Middle Ages in the Modern World (MAMO) 2015

Following the success of MAMO 2013, held at St Andrews last year, we are proud to announce that a follow-up conference will be held from Monday 29 June to Thursday 2 July 2015 at the University of Lincoln. It will also be held in conjunction with Lincoln’s celebrations of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, where Lincoln’s own copy of the Magna Carta will have returned and be back proudly on display in the castle.

As the title suggests, MAMO aims to explore the continued return to, and relevance of, the Middle Ages in the modern world, and why the period continues to attract audiences and scholars. Particularly, its interdisciplinary focus is designed to explore a range of areas, from popular culture to public history, from science to advertising, and even legal frameworks and political rhetoric. Given the popularity of medievalism as a growing discipline, and given the fantastic reception of the last conference, we are expecting a wide audience from a range of fields and disciplines including History, Literature, Film & Television, Video Games, Performing Arts, Drama, Languages, Museum Curation and more besides.

Specific themes include, but are by no means limited to:

• The reception of the Middle Ages in the arts, music, film, politics & popular culture 
• The significance and relevance of Magna Carta to the modern world 
• Medievalism and Orientalism 
• Translating and interpreting medieval texts 
• Re-enactment and revival 
• Fantasy and the Middle Ages 
• Eco-Medievalism and postmodern approaches to medieval studies 
• The Middle Ages in Film, Television, Comic Books and Graphic Novels 
• Medievalism and video games 
• Science and the Middle Ages 
• The Middle Ages and documentary programming 

In this first round we welcome both proposals for complete panels as well as individual proposals for papers. There’s also a PDF version for download, so please do spread the word to your networks; click here for the Call for Papers poster.

For individual papers, abstracts of 250-300 words should be sent to themamoconference@gmail.com, by 15 September 2014.

We will be keeping all of the details and information up to date through the Facebook group, through the Twitter hashtag #MAMO2015 or on our conference website, located at www.themamo.org. Details of keynotes will be released shortly, and later in the year we will post further information on accommodation, registration and other details. For specific enquiries or details about the conference themes and logistics please contact Andrew Elliott directly on aelliott@lincoln.ac.uk.

Panel proposals should include abstracts, names and contact details of presenters and a short (c. 200 word) description of the panel itself with the organiser’s contact details; these should be sent by Sunday 31 August 2014.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Religious Ideas and Scientific Thought

McGill Centre for Research on Religion Graduate Conference
Religious Ideas and Scientific Thought

When: September 25-26, 2015
Where: McGill University, Montreal – QC, Canada

The conference seeks to explore the interaction between religious ideas and scientific thought. What role and influence have religious views had in the history of scientific thought? What are the theological and philosophical aspects of the study of nature? How has the relationship between science and religion been portrayed in historical, literary and philosophical writings? We invite paper proposals exploring any of the following themes:

· History of science and religion
· Theological and philosophical aspects of natural sciences
· Theology and philosophy of science
· Science and philosophy
· Esoteric philosophies of nature and 'occult sciences'
· Sociology of scientific knowledge
· Science and religion in literature
· Cosmology and metaphysics

KEYNOTE: Dr. Ian Stewart (King's College, Halifax, NS)

Abstracts deadline: July 3rd, 2015
Submission guidelines and info: creor2015.wordpress.com
For further information email: creor2015@gmail.com

Recent European (Re)translations of Shakespeare

29 June - 2 July 2015, University of Worcester, UK
A seminar at the ESRA conference

Conveners: Lily Kahn (UCL),  l.kahn@ucl.ac.uk
Márta Minier (University of South Wales), marta.minier@southwales.ac.uk
Martin Regal (University of Iceland), martinregal@gmail.com

The longevity of Shakespearean translations is generally somewhat limited. Although some canonical translations have a relatively long life as literary works and/or in the theatre, it is common for Shakespeare to be retranslated periodically. Within Europe there is a widespread phenomenon of systematic series of (re)translations of Shakespeare’s complete works; in recent years this trend has given rise to the WSOY Finnish Complete Works, completed in 2013, the new Polish Complete Works, the New Romanian Shakespeare series, and others. In addition, specially commissioned individual retranslations designed for specific productions are a common feature of the European theatrical scene. Examination of the rich variety of issues surrounding this phenomenon of retranslation in the European context can provide valuable insights into the theory and practice of Shakespearean interpretation.

