2009

22–25 April 2009. "Saint Anselm of Canterbury and His Legacy," an international conference to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the death of Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), has been organised by the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Durham, and the Canterbury Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

Call for papers: taking as its theme the legacy of Anselm, the conference will operate with a broad interdisciplinary remit. The organisers welcome papers on all aspects of the legacy of Anselm's thought and career. The conference will be an opportunity to celebrate, deepen and re-examine key questions about the name that Anselm has enjoyed in the fields of philosophy and theology; to re-assess the impact that he and the intellectual methods he developed had upon his immediate, 12th century and later successors; to look again at the historical Anselm and the role he played in the political and ecclesiastical issues of his day, and to explore the rich and diverse ways in which his memory has been preserved and debated since his death. It is hoped that the breadth and depth of Anselm's interests, from the centre of his monastic life to his activity in the world, will be reflected in the subject matter of the conference. Giles E. M. Gasper, Dept. of History, Durham Univ., 43 North Bailey, Durham, DH1 3EX, U.K. (+44-191-3341073; g.e.m.gasper@durham.ac.uk; http://www.dur.ac.uk/cmrs/conferences/anselm2009/).

23–26 April 2009. The American Association for the History of Medicine invites submissions in any area of medical history for its 82nd annual meeting, to be held in Cleveland, Ohio. Program Committee Chair, Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., Univ. of Michigan, 100 Simpson Memorial Institute, 102 Observatory, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0725 (734-647-6914; howard@umich.edu).

24–25 April 2009. 30th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum, at Plymouth State University. This year's keynote speaker is Dr. Carole Levin, Willa Cather Professor of History at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Dr. Levin is the author of numerous books and articles on Early Modern English culture, notably The Heart of Stomach of a King: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Sex and Power and her most recent book Dreaming the English Renaissance: Politics and Desire in Court and Culture, to be released October, 2008 from Palgrave Macmillan. Ensemble Chaconne will be performing the music of Shakespeare's plays. To learn more about Ensemble Chaconne and their Music of Shakespeare's Plays, visit: http://cdbaby.com/cd/ensemblechaconne.

Deadline for presenters and early registration is 15 March 2009. Dr. Karolyn Kinane, Dir., Medieval Studies, Dept. of English MSC 40, Plymouth State Univ., Plymouth, NH 03263 (603-535-2402; kkinane@plymouth.edu; http://www.plymouth.edu/medieval).

25 April 2009. Canada Chaucer Seminar, at the University of Toronto. The aim of the semninar is to provide a one-day forum that will bring together scholars working on Chaucer and on late medieval literature and culture. Plenary papers will be delivered by John V. Fleming (Princeton) and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (Notre Dame). Contact: William Robins, Dept. of English, Univ. of Toronot, 170 St. George St., 6th Fl., Toronto, Ont. M5R 2M8, Canada (william.robins@utoronto.ca).

30 April–3 May 2009. "Laughter in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: Epistemological Investigations from an Interdisciplinary Perspective," a conference at the University of Arizona, in Tucson. Contact: Albrecht Classen (aclassen@u.arizona.edu; http://www.gened.arizona.edu/aclassen/new_page_64.htm).

14–16 May 2009. The first of two conferences with a focus on medieval translators who rendered Aristotle's Problemata Physica into Latin and the vernacular (held in January 2009) was concerned with Bartholomew of Messina. The second conference, focused on Évrart de Conty et la vie intellectuelle à la cour de Charles V, will take place at the Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). Contact: Joëlle Ducos (ducos.joelle@orange.fr), Michele Goyens (Leuven), or Pieter de Leemans (Leuven).

19–20 May 2009. "Gildas Sapiens: New Perspectives," a conference held at the university of Manchester, U.K. Our knowledge of Britain in the fifth and early sixth centuries still depends to a remarkable degree on the surviving work De excidio Britanniae (³Concerning the Ruin of Britain²), by one Gildas, a learned British writer using Latin and working from a self-consciously Christian perspective. However, there has been comparatively little work published on Gildas since the seminal volume Gildas: New Approaches, edited by Michael Lapidge and David Dumville in 1984.

25 years on, this Symposium offers an opportunity for scholars to come together once more and debate the nature and significance of Gildas and his writings. Papers will focus on historical and philological aspects of his work, the later fortunes of De excidio as a piece of medieval literature, and the meaning and value of this mysterious author for the 21st century.

Speakers include:

Damian Braken

Thomas Charles'Edwards

David Dumbille

Kate George

Nicholas Highham

David Howlett

Thomas O'Loughlin

Jonathan Wooding

Contact for information: Luca.Larpi@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

22–24 May 2009. "Unknowing: Perspectives on Premodern Religion and Theology." Students undertaking PhD research into any aspect of religion or theology in relation to medieval studies are invited to submit paper proposals for this AHRC-funded interdisciplinary doctoral conference to be held at Queen's University Belfast.

Call for papers: Successful contributors will be required to submit their full paper in electronic form by 3 April 2009. Papers will then be printed in a conference handbook, circulated among delegates, and read in advance. At the conference, speakers will deliver ten-minute presentations summarizing their papers before inviting responses. This format has been chosen to offer a platform for more sustained and informed discussion and debate between delegates than is often possible within the confines of a more traditional conference structure. It is anticipated that some form of publication may be considered for selected proceedings of the conference.

