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Call for Papers: Waste Not Want Not: Food And Thrift From Antiquity To The Present

Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, 12-13 September 2019

Deadline: 31 May 2019

The Cambridge Body and Food Histories group is delighted to announce the call for papers for its second annual conference. This day-and-a-half conference will bring together academics and professionals working within the interdisciplinary fields of food studies and food sustainability research, to reflect on past and present attitudes towards food preservation and waste. Part of an ongoing historiographical effort to better understand consuming behaviours through time, the conference aims to open up a dialogue between historians and policy makers. Using both past and present as critical lenses, the event will serve as a platform for the discussion of more sustainable food practice in the present and future.

Keynote addresses will be delivered by Dr Amanda Herbert (Folger Institute, Washington), and Dr Simon Werrett (UCL).

Please see the full details below or on our website.

We invite proposals for 20 minute papers from researchers in any discipline and at any stage in their career working on FOOD WASTE AND/OR FOOD SUSTAINABILITY practices in any period of history.

Abstracts of 300 words max. should be emailed to foodandthrift@yahoo.com by the deadline 31st May 2019.

Themes may include, but are not limited to:
– Food preservation – methods and implements for preserving food; the temporalities of food itself (seasonality, the potential for decay)
– Management of food waste – methods and implements for disposing of or reusing food waste
– Spaces of food preservation and waste – the factory, workplace, home etc.
– Historical issues of food insecurity and food inequality – economic reasons for ‘thrift’ and their relationship to class/wealth
– Food waste as a moral/religious/political issue – the wider (cultural) frameworks within which food waste/’thrift’ has been understood
– Questions of memory and time – the role of food waste/’thrift’ in visions of the (utopian/ dystopian) future; tendencies to characterise particular periods as excessive or frugal; the impact of these visions on the present

This conference is designed to generate an interdisciplinary discussion between scholars from a wide variety of fields: archaeology, history, geography, anthropology, and sociology, among others. The conference will also feature a roundtable discussion with representatives from the third sector.

Any questions should be sent direct to foodandthrift@yahoo.com

This conference is generously funded by The University of Cambridge AHRC DTP

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Call for Papers: Dis/embodiment and Im/materiality: Uncovering the Body, Gender and Sexuality in Philosophies of Late Antiquity. In Memoriam Marianne Saghy (1961‒2018)

Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, 6-8 June 2019

Deadline: 28 April 2019

In his book From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity, Kyle Harper emphasizes that Christianity had made an enormous difference in how late ancient men and women conceptualized their passions and sexual activities. Also, feminist critics of ancient philosophical theories have focused on theories of matter. Fascinated by Aristotle’s identification of matter with privation, ugliness and femininity, they often tend to consider mainstream philosophies as sexist and the positive evaluation of matter and body as the
gauge of the liberation of the female gender. Moreover, there is a tendency to link the Christian dichotomy of spirit and flesh to these philosophical theories. On the other hand, Late Antique scholars, following the lead of Peter Brown, have pointed to the function of sexual renunciation in early Christianity in liberating women from their traditional roles played in the Roman society. Yet, rarely if ever do scholars who are engaged in gender and sexuality studies attempt to conduct a comprehensive and in-depth study into these interrelated phenomena, while mainstream scholarship on these often turns a blind eye to the gendered perspective.

The impact of the philosophical theories of matter upon the dogmatic debates between Christians and non-Christians, as well as between the diverse Christian theological trends, are largely unexplored and even less clear are the practical spiritual and social consequences of the adoption of one or another theory. The twentieth century has seen a vast array of studies in theories of matter from metaphysical and cosmological perspectives. The dogmatic history of pre-Christian philosophies and metaphysics is now largely written. However, these bodies of literature have rarely intersected with methodologies from feminist theory and philosophy. In turn, feminist scholars often neglect important moments and aspects of the history of Christianity, to radicalize a positive evaluation of embodiment or a negative one of disembodiment. Also, an outstanding task remains to extend these investigations to the world beyond the Mediterranean and to involve into them parallel phenomena in other philosophies and renunciatory traditions, Jainism, Buddhism and in the new Hinduism born in the Middle Ages from a reaction against these reformatory trends.

