News and Events

Contact Will Hasty hasty@ufl.edu about MEMS T-shirts!

Florida MedievaLists

Be sure to check for activities at http://medievalist.lib.usf.edu//

CFP: "Enemies", Kalamazoo 2014

We invite submissions of 15-20 minute papers for a session titled “Of whom shall I be afraid: Enemies in the Medieval Period,” sponsored by Hortulus:The Online Graduate Journal of Medieval Studies, at the 49thInternational Congress on Medieval Studies, to be held in Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 8-11, 2014. We welcome paper topics ranging from explorations of enemies in literature, history, and visual studies to more focused interpretations of the notion of enmity in the medieval period. We encourage submissions from many disciplinary angles, welcoming textual, artistic, and historical interpretations from scholars of literature, history, philosophy, musicology, archaeology, art history, and other fields. We are particularly interested in interdisciplinary work. E.g., How are enemies identified, constructed, and described? What were the ramifications of enmity among individuals or within and between groups? How, if possible, could enmity be overcome? Were enemies always characterized as the "other"? How were non-human enemies treated?

The topic of “enemies” was selected by popular vote by the Hortulus community of graduate students and will also be the theme of the 2014 issue of the journal. Please e-mail a one-page abstract (300 words maximum) to Emerson Richards (Dept. of Comparative Literature, Indiana University) at kalamazoo@hortulus-journal.com by or before September 15, 2011. Feel free to contact Emerson with questions about the session.

Renaissance music concert, Baughman Center, Thursday 5/23, 7:30 PM

Jennifer Thomas writes: I would like to invite you to a concert of gorgeous Renaissance polyphony next Thursday evening, May 23 at 7:30 in the Baughman Center at Lake Alice on the UF campus. I am rehearsing with a group of wonderful professional singers to present this concert just prior to our recording session next week. We are in love with this music, and we think you will like it, too! Bring a friend and enjoy hearing music that has not been heard for nearly 500 years!

Treasures of the Parker Library, April 18, 6-7pm, Smathers Library (East), Room 1A

Lecture by Melvin Jefferson, former Head of the Cambridge (UK) Colleges’ Conservation Consortium. He will talk about the history of the Parker Library and provide an overview of its holdings, which include Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, the St. Augustine Gospels used in the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and important Middle English manuscripts. He will also introduce the “Parker Library on the Web” database and discuss its role in conservation.

Trading on Identity: Jewish Merchants in the Medieval Islamic World
Jessica Goldberg (University of Pennsylvania)

Monday, March 18, 2013 — 6:00-7:00 p.m. Smathers Library (East), Room 1A
Professor Goldberg’s research focuses on the history of merchants in the Islamic and Italian eastern Mediterranean of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Her recent research interests have led her to study the practical minutiae of how business, manufacturing, and trade worked; and ideas and practices of both religious and secular law; merchants’ ideas of region, regional identity and market spaces. Goldberg’s book, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Business World, was recently published by Cambridge University Press.

Allesandro Vettori lectures on Dante, Feb. 25, 7 PM, 215 Dauer

"Wandering Lust in Dante's Commedia: An examination of Dante's love poets and the connection to their sexuality and exile." Lecture by Professor Alessandro Vettori, Chair, Department of Italian, Rutgers University; author of Poets of Divine Love: The Rhetoric of Franciscan Poetry and Le città del Decameron.

Presented by UF Italian Studies

Maimonides symposium and lectures at UF, Feb. 11, 12, 13

11 February, 7:30-9:00 pm, Smathers Library 1A
“Is Judaism Really Monotheistic? A Maimonidean Inquiry”
Lecture by Professor Kenneth Seeskin (Northwestern University)

12 February 2013, 2:00-4:00 pm, Keene-Flint Hall 005
Maimonides: Faith, Doubts and Secrets
Symposium with Professor Seeskin, Professor Edward C. Halper (U. of Georgia) and Dr. Davies, with comments by Dr. Yehuda Halper (Tulane University)

