act quickly. This Tuesday we will mount the first draft of the program. Look especially at the range of "Round-Ups" which you might like to join by offering brief interventions or simply attending. Come for the conference, stay for the company!

1–2 October 2010. The annuual meeting of the Medieval Academy's Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) will be held at the University of Notre Dame, in Notre Dame, Indiana. Contact: Sheryl Mullane-Corvi, Medieval Academy, 104 Mt. Auburn St., 5th Fl., Cambridge, MA 02138-5019 (617-491-1622; fax: 617-492-3303; SMC@MedievalAcademy.org; http://cmrs.osu.edu/cara/default.cfm; http://www.MedievalAcademy.org/cara/cara.htm).

1–2 October 2010. The forty-ninth annual meeting of the Midwest Medieval History Conference will be held on the campus of the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Professor John Van Engen will give this year's keynote. Professor Van Engen is the Andrew V. Tackes Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, where he also served as Director of the Medieval Ins1tute. Over the course of his career, he has been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and a corresponding member of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. His publications include Rupert of Deutz (1983), Devotio Moderna (1988), Religion in the History of the Medieval West (2004), and Sisters and Brothers in Common Life: The Modern Devotion and the World of the Later Middle Ages (2008). For more info, go to http://mmhc.slu.edu/2010.htm.

1–3 October 2010. "Dante and the Greeks," a conference organized and hosted by the Dumbarton Oaks Library and Collection, in collaboration with the Dante Society of America, at Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, DC.

This three-day symposium will include attention to Dante’s views on ancient Greece and its cultures as well as on medieval Greece and its cultures. Scrutiny will be given to the presence of ancient Greek poetry and philosophy (such as Homer, Plato, Aristotle) as well as science (astrology, cosmography, geography) in Dante’s works. In addition, participants will explore the Greek characters (drawn indirectly from the ancient Greek mythographic tradition, Homeric epic, and other such sources) that populate Dante’s works, as well as others (such as the Cretan Veglio).

Speakers will consider the degree to which such influences were filtered to the Italian poet through Patristic and late-antique texts (by Origen, the Cappadocians, Dionysius the Areopagite, and others), since Dante could have been introduced to at least some of the original ancient literature by way of these intermediaries. The symposium will also investigate very broadly the medieval assimilation of Greek thought into Christian culture. This assimilation will include Byzantine influences on political thought, particularly on the centrality of the emperor and the empire as ideas and ideals (Justinian and the juridical and political thought of the Eastern Roman Empire). This issue relates particularly, but not exclusively, to Dante's De monarchia.

Beyond a strict concern with Dante lies the challenge of setting him in a broader context with regard to the perception and reception of Greek in the thirteenth-century West. Latin Christians manifested a schizophrenic outlook, instead of a single Greekness there were several, not all of them even interconnected. First of all were the pagan Greeks and then the Byzantine Greeks. Even the Byzantines were far from uniform, since Westerners responded very differently to the traditions of the Greek Church fathers and of their own contemporary Greeks. Thus Greek was not only a past language or culture, but also a present (and often rival) religious and political entity. To each of these layers Latins related somewhat differently. Doctrinal, political, linguistic, cultural, educational matters all played important roles in shaping attitudes, and in this regard travel and diplomacy are perhaps as relevant as translations.

Conference website:

http://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/doaks_symposium_dante_2010.html

7–10 October 2010. The 30th IPH Congress of International Paper Historians will take place in Angoulême, France, hosted by the Association Française d’Histoire du Papier et des Papeteries (AFHEPP). The themes of the congress will cover three main aspects inspired by the local history of papermaking in the Angoumois:

Session 1: Side-industries and crafts connected to Papermaking
Our attention will be focused on various activities such as the making of moulds, wheels, felts, machines, metal-woven carpets, dandy-rolls, chemical and colouring agents, etc. Relying on public or private archives or collections of objects, the presentations may deal, for instance, with regional specialization, technological innovations, history of firms and professional profiles, with a special interest in the interdependence of these side-activities.

Session 2: Paper Economy and Trade: national and international Interactions

Over the course of the centuries, the papermaking activity in Angoumois has brought about various technical or commercial interactions, locally with the French south-west region, nationally with Paris and Bordeaux, and internationally with the Low-Countries, the United Kingdom and the Iberian Peninsula, as well as overseas – as shown for instance by the history of local watermarks– which still remain to be studied. Case studies of the diversified networks developed by important papermaking centres will also be considered in this section.

Session 3: The Uses of Paper: Gestures, Words, Expertise

Through the various areas of the application of paper (art, writing, printing, wrapping, industrial applications, preservation and conservation), we shall consider the many ways to use this medium: choice, shaping, transformation, as well as description or evaluation, the development of knowledge about it, improvement observation procedures, collection techniques and even calls for its extinction. In this session, our main focus will be specific gestures, discourses or expertise protocols.

Call for papers: The abstract must include:

- Name, e-mail and/or postal address, professional title of the author(s)

- Title of the presentation

- Summary of content

The length of the presentations at the Congress will be 20 minutes. The congress languages are English and French, as well as German: please note that no translation will be provided, except for the written translation of abstracts. Presenters will be notified by 31 March 2010 if their proposals have been accepted and publication guidelines will be provided. The full text of the presentation as well as a CD version, if available are due on 30 September 2010.

Those wishing to present a paper are invited to submit a 300-word abstract (1,500 characters) in English, (Word or .rtf format) as well as either a French or German version, no later than 31 December 2009, to the program committee: Denis Peaucelle, Musée du Papier, IPH Congress, 134 rue de Bordeaux, F 16000 Angoulême, France (denis.peaucelle@afhepp.org; http://afhepp.org).

8–10 October 2010. The Thirtieth Annual Harvard Celtic Colloquium will meet at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The John V. Kelleher Lecture will be “The Barefoot Kings: Literary Models and Reality in Later Medieval Ireland,” delivered by Dr. M. Katharine Simms (Department of History, Trinity College, Dublin ) on Thursday, 7 October, at 5 p.m. at the Harvard Faculty Club Library, 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additional information can be found on our website (http://www.hcc.fas.harvard.edu).

13–15 October 2010. "Pilgrims and Pilgrimages as Peacemakers in Christianity, Judaism and Islam," the 4th International Colloquium Compostela, will be held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The 4ICC seeks to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of all aspects of Pilgrimages and Pilgrims as Peacemakers in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Papers on any topic related to this theme are welcome. In the 2010 Compostellan Holy Year, the 4th International Colloquium Compostela has as special thematic focus “Pilgrimages and Pilgrims as Peacemakers in Christianity, Judaism and Islam”. Pilgrimage is a sacred voyage and appears as a universal phenomenon, which departs from a common psychology and turns into a symbol and a ritual and cultural fact that are repeated in all time and in any place. It’s a global element that proclaims the construction of an intercultural dialog of identities, base of a peace that the sacred texts of those three religions proclaim as preceptive.

Call for papers: What peace motives prompted pilgrimages? Were the factors that drove peace pilgrimages the same in those cultures and religions? How do this kind of peace pilgrimages and their effects resonate through written, material and visual culture? We welcome papers on all aspects of peace pilgrims and peace pilgrimages, broadly understood; pacific routes of peregrination; peace in the pilgrimage ways; constructing peace from the peregrination; peace and pilgrimage as a means of cultural, religious and political interaction; spiritual journeys; sanctuaries of peregrination as spaces of mercy and peace, etc. We would particularly encourage submissions with cross-cultural and comparative approaches, and in this context welcome papers that reach beyond the conventional chronological and geographical borders of the European pilgrimages.

Those who would like to present papers are invited to submit a 200-word abstract of their paper (in English) and a 200-word curriculum vitae to sarmiento@cesga.es before July 15, 2010. Speakers will be allocated 15 minutes for their talks (there will not be presented papers of absent speakers). The selection will be looking for empirical and theoretical contributions to the scholarly understanding of the interrelationship between peace, pilgrimages and pilgrims. Authors of papers that have been accepted will be notified before July 30, 2010.

The conference will begin in the morning of Wednesday October 13th and it will end in the afternoon of Friday October 15th. The venue of the 4th International Colloquium Compostela will be in downtown Santiago de Compostela (San Roque, 2). Although the organization may provide several travel grants, participants will be responsible for arranging their own travel and accommodation. Further details about the conference will be available in due course in the 4ICC website (http://iegpspeacemakers). blogspot.com).