While the conference title "Unknowing" may be taken as stimulus for papers, it is not intended to be prescriptive - possible responses might include:

* Scholasticism and Philosophical Method

* Imagined Medievalisms in the History of Religion

* The Role of Patristic Theology in the Middle Ages and Beyond

* Traditions of Medieval Mysticism

* Postmodern Theology and Critical Thought

In addition to offering participants an opportunity for presenting, discussing and debating current postgraduate research across a variety of related subject areas, delegates will also benefit from participation in two workshops. The first of these, "Genealogies of European Heresy", will be led by Dr Andrew Cole (University of Georgia), author of Literature and Heresy in the Age of Chaucer (Cambridge 2008). The second workshop, "Reading Ecclesiastical Spaces", will have as facilitator Dr Anthony Masinton (University of York), whose recent research has been exploring the potential of virtual reality reconstructions of medieval buildings. There will be no fee for speakers or attendees at Unknowing, and we are pleased to offer six international travel bursaries of £200 each. International students should indicate by e-mail if they wish to be considered for one of these awards.

Abstracts of not more than 350 words should be sent by email to unknowing@qub.ac.uk . The closing date for submissions is 19 December 2008, and notification of successful abstracts will be issued by 22 December.Further information about the conference is available at www.qub.ac.uk/unknowing.

Due to the continued submission of high-quality abstracts from interested doctoral candidates, the organisers of "Unknowing: Perspectives on Premodern Religion and Theology" have extended the deadline for receipt of abstracts until Friday December 19th, and will schedule additional conference sessions as necessary. Prospective delegates who have not yet made submissions are welcome to send abstracts and requests for international travel bursaries.

23 May 2009. "Rethinking Medieval Marriage," a Birkbeck Medieval Seminar, at Birkbeck College, University of London. Speakers include

Glenn Burger, (Queens College)

Emma Lipton (univ. of Missouri)

Shannon McSheffrey (Concordia Univ.)

Pamela Sheingorn (Baruch College)

Respondent: Isabel Davis (Birkbeck College)

Contact information: Isabel Davis, Birkbeck College, Univ. of London, Malet St., Bloomsbury, London, WC1E 7HX, U.K. (i-davis@bbk.ac.uk; http://www.bbk.ac.uk/eh/research/research_seminar/bms)

28 May–30 May 2009. "Mapping Medieval Geographies: Cartography and Geographical Thought in the Latin West and Beyond: 300–1600," a CMRS Ahmanson Conference at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

Geography as it was understood and practiced in the Middle Ages, within both eastern and western traditions, and as represented both graphically and textually, is a subject of renewed interest and importance among historians, philologists and geographers. This conference aims to promote an exchange between those of different disciplines working on geographical ideas and thinking from late Antiquity to the Renaissance on the themes of 'Translation, transmission, transculturation', and 'Mapping, imagining, placing'.

Key speakers are: Daniel Birkholz (Univ. Texas at Austin), Veronica della Dora (Univ. Bristol), Kathy Lavezzo (Univ. Iowa), Natalia Lozovsky (UC Berkeley), Andrew Merrills (Univ. Leicester), Meg Roland (Marylhurst Univ.), Emilie Savage-Smith (Univ. Oxford), and Alessandro Scafi (Warburg Institute, London).

Contact: Dr Keith D. Lilley, School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, BT7 1NN (k.lilley@qub.ac.uk).

30–31 May 2009. "North & South, East & West: Movements in the Medieval World," an interdisciplinary (post-)graduate student conference, to be held at the university of Nottingham. Migration, travel and trade, the development of ideas and establishment of organisations---the medieval world was shaped by physical and ideological movements. Contact for information: Marjolein Stern (aexms5@nottingham.ac.uk).

10–14 June 2009. "The Age of Philippe de Mézières: A Symposium on Piety and Politics in the Fourteenth-Century Eastern Mediterranean," to be held at the University of Cyprus, Nicosia (speakers by invitation only). Organizers: Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Kiril Petkov, Chris Schabel, and Nicholas Coureas. For more information contact rbk7580@aol.com.

12 June 2009. "Manuscript Geographies: Mapping and Cataloguing Middle English Manuscripts," a one-day interdisciplinary conference hosted by the School of English Studies and the Graduate School at the University of Nottingham. This is a conference on creating and using electronic resources to map, catalogue, and edit manuscripts from and about the Middle English period. Its purpose is to highlight issues about electronic resources for manuscript analysis and the importance of place and geography to manuscript production and textual transmission in the late medieval period.

Our speakers will be:

Michael Foster, University of Nottingham

Wendy Scase, University of Birmingham

Richard Sharpe, University of Oxford

Jonathan Smith, Trinity College Cambridge

Estelle Stubbs, University of Sheffield

Thorlac Turville-Petre, University of Nottingham

James Willoughby, University of Oxford

This conference is free to anyone registered in an MPhil, DPhil, or PhD programme in the UK or abroad, but space is limited so we ask that you register early. For everyone else, the conference fee is £12, which includes morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea, and a wine reception. To register, please email Michael Foster (aexmf2@nottingham.ac.uk).

23–27 June 2009. "Coexistence and Cooperation in the Middle Ages," the 4th Congress of European Medieval Studies, under the aegis of FIDEM (Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales), to be held in Palermo, Italy, in memory of L.E. Boyle (1923–1999). (http://www.officinastudimedievali.it/fidem-2009/eng/fidem-2009.htm).

