Sasmars Newsletter

Number 1, 2011

2011-05-06T16:31:00.531+02:00

Conference Announcement

SASMARS 2012, Mont Fleur, Stellenbosch, South Africa

‘Mortality and Imagination: The Life of the Dead in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance’

Deadline for abstracts: 31 January 2012

We are pleased to announce that the 21st Biennial Conference of the Southern African Society for Medieval and Renaissance Studies will be held at Mont Fleur, Stellenbosch, South Africa, on 30 August-2 September 2012.

The theme of the conference is ‘Mortality and Imagination: The Life of the Dead in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance’. In an effort to facilitate a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary conversation, we encourage scholars working in any discipline to submit abstracts addressing this theme. We also invite scholars working on any related aspect of the Middle Ages or Renaissance to submit abstracts for consideration.

We are proud to announce that Helen Fulton, BA (Sydney), Dip. Celt (Oxon.), Ph.D. (Sydney) has agreed to be the keynote speaker at the conference.

Helen Fulton is Professor of Medieval Literature in the Department of English and Related Literature and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York. Her main research areas are medieval literatures, Celtic studies, Arthurian literature, and critical theory.

A graduate of Linacre College, Oxford, and the University of Sydney, Helen has held a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Visiting Research Fellowships at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the Institute of English Studies, University of London. She has over 50 publications, including 7 authored or edited books, and has convened 3 major international conferences as well as organising numerous sessions at international conferences. She has given 6 keynote addresses and many invited papers in the UK, US and Australia. She is currently a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, the editor of a refereed journal (Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion), and a member of several editorial boards including the University of Wales Press. She has been the founding Director of three research centres and played a major role in research strategy in her previous post as Director of the Research Institute for Arts and Humanities at Swansea University.

Helen has extensive experience of leading research projects in the UK and Australia, acting as Principal or Co-Investigator on 13 funded projects (British Academy, AHRC, Australian Research Council). She recently collaborated as Co-Investigator on an AHRC-funded research project, ‘Mapping Medieval Chester’, using digitization and GIS mapping (www.medievalchester.ac.uk) and is now leading two teams in the development of further projects, ‘Middle English in Medieval Wales’ and ‘Britain, Ireland and the Italian Renaissance: Reception and Influences’. Other current research includes an edition of the Middle Welsh version of the Troy story (Ystorya Dared) and completion of a monograph, The Medieval Town Imagined. Her most recent publications are the edited collections Companion to Arthurian Literature (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) and Urban Culture in Medieval Wales (University of Wales Press, forthcoming).

Please send proposals (250-300 words) for 20-minute papers to Professor David Scott-Macnab by 31 January 2012.

The University of Johannesburg Medieval and Renaissance Study Group

held its annual symposium on Saturday 29 October 2011.

The theme this year was Journeys and Journeying – Literal and Metaphorical – in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, which produced an interesting range of offerings.

The programme was as follows:

Prof. Leonie Viljoen (Research Fellow, Dept of English Studies, UNISA):

'...to seken straunge strondes': Some Thoughts on Medieval Pilgrimage

Ms Sonia Fanucchi (Dept of English, WITS):

Conversations with Dante: Journeying through the Inferno in South African Classrooms

Dr Mitzi Andersen (formerly Dept of English, UNISA):

Travels and Terminations: A Consideration of Books 7 and 8 of Malory's Le Morte Darthur

Ms Ansie De Swart (Independent Scholar): Then and Now: Journeying to Compostela

The day's proceedings culminated in a unique performance of Medieval Music on original instruments by Simon Stengel, aka Jongleur.

For more information about the University of Johannesburg Medieval and Renaissance Study Group or to be added to their mailing list, contact Prof. David Scott-Macnab in the Department of English on 011 559 3456, or by email at dscott-macnab@uj.ac.za.

The Eighth Triennial Congress and Conference of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa

3-5 JULY 2012

Rhodes University, Grahamstown
Eastern Province, South Africa

It is with pleasure that we invite you to participate in our forthcoming Conference.

Theme: Staging Shakespeare – Direction, Design and Reception:

This conference looks at Shakespeare in the theatre, with particular attention to the contemporary and historical challenges of staging his plays. Accounts by directors, theatre practitioners, and theatre historians are particularly welcome. We are very pleased that the following have agreed to give plenary lectures:

Robert Gordon. Professor of Drama and Director of the Pinter Centre for Research in Writing and Performance of Goldsmith College, University of London

Dame Janet Suzman, the famous Shakespearean actress and author of Acting with Shakespeare

Scott Newstok, Professor at Rhodes College, Tennessee. Author of many books and articles on Shakespeare

CALL FOR PAPERS

Papers of 25 minutes duration are invited on the following or related topics:

Shakespeare on stage: contemporary approaches
Visualising the Shakespearean stage: stark or sumptuous?
Staging Shakespeare’s text: what price language?
Beyond Words: Shakespeare and Physical Theatre
Styling Shakespeare for film
Staging my country’s Shakespeare
The influence of Victorian Shakespeare on stage and in literature
Tweaking Shakespeare - the director’s ‘Aye’: feminist/proletarian/(anti-) sexist/religious/eco-critical productions
Shakespearean music and choreography
Touring Shakespeare
Shakespeare on the South African stage
Shakespeare between cultures: reaching the multivalent audience
Indigenising Shakespeare on stage
Staging Shakespeare in translation.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to the conference coordinator, Warren Snowball (w.snowball@ru.ac.za) by 29th February 2012. Those who wish to put together special interest sessions should notify the coordinator concerning the proposed topic and participants.

For further information and to answer any queries, please contact the conference secretary, Eddie Baart: shakespeare@ru.ac.za

PROVISIONAL PROGRAM

Monday 2nd July Transport from Port Elizabeth airport and settling into accommodation

Evening - Welcoming cocktail party given by Rhodes University

Tuesday 3rd July Registration, Congress Business Meeting, Presentation of papers

Evening free for delegates to sample the National Arts Festival

Wednesday 4th July Presentation of papers,

Afternoon game drive and conference dinner

Thursday 5th July Presentation of papers,

Evening - specially commissioned performance of a Shakespeare play.

Registration: A website for registration for the conference is under construction.

Accommodation: As the National Arts Festival is running at the same time, accommodation in Grahamstown will be at a premium. Delegates may stay in a residence of Rhodes University at a reasonable cost, Accommodation is in single rooms with communal toilet facilities. Breakfast is provided. The Conference proceedings are held on the Rhodes campus, within easy walking distance of the residences.

The National Festival of the Arts is running in Grahamstown from 28th June to 8th July with hundreds of shows in the Main Program and on the Fringe. Delegates to the Shakespeare Conference may wish to extend their stay to sample the Festival. There are also many famous game parks close to the town (Shamwari, Kwandwe, Pumba ....) which provide one-day game drives.

For more information on Rhodes University refer to http://www.ru.ac.za/conferences

For more information on the Eastern Cape refer to http://www.sa-venues.com/eastcape.htm

Emeritus Professor Eddie Baart

Administrative Secretary

Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa

shakespeare@ru.ac.za

phone: 046 603 7288

Victor Houliston delivered his inaugural lecture as a Professor of English Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand on 30 September 2010. A good crowd turned up to listen, some deluded by the title, ‘The Missionary Position’. The sub-title, ‘Catholics writing the History of the English Reformation’, refers to the view of the English ‘schism’ developed by the Elizabethan Catholics Nicholas Sander (‘Dr Slander’, notorious for the scandalous things he wrote about Anne Boleyn), William Cardinal Allen and Robert ‘Polypragman’ Persons – who saw themselves as missionaries to an England plunged into outer darkness. The lecture will be published in a forthcoming number of English Studies in Africa, the Wits Journal of the Humanities.

Sharing amusement with Noel Garson, Professor of History and former Dean of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand

All the spring blossoms: mother-in-law Bernadette Oliphant,

daughter Rebecca and wife Arlene

The academic procession: Libby Meintjies (Head of School of Literature and Language Studies),

Patrick Fitzgerald (DVC, Chair), Victor Houliston, Tawana Kupe (Dean of Humanities),

Christopher Thurman (Department of English, respondent)

George King writes: I spent four days in the Netherlands in early April to attend a fascinating conference at Utrecht University on ‘Negotiating “the West” Music(ologic)ally’. Although the trip was all too short, I managed to fit in an unforgettable performance of Bach’s St John Passion by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir at the Westerkerk under the superb direction of the legendary Ton Koopman, with Jaap ter Linden on gamba and a clutch of outstanding soloists.

Before moving on to Utrecht I visited a fabulous exhibition of Islamic art, ‘Passion for Perfection’, at the Nieuwe Kerk. The art on display (about 500 pieces) is from the collection of Nasser D. Khalili and contains many precious items. The entire installation made use of huge mirrors so there was constant visual interaction between the Islamic art and the Christian Gothic church, each offering commentary on the other.

On my arrival at Utrecht station I was met by Clara Strijbosch, who was at the last SASMARS conference at Mont Fleur and who kindly arranged excellent accommodation at a reasonable price in a B&B. On my last day in Utrecht I visited the Catharijne convent to see an exhibition of Macedonian icons, some of them a thousand or more years old, and reflecting the austerity and richness of the Orthodox tradition. All in all, a memorable if brief visit.

Congratulations to David Levey who has been promoted to Associate Professor in Unisa's Department of English Studies. Dave has been linked to SASMARS for many years.

