Tuesday, April 20, 2010

INTERNATIONAL PHD PROGRAM - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

INTERNATIONAL PHD PROGRAM - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
"The Traditions of the Mediterranean Humanism and Challenges of our
Times: the Frontiers of Humanity."
International Doctoral Program organized by the Institute for
Interdisciplinary Studies "Artes Liberales" at the University of
Warsaw. Offers 48 months of paid fellowship, including 12-18 months in
Austria, Czech Republic, France, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary,
Italy, Macedonia, Russia, Spain, or in the USA (about 770 euros per
month, increased to 1,150 euros when abroad). Co-funded by the
European Union.
For more information see: www.mpd.ibi.uw.edu.pl

MIĘDZYNARODOWE STUDIA DOKTORANCKIE
Instytut Badań Interdyscyplinarnych "Artes Liberales" Uniwersytetu
Warszawskiego zaprasza do udziału w międzynarodowym programie
humanistycznych studiów doktoranckich "The Traditions of the
Mediterranean Humanism and Challenges of our Times: the Frontiers of
Humanity". Bardzo atrakcyjne stypendia na cały okres trwania programu
- 48 miesięcy, w tym co najmniej 12 miesięcy za granicą, w czołowych
uniwersytetach i instytutach naukowych Austrii, Czech, Francji,
Grecji, Hiszpanii, Macedonii, Rosji, Węgier, Włoch, Wielkiej Brytanii
i USA (3500 zł. miesięcznie, 4500 zł., ok. 1,150 euro w czasie staży
zagranicznych). Program współfinansowany ze środków Europejskiego
Funduszu Rozwoju Regionalnego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego
Innowacyjna Gospodarka.
Szczegóły na stronie: www.mpd.ibi.uw.edu.pl

ÉCOLE DOCTORALE INTERNATIONALE
“Les traditions de l’humanisme méditerranéen et les défis de notre
époque: aux frontières de l’humanité”
Programme d’études doctorales organisé par l’Institut des Études
Interdisciplinaires "Artes Liberales" de l’Université de Varsovie.
Bourses d’étude de 48 mois, dont 12-18 mois dans des universités et
centres académiques en Autriche, Espagne, États-Unis, France, Grande
Bretagne, Hongrie, Italie, Macédoine, République Tchèque, ou Russie
(approximativement 770 euros par mois; 1150 euros pendant les séjours
à l’étranger). Co-financé par l’Union Européenne.
Pour plus d’information: www.mpd.ibi.uw.edu.pl
Messages to the list are archived at
http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/classicists.html

Lecture by Chase F. Robinson, Tuesday, April 27, 6 pm, Room C203, The Graduate Center, CUNY

*LECTURE: Tuesday, April 27, 6 pm (followed by reception)*

*Room C203, The Graduate Center, CUNY*

*365 Fifth Avenue (at 34^th Street)*

*Chase F. Robinson*

*History and Medieval Studies, The Graduate Center, CUNY*

*“The Politics of Islamic History: Some Reflections on Method and
Perspective”*

/ABSTRACT:/ The myth of Islamic origins that prevails nowadays
describes the creation of a religio-political order in early
seventh-century Arabia, which, through conquest and a tradition- and
Qur’an-based theocratic order, installed Muslims as the ruling elite
of a huge multinational empire. This empire fulfilled God’s design
and accordingly privileged Muslims over their non-Muslims subjects;
even so, it legislated a religiously tolerant society, one in which
knowledge (and, sometimes, science) were patronized. The main
features of this myth have been the subject of intense and
controversial scrutiny over 25 years or so. My concern is not with
that controversy, but with what Jose Casanova calls the ‘paradigmatic
power of the myth of origins’. My paper explores several overlapping
questions.

One, put very provisionally, is how ‘Islamist’ strains of modern
thought, which insist that religion take public form, highlight the
anomalous status of European prescriptions of privatized
religiosity—and with it, the assumed relationship between modernity
and secularization. From this perspective, the polemics surrounding
Islam form part of a set of larger polemics about citizenship and
liberal society.

A second, explored in moderately more detail, is how, as Rushdie has
said, the past ‘irradiates’ the present. Islamists may hearken back
to what they claim as ‘original’ Islam, but they have constructed a
distinctly modern Islam, which breaks from pre-modern forms in its
gross conflation of ethics and law. To see this and other
prescriptions poised as descriptions, one needs to interrogate the
categories of historical and sociological analysis that we
conventionally use, as well as specific modernists’ reconstructions
of early Islamic history.