13 February, 7:00-8:00 pm, UF Hillel, Norman H. Lipoff Hall
“Hidden Heresies, Obfuscation, Appropriation: What is all the fuss about Maimonides”
Lecture by Dr. Daniel Davies (University of Cambridge)

For more information, and a link to pre-circulated papers, see http://www.humanities.ufl.edu/calendar/20130212-Maimonides.html

Professor Mats Roslund  (U. of Lund) speaks on medieval Sweden and Sicily, Feb. 4, 6, and 8

"Birka and Sigtuna in Sweden in the light of the Viking-age urbanization in medieval Scandinavia"
Monday, Feb. 4, at 4 pm, Smathers Library East 1A

"Siqilliya, Islamic Sicily as an example of intercultural communication (9th to 11th century)"
Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 7 pm, Dauer Hall 215

"Guests and diaspora. Politics, social interaction, and cultural change in medieval Sigtuna"
Friday, Feb. 8, at 4 pm, Dauer Hall 215

Judith Haber on Shakespeare, Friday, Feb. 8, 4 PM, Dauer 218

"' I cannot tell wat is like me’: Simile, Paternity, and Identity in Henry V," lecture by Professor Judith Haber of Tufts University. She is the author of two books, Pastoral and the Poetics of Self-Contradiction: Theocritus to Marvell (Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Desire and Dramatic Form in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2009). She has published numerous articles on Early Modern Literature in journals including Renaissance Drama; Representations; and English Literary Renaissance.

Miri Rubin, Grass Lecture & seminar, Feb. 4 & 5

"An English Tale: The Legend of Child-Murder in Medieval Norwich," Alexander Grass Endowed Lecture in Jewish Studies
Monday, February 4, 7pm, Smathers Library East, Room 1A.

Faculty/graduate student seminar, “Images of Ecclesia and Synagoga: Understanding and Interpreting Visual Evidence in the Middle Ages,” Tuesday, February 5, 4:30-6:00 pm, 05 Flint Hall.

Miri Rubin is Professor of Medieval History at Queen Mary University of London and currently serves as Head of the School of History.

“Dialogue and the Community of Ideas in Cristobal de Villalón's El scholastico,” Feb. 4, 4:05 PM

Matt Michel, a UF Ph.D. candidate, will discuss this 16th-c work in the context of threats from orthodox ideology.
Monday February 4, Dauer 215 at 4:05 pm

Two lectures on Early Modern Spain, Jan. 24-25

24 January 2013, 4:00-5:30 pm, Smathers Library (East) 1A
The Making of the Quintessential Outsider: Bartolomé de las Casas and Early Spanish America
Lawrence Clayton (University of Alabama)

and

25 January 2013, noon-1:00 pm, Walker Hall 201D
‘The Defence of Men’s Inconstancy’ in Early Modern Spain
Shifra Armon (Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies)

The Chanson de geste and the Orient, Catherine Jones

Tuesday, October 9, 5.30pm,  210 Pugh Hall
The France Florida Research Institute is pleased to announce the visit of Dr Catherine Jones. Dr Jones is Professor of French and Provencal at the University of Georgia. She is the author of The Noble Merchant: Problems of Genre and Lineage in Hervis de Metz (North Carolina, 1993) and Philippe de Vigneulles and the Art of Prose Translation (Boydell & Brewer, 2008). She is a leading internationally recognized scholar on medieval epic.

Medieval Models and Multilingualism in Higher Education, Matthieu Boyd

Friday, September 7th, 6.30pm, Smathers Library, Room 1a
This lecture will comment from a medievalist perspective on the value of language requirements, focusing on how language provides a key for broadening our approach to subjects like English literature, British literature, Irish literature, and the Western intellectual tradition. Dr. Boyd has practical suggestions for what American undergraduates might reasonably be asked to do with languages.

James J. Paxson Memorial Sessions, Kalamazoo 2012

Three sessions will honor Professor James J. Paxson at the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, MI, May 10-13, 2012.