On 3 July 2010, Professor Brian Pearce of the Department of Drama Studies, Durban University of Technology, was appointed Honorary Life Member of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa, “in recognition of sterling service as Editor of the Society’s Journal.” Brian edited the journal from 2000 to 2008. Recently, he published a chapter entitled, “British directors in post-colonial South Africa” in Shakespeare in Stages, edited by Christine Dymkowski and Christie Carson (2010 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

He also published a reprint of an article which originally appeared in Shakespeare in Southern Africa (19, 2007), entitled “Hamlet, the Actor”. (Lee, Michelle Ed. Shakespearean Criticism V.129 Bristol: Gale Cengage Learning, 2010.) He co-authored (with Kevin Duffy) an article entitled “Hamlet: Rational and Emotional Units of Meaning in Four Soliloquies”. (Shakespeare in Southern Africa 22, 2010, 21-28) He also published a conference paper, “Shakespeare and social justice: critique and conformity during apartheid”, in Proceedings of the ‘Art and Social Justice’ International Conference 21 – 24 March 2010. On 23 May 2011 he addressed the Faculty of Arts and Design at Durban University of Technology on the theme of “Global Shakespeare” and on 25 May he gave a presentation on “The theme of Music in Shakespeare” for Lifelong Learning.

David Scott-Macnab writes: In February I attended the 8th Biennial International conference of ANZAMEMS (Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies) in Dunedin, New Zealand, where I spoke on 'Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas and the Mystery of Thopas's Lancegay'. It was a most impressive event as it attracted several hundred delegates from around the globe, and included no fewer than four keynote speeches by luminaries in a number of fields, including Prof. Dauvit Brown (Glasgow), Prof. Michael Hunter (Birkbeck College), Prof. Peter Matheson (Otago) and Prof. Alastair Minnis (Yale). The conference was also attended by representatives from Brepols Publishing, who congratulated Australian and New Zealand scholars in medieval and Renaissance studies for 'punching well above their weight' in terms of contributing high quality publications to the Brepols list; and the programme was enlivened by an exhibition of rare books and a number of excursions to notable sights in Dunedin.

‘Sir John Fastolf and the Diverse Affinities of the Medieval Lancegay’, The Southern African Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 19 (2010 for 2009): 97–116.

'The Medieval Boar and its Haslets', Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 111 (2010): 355–66.

'The Hunting of the Hare in the Heege Manuscript', Anglia: Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie, 128 (2010): 102–23.

Leonie Viljoen's article 'Ellen Bið Selast – “Courage Is the Best Thing”: Exile and Displacement in Old English Poetry' was published in scrutiny2: issues in english studies in southern africa, 15:2 (2011 for 2010): 5-16.

Dr. William R. Short, author of Icelanders in the Viking Age, was recently awarded the position of Research Fellow at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA, USA. Dr. Short has been a part of the museum’s research efforts to explore the martial arts of the European Middle Ages and Renaissance. Dr. Short’s interest in medieval Icelandic literature has led him to focus his research on the fighting techniques of the Viking age.

While combat treatises written by fight masters survive from the later medieval and the Renaissance periods, little survives that informs us of the fighting techniques of the Vikings. Dr. Short has used the Sagas of Icelanders and other medieval Icelandic sources, combined with forensic evidence, pictorial sources, and other written sources to create a speculative reconstruction of Viking combat techniques that is consistent with the available sources. At the museum, Dr. Short and his colleagues research, practice, teach, and demonstrate the lost martial arts of the Viking age.

Recently, they have created a series of short demonstration videos illustrating some of the fighting moves described in the sagas. The sagas from which the moves were taken are listed in the YouTube text description for each video. The first video in the series shows sword and shield versus two-handed axe combat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSLzd74GIko&hd=1

Other weapons combinations are here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoJ8nt7mg50&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw3ARKAtBhs&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrtZJjHLeao&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCBcYj5jEeA&hd=1

Dr. Short was one of the instructors for a short summer course on Gísla saga offered by the University Centre of the Westfjords in Iceland this year. The intensive course includes classroom work on Gísla saga, on the Icelandic language, and on the history and culture of Viking-age Iceland. Outside of class, students will have an opportunity to visit the saga sites, attend saga-related performances, sail on a replica Viking ship, and receive a hands-on introduction to the use of Viking weapons. More information on the course is available from the University Centre website.

News Snippets

Number 3, 2010

2010-11-20T00:58:00.472+02:00

SASMARS 2010, Mont Fleur, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2-5 September

Afterlives: Survival and Revival

A word from newly elected SASMARS President and Treasurer David Scott-Macnab:

After the success of this year's conference, which attracted our largest ever contingent of overseas delegate, we have already begun planning the next conference for September 2012. The committee will be meeting early next year to decide on a date, conference theme and various possible venues, although Mont Fleur remains the stand-out favourite. Watch this space for announcements!

We are delighted that Professor Alexandra Johnson, who was keynote speaker at this year's conference, has accepted our invitation to become a Corresponding Fellow of our Society. We look forward to a long and fruitful association.

Thanks to Leonie and other members of the committee for all their hard work and support. I recently received the most complimentary comments about our website and our society from a distinguished overseas medievalist. Our principal aim remains the fostering of medieval and Renaissance studies in all relevant disciplines throughout Southern Africa, so it is very encouraging to know that we look good to international experts in these fields.

Professor Michael Bratchel

Sincere thanks to Michael Bratchel, the outgoing President of SASMARS and Convener of the very successful 20th International Conference at Mont Fleur.

Click here for more news about the recent conference.

The ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM of the Medieval and Renaissance Study Group of the University of Johannesburg was held on Saturday 16 October 2010

Theme: Sports, Games and Diversions in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

The Speakers were

Prof. Leonie Viljoen (Research Fellow, Dept of English Studies, UNISA): Fun and Games in the Sagas of Icelanders

Michelle Du Plessis-Hay (Dept. of English, North-West University): The Art of Riding: Renaissance Attitudes to Horsemanship

Prof. Victor Houliston (Dept of English, WITS): Can a Jack trump a King? – John Donne and King Charles

Dr Mitzi Andersen (formerly Dept of English, UNISA): Sport that owes its Pleasures to Another’s Pain: ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and ‘Le Morte Darthur’

Dr Chris Thurman (Dept of English, WITS): ‘I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks’: Playing with ‘Richard III’

Dr George King (Dept. of Musicology, UNISA): Celestial Harmonies: The Postmodern Revival of Hildegard of Bingen’s Music

More information about the Study Group, contact Professor David Scott-Macnab.
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PERSONALIA

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David Scott-Macnab has been elected President and Treasurer of SASMARS, as well as Chair of the University of Johannesburg Medieval and Renaissance Study Group.

In May he attended a conference of the Early English Text Society in Oxford, with the theme ‘Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-First Century’.

In July, he read a paper at the Leeds International Medieval Conference entitled ‘The Mystery of the Medieval English Lancegay’.

He has two articles that should be appearing in print any day now:

• ‘The Hunting of the Hare in the Heege Manuscript’, Anglia: Zeitschrift for Englische Studien (Autumn 2010)

• ‘The Medieval Boar and its Haslets’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen (Autumn 2010)

From Lino Pertile

Director, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies,

Via di Vincigliata 26, 50135 Firenze, (39) 055 603251

It is my sad task to share the news that Bill Kent died August 30, 2010 after a long battle with cancer. Bill was one of the most respected and beloved members of the I Tatti community. He first joined as a Fellow in 1977/78, then returned as Visiting Professor no less than four times in 1980s and 1990s; he also served on the Advisory Committee between 2000 and 2003, and was a founding-editor of I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance. Over the years Bill lived several times on the I Tatti property, usually in the Villino, and became a friend of many of the staff, from the library, administration, villa, garden, and farm. Those who worked, visited, or studied at I Tatti were all able to enjoy his broad smile, wry sense of humor, and exuberant personality. For decades, Fellows at I Tatti benefited from his generosity with ideas, information, documents, and that most precious resource, his time.

This is not the time or place to attempt a summary of Bill’s scholarly achievements, but I would like to quote a couple of paragraphs read by his friend Alison Brown, at the dedication of the Bill Kent Library in Monash in Prato last May.

His work has been consistently innovative. Bill first wrote a novel social history of Florence about the continuing importance of families and clans, at a time when politics and emphasis on Renaissance individualism were all the rage. He then moved on to explore the (then) equally novel theme of patronage as a social and political system and the role of Big Men in the Renaissance. This theme led straight on to that alpha male, Lorenzo il Magnifico, whose biography Bill is currently engaged in writing.

Bill also happens to be one of the best-read friends I have. I have always marveled at how he has managed to fit into his life scrupulous reading in his own field and in related academic fields - as a writer, teacher and editor - together with an eclectic and broad-based reading of novels and literature. I am sure that he - like all good Renaissance humanists - believes in the immortality bestowed through letters and books.

That immortality among humanists will be assured, in part, through Bill’s many collaborations with I Tatti. As well as being a founding editor of I Tatti Studies, he co-authored (with Dale Kent) Neighbours and Neighbourhood in Renaissance Florence: The District of the Red Lion in the Fifteenth Century, the sixth volume in the I Tatti publication series. In 2002, he became General Editor of the edition of Lorenzo de' Medici's letters published under the auspices of Villa I Tatti and other institutions. Most recently, the editorial board of I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History recommended the publication of the very volume mentioned by Alison, The Young Lorenzo de' Medici, 1449-1472.

Beyond these and other equally impressive publications, Bill will live on in many studies for which he provided inspiration, encouragement, and assistance, and in the hearts of so many members of our community.

Only a month before his untimely death on 30 August 2010, Bill Kent had been appointed Emeritus Professor of Monash University, to mark his retirement after a career spanning four decades. The appointment acknowleged his distinguished record of service and long association with Monash. Bill had been delighted: ‘Monash University has been much more than just my professional life for well over 40 years' he said.

[Bill was enthusiastic about coming to the 2010 SASMARS conference, but was (rightly) worried that his health might not permit it. In fact he died just before the conference.]

