Monthly Archives: July 2017

AWAWS Book Launch @ University of Sydney: Six New Monographs

Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies, the Ancient Cultures Research Centre (Macquarie University), and the University of Sydney cordially invite you to join us for a special event.

The occasion celebrates the following recent publications:

  • Associate Professor Julia Kindt (University of Sydney), Revisting Delphi: Religion and Storytelling in Ancient Greece
  • Honorary Senior Lecturer Frances Muecke (University of Sydney), Rome in Triumph, Volume 1, Books I-II, Biondo Flavio. Translated by Frances Muecke
  • Dr. Kit Morrell (University of Sydney), Pompey, Cato, and the Governance of the Roman Empire
  • Dr. Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), The Stage and the City. Non-elite Characters in the Tragedies of Sophocles
  • Dr. Louise Pryke (Macquarie University), Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World: Ishtar
    Dr. Anne Rogerson, Charles Tesoriero Senior Lecturer (University of Sydney), Virgil’s Ascanius: Imagining the Future in the Aeneid

Date: Thursday 10 August, 2017
Time: 6:30-8:30pm
Venue: Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studies of Australia, Madsen Building, University of Sydney
RSVP: by 3 August to awawssydney@gmail.com or klar9872@uni.sydney.edu.au

Society for the Humanities Fellowships 2018–2017 – Call For Applications

Society for the Humanities Fellowships 2018–2017

Focal Theme 2018-2019
Authority

The Society for the Humanities at Cornell University seeks interdisciplinary research projects for residencies that reflect on the philosophical, aesthetic, political, legal, ecological, religious, and cultural understandings of authority.

From auctoritas to the author to authoritarianism, the question of authority – whether grounded in epistemological expertise, juridical power, rhetorical persuasiveness, creative innovation, divine decree, or political charisma – is inextricable from humanistic inquiry and critique. With authority, the power to decide, to authorize, to adjudicate, to rule, and to hold sway stands or falls – in science, law, art, oratory, religion, or politics. The Society invites scholarly projects that trace the consequences, crises, and possibilities of authority across historical periods, disciplinary boundaries, geographic territories, and social contexts.

At stake in authority is who or what authorizes and bestows power, prestige, and influence. On what basis does authority claim to rule? Knowledge? Law? Charisma? Popular will? The sovereign word? Tradition? Moreover, each expression of authority calls forth its contestation and opposition. At times authority is contested within the same discursive sphere (e.g. different scientific paradigms or hermeneutic interpretations at loggerheads); at times, however, the opposition is based on another source of authority: religious law vs. secular law; scientific knowledge vs. political will; economic concerns vs. ethical concerns. At such junctures, the question then arises: who or what power adjudicates the conflict between appeals to different authoritative instances?

The Society invites scholars to explore the ‘ends of authority,’ understood as its purposes, goals, and ideals as well as its limitations, aporias, and paradoxes. Applicants could investigate the rise of authoritarianism across different historical and political or religious contexts, exploring its conditions, its appeal, its critiques. One could research the crisis of scientific authority, in which expertise itself is called into question on grounds that are impervious to scientific argumentation. Considering the death of the author, one could question what signs, strokes, words, tics, and idiosyncrasies determine a text’s or artwork’s ‘author’; what authorizes an original from its copy or fake; or the degree to which the authority of a few authors still determines research fields today. In the age of a superabundance of information, what differentiates ‘real’ (authoritative) information from ‘fake news,’ and how one can be interchanged with the other as an ‘equal’ source of authority?

The Society for the Humanities welcomes applications from scholars and practitioners who are interested in investigating this topic from the broadest variety of international and disciplinary perspectives.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Fellows should be working on topics related to the year’s theme. Their approach to the humanities should be broad enough to appeal to students and scholars in several humanistic disciplines.

Applicants must have received the Ph.D. degree before January 1, 2017. The Society for the Humanities will not consider applications from scholars who received the Ph.D. after this date. Applicants must also have one or more years of teaching experience, which may include teaching as a graduate student.

Applications close on 1 October, 2017.

For full details and to apply, please visit: http://sochum.as.cornell.edu/society_fellowships.html.

