NEWS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FIELD

At a glance...

I.Forthcoming Talks/Conferences:

1. Color: 10th Annual Symposium of the International Medieval Society - Paris
Dates: Thursday 27 – Saturday 29 June 2013
Call for Papers: deadline for submissions: 1 December 2012
2. Kells Tourism Forum: Winter Lecture Series 2012-2013
25 November 2012 at 2 p.m. outside the Church of Ireland Church, Kells: Dr Peter Harbinson, The High Crosses of Kells.
3. A two-day conference on 'Reading the Ancient Near East in Early Modern Europe'. Venue: HII seminar room, UCD and Marsh's Library
Time: 22-23 November 2012.
4. School of English, UCD: Research Seminar series (Wednesdays, 4pm, J208 in the Newman building): early modern speakers
-Dr Stephen O'Neill (NUI Maynooth) on 17th October (title tbc);
-Dr Marina Ansaldo (UCD) on 28th November, speaking on 'War, Love, and the "Storms of Fortune": the Iconography of Fortune and Opportunity in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida'.
5.The Warburg Institute’s Annual Programme for 2012/13 now available.
6. Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France Conference,
6-7 June 2013, University College London. CALL FOR PAPERS!
7. Oxford Medieval French Seminars 2012-2013

II. Prizes /Grants/Bursaries

1. Society for Renaissance Studies: Undergraduate Prize (deadline tbc 2013); Schools’ Prize; SRS Biennial Book Prize; Museums, Archives and Libraries Bursary Scheme

III. Other

1.TCD Library’s Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections has recently launched a blog, Tales of Mystery and Pagination

In detail...

1.Color: 10th Annual Symposium of the International Medieval Society - Paris
Dates: Thursday 27 – Saturday 29 June 2013
Call for Papers: deadline for submissions: 1 December 2012
Keynote speakers: TBA
The International Medieval Society in Paris (IMS-Paris) is soliciting abstracts for individual papers and proposals for complete sessions for its 2013 symposium organized around the theme of “Color" in medieval France. From the beginning of the Middle Ages, color was as connected to the visual and performing arts as it was to letters, theology, science, the livelihoods of medieval people, and their way of relating to the world. Long before Vasari’s famous distinction between colore and disegno, medieval artists and musicians had recognized the great aesthetic, semiotic, and rhetorical potential of color. From a musical and rhetorical standpoint, the concept of color and the quality of ornatus both signified embellishment. In many ways such embellishments resulted in devices in musical notation that were intended as visualizations of the aural experience. These visualizations were derived from the definition of categories distinguished by aural cues, such as the symbolism and classification of church modes, whose qualities of were meant to be readily recognized by listeners. As cultural references, colors–and the terms that described them–were subject to variations in meaning. In their material form of colourings and pigments, they were a commodity and a social signifier. The exoticism of these valuable substances could denote luxury and prestige down through the Middle Ages, from the purple pages of precious manuscripts to the dyes of clothing regulated by sumptuary laws. Yet color could also stigmatize or exclude, for medieval people classified, categorized, and imparted meaning by associating certain colors with specific minority groups and social hierarchies. This 'semiotizing' activity was crystallized in heraldry. Nevertheless, categories were not consistently mapped to colors. The variability of 'color coding' in medieval romance, the visual arts, or from one region to the next tests the limits of schematic, rigid views of color symbolism. Meditations on color in literature, as in philosophy and theology, point to the agency of color, so that color is not solely a thing seen, but a potential to make things happen. The theology of light, through its attendant emphasis on color, intersected with the later reintroduction of the study of optics into the West via Latin translations of Arabic works that built upon ancient authors, giving rise to the development of theories of perspective, light, and color. This symposium welcomes papers about color from all disciplines. In addition to approaches to color and light in medieval science and art (including the techniques for making colorings; the use of silver, gold, lapis lazuli and gemstones; grisaille and the absence of color), we invite analyses of the economics of color, the lexis of color, the symbolics and meaning(s) of color(s) in social history and literature, and approaches to color in philosophy,  theology, and music (notation, embellishment, use of mode).
Proposals of 300 words or less (in English or French) for a 20-minute paper should be emailed to contact@ims-paris.org no later than 1 December 2012. Each should be accompanied by full contact information, a CV, and a list of audiovisual equipment you require.
Priority will be given to papers that address the French or francophone Middle Ages. Please be aware that the IMS-Paris submissions review process is highly competitive and is carried out on a strictly blind basis. The selection committee will notify applicants of its decision by e-mail by 20 December 2012.
2. Kells Tourism Forum: Winter Lecture Series 2012-2013
25 November 2012 at 2 p.m. outside the Church of Ireland Church, Kells: Dr Peter Harbinson, The High Crosses of Kells.
http://www.meathchronicle.ie/news/roundup/articles/2012/09/27/4012420-monuments-service-opposes-kells-cross-move-over-safety-fears/
 