15–16 October 2010. The Thirty-Seventh Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, in Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri. Inquiries: Vatican Film Library, Pius XII Memorial Library, Saint Louis University, 3650 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63108-3302 (314- 977-3090; vfl@slu.edu; http://www.slu.edu/libraries/vfl).

14–16 October 2010. "Quest and Conquest: Spiritual Symbols and Myths in the Indo-Mediterranean and European Worlds," the University of British Columbia's 39th Medieval Workshop, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Myths and symbols are at the core of the sacred - a vision of the world which all cultures share through their diverse languages. Quest and conquest have been archetypal concepts for all medieval cultures. Though more often than not quest and conquest have opposed each other as key factors in the historical self-fashioning of individuals and communities, they have also merged in that place of heart which all forms of literary and artistic expression seek to reveal.

The keynote speaker will be Michael Barry, of Princeton University, Consultant to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture on Islamic Art and Museum Issues, on the subject "Arab Lore of the Conquest of Spain and The Myth of King Arthur's Round Table." Information is available on line (http://ubc2010medieval.blogspot.com/).

15–17 October 2010. "Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Islamic and Jewish Mysticism Around the Time of Chrétien de Troyes," a conference organized by the Eagle Hill Foundation, at Steuben, Maine (USA).

This symposium will have a dual thematic focus on (1) major esoteric and mystical movements of the fascinatingly rich intellectual and religious cultures of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, namely, alchemy, hermeticism, and Islamic and Jewish mysticism; and (2) the works of Chrétien de Troyes, whose Arthurian romances seem to suggest an awareness of some aspects of these movements. Recent scholarship has suggested that there was not only a higher degree of intercultural and interreligious permeability during this time period—especially between Spain and France—than previously suspected, but that important channels of transmission of ideas, treatises, and texts have been overlooked. The symposium is intended to foster an exchange of ideas among participants, whose areas of expertise are generally considered to be distinct from one another. This confl uence of otherwise diverse academic perspectives will provide a comparative framework to explore the broad range of cultural resources accessible to writers and intellectual communities during the time of Chrétien de Troyes.

Experts in 1) medieval alchemy, hermeticism, Islamic and Jewish Mysticism, 2) the interpretation of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes, and 3) the translation or modes of transmission of treatises and texts around the time of Chrétien de Troyes are invited to give presentations providing insights into their own research and ideas, or to provide a broad overview of some aspect of their respective fi elds. Summaries of past and current research are important, since these will provide the broad context for discussions among participants with regard to the more enigmatic aspects of Chrétien’s romances, and possibly also the works of other contemporary writers, such as Wolfram von Eschenbach. Although a familiarity with the romances of Chrétien de Troyes is not essential, this would be helpful, since the motif of “the quest” is a recurrent theme, both in the narrative strategies of Chrétien, and in the esoteric and mystical movements of his time. It is thus hoped that a consideration of the romances of Chrétien will lead to a better understanding of how the medieval esoteric and mystical movements can be studied from the standpoint of their contribution to the popular milieu, and how this may have inspired literary geniuses like Chrétien.

The symposium will provide ample informal opportunities for group discussions, since accommodations and meals are available within easy walking distance of the lecture hall and rooms where the symposium will be held. Participants are welcome to extend their discussions late into the night by the fi replaces in the main symposium building. An announcement, with a list of presentations, will be sent out on 31 May 2010. The symposium is open to all who share an interest in scholarship about the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.

The Symposium will be held at the facilities of the Eagle Hill Foundation and Humboldt Institute, situated on the summit of Eagle Hill on the coast of eastern Maine. Acadia National Park and the Canadian border are both within a scenic one-hour drive. Mid-October falls in the midst of Maine’s spectacular autumn foliage season.

Call for papers: Scholars interested in giving a presentation are invited to submit an abstract, no longer than 2,500 characters or 500 words in length, to office@eaglehill.us by April 30, 2010. Inquiries about possible presentations are welcome. The suggested deadline for the submission of manuscripts for the proceedings is November 15, 2010. The journal Arcanum follows an article-by-article online publishing model. Articles which have met with the approval of the peer-review and editing process are formally published/uploaded on the journal’s website as soon as the galley proofs are reviewed and accepted by their respective authors and guest editors. The Table of Contents is updated as each article is published. Once the volume of proceedings is complete, a print version will be issued.

Published proceedings. Presenters are invited to submit a manuscript for inclusion in the symposium proceedings, which will be published in Arcanum, a new scholarly online and print journal, presently in the early planning stages (ISSN 2152-6621). This peer-reviewed journal will be dedicated to research on the confl uence of ideas which gave rise to the many fascinating intellectual accomplishments of the twelfth and thirteenth Centuries. Inquiries regarding the journal are welcome. The journal will be published by the Eagle Hill Foundation, which already publishes the Journal of the North Atlantic, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal whose core focus is on Viking age archaeology and the environmental history of the greater North Atlantic.

Contact person. Dr. Ingrid E. Lotze, Eagle Hill Foundation, PO Box 9, Steuben, Maine, USA (207-546-2821; office@eaglehill.us; http://www.eaglehill.us).

17–22 October 2010. "St. Thomas Becket and the Vernacular Medieval Literature," an international medieval conference to be held at Centro Stefano Franscini, Monte Verità, Ascona, Ticino, Switzerland. The Conference will be divided into two themes (consisting of several sub-divided sessions):

For Medievalists the Becket-Henry affair presents an ideal case study: the career of Thomas Becket, culminating in his murder (1170) is undoubtedly the best documented event in the twelfth century. The dramatic martyrdom of the Archbishop of Canterbury generated an unusual number of biographies, letters, histories. New avenues of research are now opening up for Philologists, since recent studies have begun to show that Becket's eruditi wrote not only in Latin, but also in vernacular (i. e. Anglo-Norman and French). The language of government and diplomacy was Latin, but for Becket's circle, literature was too important to be excluded from the remoralization of the Plantagenet's life. Lay and clerical domains of worship were certainly distinct, but they were not neatly divided, either liturgically or physically. Nothing supports the polarity between a "lay piety" of "private" and "devotional" literature and a clerical art that was "public," "regulatory," and "liturgical."

A) 1155–1170: "Warriors of God and Culture. Thomas Becket and his eruditi"

B) After 1170. "Perpetuating Myth"

DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS: 15 August 2010

The stimulating and unique ambiance of Monte Verità has been chosen to give the conference a familiar and scientifically inspiring tone. The Centro Stefano Franscini (CSF) in Ascona (on the fascinating hill called Monte Verità) is the international conference centre of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), located in the south of Switzerland (Canton Ticino). Contact: Abstracts, conference announcements or enquires should be directed to congress@becketproject.ch (http://www.becketproject.ch).

18–19 October 2010. "Patronage and the Sacred Book in the Medieval Mediterranean," a conference organized by Esperanza Alfonso (CSIC) and Jonathan Decter (Brandeis University), at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Sacred books (including Jewish Bibles, Christian Bibles, Qur´ans, prayer books,psalters, haggadot, translations of and commentaries on Scripture, etc.) were at the center of book production for Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout the Middle Ages. This conference will investigate issues in the patronage, production, circulation and consumption of sacred books in the Western Mediterranean during the High and Late Middle Ages (roughly 10th-15th Century). In what ways did the demands of patronage nurture, determine, or constrain areas of intellectual and artistic engagement? How did patronage in the royal court differ from patronage in other contexts (the Church, religious orders, the madrasa, the university, the circles of learned elites, non-institutional settings)? What role did women play in the patronage, production or circulation of books? The interest of this conference is twofold: the patronage of sacred texts in comparative contexts and the role of inter-religious elements in the production of sacred texts.

Call for papers: Topics for papers might include the adoption of book-making techniques across religious boundaries, Jewish/Christian/Muslim collaborative translations or art/text productions, interest in reading, producing, or interpreting the sacred texts of other religious traditions, or other related questions. Please send an abstract to Jonathan Decter (decter@brandeis.edu) and Esperanza Alfonso (esperanza.alfonso@cchs.csic.es) by 15 February 2010.

21–23 October 2010. "Objects, Collections and Cultures," the Second Biennieal Symposium of the Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA), in the Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, D.C. The program features an opening address by Julian Raby, director of the Freer and Sackler Galleries; a round-table discussion on the role of objects in the study of Islamic art and culture; six seminar-style workshops on works of art in the Freer and Sackler collections; and seven thematic panels with formal presentations. The symposium is open to the scholarly community and the general public. The full program and registration form are now available on the HIAA website (http://www.historiansofislamicart.org/portal/default.asp?cat=sym).