This proposed seminar will bring together scholars, editors and practising translators engaged in the production and analysis of Shakespearean translations. It will also be open to dramaturges or directors who would like to comment on working with new or revised (that is, dramaturgically adjusted) translations. Proposals will be welcomed on topics including but not limited to the following:

• factors galvanising the decision to produce new translations, including philological and interpretive shifts, changing conventions of theatre, and the emergence of new performance and directorial styles; 
• the collaborative framework behind commissioned translations and the relationship between the translator and other stakeholders;
• societal perceptions of the modern Shakespeare translator; trends in the selection of different translation strategies (e.g. foreignising vs. domesticating);
• comparisons between alternative translations of the ‘same’ play (both synchronically and diachronically);
• different translations of a single play by the same translator; the use of updated and otherwise modified versions of existing translations in new productions instead of commissioning completely original work; 
• the critical reception of new translations both in textual format and in theatrical contexts.

We will consider papers focusing on academic translation series not necessarily intended for performance in addition to those specifically commissioned or designed for theatrical use that may not be as suitable for employment in educational contexts.

Please submit an abstract (200-300 words) and a brief biography (150 words) by 1 December 2014 to all seminar conveners. All participants will be notified about the acceptance of their proposals by 1 March 2015. The deadline for submitting the completed seminar papers (3,000 words) is 1 May 2015.



Conference Announcement

The traffic of Shakespeare’s stage invites spectators and readers to travel to different places, imagined and real. Italian and French cities – Verona, Venice, Mantua, Padua, Florence, Milan, Rome, Navarre, Roussillon, Paris, Marseilles – set the scenes of his plays. Rome, Athens, Ephesus and Troy occasion travels in time. On Britain’s map – divided in King Lear – other places are mapped: Scotland, England, Windsor, the Forest of Arden, York. Viola arrives on ‘the shore’ of Illyria while, in The Winter’s Tale, the action shifts between Bohemia and Sicilia. Othello sets up camp in Cyprus and Don Pedro returns, victorious, to Messina. Within the confines of one play, Hamlet, too, maps Europe: from Elsinore, Laertes requests permission to return to France; the Mousetrap is set in Vienna, which will become the setting for Measure for Measure; Hamlet is sent to England, and on his way encounters the Norwegian army marching across Denmark on its way to Poland.

Time and geographical travels map a whole continent and its social, political and cultural exchanges – a feature that Shakespeare’s plays shared with his early modern contemporaries as much as they have with his readers, editors, translators, spectators, film adaptors and critical commentators since.

The 2015 ESRA conference continues the long-standing dialogue between Shakespeare’s Europe and Europe’s Shakespeare(s). It asks scholars to take a look at the wider playwriting context of the early modern period and the European reception of Shakespeare as a subject that has been continuously developing, not least due to Europe’s several recent remappings. Twenty-five years since the first events that focused exclusively on European Shakespeares (Antwerp 1990) and Shakespeare in the New Europe (Sofia 1992), ESRA 2015 invites a look back at 425 years of European Shakespeare and towards a vigorous debate on what Shakespeare means for Europe today, as well as on ESRA’s place in Shakespeare Studies, European and beyond.

Workshop at the 5th World Congress on Universal Logic: The Idea of Logic, Historical Perspectives

Workshop at the 5th World Congress on Universal Logic, 25-30 June 2015 - Istanbul, Turkey

Workshop organized by: Juliette Lemaire (CNRS, Centre Léon Robin, France) & Amirouche Moktefi (Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia)

Logic as a discipline is not characterized by a stable scope throughout its history. True enough, the historical influence of Aristotelian logic over the centuries is something of a common denominator in Western philosophy. But Aristotelian logic certainly was not alone (see stoic logic for instance), not to mention non-western logics. Even within the Aristotelian tradition there is significant variability. Furthermore, as is well known, in the 19th century logic as a discipline underwent a radical modification, with the development of mathematical logic. The current situation is of logic having strong connections with multiple disciplines - philosophy, mathematics, computer science, linguistics - which again illustrates its multifaceted nature. 

The changing scope of logic through its history also has important philosophical implications: is there such a thing as the essence of logic, permeating all these different developments? Or is the unity of logic as a discipline an illusion? What can the study of the changing scope of logic through its history tell us about the nature of logic as such? What do the different languages used for logical inquiry - regimented natural languages, diagrams, logical formalisms - mean for the practices and results obtained?