This conference aims at contributing to an eventual closure of the gap between the aforementioned fields. It will focus on the continuity and change in the social perception and role of the body, gender and sexuality in Late Antiquity, on intersections of gender studies, history of sexuality, feminist philosophy, philosophies of late antiquity, patristic and Gnostic studies, the history of asceticism, the history of Indian philosophy. It aims to bring together scholars of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages to explore how novel theories on late antique Greco-Roman and Indian philosophy, early Christianity, Gnosticism, Buddhism and Jainism connect to gender and sexuality studies. The profiles targeted are both graduate students and early- to mid-career researchers. This conference thus has the ambition to attract specialists in the above fields and also to generate discussions on the relevance of feminist methodologies and their adequacy to the existing interpretative literature, and vice versa. We are inviting papers trying to give answers to the questions above.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Graduate students and early to mid-career researchers are encouraged to apply for participation in this conference. Abstracts proposal should include: name, affiliation, short bio (200 words max), abstract text (up to 500 words), and keywords. Please indicate if you need special assistance and tech for your presentation. Please submit paper abstract proposal via email to Stanimir Panayotov: panayotov_stanimir@phd.ceu.edu.

Deadline for abstract proposals extended: April 28, 2019.

Notification to applicants: May 5, 2019

Email subject should be: DISMAT Budapest 2019

Presentations should be 20 mins long. There is no participation fee for this conference. All admitted presenters should make their own arrangements and cover travel (including visa) and accommodation expenses. The organizers can offer assistance with visa in special circumstances and where invitation letter is required. All presenters are expected to arrive in Budapest on June 5, 2019. An official welcome dinner and a reception is covered for everybody, as well as group lunch and two coffee breaks per day during conference days. The organizers are planning to publish the conference proceedings as an edited volume with a respected publisher; thus all admitted applicants to this conference are advised to take this into consideration.

This conference is co-organized by Department of Medieval Studies and Department of Gender Studies at Central European University, Budapest, in partnership with Hungarian Patristic Society, and is funded by CEU’s Conferences and Academic Events Fund.

https://medievalstudies.ceu.edu/article/2018-09-24/memoriam-marianne-saghy

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Call for Papers: Historical Inertia: Continuity in the Face of Change 500-1500 CE

3rd Annual Edinburgh International Graduate Conference in Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studies

Deadline: 3 June 2019

Historical discourse has long concerned itself with patterns of change and discontinuity to demonstrate and validate models of periodisation and the compartmentalisation of the wider historical field. Building on these themes, this conference has chosen to focus on the opposing view by concentrating on inertia – how history, material culture, ideas and communities can be seen to maintain a stayed course or deviate if a significant force is exerted upon it. Inertia, a concept that has yet to be applied to mainstream Late Antique studies, introduces perspectives and frameworks that permit new approaches to traditional processes.

This conference will be hosted by the Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Society of the University of Edinburgh on the 22 – 23 November 2019 and will tackle the notion of inertia and the implications accompanying it for Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine history from 500-1500 CE.

We particularly encourage contributions on the following topics:
• Dynastic and Political Changes: Patterns of continuity across ruling classes, court-life and dynastic succession.
• A View from Below – Story of the Common Masses: The role of perceived ‘minority’ groups (religious, ethnic or cultural) that constituted the numerical majority of the population but are ignored or omitted in sources written for/by the dominant group.
• Patterns of Trade and Economic Infrastructure: ‘domestic or foreign’.
• Forms of Expression and Transmission: Listening through language, art and ideas.
• Frontiers (and beyond): Military, diplomatic or cultural interactions across linguistic and political delimitations.

We strongly encourage papers from postgraduate students and early career researchers from all disciplines (Archaeology, Art History, History, Theology etc.) which take advantage of interdisciplinary source-critical approaches.