In addition to the renowned collection of Islamic art on view in the Freer Gallery of Art, symposium participants will have the opportunity to enjoy two special exhibitions: "The Shahnama: 1000 Years of the Persian Book of Kings" at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, and "Colors of the Oasis: Central Asian Ikats," at The Textile Museum, also in Washington. The symposium program committee: Massumeh Farhad, Chief Curator and Curator of Islamic Art, Freer and Sackler Galleries, and Marianna Shreve Simpson, President-elect, Historians of Islamic Art Association.

21–24 October 2010. "Byzantine and Ottoman Civilizations in World History,” a symposium sponsored by Istanbul Sehir University and the World History Association, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Istanbul Sehir University and the World History Association proudly announce a symposium focusing on the world-historical significance of Byzantine and Ottoman civilizations, 330-1922. The symposium will consist of approximately 50 papers by Turkish and international participants, plus several plenary sessions. The official languages of the symposium are English and Turkish.

Persons not presenting a paper may also register for the conference, attend at no fee, and will be eligible for discounted lodging at 4- and 5-star conference hotels in the Old City. On-line registration and hotel information will be found at this web site soon after 15 January 2010. In order to participate in any capacity, persons must register on-line no later than 15 September 2010. All registrants are responsible for their own travel and accommodation expenses and schedules.

Questions and inquiries should be directed to A. J. Andrea (aandrea@uvm.edu), Hayrettin Yucesoy (yucesoyh@slu.edu), or Nurullah Ardiç (nurullahardic@sehir.edu.tr). Periodic informational updates will appear at http://www.thewha.org beginning September 2009.

15–27 October 2010. "Handschriften und Alte Drucke" 9. Symposium veranstaltet von der AG Handschriften und Alte Drucke des Deutschen Bibliotheksverbandes e. V. in Zusammenarbeit mit der Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen und dem Verein deutscher Bibliothekare (VDB). Leitung: Dr. Helmut Rohlfing, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Abt. Spezialsammlungen und Bestandserhaltung, Papendiek 14, 37073 Göttingen.

Ort: Heinrich-Fabri-Institut Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Forschungszentrum der Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen Auf dem Rucken 35 89143 Blaubeuren (bei Ulm). Teilnehmerbeitrag: 320 Euro bzw. 300 Euro für Mitglieder des VDB (inkl. Unterkunft / Verpflegung (EZ)). Anmeldung: Die schriftliche Anmeldung sollte bis zum 15.09.2010 per Email an das Sekretariat der UB Tübingen [sekretariat@ub.uni-tuebingen.de] erfolgen (inkl. der Angabe, ob VDB-Mitglied). Die Überweisung des Teilnehmerbeitrags muss bis zum 15.09.2010 auf das Konto 13004 der KSK Tübingen (BLZ 64150020) mit dem Verwendungszweck "Projekt 01512/Symposium" erfolgt sein.

28–30 October 2010. "Hagiography and Popular Cultures," cosponsored by the Hagiographical Society and the Associazione Italiana per lo Studio della Santità (AISSCA), in Verona, Italy. Recognizing the controversies regarding the concept of "popular culture", which, notwithstanding its obvious ambiguities, refers to a historical reality, the conference proposes to identify and discuss the evidence offered by hagiographical texts about this particular culture of the lower classes, in various historical and geographical contexts, from the first spreading of Christianity up to contemporary times, including evidence belonging to other religious beliefs that can be considered similar to saints. Contact: Sherry L. Reames (slreames@wisc.edu).

29 October 2010. "Discipuli Juncti: Students Connected through the Middle Ages and Renaissance," the Third Annual Undergraduate Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, to be held at Arizona State University at the West Campus, in Phoenix, Arizona.

The New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University and ACMRS (the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies) again invite all interested undergraduates to propose papers or academic presentations in other creative media for “Discipuli Juncti: Students Connected through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,” our third annual undergraduate conference on the Middle Ages and Renaissance. On Friday, October 29, 2010 the conference will give undergraduates who are interested in Medieval and/or Renaissance culture another opportunity to present their research or project to a group of their peers and others (Spring 2010 graduates are still eligible to participate).

In advance of the conference, the student will work with a faculty mentor willing to advise and assist in developing his or her project for a conference-level presentation (advanced graduate students are also encouraged to serve as mentors). Paper proposals for a 15-20 minute presentation on all topics and in all formats, including visual and aural media or any creative form of research, are welcome. By vote the three best papers will be selected to be presented at ACMRS's annual international conference in February 2011, a practice that has continued since the inception of the conference. The best conference papers will be published online on the ACMRS website www.acmrs.org. The conference keynote speaker will be Rodney M. Thomson, Senior Research Fellow, School of History and Classics, University of Tasmania, Australia.

If you are interested in participating in this conference, please email a 200-word abstract to Professor Mary Bjork at mary.bjork@asu.edu. Deadline for proposals is September 17. Applicants will be informed of acceptance by September 24. Once accepted, the deadline for registration is September 30. There are no conference registration fees. For more information, including advice on how to write an abstract, visit http://acmrs.org/conferences/Undergrad%20Conference/Discipuli_Juncti.html .

5–7 November 2010. The 29th Annual International Conference of the Charles Homer Haskins Society. will be held in Boston, Massachusetts. For details, see the Society's website (http://hankinsatbostoncollege.blogspot.com/).

9–13 November 2010. "Auctor et auctoritas in Latinis Medii Aevi litteris," the VI Convegno dell’Internationales Mittellateiner Komitee, in Naples and Benevento. The first plenary session will be in Napoli on 9th November, in the afternoon. Presenters will later be taken to Benevento, where half-board accommodation will be provided.

For more information or clarification on scholarly aspects or logistics, do not hesitate to e-mail prof. Edoardo D’Angelo and Dott.ssa Grazia Sirignano (medialatinitas2010@gmail.com; http://www.unisob.na.it/ateneo/d001.htm?vr=1).

12–14 November 2010. "Representations: Image, word and artefact," Imbas 2010, an interdisciplinary postgraduate medievalist conference will be held at National University of Ireland, in Galway.

We would like to invite all postgraduate students of medieval studies to Imbas, an interdisciplinary medievalists' conference being held in the Moore Institute at NUI Galway. This conference welcomes delegates at all stages of their research from all areas of medieval studies including languages, history, literature, art, archaeology, palaeography and philosophy.

Call for papers: Delegates are encouraged to view the theme as a broad suggestion rather than in any way restrictive, and all variations on this theme will be welcome. A selection of papers will be published in our peer-reviewed journal, Imbas: The Journal of the National University of Ireland, Galway Postgraduate Medieval Studies Conference. This journal will be made available via our website and open-access journal databases. All panels will be recorded and made available as podcasts.

Abstracts of 250 words for a twenty-minute paper must be submitted before30 September 2010. Abstracts can be sent to imbasnuig@gmail.com or forwarded to Imbas/Trish Ní Mhaoileoin, Roinn na Gaeilge, Áras na Gaeilge, Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh, Éire.

15 November 2010. "Epistolary Conversations: Opening the Letter of Classical and Late Antiquity," a joint symposium organized by the Ancient Cultures Research Centre, Macquarie University, and the Centre for Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic University, to be held at Macquarie University, Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, building W6A, floor 3 western end.

Letters are among our most important types of sources for understanding ancient societies, and one that can seem to offer a rare immediacy, catching individuals dealing with specific issues of business or friendship in particular moments of time. Letters offer us access to a level of daily life and language missing from more forensic literary genres or more monumental artefacts.

But letters are also amongst the most heterogenous of ancient sources. The modern printed edition may inadvertently conceal vast differences in form: texts preserved as monumental inscriptions on city walls, in multiple medieval manuscripts, or as unique originals on the workaday materials of papyri and wood or deluxe ivory – all may be ‘letters.’ The content of letters is no less Protean: we are used to thinking of letters in manuscript collections as ‘literary’ and those on original materials as ‘documentary,’ but papyri originals may demonstrate the same rhetorical conceits as those in manuscript, while among the most numerous letters bequeathed by the manuscript tradition are thousands of governmental memoranda repackaged as the great Roman imperial law codes.