This workshop will focus on both the diversity and the unity of logic through time. Topics may include:

• Historical analyses on what specific logicians or logic traditions considered to be the nature and scope of logic. 
• Historical analyses illustrating differences in scope and techniques with respect to the current conception of logic, but also suggesting points of contact and commonalities between these past traditions and current developments 
• Historical and philosophical discussions on the place of logic among the sciences and its applications/relations with other disciplines, now and then. 
• Discussions of the logical monism vs. logical pluralism issue in view of the historical diversity/unity of logic over time 
• General philosophical reflections on what (if anything) the diversity of scope and practice in the history of logic can tell us about the nature of logic and the role of universal logic as such. 

Abstracts (500 words maximum) should be sent via e-mail before DECEMBER 1ST, 2014 to:

juliette.lemaire@paris-sorbonne.fr [1]
and/or
moktefi@unistra.fr [2]

Notification of acceptance: December 15th, 2014
More information on the congress is available at:
http://www.uni-log.org/enter-istanbul [3]


Links:
------
[1] mailto:juliette.lemaire@paris-sorbonne.fr
[2] mailto:moktefi@unistra.fr
[3] http://www.uni-log.org/enter-istanbul

NEW POSITION: University Lecturer in English Literature between 1500-1700, University of Glasgow

Location: University of Glasgow - College of Arts
Salary: £33,242 to £37,394
Hours: Part Time
Contract Type: Contract / Temporary

Placed on: 18th June 2015
Closes: 30th June 2015
Job Ref: 010762

Job Purpose

To make an active and high level contribution in the School of Critical Studies in the College of Arts to teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the English Literature subject area with a focus on the Early Modern period.

This is a fixed-term, 0.6 fte post from 1st September 2015 to 30th June 2016.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

1. To contribute to the planning, organisation and delivery of undergraduate & postgraduate teaching within the subject area as appropriate to experience. 
2. To participate fully in the assessment process, using a variety of methods and techniques and provide effective, timely and appropriate feedback to students to support their learning.
3. To supervise individual student projects, including dissertations, and assist with difficulties e.g. learning support/problems, and to contribute to the development of appropriate teaching materials to ensure content and methods of delivery meet learning objectives.
4. To supervise practical work, advising on skills, methods and techniques to assist the transfer of knowledge.
5. To undertake administration as reasonably requested by the Head of Subject and in accordance with a fair distribution of the workload.
6. To engage in professional development activities as appropriate. 
7. Other appropriate duties as assigned by Head of Subject.

Standard Terms & Conditions

Salary will be on the University’s Research and Teaching Grade, level 7, £33,242 - £37,394 per annum.

This is a fixed-term, 0.6 fte post from 1st September 2015 to 30th June 2016.

New entrants to the University will be required to serve a probationary period of 6 months.

The successful applicant will be eligible to join the Universities' Superannuation Scheme. Further information regarding the scheme is available from the Superannuation Officer, who is also prepared to advise on questions relating to the transfer of Superannuation benefits.

All research and related activities, including grants, donations, clinical trials, contract research, consultancy and commercialisation are required to be managed through the University’s relevant processes (e.g. contractual and financial), in accordance with the University Court’s policies.

Interviews will be held on 8th July 2015

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ATW322/university-teacher-in-english-literature-between-1500-1700-part-time

Job opportunity: Research Associate (3 years) for The Thomas Nashe Project, at Newcastle University

Applications are invited for the post of Research Associate to work at Newcastle University on The Thomas Nashe Project, funded by the AHRC. This is an ambitious programme of scholarly editing, contracted by Oxford University Press. A unique feature of the project is the importance we attach to the performance potential of Nashe's writing, both his prose fiction and his sole-authored play 'Summers Last Will and Testament', and thus to the relationship between performed prose and drama.

You will be expected to prepare texts for the editorial team with Professor Jennifer Richards and Professor Joseph Black, and also to edit one of Nashe’s prose writings, which will be published by OUP. You will be expected to maintain the project website, and to support dissemination activities. The successful applicant will be part of a nine-strong editorial team and will also work alongside our partners: The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, The Globe Theatre, London, Norfolk Museums, The Old Palace School, Croydon and King Edward VI School, Stratford.

You will work under the direction of Professor Jennifer Richards, based at Newcastle University in the School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics, and liaise with the general editors: Professor Joseph Black, Professor Andrew Hadfield, and Professor Cathy Shrank.