Poster Presentations:
There will be a special poster session held during the conference of 1 hour, which will take place on Saturday afternoon, allowing for discussion with the authors. The posters will be left up for the duration of the conference so they can also be visited during the breaks and during the reception.

We strongly encourage submissions from undergraduate as well as graduate students. The poster size cannot exceed 70cm (width) x 100cm (height)

Deadlines:
Deadline for abstracts is the 3rd of June and notification of acceptance will be confirmed by mid-June. Please submit your abstract of no more than 300 words, and a 100-word professional biography to edibyzpg@ed.ac.uk. Please indicate on your abstract if you are submitting for poster or paper. We kindly welcome submissions from individuals or groups. There will be a small registration fee of £15 and lunch will be provided on both days. We will aim to publish a selection of the papers in a peer-reviewed volume that will bring together the strongest contributions in each area to produce an edited volume of high-quality, deep coherence and rich variety.

The organising committee, P. Harrison, A. Nayfa, S. Nwokoro, L. Pecorini and A. Stockhammer.

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Call for Papers: Third International Conference On Byzantine And Medieval Studies (CBMS)

The Byzantinist Society Of Cyprus, Third International Conference On Byzantine And Medieval Studies (CBMS)

Deadline: 6 September 2019

The Byzantinist Society of Cyprus (ΒΕΚ: Βυζαντινολογική Εταιρεία Κύπρου) invites papers to be presented at the Third International Conference on Byzantine and Medieval Studies, to be held in Nicosia, Cyprus, between the 17th and the 19th of January 2020.

Honorary President: Theodoros Giagkou, Professor, University of Thessaloniki

Keynote Speaker: Enrico Zanini, Professor, Università di Siena

Scholars, researchers and students are encouraged to present their ongoing research, work-in- progress or fieldwork report on any aspect of the history, archaeology, art, architecture, literature, philosophy and religion of Cyprus and the broader Mediterranean region during the Byzantine, Medieval and Ottoman periods. The languages of the conference will be Greek, English, French and German.

Scientific and Organizing Committee:
Nikolas Bakirtzis (Chair), Stavros Georgiou, Doria Nicolaou, Andriani Georgiou, Christina Kakkoura, Rania Michail, Thomas Costi, Ourania Perdiki, Despina Papacharalampous, Thanasis Koutoupas, Christina Roditou, Andreas Foulias.

Paper proposal submission material:
Every paper proposal submission must be accompanied by an abstract between 300 and 500 words summarizing the presented research, report or work-in-progress and indicating its original contribution.

Please provide the requested information and submit your abstracts using our online application forms:
Paper proposal: https://forms.gle/BEyHbKaDZNTBjxff6

Sessions of up to five papers can be submitted together in the following form by the session organizer.
Session proposal: https://forms.gle/DEB38CDQDkMcbD5x8

Paper proposals will be reviewed based on their abstract and accepted on merit. This review will be anonymous. Notification of paper review will be send by email by the beginning of October, 2019. Papers will be grouped in sessions according to their topic and theme. Each participant may deliver only one paper limited to 20 minutes. Accepted paper abstracts will be published in the conference’s ‘Book of Abstracts’.

Graduate Paper Awards: The best graduate student papers will be selected and awarded upon the conclusion of the conference.

The conference is organized by the Byzantinist Society of Cyprus. For membership information please visit the society’s website: http://www.byzantinistsociety.org.cy

For inquiries send email to: cbms2020@byzantinistsociety.org.cy

Paper proposal preparation instructions

When submitting your proposal through our online application form, you will be asked to provide the following information:

Name, position or graduate status and academic affiliation (i.e.. Prof., University of…), email address, address, phone, title of paper, abstract.

If you encounter technical difficulties with our online application form, you may also send us your proposal via email (cbms2020@byzantinistsociety.org.cy), in the following format:
Prepare the paper proposal as a single Microsoft WORD document. Font: Times New Roman, 12 point. Line spacing: single.

