The British Society for the History of Science Singer Prize 2018

The BSHS is delighted to invite submissions for the Singer Prize 2018. The prize, of up to £300, is awarded every two years to the writer of an unpublished essay, based on original research into any aspect of the history of science, technology or medicine.

The prize is intended for younger scholars or recent entrants into the profession. Candidates must be registered for a postgraduate degree or have been awarded such in the two years prior to the closing date. All nationalities are welcome.

Essays must not exceed 8,000 words and should be submitted in English. They should adhere to BJHS guidance to authors in all respects.

The prize may be awarded to the writer of one outstanding essay, or may be awarded to two or more entrants. Publication in the British Journal for the History of Science will be at the discretion of the Editor. Essays under consideration elsewhere or in press are not eligible.

The deadline for submissions is 30 April 2018. Submissions should be emailed to the BSHS Executive Secretary, Lucy Santos, office@bshs.org.uk with ‘Singer entry’ and the author surname in the subject line.

For further information please see http://www.bshs.org.uk/prizes/singer-prize

Charlotte Sleigh
Professor of Science Humanities
University of Kent


A: School of History | Rutherford College | University of Kent | Canterbury CT2 7NX | UK
E: c.l.sleigh@kent.ac.uk
Tw: @KentCHOTS
Bl: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/sciencecomma/
W: http://www.kent.ac.uk/history/staff/profiles/sleigh.html

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Studentship

We invite applications for the following AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Studentship at the University of Kent and National Maritime Museum.

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich, and its networks of support and influence, 1675-1742

Deadline: 7 May 2018, 17:00

Supervisors: Dr Rebekah Higgitt (Senior Lecturer in History of Science, School of History, University of Kent) and Dr Richard Dunn (Senior Curator for the History of Science at the National Maritime Museum)


The Project

We seek applications from outstanding postgraduate students for this collaborative doctoral award, starting in September 2017. This project aims to develop a new approach to the institutional history of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Using the Observatory as a central hub, it proposes to explore the local, national and international networks of astronomy, practical mathematics, navigation, education, print and instrument making that supported its work and developing reputation. It will focus on the period of the first two Astronomers Royal, John Flamsteed and Edmond Halley, aiming to better understand the role, milieu and development of this key institution in its foundational years. This research will draw on work on geographies of knowledge, material culture and book history in order to gain a fuller picture of contexts in which mathematical and instrumental knowledge was developed and used. The project will make use of a range of archival sources and object, book and image collections, especially those of the NMM. The student will have the opportunity to enhance the Museum’s cataloguing and interpretation within public programming and displays, and to feed into the development of plans for the 350th anniversary of the Royal Observatory (2025-26), which forms part of the NMM (collectively, with The Queen’s House and Cutty Sark, known as Royal Museums Greenwich). They will also be able to contribute to Dr Higgitt’s research project, Metropolitan Science: Places, Objects and Cultures of Knowledge and Practice in London, 1600-1800, in partnership with the Science Museum.

Studentship information

The standard tuition fees and stipend (maintenance grant) will be paid by the AHRC to the award holder subject to the eligibility criteria outlined by them. The AHRC stipend for 2018/19 is £14,777 (full-time, pro-rata for part-time) plus an additional stipend of £500 for Collaborative Doctoral Students. The funding is for 3 years (full time) and there is an opportunity to apply for an additional six months of funding from the AHRC’s Student Development Fund, which can (subject to agreement) be used to support appropriate training or a placement based on the student’s individual training needs. The NMM will also provide £1000 per year for three years (subject to agreement) to support the student’s research-related expenses such as travel costs.


To apply:

Applicants should have: a First Class or Upper Second Class Honours degree in an appropriate discipline; a masters degree in an appropriate discipline, although applicants who do not hold a masters degree will be considered if they can demonstrate sustained and relevant experience and meet the criteria outlined in the AHRC guidelines.

Candidates must meet the AHRC's academic criteria and eligibility criteria: AHRC.


To apply please send the following by email as a single document (Word or PDF) to r.higgitt@kent.ac.uk.
  • A cover letter.
  • A current CV, including your academic qualifications to date and anticipated results if you are still studying.
  • Two letters of academic reference to be included with the rest of your application. 


The deadline for applications is 17.00 on Monday 7 May. Shortlisted applicants will be asked to supply a writing sample on a related topic. Interviews will likely be held on 3 July.