SASMARS Corresponding Fellow Sheila Delany has been working recently on an 18^th-c French atheist journalist/scholar, but of medieval interest is her “Afterlife of a medieval genre: The Nouvelle légende dorée (1790) of Sylvain Maréchal” in Exemplaria 22 (Spring, 2010). She has translated the work and is negotiating a contract for its publication.

SASMARS Corresponding Fellow Roberta Frank has just returned from presenting the 2010 Conway Lectures at the Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, to be published by their University Press. The three talks looked at three different types of narrative indirection in Old English and Old Norse verse, how early alliterative poetry "told it slant." The lecture titles were as follows:

General title: "Slip Slidin' Away: The Nimble Leaps of Early Northern Verse"

Lecture 1: "Artful Forgetting" (November 1)

Lecture 2:"Removing Weight" (November 3)

Lecture 3:"Jumping the Shark" (November 4)

Roberta has also completed her skaldic edition of the Old Norse Proverb Poem for the collective edition known as Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages.

Celia Kourie attended an excellent conference on Meister Eckhart at St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK,1-3 October 2010:

The Conference took place at All Saints Pastoral Centre, London Colney, St Albans, Hertfordshire

23rd Annual Conference of the Eckhart Society - Eckhart: A Mystic for Now.

The Comper Chapel

Papers:

1. Eckhart and the Varieties of Nothing.

Dr Duane Williams, University of Kent.

2. Relating to Ourselves without a Self: Eckhart and Neuroscience.

Dr Ben Morgan: Worcester College, University of Oxford.

3. Eckhart and the Lord's Prayer.

Prof Markus Vinzent, King's College, London.

4. Eckhart and Chu Xi (The Eckhart of the Confucian Tradition).

Ms Shu Hong, University of Birmingham.

In addition to the papers, there was a musical performance, Lectio Divina and a seminar on one of Eckhart's sermons, as well as periods of meditation.

Number 2, 2010

2010-07-26T22:12:00.031+02:00

IN THIS ISSUE

Conference News
Calls for Papers

Journals

Books

Personalia

Snippets

On the Lighter Side

Scroll right down for items received too late for classification: CFPs, news, books, and more.

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CONFERENCE NEWS

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Afterlives: Survival and Revival

SASMARS 2010, Mont Fleur, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2-5 September

The 20th Biennial Conference of the Southern African Society of Medieval and Renaissance Studies will be held at Mont Fleur, Stellenbosch, South Africa, on 2-5 September 2010.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Alexandra F. Johnston, Ph.D., FRSC, Past President of the Academy of the Royal Society of Canada.

HER TOPIC: The History of Medieval and Early Modern English Drama revisited

The theme of the Conference, "Afterlives: Survival and Revival", was designed to promote reflection on appropriations, adaptations and continuities in cultural production. A selection of the papers presented at the conference will be published in a special issue of The Southern African Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies (accredited for South African research subsidy purposes).

SASMARS President and conference convenor: Professor M Bratchel, Department of History, University of the Witwatersrand, JOHANNESBURG 2050, South Africa.

Click here for the full list of speakers and topics as well as the conference programme.

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CALLS FOR PAPERS

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The ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM of the Medieval and Renaissance Study Group of the University of Johannesburg
Saturday 16 October 2010
Theme:
Sports, Games and Diversions in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

You are cordially invited to attend and take part in the symposium. If you wish to read a paper or make another contribution, please contact Prof. David Scott-Macnab in the Department of English on 0115593456 or at dscott-macnab@uj.ac.za.

We hope to see you there!
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The Hospitable Text:
New Approaches to Religion and Literature
14-16 July 2011
London Notre Dame Centre, United Kingdom

Call for Papers

Deadline: 15 September 2010

The theme of our conference is ‘The Hospitable Text’. Contemporary theorists and theologians have paid considerable attention recently to the idea of hospitality, recognising, among other things, the value of actively hosting viewpoints different from our own rather than merely tolerating their presence. With this in mind, papers are invited that address any of the following topics: Religious/literary/theological explorations of hospitality

The relationship between religion and literature
Literature and religious pluralism/difference
Dialogism in the novel
Controversy and literature
Strangers, guests and visitors in literary texts
Literary reflections on the Eucharist
The relationship between the religious and the secular
Related themes, such as friendship, tolerance, charity and peace.
Literature and the Bible
Fundamentalism
Religious violence
Hermeneutical conversations
Communal reading

Papers are not restricted to a particular faith or religious tradition, or to a particular historical period.

Anyone wishing to offer a (20 min) paper at the conference should submit an abstract (max 400 words) and a brief biographical note (max 100 words) by 15 September 2010 to HospitableText@calvin.edu. Participants will be notified of their acceptance by 15 October 2010.

While we anticipate that most of the abstracts we receive will be for individual papers, we also welcome proposals for three-paper panels. If you offer a panel, please ensure that (a) the panel is composed of speakers from different institutions, and (b) that is clear whether you are willing for the papers to be considered individually if we do not accept your offer of a panel.

One of the distinctive features of the conference will be a slot devoted to seminars. You are welcome to offer a paper as well as request to participate in a seminar. However, if demand is too high, you may be limited to one or the other. If you apply to give a paper and participate in a seminar, please indicate which you would prefer to do.

A PDF version of the Call for Papers may be downloaded here.

Please direct all inquiries about The Hospitable Text conference to:
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KALAMAZOO 2011

Conference website

The Sidney Society will sponsor two open sessions on Philip Sidney and his Circle at the 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan).

12-15 May 2011

Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2010

Abstracts are invited on any subject dealing with Philip Sidney and his circle. As always, we strongly encourage proposals from newcomers as well as established scholars.

Papers should be limited to twenty minutes in reading time. Please do not submit an abstract to two different sessions of the conference in the same year.

Abstracts (250-500 words) should be submitted electronically and should indicate clearly your mailing address and phone number. If you need special equipment for the talk (digital projector, etc.), let us know when you submit your abstract, rather than later, please.

Please send your abstracts (email preferably) to:
Joel Davis jbdavis@stetson.edu
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The Society for New Language Study and
In Geardagum: Essays on Old and Middle English

are sponsoring a session at the 2011 ICMS called: Beowulf against the Grain. We are looking for papers that are unconventional, nontraditional, or innovative approaches to Beowulf whose arguments are based on close readings of the text. 500-word proposals/abstracts for twenty-minute papers will be accepted until August 31. Please send submissions and questions to Elizabeth Howard (ehoward@kent.edu).

Elizabeth Howard
Associate Professor
Department of English
Fellow
Institute for Bibliography and Editing
Kent State University
330.672.1782
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Shakespeare at Kalamazoo is sponsoring two sessions at the 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies, which will be held at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI, May 12-15, 2011; website: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/.

We welcome individual paper proposals for a session on "Shakespeare's Middle Ages" and a session on "Hamlet: Pre-Texts, Texts, and After-Texts." Please note that the Medieval Institute has rules governing participation in the Congress (http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/policies.html)

and for the submission of abstracts

(http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html); these must be followed.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words in MS Word or Rich Text Format, and the Participant Information Form, which is available on the Congress Web site, to Katy Stavreva, Department of English and Creative Writing, Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, IA 52314, e-mail: kstavreva@cornellcollege.edu, tel. 319- 895-4255.

The deadline for receipt of abstracts is September 15, 2010. The final decision on the paper selection for the panels is to be submitted to the Medieval Institute by October 1, by which time you will be notified whether your submission has been accepted for presenting at the Congress.

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The following Kalamazoo sessions will be of considerable interest:

1. Generational Difference and Medieval Masculinity (2 sessions)

Fathers and Sons in the Early Middle Ages
Fathers and Sons in the Later Middle Ages

Deadline: August 31

These sessions have two aims. First, they will focus on masculinity, which functions as an unexamined given in much gender scholarship; second, they will integrate cross-generational relations into the discussion by exploring relations between fathers and sons. The paradigmatic father-son relationship is that of Abraham and Isaac; the standard reading explores kinds and degrees of obedience. When the issue of obedience is decentered, however, father-son relationships become a framework for a wider, more culturally complex inquiry into law; labor; the history of the family, of motherhood, of childhood; education in the craft shop or in the home; and others. There are also affilial relationships that acquire filial overtones, e.g., in monastic contexts, the relationship between an abbot and his “son,” the monk. Many behavioral traits not necessarily raised in scriptural examples, including competition between fathers and sons, Oedipal desire, homosociality, and others, nonetheless figure into medieval history, literary texts, and iconography.

One of the premises of the session is that father-son relationships raise questions of masculinity in which one party poses a standard the other must try to reach. Not every father is an example to his son, however, and the generational advantage of age does not establish the higher standard in every case. Two-page abstracts for 20-minute papers are invited by August 31. For more information and submissions, please contact Allen J. Frantzen (afrantz@luc.edu).

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2. Symposium on Teachers and Students in the Middle Ages (May 12-15, 2011)

The Medieval Studies Program at Southern Methodist University invites contributions to a session on medieval teachers and students for the 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 12-15, 2011, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The richness of recent work on medieval rhetoric and grammar demonstrates a growing scholarly interest in the content and form of teaching in the Middle Ages. Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter’s Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300-1475 (2009), Marjorie Curry Woods’ Classroom Commentaries: Teaching the Poetria nova across Medieval and Renaissance Europe (2010), and the special issue of New Medieval Literatures on “Medieval Grammar and the Literary Arts” edited by Copeland, Chris Cannon, and Nicolette Zeeman (2009) reveal an understanding that the intellectual products of the Middle Ages, whether literary, philosophical, or even musical, were intimately bound up with the basic classroom pedagogy used to teach grammar and rhetoric. If the subjects studied throughout the Middle Ages are essential to understanding the intellectual and creative legacy of the period, then the teachers and students who transmitted and engaged with these ideas bear further examination as well.