Session I (mod. Emerson Richards)

• R. Allen Shoaf, "Prospero's 'beating mind'"
• Matt Snyder, "'Muse on my mirrour': Reflection and Refraction in the Awntyrs off Arthure"
• E. Mead Bowen, "Music, Stasis and Otherworldly Digestion in Classical and Medieval Otherworld Literature"
• Florin Curta, "Linear frontiers in the early Middle Ages: Bulgaria and Wessex"
• William C. Calin, "Morality Plays: French and Scots"

Session II (mod. Valerie Allen)

• Tison Pugh, "Loving Lost Children in Chaucer's Clerk's Tale"
• Joanna Shearer, "Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk for Free?: Sex, Salvation, and Female Victimhood in Chaucer"
• Randi Marie Smith, "A Mystical Repast: Allegorical Food, Community, and the Sacred Poem"
• Nicholas Birns, "Historicizing Deconstruction, Conceptualizing
  Allegory: James Paxson's Embodiment of Theory"

Session III (mod. Matt Snyder)

• Valerie Allen, "Gold"
• Ann Astell, "‘Thow þe kynge slepe’:  Death, Mercy, and the Virgin Mary in Piers Plowman"
• Fiona Tolhurst, "Re-reading the Theology of Julian of Norwich"
• Julie LeBlanc "'It would cut a hair on water': Descriptive Passages in the Irish Aeneid"

Three UF sessions at Kalamazoo 2012

Professor Florin Curta is organizing the following sessions at the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 10-13, 2012:

1. The Archaeology of Early Medieval Europe.
2. Catalyst Frontiers in Eastern Europe: Frontiers and Ethnogenesis.
3. The Health and Lifestyle of Medieval Populations: A Bio-Anthropological Perspective.
For inquiries and proposals, contact Prof. Curta: (fcurta@ufl.edu)

New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies

The 18th biennial New College conference will be held 8–10 March 2012 in Sarasota, Florida.

Rethinking the Age of 'King Arthur'

Lecture by Guy Halsall, 13 March 2012, 6:00 pm, Smathers Library 1A, University of Florida. Free and open to the public; sponsored by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere (Rothman Endowment)

The best-known king of medieval Britain is one who might well never have existed: King Arthur.  Certainly, if he ever did exist, we can know nothing about him.  This lecture looks at the time and place in which the legendary ruler is supposed to have lived – the fifth and sixth centuries, in Britain. Guy Halsall studied history and archaeology at the University of York, working on the region of Metz (North-East France).  He developed work, using written and archaeological sources (especially cemeteries) to study the social history of the early Middle Ages and has ranged widely across a number of topics: death and burial; age and gender; ethnicity and barbarian migration; warfare and violence; humour and literary style.  His next book, Worlds of Arthur, brings him back to the study of early medieval Britain, where his training as an early medievalist began.

“A Cell of Their Own: The Incarceration of Women in Later Medieval Europe”

Professor Guy Geltner of the Faculty of History, Archaeology, and Region Studies, University of Amsterdam will give a lecture on this topic at the University of North Florida (Jacksonville) on March 26, 2012. For more information, see this UNF link.

Bill Calin Festschrift

At the annual meeting of the Conference on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, in May 2011, Bill was honored with a session on Makers of the Middle Ages.  Regina Psaki delivered a paper entitled "Calin, the Maker."  That evening, at a reception, Bill was given a Festschrift volume, Cahier Calin. Makers of the Middle Ages. Essays in Honor of William Calin. Eds. Richard Utz and Elizabeth Emery. Kalamazoo, MI: Studies in Medievalism, 2011. 

Vagantes 2012, March 29-31 Indiana University, Bloomington

Vagantes is the largest conference in North America for graduate students studying the Middle Ages, and aims to provide an open dialogue among junior scholars from all fields of medieval studies. This year’s conference will feature keynote speakers Shannon Gayk (Professor of English, Indiana University) and Professor Jordan L. Zweck (Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison). They will be joined by at least twenty-four student presenters and an audience of approximately 100 people.