For further information please contact Rebekah Higgitt r.higgitt@kent.ac.uk or Richard Dunn RDunn@rmg.co.uk.

https://www.kent.ac.uk/scholarships/search/FN05AHRCNM02

Dr Rebekah Higgitt | Senior Lecturer in History of Science
Centre for the History of the Sciences | School of History
W2.W6 Rutherford College | University of Kent | Canterbury | Kent CT2 7NX
Web: http://www.kent.ac.uk/history/staff/profiles/higgitt.html

Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry Award Scheme 2018

Opening date: 1 March 2018

Closing date for applications: 31 May 2018

The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry invites applications for its Award Scheme for 2018. SHAC offers two types of award: support for research into the history of chemistry or history of alchemy by New Scholars and support for Subject Development of either history of chemistry or history of alchemy. It is expected that applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application by 31 July 2018. The Awards are most suitable for activities to be undertaken in the academic year October 2018–September 2019.

New Scholars Awards are open to post-graduate students (both masters and doctoral students) and those who have obtained a PhD since 1 January 2013. Awards of up to £750 will be made to cover research expenses, including travel, accommodation, subsistence, the reproduction of documents, and library fees. Applications may also include the costs of reproducing images for publication. The Scheme does not fund the purchase of equipment or course fees.
In addition, post-graduate students only may apply for the costs of travel to conferences and accommodation, but only in order to give a paper. The Scheme does not pay conference registration fees.

Subject Development Awards of up to £750 may be made to support activities such as seminars, workshops, colloquia, lecture series, conference sessions, conferences, exhibitions and outreach activities that support either the history of chemistry or history of alchemy as academic subjects.

Please note that activities covered by the Awards do not have to occur in the UK, and that the Awards are open to members of the Society resident both in the UK and elsewhere. Members who have applied to the Scheme in previous years, whether successfully or not, are entitled to make an application in 2018.

Applicants must be members of the Society in good standing at the time of making an application, and, if successful, throughout the period of an award. For more information and application forms, please contact grants@ambix.org. Membership enquiries should be made to newjoiner@ambix.org.

An activity report must be submitted at the end of the Award. This will usually be published in SHAC’s Chemical Intelligence newsletter.
For more information please visit http://www.ambix.org/grants/

Sent on behalf of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry by Dr Anna Simmons, Secretary

CALL FOR PAPERS: 'Artisans of the Surface' 1450-1750

20-21 September 2018,  King's College London

This workshop focuses on the practices of a range of artisans (tailors, barbers, cooks, cheesemakers, gardeners, and agronomists) and their relationships with the fields of meteorology, botany, natural history, medicine, earth sciences, and veterinary medicine. These artisans and their practices shared a set of skills related to the observation and manipulation of human and non-human surfaces. We will explore how, and if, practical knowledge about the surface of things and bodies (and their storage and preservation in relation to specific environmental conditions) led to the concept of nature and matter as composed of layers, and how such a framework contributed to the demise of traditional Galenic and Aristotelian views on nature.

This workshop also aims at getting past the dichotomies between quantitative and qualitative knowledge and between natural philosophy and the arts, and so we intend to broaden the focus to include a set of artisans who have traditionally remained invisible from accounts of this ‘age of the new’. We will explore the many different ways in which ‘modern science’ emerged, the relationships between social and cognitive practices, and the contribution that non-mathematical sciences gave to the mental habits of observing, collecting, experimenting with, and manipulating natural matter.

Confirmed speakers are Emanuele Lugli (York) on tailors, Elaine Leong (MPIWG, Berlin) on domestic health practices, Bradford Bouley (UC Santa Barbara) on butchers, Maria Conforti (La Sapienza) on the surface of the earth, and Carolin Schmiz (EUI) on barber-surgeons. Sandra Cavallo (Royal Holloway) will offer final remarks. We welcome proposals that complement these topics, in particular those that address the relationships between gardening, natural history, and medicine; cooking and knowledge; work on animal skin; leatherwork; or veterinary medicine. Presentations will be followed by ample time for discussion and reflection, and so we are happy for works in progress.

Proposals (up to 250 words) for 20-minute papers should be sent to Paolo Savoia at renaissanceskin@kcl.ac.uk by 8 June 2018. We may be able to provide speakers with reasonable accommodation and travel costs. Please indicate when you apply if you will require assistance with expenses.