We seek papers that address the complex relationships and encounters between teachers and students, using a variety of methodological approaches. We hope to bring into conversation scholars working in a broad spectrum of fields, such as literature, art history, music, history, philosophy. Papers might focus on: representations of teachers and/or students in art and literature, historical teachers and students, the role of emotions and affect in teaching, child and adult learners in the Middle Ages, and the ties of violence and love between teachers and students. We also invite papers that use material from a variety of genres, including but not limited to art, hagiographies and other vitae, letters, grammatical texts and pedagogical dialogues.

Please send abstracts and a completed Participant Information Form
(http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF) by September 15 to Irina Dumitrescu at idumitrescu@smu.edu .

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3. Two sessions sponsored by the University of Louisville Medieval Workshop:

LAW AND LEGAL CULTURE IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND Recognizing the extent to which the study of early law has changed over the last century, this session looks to bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss new ways of understanding pre-Conquest legal culture. As we have in the past, this year also we invite papers that examine the many ways in which law was made, understood, practiced, promulgated, and transcribed in the Anglo-Saxon world. We are eager to receive submissions representing a variety of perspectives, methodologies, and disciplines. Possible topics include (but are not limited to): royal legislation, legal manuscripts, law in/and literature, legal procedure, charters and diplomatics, writs and wills, dispute resolution, theories of law and justice, perceptions of early law in later periods, and law in/and art.

ARCHBISHOP WULFSTAN AND THE SERMO LUPI AD ANGLOS This session is being organized to mark the approaching 1000th anniversary (in 2014) of Archbishop Wulfstan's most famous composition, the Sermo lupi ad Anglos. As recent scholarship has revealed the scope of Wulfstan's activities as prelate, homilist, legislator, and royal councilor, scholars have come to understand the Sermo lupi, not as an isolated composition, but as part of a larger attempt to reshape England into a "Holy Society." For this session, we seek proposals examining all aspects of the Sermo lupi itself, its place in the Wulfstanian canon, as well as its influence of Anglo-Saxon culture generally.

Proposals or questions can be sent via e-mail to andrew.rabin@louisville.edu

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4. Renaissance English Text Society
invites abstracts for sessions on
"Manuscript, Print, and Problems of Attribution in Early Modern Texts"

Abstracts due no later than 1 September 2010
Please send abstracts to:
Arthur Marotti at aa1750@wayne.edu
Steve May at smay@georgetowncollege.edu
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NATIO SCOTA
The Thirteenth International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Language and Literature

Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
22-26 July 2011

Deadline for proposals: 31 August 2010

Plenary Speakers: R.D.S. Jack and Alasdair A. MacDonald

The definition of a literary canon in medieval and early modern Scotland is closely connected with the definition of the Scottish nation. Attempting an assessment of Scottish literature means above all dealing with a definition of this literature within a strongly defined national context: literature and nation grow together, and each contributes to the other’s definition.

Following these suggestions, we welcome papers addressing (but not necessarily restricted to) the following topics:

Redefining the canonical in early Scottish literature
One nation, many languages: issues of language and time range
New canons of neo-Latin and Gaelic poetry
Defining Older Scots
The ongoing circulation and adaptation of Older Scots literature
A tale of two nations: Scotland and England
Scottish-Italian relations
Local cultural centres: the influence of religious, educational, and legal institutions
The invention of literary tradition in seventeenth-century Scotland
Literary and linguistic theories and practices in seventeenth-century Scotland
Building a national epic
Poetry deriving from strands of Protestantism
Personal and political satire
The poetry of quietism
Medieval universities and the progress of learning

Papers should be twenty minutes long. Please send a 500-word abstract and brief curriculum vitae by 31 August 2010 to:
Alessandra Petrina - Dipartimento di Lingue e Lett. Anglo-Germaniche e Slave
Via Beato Pellegrino, 26
35100 Padova - Italy
Or as an email attachment to alessandra.petrina@unipd.it
Conference website: http://www.maldura.unipd.it/natioscota/callforpapers.html
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THE TENTH INTERNATIONAL MILTON SYMPOSIUM

22 -26 August 2011
Hosted by Aoyama Gakuin University

The IMS10: Japan

The Programme Committee for the IMS10 cordially invites the submission of proposals for individual papers and for panels, to be presented at the symposium to be held in Tokyo from Monday, August 22nd, until Friday, August 26th, 2011.

Deadline September 1st, 2010

Although topics such as the Miltonic legacy, Milton in translation, and Milton and the East will figure on the programme, no central theme has been established, and proposals are invited that reflect the rich diversity of Milton studies at the present time.

Individual papers should take no longer than 20 minutes to deliver. Panel presentations are limited to one hour (to be followed by 30 minutes for discussion), and panels should have no more than four participants. Proposals (no more than 300 words for an individual paper or 600 words for a panel) should be submitted by email to ims10japan@gmail.com no later than September 1st, 2010.

All proposals will be reviewed by members of the Programme Committee, and a decision will be reached no later than December 1st, 2010.

Conference website: h ttp://ims10.blogspot.com/
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ANZAMEMS Conference 2011

The Australian and New Zealand Association
for
Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Inc.

Eighth Biennial International Conference

2-5 February 2011
University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Deadline 3 September 2010

We wish to invite proposals for papers and panels for ANZAMEMS 2011.

We would like to encourage papers and panels in the broadly-defined academic disciplines of medieval and early modern studies, including but not limited to history, literary studies, music, art history, theology and religious studies, cultural studies, philosophy, science, medicine, maritime studies, performance studies, gender studies. We particularly welcome and encourage papers from graduate students and early career researchers.

Proposals for full panels are very welcome. These should include three proposed speakers, and, if possible, a chair and/or a respondent.

Individual papers will be grouped with two others. Parallel sessions will last an hour and a half, which means that papers should be no longer than 20 minutes each to leave sufficient time for discussion.

The final deadline for proposals is 3 September 2010, but early submissions are encouraged. Proposals should contain a title, an abstract of your paper (200 words), and your name, contact details, and institutional affiliation.

Participants who need to make travel arrangements are welcome to submit their proposals early and the convenors will assess their abstracts promptly. Proposals should be sent to:
anzamems2011@otago.ac.nz
Further information may be sought from the convenors:

Dr Simone Celine Marshall simoneceline.marshall@otago.ac.nz

Dr Judith Collard judith.collard@otago.ac.nz

Professor Peter Anstey peter.anstey@otago.ac.nz
or from our website: http://www.otago.ac.nz/mems/anzamems
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Marco Manuscript Workshop: "Editions and E-ditions: New Media and Old Texts"
February 4–5, 2011
The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Organisers: Professors Maura K. Lafferty (Classics) and Roy M. Liuzza (English).

The deadline for applications is October 1, 2010

In this year’s workshop we hope to consider how the tools we use to study texts have shaped, and continue to shape, our practice of editing. Do the editorial principles we adopt arise from the reality of medieval texts, or do they construct that reality? Does our choice of one convention of presentation over another predispose us and our readers to certain kinds of interpretations? Are concepts like ‘variant’, ‘apparatus’, even ‘text’, a reflection of the material we study, or the social history of printed editions?

Meanwhile, changing technology for presenting and organizing texts and images make it seem that the most venerable principles might suddenly be negotiable and the most basic conventions unnecessary; whatever can be imagined can be achieved. But do new tools for studying manuscripts require new rules for reading and making editions? What are the new principles and conventions used to create electronic editions? And if these new tools free us from the constraints of traditional printed text, do they impose other constraints not yet apparent to us? We welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined.

The workshop is open to scholars and students at any rank and in any field who are engaged in textual editing, manuscript studies, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; participants will be asked to introduce their text and its context, discuss their approach to working with their material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. As in previous years, the workshop is intended to be more a class than a conference; participants are encouraged to share new discoveries and unfinished work, to discuss both their successes and frustrations, to offer both practical advice and theoretical insights, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and codicological work. We particularly invite the presentation of works in progress, unusual manuscript problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a stipend of $500 for their participation.

The deadline for applications is October 1, 2010. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page letter describing their project to Roy M. Liuzza, preferably via email to rliuzza@utk.edu, or by mail to the Department of English, University of Tennessee, 301 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0430.

The workshop is also open at no cost to scholars and students who do not wish to present their own work but are interested in sharing a lively weekend of discussion and ideas about manuscript studies. Further details will be available online later in the year; meanwhile please contact Roy Liuzza for more information.

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The International Shakespeare Association

NINTH WORLD SHAKESPEARE CONGRESS

PRAGUE 2011
17 –22 July 2011
Arranged by
The International Shakespeare Association
and
Charles University, in co-operation with The National
Theatre in Prague
Under the auspices of Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic

Deadline for proposals of papers just extended until 30th September 2010:
http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/content/view/442/446

Call for papers - Seminar No. 3
Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance:
Appropriation, Transformation, Opposition.
Seminar Leaders:
Michele Marrapodi (University of Palermo, Italy), Robert Henke (Washington University, USA). marrapod@unipa.it

This seminar aims to place Shakespeare's works within the context of the European Renaissance and, more specifically, within the context of Italian cultural, dramatic, and literary traditions, with reference to the impact and influence of both classical and contemporary culture. The topics may range from a reassessment of Italian novellas, theatre, and discourses as direct or indirect sources, analogues, paralogues, and intertexts for the construction of Shakespeare's poetry and drama to a reconsideration of other cultural transactions, such as travel and courtesy books, the arts, fencing, dancing, fashion, and so forth.