Contact for information: Officina di Studi Medievali, Via del Parlamento, 32, 90133 Palermo, Italy (fidem@letras.up.pt; http://www.officinastudimedievali.it)

24–26 June 2009. "Space," the Sixth Annual Symposium of the International Medieval Society of Paris, held at the Sorbonne in conjunction with Paris 1.

Questions about ideas of space have recently invigorated the field of medieval studies, challenging prevailing Modernist views that the concept of space only existed from the Renaissance onward. The Sorbonne’s collection Constructions de l’espace au Moyen Age: pratiques et représentations (2007) showcases recent historical research on spatiality, particularly regarding geographical limits and boundaries, as well as the role of space in social relations and practices, while Sarah Kay’s Place of Thought (2007) re-evaluates the complexity of the locus communis from a literary perspective. These publications complement ongoing investigations by historians of visual culture into the dynamic meanings, uses and phenomenologies of medieval space. This symposium aims to generate an interdisciplinary forum on space in medieval France between c. 500 and c. 1500 that will enrich these ongoing debates and our knowledge of space in the Middle Ages by approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives.

Call for papers: Papers should address France, Francia or post- Roman Gaul in some way, but they need not be exclusively limited to this geographic area. We encourage papers on the following topics, as well as papers for open sessions in all disciplines:

• Public and private space

• Walls, boundaries, limits

• The shape of space in medieval art, architecture, and music

• Space or place?

• Astronomy

• Sacred and profane space

• Commercial space

• Performance and the use of space

• Space and identity in the medieval city.

Abstracts in French or English of 300 words or less for a 20-minute paper should be e-mailed (contact@ims-paris.org) no later than 1 February 2009. In addition to the abstract, please submit full contact information, a CV and a tentative assessment of any audiovisual equipment required for your presentation. The IMS will review submissions and respond via e-mail by 15 February 2009. Titles of accepted papers will be made available on the IMS web site. Authors of accepted papers will be responsible for their own travel costs and conference registration fee (35 euros, reduced for students). The IMS-Paris is an interdisciplinary and bilingual (French/English) organization founded to serve as a centre for medievalists who research, work, study, or travel to France.

26 June 2009. Workshop on Cognitive Allegory, sponsored by the Department of English the Cognitive Science Program, the Faculty of Arts, and the Program in Medieval Studies, at the University of Waterloo, Canada. This will be a one-day, inter- and multi-disciplinary workship on the cognitive underpinnings of allegory, bringing together medievalists who work specifically on allegorical texts with rhetoricians, literary theorists, psychologists, and philosophers who focus on reprentation of knowledge.

The workshop opens with an address by Paul Thagard (Molson Prize winner, Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, and the Royal Society of Canada, author of, most recently, Hot Thought. Roundtable sessions will be held on such topics as Narrative, Personification, Visual Allegory, Metonymy, and Cognitive Maps. It closes with a summative address by Raymond W. Gibbs, Univ. of California Professor of Psychology and author of The Poetics of Mind and editor of the journal Metaphor and Symbol.

Contact Sarah Tolmie. Department of English, University of Waterloo (stolmie@uwaterloo.ca; http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~raha/CognitiveAllegory).

29–30 June 2009. "Divers Manuscripts both Antient & Curious': Illuminated Treasures from the Harley Collection," a conference at the British Library, London.

One of the finest private libraries in Europe was formed in the eighteenth century by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and his son, Edward. Consisting of 7,639 manuscripts, 14,000 charters, and countless printed books, the collection was kept by the Harleys' librarian, Humfrey Wanley, whose humble origins and lack of academic qualifications did not prevent him from becoming one of the most celebrated antiquaries of his day. After its purchase for the British nation in 1753, the Harleys' private library was transformed into an unparalleled public resource; today it forms one of the most important foundation collections of the British Library. Access to the extraordinary riches of the Harley collection is now greater than ever courtesy of a generous Getty Foundation grant funding the creation of an online catalogue of illuminated Harleian manuscripts.

By the end of the project, in June 2009, descriptions and digital images of over 2000 magnificent manuscripts, once thumbed only by a privileged few, will be available to all at the click of a mouse. To celebrate and advertise this achievement, the British Library is hosting an academic conference on illuminated Harleian manuscripts. Contact: Deirdre Jackson, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB (deirdre.jackson@bl.uk; http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.html).

9–12 July 2009. "Accipe et Devora': Packaging, Presentation and Consumption of Manuscripts and Printed Books, 1350–1550," a conference of the Early Book Society, at the University of Exeter. Contact: Martha Driver (EBS, English Dept., 41 Park Row, Rm 1525, New York, NY 10038-1598) or faxed to 212-346-1754 (office).

11–12 July 2009. "Disease, Disability and Medicine in Medieval Europe," the Fourth Annual Interdisciplinary Workshop, organized by Birmingham Medical Institute. The leading U.K. interdisciplinary forum for scholars working on disease, disability and medicine in a variety of disciplines and regions of Medieval Europe, the workshop invites session proposals and offers of individual papers for the 2009 meeting.

Call for papers: Papers in any discipline, including archaeology, history, art, palaeopathology and textual studies relating to the study of disease, disability and medicine in the medieval past are welcome. Abstracts (300 words maximum) should be submitted electronically to Dr Christina Lee (christina.lee@nottingham.ac.uk) by 30 April 2009 at the latest.