For more information, find us on the web at www.vagantesconference.org.
Find us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/Vagantes2012

2011-2012 Lindsay Young Visiting Faculty Fellowships at Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

The University of Tennessee Knoxville. Thanks to the generosity of the Aslan Foundation, the Institute will offer Visiting Fellowships for the 2011-2012 academic year, including summer and early fall of 2012. These non-service Fellowships are intended to bring scholars from Tennessee and the neighboring region to UTK, where they can make use of research resources in medieval and Renaissance fields to further their research agendas and take part in the intellectual life of the Institute. Fellowships are open to scholars at all regional institutions of higher education and credentialed independent scholars, but preference will be given to faculty teaching in the state of Tennessee. The tenure of the Visiting Fellowship is variable according to the requirements of an individual’s research plan and approval by the Lindsay Young Fellowship Committee, which evaluates applications. The Fellowship will carry a stipend of $600/week for a period of between one and ten weeks. The costs of travel to and from Knoxville are also covered by the Fellowship. Visiting Fellows are encouraged to arrange their plans to take advantage of the various symposia and workshops offered by the Institute (a schedule can be viewed at http://web.utk.edu/~marco/). Fellows will have library privileges for the duration of their Fellowship and are expected to acknowledge the support of the Institute in publications arising from their tenure of the Fellowship.
            Applications, including curriculum vitae and a detailed research plan of no more than 1,000 words, should be sent to Prof. Heather Hirschfeld, Riggsby Director, Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Dunford Hall, sixth floor, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-4065.  The deadline for Fellowships to be held between Nov. 1, 2011 and May 31, 2012 is Sept. 30, 2011. The deadline for Fellowships to be held between June 1, 2012 and Oct. 31, 2012 is February 15, 2012. Visiting Fellows are responsible for making their own housing accommodations for their stay. The Marco Institute will gladly provide suggestions for housing resources and place fellows in contact with the UTK Housing Office upon request.
            For more information, go to http://web.utk.edu/~marco/ .

2012 New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies

8–10 March 2012 in Sarasota, Florida. Plenary speakers will be Duane Osheim (University of Virginia) and Jody Enders (University of California at Santa Barbara).

The conference will be held on the campus of the New College of Florida, the honors college of the Florida state system. The college, located on Sarasota Bay, is adjacent to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, which will offer tours arranged for conference participants. Sarasota is noted for its beautiful public beaches, theater, art and music. The average temperatures in March are a pleasant high of 77F (25C) and a low of 57F (14C).
More information will be posted here on the website as it becomes available, including conference events and area attractions: http://faculty.ncf.edu/MedievalStudies

The program committee invites 250-word abstracts of proposed twenty-minute papers on topics in European and Mediterranean history, literature, art, and religion from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries. Interdisciplinary work is particularly appropriate to the conference’s broad historical and disciplinary scope. Planned sessions are welcome. The deadline for abstracts is 15 September 2011. Send inquiries and abstracts (email preferred, no attachments please) to:
nmyhill[at]ncf.edu
Nova Myhill
Division of Humanities
New College of Florida
5800 Bay Shore Road
Sarasota FL 34243

"The Way" towards a program in Pilgrimage Studies

The photo (Joe D'Amata, his wife Mary Watt of UF's MEMS, and Martin Sheen) was taken at a reception following a screening of Emilio Estevez's new film The Way, starring Martin Sheen, on Friday Feb. 17, 2011 in Washington DC.  Georgetown University and the College of William and Mary organized and hosted the screening and reception as part of a workshop dedicated to establishing an international consortium on Pilgrimage Studies based in Santiago, Spain. The Spanish Embassy was a sponsor of the event,as was the Xacobeo, an arm of the Galician government responsible for the Camino de Santiago (the pilgrimage route through the north of Spain and the setting for The Way.) The  Spanish Ambassador to the US was also there and as were members of the Spanish royal family.

MEMS looks forward to participating in the consortium by offering pilgrimage courses at UF. UF faculty would have the opportunity to teach and research in the advanced summer program that would be based in Santiago, and UF students could also attend the Santiago programs.