Letters were ephemera – but both the careful archiving of original papyri documents and the gathering of letter-collections consciously overrode that transience. Letters were cultural markers of classical Greek and Roman societies – but the vast bulk of extant originals come from Egypt, carrying forward both Hellenistic and Near Eastern epistolary traditions. The Augustan age produced the great models that shaped later epistolary practice, of the aristocratic érudites Cicero, Pliny, and Horace – as well as St. Paul and others later canonised in the New Testament – but the largest and most numerous letter-collections are overwhelmingly those of Late Antiquity, especially the often data-rich letter-collections of Christian bishops. Letters were the written products of highly literate societies – but often depended on a human bearer to deliver an oral message constituting the essential communiqué. Letters chart for us physical and social networks throughout ancient societies – but only occasionally do we have before us two sides of any conversation. Letters could be intimate and personal – but with personae constructed from venerable literary topoi.

Please join a symposium of historians, papyrologists, and linguists for a day of discussing these and other issues shaping our understanding of the ancient letter.

Speakers include: Professor Pauline Allen, Dr Malcolm Choat, Dr Geoffrey Dunn, Dr Trevor Evans, Assoc. Prof. Andrew Gillett, Dr Stephen Lake, and Dr Bronwen Neil. There is no charge for attendance, but please RSVP for catering purposes. Enquiries and RSVP to Andrew Gillett (andrew.gillett@mq.edu.au).

15–17 November 2010. "Richard FitzRalph: His Life, Times and Thought," aconference to commemorate the 650th anniversary of his death (November 16th, 1360), to be held at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. For further information contact Michael Dunne (Michael.W.Dunne@nuim.ie).

18–20 November 2010. "Natural, Unnatural, & Supernatural," the 36th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association (SEMA) in Roanoke, Virginia. This conference will be held at the Hotel Roanoke, located in the southwest corner of Virginia in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley. Because this year's conference coincides with the 75th anniversary of the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, we have selected "Natural, Unnatural, & Supernatural" as its theme.

Call for papers: We welcome papers and panels dealing with all aspects of the Middle Ages, but we particularly encourage those examining elements of the natural, unnatural, and supernatural in the medieval world. As it does every year, the SEMA annual conference encourages submissions from all branches of medieval studies, including but not limited to history, art, science, philosophy, theology, archaeology, paleography, language, and literatures.

Proposals for entire sessions and for interdisciplinary presentations are strongly encouraged, although individual paper proposals are welcome as well. Offers to serve as session moderators are also welcome. Papers should be no more than 20 minutes in length and sessions should consist of no more than 3 presenters and 1 moderator. If submitting a full session, please indicate the intended format of the session (formal papers, roundtable discussion, panel, and so on) and titles of all individual presentations. All proposals should be approximately 250 words and include all contact information (mailing address as well as e-mail) of the presenter(s) and/or organizer. Proposals must include a note regarding A/V equipment needs; e-mail submissions are much preferred.

Please e-mail proposals by 1 July (sema2010@scholar.vt.edu). Hard-copy proposals must be received by 1 July: Prof. Matthew Gabriele, Dept. of Religion and Culture, Virginia Tech, 342 Lane Hall (0227), Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.

Please explore the conference website (http://www.rc.vt.edu/medieval/sema2010) as well as the new SEMA website (http://sema.eserver.org).

18–20 November 2010. "The Circulation of Science and Technology," the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science, in Barcelona, Spain.

Historiography has recently acknowledged that circulation of ideas and techniques plays a central role in the understanding of their evolution. Given that science and technology are international achievements, their dissemination could be the most distinctive element in their construction. Circulation is not a simple change of geographical place; it carries with it epistemological and philosophical changes as a result of the crossing of cultural and political boundaries. Networks cover a wide range of local settings, actors, institutions and interests, both in the production of new science and technology, and in the reception and appropriation of known science and technology.

The conference should stimulate studies and debates about the dissemination of science and technology: first, the circulation of ideas, theories, methods and practices; second, of objects, instruments, machines, artefacts, seeds, plants, minerals, drawings, illustrations, inscriptions, paintings…; third, of texts: manuscripts, printed books, textbooks, journals, letters, book notes; fourth, of scientists and technicians around the world in “grand tours”, trips for leisure, lecturing, business and industrial espionage; and fifth, of information about institutional organization, transmission of knowledge and the influence of local contexts, among others.

Contact: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, Carrer del Carme 47, 08001 Barcelona, Spain (+34 932 701 620; fax +34 932 701 180).

19–20 November 2010. "Cantus scriptus: Technologies of Medieval Song," t he Third Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, at the University of Pennsylvania Library. In partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Department of Music, Penn Libraries are pleased to announce the 3rd annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age. This year's symposium will be on the theme of music in medieval and early modern manuscripts. We will explore a range of issues relating to music’s materiality in the late medieval period, especially as it pertains to the manuscript source. We will bring together scholars and performers who will examine the ways the written text of music, especially in the unit of the codex, can be expressive as well as prescriptive; the multiple functions of music’s most important technology – its notation; and finally, the role that modern digital technology can facilitate the study of manuscripts today.

The symposium begins Friday evening at the Free Library of Philadelphia with a lecture and performance by the award-winning early music duo Asteria. On Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania, seven speakers will present papers on various topics relating to the history of music manuscripts and notation. The symposium will conclude with a roundtable to discuss issues related to the digitization of music manuscripts and related documents and the role of the digital humanities in medieval musicology. Special exhibitions of music manuscripts will be on view at both institutions.

Participants include: Jane Alden, Wesleyan University; Julia Craig-McFeeley, Digital Image Archive of Music Manuscripts; Michael Scott Cuthbert, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Emma Dillon, University of Pennsylvania; Lauren Jennings, University of Pennsylvania; Susan Rankin, University of Cambridge; Anne Stone, City University of New York; and Emily Zazulia, University of Pennsylvania

For more information, contact Lynn Ransom (215-898-7851; lransom@upenn.edu) or visit our website (http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/lectures/ljs_symposium3.html).

25–27 November 2010. "Texts Worth Editing," the Seventh Annual Conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship (ESTS) will be held in Pisa, Italy. All text editing begins with a choice: what text to edit. How do we choose the text we edit? Are all texts worth editing, simply because they are texts? Even once we have chosen what we are to edit, further choices lie ahead of us. If a text exists in many versions, and in many documents: are all versions, and all documents, equally worthy of editing? If we choose to focus on a particular version, or a particular document, how do we make this choice, and how do we justify it to others? Once we have made these decisions: choices of method will also be affected by perceptions of value. Should we publish the full text of a particular version or document; or publish its variants only, in an apparatus? and if we choose to publish variants only: what are our criteria to determine which variants are worth publishing?

For more information, visit the ESTS website (http://www.textualscholarship.eu/conference-2010.html) or the host's website (http://www.ilc.cnr.it/ests2010).

4 December 2010. "Animals and Humans in the Culture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance," the Twenty-Second Barnard Medieval and Renaissance Conference at Barnard College, in New York City.

An interdisciplinary conference that will explore some of the many ways in which the human-animal connection and ‘divide’ was imagined, employed, figured and explained by people in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Special attention will be given to the multiple constructions and fluid and tense nature of the boundaries between wild and civilized. We seek proposals that go beyond animal figuration and instead focus on literal and metaphorical interactions between humans and other animals. Papers might consider texts on husbandry, falconry, hunting, companion animals, warfare, bestiaries, fables, encyclopedias, heraldry, visual arts, narrative, philosophy, and theology, and analyses informed by current critical animal theory are especially welcomed.

Plenary speakers: Laurie Shannon (Northwestern University) and Bruce Holsinger (University of Virginia)

Plenary panel: Aranye Fradenberg (UC Santa Barbara), Paula Lee (Arete Initiative, U of Chicago), Karl Steel (CUNY Brooklyn College), Sarah Stanbury (Holy Cross), and Julian Yates (U of Delaware)

Call for papers: Papers might consider texts on husbandry, falconry, hunting, companion animals, warfare, bestiaries, fables, encyclopedias, heraldry, visual arts, narrative, philosophy, theology. Please submit one-page abstracts and c.v. to Laurie Postlewate (lpostlew@barnard.edu) by 1 September 2010.