The critical perspective of the seminar is to regard the pervasive presence of the Italian world in early modern England not only as a traditional treasure trove of influence and imitation but also as a potential cultural force of ideological appropriation, transformation, and opposition.

Call for papers - Seminar No. 14
"Must I remember?": Trauma and Memory in Early Modern England
Seminar Leaders:
Margaret Healy (University of Sussex, UK) and Rebecca Totaro (Florida Gulf Coast University, USA)

As he recalls his mother's affection for his deceased father, Hamlet suffers from a memory that he cannot dislodge. "Let me not think on't," he exclaims, but he reiterates his painful memory in multiple ways thereafter. Shakespeare's plays and poetry contain many forms of narrative trauma, reviving time and again for public consumption national, personal, and imaginary dramas of suffering. This seminar seeks papers that explore some aspect of the following: trauma in the plays, poetry, and/or prose of Shakespeare and/or his contemporaries within and outside of London's drama scene; texts that bear the marks of personal, social, national, religious, or authorial trauma; the implications of representing and viewing trauma. Papers may be broadly theoretical or particularized readings.

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Second International Congress of the John Gower Society

John Gower in Iberia: Six Hundred Years

Valladolid, Spain 18-21 July 2011

The International John Gower Society will hold its second International Congress July 18-21, 2011 in Spain. Our host will be the Department of English Studies of the University of Valladolid.

For further information, contact:

R.F. Yeager, President, John Gower Society (rfyeager@hotmail.com )

Ana Sáez Hidalgo, Organizing Committee Chair (jgs.valladolid2011@gmail.com).

Call for papers will be posted here soon!

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JOURNALS

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SHAKESPEARE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
THE JOURNAL OF THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

Editor: Christopher Thurman

VOLUME 22 (2010)
Editorial
CHRIS THURMAN
Articles
BRIAN LEE

Sossius, Talbot and the Parthian scene in Antony and Cleopatra

ARLENE OSEMAN

The Machiavellian Prince in The Tempest

BRIAN PEARCE and KEVIN DUFFY

Hamlet: Rational and Emotional Units of Meaning in Four Soliloquies

MARC DUBY

Staging Roberto Bonati’s The Blanket of the Dark: A Twenty-first Century Vision of ‘The Scottish Play’

Shakespeare for Schools – Production and Reception

MARY JORDAN

Romeo and Juliet: directed by Nina Lucy Wylde. University of the Witwatersrand. August 2009.

NINA LUCY WYLDE

Staging Shakespeare for Young People in South Africa: A Theatre Practitioner’s Point of View.

Theatre Reviews

FRANCES RINGWOOD Othello: directed by John Kani. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. April, 2010.

SANDRA YOUNG Antony and Cleopatra: directed by Marthinus Basson. Maynardville Open-air Theatre, Cape Town. February, 2010.

DAVID SMITH All’s Well That Ends Well: directed by Marianne Elliott. Lyttelton Theatre, London (National Theatre Live broadcast at Ster Kinekor in Rosebank, Johannesburg). October, 2009.

DONALD POWERS A Midsummer Night’s Raiders: directed by Andrew Brent. Baxter Theatre, Cape Town. August-September, 2009.

SIMON VAN SCHALKWYK Romeo and Juliet: choreographed by Dada Masilo. National Arts Festival, Grahamstown (July, 2009) and Baxter Theatre, Cape Town (October, 2009).

Book reviews

Marrapodi, Michele (ed).

Italian Culture in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries: Rewriting, Remaking, Refashioning.

Distiller, Natasha.

Desire and Gender in the Sonnet Tradition.

Dente, Carla and Soncini, Sara (eds).

Crossing Time and Space: Shakespeare Translations in Present-day Europe.

Reviewed by PIER PAOLO FRASSINELLI

Howard, Tony.

Women as Hamlet: Performance and Interpretation in Theatre, Film and Fiction.

Reviewed by FRANCES RINGWOOD

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South African Journal of Art History

Call for Articles: A Special Thematic Issue of the South African Journal of Art History, volume 25, number 3, 2010

Deadline: 31 August 2010

The third 2010 issue of the South African Journal of Art History will be a special thematic issue dealing with the following theme: The visual arts and the sciences The focus of the research should be on the integration, interdependence and mutual enhancement of the visual arts and the sciences.
You may deal with the subject according to your special interest. However, it is suggested that you consider themes such as the following: Art and science are both problem-solving activities. Our specialised scholarship seems to suffer from a dearth of meaningful connections.

The closing date for the receipt of articles: 31 August 2010.
Send articles by e-mail to the editor: Estelle A. Maré mare_estelle@fastmail.fm If the article exceeds 30MB send two hard copies to the following postal address: Prof EA Maré 431 Farenden Street Clydesdale 0002 Pretoria South Africa

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The Online Graduate Journal of Medieval Studies 2010.
Hortulus is a refereed journal devoted to the literature and cultures of the medieval world.
It is published electronically at the end of every academic year.
http://www.hortulus.net/~hortulus/index.php/Journal
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Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural

We are pleased to announce the launch of /Preternature/:/ Critical and Historical Studies in the Preternatural/, which publishes original scholarship and texts in edition/translation on magics, the occult, spiritualism, demonology, monstrophy, and the “preternatural” in all its cultural, historical, anthropological, artistic, literary, and folkloric iterations. Submissions pertaining to any time period and to any geographic area are welcome, though the language of publication is English.

Contributions should be roughly 8,000-12,000 words (with the possibility of longer submissions in exceptional cases), including all documentation and critical apparatus. If accepted for publication, manuscripts will be required to adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (style 1, employing footnotes).

Please see the website for more information: http://www.preternature.org/

Any queries may be directed to Peter Dendle, Department of English (pjd11@psu.edu; mailing address: 1, Campus Dr. / The Pennsylvania State University, Mont Alto / Mont Alto, PA 17237 / US).

Books for review, or review requests, should be directed to Richard Raiswell, Department of History, University of Prince Edward Island: rraiswell@upei.ca

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Early Modern Literary Studies 15.1 (2009-10) has been posted here: http://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/15-1/15-1toc.htm

EMLS (ISSN 1201-2459) is published three times a year for the on-line academic community by agreement with, and with the support of, the Humanities Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University. EMLS was founded in 1995 in the Department of English, University of British Columbia, and was published from there until 1997, and thereafter at the University of Alberta until 1998 when it moved to Sheffield Hallam University.

EMLS does not appear in print form, but can be obtained free of charge in hypertext format on the World Wide Web at

http://purl.oclc.org/emls/emlshome.html
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APPOSITIONS: Studies in Renaissance / Early Modern Literature and Culture
can be viewed here: http://appositions.blogspot.com/

An electronic, international, annual conference and peer-reviewed, MLA-indexed, EBSCO-distributed, digital journal for studies in Renaissance/early modern literature and culture. *APPOSITIONS is registered under a Creative Commons 3.0 License. *Manuscripts accepted for editorial review: October thru April. *APPOSITIONS is an open-access, independently managed conference and journal. *ISSN: 1946-1992.

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Yearbook of the Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS
SEDERI 21SEDERI welcomes contributions on topics related to the language, literature, and culture of sixteenth and seventeenth-century England for its next issue (number 21) to be published in autumn 2011.
SEDERI, Yearbook of the Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies is an annual publication devoted to current criticism and scholarship on English Renaissance Studies. It is peer-reviewed by external referees, following a double-blind policy.
SEDERI is short-listed among the top-quality journals published in all scientific areas by the FECYT (Spanish Repository for Science and Technology). It meets 100% of the scientific requirements established by LATINDEX and DICE-CINDOC and is officially recognised for the Spanish research assessment.
Submissions should reach the editors no later than 31 October 2010.
Authors will receive notice of acceptance by the end of January 2011.
Submissions should be sent via email attachments in Word or Rich Text Format.
Please omit any personal information in the file of your paper. Send the following details in a separate file or in the text of the email: name, affiliation, title of contribution, postal and email address and telephone number.
Recommended length of contributions:
· Articles: 6000 - 8000 words (including footnotes and references).
· Notes: 3000 - 4000 words (including footnotes and references).
· Reviews: 1000 - 2000 words. Books, plays, or films reviewed should have been released in the last two years.
Note that all the submissions should include an abstract (length: 100-150 words) and at least 5 keywords. Both the abstract and the keywords should convey the essential aspects of your contribution. Both the abstract and the keywords should be bilingual English/Spanish or English/Portuguese.
Email articles and notes to Berta Cano and Ana Sáez: sederiyearbook@yahoo.es

Email reviews to Francisco José Borge López: borgefrancisco@uniovi.es
If you have any further queries, do not hesitate to contact the editors by e-mail at:
sederiyearbook@yahoo.es

All the texts submitted must follow the STYLE SHEET for this call for papers.
We do not consider articles that have been published elsewhere (either in print or internet) or are under simultaneous consideration with another publisher. Only original research pieces are published by SEDERI, please do not submit translations.
Berta Cano Echevarría Dpto. de Filología Inglesa
Ana Sáez Hidalgo Universidad de Valladolid
Francisco José Borge López Pza. del Campus s/n
Editors of SEDERI Yearbook 47011 Valladolid (Spain)

Click here for the SEDERI website.