Ten "Journal of Early Medicine" conference-fees-only student bursaries are available for this conference. They are competitive and subject to application and a poster presentation at the conference. Please send your informal application to Christina Lee (christina.lee@nottingham.ac.uk) by 30 April 2009 at the latest. Successful applicants will be informed no later than 15 May 2009.

Organising Committee: Robert Arnott (Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Birmingham Medical School); Sally Crawford (Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford); and Christina Lee (School of English Studies, University of Nottingham). Contact Professor Robert Arnott (R.G.Arnott@bham.ac.uk).

13–16 July 2009. "Heresy and Orthodoxy" will be the theme of the International Medieval Congress, Leeds. The IMC seeks to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of all aspects of Medieval Studies. Contact: Axel E. W. Müller, International Medieval Congress, 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).

20–21 July 2009. "Virtue, Vice, & Virility: High Status Men in the Middle Ages." An interdisciplinary conference organized by the Hagiography Society, in Huddersfield, England. High status men (both lay and clerical) were long the focus of 'traditional' histories of the Middle Ages but, nonetheless, many aspects of their lives, experiences and identities have remained unexplored by scholars. Call for papers: this conference invites abstracts for papers examining these hegemonic figures in the light of more recent methodologies and of changing understandings of the nature of medieval society and medieval sources. Examples of possible topics include: fatherhood and family relations, violence and warfare, religion and devotion, gender and sexuality, death and commemoration, power and patronage, nation and ethnicity, education, lifecycle, friendship, self-expression. We would welcome proposals from scholars working in any relevant field: history, literature and language, archaeology, art history, musicology etc, relating to any medieval period and setting.

Plenary speakers: Professor David Bates (University of East Anglia) and Professor W. Mark Ormrod, University of York.

Papers should be of 20 minutes' duration. Please send title and an abstract of up to 250 words to Joanna.Huntington@newcastle.ac.uk Postgraduates and early career academics are especially encouraged to participate, and it is hoped that we will be able to offer some limited funding.

20–22 August 2009. "Passages from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 4: Religion, Society and Participation," organized by: Trivium Centre for Classical, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Department of History and Philosophy, University of Tampere, in collaboration with the Finnish Historical Society and the Classical Association of Finland, at the University of Tampere, Finland.

The fourth international Passages-conference focuses on religion in its social context. Religion is seen as an active, ongoing process involving society and community. We welcome papers which focus on different religious acts and actors - communities, families or individuals - and with sensitive approach to social differences: gender, age and status. Important themes in the conference are the differences and similarities between elite culture and popular religion in Classical and Medieval society.

The conference aims at broad coverage not only chronologically but also geographically and disciplinary (all branches of Classical and Medieval Studies). The conference will concentrate on:

o Religious rituals in everyday life

o Writing and reading religion vs. oral religious culture

o Devotional groups and their functions in society

o Official and nonofficial religious practices and practitioners

o Gendered participation

o Forms of devoted life: e.g. living as devoted child/man/woman/couple

o Sacrifice and self sacrifice

Call for papers: We strongly encourage contributions from a comparative and/or interdisciplinary perspective. A one-page abstract (setting out thesis and conclusions and containing name, academic affiliation, postal adress, e-mail) should be submitted preferably by mail-attachment to the conference secretary (passages@uta.fi) or to Prof. Christian Krötzl & Assoc.Prof. Katariina Mustakallio Dept. of History and Philosophy FIN - 33014 Univ. of Tampere, Finland The deadline for abstracts is 1 November 2008. Decisions on the acceptance of papers will be made in December 2008. Presentation of conference papers will be preferably in English, although papers in other major scientific languages are accepted if provided with English summary or translation (http://www.uta.fi/trivium/).

20–24 July 2009. "Ricos y pobres: Opulencia y desarraigo en el Occidente medieval," the 37th Semana de estudios medievales, in Estella, Spain, sponsored by the Gobierno de Navarra. Speakers include Nicasio Salvador Miguel (Univ. Complutense de Madrid), Giuliano Pinto (Univ. degli Studi di Firenze), Gabriela Piccinni (Univ. degli Studi di Siena), Giacomo Todeschini (Univ. degli Studi di Trieste), Ariel Toaff (Bar Ilan Univ.), Ma Isabel Fierro (Dept. de Estudios Arabes, CSIC), Ma Carmen Lacarra (Univ. de Zaragoza), Giuseppina Muzzarelli (Univ. degli Studi di Bologna), Gian Piero Nigro (Fondazione Istituto Int. Di Storia Economica "Francesco Datini" di Prato), Paulino Iradiel Murugarren (Univ. de Valencia), Chris Dyer (Univ. of Leicester), Mercedes Borrero Fernández (Univ. de Sevilla), and Ricardo Córdoba de la Llave (Univ. de Córdoba).

For further information, contact the secretariat: Semana de estudios medievales, la calle Navarrería, no. 39, Pamplona (+848-424-681; fax 848-424-728; atruebas@cfnavarra.es; http://www.cfnavarra.es/medieval/). For information about the publication of the proceedings, contact Fondo de Publicaciones del Gobierno de Navarra, Navas de Tolosa, 21, 31002 Pamplona (fax +848-427-123; fpubli01@cfnavarra.es).

