Cambridge University: Authority and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles 17-19 July, 2010. | cfp.english.upenn.edu

Authority and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles
Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium (CICS)
17-19 July 2010, University of Cambridge

The second biennial Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium (CICS) follows the success of our inaugural proceedings held at Cambridge in 2008. The theme for CICS 2010 is Authority and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles, which will be debated over the three days during open sessions of three twenty-five minute papers, alternating with longer keynote addresses. Selected papers will be published in a volume bearing the same title within two years of the conference. The 2008 inaugural proceedings appeared in The Medieval Chronicle, vols VI (2009) and VII (2010, forthcoming).

The new symposium will comprise keynote addresses, panel discussions, a tour of Cambridge College Libraries, formal conference dinner, publications fair and wine reception. Refreshments and lunches are provided for conference guests and college accommodation is available. As on the previous occasion, a limited number of small bursaries will be awarded.

We invite proposals from scholars in the disciplines including but not limited to English, History, Literature, Philosophy, and Religious Studies.

Topics for discussion could include:
Kingship and Queenship, Earls and Ealdormen;
Abbots and abbesses, monks and nuns;
Ecclesiastical and secular authorities;
Institutional authority;
National authority and identity;
Masculine, feminine, and neuter: linguistic authority;
Auctors and Auctoritas;
Textual authority, witnesses, and scribal traditions;
Kinglists and genealogies;
Nuns in the scriptorium;
Female voices, male scribes – authority and authorship;
Gender and legal practices;
Moral authority;
Ritual and authority;
Establishment of authority: feuds, force, and warfare;
The construction of gender in chronicles.

Abstract of approximately 250 words should be sent to CambridgeICS@gmail.com, due no later than 15 December 2009. In special cases, papers will be commissioned for publication without presentation at the conference contact the organisers for more information.Please check the website for regular updates http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/diary/cics/index.html

via Cambridge University: Authority and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Chronicles 17-19 July, 2010. | cfp.english.upenn.edu.

UT Dallas Emerging Media and Communication EMAC Program – The University of Texas at Dallas – EMAC Blog

[That's right, this has nothing to do with early modern women, but just in case you are also a DH person . . .]

The University of Texas at Dallas seeks applications for a postdoctoral fellow in Digital Humanities in support of its research programs in Arts and Humanities, including but not limited to digital content design and development, game design, translation studies, and the cultural impact of developments in science and technology. The fellow will be affiliated with the Center for Values in Medicine, Science and Technology.The ideal candidate will hold a PhD in a humanities-related field, have a commitment to working in an interdisciplinary humanities environment, be familiar with the most recent work in the Digital Humanities, and have strong grant writing skills and a basic understanding of project management. The appointment will begin either January 2010 or June 2010, and last through August 2011.

The primary responsibility of the fellow will be in helping faculty to organize and improve existing projects as well as develop future research. While expertise in a particular coding or scripting language PHP, Ruby on Rails, CSS, XML, SQL databases is not a prerequisite, basic literacy and familiarity with these tools is necessary.Curriculum vitae; a letter of application with a summary of research history, research interests, descriptions of educational background andteaching experience, and links to relevant projects; and at least three letters of reference should be submitted via the online application form.

Please contact David Parry dparry@utdallas.edu or Jessica C. Murphy jessica.c.murphy@utdallas.edu with questions.Please see the website for full job posting and application instructions.The School of Arts and Humanities at University of Texas at Dallas.

via UT Dallas Emerging Media and Communication EMAC Program – The University of Texas at Dallas – EMAC Blog.

Writers in Love 3/1/10; 11/11-14/10 | cfp.english.upenn.edu

[see call for full information]

Please send your 200-word proposal by e-mail to the area chair:Bruce WyseDepartment of English and Film StudiesWilfred Laurier UniversityWaterloo, OntarioCanadaEmail: bwyse@wlu.ca or bwyse@rogers.com email submissions preferredPanel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory.

via Writers in Love 3/1/10; 11/11-14/10 | cfp.english.upenn.edu.

National Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference Call for Papers – USF Tampa – March 25 – 27, 2010 | cfp.english.upenn.edu

National Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference Call for PapersUniversity of South Florida – Tampa, Fl.March 25-27, 2010

Conference Theme: “Anything But Silence: Politics, Poetry, and Pedagogy””Being invisible and without substance, a disembodied voice, as it were, what else could I do?What else but try to tell you what was really happening when your eyes were looking through?And it is this which frightens me:Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?” — Ralph Ellison, Invisible ManAll too often, hegemony silences marginalized groups, thus taking away their agency. However, pockets of conflict always seem to surface, voicing resistance and creating an alternate viewpoint. The “Anything but Silent” conference seeks to examine these voices of resistance, traversing all disciplines and topics.We are seeking papers that address cultural or social impositions of silence and that examine how those impositions are rejected or resisted. Conference presenters are encouraged to investigate the various intersections of “silence” within their specific areas of study. For instance, conference presenters could examine the politics, poetry and/or pedagogy within literature, film studies, education/pedagogy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology, medicine, history, American studies, political science, international studies, environmentalism and sustainability, or religious studies.

Please send 250-500 word abstracts to usf.egsa.conference@gmail.com by December 15, 2009.Visit the conference website for registration details and the complete conference program: http://sites.google.com/site/usfconference2010/Hosted by the USF English Graduate Student Association at the University of South Florida

via National Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference Call for Papers – USF Tampa – March 25 – 27, 2010 | cfp.english.upenn.edu.

Re-defining art: Artistic genres in literary works. | cfp.english.upenn.edu

This seminar seeks to identify how and why contemporary literature uses visual works of art murals, montages, sculpture, paintings, photography, etc as a means of interpretation. How does the translation of a visual piece into textual form affect both the verbal and the visual expressions? With a particular interest in inter-arts encounters that are cross-cultural in nature, we ask: How does the textualisation of art affect its reception? Does using art in crosscultural works add to or diminish its value as a cultural representation? Does textualization permit the representation of more than one culture? Does reinterpretation involve the loss of an essence, or a change? What is the role of the reader?

via Re-defining art: Artistic genres in literary works. | cfp.english.upenn.edu.

Literary London 2010, 7-9 July 2010 | cfp.english.upenn.edu

[see page for full CFP]

Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers which consider any period or genre of literature about, set in, inspired by, or alluding to central and suburban London and its environs, from the city’s roots in pre-classical times to its imagined futures. While the main focus of the conference will be on literary texts, we actively encourage interdisciplinary contributions relating film, architecture, geography, theories of urban space, etc., to literary representations of London. Papers from postgraduate students are especially welcome for consideration. While proposals on all topics are encouraged, this year we would especially welcome paper or panel proposals on the theme of ‘centrality’. Topics that might be addressed are: Representations of London’s position as a literary, cultural, social, and economic centre Literature and power, political and cultural Court literature and parliamentary literature Money and writing The relationship between the metropolis and its others The centre as a zone of sociability Literary clubs and cabals City-centre literature and inner-city literature ‘when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford’ ‘London is the place to be’ ‘things fall apart: the centre cannot hold’

Please send proposals for 20-minute papers by Wednesday 31 March 2010 to: contact@literarylondon.org. Your proposal should contain your name, your institutional affiliation, your email and postal addresses, the title of your proposed paper, and an abstract of no more than 300 words.Proposals for comprised panels of three speakers are also welcome. Proposals for panels should contain the proposer’s name, institutional affiliation, email and postal addresses, and an abstract of the panel of no more than 500 words. You must also include a name, institutional affiliation, email address, and paper title for each of your speakers. You do not need to provide separate abstracts for each of the papers.Literary London Organising Committee: Dr Lawrence Phillips University of Northampton and Dr Brycchan Carey Kingston University, London.Please direct any queries related to this conference to: contact@literarylondon.org.The Annual Literary London conference is mutually supportive of the e-journal of the same name.Web site: www.literarylondon.org

via Literary London 2010, 7-9 July 2010 | cfp.english.upenn.edu.

English Women Writers to 1800

My graduate class next semester will be English Women Writers to 1800. Early modern women writers engaged in a dangerous craft—dangerous because the very act of writing for an audience (however small) could endanger one’s reputation. Yet, as the work of twentieth century feminist critics has shown, there were a good number of women writing in English before 1800 (published and unpublished alike). In this class we will read a sampling of these women writers with special attention to how they responded to, shaped, and thought about the political, historical, and social moment in which they lived. We will be interested not only in examining these writers’ milieus, but also in engaging with the interdisciplinary study of early English women writers since the late twentieth century.