Dr. Paolo Savoia|Postdoctoral Research Fellow
'Renaissance Skin' (Wellcome Trust)
King's College London|Strand|London WC2R 2LS|room K0.27
Phone: +393332802718|Email: paolo.savoia@kcl.ac.uk
Twitter: @RenSkinKCL
https://renaissanceskin.ac.uk/

The Leonardo da Vinci Society Annual Lecture 2018

Friday 4 May 2018, 6 pm - 7 pm
Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, The Courtauld Institute of Art,
Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 0RN

Pascal Brioist (Centre d'études supérieures de la Renaissance, University of Tours): “Leonardo da Vinci and bio-inspiration.”

Bio-inspiration is not entirely our own invention: in the Renaissance, engineers looked at natural forms and were convinced that mimicking nature offered technical solutions to their own problems. Leonardo da Vinci was certainly the most careful observer of nature of his time, and as a result it has become commonplace to judge that he used bio-mimetism as a way to find inspiration. Recently, scientists have claimed that Leonardo was a kind of precursor for bionics ; but the intellectual process of imitation adopted by Leonardo da Vinci has not been fully investigated. This presentation will delve deeper into this issue, looking especially at Leonardo’s imitation of birds, insects and flying fishes in order to study the possibilities of human flight.

Pascal Brioist is Professor of History and researcher at the CESR since 1994; he completed his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence in 1992. A specialist in cultural history and the history of England, his work has dealt mainly with techniques and the history of science, especially through the study of Leonardo da Vinci. He has published several books about Leonardo: Da Vinci Touch (2014), dedicated to the needs of blind people, Léonard de Vinci, homme de guerre (2013), Léonard de Vinci : Arts, sciences et techniques (2011) and Léonard de Vinci, ingénieur et savant (2008).

All welcome.

Dutch Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy

Utrecht University, The Netherlands, 30-31 May 2018

Program
Wednesday 30 May 2018

8:30 am Arrival

9:00 am Keynote: Karin de Boer (KU Leuven): Kant’s Inquiries into a New Touchstone for Metaphysical Truth

10:30 am Coffee

10:45 am Hadley Marie Cooney (University of Wisconsin-Madison): Cavendish and Descartes on Animal Consciousness

11:30 am Botond Csuka (Eötvös Loránd University): “Gentle” and “Gross” Exercises: Aesthetic Experience and Well-Being in Addison’s Essays

12:15 pm Alan Nelson (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): Locke on Ideas of Reflection, Inner Sense, and the Historical Plain Method

1:00 pm Lunch (own arrangements)

2:15 pm Anna Markwart (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń): Sophie de Grouchy and Adam Smith: Education for Sympathy

3:00 pm Stephen Evensen (Biola University): Reading Kant Through Grotius: Is the Categorical Imperative Substantive or Procedural?

3:45 pm Stephen Howard (KU Leuven): Physical and Psychological Forces in Wolff, Baumgarten, and Kant

4:30 pm Tea

4:45 pm Nathan Porter (University of Utah): Spinoza's Theodicy (via Skype)

5:15 pm Nastassja Pugliese (University of São Paulo): Substance and Individuation in Anne Conway as a Critique to Spinoza

6:00 pm Adam Harmer (University of California, Riverside): Anthony Collins on Texture and Structural Emergence
Thursday 31 May 2018

8:30 am Doors open

9:00 am Iulia Mihai (Ghent University): Du Châtelet on the Principle of Continuity, Change and Process

9:45 am Scott Harkema (Ohio State University): On the Role of Illusion in Du Chatelet’s Theory of Happiness

10:30 am Coffee

10:45 am Boris Demarest (University of Amsterdam): Soul as Nature: the Naturalist Animism of Van Helmont and Stahl

11:30 am Keynote: Christia Mercer (Columbia University): Descartes’ Demons and Debts, or Why We Should Work on Women in the History of Philosophy

1:00 pm End


Attendance is free and all are welcome, especially students.

Register here: Dutch Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy

Sponsors
  • History of Philosophy Group, Utrecht University
  • Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, Utrecht University
  • Groningen Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Thought, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen
  • Study Group in Early Modern Philosophy, OZSW

OrganizersChris Meyns (Utrecht)
Andrea Sangiacomo (Groningen)


Dr Chris Meyns | Assistant Professor of Philosophy | chrismeyns.xyz | on Twitter | Google Scholar | LinkedIn

Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry Award Scheme 2018

Opening date: 1 March 2018

Closing date for applications: 31 May 2018

The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry invites applications for its Award Scheme for 2018. SHAC offers two types of award: support for research into the history of chemistry or history of alchemy by New Scholars and support for Subject Development of either history of chemistry or history of alchemy. It is expected that applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application by 31 July 2018. The Awards are most suitable for activities to be undertaken in the academic year October 2018–September 2019.