28–31 July 2009. "Construir la ciudad en la edad media," the 6th international meeting on the Middle Ages, in Nájera, Spain. Contact: Secretaría, Universidad de Cantabria, Edificio Interfacultativo (OFF. 134), Av. de los Castros s/n., 39005 Santander, Spain (solorzaja@unican.es; http://www.najeramedieval.com).

24–26 August 2009. "Medieval Manuscript Miscellanies: Composition, Authorship, Use," a workshop at the Department of Greek and Latin Studies, Philosophical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. The term "miscellany" is a wide one and can refer to a number of concepts. On the one hand, medieval catalogues of manuscripts often use the term miscellanea for the 'leftovers' impossible to classify in a simple way. Many of the miscellaneous codices might have originated in this way - by binding together various 'remaining' texts. On the other hand, a miscellany can be a very carefully designed codex with a clear idea behind and serving a particular purpose. Clearly, the most frequent cases are those inbetween, that is, miscellanies which may be interpreted as designed but whose origin might have also included the aspect of the random. Thus, analysing miscellanies, one encounters also the problems of interpretability.

Keynote lectures will be given by Kimberly Rivers (Univ. of Wisconsin, Oshkosh) and Greti Dinkova-Bruun (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto). Workshop languages are English, French, and German. There will be no conference fee. Limited funds are available to support the travel and accommodation expenses of selected participants (priority will be given to scholars from Eastern Europe).

Call for papers: case studies on particular medieval manuscript miscellanies are welcome at the workshop concentrating especially on three aspects:

Composition: How do the contents fit together in specific cases? Is there a plan or a reason behind? If so, what does the selection tells about the compiler's interests?

Authorship: To what degree are the miscellany compilers and gatherers authors? Is there a personal touch discernable and interpretable?

Use: How were these manuscripts actually used? Can a specific use of a particular miscellany be detected?

Please, send a brief (300-400 words) abstract of the proposed 20-minute paper by December 31, 2008, together with information on your affiliation and research interests to Lucie Dolezalová (dolezalova@cts.cuni.cz).

28–30 August 2009. "The Language and Style of Chaucer and Chaucerians, in Relation to the History of English." The 3rd international conference of the Society of Historical English Language and Linguistics (SHELL) will be held in Hiroshima University. The English Department of Hiroshima University is famous for a long tradition of Chaucer studies and Prof. Yoshiyuki Nakao, the organizer, is a leading scholar in the field of medieval studies. Plenary speakers will be Hans Sauer (University of Munich, Germany); Young-Bae Park (Kookmin University, Korea); and Michiko Ogura (Chiba University). Call for Papers: the organizers are now accepting abstracts for the papers to be read in the three-day conference. Abstracts for papers should be of no more than 500 words and should include a title, the name and affiliation of the speaker(s), a contact e-mail address, and a postal address. The conference room has a computer, data projector, and screen. Papers will be a maximum of 25 minutes in length, with a maximum of 5 minutes for questions and answers. Abstracts of papers for 25 minutes should be submitted by the end of February 2009 to SHELL 2009 (shell at hiroshima-u.ac.jp). For more details visit:

http://home.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/shell/; the organizers look forward to meeting you in Hiroshima.

22–24 September 2009. "Eastward and Westward: Contacts and Cultural Dynamics in the Viking Age," a symposium held in Caen, France.

The Centre Michel de Boüard (Caen) and the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg) will hold in summer 2009 an international symposium in two sessions "Eastward and Westward: Interethnic Contacts at the Time of the Formation of Rus' of Novgorod. Culture, Memory and Identity" (St. Petersburg and Novgorod 21–24 July 2009) and "Eastward and Westward: Contacts and Cultural Dynamics in the Viking Age" (Caen, 22–24 September 2009). The Russian session will coincide with the 1150th anniversary of the first mention of the city of Novgorod in Russian chronicles and with the 150th anniversary of the Imperial Archaeological Commission of Russia.

The event is part of a CNRS / Russian Academy of Sciences program on the theme of "Two Normandies: comparative and interdisciplinary studies of the Scandinavian foundations and their historical development in France (Normandy) and Russia (Novgorod region)." The objective of this exchange is to promote a common understanding and a comparison of research in both countries from several points of view: the acculturation of Scandinavians considering the particularities of the assimilation process within the local milieu (French, Slavic and Finnish), the mutual transformation, through political and cultural contacts, of Scandinavian foundations and native societies, the contribution of Scandinavian foundations to national histories and cultures, the significance of historical memory for the Scandinavian presence in the regional past, and the influence of memory on the formation of regional identity and medieval history.

The meetings planned in St. Petersburg/Novgorod and in Caen could expand these topics in a European context, in conjunction with the research programs of the European Science Foundation on the cultural dynamics in Europe. The discussion could be organized around the following themes:

- Stories of origin, memory and historiographical traditions

- Between paganism and Christianity

- Spaces of exchange in their European context

- Settlement end territorial state formation

- Cultural expressions and medium of identities

The event continues the series of lectures delivered in 2007–2008 in the seminars of the Centre Michel de Boüard (5 December 2007, 17 October 2008), of the Centre CITERES of Tours (16 October 2008), of the Institute for the History of Material Culture (St. Petersburg, 5 June 2008), of the Institute for Human Sciences at the State University of Novgorod (10 June 2008) and meetings for the preparation of an exhibition " the Vikings in Russia " (Museum of Normandy, Caen, 2011). Leaders: Pierre Bauduin, Centre Michel de Boüard, Caen (crahm.colloques@ unicaen.fr). Alexandre Musin Institute for the History of Material Culture, St. Petersburg (aleksandr_musin@mail.ru; musin@voila.fr).

