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.

Encounters with the Orient in Early Modern Scholarship: Ludolf und Wansleben – Orientalistik, Politik und Geschichte zwischen Gotha und Afrika 1650–1700

Internationale Konferenz des Forschungszentrums Gotha im Rahmen des HERA-Projektes

11–13. May 2015 | Herzog-Ernst-Kabinett | Forschungsbibliothek Gotha

CALL FOR PAPERS: 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.

Eastern Resonances 1: Ottoman Empire and Persia, 16th-18th centuries

Contrary to 'the echo' or 'the trace', which both imply an enduring, but fading prolongation of a presence, 'resonance' suggests not only a continuation, but a reinforcement of a sound or image, provoked by a reflection on another surface. Taking from Stephen Greenblatt's definition of 'resonance' as 'the power of the object displayed to reach out beyond its formal boundaries to a larger world, to evoke in the viewer the complex, dynamic cultural forces from which it has emerged' ('Resonance and Wonder', in Learning to Curse, p. 170), this conference aims at studying the moves, shifts, transformations and translations through which the idea of the East resonated in Europe in general, and Britain in particular, from the early modern period to the romantic age.

Calling into question the adversarial nature of Orientalism as defined by Edward Said, our conference will address the deterritorializations and reterritorializations (to borrow the concepts developed by Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Odipus) through which the East reshaped itself in the West through its many reflections and reverberations. Our focus will not just be on what was lost and what was gained along the routes of such recuperations, but we also wish to chart in greater detail the routes themselves, the people who crossed them and the motivations underpinning these attempts at reaching, understanding and picturing the East.

The first of our series of two conferences on 'Eastern Resonances', to be held at the University of Montpellier 3 (30 May-1 June 2013), will focus on the Ottoman empire and Persia, while the focus of the second, to be held at the University of Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (5-7 Dec. 2013), will be on India and the Far East. These geographical frames have been chosen mostly for practical reasons, but in keeping with the subject of 'resonances', contributions which would cross these boundaries or challenge them will also be welcome.

Suggested areas of reflection for the first conference could include:

1. Texts and their circulation/translation: What were the Arabic, Persian and Turkish texts which resonated in the West in this period? Through what channels did manuscripts and books travel? Why and how did they reach Britain in adapted or translated forms?
2. Places and their memories: What did travellers look back to in historical and cultural terms as they embarked on their journeys to the East? What images did they bring back with them from their eastern encounters? How did these reverberate as literary and artistic artefacts at the receiving end of the journey?
3. Actors and intermediaries: Who went East or West, and why did they? Who were their interlocutors or mediators there? Why and how were 'contact zones' created? On what terms was trust granted and collaborative research carried on?

For 'Eastern Resonances 1: Ottoman empire and Persia', a title for the proposed paper should be sent by April 15, 2012 and short proposals in English (250 words) with a brief biographical statement by May 15, 2012 to the conference organisers:

• Dr Claire Gallien, University of Montpellier 3: <claire.gallien@univ-montp3.fr>
• Pr Jean-Marie Fournier, University of Paris 7: <jean-marie.fournier@univ-paris-diderot.fr>
• Dr Ladan Niayesh, University of Paris 7: <niayesh@univ-paris-diderot.fr>

Papers should be 30 minutes in length and may be presented either in French or English. We intend to publish a selected number of papers from the two conferences in a volume of essays on the topic of 'Eastern Resonances'.

Shakespeare's Imagined Orient - Call for Papers

The American University of Beirut is hosting a three‐day conference on Shakespeare’s Imagined Orient
on 4‐6 May 2011.

Speakers include Jonathan Burton (West Virginia University), Jerry Brotton (Queen Mary, University of London), Gerald Maclean (University of Exeter),  Margaret Litvin (Boston University), Daniel Vitkus (Florida State University) and Richard Wilson (Cardiff University).  Shakespeare studies has recently experienced a noticeable and dramatic geographical shift. As the textual landscape of Shakespeare’s drama changes, it takes on new forms and now points to new horizons, namely the East and the Orient, and more particularly the Levant. From the blasted heaths of England, Shakespeare moves to the most arid and yet fertile soils of the Levant. The aim of the conference, in this emergent field, is to reconsider Shakespeare’s diffusion from both Pre and Postcolonial Middle Eastern perspectives and to examine Shakespeare’s critical relevance to understanding religion and politics on both a local scale (in the Middle East/the Orient) and globally.

Reaching across disciplinary boundaries, Shakespeare’s Imagined Orient aims to prove how the critical and artistic reception of Shakespeare in the Orient is paramount to apprehending and reinventing Shakespeare as a cultural and social bridge uniting the “East” and the “West” in the landscape of global culture. The organisers of the conference hope to offer a critical insight into Shakespeare and Early Modern political theology that would help refashion, remap broader issues that engage the status of
cultural and religious identity, nation, and individuality in the landscape of global culture.

With such issues in mind, we invite submissions concerning the following range of topics:
‐ Representations of the Orient in Shakespeare's Work,
‐ Christian/Muslim Representation/Interaction on Shakespeare's/the Early Modern stage,
‐ Local/Global Shakespeare (from a Middle Eastern perspective),
‐ Shakespeare's Women and the Orient,
‐ Desire, Phantasm, and the Orient,
‐ Identity and Nationhood,
‐ Material Culture and the Imagined Orient on Shakespeare's Stage.

Please send abstracts (300 words) or session proposals and brief CV by
21 January 2011.

Notifications will be sent by 15 February 2011. On your abstract please
include your name, institution, city and state or country, email address and phone number.
E‐mail your abstracts/session proposals as a Word file. Please note that each presentation is limited
to 25 minutes (including questions).

Full details can be downloaded from the conference website at
www.aub.edu.lb/conferences/shake_orient/
Questions may be addressed to the conference chair: Prof. Francois‐Xavier Gleyzon at
Shakespeare&theOrient@gmail.com
Department of English
American University of Beirut
Fisk Hall, Rm 229
PO Box 11‐0236
Beirut 1107 2020 ‐ Lebanon
The conference is supported by the Anis K. Makdisi Program in Literature, the Office of the Provost, the
Center for American Studies and Research and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the American University of Beirut.