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BOOKS

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Shakespeare, Sex, and Love
Stanley Wells

ISBN13: 9780199578597ISBN10: 0199578591 Hardback, 228 pages
March 2010

Here is a lively look at how Shakespeare's treatment of human sexuality in his plays and poems relates to the sexual conventions, sexual mores, and actual sexual behaviors of his day.Pre-eminent Shakespeare critic Stanley Wells draws on historical and anecdotal sources to present an illuminating account of sexual behavior--and its consequences--in Shakespeare's time, particularly in Stratford-upon-Avon and London. Shakespeare's Stratford was a hotbed of small-town gossip; the town's records reveal many cases of slander involving accusations of cuckoldry and whoredom, as well as many prosecutions for fornication, sexual "incontinence," and adultery. Wells thoroughly explores this milieu, demonstrating what we know or can deduce of the sex lives of Shakespeare and members of his family and providing a fascinating account of depictions of sexuality in the poetry of the period. Wells even points to specific recorded events that find their way into lines and subplots in the plays.

In the second half of the book, Wells goes on to explore the variety of ways in which Shakespeare treats sexuality in his plays and how he relates sexuality to love. Chapters cover everything from the fun that Shakespeare gets out of sex in his comedies; to the ways he relates sexual desire to both lust and love; to sexual jealousy in four major plays; and to Romeo and Juliet as the play in which Shakespeare focuses most centrally on issues relating to sex, love, and the relationship between them. "Whores and Saints" looks at his portrayals of the extremes of womanhood, and a final chapter, "Just Good Friends," investigates his depiction of same-gender relationships.

Whether as a source of comedy, drama, debate, or passion, sex in Shakespeare's plays and poems is always intriguing, and there is no better guide to this subject than Stanley Wells.

http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LiteratureEnglish/BritishLiterature/Shakespeare/?view=usa&ci=9780199578597
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Milton in Context
Edited by Stephen B. Dobranski
Georgia State University
Hardback
(ISBN-13: 9780521518987)
Published January 2010

Few early modern poets engaged more fully with their historical circumstances than John Milton. A pamphleteer, government employee, and writer of occasional verse, Milton did not retreat from public life even after his political hopes were dashed by the Restoration. This volume investigates the various ways in which Milton's works and experiences emerged from the culture and events of his time. In a series of concise, engaging essays, an international group of scholars examines both the social conditions of Milton's life and the broader intellectual currents that shaped his writings and reputation. A uniquely wide range of topics is covered: from biography to translations, from astronomy to philosophy, and from the English Church to the civil wars. Milton in Context is an accessible reference work that both students and scholars will turn to again and again to enrich their understanding of Milton's writings and his world.

• Lively and clear explanations of the history of Milton's time in short encyclopaedic essays • New insights about how Milton's cultural and political context influenced his work • Essays by expert contributors, a guide to further reading, and chronology

Annabel Patterson, Juliet Lucy, Edward Jones, Cedric C. Brown, Stephen M. Fallon, Ann Baynes Coiro, Anthony Welch, Barbara K. Lewalski, Walter S. H. Lim, John Creaser, John Rumrich, P. J. Klemp, J. Martin Evans, John T. Shawcross, Christophe Tournu, Wendy Furman-Adams, Dennis Danielson, Stephen B. Dobranski, Nicholas McDowell, Joan S. Bennett, James Loxley, Stella P. Revard, Gregory Chaplin, Neil Forsyth, David Loewenstein, Catherine Gimelli Martin, Lynne Greenberg, Albert C. Labriola, Phillip J. Donnelly, Ian W. Archer, Randall Ingram, Shigeo Suzuki, Diane McColley, Karen L. Edwards, Amy Boesky, N. H. Keeble, Pitt Harding, Elizabeth Sauer, Joad Raymond, William Poole .

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521518987

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Milton's Angels
The Early-Modern Imagination
Joad Raymond
• Offers a new reading of Paradise Lost as an inspired poem
• An original survey of British Protestant writing about angels
• Engages with theology, history, and science, as well as literary scholarship and Milton studies
482 pages | 8 black-and-white halftones | 216x138mm
978-0-19-956050-9 | Hardback | 25 February 2010

Milton's Paradise Lost, the most eloquent, most intellectually daring, most learned, and most sublime poem in the English language, is a poem about angels. It is told by and of angels; it relies upon their conflicts, communications, and miscommunications. They are the creatures of Milton's narrative, through which he sets the Fall of humankind against a cosmic background. Milton's angels are real beings, and the stories he tells about them rely on his understanding of what they were and how they acted. While he was unique in the sublimity of his imaginative rendering of angels, he was not alone in writing about them. Several early-modern English poets wrote epics that explore the actions of and grounds of knowledge about angels. Angels were intimately linked to theories of representation, and theology could be a creative force. Natural philosophers and theologians too found it interesting or necessary to explore angel doctrine. Angels did not disappear in Reformation theology: though centuries of Catholic traditions were stripped away, Protestants used them in inventive ways, adapting tradition to new doctrines and to shifting perceptions of the world. Angels continued to inhabit all kinds of writing, and shape the experience and understanding of the world. Milton's Angels: The Early-Modern Imagination explores the fate of angels in Reformation Britain, and shows how and why Paradise Lost is a poem about angels that is both shockingly literal and sublimely imaginative. More at http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LiteratureEnglish/BritishLiterature/17thCRestoration/?view=usa&ci=9780199560509

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Shakespeare and the Just War Tradition
Paola Pugliatti
May 2010 • 260 pages
Hardback • 978-0-7546-5927-3

Brought to light in this study is a connection between the treatment of war in Shakespeare's plays and the issue of the 'just war', which loomed large both in religious and in lay treatises of Shakespeare's time. The book re-reads Shakespeare's representations of war in light of both the changing historical and political contexts in which they were produced and of Shakespeare's possible connection with the culture and ideology of the European just war tradition. But to discuss Shakespeare's representations of war means, for Pugliatti, not simply to examine his work from a literary point of view or to historicize those representations in connection with the discourses (and the practice) of war which were produced in his time; it also means to consider or re-consider present-day debates for or against war and the kind of war ideology which is trying to assert itself in our time in light of the tradition which shaped those discourses and representations and which still substantiates our 'moral' view of war.

About the Author: Paola Pugliatti has been Professor of English Literature at the University of Florence and has also taught at the Universities of Messina, Bologna and Pisa. She has written extensively on Shakespeare and on the European Renaissance; she is also the author of Beggary and Theatre in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2003). Other fields of interest are the novel and textual genetics, with particular attention to the case of James Joyce's Ulysses

Reviews: 'As an "innocent", which is to say non-specialist, reader of Shakespeare, I knew that one could find everything in his work, as in the Bible; what I had not imagined was that the Bard – what a devil of a man! – could also inspire one to reflect on a subject that so closely presses upon us today: the ethics of war. Paola Pugliatti's book, however, has obliged me to re-read him from this entirely new perspective.'

Umberto Eco.

More at
http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&pageSubject=315&title_id=7876&edition_id=10479

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Cities, Texts and Social Networks, 400–1500
Experiences and Perceptions of Medieval Urban Space

Illustrations: Includes 39 b & w illustrations
Published: June 2010
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 978-0-7546-6723-0

Edited by Caroline Goodson, Birkbeck College, UK, Anne E. Lester, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA and Carol Symes, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA

Cities, Texts and Social Networks examines the experiences of urban life from late antiquity through the close of the fifteenth century, in regions ranging from late Imperial Rome to Muslim Syria, Iraq and al-Andalus, England, the territories of medieval Francia, Flanders, the Low Countries, Italy and Germany. Together, the volume's contributors move beyond attempts to define 'the city' in purely legal, economic or religious terms. Instead, they focus on modes of organisation, representation and identity formation that shaped the ways urban spaces were called into being, used and perceived. Their interdisciplinary analyses place narrative and archival sources in communication with topography, the built environment and evidence of sensory stimuli in order to capture sights, sounds, physical proximities and power structures. Paying close attention to the delineation of public and private spaces, and secular and sacred precincts, each chapter explores the workings of power and urban discourse and their effects on the making of meaning.
More at
http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&pageSubject=0&calcTitle=1&title_id=9176&edition_id=11860

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Law and Religion in Chaucer's England

Imprint: Ashgate Variorum

Published: June 2010
Format: 224 x 150 mm
Extent: 416 pages
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-4094-0751-5
Henry Ansgar Kelly, University of California - Los Angeles, USA
Series : Variorum Collected Studies Series: CS957

These essays, in a second collection by Professor Kelly, investigate legal and religious subjects touching on the age and places in which Geoffrey Chaucer lived and wrote, especially as reflected in the more contemporary sections of the Canterbury Tales. Topics include the canon law of incest (consanguinity, affinity, spiritual kinship), the prosecution of sexual offences and regulation of prostitution (especially in the Stews of Southwark), legal opinions about wife-beating, and the laws of nature concerning gender distinction (focusing on Chaucer's Pardoner) and the technicalities of castration. Sacramental and devotional practices are discussed, especially dealing with confession and penitence and the Mass. Chaucer's Prioress serves as the starting point for a treatment of regulations of nuns in medieval England and also for the presence, real and virtual, of Jews and Saracens (Muslims and pagans) in England and conversion efforts of the time, as well as sympathetic or antipathetic attitudes towards non-Christians. Included is a case study on the legend of St Cecilia in Chaucer and elsewhere, and as patron of music; and a discussion of canonistic opinion on the licit limits of medicinal magic (in connection with the ministrations of John the Carpenter in the Miller's Tale).
http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&pageSubject=0&calcTitle=1&title_id=10446&edition_id=13226

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Pens and Needles
Women's Textualities in Early Modern England
Susan Frye
336 pages | 7 x 10 | 21 color, 31 b/w illus.
Cloth Jun 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4238-6 | $65.00s | £42.50 |
A volume in the Material Texts series

"Frye beautifully succeeds in aligning the different material practices, especially in the surprising discovery of a new portrait of Mary Queen of Scots embroidered by Bess of Hardwick."—Maureen Quilligan, Duke University

"This is an ambitious and imaginatively interdisciplinary topic, combining deep expertise in women's needlework with a good sense of political and social history and thoroughly researched, with new readings of Shakespeare and Wroth."—Ann Rosalind Jones, Smith College

The Renaissance woman, whether privileged or of the artisan or the middle class, was trained in the expressive arts of needlework and painting, which were often given precedence over writing. Pens and Needles is the first book to examine all these forms as interrelated products of self-fashioning and communication.