2011

2–5 February 2011. The Eighth Biernnial International Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies will meet at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. ANZAMEMS exists to promote medieval and early modern studies in Australia and New Zealand. It was formed in 1996 by the merger of ANZAMRS (Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Renaissance Studies) and AHMEME (Australian Historians of Medieval and Early Modern Europe).

Keynote speakers will be:

Alastair Minnis (Yale University)

Michael Hunter (Birkbeck College)

Frances E. Dolan (University of California at Davis)

Dauvit Broun (Glasgow University)

Call for papers: We wish to invite proposals for papers and panels for ANZAMEMS 2011. We would like to encourage papers and panels in the broadly-defined academic disciplines of medieval and early modern studies, including but not limited to history, literary studies, music, art history, theology and religious studies, cultural studies, philosophy, science, medicine, maritime studies, performance studies, gender studies. We particularly welcome and encourage papers from graduate students and early career researchers (anzamems2011@otago.ac.nz; http://www.otago.ac.nz/mems/anzamems)..

Proposals for full panels are very welcome. These should include three proposed speakers, and, if possible, a chair and/or a respondent. Individual papers will be grouped with two others. Parallel sessions will last an hour and a half, which means that papers should be no longer than 20 minutes each to leave sufficient time for discussion. The final deadline for proposals is 3 September 2010, but early submissions are encouraged. Proposals should contain a title, an abstract of your paper (200 words), and your name, contact details, and institutional affiliation. Participants who need to make travel arrangements are welcome to submit their proposals early and the convenors will assess their abstracts promptly. Contact: Dr Simone Celine Marshall (simoneceline.marshall@otago.ac.nz) Dr Judith Collard (judith.collard@otago.ac.nz), or Prof. Peter Anstey (peter.anstey@otago.ac.nz).

10–12 February 2011. "Performance and Theatricality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance," the 17th Annual ACMRS Conference, at Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona.

The conference keynote speaker will be Pamela Sheingorn. Dr. Sheingorn specializes in the European Middle Ages, especially in visual, cultural, and women's history. Her research areas include hagiography, drama, and visual culture. Her books include: Myth, Montage, and the Visible in Late Medieval Manuscript Culture: Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othea (2003, co-authored with Marilynn Desmond); Writing Faith: Text, Sign, and History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy (1999, co-authored with Kathleen Ashley); The Book of Sainte Foy (1995); Interpreting Cultural Symbols: St. Anne in Late Medieval Society (1990); and The Easter Sepulchre in England (1987). Her current research projects focus on representations of the late medieval family, medieval masculinities, a cultural history of Joseph the Carpenter, and illuminations in medieval drama manuscripts.

Pre-conference Workshop: Before the conference, ACMRS will host a workshop on manuscript studies to be led by Timothy Graham, Director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of New Mexico. The workshop will be Thursday afternoon, February 10, and participation will be limited to 25 participants, who will be determined by the order in which registrations are received. Email acmrs@asu.edu with “conference workshop” as the subject line to be added to the list. The cost of the workshop is $25 and is in addition to the regular conference registration fee.

Call for papers: ACMRS welcomes papers that explore any topic related to the study and teaching of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and especially those that focus on this year’s theme of performance and theatricality, both in literal and metaphorical manifestations. Selected papers related to the conference theme will be considered for publication in the conference volume of the Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance series, published by Brepols Publishers (Belgium).

Deadlines and Fees: The conference registration fee is $95 ($45 for students and emeriti/ae faculty) and includes welcoming and farewell receptions, two days of concurrent sessions (Friday and Saturday), and keynote address. Please note that there will be an opening reception Thursday evening, but there will be no sessions that day.

The deadline for proposals is 9:00 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on 17 October 2010. Proposals must include audio/visual requirements and any other special requests. Subsequent a/v requests may not be honored without additional charge. In order to streamline the committee review process, submissions will only be accepted at http://link.library.utoronto.ca/acmrs/conference/ from 1 June through 17 October 2010. Questions? (480-965-9323; acmrs@asu.edu)

17–19 February 2011. "Union in Separation—Trading Diasporas in the Eastern Mediterranean (1200-1700)," an international conference hosted by the Trading Diasporas research group at Heidelberg University. The conference focuses on transcultural diasporic communities in the medieval and early modern Mediterranean with specific respect to their role in trade between perceived separate cultural areas.

The term "transculturality" tends to be used to designate the hybrid character of modern-day societies and to ultimately argue that separate cultural units (defined as the sum of elements that characterise the aggregate identity of a society) do not exist. However, regardless of whether it is possible to speak of separate 'cultures', the construct continues to persist in people's mind. These mindsets, their creation and their impact on societies is what historians are now investigating.

The study of Mediterranean diasporas lends itself well to this endeavour, as it allows for an understanding of the construction and deconstruction of cultural differences as well as the potential integration into a host culture. In order to best analyse these processes, we suggest exploring commercial exchange and its legal framework as two interrelated phenomena.

Medieval Mediterranean trading diasporas, such as Venetian merchants residing in Mamluk Alexandria, operated both within and outside of formal legal structures. However, their status as religious minorities often posed strong challenges to their business. For instance, far-reaching privileges granted by the Sultan to Christian merchants coexisted with, and were frequently challenged by, orthodox Islamic law and/or local legal practice. Thus, a primary interest of historical transcultural research is to gather evidence on informal mechanisms that facilitated trade-given cultural hurdles. This will shed light on the form and scope of cultural exchange.

The conference will bring together academics from a wide variety of fields, including medieval studies, history (including economic, legal, art history), and cultural studies.

Call for papers: Panels include: Legal Pluralism and Diasporic Communities in Historical Perspective (Teresa Sartore); Diasporic Communities in Rhodes 1350-1450 (Teresa Sartore); Diasporic Groups in Mamluk Egypt 1300-1450 (Anna Katharina Angermann); Diasporas and Imperial Rule in the 13th C. Aegean (Stefan Burkhardt); Trade Networks in the Later Middle Ages (Lars Börner, Franz Julius Morche); Early Modern Italy's Diasporas (Roberto Zaugg).

Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short CV to the respective panel organizer as well as to Teresa Sartore and Georg Christ. Ph.D. students are encouraged to participate as well. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you wish to propose an entire panel. There is a limited availability of travel grants for Ph.D. students. Deadline: 30 September 2010.

Call for posters: The poster session is intended to provide a forum for researchers and Ph.D. students willing to present their work and obtain feedback from our conference attendees. Areas of interest include the same as those listed in the call for papers as well as projects in the wider realm of Transcultural Studies/Transculturality and Medieval and Early Modern History of the Mediterranean with an overlap to the conference' themes and applied methodologies. The posters do not have to present completed research projects only, but also preliminary results and works in progress. We especially encourage submissions by Ph.D. students.

Poster proposals should be submitted as a single PDF file with no more than 2 pages. The first page should contain an abstract describing the research content of the poster, along with title, authors, institutional affiliations and contact information. The poster dimensions are A0. The second page should contain a thumbnail draft of the poster's contents. Please submit your poster proposal as a PDF e-mail attachment with the subject line "Union in Separation" to teresa.sartore@uni-heidelberg.de

Authors of accepted poster proposals will have a chance to present the poster to interested attendees during two poster sessions on Friday 18 February 2011. For the best poster a prize will be awarded. There is a limited availability of travel grants for PhD students, please see the conference website. Deadline for poster submissions: 30 September 2010.

Contact and further information: Heidelberg University, Transcultural Studies, Marstallstraße 6, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany. (teresa.sartore@uni-heidelberg.de; angermann@uni-heidelberg.de; stefan.burkhardt@urz.uni-heidelberg.de; morche@uni-heidelberg.de; roberto.zaugg@unibas.ch; georg.christ@uni-heidelberg.de) For further details on the conference and travel grant application procedures, please visit our website

(http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/transculturality/union_in_separation.html).

15–16 March 2011. "Quand l'image relit le texte," a coloquium organized in collaboration between Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle (CEMA - EA 173) and Université Paris 4 Sorbonne (Sens, texte et histoire - EA 4089), in Paris.

Ce colloque a pour vocation d'approfondir, en s'appuyant sur des exemples précis et argumentés, l'étude des liens qui peuvent se tisser entre le texte et son iconographie dans les manuscrits médiévaux. Les conférenciers sont invités à montrer comment ils ont été amenés, à partir de l'illustration, à s'interroger sur la compréhension d'un texte ou même à la remettre en question, quel que soit le genre auquel ce texte appartient (romanesque, lyrique, dramatique, historique, scientifique, etc.).