Professor Christina Neilson, Two Lectures of Interest @ USyd and AGNSW

1. Crafting the Miraculous: Animating Automata
Date: Tuesday 8 August, 2017
Time: 6:00pm
Venue: University of Sydney, Lecture Room 424, Education Building, Manning Rd

Sculptures with movable body parts appeared during the late Middle Ages and their appeal continued for centuries. With arms that could fold, legs that could bend, heads that could nod, eyes that could roll, and tongues that could move, these figures closely approximated that which they represented—living things. The ability of these sculptures to move suggested they had come to life, but this capacity was dependent on makers, who applied leather, parchment or polychromed gesso like skin over a corpus of wood with joints rendered to enable movement. This lecture will address what it meant for an artist to make these images and explore how the maker’s skill intersected with their object’s ability to become animated

Christina Neilson is Associate Professor in the History of Art at Oberlin College, where she teaches Renaissance and Baroque art. She is a graduate of the Art History Department at Sydney University and has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She has published articles on Verrocchio and the meaning of materials in Renaissance art, and an exhibition catalogue on Parmigianino’s Antea; her book, Verrocchio’s Factura: Making and Meaning in an Italian Renaissance Workshop, is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

2. The Art of Andrea del Verrocchio: Materiality and Experimentation
Date: Thursday 3 August
Time: 10:30am
Venue: Domain Theatre, AGNSW (Art Gallery Society)
Cost: $25 non-member / $15 member / $10 Art Appreciation subscriber
More details: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/calendar/verrocchio

Andrea del Verrocchio (c1435-88) was Leonardo da Vinci’s teacher and one of the most inventive artists in Renaissance Florence. Professor Neilson will examine how Verrocchio used materials and techniques to construct meaning and explore his unusual approach to making objects, which included casting animals in bronze and transferring tools and techniques from one medium to another. Verrocchio’s unusual practices provided him with a sophisticated system for expressing complex ideas — theological, political, economic, poetic — metaphorically, through visual puns on making and through his use of materials.

Professor Neilson is an associate professor of Renaissance and Baroque art history at Oberlin College in Ohio, USA.

Special Issue of Yearbook of Langland Studies: Personification – Call For Papers

The editors of the Yearbook of Langland Studies invite submissions to a cluster on personification for YLS 33 (2019). In keeping with the journal’s broad interpretation of the scope of Langland Studies, we invite notes and essays which approach the topic from any angle, and which investigate either Piers Plowman itself or texts that are in some way relevant to or contiguous with its tradition. Submissions are due to yls.submissions@gmail.com by June 1, 2018. Please contact the journal with any questions.

Sessions on The Medieval Horse @ IMC Leeds 2018 – Call For Papers

Call for Papers: For the sessions on THE MEDIEVAL HORSE at the International Medieval Congress 2018 at Leeds, 2-5 July 2018

Palfreys and rounceys, hackneys and packhorses, warhorses and coursers, not to mention the mysterious ‘dung mare’ – they were all part of everyday life in the Middle Ages. Every cleric and monk, no matter how immersed in his devotional routine and books he would be, every nun, no matter how reclusive her life, every peasant, no matter how poor his household, would have some experience of horses. To the medieval people, horses were as habitual as cars in the modern times. Besides, there was the daily co-existence with horses to which many representatives of the gentry and nobility – both male and female – were exposed, which far exceeds the experience of most amateur riders today. We cannot reconstruct or re-experience the familiar and casual communication between humans and equids of the Middle Ages – or can we? At our sessions on the Medieval Horse, we will try to deduce, describe and debate the place of the horse in medieval society.

We welcome submissions on any aspect of medieval equestrianism and engagement with horses and similar beasts of burdens, whether in military, civilian, industrial or agricultural context, from a variety of disciplines as well as papers that approach the subject using experimental and reconstruction methodologies.

In particular, we would be interested in contributions on the following themes:

  • Archaeological approaches to horse equipment and harness
  • Osteological research into remains of equids from medieval contexts
  • Equids and other ridden animals in medieval society and thought (including donkeys and mules, as well as camels, elephants and other exotic ridden animals, and even fantastic creatures – the unicorn, the centaur, the hybrids and grotesques in the marginalia, etc.)
  • Horses in the oriental culture
  • Medieval veterinary and hippiatric care and farriery
  • Employment of the horses for hunting, parade, travelling and agricultural activity
  • Military horses and their typology
  • Horses in literature and art
  • Post-medieval representation of the medieval horse

We have already hosted a number of sessions on medieval equestrianism and the horse at IMC 2016 and 2017, which generated considerable response both from researchers and from the audience attending the sessions.