Because early modern people saw verbal and visual texts as closely related, Susan Frye discusses the connections between the many forms of women's textualities, including notes in samplers, alphabets both stitched and penned, initials, ciphers, and extensive texts like needlework pictures, self-portraits, poetry, and pamphlets, as well as commissioned artwork, architecture, and interior design. She examines works on paper and cloth by such famous figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Bess of Hardwick, as well as the output of journeywomen needleworkers and miniaturists Levina Teerlinc and Esther Inglis, and their lesser-known sisters in the English colonies of the New World. Frye shows how traditional women's work was a way for women to communicate with each other and to shape their own identities within familial, intellectual, religious, and historical traditions. Pens and Needles offers insights into women's lives and into such literary texts as Shakespeare's Othello and Cymbeline and Mary Sidney Wroth's Urania.

Susan Frye is Professor of English at the University of Wyoming and author of Elizabeth I: The Competition for Representation. http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14728.html

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Visionary Milton
Essays on Prophecy and Violence
Edited by Peter E. Medine, John T. Shawcross, and David V. Urban
$60.00
ISBN: 978-0-8207-0429-6
cloth, 320 pages

With global terrorism a seemingly daily threat, the twenty-first century is permeated with violence and in search of some way to better understand the world and its different religions and politics. In recent decades, the literary world has shifted to a similar focus, producing new works and reexamining old ones to aid in forming a vision relevant to such a violent world. In Visionary Milton: Essays on Prophecy and Violence, distinguished Milton scholars are brought together in dialogue to discuss John Milton’s focus on prophecy and violence in his work and how these themes add to an understanding of Milton as a visionary.

The collection begins with a fresh analysis of the visionary mode of narrative in the early modern period as seen in both biblical and imaginative literature and sets the groundwork for an examination of Milton’s poetry, prose, and biography. The themes of prophecy and violence develop throughout these essays as an overall context in Milton’s life, as an important principle in such works as Paradise Regained, and as a mode for an extended analysis of Restoration politics as they figure in Milton’s poetry.

Visionary Milton extends the literary discussion of Milton’s work into a larger geopolitical area. The collection is important not only for those interested in Milton, but also for historians, political scientists, and theologians.

Author Information

PETER E. MEDINE is professor of English at the University of Arizona. He has held research fellowships at both the Huntington Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library and has authored, edited, or coedited six books.

JOHN T. SHAWCROSS is professor emeritus of English at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of numerous books, including With Mortal Voice: The Creation of Paradise Lost. He is coeditor of Milton and the Grounds of Contention, and is a two-time winner of the James Holly Hanford Award for the most distinguished book on Milton.

DAVID V. URBAN is assistant professor of English at Calvin College. His articles and reviews have appeared in ANQ, Christianity and Literature, Cithara, Leviathan, Milton Studies, Milton Quarterly, and Religion and Literature.

http://www.dupress.duq.edu/pubDetails.asp?theISBN=9780820704296
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The History of the Book in the
West: 400AD–1455
A Library of Critical Essays: Volume I

Edited by Jane Roberts and Pamela Robinson,

both at Institute of English Studies, University of London, UK

This selection of papers by major scholars introduces students to the history of the book in the West from late Antiquity to the publication of the Gutenberg Bible and the beginning of the print revolution. The collection opens with wide-ranging papers on handwriting and the physical make-up of the book. In the second group of papers the emphasis is on the ‘look’ of the book, complemented by a third group dealing with scribes, readers and the availability of books. The editors’ introduction provides an overview of the medieval book.

Jane Roberts and Pamela Robinson are both Senior Research Fellows, Institute of English Studies, University of London, UK

http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754627739

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Lambeth Palace Library: Treasures from the Collection of the Archbishops of Canterbury

has been published by Scala Publishers, to coincide with the 400th anniversary exhibition, and featuring sixty items from the Library's collections.

Included are illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages; manuscripts from the Tudor and Stuart eras, including the execution warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots; early printed books, among them a Gutenberg bible with English illumination, possibly the first printed book to come to England; Elizabeth I's own prayer book showing her portrait; medical reports on the madness of George III and the Golden Cockerel Press Four Gospels, one of the masterpieces of Eric Gill.

Copies are available for £35 hardback/£15 paperback (discounted price for the duration of the exhibition).

Please send orders for paperback copies to Miss Mary Comer, Lambeth Palace Library, Lambeth Palace Road, London, SE1 7JU, mary.comer@c-of-e.org.uk, 020 7898 1263. Please add £4.50 for p&p within the UK and £7.50 within Europe.

For hardback copies, please contact Jenny McKinley, Scala Publishers, Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London, EC1V 0AT, jmckinley@scalapublishers.com, 020 7490 9900
http://www.lambethpalacelibrary.org/content/treasuresvolume
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The Viking Age: A Reader

Edited by Angus A. Somerville and R. Andrew McDonald
April 2010 / 450pp / 6×9 paperback / ISBN 9781442601482 / $39.95

Drawing on a wide range of original sources, and tracing the astonishing development of the Viking Age from the first foreign raids to the rise and fall of Viking empires, this comprehensive reader is essential to an understanding of Viking history.

Detailed account of the contents available at the UTP website. This looks like filling a really important gap in the market, and I’m sure Professors Somerville and McDonald’s book will find its way onto plenty of university reading lists.

http://oldnorsenews.org/2010/05/the-viking-age-a-reader/
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Signergy

Edited by C. Jac Conradie, Ronél Johl, Marthinus Beukes, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
University of Johannesburg / University of Amsterdam / University of Zurich
Iconicity in Language and Literature 9
2010. x, 420 pp.

The title of this volume strives to capture the dynamic scope and range of the essays it contains, applying insights into the workings of iconicity to texts as far removed from each other in time as the Medieval tale of a bishop-fish and the war-poems of 20th century Italian Futurist F.T. Marinetti, and as thematically diverse as the Pilgrim’s Progress and the poetry of e.e. cummings. Applications reference both language and linguistics as well as literature and literary theory – and related fields such as sign language and translation; the former approached from the point of view of Japan Sign Language, the latter with reference to translations of the Koran and the Sesotho Bible, as well as modern German and English Bible translations. On the language side, the intricate relationships between sound symbolism and etymology, and between analogy and grammaticalization are examined in depth. On the literary side, the iconic effects of techniques such as enjambment and metrical inversion are considered, but also the ways in which an understanding of iconicity can open up meanings in complex poetry, like that of the Afrikaans poet T.T. Cloete – in this particular instance three poems inspired by figures as diverse as Dante, Paul Klee and the pop icon Marilyn Monroe. In view of the fact that form is able to mime meaning and meaning itself can be mimed by meaning, the theoretical question is asked – on the basis of a wide range of examples from literature, language, music and other sign-systems – whether meaning can also mime form. An introduction to the work of H.C.T. Müller, an early scholar in the field of iconicity, highlights a regrettably little known South African contribution to the development of iconicity theory.

http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=ILL%209
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CD-ROM Teaching and Learning Resources

A stunning new interactive DVD-Rom traces the development of the country's most iconic ecclesiastical buildings across the centuries. This major new digital resource combines easily accessible introductions to the latest academic research on parish churches and the influence of Christianity on literature, music, art and society with images from national and international collections.

The resource explores every aspect of church and parish life, from the Anglo-Saxon Church to the present day, and is delivered on DVD-ROM compatible with Windows and Mac OS X computers. A minimum screen resolution of 1024x768 (standard on most computers) is required.

Video introduction to Ranworth Church, Norfolk
Christianity and writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Dickens, Brontes, Wordsworth, TS Eliot, Tolkien, DH Lawrence
Contributions from over 225 leading academics and practitioners
Recordings of Church music from past centuries
3-D modelling of the development of interiors and exteriors of churches through the centuries
Case studies of individual churches, creative use and re-ordering
Practical sections on care, conservation, creative use, re-ordering and interpretation of church buildings and their contents

http://www.york.ac.uk/projects/christianityandculture/

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PERSONALIA

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SASMARS Corresponding Fellow Susannah Monta has just been awarded two fellowships (from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Philosophical Society) to work on a new book project entitled "Sacred Echoes: Repetitive Prayer and Reformation-Era Poetics." Susannah is co-convenor of the conference titled The Hospitable Text:New Approaches to Religion and Literature and the co-editor, with Margaret W, Ferguson, of a new book, Teaching Early Modern English Prose (see notices elsewhere on these pages). Congratulations and best wishes!
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Congratulations to John Boje, who was awarded a PhD on 14 April by the University of Pretoria for

thesis titled "Winburg's War: an appraisal of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 as it was experienced by the people of a Free State district."

The thesis actually includes two footnote references to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but, more significantly, it focuses on people trying to get on with their ordinary lives in extraordinary circumstances, offering insights into collective memory, collaboration and identity formation.

John Boje with his wife Elizabeth, who was a lecturer in English at the University of Pretoria until her retirement in 1998.

John writes:

Since the publication of my Keur uit die Pelgrimsverhale van Geoffrey Chaucer way back in 1989, I've completed a large number of additional tales, including those of the Knight, Cook, Man of Law, Wife of Bath, Merchant, Monk, Second Nun and Parson.

While I was working on my thesis, this project had to be shelved, but a complete Afrikaans Canterbury Tales is attainable if I live long enough. I am now 73.