Cover Sheet
Include the following information in the listed order. Please align text left and allow a blank line between each information detail:

Name, position or graduate status and academic affiliation (i.e. Prof., University of…), address, phone, email address, title of paper.

Abstract
Title line: No more than two lines. Do not use an all capital-letters title. Boldface and centered. Skip one line.

Author line: Author’s name followed by institutional affiliation in parentheses or, for independent scholars their city. No titles or degrees (i.e. Prof., Dr, PhD).. Boldface and centered. Lower case, capitalize first letters of words. Skip two lines.

Abstract text: Justify text. No intend in the first line of paragraphs. Skip one line between paragraphs. Foreign language words transliterated and italicized. No footnotes or images. The abstract text is the sole responsibility of the author/s and will be included in the Book of Abstracts.

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Call for Papers: Biblical Poetry: the Legacy of the Psalms in Late Antiquity and Byzantium

Ghent University, Belgiumm, 23-24 April 2020

Deadline: 31 May 2019

The Psalms, in their Greek Septuagint translation, were a fundamental corpus of biblical poetry, and as such were continuously referred to in Christian literature. They played a key role in the daily life and in the development of religious sensitivity of late antique and Byzantine people. The production of Psalm-related literature, notably exegetic, was impressively widespread. The Psalms, however, influenced other genres of religious literature as well, and their poetical nature remained an important feature that later authors were well aware of.

In preparation of a volume on the reception of the Psalms in poetry from Late Antiquity and Byzantium, we invite scholars of all levels of experience to present a paper at a colloquium on this subject.

Confirmed speakers are Andrew Faulkner, Antonia Giannouli, Christian Høgel and Maria Ypsilanti.

We welcome contributions on the following topics especially:
• the appreciation of the Psalter’s poetical nature in exegesis and in the biblical manuscript tradition (e.g. recognition, by patristic and Byzantine exegetes, of the presence or absence of poetical features);
• rhetorical aspects of the Psalms as highlighted in late antique and Byzantine treatises;
• the influence of the Psalms on Byzantine poetry (e.g. what was their role in the composition of eis heauton poems? How does self-expression in Christian poetry relate to the Psalms?);
• the reception of the Psalms in hymnographic poetry;
• the reception of the Psalter in specific genres of poetry, such as Byzantine catanyctic poetry;
• the metrical metaphrases by ps-Apollinaris and Manuel Philes;
• metrical paratexts on the Psalms.

These examples are not exclusive and papers on other related topics are welcome.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers. Each paper will be followed by a reaction from a respondent, who will open the discussion with the audience. Contributors whose abstract is accepted will be asked to submit prior to the colloquium a rough draft of their full text. After the conference, they are expected to offer their re-worked paper for inclusion (upon acceptance after peer-review) in a volume on the reception of the Psalms in Byzantine poetry.

Please send a title and a short abstract (max. 300 words) of your paper to rachele.ricceri@ugent.be no later than May 31, 2019. Accepted speakers will be notified by the end of June 2019.

For more information, please visit our website.

Organisers: Floris Bernard, Reinhart Ceulemans, Cristina Cocola, Kristoffel Demoen, Anna Gioffreda, Andreas Rhoby, Rachele Ricceri.

This colloquium is organised within the framework of the projects David, our Orpheus. Reception, Rewritings and Adaptations of the Psalms in Byzantine Poetry (funded by the FWO – Flemish Research Foundation) and The Legacy of the Psalms in Byzantine Poetry: Book Epigrams and Metrical Paraphrases (funded by the FWO – Flemish Research Foundation and the FWF – Austrian Science Fund), which are being carried out at Ghent University, KU Leuven and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

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Call for Papers: Family Matters

The 5th Annual Conference of the Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society at the University of Edinburgh, Saturday, 15 June 2019