/BIO/: Chase F. Robinson, Provost and Distinguished Professor of
History at The Graduate Center, CUNY since 2008, is a leading expert
on early Islamic history. Before coming to the Graduate Center, he
was professor of Islamic history at Oxford University, beginning in
1993, chairing Oxford’s Faculty of Oriental Studies from 2003 to
2005. His books include /Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest:
//The Transformation of Northern Mesopotamia/ (Cambridge, 2000); /A
Medieval Islamic City Reconsidered: An Interdisciplinary Approach to
Samarra/ (Oxford, 2001); /Islamic Historiography /(Cambridge, 2003);
/Abd al-Malik/ (Oxford, 2005); /The Legacy of the Prophet: The Middle
East and Islam, 600-1300/ (Cambridge, 2009 ); and /The Formation of
Islam, Sixth to Eleventh Century /(vol. 1 of the 6-volume New
Cambridge History of Islam, 2009). Professor Robinson has received
grants and fellowships from the British Academy, the Woodrow Wilson
Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the
American Research Center in Egypt.

Summer Language Programs

Please see (http://www.efn.org/~acd/summerlanguagestudy.html) for some
summer language programs, many for graduate students.
If you have more to suggest, please let me know.

Heads Up those in the Boston Area!

Thursday, *April 22*, 4:30 p.m.:* *Professor Morgan Davies*
*(Department of English, Colgate University), "Anecdota from Irish
Manuscripts": Barker Center, Room 133.
Celtic Literature and Culture
Seminar, the Humanities Center,
Harvard University

Summer Program in Lyon, France

UMKC¹s Summer Study Abroad Program in Lyon, France has a few spaces still
open for students. This 6-week immersion program offers both undergraduate
and graduate students an excellent quality yet still budget-conscious option
for summer study abroad.

Coursework: Students take the equivalent of 9 credit-hours of coursework:
one 3-hour culture course with a UMKC professor and the equivalent of 6
credit-hours of language and culture courses at the Centre International
d¹Etudes Françaises at the Université Lumière-Lyon II. Optional weekend
excursions include trips to Annecy and Avignon.
Graduate students have the option of taking the language & culture track or
focusing on language pedagogy.

Lodging is with host families, all of whom have significant experience with
American students. Lodging fees cover room, laundry, and all meals except
weekday lunches.

Approximate costs, not including travel to/from Lyon, weekday lunches and
spending money: $4500 for undergraduates, $5000 for graduate students.

Pre-requisites: Age 18 or older, one year of university-level French or the
equivalent.

Final deadline for applications: April 16th

Contact: Dr. Kathy Krause, Professor of French, krausek@umkc.edu

Program Website: Http://cas.umkc.edu/foreign/French/lyon.shtml

Monday, April 19, 2010

reternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural

It is with great pleasure that I announce the 2010 re-launch of a
peer-reviewed print journal devoted to magic, miracle, monstrophy,
the demonic, and the preternatural more broadly: /Preternature:
Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural/.

Since I fear the pdf Call for Papers might not come through as an
attachment via this list, I have also included a text version below.
I hope you will join me in passing this on to other individuals or
academic lists, as you think might be of interest.

Please see the beta version of the website for further details
(www.preternature.org), or contact Peter Dendle (pjd11@psu.edu),
Kirsten C. Uszkalo (circe@ufies.org), and Richard Raiswell
(rraiswell@upei.ca).

Thank you for your attention,
Peter Dendle
Pennsylvania State University

ESF-COST Conference on 'Networked Humanities: Art History in the Web'

ESF-COST Conference on 'Networked Humanities: Art History in the Web'

Call for applications/papers

ESF-COST Conference on
Networked Humanities: Art History in the Web
Acquafredda di Maratea, Italy, 9-14 October 2010
http://www.esf.org/conferences/10342

Chair: Hubertus Kohle – Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Deutsches Historisches Institut, DE
Programme Committee: Claudine Moulin – Trier University, DE & Lea Rojola – University of Turku, FI

Since the earliest times, new technologies have contributed to profound scientific advances and have transformed the ways we can do research. It is claimed today that the World Wide Web offers revolutionary models of scientific cooperation, which promise to
instantiate a utopian democracy of knowledge. This claim has repeatedly been associated with the development and introduction of a collaborative Web, commonly referred to as Web 2.0 as well as its offspring, a semantically enriched Web 3.0 still in the making The aim of this conference is to bring together art historians and other researchers (including digital humanists) in order to investigate the intersection between the web and collaborative research processes, via an examination of electronic media-based cooperative models in the history of art and beyond.
The conference will not only be an occasion to exchange ideas and present relevant projects in the field,
but, with contributions spanning from art history (and digital art) to philosophy and cultural studies,
from psychology and sociology of knowledge to computer graphics, from semiotics to curatorial practices
it will offer a unique forum for the representation of both diversified and complementary approaches to the topic of Networked humanities.