Call for papers: Plusieurs axes peuvent être envisagés, entre autres :

- analyser le rôle que les images sont susceptibles de jouer dans la constitution de manuscrits cycliques en créant des jeux d'échos visuels chargés de souligner la continuité entre des oeuvres à l'origine indépendantes, comme c'est le cas, par exemple, dans le manuscrit de la BnF, fr. 60, où sont regroupés Thèbes, Troie et Enéas.

- étudier un corpus d'images marginales, afin de caractériser les rapports que ce type particulier d'iconographie entretient avec le texte.

- dans le cas précis des écrits historiques, et l'on songe par exemple à l'illustration des Chroniques de Froissart, interroger l'image quand elle se met au service de la propagande.

- questionner aussi, de façon plus théorique, la nature du lien entre le texte et l'image, qui peut se penser en termes de traduction, de contraction, de développement, de transposition ou même de contradiction.

- penser la spécificité de la rhétorique visuelle de l'image médiévale et de sa mise en page.

A partir des cas individuels, on essaiera de dégager des perspectives propres à enrichir les études théoriques et de proposer de nouveaux outils d'analyse. Quelle que soit l'approche privilégiée, les perspectives textuelle et iconographique seront suivies conjointement : les études iconographiques seront nourries d'un travail précis sur la tradition textuelle et sur la matérialité des manuscrits.

Les communications devront durer 20 à 25 minutes. Les propositions (1000 à 2000 signes), accompagnées de vos coordonnées académiques, sont attendues pour le 15 janvier 2010 par voie de courriel à la double adresse (s.heriche_pradeau@aliceadsl.fr & msimon@univ-paris3.fr).

17–19 March 2011. "Iconoclasm: The Breaking and Making of Images," the 22nd annual conference of the Centre for Comparative Literature will be held at the University of Toronto, Canada

The word “iconoclasm” is weighted with a long history of religious significance, from the Byzantine war on religious icons of the 8th- and 9th-centuries and the Protestant reformation in the 16th century, to the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan in the 21st century. But the idea of destroying or defacing images, especially images that convey aspects of cultural dominance or, conversely, pose a threat to that dominance, is as often political as religious: think of the Chinese Cultural Revolution or graffiti moustaches. Political iconoclasm, unlike religious iconoclasm, does not object to representation as such but rather to certain images that have been granted the status of icons. However, any act of desecrating symbols of authority itself often takes on iconic status: take, for example, photos of the pulling down of statues from Romania to Iraq.

Iconoclasm need not be visual and material and can also take abstract and intellectual forms. Subversive, transgressive, blasphemous writing is also iconoclastic in inspiration and function. Moreover, the power associated with images in general and iconic images in particular has often inspired writers to subdue the power of images or to wrest it for themselves. The ekphrastic contest between literature, or verbal representation, and images, or visual representation, is very often iconoclastic in nature.

Contemporary media culture floods us with images and alters their impact, creating ever more sophisticated organized cults around them, such as celebrity, high art, advertising, the news, etc. Just as the word “icon” has acquired new meanings, ranging from signs for computer applications to logos and celebrity, so, too, iconoclasm, the urge to deface, destroy, or alter images, takes on wholly new meanings.

We wish to examine a wide range of iconoclastic moments in order to understand the political, ethical, and aesthetic stakes involved in challenging the signifying power of the iconic image. Is there a tradition of iconoclasm or is the modern icon and thus modern iconoclasm something new? Is iconoclasm even possible, or does it always participate in the forces of iconicity, creating, in effect, iconoclastic icons? Subjects that are of interest to us include but are in no way limited to:

Idol Worship and Biblical Images

Mythology: Symbols, Images of Gods, Heroes, etc.

Epic Narratives and the Performance of Lyric Poetry

Ekphrastic imaginings

Theories of the Imagination and Images; representations of other worlds

Sight/Insight

Iconography; religious iconoclasms and iconoclasts

Mystery/Miracle plays

Theoretical Concerns:

Negative Dialectics; the question of the Negative

The Epistemology of the Iconic Closet: Queer Icons and the Reinvention of Tradition

Moving through and beyond Ekphrasis

Benjaminian Auras

Unstaging the World: "poor theatre"; "theatre of cruelty"; "holy theatre"; postdramatic performance art; Theatre of the Opressed, etc.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words by 10 September 2010 (iconoclasm.2011@gmail.com). Include full name, e-mail, affiliation, status (student, faculty, independent scholar), a 50-word bio, and AV requirements. Please check our website for updates (http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/complitstudents/complitconference)

23–27 March 2011. XXXI. Deutscher Kunsthistorikertag (Würzburg, Universität Würzburg). - Sektion Früh- und hochmittelalterliche Buchmalerei: Würzburg war seit Gründung des Bistums im 8. Jahrhundert ein wichtiges Zentrum der Buchmalerei, wie illuminierte Handschriften des 8. und 9. Jahrhunderts belegen; bekannt sind illuminierte Handschriften aus Würzburg ebenso aus ottonischer Zeit wie aus dem 13. Jahrhundert. Der Tagungsort lädt zur Frage ein, welche Bedeutung Kathedrale und Klöstern bei der Buchproduktion von der ottonischen Zeit bis ins ausgehende 12. Jahrhundert zukam und welche Anregungen dabei berücksichtigt wurden. Neben den Problemen von Stil und Ikonographie rückten in den letzten Jahren in der Forschung zur Buchmalerei vermehrt auch Fragen zur Funktion des Buchschmucks und zur Organisation und Arbeitsweise von Ateliers in den Blick. Neue Fallbeispiele können die vielfach ungeklärten Entstehungsbedingungen von Handschriften im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter weiter erhellen. Welche Rolle spielen laikale, nicht bei geistlichen Gemeinschaften angesiedelte Buchmalerateliers in den Städten? Inwieweit kam es zu Herstellung und Buchschmuck unter Bedingungen von Arbeitsteiligkeit und Spezialisierung? Welche Verbindungen - Beziehungen, Abhängigkeiten, Differenzen - gibt es in dieser Zeit zwischen Buchmalerei und Wandmalerei?. (http://www.kunsthistoriker.org/kunsthistorikertag.html#c1592).

25–27 March 2011. "Reading the Middle Ages" a graduate student conference at the University of California, Berkeley. Keynote address to be given by Professor Rita Copeland (University of Pennsylvania).

Call for papers: Our knowledge of late antique and medieval culture derives primarily from the way in which we read today the manuscripts, images, and artifacts that were created and read in the past. The various intersecting and discrete social strata spanning the Middle Ages each practiced radically different methods of reading, in the broadest possible sense of the term. From the monasteries where the writings and stories of the classical period were transmitted and preserved, to the stained-glass windows greeting worshipers of even the lowest social classes, each reading practice provides us with invaluable information about what the people we study may have valued as well as how they lived and communicated with one another.

This conference will take up the variety of reading practices at play in the Middle Ages as the cornerstone to an exploration of medieval culture. However, proposals are encouraged to push our modern conceptions of reading into new territory, finding medieval reading practiced in ways we would not expect, challenging the way in which we read now, and asking questions of our relationship to medieval texts. Above all, we invite papers from a wide range of disciplines, especially ones that do not limit themselves to a treatment of literary or textual reading, but instead reach beyond the scope of the manuscript page to archeology and the reading of time through physical remains, art and the reading of images, et cetera.

Please send 300-word abstracts for twenty-minute papers to Graduate Medievalists at Berkeley (graduatemedievalists@gmail.com) by Friday, 12 November 2010. For more information on the conference and GMB, please visit our website (http://www.graduatemedievalists.org). Lauren Chiarulli, R.D. Perry, and Benjamin Saltzman, GMB Co-chairs Conference Organizing Committee.

7–8 April 2011. "Chaucer and Celebrity," the Third London Chaucer Conference will take place in London. Plenary lectures will be delivered by Alexandra Gillespie (University of Toronto) and Thomas Prendergast (College of Wooster). Please email 250-word abstracts by 1 September 2010 to Isabel Davis (i.davis@bbk.ac.uk).