New Scholars Awards are open to post-graduate students (both masters and doctoral students) and those who have obtained a PhD since 1 January 2013. Awards of up to £750 will be made to cover research expenses, including travel, accommodation, subsistence, the reproduction of documents, and library fees. Applications may also include the costs of reproducing images for publication. The Scheme does not fund the purchase of equipment or course fees.
In addition, post-graduate students only may apply for the costs of travel to conferences and accommodation, but only in order to give a paper. The Scheme does not pay conference registration fees.

Subject Development Awards of up to £750 may be made to support activities such as seminars, workshops, colloquia, lecture series, conference sessions, conferences, exhibitions and outreach activities that support either the history of chemistry or history of alchemy as academic subjects.

Please note that activities covered by the Awards do not have to occur in the UK, and that the Awards are open to members of the Society resident both in the UK and elsewhere. Members who have applied to the Scheme in previous years, whether successfully or not, are entitled to make an application in 2018.

Applicants must be members of the Society in good standing at the time of making an application, and, if successful, throughout the period of an award. For more information and application forms, please contact grants@ambix.org. Membership enquiries should be made to newjoiner@ambix.org.

An activity report must be submitted at the end of the Award. This will usually be published in SHAC’s Chemical Intelligence newsletter.
For more information please visit http://www.ambix.org/grants/

Sent on behalf of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry by Dr Anna Simmons, Secretary

Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at The Warburg Institute

Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in the History of Art, Science and Folk Practice
Job Reference: 01070
Closing Date: 22/05/2018
Salary: £34,831 fixed for 2 years

The Warburg Institute is seeking to appoint a post-doctoral research fellow associated with its newly established Professorship in the History of Art, Science and Folk Practice. This is a two-year position, with an emphasis both on developing the candidate’s own research and on collaborating on interdisciplinary projects under way at the Warburg Institute.

The candidate will have completed their PhD by September 30, 2018, and will be establishing a compelling research orientation in one or more of the fields of the History of Science, History of Art, and Cultural or Social Anthropology. In keeping with the forward-looking approach of the current Warburg Institute, the candidate’s work should explore connections among the history of science, the history of art and images, and historical or present cultural practices. S/he will work closely with the new Chair, Professor John Tresch, and will support the Institute’s ambitions to restore, develop and elaborate the theoretical, cultural historical and anthropological implications of the work of Aby Warburg.

This is fixed term post for 2 years.

For more information visit the Institute’s website here:

https://www.jobs.london.ac.uk/displayjob.aspx?jobid=1084&utm_source=Warburg+Library+Reader&utm_campaign=fdae8cedf3-Warburg+Newsletter_Summer+2018+%282%29&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_544de8ae3c-fdae8cedf3-527965989

CFA: Bucharest-Princeton Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy and Science (17th edition)

June 28-July 4, 2018, Bran, Translyvania


Invited speakers include: Arianna Borrelli (TU, Berlin), Antonio Clericuzio (Roma Tre), Daniel Garber (Princeton), Dana Jalobeanu (Bucharest), Arnaud Pelletier (Bruxelles), Koen Vermeir (Paris).

The Bucharest-Princeton Seminar is an annual interdisciplinary meeting of scholars and students of early modern thought. Its aim is to create a stimulating environment for discussing papers and ideas through formal and informal discussions, reading-groups and round tables. Morning sessions are organized as reading groups, while the afternoon sessions give participants an opportunity to discuss their own special interests with an open and sympathetic audience of students and scholars with broad interests in early modern philosophy and early modern science. Texts for the reading groups are distributed one month in advance. There is no pre-established theme, but we are looking for contributions emphasizing the interplay between early modern philosophy and the “sciences” of the seventeenth century.

The process of selection: Please send us your proposal by April 30, 2018 (CV, letter of intention and a short description of your project). If you want to present a paper, add an abstract (max 500 words); if you want to propose a reading group, send a 1000 words description (including the proposed bibliography) to dana.jalobeanu@filosofie.unibuc.ro.

Venue

This year, the seminar will take place in Bran, a small resort near Brasov, in Transylvania. We will travel together from Bucharest to Bran by bus. Participants are expected to arrive in Bucharest on June 27 and leave on July 5. In Bran, the group will be accommodated together, in Villa Andra (single and double rooms, some shared bathrooms). For more information concerning the venue, accommodation and costs, please contact: dana.jalobeanu@filosofie.unibuc.ro .