Further Information:
Kells & District Tourism Forum “Maximising the Tourism Potential of our Heritage Town”
Tel: +353 (0) 46 928 6571 Mob: +353 (0) 85 163 6453
email: info@kellstourismforum.com
web: http://www.kellstourismforum.com

3. A two-day conference on 'Reading the Ancient Near East in Early Modern Europe'. Plenary speakers include Prof. Neil Rhodes (University of St Andrews), Prof. Edith Hall (King's College, London) and Dr Noreen Humble (University of Calgary). This will also include the launch of the new website, 'Reading East: Irish Sources and Resources', at 5.15pm on Thursday 22nd November, an exciting new resource for scholars interested in the rich holdings of Dublin's rare books libraries.
Venue: HII seminar room, UCD and Marsh's Library
Time: 22-23 November 2012.

4. School of English, UCD: Research Seminar series (Wednesdays, 4pm, J208 in the Newman building): early modern speakers
-Dr Stephen O'Neill (NUI Maynooth) on 17th October (title tbc);
-Dr Marina Ansaldo (UCD) on 28th November, speaking on 'War, Love, and the "Storms of Fortune": the Iconography of Fortune and Opportunity in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida'.
For further details, contact: Dr Jane Grogan,
School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin,
Belfield, Dublin 4,Ireland. Tel. 01 716 8310
5.The Warburg Institute’s Annual Programme for 2012/13 is now available and can be downloaded and printed off at: warburg.sas.ac.uk/fileadmin/images/events/AnnualProgramme2012_13.pdf
We have an exciting and varied range of conferences, lectures and seminars in the coming year. Highlights include the following:

Conferences

• 11 January 2013 - Ernst Kitzinger and the Making of Byzantine Art History
• 1 and 2 March 2013 - Philosophy and Medicine in the Islamic World
• 7 and 8 March 2013 - The Afterlife of Ovid
• 21 and 22 June 2013 - Philosophy and Knowledge in the Renaissance - Interpreting Aristotle in the Vernacular

Public lectures

• 15 November 2012 - Florence and Baghdad. Renaissance Art and Arab Science - Hans Belting, Emeritus Professor, Institute of Art History and Media Theory, College of Design Karlsruhe – organised in association with the Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe
• 21 November 2012 - Word and Image in the Philosophy of Hobbes - Quentin Skinner, Barber Beaumont Professor of the Humanities, Queen Mary, University of London
• 30 January 2013 - The Pandects of the Jews: Renaissance Scholars and the Path to the Talmud - Anthony T. Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History, Princeton University

Further details about all our events are available on our website at: http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/nc/events/ In order to attend Institute conferences attendees need to register and pay online in advance (full details are available on the events webpage as above). Admission to public lectures and seminars is free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis and no pre-registration is required (except where otherwise indicated in the Annual Programme).

6. Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France Conference,
6-7 June 2013, University College London
CALL FOR PAPERS

• In what social and cultural milieus were francophone texts composed and disseminated outside France during the Middle Ages?
• Is there a transnational medieval francophone literary culture, and how does it vary?
• Does the focus and form of medieval francophone literary texts change as they migrate?
• Do sites of medieval production and transmission outside France influence literary traditions within France?
• Does literary French imply a cultural identity during the Middle Ages? If so, is this necessarily associated with France?
• Should medieval cultural identities be reconceived as mobile, produced by movement as much as by place?
• What is the cultural freight of non-standard and hybrid forms of French during the Middle Ages?
• How do non-standard forms influence our understanding of what ‘Medieval French’ is?
• What are the implications for literary history?

Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside Franceis a major AHRC-funded research project, based at KCL, UCL and Cambridge University, which aims to investigate how francophone literary texts travelled across Europe and beyond. Celebrating UCL’s particular strengths in northern and eastern European cultures, the June 2013 conference is intended to highlight the northern transmission of French-language texts, while also making wider connections. The plenary speakers will be Prof. Keith Busby (University of Wisconsin) and Dr Frank Brandsma (Utrecht University). We will be happy to consider papers that discuss the project’s key texts and manuscripts, but hope also to see the project’s questions addressed much more widely.
Please email proposals, of approx. 250 words, to Dr Dirk Schoenaers (d.schoenaers@ucl.ac.uk) by 1 December, 2012. Papers should be approximately 20 minutes long, and may be delivered in English or French.
We plan to publish a volume of papers from this and the second project conference, which will be held at King’s College, Cambridge, 10-12 April 2014.
Members of the Research Team:

7. Oxford Medieval French Seminars 2012-2013

Meetings take place on alternate Tuesdays at the Maison Francaise d'Oxford (Norham Road, Oxford), with refreshments from 5pm. Papers start at 5.15pm, followed by discussion, with the seminar concluding by 6.30pm. All are most welcome.

9 Oct
New research showcase: a workshop led by current graduate students

23 Oct
Emma Campbell (University of Warwick)
'”Living on” in Chrétien de Troyes' Cligès’

6 Nov
Tom Rainsford (Faculty of Medieval & Modern Languages, Oxford) "Orality and Rhythm in the Medieval French Octosyllable"

20 Nov
Jessica Stoll (King's College London)
'Translation and Recognition in the Roman de Perceforest'

II. Prizes/Grants/Bursaries

1. Society for Renaissance Studies 2013

1. Society for Renaissance Studies 2012
SRS biennial book prize. The judging panel, headed by Professor Andrew Hadfield, will announce the winner at our Manchester conference in July. The next deadline for this competition will be January 2014 and Council encourages all SRS members who have monographs due for publication in the intervening period to consider submitting them.
Undergraduate Essay Prize organized by Dr Sarah Alyn Stacey (submission date tbc).
Schools' Essay Prize organized by our Schools' representative, Harriet Knight (deadline tbc).
We are also delighted to announce our new Museums, Archives and Libraries Bursary Scheme under the direction of Dr Caroline Campbell. The scheme is designed to provide financial assistance to curators, librarians, and archivists undertaking individual research projects leading to publication, exhibition or display. Deadline for applications tbc.
Details of all these competitions are available on the relevant pages of the Society’s website: www.rensoc.org.uk/

2. Sixteenth Century Society and Conference - Newberry Library Short Term Fellowship

This fellowship for PhD candidates or post-doctoral scholars offers up to one month’s support for work in residence at the Newberry. Preference will be given to those working in the early modern era, broadly defined (ca. 1450 – ca. 1660). Applicants must be members of the SCSC at the time of application and through the period of the fellowship.

Short-term fellowships are generally restricted to post-doctoral scholars, PhD candidates, or holders of other terminal degrees who live and work outside of the Chicago area and who have a specific need for Newberry collection. These fellowships require residency at the Newberry, unless otherwise noted. Some fellowships are open to other categories of applicants and Chicago residents. Please read the following descriptions carefully for the eligibility restrictions on particular fellowships and refer to Eligibility and Application Information. The tenure of short-term fellowships is one continuous month, unless otherwise noted. Scholars who have an extensive need for use of the collections may request two months of fellowship support. The award is $2,000 per month for most short-term fellowships.

Applications must be received electronically by January 15, 2013, 11:59 pm C.S.T. This includes the applicant’s own materials and all letters of reference.

For information on how to apply for the SCSC-Newberry Library Short Term Fellowship, please visit the Newberry Library Fellowship page at: http://www.newberry.org/apply-fellowships

III. Other

TCD Library’s Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections has recently launched a blog, Tales of Mystery and Pagination
The blog discusses items of interest from the library’s collections, as well as events in the wider world relating to books, libraries, and reading. We also hope it will demystify the work that we do in the Department of Early Printed Books and suggest ways in which our collections can be used in teaching and learning.The blog can be found at http://mysterypagination.wordpress.com
Please check it out!
Kathryn Norris, Assistant Librarian, Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections, Trinity College Library, College Street, Dublin 2