Monthly Archives: July 2016

Two Medieval Seminars of Interest @ University of Sydney

English Department Research Seminar Series
Professor Liam Semler, The Arrival, Form and Meaning of the Early Modern Grotesque in England

Date: Wednesday 3 August, 2016
Time: 3:00pm–5:00pm
Venue: Room S226, John Woolley Building, University of Sydney

Liam’s paper is based on the introduction to his book manuscript, The Early Modern Grotesque: English Sources and Documents, 1500-1700. The manuscript is a large collection of sources and documents from English Renaissance texts that discuss or refer to the grotesque. The sourcebook is arranged chronologically and the sources are annotated and cross-referenced. This dataset gives an expansive insight into the discourse of the grotesque from 1500-1700 in England. An aim of the collection is to help widen the scholarly discussion of the early modern English grotesque beyond the usual parameters which tend to prioritise the theories of Wolfgang Kayser and Mikhail Bakhtin. The primary terms for the grotesque that are traced through two centuries of English writing are ‘grottesco/grotesque/grotesque-work’ and ‘antic/antique/antique-work.’ These are explored in relation to other key terms and English visual imagery. It is hoped that a richer sense of the specifically English grotesque from 1500-1700 will emerge from this analysis of the textual archive.

Global Middle Ages Series
Dr Francesco Borghesi, ‘Renaissance Culture and Religious Pluralism’

Date: Wednesday 3 August, 2016
Time: 4:00pm-5:30pm
Venue: SOPHI Common room, University of Sydney, Brennan McCallum Building, Level 8, Room 822

This seminar will look at the ways in which the Italian humanist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) dealt with different religious belief systems in his search for what he called a ‘philosophical peace’, and at how his views were scrutinised by a theological commission established by Pope Innocent VIII. As using ‘religious pluralism’ applied to a fifteenth-century experience may appear anachronistic, in order to test this terminology Pico della Mirandola’s perspective will be compared to that of the Belgian Jesuit Jacques Dupuis (1923-2004), whose book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism led him to be investigated by the ‘Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’, whose Prefect was at the time Joseph Ratzinger, the soon-to-be Pope Benedict XVI.

Shakespeare at the Opera House Performance

Shakespeare at the Opera House

Date: Thursday 27 October, 2016
Time: 1:00pm
Venue: Nickson Room (434), Zelman Cowan Building (51), The University of Queensland, St Lucia
RSVP: Free event, no RSVP required

The works of William Shakespeare have inspired numerous operas on countless stages around the world. In the nineteenth century, his plays prompted some of the greatest achievements of such composers as Giuseppe Verdi, Otto Nicolai, and Ambroise Thomas. This concert presents excerpts from some of the nineteenth century’s best-loved Shakespearean operas, including Thomas’s Hamlet (1868), Verdi’s Macbeth (1847), Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor) (1848), and Charles-François Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (1867). Featuring some of Brisbane’s finest upcoming opera performers, the concert will include a range of vocal pieces, from duets and trios to large chorus ensemble works. The works are partially staged with piano accompaniment, and audience members will receive a detailed program discussing the works performed.

Presented by the UQ School of Music and the UQ Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800).

Early Modern Orders and Disorders: Religious Orders and British and Irish Catholicism – Call For Papers

Early Modern Orders and Disorders: Religious Orders and British and Irish Catholicism
University of Notre Dame’s London Gateway, London, UK.
28–30 June, 2017

The third biannual Early Modern British and Irish Catholicism conference, jointly hosted by Durham University and the University of Notre Dame, will concentrate on the relationship between religious orders and British and Irish Catholicism. A wealth of recent scholarship has focussed on the activities of both male and female religious following the upheavals of the sixteenth century. This conference will consider the relationship between religious orders and those on the western peripheries of Catholic Europe. These relationships are to be explored in the widest possible framework, including through the religious orders as links between English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh Catholics, and the global Church; British and Irish religious in exile; the presence of members of religious orders in Britain and Ireland; memories of pre-Reformation religious orders such as in the landscape; religious orders in the non-Catholic imagination; the views of Britain and Ireland held by religious orders and their international membership. The timeframe being considered is broad, from c.1530 to 1800.

The conference is interdisciplinary and welcomes papers from researchers in fields including History, Literary Studies, Theology, Philosophy, Musicology and Art History.

We invite proposals for 20 minute communications on any related theme from any field. Panel proposals consisting of three speakers are also encouraged.

Please send proposals (c. 200 words) by email to Cormac Begadon (cormac.begadon@durham.ac.uk) by 27 January, 2017 at the latest.

For questions relating to booking and travel, please contact Hannah Thomas (hannah.thomas2@durham.ac.uk).

For general queries relating to the conference, please contact James Kelly (james.kelly3@durham.ac.uk).