Organizers: The research center Foundations of Early Modern Thought, University of Bucharest, Department of Philosophy, Princeton University, Institute for Research in the Humanities, ICUB, The research project (PNIII- P4-ID- PCE 2016-0228): The emergence of mathematical physics in the context of experimental philosophy.

Remembering James Petiver (1665-1718)

26th April 2018
The Linnean Society of London

Registration Now Open

Remembering James Petiver (1665-1718)

This day meeting marks the tercentenary of the death of James Petiver FRS, an important but often overlooked professional apothecary and compulsive natural historian in 18th-century London. Petiver made significant contributions to multiple fields of natural history, above all botany and entomology. An assiduous correspondent and collector, he successfully cultivated sources of natural historical intelligence and material from the Americas to the East Indies.

Speakers will assess Petiver’s life and legacy by deploying a range of historical and scientific disciplinary perspectives. On the 300th anniversary of his death, the meeting will set out to remember James Petiver:
  • as a practising natural historian of substantial abilities and merit
  • as a collector and cataloguer of natural historical specimens with enduring significance
  • as a writer of both manuscript correspondence and published natural historical texts
  • as an apothecary whose professional and private scientific interests mutually informed each other
  • as a social networker both within London and across the globe
  • as an historical figure whose legacy has been contested and which is ripe for reconsideration

Speakers: Dr Arnold Hunt, Dr Charles E Jarvis FLS, Sebestian Kroupa, Dr Alice Marples, Katrina Maydom, Professor Kathleen S Murphy, Dr Victoria Pickering, Professor Richard Vane-Wright FLS. Respondent: Dr Emma Spary.

Organisers: Richard Coulton, Charlie Jarvis

Dr Richard Coulton
Senior Lecturer in English
School of English and Drama
Queen Mary University of London

Note to Students: Messages cc'd to 'Co-Tutor' will be stored as part of your record on QMUL's Student & Staff Relationship Management system. All students at QMUL have Co-Tutor records.

View my QMUL profile
'Remembering James Petiver (1665-1718)': Thursday 26 April 2018
Stealing Books in Eighteenth-Century London (Palgrave, 2016)
t: @QMULsed
t: @RXCoulton

All Souls College Seminar in the History of Pre-Modern Science

Trinity Term 2018
Conveners: DMITRI LEVITIN and PHILIPP NOTHAFT

All sessions will be held on Wednesdays, 5.00–6.45pm. Please note that the location will alternate between the Wharton Room and the Hovenden Room – details for each individual seminar are provided below. Access to the College is via the entrance on the High Street; please ask at the porter’s lodge for further directions, or consult the information at Visiting the College. All very welcome.


25 April MICHAEL HUNTER (Birkbeck, University of London), ‘The “Decline of magic” reconsidered’ [Wharton Room]


2 May MAXIMILIAN SCHUH (Heidelberg), ‘Perceptions of nature between scholastic knowledge and individual observation: William Merle’s weather diary (1337-1344) and his De prognosticatione aeris (1340)’ [Hovenden Room]


9 May FELICITY HENDERSON (Exeter), ‘Robert Hooke, art, and craft in Restoration London’ [Wharton Room]


16 May ANDREW WILSON (All Souls College, Oxford), ‘The transmission of mechanical technologies between the Mediterranean and China in antiquity’ [Hovenden Room]



23 May MONICA AZZOLINI (Bologna), ‘News from Sicily: Italian naturalists and the Royal Society on volcanic eruptions and earthquakes’ [Wharton Room]


30 May MONICA AZZOLINI (Bologna), ‘News from Sicily: Italian naturalists and the Royal Society on volcanic eruptions and earthquakes’ [Wharton Room]


6 June MARIE-ALINE THÉBAUD-SORGER (Centre Alexandre-Koyré, Paris; Maison Française, Oxford), ‘“Airs” as boundary objects: the elaboration of a collective knowledge at the crossroad of chemistry, practical arts, and medicine in the eighteenth century’ [Wharton Room]


13 June ANUJ MISRA (Observatoire de Paris), ‘Atha brahmāṇḍanirmāṇa: an Aristotelian view of the cosmos in a sixteenth-century Sanskrit text on mathematical astronomy’ [Hovenden Room]

CALL FOR PAPERS: Superstition and Magic in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods

Princeton Medieval Studies Graduate Student Conference, April 20, 2018

Keynote Speaker: Prof. Michael Bailey

In an age when authorities attempt to assault our modern modes of critical thinking, the term “superstition” and its premodern associations take on rearranged values. Current political discourse denounces fake news and climate change as humbug with a zeal not unlike that of medieval and early modern establishments censuring false prophets and fallacious astrologers. Given these similarities, the classic narrative of a medieval society emerging into a modern one, “the disenchantment of the world” (Max Weber), urgently needs reappraisal. This conference proposes the examination of a wide range of evidence in various genres over time in order to foster this dialogue. In returning to the original meaning of “superstition” as an excessive fearfulness or belief, or a misapprehended and abused knowledge of a supernatural subject, how can we refine our understanding of superstition and magic in the premodern world? How can we make the overlaps between science, superstition, and magic productive?