8–11 October 2009. The sixth Medieval History Seminar, sponsored by German Historical Institute, to be held in London. The seminar is designed to bring together American, British and German Ph.D. candidates and recent Ph.D. recipients (2007–2008) in medieval history (broadly defined) for a weekend of scholarly discussion and collaboration.

Having been a part of this seminar since its inception, I can testify to how useful the experience has been for both the Anglophone and Germanophone students who have participated through the years. Students need not be working on "German history," and their German need not be perfect. However the seminar provides a unique opportunity for students to encounter the rising generation of young medievalists in Germany. This year we have received some excellent applications, but we are frankly disappointed with the number. Therefore the GHI has decided to extend the deadline for applications to 15 February 2009. If you have any advanced graduate students or recent PhDs who would like to receive positive feedback on their work from their German contemporaries, as well as from Michael Borgolte (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Frank Rexroth (Universität Göttingen), Barbara H. Rosenwein (Loyola University Chicago), Dame Janet L. Nelson (King's College London), Miri Rubin (Queen Mary, University of London), and myself, please encourage them to apply. Full information on the program can be found on the GHI website (http://www.ghi-dc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=528&Itemid=260). Write or e-mail for more information: Prof. Patrick Geary at the Collegium Budapest, Szentháromság utca 2., H-1014 Budapest, Hungary, February through March (geary@ucla.edu).

16–17 October 2009. The Thirty-Sixth Annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies to be held at the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library at Saint Louis University. The conference theme will be book production.

Guest speaker: Dr. Patricia Stirnemann (Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes/Bibliothèque nationale de France).

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/conference.index.html).

23–24 October 2009. "Authors, Authority, and Authorship," the 19th Annual Meeting of the Texas Medieval Association (TEMA) will be held at the University of Texas in Austin. Call for papers: What does French medieval literature have to tell us about its authors, and respectively about authority and authorship? Papers may discuss individual authors, as well as theoretical issues such as authorship (individual or collective), authorial identity (textual, social, ethnic or other), anonymity (intentional or accidental), and scribal interventions. Please send abstracts of 250–300 words by 1 March 2009 to Cristian Bratu (Cristian_Bratu@baylor.edu). Inquiries welcome.

30–31 October 2009. "Time and Space," the 2009 International Conference of MEMESAK, held at Yonsei University, in Seoul, Korea. The expression "Time and Space" is so familiar a one that we rarely stop to reflect on the full significance of the words for ages before our own. The great French medievalist Jacques Le Goff began his book The Medieval Imagination (1992) by claiming that, for the historian of the Middle Ages, "space and time provide a conceptual framework for viewing both the "real" and the imaginary" and outlining the different kinds of space (constructed, natural or supernatural) within which the people of times past saw themselves living, and the different rhythms of time (natural, mechanical, eschatological) governing their lives. It is impossible for us today to forget the unimaginable immensities of intergalactic space soaring above our heads, and the unthinkable eons that have passed since the "Big Bang." For the people of the Middle ages and the early modern period, space was largely measured by the distance a horse could travel in daylight, and time was measured by fragile memory. For them, we may think, concepts both space and time were dominated by the invisible but nearby realities of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, of the Last Things, death and Doomsday.

Call for Papers: papers are invited that explore ways in which space and time were observed and exploited by the medieval and early modern literary imagination, especially in ways that seem strikingly different from what is found today. Send requests for further information or abstracts to dclee01@yahoo.co.kr.

30 October–1 November 2009. NEMC

6–7 November 2009. "Texts and Contexts: A Manuscript Conference at Ohio State University, sponsored by The Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies. Call for papers: the conference seeks to investigate the textual traditions of various texts and genres, including texts in classical Latin, mediaeval Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and the vernaculars. Preference will be given to those abstracts which deal with newly discovered texts and their manuscript settings, or which present new perspectives on established textual traditions. We encourage graduate students and newly established scholars to submit their work. The deadline for submission is 15 August 2009.

The plenary speaker will be Scott Gwara (University of South Carolina), "America's Orphan Manuscripts." A memorial session for Joseph Lynch will have three guest speakers: Roger Reynolds, Barbara Hanawalt, and James Bennett.

E-mail abstracts (epig@osu.edu) or send to Frank T. Coulson, Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies, 190 Pressey Hall, 1070 Carmack Road, Columbus, OH 43210.

6–8 November 2009. The 28th International Conference of the Charles Homer Haskins Society will be held at Boston College, in Boston. This year's featured speakers are Paul Freedman (Yale University), Martin Carver(University of York), and Wendy Davies (University College London).

Call for papers: the Society welcomes all paper proposals in fields and periods of medieval history to which Charles Homer Haskins contributed, including but not limited to: Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Norman, and Angevin history as well as early and high medieval cultural history. Proposals for complete sessions (three papers) and for individual papers will all be considered.