You will have completed a PhD in English Literature (1500-1700), and be able to demonstrate expertise in prose writing and/or the history of print. It is also essential that you have expertise in textual and bibliographical studies as well as a proven ability to work to a high level of accuracy. You will be expected to have a record of relevant academic publication and experience of working with archives. A working knowledge of Latin is desirable. Experience of liaising, engaging and communicating with both academic and non-academic audiences are also desirable.

The position is full time and is tenable for 36 months from 1 October 2015

Salary: £28,395 - £29,552

The deadline for applications is July 10th,

Informal enquiries can be made to the Professor Jennifer Richards, tel: 0191 222 7754, e-mail: Jennifer.Richards@ncl.ac.uk. Furtherinformation, including on how to apply, can be found on the university website: https://vacancies.ncl.ac.uk/LoginV2.aspx

Spenser Society Conference: The Place of Spenser / Spenser’s Places

The Fifth International Spenser Society Conference

Dublin, 18-20 June 2015

The International Spenser Society invites proposals for their next International Conference, to be held in Dublin, Ireland. The conference will address Spenser’s places – domestic, urban, global, historical, colonial, rhetorical, geopolitical, etc. – but also the place of Spenser in Renaissance studies, in the literary tradition, in Britain, in Ireland, in the literary and political cultures of his own moment.

Additionally, a series of programmed focus panels will offer opportunities for discussion of recent important initiatives and directions in Spenser studies: editing; biography; style; Ireland; philosophy and religion; teaching; and digital approaches.

We welcome abstracts from Spenser scholars and Renaissance scholars, graduate students and faculty, for papers that address Spenser’s historical, cultural and literary environments. These include the places and spaces in which he worked and the places and positions through which we approach that work.

The conference will take place in historic Dublin Castle (http://www.dublincastle.ie/) in the heart of the city, with accommodation available in local hotels. It follows the success of four previous ISS conferences, at Princeton (1990), Yale (1996), Cambridge (2001), and Toronto (2006).

An optional bus tour to Kilcolman castle, County Cork and other Spenser-related sites will take place June 21st.

Plenaries: Helen Cooper (University of Oxford), Jeffrey Dolven (Princeton University), Anne Fogarty (University College Dublin)

Confirmed speakers/presiders: Andrew Hadfield, Beth Quitslund, David Lee Miller, Julian Lethbridge, Ayesha Ramachandran, Joseph Loewenstein, Andrew Zurcher, David Wilson-Okamura, Patricia Palmer, Willy Maley, Susannah Brietz Monta, Kevin De Ornellas

Abstracts should be submitted directly to the conference website: www.spenser2015.com

The closing date for submissions is 15 September 2014

Suggested topics might include (but are not restricted to) the following:

• The reception of Spenser’s poetry
• Spenser among the poets
• Spenser and political writing
• Digital Spenser
• Spenser and the Sidneys
• Spenser’s place in Renaissance studies
• Spenser’s Europe
• Spenser’s place in Irish studies
• Spenser’s social networks
• Spenser and the politics of space
• Spenser’s imaginative spaces
• Spenser and early modern Dublin
• Editing Spenser
• Spenser and early modern London
• Spenser in Munster
• Spenser and Shakespeare
• Spenser and Raleigh
• Spenser’s Atlantic world
• Spenser, history and historiography
• Spenser and archaeology
• Material Spenser/Spenser’s materials
• Structural/topomorphic approaches
• Spenser’s style
• Religion and philosophy
• Spenser’s Books
• Teaching Spenser

We also invite proposals for poster-board demonstrations of relevant digital and other projects.

Conference Organisers:

Jane Grogan (University College Dublin), Andrew King (University College Cork), Thomas Herron (East Carolina University)

Sponsored by the International Spenser Society

http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenseronline/iss/

Meta-Play: Early Modern Drama and Metatheatre

Meta-Play: Early Modern Drama and Metatheatre

University of Kent
13-14 June 2015

Saturday 13 June
10.30-11.00: Registration

11.00-12.00: Keynote Lecture Professor Robert Shaughnessy (University of Kent)

12.00-1.30: Panel 1

• Contemporary Practice at Shakespeare’s Globe and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
• 'Then draw the model': theatre architecture as metatheatre in Elizabethan/Jacobean performance spaces- Ildiko Solti (Independent Scholar)
• Across the Ages: Child Players and Reconstruction of Original Practice – Mark Hamilton (Regent’s University London)
• Meta-play and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse – Will Tosh (Shakespeare’s Globe)