At IMC 2018, we intend to open the scope of the discussion by organising a Round Table on the theme “Reconstructing the Medieval Horse”, in line with the Congress theme for the next year – Memory. We invite contributions to the Round Table, commenting on the reconstruction of the medieval horse from any perspective: whether as practitioners, consultants, participants in medieval themed equestrian events. More generally, we would like to discuss the extent to which the medieval horse can be reconstructed – if at all – and ways in which aspects of medieval equestrian culture and lore (chivalric, veterinary, breeding, training, horse care, etc.) can be applied in the modern world.

If you are interested in contributing to either the sessions or the Round Table (or both), please send the following to the organisers, Dr. Timothy Dawson (levantia@hotmail.com) and Dr. Anastasija Ropa (anastasija.ropa@lspa.lv):

  1. For the thematic sessions: Short bio (70-100 words, including name, surname, affiliation, research interests and any other relevant information), proposed paper title and abstract (250-300 words). The duration of the paper is 15-20 minutes, followed by questions.
  2. For the Round Table: Short bio (70-100 words, including name, surname, affiliation, research interests and any other relevant information), proposed theme and description (150-200 words)

The deadline for submitting a proposal is 1 September, 2017.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 20 September, 2017.
NB: An individual can present only one paper at the IMC and act as a speaker at the Round Table.

If you have any enquiries or want to discuss your proposed contribution, please do not hesitate to contact us.

English: the Journal of the English Association: Postgraduate Essay Prize – Call For Applications

The editors of English: the Journal of the English Association are very pleased to initiate in 2017 the opening of an annual essay competition exclusive to postgraduates. We are looking for essays that provide new perspectives on canonical and/or non-canonical Anglophone literatures, and therefore welcome submissions that focus on single author/texts or a range, and which develop original arguments beyond simple close reading, while engaging with recent scholarship in relevant fields.

The competition is open to any postgraduate student who is registered on a doctoral programme at any institution anywhere in the world, by, or within three months of, the submission deadline: September 30, 2017.

For more information, please visit: https://academic.oup.com/english/pages/essay_prize.

Buccaneers, Corsairs, Pirates and Privateers – Connecting the Early Modern Seas – Call For Papers

Buccaneers, Corsairs, Pirates and Privateers – Connecting the Early Modern Seas
International Symposium
Bielefeld University, Germany,
13-14 April, 2018

Until recently manifestations of piracy as well as of its state-sanctioned counterpart, privateering, were mostly discussed as geographically isolated cultural phenomena. Depictions of armed robbery at sea in the early modern period have traditionally tended to focus on specific regions associated with seemingly distinct types of seafarers and their piratical practices of prize-taking. Scholars of literature, culture and history have treated spatially and temporally dispersed occurrences of piracy such as Elizabethan privateers attacking the Spanish treasure fleet, Muslim corsairs capturing English merchant ships in the Mediterranean, Caribbean buccaneers taking part in the English project of nation-building and local English pirates roaming the coastlines of the British Isles as distinct and discrete naval phenomena. This trend to slot piracy into different conceptual categories is echoed by the associated designations – pirates, corsairs, privateers, buccaneers – each carrying its own set of geographical and historical associations. However, researchers have recently begun to question such compartmentalization. Over the last ten years, increasing attention has been devoted to the various affinities and intersections between different forms of (trans)atlantic and mediterranean piracy and their cultural imaginations.

Inspired by this development we suggest a comprehensive approach in literary and cultural studies as well as in history, which looks at the connection between pirates and other seafarers who navigate the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic in the early modern period and the cultural products they inspire. Such an approach not only includes a transatlantic perspective, it also allows us to revisit the literary negotiation of piracy by focusing on different aspects like the appearance of piratical protagonists in diverse geographical locations, changing negotiations of pirate identity, and the fluid boundary between illegal piracy and state-sanctioned privateering. With this symposium, we want to establish a dialogue between scholars working on diverse topics connected with literary, cultural and historical representations of piracy and seafaring. In this way, we want to explore the cultural as well as the ideological impact and function of the pirate figure in early modern popular culture.

