CALL FOR PAPERS: Mendicants on the Margins

Deadline: 1 February 2018
School of History, University College Cork, 27 June 18

The Conference organisers are seeking contributions to a one-day symposium which will take place on 27 June 2018 at University College Cork, on the theme of ‘Mendicants on the Margins’, organised as part of an IRC-funded project ‘Spiritual Infrastructure, Space and Society: The Augustinian Friars in Late Medieval Ireland’. The Irish Augustinian and Carmelite friars, in comparison to their Franciscan and Dominican counterparts, have been rather neglected by scholarship, finding themselves on the ‘margins’ of mendicant studies in Ireland.In mendicant studies across Europe a similar pattern of marginality is evident, placed opposite to the perceived existence of core centres. These include geographical centres of mendicancy (i.e. countries where the orders first appeared); topographical centres with the ‘typical’ model of mendicant foundations located in urban areas with non-urban foundations regarded as peripheral; or the historiographical centrality given to the Franciscan and Dominican male orders rather than other mendicant orders and female branches; and a greater historiographical emphasis on royal and aristocratic patronage versus focus on support from local communities and the friars’ impact on the wider society.

In recent years, a number of publications, research projects and conferences have tackled aspects of mendicant studies on the margins of these various core centres, but there still remains a need for a discussion on whether there is a recognisable mendicant model, on potential differences and similarities between various models, the extent of divergence or adaptation, and on the links and contrasts between geographical areas.

This one-day symposium seeks to address these issues by bringing together researchers working on aspects of mendicant orders traditionally considered as ‘marginal’, be it geographical, topographical, gendered or historical. The aim is to go beyond the artificial construct of centrality and marginality in order to get a fuller understanding of the impact of the mendicants on all levels of medieval society across Europe.

Contributions, no more than 25 minutes long, might address the following issues:

• Mendicant orders in geographical margins;
• Lesser-known orders of the Augustinian friars, Carmelites and female communities;
• Mendicant communities in the margins of the traditional model of urban mendicancy, such as foundations in non-urban environments;
• Margins of social hierarchies such as patronage and benefactors from all elements of society, the impact of the friars on local communities, especially in foundations outside of urban centres and in geographically or socially marginal communities;
• Aspects of mendicant studies challenging the traditional historiography of mendicant orders.

Priority will be given to papers that use a comparative approach, between the margins in question and what is considered the centre or a model, and to papers adopting a multi-disciplinary approach. Proposals of no more than 300 words should be sent to Dr Anne-Julie Lafaye, IRC postdoctoral researcher, before 1 February 2018.

The symposium will coincide with the Irish Conference of Medievalists, scheduled to take place at UCC, 28-30 June 2018 (http://www.irishmedievalists.com/).

Download CFP Mendicants on the Margins (final).

The Gorboduc Project: Territory, Politics and Performance

June 22nd-23rd 2017, Northumbria University

The UK’s decision to leave the European Union constitutes the most momentous separation of British-European political culture since the Protestant Reformation, dragging questions of localised political autonomy into the spotlight. Ongoing nationwide movements toward political devolution are transforming notions of political agency in terms of the regional and local. As scholarly and public interest in ideas of British political identity continues to sharpen, this conference explores themes of division and devolution in drama written at the dawn of the British Empire. Looking to Britain’s uncertain future by learning about its past can tell us much about how literature responds to drastic political change, not least in terms of the territories (real and imagined) with which it is invested.

This call for papers seeks to address questions relating to territory and politics at the dawn of the British Empire, and to explore how those questions were unpacked through the medium of dramatic performance. The tumultuous reigns of the Tudors saw English dramaturgy assume a heightened political focus, and notions of local, territorial identity brought into dialogue with perspectives on the nation’s place within an emerging imperial framework. From Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc to Shakespeare’s history plays, Tudor drama interrogated relationships between civil divisions and international connections in embodied forms – repeatedly shadowing questions of the body politic with semantics of dismemberment, disability, and malfunction. Pre-empting questions of territory and politics that saturate many of our own political debates by over four centuries, these plays use boundaries, bodies and places to question, support, and oppose regional-political authority.

Confirmed plenary speaker: Jessica Winston, Idaho State University.

We invite abstract proposals of 300 words (or less) on topics including, but not limited to Tudor dramatic performances and

• devolution, rebellion, and insurrection
• patronage and performance
• political personations
• propaganda and regionalised politics
• borders, boundaries, and political edges
• politics of translation
• staging devotional loyalty and/or novelty
• locations of performance

Please send proposals to Paul Frazer and Harriet Archer by 1st February 2017.

CALL FOR PAPERS: "Creativity and Commerce in the Age of Print"

University of Edinburgh (26 July 2014)

‘What an insane thing it is to make literature one's only means of support!... 

To make a trade of an art! I am rightly served for attempting such a brutal folly.’

- George Gissing, New Grub Street (1891)

Hosted by the Centre for the History of the Book at the University of Edinburgh, this interdisciplinary conference will explore the sometimes-fraught connections between the ‘art’ and ‘trade’ of books from the Western invention of printing to today. Are the interests of authors and publishers always opposed, or can they lead to productive forms of collaboration? Does work undertaken for the marketplace necessarily compromise its moral and cultural standing? How does literature become property, and how has authorship evolved between the starving writer of ‘Grub Street’ and the modern book festival circuit? Can the requirements of the printing and bookselling industries constitute a form of de-facto censorship, determining the types of work that are published and circulated?

We are currently seeking papers from postgraduate and early career researchers interested in questions such as these, with potential topics including (but not limited to):

• Authorship and other creative professions
• The printing and bookselling industries
• Author-publishers relationships
• Dissemination networks
• Subscription and patronage
• Book advertising, illustration
• Serial publication
• ‘Tie-ins’, merchandise, and material culture
• Libraries and book collecting
• Commerce and censorship
• Originality, copyright, and intellectual property
• Book piracy and its national boundaries
• Creative work and gender
• The impact of new technologies for production and dissemination
• The ‘rise’ or ‘death’ of print.

Proposals in all relevant subject areas and historical periods post-1450 are welcome. Please send a 200-word abstract to Natasha by 5 May 2014. Limited travel bursaries may be available; indicate if you would require one to attend. The conference will take place in Edinburgh on 26 July 2014, with registration opening in June.

Dr. Natasha Simonova
4.03, 18 Buccleuch Place
Career Development Fellow
Department of English Literature
University of Edinburgh