8–9 April 2011. "Voice, Gesture, Memory, and Performance in Medieval Texts, Culture, and Art," the 38th Annual Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

Call for papers: We invite 20-minute papers from all disciplines on any aspect of voice, gesture, memory or performance. We also welcome proposals for 3-paper sessions on particular topics related the theme. Please submit an abstract (approx. 250 words) and brief c.v., electronically if possible, no later than 1 October 2010. If you wish to propose a session, please submit abstracts and vitae for all participants in the session. Commentary is traditionally provided for each paper presented; completed papers, including notes, will be due no later than 1 March 2011. The Sewanee Medieval Colloquium Prize will be awarded for the best paper by a graduate student or recent PhD recipient (degree awarded since July 2008). For further information on the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, see our website (http://www.sewanee.edu/Medieval/main.html). Please address submissions and inquiries to Dr Susan Ridyard, Dept of History, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN 37383 (sridyard@sewanee.edu).

13–15 April 2011. The thirteenth international seminar on the Care and Conservation of Manuscripts, will be held at the Faculty of Humanities and the Royal Library at the University of Copenhagen. The practical arrangements are in the hands of M. J. Driscoll and Ragnheiður Mósesdóttir of the Arnamagnæan Institute and Ivan Boserup and Marie Vest of the Royal Library.For further information please visit our website (http://nfi.ku.dk/cc/)

14–16 April 2011. The 86th annual meeting of the Medieval Academy will be held at Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona.

14–17 April 2011. The Fifth International Piers Plowman Society Conference will be held at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Contact: Helen Barr (Helen.Barr@ell.ox.ac.uk) and Simon Horobin (Simon.Horobin@magd.ox.ac.uk).

26–27 April 2011. Workshop on the Old English Gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels to be held on the 26th and 27th of April 2011 at the University of Westminster, London. The workshop aims to provide a forum for multidisciplinary discussion on the gloss. You are welcome to present a paper on topics such as:

1) The relationship between the Old English gloss and the Latin text

2) The similarities and differences between the Aldredian gloss and Rushworth 2

3) The linguistic features of the Old English gloss (spelling/phonology, morphology, morphosyntax and lexis)

4) The historical, religious, literary and intellectual context of the gloss

5) The Lindisfarne gloss in the context of Old English glossography.

Prof. Michelle Brown, Prof. Jane Roberts and Dr Robert McColl Millar have already confirmed their participation as key-note speakers.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 10 January 2011. Abstracts should be approximately 500 words long and should be submitted to Dr Sara M. Pons-Sanz (s.ponssanz@westminster.ac.uk). The organisers, Dr Sara M. Pons-Sanz (U. of Westminster) and Dr Julia Fernández Cuesta (U. de Sevilla), look forward to meeting you in London next year.

28 April–1 May 2011. The 84th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, to be held in Philadelphia.

Call for papers: The Association invites submissions in any area of medical history—the history of health and healing; history of medical ideas, practices, and institutions; and histories of illness, disease, and public health. Submissions from all eras and regions of the world are welcome.

In addition to single-paper proposals, the Program Committee accepts abstracts for sessions and for luncheon workshops. Please alert the Program Committee Chair if you are planning a session proposal. Individual papers for these submissions will be judged on their own merits. Presentations are limited to 20 minutes. Individuals wishing to present a paper must attend the meeting. All papers must represent original work not already published or in press. Because the Bulletin of the History of Medicine is the official journal of the AAHM, the Association encourages speakers to make their manuscripts available for consideration by the Bulletin.

The AAHM uses an online abstract submissions system. We encourage all applicants to use this convenient software. A link for submissions will be posted to the website at http://histmed.org. If you are unable to submit proposals online, send eight copies of a one-page abstract (350 words maximum) to the Program Committee Chair, Susan E. Lederer, Dept of Medical History and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 1300 University Ave. Madison, WI 53706 (608-262-4195; selederer@wisc.edu).

When proposing a historical argument, state the major claim, summarize the evidence supporting the claim, and state the major conclusion(s). When proposing a narrative, summarize the story, identify the major agents, and specify the conflict. Please provide the following information on the same sheet as the abstract: name, preferred mailing address, work and home telephone numbers, e-mail address, present institutional affiliation, and academic degrees. Abstracts must be received by 15 September 2010. E-mail or faxed proposals cannot be accepted.

12–15 May 2011. The 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies will take place at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Contact: International Congress on Medieval Studies, Medieval Institute, Western Micigan University, 1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5432 (269-387-8745; fax: 269-387-8750; mdvl_congres@wmich.edu; http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/).

4-6 July 2011. "Cultures, Communities and Conflicts in the Medieval Mediterranean," the Second Biennial Conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean, will be held at the University of Southampton, in England. This three-day conference will bring scholars together to explore the interaction of the various peoples, societies, faiths and cultures of the medieval Mediterranean, a region which had been commonly represented as divided by significant religious and cultural differences. The objective of the conference is to highlight the extent to which the medieval Mediterranean was not just an area of conflict but also a highly permeable frontier across which people, goods and ideas crossed and influenced neighbouring cultures and societies. We invite proposals for 20-minute papers in the fields of archaeology, art and architecture, ethnography, history (including the histories of science, medicine and cartography), languages, literature, music, philosophy and religion. The keynote speakers: Professor Graham Loud (University of Leeds) and Dr Anna Contadini (SOAS, London).

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers in the fields of archaeology, art and architecture, ethnography, history (including the histories of science, medicine and cartography), languages, literature, music, philosophy and religion. Submission on the following topics would be particularly welcome:

* Activities of missionary orders

* Artistic contacts and exchanges

* Byzantine and Muslim navies

* Captives and slaves

* Cargoes, galleys and warships

* Cartography

* Costume and vestments

* Diplomacy

* Judaism and Jewish Mediterranean History

* Literary contacts and exchanges

* Material Culture

* Minority Populations in the Christian and Islamic Worlds.

* Mirrors for Princes

* Music, sacred and secular

* Port towns/city states

* Relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims.

* Religious practices: saints, cults and heretics

* Scientific exchange, including astronomy, medicine and mathematics

* Seafaring, seamanship and shipbuilding

* Sufis & Sufi Orders in North Africa and the Levant

* Sultans, kings and other rulers

* Trade and Pilgrimage

* Travel writing

* Warfare: mercenaries and crusaders

Please send any enquiries and abstracts of papers of 300 words maximum together with a brief CV to the organisers, Dr Francois Soyer (f.j.soyer@soton.ac.u) and Rebecca Bridgman (rmb77@cam.ac.uk). We also welcome proposals for 3-paper sessions. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 1 October 2010.

4–8 July 2011. "Dwarfs or Giants? Appropriation and Creation in the Middle Ages/Des nains ou des géants? Emprunter, créer au moyen âge," an international conference organized by the Centre d'Etudes Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale (CESCM), in Poitiers.

The conference theme fully reflects the tradition of interdisciplinary study promoted by the CESCM in fields as varied as the history of ideas, architectural forms and techniques, representations, literary or otherwise, and social practices. The general intention is to analyse the processes inherent in the formation of medieval civilisation by assessing the tensions between tradition and innovation, appropriation and creation. The often-stilted image of the Middle Ages as a period in which what exists is merely borrowed and reused is susceptible to re-examination through an analysis of the nature, content, modalities and aims of such appropriations, thus allowing for the emergence of more complex phenomena such as recomposition or innovation fuelled by conscious choice in areas of reference, allusion and influence. Such developments, whether passive or deliberate, individual or collective, fleeting or sustainable, ought to be seen in terms of new points of departure, witnesses to the vitality of the Middle Ages and its ability to refashion and nourish a cultural landscape in constant evolution.

The conference will take place within the framewotk of the Semaines Médiévales which have been at the heart of the Centre's activities for over fifty years. The event, bringing together specialists and students from all over the world, will provide a stimulating setting for conference papers and round-table discussions in a spirit of free exchange and debate.

Contact: Stephen Morrison (stephen.morrison@univ-poitiers.fr).

11–14 July 2011. The 18th International Medieval Congress (IMC) will be held at the University of Leeds, in Leeds, England. Contact: International Medieval Congress Administration, Institute for Medieval Studies, Parkinson Bldg. 1.03, Univ. of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, U.K. (+44-113-343-3614; fax: +44-113-343-3616; imc@leeds.ac.uk; http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc).

18–21 July 2011. "John Gower in Iberia: Six Hundred Years," the Second International Congress of the John Gower Society, in Valladolid, Spain. Spain has been chosen as a site for Congress II in recognition of Gower's unique transnational presence. The Confessio Amantis was the first English work Ever translated into Continental languages—first Portuguese, and then Castilian, both in the fifteenth century.

