L'Agenda des Médiévistes

Septièmes journées internationales d’études médiévales des Jeunes Chercheurs Médiévistes de l’Université de Genève & de la Conférence universitaire de Suisse occidentale

9-10 mars 2017

« Frères humains qui après nous vivez, N’ayez les cuers contre nous endurciz »
François Villon, Ballade des Pendus, vv. 1-2

Notre vie n’est-elle, finalement, qu’une tentative d’apporter du sens à la mort ? Profondément mystérieuse, la mort est néanmoins constitutive de l’expérience humaine et conditionne d’emblée notre existence. Ainsi, nombre d’actes et de créations artistiques interrogent ce phénomène et interprètent ce thème. La mort a été diversement traitée, mise en scène, expliquée ou sublimée par l’Homme dans sa tentative de l’exorciser et de mieux la concevoir, de lui donner du sens et de combler le vide qu’elle laisse.

Ces journées d’études auront pour objectif de traiter de la vie et de la mort comme un tout indissociable. Ainsi, seront abordées autant les questions qui ont trait aux rituels funéraires que la manière dont les vivants appréhendent la mort, s’y préparent et s’y confrontent. On pourra par exemple se pencher sur le rapport au corps sous tous ses aspects : explorer les causes de la mort, disséquer les différentes façons de traiter le cadavre (conservation, transport, embaumement, incinération, mise en terre, etc.) jusqu’à la récupération de certains membres, organes et os destinés à l’adoration du défunt. Le culte des reliques conduira à évoquer le mobilier funéraire – cercueils, tombes, mausolées et tout autre objet qui accompagne les morts dans leur dernière demeure.

Cet effort de mémoire inscrit dans la pierre rejoint toutes les productions textuelles qui rendent hommage aux disparus et consolent les vivants : épitaphes, dits de sages sur la tombe, planhs occitans, mais également testaments laissés par ceux qui s’en vont. De même, toute la symbolique qui entoure le décès (les couleurs, par exemple) pourrait être abordée, dans cette même perspective d’appréhension et de représentation de la mort.

D’autre part, la préparation personnelle que chacun peut choisir d’entreprendre avant de mourir fait pendant aux rituels mis en place pour ceux qui restent. On s’attardera donc à analyser la fonction de la médecine comme retardatrice de l’inéluctable fin, celle des confessions, de l’extrême onction et autres dernières volontés, mais aussi à comprendre le rôle du deuil et les pratiques qui l’accompagnent, en incluant ici les prières, les cérémonies et leurs divers acteurs (les pleureuses, par exemple). Tout ceci nous amènera à pénétrer le domaine de la spiritualité et des diverses croyances qui entourent la mort, telles les danses macabres, la thématique des revenants, les memento mori et les prières pour les morts. Ce désir d’intercession est bien sûr lié à l’espoir d’une vie dans l’au-delà, au thème de la fin du monde ainsi qu’à la question de l’immortalité (de l’âme ou du corps lui-même), disputée par les philosophes et les théologiens ou illustrée par la quête de la pierre philosophale.
Telles seront les grandes lignes de la thématique que nous voudrions explorer à l’occasion de ces septièmes journées d’études. Des propositions de communication de 20 minutes relevant de tous les domaines des études médiévales (histoire, histoire de l’art, philosophie, théologie, langues et littératures) sont les bienvenues, en français (langue de déroulement du colloque) ou en anglais.

Les propositions de contribution, d’une demi-page environ, accompagnées de renseignements pratiques (statut, institution de rattachement, domaine de recherche) sont à envoyer au format PDF avant le 1er décembre 2016 à l’adresse suivante : journeesetudesjcm@gmail.com

Un comité scientifique procédera à la sélection des communications. Nous reprendrons contact avec les candidats avant la fin du mois de décembre.

On 26 and 27 January 2017, the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society will be hosting an international graduate conference entitled ‘Landscape: Interpretations, Relations, and Representations’. A selection of researchers and artists will be invited to participate in panels, in which their 20-minute papers and creative work will be discussed. Participants should currently be undertaking a PhD. When submitting a proposal for a paper presentation or a work of art, please make sure to include a short biography.