Dr Matthew Champion, University of Melbourne Early Modern Circle Seminar

Early Modern Circle Seminar
“The Emotional Resonances of Bells in Early Modern Northern Europe”, Matthew Champion (St Catharine’s College, Cambridge)

Date: Monday 15 August, 2016
Time: 6:15pm
Venue: Room 506, Level 5, Babel Building, The University of Melbourne, Parkville
Registrations: Not required
Information: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/the-emotional-resonances-of-bells-in-early-modern-northern-europe/

In 1499 fire reduced the church of the Premonstratensian Abbey at Averbode, including its clock and bells, to ruins. The monastery’s reform-minded Abbot, Gerard van der Scaeft, employed bell-founders from ’s-Hertogenbosch to comb the ashes for salvage metal, and clockmakers from Leuven and Turnhout carried out an ambitious programme of renewal. On the hour, the new clock played the Pentecost sequence Sancti spiritus adsit nobis gratia, and on the half hour, the Marian sequence Virginis Mariae laudes. The clock at Averbode is just one example of a number of musical bells that were installed across northern Europe from the fourteenth century. This paper will consider the resonances of these musical bells, charting a course through an emotional history of sound, time, materiality and devotion – from their first appearance in Rouen in 1321, to Averbode and texts composed about its bells by the famous humanist Desiderius Erasmus.

Matthew Champion is currently the Jeremy Haworth Research Fellow in History at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. In September 2016, he will take up a lectureship in Medieval History at Birkbeck, University of London. His current research centres on European temporalities from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries.

The National Library of Australia: Summer Scholarships 2017 – Call For Applications

The National Library of Australia offers annual summer scholarships to support younger scholars undertaking postgraduate research requiring special access to the Library’s collections. These scholarships are made possible through the generosity of the family of the late Norman McCann (a former National Library Council Member), and of John and Heather Seymour.

Preference for Norman McCann Scholarships will be given to those working in the disciplines of Australian history, Australian literature, librarianship, archives administration or museum studies. Preference for Seymour Scholarships will be for those undertaking biographical research.

The scholarships are tenable for a period of six weeks commencing in the second week of January each year. Scholars have privileged access to the Library’s materials and facilities, as well as sustained interaction with many of its staff.

For full details and to apply, please visit: https://www.nla.gov.au/awards-and-grants/fellowships-and-scholarships/summer-scholarships

Applications for 2017 Summer Scholarships have opened and close 30 September, 2016.

Emotions, Media and History: Theory and Practice – Call For Papers

Emotions, Media and History: Theory and Practice

Date: Friday 23 September, 2016
Time: 9:00am-5:30pm
Venue: Napier Building, Room 108, The University of Adelaide
Registration: Abaigéal Warfield (abaigeal.warfield@adelaide.edu.au). Registration closes Friday 26 August, 2016.
Enquiries: Abaigéal Warfield (abaigeal.warfield@adelaide.edu.au)
Bursaries: A number of bursaries are available to assist postgraduates or scholars on a limited income to attend the symposium. Please email Amy Milka (amy.milka@adelaide.edu.au) before the registration deadline, should you be interested in applying.

The first symposium for the Emotions and Media Research Cluster will provide an opportunity to meet and discuss theory and methodology around emotions and the media, and to hear from some experts in the field about current research practice.

The symposium will address fundamental theories and methods for studying emotions and media in history. The day will be focused around three keynote talks from academics already working in the field of emotions and media. These scholars have backgrounds in media studies, communication, politics and international relations, a range which reflects the diversity and interdisciplinarity the cluster wishes to foster.

Presentations will be targeted towards generating useful discussion amongst participants about how historians work with emotions in media, and how they might participate in contemporary debates about media ethics and journalism. This focus will be further explored by two sessions of discussion on pre-circulated readings from media psychology and historical analysis, where we will encourage participants to think about the relevance of different theoretical approaches to their own research.
Confirmed keynote papers:

  • Associate Professor Brenton J. Malin, Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh, USA. ‘When New Arguments Get Old: Dealing with the Redundancy of Claims about Emotion and “New Media”’
  • Dr Emma Hutchison, School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland (via videolink). ‘Humanitarian Emotions Through History: Imaging Suffering and Performing Aid’
  • Professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, UK (via videolink). ‘Anger as a Political Emotion’

Call for Papers

We invite proposals for short papers (10 minutes) for this symposium on the relationship between media and emotions. These papers are intended as stimuli for discussion, and could raise methodological issues, useful or innovative theoretical approaches, or particular areas of interest.

Please send abstracts (200 words) along with a short bio by Monday 8 August, 2016 to Abaigéal Warfield (abaigeal.warfield@adelaide.edu.au).

Versailles: Treasures from the Palace – Exhibition @ National Gallery of Australia

Versailles: Treasures from the Palace
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Opens 9 December 2016

Tickets now available: http://nga.gov.au/Versailles

The sumptuous exhibition Versailles: Treasures from the Palace is a once in a lifetime chance to see and experience here in Australia a mesmerising period in French history. For the first time ever, the treasures will travel from France to entice visitors into a world of power, passion and luxury through this epic exhibition.