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SNIPPETS

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The Vatican Archive: the Pope's private library
From Hitler to Henry VIII - the secret Vatican archives are a secret no more.

By John Preston

Published: 11:22AM BST 01 Jun 2010

The man standing outside the Porta Santa Anna Gate of the Vatican wearing a blue Gap shirt and none-too-expertly pressed Muji trousers could easily pass as an academic, or the cultural correspondent of an obscure television channel.

In fact, he is neither of these things. He is a man on a mission, a mission of the utmost delicacy.

Soon the man will pass beyond the gate and the Swiss guards with their navy blue uniforms with brown belts, white collars and black berets, designed by Commandant Jules Repond in 1914.

Overhead, a flock of starlings, ancient symbols of undying love, wheel in the morning air.

Under escort, he will be taken into the inner sanctum of the Vatican, through an enormous pair of brass doors upon which some of the gorier scenes of the Old Testament are picked out in bas-relief.

Read the full story at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7772052/The-Vatican-Archive-the-Popes-private-library.html
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New exhibition: Roman To English
The Migration of Forms in Early Northumberland
Exhibition
10th July 2010 - 10th October 2010
Gallery 4

Rothbury Cross Shaft
Great North Museum: Hancock and the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne

A collection of remarkable sculptural fragments from the ancient kingdom of Northumbria reveals contrasts and underlying continuities between the Roman and Anglo Saxon periods.

The third in a series of Gallery 4 study exhibitions looking at ancient artefacts, Roman to English presents a group of carved sandstone fragments, displayed within a gallery context for the first time. Traditionally, these objects are approached from an archaeological viewpoint, examining their style, subject matter and historical context. Centred upon the four faces of the shaft of a cross, the exhibition presents a unique set of artefacts as works of art that not only speak to each other, but are also active participants in larger discourses of political, national and cultural identity.

The Roman sculptures date from the third and fourth centuries, and the Anglo-Saxon works from the late seventh and early ninth century. They illustrate the survival, revival, reuse or reworking of styles, symbols and carving techniques across the centuries. At the same time the sculptures evoke tensions, contradictions and hauntings.

We cannot be sure of the exact nature of the larger compositions of which these fragments once formed a part. Echoes of the earlier works reverberate in the later ones in ways that cannot be tied directly to simple matters of style or composition. There are also echoes of empire and empire building—and of course of decline and fall. The Roman sculptures are all from the area of Hadrian’s Wall, a now fragmentary monument to the Roman Empire. The Anglo-Saxon fragments are part of an appropriation and reworking of a vision of Rome that both fit the agenda of an expanding Northumbrian church and played a significant role in the making of England and the earliest ideas of Englishness.

http://www.henry-moore.org/hmi/exhibitions/roman-to-english
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Shakespeare First Folio's saga ends as man is convicted of handling stolen goods

By David Montgomery and Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 10, 2010

The flashy, champagne-loving British book fancier who walked into the Folger Shakespeare Library two years ago with what turned out to be a rare, valuable -- and stolen -- volume of Shakespeare's First Folio was cleared of theft but convicted of two related crimes Friday in a British courtroom.

Raymond Scott, who always carries a jeweled champagne flute with him, and who sometimes travels to court in a limousine or a horse-drawn carriage with a Scots piper, was taken into custody. He will receive a psychiatric evaluation. At sentencing within the next month, he faces up to 14 years for handling stolen goods and taking stolen goods out of Britain. Read the full story at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070904031.html?referrer=emailarticle

The Independent

The pot was filled to the brim with 3rd century Roman coins, making the find one of the biggest ever in Britain

You wait ages to find one hoard of gold coins...
... and then Dave Crisp came across buried Roman treasure twice in one week
By Arifa Akbar, Arts Correspondent
Friday, 9 July 2010

For 22 years, Dave Crisp had tramped out every week with his metal detector slung across his shoulder in the hope of finding a hoard of buried treasure that he promised his wife he would one day bring back home to her. After waiting for over two decades for the discovery that had so far eluded him, he stumbled across not just one rare Roman treasure trove of coins but two in the space of a single week. More at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/you-wait-ages-to-find-one-hoard-of-gold-coins-2022198.html

and
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1292990/Chef-Dave-Crisp-discovers-largest-hoard-Roman-coins-Somerset-field.html
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America’s Revolution: The Prequel
By ADRIAN TINNISWOOD
Published: July 2, 2010
Bath, England

PICTURE the scene: Out of the dawn mist, a fleet of longboats glides across the water, packed full of musket-wielding patriots and weather-beaten Massachusetts militiamen. Standing in the prow of the lead boat, like Washington crossing the Delaware, is a man with long flowing hair and a blood-red banner emblazoned with two words: Vincit veritas. Truth Conquers.

But it’s not Washington, and it’s not the American Revolution. In fact, it’s not even America. This daring amphibious assault by Col. Thomas Rainborowe and his regiment of New Englanders took place 3,000 miles away, in old England, and in 1644, more than 130 years before those famous shots were fired at Lexington to herald what we Brits insist on calling the War of American Independence.

It is a fact rarely discussed on either side of the Atlantic that American colonists played a crucial role in the English Civil War, the bitter struggle between King Charles I and Parliament that tore England apart in the 1640s. The English Revolution — and that is just what it was — can be interpreted in all kinds of ways: as a religious fight between pathologically earnest Puritans and the Catholic-leaning bishops of the Church of England; as an uprising by a nascent merchant class determined to throw off the shackles of medieval feudalism; as right-but-repulsive Roundheads bashing the wrong-but-romantic Cavaliers. Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/opinion/04tinniswood.html

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Permanent Link: http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/3882407

Le manuscrit médiéval ~ The Medieval Manuscript (Pecia)
Medieval Manuscripts at Upenn
The Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Upenn holds over 850 Western manuscripts produced before 1601. One year ago we received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create and make available on the Web all 800+ manuscripts. Halfway through the project, full facsimiles for over 400 codices, fragments, and documents are now available -- free of charge -- on the Internet http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/medren/search.html?fq=collection_facet%3A%22Medieval%20%26%20Renaissance%20Manuscripts%22
Nancy M. Shawcross
Curator of Manuscripts
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
University of Pennsylvania
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Project Woruldhord
A Community Collection Project for Old English Studies

Woruldhord now open for submissions!

We are pleased to announce that we have now opened the online submission site for Project Woruldhord as of today. To remind people this is a project hosted at Oxford University to try to build up an online collection of material related to Old English and the Anglo-Saxons by voluntary contributions online. Anything submitted will then be made available worldwide, free of charge, for others to reuse (for educational purposes only). This follows on from a very successful project we ran at Oxford where we collected together memorabilia from the First World War.

In short we are trying to collect any material that would be of help to people who wish to find out more about the period of history and the language and literature. We are looking for images, audio/video recordings, handouts, essays, articles, presentations, spreadsheets, databases, and so on:
http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/woruldhord/

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A painting discovered with the earliest known icons of the apostles Peter and Paul in a catacomb located under a modern office building in a residential neighbourhood of Rome. (Pier Paolo Cito, AP)

Oldest paintings of apostles found
2010-06-22 20:02

A painting discovered with the earliest known icons of the apostles Peter and Paul in a catacomb located under a modern office building in a residential neighbourhood of Rome. (Pier Paolo Cito, AP)

Rome - Archaeologists and art restorers using new laser technology have discovered what they believe are the oldest paintings of the faces of Jesus Christ's apostles.

The images in a branch of the catacombs of St Tecla near St Paul's Basilica, just outside the walls of ancient Rome, were painted at the end of the 4th century or the start of the 5th century.

Archaeologists believe these images may have been among those that most influenced later artists' depictions of the faces of Christ's most important early followers.

http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Oldest-paintings-of-apostles-found-20100622

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ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

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S H O R T I M A G I N E D

M O N O L O G U E S .

- - - -

Beowulf,

Sitting Next to

a 16-Year-Old Kid,

Watches Frasier on a

Transcontinental Flight.

BY Russell Hehn

- - - -

Oh, Niles, son of Marty, I enjoy it well.

No, I would not like a pillow, thank you. Mead-hall floors provide no pillows and I do not require one now. Go now, and let me be. Niles is sure to soon weave another laugh-net. Yes, I did say "laugh-net," boy, and move your elbow. Do you see how big my elbow is? You're taking up the whole—I could crush you with my wind! I'll take your whole arm if I—forgive me, steward. My apologies to the helmsman. No, there is no need for detainment. Another hardy drink, perhaps? No? Then go again, and let me be.

But seriously, boy, move your elbow. I can't sit like this for another eight hours ... But I'm so uncomfortable! Fine! Fine. May the rings of the Geats be never on your finger, and may a Scylding strike you down.

Actually, no, that's worse than saying "fuck you."

How old are you, anyway? No more than a yearling, I supp—oh! Niles! You are a balm to my ears and nectar to my eyes. Hahaha! "Ramrod"! Ha! Your brother, this Frasier, he sees the truth of it, and I see it as well now. You squander all your booty on these antiques, for it has been long since you've had a woman's touch. Yes, you insufferable child! "Booty"! I said "booty." Must you carp at every word I speak?

Silence!

Niles ... the Maris-beast, Niles ... you must give the Maris-beast the ramrod. But look, Niles. Look at you. Fearful as the pursued hind. The mind of a man with the wisdom of the old kings, and the sharp, slender frame of a milkmaid. You deserve more than this "Maris," you sweet bird. Sharp of body, and a wit to match!

Gay? Why, of course I am, man! Who should not be gay when Niles, son of Marty, prances across the stage? I enjoy it well, I say! Hush now. The song of the ending begins. Lift your voice with me, boy! "But I don't know what to do with those tossed salads and scrambled eggs..."
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/28beowulffrasier.html