appel à contribution — Workshop on intercultural Exchanges

Call for papers: Intercultural Exchange in Late Antique Historiography

The research group Late Antique historiography (http://www.late-antique-historiography.ugent.be/homeat Ghent University is organising a workshop on

historiography and intercultural exchanges in Late Antiquity (300-800 AD), on 16-18 September 2015.

The workshop aims at engaging affirmed scholars as well as young researchers in an interdisciplinary discussion over cross-cultural contacts in Late Antiquity and their impact on the historiographical production in different languages, Latin, Greek, Armenian, Syriac, Persian, Coptic, Georgian, Arabic.

Confirmed speakers include:

A. Camplani (Rome), C. Zuckerman (Paris), F. Montinaro (Köln), P. Wood (London), A. Rigolio (Oxford), J. Scheiner (Göttingen), R. Forrai (Odense).

We welcome 500 word proposals for papers of 25 minutes, to be submitted before 31 December 2014 to Panagiotis Manafis (panagiotis.manafis@ugent.be). Participants are asked to read the position

paper posted on the website http://www.late-antique-historiography.ugent.be/conferences.

Appel à contribution — Historiography and Space

Call for Papers: Historiography and Space in Late Antiquity

The research group Late Antique historiography (http://www.late-antique-historiography.ugent.be/home) at Ghent University is organising two workshops on historiography and space in Late Antiquity (300-800 AD), a first one on 24-25 October 2014 and a second one from 15 until 17 January 2015.

The aim is to explore how space was perceived, conceptualised and deployed in historiographical texts within the context of late ancient literature and society. The first workshop focuses on perceptions of space in genres related to historiography (hagiography, apocalyptic literature, geographical literature) and on historical memory in general. The second focuses more strictly on perceptions of space in historiography.

The workshop welcomes contributions on Greek and Latin authors, but also, and especially, those on texts in oriental languages such as Armenian, Georgian, Syriac, and Coptic. Historiography is understood in a wide sense, including narratives and chronicles, but also lists, excerpt collections, antiquarian writings, local histories, etc.

Confirmed speakers include:

Workshop I: M. Debié (Paris), D. Engels (Brussels), G. Kelly (Edinburgh), J.-C. Van Haelewyck (Louvain-la-Neuve).

Workshop II: P. Blaudeau (Angers), J.W. Drijvers (Groningen), S. Johnson (Washington), T. Greenwood (St. Andrews), M. Humphries (Swansea), H. Leppin (Frankfurt), M. Meier (Tübingen).

We welcome 500 word proposals for papers of 25 minutes, to be submitted before 1 July 2014 to Marianna Mazzola (marianna.mazzola@ugent.be).

Participants are asked to read the position paper posted on the website http://www.late-antique-historiography.ugent.be/home > Conference and Events.

 

Appel à article — the Medieval Global

Announcing The Medieval Globe. Connectivity~Communication~Exchange, a  new biannual academic journal. The Medieval Globe (TMG) is a peer-reviewed journal to be launched in 2014, published in both print and digital formats.  It is based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and sponsored by CARMEN, the Worldwide Medieval Network.  It is dedicated to exploring the modes of communication, materials of exchange, and myriad interconnections among regions, communities, and individuals in an era central to human history.

The Medieval Globe promotes scholarship in three related areas of study:

  • the direct and indirect means by which peoples, goods, and ideas came into contact,
  • the deep roots of global developments,
  • the ways in which perceptions of “the medieval” have been (and are) constructed around the world.

Contributions to a global understanding of the medieval period need not encompass the globe in any territorial sense. The Medieval Globe advances a new theory and praxis of medieval studies by bringing into view phenomena that have been rendered practically or conceptually invisible by anachronistic boundaries, categories, and expectations: these include networks, communities, bodies of knowledge, forms of movement, varieties of interaction, and identities. It invites submissions that analyze actual or potential connections, trace trajectories and currents, address topics of broad interest, or pioneer portable methodologies.

For more information, please visit:  http://www.arc-humanities.org/the-medieval-globe.html

Appel à contribution — Against Gravity: Building Practices in the Pre-Industrial World

20-22 March 2015

University of Pennsylvania

Call for Papers

 

Following on the success of “Masons at Work”(held in spring 2012, and published as  http://www.sas.upenn.edu/ancient/publications.html), the symposium aims to assemble specialists to examine building practices in the pre-industrial world, with an emphasis on Greek, Roman, Byzantine, medieval, and pre-modern Islamic architecture. In addition to invited speakers, we are soliciting 20-minute papers that examine the problems which pre-modern masons commonly encountered – and the solutions they developed – in the process of design and construction.  Evidence may be drawn from a variety of sources, but we encourage studies based on the analysis of well-preserved buildings.

Those wishing to speak should submit by email a letter to the organizing committee, including name, title, institutional affiliation, paper title, plus a summary of 200 words or fewer.  Graduate students should include a note of support from their adviser. Deadline: 15 November 2014.  The final program will be announced immediately thereafter.  Submit proposals to ancient@sas.upenn.edu with “Against Gravity” in the subject line.

Organizing Committee: Lothar Haselberger, Renata Holod, Robert Ousterhout

Symposium — Miracles and Wonders in Antiquity and Byzantium

University of Cyprus, 16-18 October 2014

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Miracles and Wonders in Antiquity and Byzantium

                               

Tales of miracle and wonder decorate both ancient and Byzantine literature and seem to have had a great impact upon ancient and Byzantine thought. A strong interest in the wondrous is already apparent in the works of Homer and Hesiod. However, a more organized recording of marvels is detected much later, in Herodotus’s time, when marvelous stories and travel accounts of exotic places and peoples are increasingly produced. From the era of Alexander and onwards such stories are recruited by historians and rhetors in an attempt to apotheose the ideal ruler.

Between the third century BC and the third century AD, the genre of paradoxography, collections of stories relating strange events and phenomena, achieves great popularity, and influences another new genre, the Hellenistic novel. At about the same time, a number of stories circulate that relate the miraculous healings of suffering people who practice incubation in Asclepian temples. Later the practice of incubation is taken over by Christian pilgrims who are cured by saints. Miraculous healings and other types of miracles that are associated with a particular Christian shrine become the material of a new genre, the miracle collection which is cultivated throughout the Byzantine era. Miracle stories are included in all Byzantine hagiographical genres, since they constitute the strongest sign of holiness. Miracles and wonders are also found in profane Byzantine genres, such as chronicles and romances.

Despite the fact that marvel literature enjoyed such a high popularity in antiquity and Byzantium, it has been mostly dismissed by modern scholars as debased, boring and even unintelligible, an attitude that has condemned this literature to obscurity.

The conference’s main aims are to bring to light miracle and wonder literature and to open up new avenues of approach. Topics of exploration may include:

• Literary Theoretical Approaches

• Cultural Studies

• Psychological Approaches

• Comparative Literary Studies

• Linguistics

Specialists are invited to submit a thirty-minute paper in English on a relevant topic.

Due to budgetary constraints, the organizers cannot cover the speakers’ travel and hotel costs. There is no registration fee for participation or attendance.

Prospective speakers are asked to submit by 30 April 2014 a title and a 400-word abstract to Stavroula Constantinou (konstans@ucy.ac.cy) and Maria Gerolemou (mariagerolemou@live.de).