Call for papers: Scholars pursuing research in medieval studies, focusing on literary, philological, historical and/or cultural topics, and those with a special interest in the field of Anglo-Spanish relations or translation are encouraged to participate. Brief proposals (250 words max.) are invited for 20-minute papers addressing any aspect of Gowerian studies. Email the submission form below BOTH to the Organizing Committee (jgs.valladolid2011@gmail.com) and to RF Yeager (rfyeager@hotmail.com).

Biographical aspects; Manuscripts; French works; Latin works; English works; Antiquity and classics; French influence and contemporary French authors; Chaucer; Linguistics, literary language and dialects; Influence in later authors; Influence in Iberian authors; English politics and usurpation; Iberian (historical) context; Literary theory and critical approaches; Narratology; Women and gender; Multilingualism; Cinema and theatre; Animals; London; Aesthetics; Law; Philosophy and theology; Gower and the Mediterranean; Gower and the Other; Gower and the material; Participants may also propose thematic panels, to include papers delivered by 3 or 4 participants. Please contact R. F. Yeager directly.

Submission deadline: Dec 1st 2010

Confirmation of acceptance: Jan 15th

2011 Registration period: April-June 2011

Contact: R. F. Yeager (rfyeager@hotmail.com) or Ana Sáez Hidalgo (jgs.valladolid2011@gmail.com; http://www.wcu.edu/johngower/index.html). See the John Gower website for (http://222.johngower.org).

21–23 July 2011. "The Allegory of Guillaume de Digulleville (Deguileville) in Europe: Circulation, Reception and Influence," a conference to be held at the Université de Lausanne, in Switzerland.

The fourteenth-century allegorical trilogy composed by the Cistercian monk, Guillaume de Digulleville (or Deguileville) -- the Pèlerinage de la vie humaine [Pilgrimage of Human Life], Pèlerinage de l’âme [Pilgrimage of the Soul], and Pèlerinage de Jhesucrist [Pilgrimage of Jesus Christ] -- travelled widely across the medieval and early modern world. Digulleville’s trilogy first allegorizes human life as a pilgrimage, then envisions a journey through the afterlife as another form of pilgrimage, and finally recasts the narrative of the Christian gospels as a story of divine pilgrimage on earth. Addressed to men and women, both rich and poor, Digulleville’s pilgrimage allegories were recopied and illuminated with remarkable frequency during the Middle Ages. More than 80 medieval manuscripts survive today, now held in archives dispersed across the continents of Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. During Digulleville’s lifetime, and the turbulent centuries that followed, his visions inspired French prose and French dramatic adaptations, multiple translations into English, German, Middle Dutch, and Latin, and a Castilian translation that may have inspired Christopher Columbus’s naming of new world islands. Digulleville’s pilgrimage allegories, and their wider context, are attracting increasing attention in current scholarship, in the fields of literature, history, art history, religious studies, linguistics, the history of science, and historical geography.

We invite proposals for papers on any aspect of the influence, circulation and reception of Digulleville’s allegories during the period 1330 to 1700. Papers might discuss subjects such as one of the many translations of Digulleville's allegories, an aspect of the trilogy’s manuscript distribution, the adaptation of the trilogy texts into prose or printed versions, the trilogy’s influence on the visual arts, drama and literature of subsequent generations or the trilogy’s wider impact on the mentalities of the period concerned. Interdisciplinary approaches are particularly encouraged, as are studies of hitherto overlooked materials and new contexts for the reception of the work of Digulleville. Following the conference, the organisers will solicit essays based on selected conference papers for publication in a peer-reviewed collected volume. For more information, including a French call for papers announcement, please see the conference website (http://www.unil.ch/digulleville) .

Papers may be delivered in English or French and should be 20–25 minutes in length. To propose a paper, please submit an abstract of 250–500 words and a brief curriculum vitae with contact information by 1 December 2010. Please send submissions by e-mail with the subject line "Submission for Digulleville Conference" to the organisers (marco.nievergelt@unil.ch ; stephanie.kamath@umb.edu). The organisers also welcome news of relevant recent scholarship to post on the Digulleville resources page of the conference site.

 

22–26 July 2011. "Natio Scotica," The Thirteenth International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Language and Literature, to be hosted by the Università degli Studi di Padova, in Padua, Italy. The definition of a literary canon in medieval and early modern Scotland is closely connected with the definition of the Scottish nation. Attempting an assessment of medieval and early modern Scottish literature means above all dealing with a definition of this literature within a strongly defined national context: literature and nation grow together, and each contributes to the other's definition.

Call for papers: Following these suggestions, we welcome papers addressing (but not necessarily restricted to) the following topics:

- Redefining the canonical in early Scottish literature

- One nation, many languages: issues of language and time range

- New canons of neo-Latin and Gaelic poetry

- Defining Older Scots

- The ongoing circulation and adaptation of Older Scots literature

- A tale of two nations: Scotland and England

- Scottish-Italian relations

- Local cultural centres: the influence of religious, educational, and legal institutions

- The invention of literary tradition in seventeenth-century Scotland

- Literary and linguistic theories and practices in seventeenth-century Scotland

- Building a national epic

- Poetry deriving from strands of Protestantism

- Personal and political satire

- The poetry of quietism

- Medieval universities and the progress of learning

Papers should be twenty minutes long. Please send a 500-word abstract and brief curriculum vitae by 31 August 2010 to Dr Alessandra Petrina, Dipartimento di Lingue e Lett., Anglo-Germaniche e Slave, Via Beato Pellegrino, 26 35100 Padova, Italy.

25–30 July 2011. The 23rd Triennial Congress of the International Arthurian Society, in Bristol, England (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/medievalcentre/arthur/english/index_html).

14–17 September 2011. "Pharmacy and Books," the 40th International Congress for the History of Pharmacy, in Berlin, Germany.

The German Society for the History of Pharmacy (DGGP) cordially invites you to the 40th International Congress for the History of Pharmacy in Berlin. Berlin, a city that developed from the towns Cölln (mentioned from 1237 on) and Berlin (firstly mentioned in 1244) became a European metropolis within the ruling time of the Prussian King Friedrich II. (1740–1786). The city had been destroyed in most parts of the city during World War II. After rebuilding, Berlin has been separated into four sectors. With the founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949, the Soviet sector became the capital city of Berlin as well as of this separate, Eastern part of Germany. When the wall was built in 1961, the city has been parted completely. On November 9, 1989, the two halves of Germany as well as of Berlin have been reunited and since then experienced a considerable boom.

With the topic »Pharmacy and Book«, the 40th International Congress for the History of Pharmacy has chosen a central theme, showing that books are one of the most important sources of the historiography of pharmacy. The focus of the lectures to be held can be on books which have a special significance in pharmacy such as pharmacopoeia, medication lists, taxes, books on receipes, education, herbs and flora as well as handbooks and dictionaries. Books on pharmaceutical history will be looked on especially. A special emphasis on books about the history of the pharmaceutical industry respectively of works published by pharmaceutical producers and wholesalers. Last, but not least, apothecaries as authors of technical literature as well as other literary works shall be introduced in lectures, as well as the role of pharmacies and apothecaries in poetry and fiction. Within the lectures, the genesis of these books will be discussed, an analysis of the contents will be given along with the comparison of different works as well as decoration and configuration, illustration and didactic aspects.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Christoph Friedrich, Institut für Geschichte der Pharmazie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Roter Graben 10, D-35032 Marburg, Germany (+0049–(0)-6421-282-2829; fax. +0049–(0)-6421-282-2878; ch.friedrich@staff.uni-marburg.de).

28–30 October 2011. "Music in the Carolingian World: Witnesses to a Metadiscipline, a Conference in Honor of Charles M. Atkinson," a conference to be held at Thompson Library, Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio. Contact: Graeme M. Boone, Dept. of Music, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210.

2012

12–14 April 2012. The Annual meeting of the Medieval Academy will be held at Saint Louis University, in St. Louis, Missouri.

9–12 July 2012. The 19th International Medieval Congress (IMC) will be held at the University of Leeds, in Leeds, England. Contact: International Medieval Congress Administration, Institute for Medieval Studies, Parkinson Bldg. 1.03, Univ. of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, U.K. (+44-113-343-3614; fax: +44-113-343-3616; imc@leeds.ac.uk; http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc).



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