Papers could focus on (but are not limited to) topics such as:

  • regional, national and transnational aspects of piracy
  • representations of pirates across different genres
  • piracy and gender: viragoes, damsels in distress, and (hyper)masculinity
  • maritime law: legal aspects of piracy and privateering
  • heroes and villains: the pirate as a criminal and rebel
  • piracy, adventure, and popular entertainment
  • the relationship between piracy and privateering
  • Muslim corsairs in the English imagination
  • Caribbean buccaneers and the formation of Empire
  • piracy and early modern politics

If you are interested in contributing, please send a brief abstract (max. 300 words) for a 30-minute paper to the organizers by August 9, 2017:

ARC Centre for the History of Emotions: Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar (PATS): ‘Emotions and Place’ – Call For Expressions of Interest

ARC Centre for the History of Emotions Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar (PATS): ‘Emotions and Place’
University Club of Western Australia, The University of Western Australia
Wednesday 13 June, 2018

Enquiries: email Pam Bond at emotions@uwa.edu.au

More info: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/emotions-and-place

Facilitated by Professor Susan Broomhall, ARC Future Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, UWA.

Featuring participation by Professor Jeff Malpas, University of Tasmania.

This Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar (PATS) will bring established scholars in this field together with postgraduates to explore issues between emotions, the non-human world, the environment, space and place.

Students and early career scholars will have the opportunity to discuss their own research.

This PATS is explicitly interdisciplinary and exploratory, and intended to allow students from many disciplines to encounter issues that transcend their own research field and to situate their own research in the interdisciplinary context.

Jeff Malpas is Distinguished Professor at the University of Tasmania and Visiting Distinguished Professor at La Trobe University. He was founder and, until 2005, Director of the University of Tasmania’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Ethics. He is the author or editor of 21 books on topics in philosophy, art, architecture and geography. His work is grounded in post-Kantian thought, especially the hermeneutical and phenomenological traditions, as well as in analytic philosophy of language and mind. He is currently working on topics including the ethics of place, the failing character of governance, the materiality of memory, the topological character of hermeneutics, the place of art, and the relation between place, boundary and surface.

UQ Development Fellowships – Call For Applications

The University of Queensland Development Fellowships aim to foster development of the most promising early career researchers and retain mid-career and senior academic staff of exceptional calibre at the University. By investing in the best and brightest talent across all career levels, the UQ Development Fellowships facilitate a trajectory of continued excellence and impact in research, teaching and service at UQ. In doing so, the fellowships advance UQ’s strategic objectives in the pillars of Discovery, Learning and Engagement and develop elite professionals who create change in society in multi-dimensional ways.

UQ Development Fellowships may be applied for and awarded funding for up to a maximum of three years full-time, with funding provided centrally in combination with the host Faculty/Institute and/or School/Centre, as per the scheme Guidelines.  Fellowships may also be held on a part-time basis (for family/carers or illness/disability) up to a maximum of four years.

For more information, please visit: http://www.uq.edu.au/research/research-management/uq-fellowships.

Applications close on 8 September, 2017.

Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Digital Humanities Workshop @ UWA – Call For Expressions of Interest

Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Digital Humanities Workshop

Sponsored by UWA Learning and Teaching Performance Initiative Grant and CMEMS
University Club of Western Australia, The University of Western Australia

Date: Saturday 16 June, 2018

More info: http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/events/digital-humanities-workshop
This full-day workshop for postgraduates and ECRs provides an opportunity to explore and gain familiarity with some of the key techniques and methodologies of computational research in the humanities, with a focus on the needs of medievalists and early modernists. It is structured around a supportive lab-based environment, learning from scholars with ongoing digital humanities projects in the history of emotions.

Speakers:

  • Dr Jane-Heloise Nancarrow is an early career researcher in medieval studies at The University of Western Australia, examining digital visualisation in cultural heritage, spolia, and the legacy of Rome in the middle ages.
  • Dr Michael Ovens is an early career researcher at The University of Western Australia, working on a series of collaborative projects related to the use of virtual reality in teaching and learning.
  • Dr James Smith is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Trinity College Dublin Long Room Hub, working on a project entitled ‘Conduits of Faith: Deep Mapping Medieval Spiritual Waterscapes’.
  • Dr Deborah Thorpe is EU COFUND Trinity College Dublin Long Room Hub Fellow, working on a project entitled ‘Old Hands: A Palaeographical Study of Ageing Medieval and Early Modern Scribes’.

Due to limited access to the technologies involved, this workshop will be limited to 20 participants.

Applicants should submit an expression of interest in attending at this stage to emotions@uwa.edu.au.