Deadline: 5 April 2019

The Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society (LAMPS) at the University of Edinburgh is hosting a one-day conference on the theme of Family Matters in literature and historical sources from the Late Antique to the start of the Early Modern period. This conference seeks to further our understanding of the roles, values, religious ideals, practices and dynamics of the family during the Late Antique and Medieval periods. It invites us to explore how families, whether aristocratic or not, functioned. It also aims to strengthen interdisciplinary connections within and outside of the University of Edinburgh, including but not limited to the fields of Archaeology, History, Classics, History of Art, Literature, Language Studies, Islamic Studies, and Theology. We welcome submissions for papers on the theme of Family Matters and hope to engage with a wider audience by providing a forum for postgraduate and early career scholars to present their research. Submissions for abstracts may include, but are certainly not limited to:

● Family as portrayed in literature
● Gender roles
● Children and childhood
● The function of religion within everyday life
● Parenthood
● Home and work
● Religious, legal and social issues within the home
● Family and the community
● Monastic families
● Mortality

Early career scholars and postgraduate students are invited to submit abstracts of up to 200 words, as well as a short biography of up to 100 words to lampsedinburgh@gmail.com by Friday, 5 April, 2019

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Call for Papers: True Warriors? Negotiating Dissent in the Intellectual Debate (c. 1100-1700)

9th International Lectio Conference, Leuven, Belgium, 11-13 December 2019

Deadline: 15 April 2019

Dissent, polemics and rivalry have always been at the center of intellectual development. The scholarly Streitkultur was given a fresh impetus by the newly founded universities in the High Middle Ages and later turned into a quintessential part of early modern intellectual life. It was not only mirrored in various well-known intellectual debates and controversies – e.g. between Aristotelians and Augustinians, scholastics and humanists, Catholics and Protestants – but also embodied in numerous literary genres and non-literary modes of expression – e.g. disputationes, invectives, consilia, images, carnivalesque parades, music, etc. – and discursive or political strategies – patronage, networks and alliances. Moreover, the harsh debates notwithstanding, consensus was also actively searched for, both within particular disciplines and within society as a whole.

The aforementioned genres and strategies are all modes of negotiating dissent, which raises several important questions regarding these intellectual ‘warriors’. What were the most important issues at stake and how were they debated? Did the debates in the public sphere reflect the private opinions of the scholars involved? What access do we have to those private opinions? Can we approach such controversies in terms of authenticity and truthfulness, or consistency and coherence? Is there a contrast between ego-documents and the published part of an author’s oeuvre?

Starting from these questions, the aim of this conference is to study the polemical strategies and the modes of rivalry and alliance in scholarly debate from the twelfth through the seventeenth centuries. We actively invite papers from a variety of perspectives and disciplines (civil and canon law, philosophy, theology and religious studies, literary studies, historiography, art history, etc.) and aim to study texts in Latin, Greek and the vernacular, as well as pictorial and performative traditions. We do not only welcome specific case studies, but also (strongly) encourage broader (meta)perspectives, e.g.of a diachronic or transdisciplinary nature. The conference will span the period from the twelfth until the seventeenth centuries.

For full details, see http://lectio.ghum.kuleuven.be/conferences/

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Call for Papers: Georgia – Byzantium – Christian East

Tbilisi, Georgia, 18-20 June 2019

Deadline: 29 March 2019

Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Center of Manuscripts has the pleasure to announce the Second International Conference “Georgia – Byzantium – Christian East.” The conference will be held in Tbilisi, Georgia (1/3 M. Aleksidze. Tbilisi, Georgia, 0193) between 18-20 June 2019. As usual, the working languages will be Georgian and English.

CVs and abstracts of your contributions (not more than 500 words max; Georgian texts in AcadNusx, English texts in Times New Roman; English translation should be attached to Georgian texts) should be submitted by e-mail: georgianmanuscript@gmail.com

Successful participants will be informed in the first decade of April. The details about accommodation and other practical aspects will be communicated after approval.

No registration fee required.

The conference covers all aspects of Medieval Georgian, Byzantine and Christian East Literature, history, theology, art history and digital humanities.