Conference format:
* lectures by invited high level speakers
* short talks by young & early stage researchers
* poster sessions, round table and open discussion periods
* forward look panel discussion about future developments

Invited Speakers will include:
* Patrick Danowski, CERN Geneva, CH
* Matteo d’Alfonso, Universitdi Bologna, IT
* Francesca Gallo, University of Rome La Sapienza, IT
* Charlie Gere, University of Lancaster, UK
* Gudrun Gersmann, German Historical Institute Paris, FR
* Guenther Goerz, University of Erlangen, Institute of Computer Science, DE * Halina Gottlieb, Interactive Institute, Kista, SE
* Gerhard Nauta, University of Leiden, NL
* Robert Stein, Indianapolis Museum of Arts, US
(List to be completed)

A good number of grants are available for young researchers to cover the conference fee and possibly part of the travel costs. Grant requests should be made by ticking appropriate field(s)
in the paragraph Grant application of the application form (http://www2.esf.org/asp/esfrcaf.asp?confcode=342&meetno=1).

Full conference programme and application form are accessible online from http://www.esf.org/conferences/10342.

ESF-COST Contact for further information: Zuzana Vercinska – Zuzana.Vercinska@cost.eu

Closing date for applications: 18 July 2010

This conference is organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) in partnership with COST European Cooperation in Science and Technology.

Posted by: Corinne Wininger (clemoal@esf.org).

URL: http://digitalmedievalist.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/esf-cost-conference-on-networked-humanities-art-history-in-the-web/

Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies (Vol. 13, No. 1, Winter, 2010)

Announcement: Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies (Vol. 13, No. 1, Winter, 2010)




Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies



PISCATAWAY, NJ, April 6, 2010—Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute (http://www.bethmardutho.org) published a new issue of its peer-reviewed academic periodical Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies (Vol. 13, No. 1). The issue can be found a http://bethmardutho.cua.edu/Hugoye/.



Subscription Information to the PRINTED EDITION: The Printed Edition of Hugoye is published by Gorgias Press. Issues can be ordered from www.gorgiaspress.com. For further subscription information, write to Gorgias Press, 180 Centennial Ave., Suite 3, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. Tel. +1 732-699-0343. Fax +1 732-699-0342. E-mail: helpdesk@gorgiaspress.com.



The new issue contains the following:

Special Volume: Philoxenos of Mabbug
Volume 13 Number 1 (Winter 2010)

Introduction to the Double Issue on Philoxenos of Mabbug.
David A. Michelson, University of Alabama
Papers

New Evidence on the Philoxenian Version of the New Testament and Nicene Creed.
Daniel King, Cardiff University

La Vierge Mère de Dieu dans la pensée de Philoxène de Mabboug.
P. Roger-Youssef Akhrass, Seminaire De Theologie De St. Ephrem, Maarat Saydnaya

The Lust of the Belly is the Beginning of All Sin. Practical Theology of Asceticism in the Discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug.
Robert A. Kitchen, Knox-Metropolitan United Church

Philoxène de Mabboug. Homélies. Introduction, traduction et notes par Eugène Lemoine.
Robert A. Kitchen, Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Conference Reports

Reconsidering Philoxenos of Mabbug, Princeton, Saturday, May 3, 2008

Report on SBL 2009 Annual Meeting: International Syriac Language Project sessions.

The Letter of Mara Bar Serapion in Context, Utrecht University, 10–12 December 2009.
Book Reviews

J.W. Childers and D.C. Parker, Transmission and Reception: New Testament Text-critical and Exegetical Studies.
Craig E. Morrison, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome

Christine Shephardson, Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy. Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria.
J. W. Childers, Abilene Christian University

W.Th. van Peursen, Language and Interpretation in the Syriac Text of Ben Sira: A Comparative Linguistic and Literary Study.
Paul S. Stevenson, Catholic University of America
Bibliographies

Recent Books on Syriac Topics.
Sebastian P. Brock, Oxford University

Annotated Bibliography of Syriac Studies in Russian, 2009.
Nikolai N. Seleznyov, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow



Publishers interested in advertising in future issues of Hugoye may contact the General Editor at helpdesk@gorgiaspress.com.



