The conference Culture and International History VI will take place from 6 – 8 May 2019 at the John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin. The conference marks the 20^th anniversary of the symposium cycle that began in 1999 and has since taken place in Wittenberg, Frankfurt, Cologne, and Berlin; key themes and contributions have been published in Berghahn Books’ series Explorations in Culture and International History (Oxford, New York, since 2003).

“Visions of Humanity” seeks to address the growing interest in historical ideas, statements, policies and actions invoking trans-, international and global audiences in the name of common values, rights and concerns. These may be manifest in activism relating to human rights, policies invoking humanitarian action, cultural output imagining trans-border societies, ideas wedding technology and the human, international protest against mechanisms of marginalization, cross-cultural canon-building (“the humanities”) and attempts to define “humanity” in academic disciplines. International history is full of people and organizations invoking visions of humanity in an effort to create common notions of identity (“we”) based on international and global reference points. But who constituted “we”? What made “us” similar? Who was part of humanity, who wasn’t? What were the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in humanity? And who defined and contested these criteria and decisions?

The symposium will focus on visions of humanity as they crystallize in the history of diplomatic and informal fora as well as in the context of specific debates. Specifically, the conference seeks to compare 20^th-century approaches in North American and transatlantic history to other regions and earlier periods. The range of possible topics includes but is not limited to:

• The human rights diplomacy of indigenous people
• Arts, international relations and visions of humanity
• Humanity and the humanities in international exchange
• The concept of humanity in diplomatic and legal parlance
• Minority rights vs. universal rights in international history
• Cultural diplomacy in the name of human rights & humanitarian action

We invite students and scholars of International History, Modern History, Area Studies, Theater Studies, Cultural Studies, Musicology, Art History, Psychology, Social Science, Anthropology and related fields to submit proposals before July 8, 2018. Young scholars are particularly encouraged to apply.

Proposals should include 1. a brief cover letter, 2. the title of the paper and an abstract of max. 500 words, 3. a one-page CV (all in one pdf-file).

Proposals for panels will also be considered (chair/commentator, three panelists). Pending approval, individual speakers may apply for funds covering the cost of travel and accommodation and should mention this in their application. Participants who have an interest in the topic and would like to attend the conference without delivering a paper are welcome and should contact the organizers.

Please submit proposals and questions to: verena.specht@fu-berlin.de

The Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies / Société canadienne d’études de la Renaissance (CSRS/SCÉR) will be sponsoring up to four panels at the 2019 meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, in Toronto, 17-19 March, 2019.

We invite proposals for individual papers and panels in any topic that falls within our period, from all disciplines.

Proposals must be submitted by July 10, and decisions will be made by the end of July. Any proposals that do not fit into the CSRS/SCÉR panels may be submitted to the general RSA submissions website, which closes August 15.

Anyone making a proposal must be a member of CSRS/SCÉR, and must also be a member of RSA in 2019.

Please send proposals to:

Paul Dyck
Professor of English
Canadian Mennonite University
pdyck@cmu.ca

Individual paper proposal:

• paper title (15-word maximum)
• abstract (150-word maximum) abstract guidelines
• curriculum vitae (.pdf or .doc attachment)
• PhD completion date (past or expected)
• general discipline area (History, Art History, Literature, or other)
• keywords
• full name, current affiliation, and email address
• a/v requests

Panel proposal:

• description of the panel as a whole (maximum 150 words)
• panel title (15-word maximum)
• panel keywords
• a/v requests
• panel chair
• general discipline area (History, Art History, Literature, or other)
• individual paper requirements, as above

Please find below a call for papers for a seminar that is a part of the second meeting of a conference with an innovative format. IONA: Seafaring focuses on the multicultural early medieval islands of the North Atlantic (hence, IONA) and is “Designed less around traditional conference presentations and more as a ‘workspace,’ IONA: Seafaring is designed to provide time and space for nascent and developing work, intellectual risk-taking, collaboration and cooperation”.

IONA will be held at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, from 11-13 April 2019. As part of the conference this seminar, organized by Erin Sweany, Rachel Anderson, Kristen Mills, and Margie Housley, will focus on minds, bodies, and theoretical inquiry.

Scholars studying medieval bodies and minds have encountered intersecting and overlapping questions in recent years. Physical and phenomenological experience are, to some extent, inextricable. Much scholarship on emotions has focused on the ways that feelings are embodied, through gesture, somatic response, and emotional performance. Embodied experience, likewise, is inextricable from socially- and culturally- constructed ideas — and feelings — about bodies, space, and being. Nor can the material body be removed/overlooked in our readings of texts: embodied experience of health and dis/ability, and more. Theorists such as Sara Ahmed, Elaine Scarry, and Judith Butler have shown that embodied experience is inseparable from internal/emotional experience and vice versa. At the same time, approaches to medieval minds and bodies have faced similar difficulties: methodological approaches in the sciences and social sciences are often separated from the humanities, while historicist, materialist, and philological approaches to the medieval world have often been positioned in opposition to critical theory.

Just as bodies cannot be separated from minds, and the material cannot be extracted from the phenomenological, we view history, science, and theory as intimately connected. This seminar seeks to build on and deepen this foundation with a range of approaches to feelings and bodies in the medieval North Atlantic. How can critical theory work with historicist and scientific approaches to medieval literature and culture? How can we effectively employ non-humanities methodologies in the humanities? How do these approaches shape, and how are they shaped by, feminist and queer discourses in medieval studies and across the humanities? How can medieval literary and cultural studies allow us to rethink theoretical and methodological tools within and beyond the humanities? We hope to consider new theoretical approaches, more “traditional” methodological approaches, and papers that bridge the two. Proposed papers might fall into the following thematic strands:

– Interiority and embodied affects
– Queer/feminist approaches to body and mind
– Disability/non-normativity in physical and emotional states
– Intersections of affect, gender, the non-human, race, etc.
– Historicism and anachronism in medieval studies
– Spirituality as affective and embodied experience
– Comparative literary approaches (e.g. Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, or comparative approaches across the medieval world)
– Using science/social science methodologies such as (but not limited to): Actor- Network Theory, New Materialisms, Medical Humanities, and Systems Theory

We invite proposals from scholars working in all disciplines. Please send 250-word abstracts to Erin Sweany at esweany@indiana.edu by 1 July, 2018.
https://www.sfu.ca/english/iona/cfp/material-affects.html

For more information on IONA: https://www.sfu.ca/english/iona.html