Participants are invited to critically explore and reflect on cultural artefacts and practices that project, trace, or confront these processes through the concept, genre, or medium of landscape. By seeking to gather an interdisciplinary and intercultural selection of academic papers and works of art, we aim to encourage an open dialogue among a unique mix of artists and researchers. Please find attached a more detailed conference description, or consult the website: http://hum.leiden.edu/lucas/lucasconference2017/

Two internationally renowned scholars, Professor W.J.T. Mitchell and Professor D.E. Nye will give keynote lectures during the conference.

Please send your proposal (max. 300 words) outlining a 20-minute paper along with a brief bio (max. 150 words) before 1 October, 2016 to lucasconf2017@gmail.com.You will be notified whether or not your paper has been selected by 1 November, 2016. Should you have any question regarding the conference and/or the proposal, please do not hesitate to contact the organising committee at the same email address.

The LUCAS Graduate Conference welcomes papers from all disciplines within the humanities. A selection of papers will be published as conference proceedings in the Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference: http://www.hum.leiden.edu/lucas/jlgc/. For those who attend the conference, there will be a registration fee of €50 to cover the costs of lunches, coffee breaks, excursions and other conference materials. Unfortunately, we cannot offer financial support for travel or accommodation expenses.

The organising committee: Praveen Sewgobind, Lieke Smits, Tecia Vailati and Anna Volkmar

Source : The Medieval Academy Blog

13th international meetings of the Middle Ages in Nájera seek to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of all aspects of medieval studies. Each congress has one particular special thematic strand on an area of interdisciplinary study in a wider context. The topic of this year is about working in the medieval city in Europe.

Historians and Graduate students are encouraged to submit abstracts for research presentations or posters on topics related to « Working in the Medieval European City”.

We will focus on

• Organization, framing and representation of work
• Employment, labor market and mobility
• Entrepreneurship and industrial proletariat
• Labor wages and living standards
• Labor regulations and legislation
• Workers in the Atlantic port cities
• Working women
• Child labor
• Labor Unrest
• Labor and social identity
• Work organization and social relations

Submission guidelines

Abstracts should be no more than 500 characters and should clearly state the purpose, thesis, methodology, and principal findings of the paper to be presented. Successful proposals will be published in 2017. All abstracts and a short CV should be submitted electronically to Jesús Solórzano at: solorzaja@unican.es

The deadline for submissions will be September 30th, 2016.
International scientific advisory board

Chair : Beatriz Arízaga Bolumburu (Universidad de Cantabria)
Coordinator : Jesús Ángel Solórzano Telechea (Universidad de Cantabria)

Members :
Amélia Aguiar Andrade (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Raphaela Averkorn (Universität Siegen)
Iñaki Bazán Díaz (Universidad del País Vasco)
Michel Bochaca (Université de La Rochelle)
David Ditchburn (Trinity College Dublin)
Ariel Guiance (CONICET-Universidad de Córdoba de Argentina)
Jelle Haemers (Universiteit Leuven)
Ricardo Izquierdo Benito (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha)
Juan Francisco Jiménez Alcázar (Universidad de Murcia)
Christian Liddy (University of Durham)
Denis Menjot (Université de Lyon II)
Esther Peña Bocos (Universidad de Cantabria)
Giuliano Pinto (Universitá degli studi di Firenze)
Sarah Rees Jones (University of York)
Teófilo F. Ruiz (University of California-Los Ángeles)
Vicente Salvatierra Cuenca (Universidad de Jaén)
Louis Sicking (Universiteit Leiden y U. Ámsterdam)
Urszula Sowina (Instituto Arqueológico de Varsovia)
Mª Isabel del Val Valdivieso (Universidad de Valladolid)

Source : Calenda

First Call for Papers
Ghent University (Belgium), 14-16 September 2017

Confirmed keynote speakers: Anders Cullhed (University of Stockholm) – Rita Copeland (University of Pennsylvania) – Erik Gunderson (University of Toronto)