About Beth Mardutho and Hugoye

Established in 1992, Beth Mardutho seeks to promote the study and preservation of the Syriac heritage and language, and to facilitate opportunities for people to pursue the study of this ancient legacy globally. Published semiannually since 1988, Hugoye is a peer-reviewed academic journal that is dedicated entirely to the Syriac tradition. [www.bethmardutho.org]

Religion in Late Antiquity workshop, Knoxville (April 30-May 1)

I hate it when I'm horribly late getting things posted. I've had to delete a few things this week that I didn't get posted here before they expired. My apologies to all. But this one is still good:


All,
Please note that there is now a conference hotel discount available to any out-of-town participants if you make your reservation by April 16.16.
Details are available under the accommodations link on the workshop website: http://web.utk.edu/~marco/southeast/workshop.shtml

We look forward to seeing you in Knoxville. Please remember to let me know if you plan to join us: cshepard@utk.edu

Tina Shepardson
Associate Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
http://web.utk.edu/~religion/

Dear Colleagues,

Please help spread the word, and I hope that those of you who live within striking distance of Knoxville will attend:

Southeast Regional Workshop: "Religion and Culture in Late Antiquity"
April 30-May 1, 2010
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

This regional workshop is funded by the American Academy of Religion, the Marco Institute (UT), the Department of Religious Studies (UT), and the Humanities Initiative (UT), and will be a chance for all scholars of religion and scholars of late antiquity to discuss the work in progress of four prominent faculty from our region. We are pleased that Elizabeth Alexander (University of Virginia), David Hunter (University of Kentucky), Robin Jensen (Vanderbilt University), and Jeremy Schott (University of North Carolina, Charlotte) have agreed to present their work for discussion. We welcome and encourage all interested faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students to attend. Papers will be circulated ahead of time to everyone who expresses interest in attending.

For more information, please visit http://web.utk.edu/~marco/southeast/workshop.shtml, or email cshepard@utk.edu.

N.B.: If you plan to attend the workshop, please email me, Tina Shepardson: cshepard@utk.edu. More details will be forthcoming.

very best,
Tina

Dr. Tina Shepardson
Associate Professor
Department of Religious Studies
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996
http://web.utk.edu/~religion/

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Columbia Seminar on the Renaissance

Posted for the Columbia Seminar on the Renaissance
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/seminars/seminars/history/seminar-folder/renaissance.html

Spring 2010 Seminars

Tues, April 13
Nancy Siraisi, MacArthur Award recipient.
"Human Life Span, Length of Life, and the Powers of Medicine: Some
14th to Early 17th Century Discussions."

Tues, May 11
Ruth De Ford, Hunter.
"Temporal Proportions in Guillaume Du Fay's Nuper rosarum flores
(1436): Symbolism vs. Performance Practice."

All programs are at 7:30 PM in the Faculty House, Columbia
University.
http://facultyhouse.com/content/contact-us-new-york-event-and-reception-venue#Directions

Those wishing to have dinner with the speaker meet in the Faculty
House Lounge at 5:45. The buffet, including coffee and dessert, costs
about $25.

For reservations for dinner and /or program, please contact the
Seminar Rapporteur, Ivan Lupic, at il2177@columbia.edu by the
Friday before the seminar. (This helps the Faculty House assign
rooms.)

Monday, April 5, 2010

SEMA CFP!! Pay ATTENTION!

Call for Papers

“Natural, Unnatural, & Supernatural”



36th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association
Roanoke, VA
November 18-20, 2010

The Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Medieval Association will take place November 18-20, 2010, at the Hotel Roanoke, located in the southwest corner of Virginia in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley. Because this year’s conference coincides with the 75th anniversary of the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, we have selected “Natural, Unnatural, & Supernatural” as its theme.

We welcome papers and panels dealing with all aspects of the Middle Ages, but we particularly encourage those examining elements of the natural, unnatural, and supernatural in the medieval world. As it does every year, the SEMA annual conference encourages submissions from all branches of medieval studies, including but not limited to history, art, science, philosophy, theology, archaeology, paleography, language, and literatures.

Proposals for entire sessions and for interdisciplinary presentations are strongly encouraged, although individual paper proposals are welcome as well. Offers to serve as session moderators are also welcome.

Papers should be no more than 20 minutes in length and sessions should consist of no more than 3 presenters and 1 moderator. If submitting a full session, please indicate the intended format of the session (formal papers, roundtable discussion, panel, and so on) and titles of all individual presentations. All proposals should be approximately 250 words and include all contact information (mailing address as well as email) of the presenter(s) and/or organizer. Proposals must include a note regarding A/V equipment needs. Email submissions are much preferred.

Email proposals by June 1 to:

sema2010 AT scholar.vt.edu

Prof. Matthew Gabriele
Dept. of Religion and Culture
Virginia Tech
342 Lane Hall (0227)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
USA

Please explore the conference website, where you'll find information on plenary speakers, accommodation, local dining, travel & maps, and local attractions.


For questions or more information about the conference please contact:

Matthew Gabriele (Virginia Tech) mgabriele AT vt.edu
Dana-Linn Whiteside (Roanoke College) whiteside AT roanoke.edu