MEMS University Scholars

Congratulations to the two students in Medieval and Early Modern Studies who have been chosen for the 2011-2012 University Scholars Program:

William Fay's study sheds light on the changing relationship between religion and magic in the early modern period subsequent to the Renaissance. His focus is on a seventeenth-century author and philosopher named Thomas Brown, whose life and works present -- by way of his involvement in Hermeticism, astrology, and alchemy – a fascinating melding of religion, magic, and science.

Stephen Scruby explores secular and ethnic tensions developing between Western Europe and Byzantium during the First Crusade and continuing until the destruction of Constantinople by Crusaders during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Scruby analyzes the lasting mistrust and suspicion growing out of these events in the original Greek and Latin sources.

 Humanities Brown Bag: Prophecies of Paradise, Oct. 31, noon, Walker Hall 201D

Professor Mary Watt will examine Christopher Columbus’s absorption and adaptation of the prevailing cosmology of the fifteenth century in creating a world model that bears a striking resemblance to that proposed in Dante’s Divina Commedia.  Professor Watt will consider why Columbus preferred a literary model to that of the “hard scientists” of his time, and suggest that Columbus, like Dante, saw the world as having both literal and allegorical significance.  In support of this argument she will examine Columbus’s own Book of Prophecies (El Libro de las Profecias), together with Columbus’s extant letters, margin notes in his own books, and his diaries and conclude that the explorer not only saw his journey as the fulfillment of medieval apocalyptic prophecy but also believed that what he had “discovered” was indeed Earthly Paradise perched, like Dante’s Earthly Paradise, atop the western antipodal landmass.

The Humanities Brown Bag Series features informal talks by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere’s (CHPS) Rothman Summer Fellows. Faculty fellows will speak for 20-30 minutes in length about their summer work, leaving ample time for questions and discussion. Please feel free to bring your own lunch, and the CHPS will provide coffee and dessert.

Stammtisch October 3, 3 pm, Pugh 302

Please join us on Monday, October 3, at 3:00 PM in Pugh Hall 302 for the first speaker of the 2011-12 Stammtisch Graduate Talk Series. On Monday, Emerson Richards (MA student, Department of English) will give a talk entitled "I'd Give Beatrice a Nine ... Out of Ten: Dante's Perfect Imperfection in Canto 33 of Purgatorio and the Significance of Decad." Anyone with an interest in Dante, numerology, or unattainable beloveds is welcome to attend.

Liberty of Conscience: The Inquisition Case of Isaac de Castro Tartas", a talk by Miriam Bodian, Tuesday, November 15, 7:30pm at Hillel.

Miriam Bodian is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work includes Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam (1997) and Dying in the Law of Moses: Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian World (2007). She is currently working on a book based on Inquisition documents, focusing on the issue of freedom of conscience in Portuguese-Jewish discourse.

http://www.jst.ufl.edu/images/bodianCard.jpg

Defiance for Christ’s Sake: The Holy Fool in Religious and Secular Society, Nov. 17, 4:30 PM, 212 Library West

Sergey A. Ivanov is a Senior Research Associate of the Institute of Slavic Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow), Professor of Byzantine Studies in the State University of St. Petersburg, and a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities. In his lecture, he will trace holy foolery from its origins in Egyptian monasteries through its evolution in the cities of Byzantium, its prime and decline. As holy foolery was an international phenomenon, Ivanov will compare similar figures who emerged elsewhere in Europe, especially in medieval Italy.  He will then proceed to analyze Russian holy foolery.

Luncheon with Sergei Ivanov

1. “Casting Pearls before Circe’s Swine: The Byzantine View of Mission”
2.  “From ‘Secret Servants of God’ to ‘Fools for Christ's Sake’ in Byzantine Hagiography” in The Holy Fool  in Byzantium and Russia
3. “A Saint in a Whore-house”

Sponsors: Center for European Studies; Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere; Center for Greek Studies; Department of Classics; Department of History; Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures; Department of Religion

James J. Paxson

Prof. Paxson died 2/4/2011. In Memoriam.

Facebook Memorial

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Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Will Hasty, 263 Dauer Hall, 273-3780
Email: hasty@ufl.edu

Mary Watt, 301 Pugh Hall, 392-2422
Email: marywatt@ufl.edu