Advisory board : Anders Cullhed (University of Stockholm), Rita Copeland (University of Pennsylvania), Françoise Waquet (Université Paris-Sorbonne), Karl Enenkel (University of Münster), Piet Gerbrandy (University of Amsterdam), Wim François (University of Leuven), Wim Verbaal (Ghent University), Koen De Temmerman (Ghent University) and Marco Formisano (Ghent University)

At an early stage in its history, Latin went from a vernacular language to the most pervasive and enduring cosmopolitan language in European history. Latin did not only function as the language for international diplomacy, but, more importantly, it also served as the Church’s liturgical language all over Europe and gave form to an intellectual climate that stimulated an extensive literary production. Literature written in Latin, from Roman Antiquity over the long Middle Ages to the early modern period, preserved and renewed literary and aesthetic standards. It laid the foundation for a European literature (and culture), which crossed national boundaries. Not surprisingly, ‘Great Authors’ such as Dante, Rimbaud, etc. that are now mainly known for their works in vernacular languages, also wrote several works in Latin.

In the development of this intellectual climate and literature, Latin education was a driving force. Latin education, as it took shape in Classical Antiquity, combined technical matters (morphology, prosody, metric, syntax,…) with broader ways of thinking such as rhetoric, literature, philosophy and theology. Hence, being educated in Latin always meant an initiation into a social, intellectual and literary elite. Most authors, even the ones who only wrote in vernacular languages, followed a Latin educational program and had a reading audience in mind that shared the same background.

The main focus of this conference will be the dynamic interaction between European literary production and Latin education as its undercurrent. At the two extremes, this relation can, on the one hand, be defined as one in which education only functioned as a transmitter of knowledge and literary attitudes; on the other hand, education can also be seen as a full part of the intellectual environment in which literary techniques, values and texts were not only transferred, but also evaluated and (re-)created. From the latter perspective, Latin literature and education were involved in a constant negotiation about (changing) aesthetic, social and historical elements.

This conference seeks to cover the entire Latinitas from the institutionalization of Latin education, as embodied by Quintilian, to the end of Latin as a primary language of schooling in modern times. We invite proposals for 30-minute papers on the interaction between education and literature. Particularly welcome are proposals with a comparative approach to different periods, geographical areas and/or literatures in other languages that had to emancipate from their Latin background.

The following topics can serve as guidelines in exploring the correlation between schooling and literature:

➼ Methods of reading and writing literature (genre, style, subject matter, literary attitude, etc.): What is their relation to the methods of the Latin educational system? How do they emancipate from them?
➼ Commentary and reflection on literary values and traditions: How does the Latin school curriculum create literary expectations and stimulate theoretical ways of thinking about literature? In what way are canons created and continued by school programs and instruction?
➼ Tensions and interactions between literary fields: How did the influence of Latin education affect, decelerate or accelerate the rise of literature in vernacular languages? How do the innovative force of literary production and the conservative nature of schooling disturb, challenge, and at the same time balance each other?
➼ Power structures and social identification in and through literature: how are power relations and social identities such as gender, class, race, etc. negotiated through schools and literature? How do schools create an elite community of readers and authors of literature by projecting a model of a homo literatus? How does Latin play a role in establishing or changing this intellectual elite?
➼ Broad historical-cultural shifts: How does the interaction between Latin schooling and literary production change under the influence of political, demographical, and religious transformations? How do developments within the intellectual climate, such as the rise of universities, the new sciences, the enlightenment etc. affect literary production?
➼ The end of Latin schooling: What is the impact of the end of Latin as the language of instruction on literary production? What explains sudden and brief revivals of Latin as a literary language in modern times?
➼ …

We accept papers in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Please send an abstract of ca. 300 words and a five line biography to relics@ugent.be by 1 February 2017.

Organization : Tim Noens, Dinah Wouters, Maxim Rigaux and Thomas Velle are four FWO-funded doctoral researchers at Ghent University. Their research projects focus on Latin topics ranging from the 1st to the 18th century and in various geographical areas from Spain to Scandinavia. Their common interest in the correlation between Latin and other literatures resulted in the foundation of a new research group RELICS (research of European Literary Identity, Cosmopolitanism and the Schools), of which this conference is the launching event.