Please send a one-page abstract and c.v. to the Program Director, John Cotts, by e-mail (cottsjd@whitman.edu) or snail mail (Whitman College, Dept. of History, Maxey Hall, Walla Walla, WA 99362-2083). The deadline for receipt of proposals is 1 June 2009. For general questions about the conference, please contact the Conference Director, Robin Fleming (robin.fleming@bc.edu; http://www.haskins.cornell.edu).

5 December 2009. The Moravian College Undergraduate Conference in Medieval and Early Modern Studies will be held at Moravian College, in Bethlehem, Pa. The purpose of the conference is

- to showcase and encourage undergraduate scholarship and creative work and to encourage students to consider further work in graduate/professional studies,

- to promote student development not only by providing students with opportunities to present papers but to hear their peers present papers on scholarly topics and by engaging them with the organization and fruition of the conference,

- to have students learn more about medieval and early modern literature, history, and culture,

- to enhance the backgrounds and prospects of students applying for jobs and for graduate/professional studies, and

-to build professional relationships within the medieval and early modern scholarly community.

For the past three years, the conference has attracted students from throughout the United States to deliver papers and participate in performances. In 2008, 92 students from 32 colleges and universities signed up to deliver papers. The conference also features a plenary speaker, a concert of early music, and craft exhibits. Contact:. John Black (jrblack@moravian.edu) or Sandy Bardsley (sandybardsley@moravian.edu; http://www.moravian.edu/medieval ).

17–19 December 2009. "Noli me tangere in Interdisciplinary Perspective," an International Conference, at K.U.Leuven, Belgium. The conference aims at an international conference of researchers on one specific biblical verse, namely John 20:17: "Jesus said to her, 'Do not touch me (or: do not touch me, Greek: mê mou haptou), because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'," the verse that some have labelled the most difficult verse of the fourth gospel.

The disciplines of exegesis, literature study, philosophy, art history and practical theology will collaborate in this conference to investigate the meaning, reception history and present-day relevance of "mê mou haptou" in John 20:17. The element of continuity in this multidisciplinary study of John 20:17 is the theme of touching/holding/letting go. The conference will mark the completion of an interdisciplinary research project, sponsored by the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (2005-2009) "Mary Magdalene and the Touching of Jesus. An Intra- and Interdisciplinary Investigation of the Interpretation of John 20:17 in Exegesis, Iconography and Pastoral Care". It is a collaboration of researchers of the Faculty of Theology and the Faculty of Arts of the K.U.Leuven and of Saint Paul University Ottawa (http://www.nolimetangere.net).

Call for papers: scholars, including junior scholars are encouraged to submit paper proposals that address the main theme of the conference. Papers can focus on the meaning, the relevance and/or the reception of the noli me tangere motif. Proposals to study this theme from an exegetical, reception-historical, literary, philosophical, art historical or pastoral theological perspective are welcome. Paper proposals should be accompanied by an abstract of 200-250 words in English. Paper presentations should be delivered in English and should be approximately 20 minutes in length. At the conference they will be given in the format of parallel sessions. They are scheduled on 18 and 19 December 2009. Please send paper proposals with the abstract as an attachment to the Noli me tangere Research Project, (nolimetangere@theo.kuleuven.be). The proposal submission deadline is 1 April 2009. We are planning to publish the papers of the conference with an international publisher based on a peer review process.

2010

18–21 March 2010. The annual meeting of the Medieval Academy will be held 18-21 March 2010, on Yale University Campus, New Haven, hosted by Connecticut College, Southern Connecticut State University, Trinity College (Hartford), University of Connecticut, Wesleyan University, and Yale University. The Program Committee invites proposals for papers on all topics and in all disciplines and periods of medieval studies. Any member of the Medieval Academy may submit a paper proposal, except that those who presented papers at the annual meetings of the Medieval Academy in 2008 and 2009 are not eligible to speak in 2010. Please do not submit more than one proposal. Sessions usually consist of three thirty-minute papers, and proposals should be geared to that length. A different format for some sessions may be chosen by the Program Committee after the proposals have been reviewed. Session organizers may wish to propose different formats for their sessions, subject to Program Committee approval.

The annual meeting of the Medieval Academy brings together medievalists from all disciplines and time periods. The Program Committee will capitalize on this strength by encouraging sessions that (1) address subjects of interest to a wide range of medievalists, and (2) put scholars from different disciplines and time periods in dialogue with each other. We are seeking innovative proposals for papers and sessions and hope to see cross-disciplinary participation wherever possible. For both the commissioned and the open sessions, we are looking for the broadest possible range of proposals of topics and of time periods, within and across all the disciplines.

Call for papers: Proposals should be submitted to Anders Winroth, preferably by e-mail (anders.winroth@yale.edu) or on paper in two copies, to Anders Winroth, Dept. of History, P.O. Box 208324, New Haven CT 06520-8324. The deadline is 15 May 2009. Please do not send proposals to session organizers or to the Academy office. The proposal must have two parts: (1) a cover sheet containing the proposer's name, statement of Academy membership (or statement that the individual's specialty would not normally involve membership in the Academy), professional status, postal address, home and office telephone numbers, fax number (if available), e-mail address (if available), and paper title; (2) a second sheet containing the proposer's name, session for which the paper should be considered, paper title, 250-word abstract, and audio-visual equipment requirements. If the proposer will be at a different address when decisions are announced in September, that address should be included.

For updated news of the conference, please go to the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33799240816.