We invite interdisciplinary submissions on diverse topics related to medieval and early modern superstition and magic. Some themes of the conference include, but are not limited to:
  • Control and influence exerted by the Church and universities
  • The historical development of demonology 
  • The Witch Crisis: gender and authority 
  • Elite vs. folk magic; paganism and popular religion
  • Heresy and superstition
  • Depiction of magical elements in literature and visual culture
  • The impact of various religious reform movements, including the Reformation and Counterreformation, on belief, magic, and ritual
  • Music and metaphysics 
  • Oaths, incantations, and spells: the power of words
  • Natural philosophy: astrology, alchemy, medical practices, etc.
  • Material history and archaeology 
  • Co-mingling of Eastern and Western traditions; book magic; Kabbalah
  • Esoteric belief systems and the rise of secret societies
  • The law: ordeals, witch-hunts, and policing of superstitious practices

In order to support participation by speakers from outside the northeastern United States, we are offering limited subsidies to help offset the cost of travel to Princeton. Financial assistance may not be available for every participant, with funding priority going to those who have the farthest to travel. Speakers will have the option of staying with a resident graduate student to defray their expenses.
Interested graduate students should submit abstracts of no more than 500 words to Sonja Andersen and Jonathan Martin at superstition2018@gmail.com by February 15, 2018.

All applicants will be notified about their submissions by February 24, 2018. Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes.

MaRSA CALL FOR PAPERS: "In the Margins"

Medieval and Renaissance Student Association California State University, Long Beach 

Deadline for submissions:  February 6, 2018
Contact email:  medren.csulb@gmail.com

The Medieval and Renaissance Student Association (MaRSA) of California State University, Long Beach is seeking individual papers as well as panel submissions for their graduate student conference. The conference will be held at the Karl Anatol Center on the campus of CSULB on April 19-20th, 2018.

This year’s theme, “In the Margins,” engages the spaces, both literal and theoretical, that have been allocated to the periphery of the medieval and Renaissance period. Thus, papers and topics that MaRSA would like to engage with embrace the many facets of medieval and Renaissance marginality. As an interdisciplinary conference, we welcome submissions from a wide array of disciplines focusing on the art, literature, and history of the period. Paper and panel topics might address issues (but are not limited to) the following:
  • The relationship between marginalia and text
  • Liminal spaces and/or identities in medieval and/or Renaissance narratives
  • Peripheral and/or non-literary medieval and Renaissance texts
  • The appropriation of medieval and Renaissance culture in contemporary political movements and/or popular culture
  • Educational and pedagogical approaches to the marginalization of medieval and Renaissance texts
  • The boundaries between body and soul as depicted in hagiographical literature and art
  • Depictions of alterity in Shakespeare and/or other Early Modern Drama
  • Sexuality and nontypical gender expression in medieval and Renaissance texts and/or culture


Presentations should run for approximately 15 minutes. Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words along with a current CV by email to medren.csulb@gmail.com by February 6, 2018.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Borderlines XXII: Sickness, Strife and Suffering

Queen’s University Belfast, 13-15th April 2018

Borderlines is an annual postgraduate conference in Medieval & Early Modern studies. Held on a rotating basis in Belfast, Dublin and Cork, we aim to bring together Medievalists and Early Modernists (at MA, PhD & postdoctoral level) in all disciplines from across Ireland, Britain and around the world. This page is designed to provide updates on the yearly conferences and to maintain the contacts and friendships they foster throughout the year.

We are pleased to invite abstract of ca. 250 words related to pain in the middle ages. Topics may include but are not limited to :
  • collective pain
  • depictions of pain
  • explanations of pain
  • judicial literature
  • medical literature
  • memory and pain
  • narratives of suffering
  • pain and creativity
  • pain and pleasure
  • psychological pain
  • social pain
  • religious literature
  • suffering in the afterlife


Please send abstracts of ca. 250 words, along with a short academic biography, to borderlinesxxii@gmail.com

The deadline for abstracts is 5th February 2018.