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Call for Papers: Nomads and their Neighbors in the Middle Ages

Eighth International Conference on Medieval History of the Eurasian Steppe, Medieval Nomads (MeN), Sofia, Bulgaria, 20-23 November 2019

Deadline: 15 April 2019

In 1997, 2000 and 2002, the Department of Medieval History at the University of Szeged organized several conferences on the history of medieval nomads of the Eurasian steppe, the proceedings of which were subsequently published in Hungarian. In 2004, the Department of Medieval History and the Department of Archaeology at the same University, together with the Research Group on Hungarian Prehistory of the Regional Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged decided to convene an International Conference on Medieval History of the Eurasian Steppe. The first conference of this kind was held in Szeged in 2004, the second in Jászberény in 2007, the third in Miskolc in 2009, the fourth in Cairo (Egypt) in 2011, the fifth in Moscow (Russia) in 2013, the sixth again in Szeged in 2016, and the seventh in Shanghai in 2018.

Now, as a continuation of this series, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and the Institute for Historical Studies of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences have the pleasure to invite you to take part in the Eighth International Conference on Medieval History of the Eurasian Steppe, “Nomads and their Neighbors in the Middle Ages”, to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, in November 20–23, 2019.

Panels and individual papers which fall under the following main topics are encouraged:
• Sources and their creators
• The Nomads and their Sedentary Neighbors: Warfare, Diplomacy, Economy, Politics and Culture
• Nomads as marginal groups in the sedentary societies
• Religious history and conversion of the Eurasian Nomads
• Military history
• Social History
• The no man’s land: cross points between steppe and sown
• Representation of the Nomads in Material and Written Culture of their Sedentary Neighbors

Length of the papers
• Individual papers: the length should not exceed 15 minutes, and 10 minutes will be left for discussion.
• Pre-organized panels: should include 3 or 4 papers of the same length plus 30 minutes for discussion. The papers should be focused a single theme or research-question.

Official language of the conference: English

There is no registration fee. Travel and accommodation are the responsibility of each participant.

Application
• Individual applicants should send the attached form F1_Individual by April 15, 2019 to the address: medieval.nomads.sofia.2019@gmail.com Abstracts should not exceed 250 words.
• Panel proposals should follow the attached form F2_Panel and be sent by April 15, 2019 to the same address: medieval.nomads.sofia.2019@gmail.com The proposals should include an abstract (300 words maximum) for the entire panel explaining its content, in addition to an individual abstract (250 words maximum) for each paper.

All application will go through a selection process by the Organizing Committee and applicants will be informed by June 15, 2019.

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Call for Papers: Celebrations in the eastern Mediterranean: private and public

Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham, 1 June 2019

Deadline: 7 April 2019

We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers in celebration of the 20th Postgraduate Colloquium of the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham,UK.

Papers and posters are invited for the 20th Annual Postgraduate Colloquium at the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies. From antiquity to the present peoples in the eastern Mediterranean have taken part in celebrations and ceremonies. These vary from large-scale public events to private and personal rituals. As we continue to take part in social rituals derived from these traditions and develop new ways to manifest them it is important to examine these celebrations in detail. The colloquium aims to approach the subject from a variety of perspectives on how people experience celebrations across the eastern Mediterranean from late antiquity to the modern day, from textual sources to visual culture and archaeology.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
– Feast days and holidays
– Processions
– Secular and religious ceremonies
– Gift Giving
– Secular and religious ceremonies
– Festivals
– Anniversaries, holidays, weddings
– Spaces and Objects
– Celebrations in texts and arts

Papers of approximately 20 minutes or posters (A3 format) related to any of the fields covered by Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies are welcome. Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words no later than the Sunday 7th April 2019 to 2019CBOMGSColloquium@gmail.com. A selection of papers will be published in the proceedings on the online journal Diogenes (https://gemuob.wordpress.com/diogenes/)

Further information can be found on the conference webpage: https://gemuob.wordpress.com/annual-colloquium-3/

Come and celebrate with us!