The texts:

The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English Volume 1. 3rd Edition. Edited by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-393-93013-9
Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism: A Norton Reader Edited by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-393-92790-0
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, Edited by Catherine Gallagher, Bedford Cultural Edition, 2000. ISBN: 978-0-312-10813-7

I was thinking about doing individual editions of everything I wanted to look at, but then thought it might be more fun to work from an anthology. We’ll see . . .

 

Beyond Don Juan: Rethinking Iberian Masculinities | cfp.english.upenn.edu

The Iberian Peninsula has produced some of the most compelling and enduring male archetypes in Western literature and culture, including eponymous characters such as El Cid and Don Juan, and iconic personages such as the bullfighter or the hidalgo, among others. Indeed, both Spain and Hispanic cultures have long been associated with the archetypal notions of machismo and the macho that originated in medieval Iberia.Nevertheless, constructions of masculinity in the Iberian Peninsula and in Iberian cultures as they developed beyond the Peninsula go far beyond these figures. In the Catalan-speaking territories, in Galicia, in the Basque Country, as well as in the Americas, other styles and figurations of masculinity exist below the radar of the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque texts that gave rise to this gallery of characters. And perhaps in Spanish language literature, Don Quixote can already be said to queer traditional images of the macho bravado, following on the heels of his Catalan counterpart, Tirant lo Blanc.

via Beyond Don Juan: Rethinking Iberian Masculinities | cfp.english.upenn.edu.

“Limits of the Human” | cfp.english.upenn.edu

The Early Modern Center of the University of California at Santa Barbara UCSB invites paper proposals for our 2010 Winter Conference, “Limits of the Human.” The conference will take place on Friday March 5 2010 at UCSB. We hope to include papers from a range of critical and disciplinary contexts, covering the period 1500-1800.Cloning, organ farms, the completion of the Human Genome Project, recombinant DNA, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, and other manufactured life forms, all suggest that, depending on one’s point of view, the twenty-first century opens onto a horizon of radical possibilities for the future or cataclysmic end of what is meant by “human.” UCSB's Early Modern Center Winter Conference, “Limits of the Human,” turns back to the early modern period to ask: before we were posthuman, how did we become human? How and why do early modern representations of hybrids, animals, monsters, anomalies, race, gender, and automata define what is human and separate out what is not? How do those things classified as non-human construct, reflect, or refract humanness? What innovations in technology, botany, labor equipment, law, and mathematical notation helped to calcify the boundaries of the human? How did Cartesian, Newtonian and Leibnizian systems of the world shape the conditions that Michel Foucault argues, “made it possible for the figure of man to appear”? In what ways were the “limits” always permeable, and how did they invite transgression and mutation? The EMC's one-day interdisciplinary conference provides a forum to explore early modern literary and cultural responses to the issues and questions that helped delineate the limits of being human.We invite papers that will add to our understanding of the limits of the human in the early modern period. Please send abstracts, 300-500 words to emcconference@gmail.com by December 4 2009. Please direct questions to Billy Hall at the above email address.

via “Limits of the Human” | cfp.english.upenn.edu.

CFP: Love and Death in the Renaissance 15/01/10; Leeds 15/05/10 | cfp.english.upenn.edu

We would like to invite proposals for 20 minute papers on the topic of ‘Love and Death’.Long before Freud and the contest between Eros and Thanatos there was, of course, the story of Romeo and Juliet and all its analogues. There was the commonplace that passion could kill, or that, as Shakespeare once put it, ‘desire is death’, and there was another that said that death was to be desired. ‘After so foul a journey,’ George Herbert wrote about life and its passions, ‘death is fair’. Death was the ultimate beloved. In this seminar we would like to consider the peculiar pairings of love and death that so often animate the Renaissance mind. Medical opinion, theology, historical memoirs, and drama are among the many kinds of discourse where love and death are thought to come into contact with one another as a matter of necessity. How did this happen? What was the origin of the mating of love and death? What was its purpose? What were its consequences? We are as eager to hear about how love and death operate together in a single short poem as we are to hear about the impact of Augustinianism on Renaissance philosophy, pictorial representations of Cupid and Psyche, or about the politics of love and death in the Renaissance court. Please send us your proposal, by email, to the following:Niamh Cooney and Jana Pridalova, University of Leeds ennc@leeds.ac.ukJessica Dyson, Lancaster University j.dyson1@lancaster.ac.ukDeadline: 15 January 2010

via CFP: Love and Death in the Renaissance 15/01/10; Leeds 15/05/10 | cfp.english.upenn.edu.