CALL FOR PAPERS: 'Locating the Ancient World in Early Modern Subversive Thought'

Newcastle University, 12th-14th April 2018

Dichotomies have long been used to define the intellectual developments of early modern Europe - reason and faith; authority and subversion; science and humanism; radicalism and tradition; heterodoxy and orthodoxy — with classical thought usually located on the side of tradition, a behemoth of learning which inhibited man’s reason and his ability to learn through observation. Such unilinear accounts of the progression to modernity have been subjected to increasingly numerous challenges in the last two decades, as scholars have sought to demonstrate that the ideas which drove Europe towards the Enlightenment were far more complex and multi-layered than suggested by the traditional narratives.

The aim of this conference is to expand on this revived appreciation of the classical influence in early modernity by looking specifically at the role played by the ancient world in that sphere from which it has most usually been excluded: subversive literature. The idea that the texts, philosophies, and exempla of the ancient world might have served as significant tools for those who sought to undermine and challenge political, religious and cultural authority stands in direct opposition to the traditional role assigned to the classics in this period. Emphasising an interdisciplinary approach, this conference will draw scholars together to build a coherent picture of how the classical tradition functioned as a tool for subversion, illuminating a previously neglected aspect of the ancient world in the early modern thought.

The keynote speakers will be Peter Harrison (University of Queensland) and Marianne Pade (Danish Academy at Rome).

We are inviting abstracts for papers of thirty minutes on topics including, but not limited to:

  • Ancient philosophical involvement in epistemological challenges to traditional understandings of knowledge and belief
  • Ancient theories of natural philosophy in the debates concerning God and the universe in both religion and science
  • The contribution of ancient texts to the arguments for natural religion, and against magic, miracles, and the supernatural
  • Classical rhetoric and literary forms as models for argumentation in subversive treatises, polemics, pamphlets, poetry, and other literary genres
  • Ancient religion in the construction of arguments in favour of toleration, and the establishment of a civil religion
  • The function of ancient examples in radical political ideologies, including republicanism, democracy, and theories of resistance and revolution
  • Classical scholarship as a tool for subversion, and print culture as a sphere facilitating this function of the classics


If you would like to offer a paper for the conference, please submit an abstract of 300 words to Katherine East by 9th February 2018.

See Locating Subversion for further information.


Katherine A. East
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
School of History, Classics, and Archaeology
Newcastle University

Locating the Ancient World in Early Modern Subversive Thought

12th – 14th April 2018
The Boiler House, Newcastle University

The aim of this conference is to expand on this revived appreciation of the classical influence in early modernity by looking specifically at the role played by the ancient world in that sphere from which it has most usually been excluded: subversive literature. The idea that the texts, philosophies, and exempla of the ancient world might have served as significant tools for those who sought to undermine and challenge political, religious and cultural authority stands in direct opposition to the traditional role assigned to the classics in this period. Emphasising an interdisciplinary approach, this conference will draw scholars together to build a coherent picture of how the classical tradition functioned as a tool for subversion, illuminating a previously neglected aspect of the ancient world in the early modern thought.

Featuring keynote speakers Peter Harrison (University of Queensland) and Marianne Pade (Danish Academy at Rome).

There is no delegate fee for this conference, but if you plan to attend please email Katherine East to register for the event by Monday 9th April.


PROGRAMME

Thursday 12th April

13.30-14.00 Coffee and Registration

14.00-14.30 Welcome Address

14.30-16.30 Panel One: Institutions of Religion

Alasdair Raffe (Edinburgh): ‘Numa in Plaid: Scottish Interpretations of Roman Religion, c. 1602-1759’
John Holton (Newcastle): ‘Thomas Hobbes, Diodorus Siculus, and Early Human Society’
Ashley Walsh (Cambridge): ‘Ciceronianism and the Multitude in the Civil Religion of the Third Earl of Shaftesbury’

17.00-18.00 Keynote Address

Marianne Pade (Danish Academy at Rome): ‘Thucydides vs Aristotle: Leonardo Bruni on Popular Government’

18.00-19.00 Drinks Reception

Friday 13th April

9.30-11.30 Panel Two: Rewriting the Natural World

Valentina Zaffino (Pontifical Lateran University): ‘Subverting Aristotelianism through Aristotle: Giordano Bruno’s Interpretation of the Physics’

Karine Durin (Nantes): ‘Dangerous Pliny: Natural Philosophy and the Limits of Christian Orthodoxy in the Renaissance’