2.30-4.30: Panel 2

Embodying Metatheatre: Now and Then

• Gesture and social cognition in Shakespeare’s theatre - Darren Tunstall (Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey)
• Matter-Theatre: Cymbeline’s Rhetoric and Conspicuous Construction – Callan Davies (Exeter)
• Levels of communication in a Norwegian A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Lars Harald Maagerø (King’s)
• Touching the other in Cheek by Jowl’s Measure for Measure – Pascale Aebischer (Exeter)

4.45-6.15: Performance Workshop

Directed by Emma Whipday (Oxford), including Roundtable Discussion

Sunday 14 June
9.45-11.15: Panel 3

Theorizing Metatheatre:

• Metatheatre Via Comedy and Tragedy: Comedy and Tragedy Via Metatheatre - John Kerr (Minnesota)
• Are Shakespeare’s plays always metatheatrical? – Steve Purcell (Warwick)
• All ‘Metatheatre’ is Not Created Equal: The Knight of the Burning Pestle, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the Navigation of the Spectrum of Dramatic Representation - Nathaniel C. Leonard (Westminster College, Missouri)

11.30-1.00: Panel 4

Social Life, Social Spaces

• This is the night that I must play my part’: Metatheatricality as a Trope for The Socially Corrective Power of Theatre in Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603) - Iman Sheeha (Warwick)
• Playing with(in) London spaces: new meanings of metatheatre behind the dramatic success of the Restoration libertine – Gabriella Infante (King’s)
• Pleasing Fantasies: Metatheatre as Political Fiction in Othello – Ben Morgan (Oxford)

2.00-3.30: Panel 5

Engaging Audiences

• ‘A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here’: some uses of metatheatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Trevor R Griffiths (Exeter)
• ‘A frightful pleasure’: metadrama, malcontents, attraction and repulsion in The Changeling’ – Jan Doorly (King’s)
• “So Much For My Happy Ending”: Avoiding The Happy Ending in Twelfth Night - Mary Way (Kent)

3.45-4.45: Performing Gender Practitioner Panel

Will Tosh (Shakespeare’s Globe)
Kirsty Bushell (RSC)
Jimmy Tucker (Propeller)

4.45-5.45: Keynote Speaker: Dr Bridget Escolme (Queen Mary, University of London)

Register at

http://store.kent.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&deptid=26&catid=98&prodvarid=100

For questions please email s.dustagheer-463@kent.ac.uk and h.r.newman@kent.ac.uk

International Research Symposium: Hearing the Voice, Hearing the Soul

5th June 2015, 9.30am-6.30pm at Warwick University, the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS), Millburn House, Millburn Hill Road, Coventry

Symposium theme
Just as music has fascinated scholars in the Western world continuously for thousands of years, so time and again they have felt the need to explain its power. During the Renaissance a revival of interest for ancient theories about the power of music began. Many philosophers, humanists and music theorists writing about music found themselves caught in the Plato-Aristotle controversy. They had to make a choice between two radically different theories of the constitution of the human soul: a Platonic one, originating from the Timaeus, which stated that music has a great influence on the human soul because they are somehow similar, and an Aristotelian one, originating from On the Soul, which did not postulate any special relationship between music and the soul. Privileging one philosophical model over the other brought along entirely different beliefs about the nature of music, what it does, or what it should do. The body of doctrine around these two sources, combined with Christian ideas about music and the soul and all kinds of medical and music-theoretical ideas was pervasive till the beginning of the seventeenth century. And yet, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, to learn about music’s power meant turning not to these ancient sources and their reception, but to works on the soul such as Descartes Passions of the Soul and Hobbes’ Human Nature. The purpose of this symposium is to track and to interrogate the nature, life span, and eventual radical transformation and/or demise of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance conceptions of the belief in music’s deep connections with human life.

Please note that registration is open for the following symposium.

Delegates may view the programme and register here 

Queries: j.w.prins@warwick.ac.uk

The conference is part-funded by the Royal Music Association (RMA), and is supported by the University of Warwick’s Humanities Research Centre (HRC), Institute of Advanced Study (IAS), and Centre for the Study of the Renaissance (CSR).

Jacomien Prins
IAS Global Research Fellow
Centre for the Study of the Renaissance (CSR)
University of Warwick, IAS, Millburn House
Coventry CV4 7HS
United Kingdom

e.: j.w.prins@warwick.ac.uk
w.: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/about_us/centrestaff/researchfellows/prins/

Echoes of an invisible world:
http://www.brill.com/products/book/echoes-invisible-world