9–10 April 2010. "Dante's Volume from Alpha to Omega: A Graduate Symposium on the Poet's Universe," is sponsored by the Department of Italian Language and Literature, at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Dante's Divine Comedy is a totalizing vision—a work emanating from and culminating in the poet's glimpse of a universe "bound with love in a single volume." In the twenty-first century, the goals of universal digitization and constant accessibility that mark our information age might seem far removed from Dante's vatic rendering of the cosmos, and yet our technological models of thought might equally be understood as the current form of an encyclopedic impulse that stretches back to, and extends well beyond, the fourteenth century. "Dante's Volume from Alpha to Omega" will explore how the encyclopedism of today can enrich, inform, or obscure our understanding of Dante's universe and its poetic representation.

The keynote speaker will be Prof. Giuseppe Mazzotta (Yale University).

Call for papers: in the interests of interdisciplinarity, paper topics may include, but are not limited to the following:

Receptions of Dante: commentary, exegesis, and philology

Representations of Dante: the visual, acoustic, and cinematic arts

Dante and the place of language

Dante and the sciences

Poetry as knowledge and self-knowledge

In the shadow of the Comedy: the 'minor' works

Nature, necessity, and freedom in the Comedy

The world outside the secretissima camera: social/institutional history in Dante's time

Justice earthly and divine

Dante and the lyric tradition

Theology, history, and the politics of exile

Classical and medieval theories of love

Ethics and psychology

Style and rhetoric

Theological and philosophical debates in the thirteenth century.

Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes (approximately 9–10 pages of double-spaced text) and may be in Italian or in English. Please submit an anonymous abstract (no longer than 250 words) and, on a separate page, a cover sheet with the title of your paper, your name, affiliation, and contact information (including telephone and e-mail address). Kindly send this information as Microsoft Word file attachment to yaledantesymposium@gmail.com by 15 November 2009. Further information will be available on the events webpage of the Yale Italian Department http://www.yale.edu/italian/news/index.html as the symposium draws nearer.

29 April–2 May 2010. The 83rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, to be held in Rochester, Minnesota. Call for papers: the Association welcomes submissions on 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, Keith Wailoo, Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research at Rutgers University, 30 College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901 (732-932-8419; kwailoo@rci.rutgers.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 2009. E-mail or faxed proposals cannot be accepted.

20–22 May 2010. "Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-First Century," a conference organized by the Early English Text Society, in Oxford. Panels will address such topics as

Brut Chronicles

From Script to Print to HTML: Electronic Editions

Palaeography, Dialectology, and the Editorial Process

Editing British Texts in Latin, Anglo-Norman, Celtic, and Scots

In Praise of the Variant: Why Edit Critically?

Desiderata: What still needs doing?

Plenary speakers will include H. Leith Spencer, "The History of EETS and the History of Editing"; Katherine O'Brien O'Keefe, "Editing Old English Texts"; and Thorlac Turville-Petre "Electronic Editing."

Call for papers: send 300-word abstracts to Vincent Gillespie by 31 May 2009

Contact for information: Vincent Gillespie (vincent.gillespie@ell.ox.ac.uk).

15–19 July 2010. The Seventeenth Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society will take place in Siena, Italy, in 2010. In keeping with the suggestions made at the 2003 Glasgow Congress, there is no single theme for the Congress. The overall structure reflects areas of inquiry that emerged from members' initial proposals for sessions. Sessions will consequently follow several threads: Chaucerian Temporalities; Medievalisms; Found in Translation: Italy and England in the Age of Chaucer; Transnationalism; Insular Multilingualisms; Political Languages; Visual Cultures; Religious Practice, Institutions, and Theology: Chaucerian Contexts; Bodies; Animal Discourses; Philosophy and Science; and Manuscripts and Printed Books. In addition, there will be a number of non-aligned panels and sessions, and several plenary sessions.

Call for papers: paper sessions will comprise three or four fifteen-minute papers. At least one paper will be given by a graduate student or research student. Panel sessions will comprise seven or eight five-minute presentations. For both paper and panel sessions, organizers will enforce time limits to allow for discussion.

The NCS Constitution requires that Congress participants (except for invited speakers from other fields) be members with their dues paid. We encourage you to share information about the Congress with other interested people who may not be NCS members at present—graduate students, new colleagues, and others working outside the field who may find sessions related to their specialisms. (Graduate students and research students may join NCS at a reduced membership rate.) Finally, a tight limit has been set on prior invitations to participate in any session. The overwhelming majority of participants in the Congress will be those who respond to this call.

NCS members who wish to give papers or participate in panels at the Congress should send a one-paragraph abstract to the organizer(s), to arrive before 15 July 2009, preferably at the e-mail addresses given below in the session description. Please indicate any specific audio-visual needs. Session organizers will select papers and panels soon afterwards, in consultation with the Program Chairs. The Program Committee will form additional sessions as interests arise. Names of Congress participants will be announced in an upcoming Chaucer Newsletter. Members may apply to participate in more than one session, but they may finally take part in only one.

The program committee is composed of Thomas Hahn (Chair), Marion Turner, David Wallace, Jessica Brantley, Orietta Da Rold, and Stefania D'Agata D'Ottavi (Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee) with Richard Firth Green (NCS President) and David Lawton (NCS Executive Director) ex officio. For more information, visit the NCS website (http://artsci.wustl.edu/~chaucer/congress/congress2010call.php).