Michelle Pfeffer (Oxford): ‘William Coward (1657-1724), the Material Soul, and ‘Undeniable History’: a Physician’s Critical Study of Pagan, Hebrew, and Christian Pasts’

11.30-12.00 Break

12.00-13.30 Panel Three: Pagan Belief

Jonathan Nathan (Cambridge): ‘Orthodox Atheism and the Manuscript Theophrastus Redivivus’

Tim Stuart-Buttle (York): ‘Pagan Philosophy and Early Modern Natural Law Theory: John Maxwell’s Edition of Cumberland’s De Legibus Naturae (1727)’

13.30-14.30 Lunch

14.30-16.30 Panel Four: The Power of Words

Callum Murrell (Durham): ‘The Invention of Subversion: Fiction and Narrative in the Elizabethan Star Chamber’

Julianne Mentzer (St Andrews): ‘“Give me my fee!”: Transgressive Use of Rhetoric in The Dutch Courtesan’

Rowland Smith (Newcastle): ‘The Persecuting Pagan and the Philosophic Protestant: Julian the Apostate in English Reception from Marvell to Gibbon, by way of Hampton Court and Voltaire the Bigot’

17.00-18.00 Keynote Address

Peter Harrison (University of Queensland): ‘The Authority of the Ancients: the Case of Heterodox Religion in Seventeenth Century England’

18.00 Drinks Reception and Conference Dinner


Saturday 14th April

9.30-11.30 Panel Five: Popular Politics

Astrid Khoo (KCL): ‘Subverting Cicero: Roman Republican Polemic in Milton’s Defensio Pro Populo Anglicano’

Dikaia Gavala (Aberdeen): ‘“Rise before the Majesty of the People”: Popular Republicanism in Restoration Drama’

Minchul Kim (St Andrews): ‘War and Patriotism: Roman History and Military Government in the French Revolutionary Debates’

11.30-12.00 Break

12.00-13.30 Panel Five: Epicurean Echoes

Jessica Pirie (Birmingham): ‘Aphra Behn’s The Young King and the Lucretian Revival’

Jared Holley (EUI): ‘Epicureanism and Popular Sovereignty in Rousseau’

13.30 Lunch and Farewells



Dr Katherine A. East
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
School of History, Classics and Archaeology
Newcastle University
Katherine East

CALL FOR PAPERS: Science, Imagination and Wonder: Robert Grosseteste and His Legacy

The Ordered Universe Research Project in association with the International Grosseteste Society

Conference: 3-6 April, 2018, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
Website: Ordered Universe

Papers are invited (for oral or poster presentation) for this conference organised by the Ordered Universe Research Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK, and the International Grosseteste Society. An interdisciplinary project bringing together medieval specialists and modern scientists, the Ordered Universe project is dedicated to new editions and translation of the scientific works of Robert Grosseteste. The conference will be the Fourth International Grosseteste Conference.

The conference will celebrate the life and works of Grosseteste, especially in their response to natural phenomena. A principal aim of the conference is a confluence of disciplinary perspectives on this remarkable thinker. Submissions are welcome from all disciplines and from all career stages. Some suggested areas for subjects are listed below, but please be in touch with the organising committee to run ideas past us:
  • the legacy of Grosseteste’s thought in the later Middle Ages and beyond
  • Grosseteste’s predecessors and contemporaries
  • textual and editorial issues connected to medieval science
  • inter-textual issues across Grosseteste’s writings: pastoral, theological, scientific and literary
  • rendering medieval thought in images, diagrams and visualisation
  • the extended legacy of the themes Grosseteste raises:
    • the order inherent in creation
    • questions of morality and science
    • definitions of experience, experiment
    • attitudes towards authorities
    • education and pedagogic practice
  • relevant thematic issues in history of science and literature
  • modern scientific inspiration from medieval thinkers
  • the role of wonder and imagination in science, in the medieval and modern periods

Oral presentations should be of 20 minute length, and the organising committee will also consider applications for sessions of 3-4 papers with potential speakers identified. Posters should be in A0 portrait format (33.1 wide x 46.8 length in inches), to be displayed throughout the conference and at dedicated Poster Sessions where presenters will be available to discuss their work). In all cases please submit a 300 word abstract with a brief academic biography to: Ordered Universe

The closing date for paper or session submission titles will be 1st February 2018, but the earlier the better! Abstracts will be appraised and a decision made on a rolling basis upon submission.

Full details of the conference costs and booking arrangements will be published on the Ordered Universe website in due course. It is anticipated that arrangements will be made for publications from presentations but decisions will be made after the conference.