More than 130 paintings, intricate tapestries, gilded furniture items, monumental statues and other objects from the royal gardens, and personal items from Louis XIV to Marie Antoinette, will bring to life the reigns of three Kings, their Queens and mistresses in a fascinating and often tumultuous period of French history.

The exhibition will celebrate the lives, loves and passions of the people of Versailles through a full program of activities including music performances, children’s programs and public events.

The exhibition contrasts small personal items, such as the precious golden reliquary which belonged to Louis XIV’s mother, or Marie Antoinette’s hand-crafted chair and harp, with huge works including six-metre tapestries from the most important Gobelins series ever produced for Louis XIV.

ARC Centre for the History of Emotions (CHE): Short-Term Project-to-Publication Grants for Established Staff – Call For Applications

ARC Centre for the History of Emotions (CHE) invites applications from scholars based in Australia, and with tenured or continuing academic employment, for short-term Research Project-to-Publication Grants.

These are three-month grants (full-time) designed to support continuing Australian university staff who have the opportunity to take leave from their normal duties to undertake a significant research project in the history of emotions. Eligible expenses include, but are not limited to; travel for research purposes; accommodation in research locations; other expenses incurred in obtaining research materials and publication preparation.

Those awarded this fellowship may receive up to AUD5,000 over the three-month duration. They will undertake to research, write and submit for publication before 30 September, 2017 significant new material on the history of emotions. Funding may be used to support research projects in the history of emotions in any period. The grants may be used for existing projects which are in advanced stages, or for new projects.

To be eligible, projects must be related to one or more of CHE’s four research programs, though not necessarily to the period 1100­–1800, and must involve plans for active participation in one or more of CHE’s five research nodes, including the offer of at least one research paper based on the project to the appropriate node(s).

Applications will be accepted from non-CHE members as well as current Associate Investigators (AIs) and honorary CHE members. In the event of a successful proposal for continuing a project already supported by a current CHE AI grant, the amount of the AI grant may be deducted from the fellowship funding.

For more information, please visit: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/opportunity-che-short-term-project-to-publication-grants-for-established-staff

Applications close on 31 July, 2016.

Seen but not Heard? The Spatial, Emotional and Material Sites of Childhood and Youth from Antiquity to Modernity – Call For Papers

Seen but not Heard? The Spatial, Emotional and Material Sites of Childhood and Youth from Antiquity to Modernity
University of Sussex, Brighton
18-20 January, 2017

In recent years the study of childhood and youth has taken on fresh momentum across the humanities and social sciences. Centres for childhood and youth have been established at numerous universities in Britain and abroad – including the ‘Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth’ at Sussex – which offer the space to conduct cross disciplinary conversations about this distinct life phase. This conference seeks to showcase exciting new research from this fast developing field by exploring the variety of ways in which past experiences of childhood and adolescence can be understood and examined. We are particularly interested in locating the voice of the young person and examining sites of childhood and youth from their perspective. The conference will bring together scholars with an interest in childhood and youth from across disciplines, from antiquity up to the present, and from a range of geographical locations. The boundaries of childhood and youth can be flexibly interpreted. By showcasing research from across disciplines, time and space, we hope to facilitate a discussion of both the challenges and possibilities of research on childhood and youth.

Keynote speakers: Colin Heywood, University of Nottingham; Laura King, University of Leeds.

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • The agency of young people
  • Recreation, play and labour
  • Experiences of education
  • The home and family
  • Communities in youth, and the place of youth in communities
  • The rural and urban experience
  • Youth subcultures
  • Crime and punishment
  • Sexuality, gender and race
  • Emotions
  • Materiality
  • Life Stages
  • Memories of childhood and youth

We welcome proposals for papers of 20 minutes and the submission deadline is Friday 12 August, 2016. Please send an abstract of around 300 words, along with brief biographical details to seenbutnotheard2017@outlook.com. You will be notified of our decision at the beginning of September. We encourage submissions from scholars at all stages of their research, and proposals from postgraduate and early-career researchers are particularly welcomed. The conference will be free for speakers to attend, with lunch and refreshments provided.

ARC Centre for the History of Emotions (CHE): 2017 Associate Investigator Scheme – Call For Applications

The ARC Centre for the History of Emotions (CHE) has a core goal to provide small grant support to scholars as Associate Investigators (AIs) conducting research that focuses on the study of emotions in Europe 1100-1800, or explores the extension of that history in subsequent periods in Australia.

Topics should fit within our Program areas: Meanings, Change, Performance and Shaping the Modern. Applicants from any relevant discipline are welcome.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants from any relevant discipline, including Arts practitioners, are encouraged to apply.

  • 31 August, 2016: Submission date for applications.
  • 30 September 2016: Advice of outcomes.
  • 1 January 2017: Commencement date for 2017 CHE Associate Investigators.
  • 15 January 2018: Submission of Final Report.

For full information, please visit: http://historyofemotions.org.au/get-involved/academic-opportunities/associate-investigators