Month: October 2022

17/10/2022

10:39

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exhibition, manuscripts, michaelmas 22

When: 7 – 9.30pm on Friday, 21 October 2022

Where: Blackwell Hall, Weston Library

The event is free but booking is required. When you have booked your place, the ticketing system will send you an automated confirmation.

About the event

Join us in October at the Weston Library for a Library Late celebrating our exhibition Sensational Books.

From ‘living books’ and historic scents to conductive ink and tactile pages, enjoy taster talks, discussions, hands-on activities and live music to engage the five senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, touch and beyond.

Drop-in activities: 7 – 9.30pm, Blackwell Hall

Meet the Guide Dogs team of handlers and guide dogs and try simulation activities to explore the impact of sight loss.

Write beautiful calligraphy with a sensory twist.

Try embossing natural patterns and your initials in Gothic font.

Make a mini concertina book full of colour to explore the senses.

Print a ‘sensational’ keepsake to take away.

Senses in Conservation: discover tools and techniques using the senses with Bodleian Conservation.

Go on a scent journey with Dr Alexy Karenowska (Department of Physics, University of Oxford)

Meet artist Sam Skinner and discover how touch can make text speak

Discover Lit Hits and get a literary prescription with a sensory flavour.

Borrow a ‘living book’ from the Living Library to explore topics including:

Making Sense of Sound with Professor Andrew King (Neurophysiology, University of Oxford) and Dr Kerry Walker (Neuroscience, University of Oxford)
Books and Us: a 2000 year relationship with Professor Emma Smith (Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Oxford)
Your Brain is not a Black Box with Professor Randy Bruno (Professor of Neuroscience, University of Oxford)
Learning to Read the Whole Book with Professor Michael Suarez (Professor and Director of Rare Book School, University of Virginia)
Touching the Alphabet with Dr Vaibhav Singh (Visiting Research Fellow in Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading)
Multisensory books: on the enduring appeal of analog with Professor Charles Spence (Professor in Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford)

Taster talks

7.30 – 7.50pm: Multisensory books – on the enduring appeal of analog
Charles Spence, Professor in Experimental Psychology and author of Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating

The predicted emergence of ebooks has not happened. And that is not just because the younger generations like an academic-looking backdrop to their social media posts. Books engage the senses in a way that is closely linked to nostalgia and memories. While the smell of books can be hugely evocative, the weight and feel of books, and even the sound of the pages turning have been shown to influence people’s perception of the contents. Books, then, are multisensory objects capable of stimulating the senses in ways that are both universal but also culturally-determined.

8.00 – 8.20pm: Senses and Sensibilities – approaches to bookbinding in recent accessions to the Bodleian Library
Andrew Honey, Book Conservator at the Bodleian Library

This taster talk will explore recent accessions to the Bodleian and the often-playful ways that book artists have approached concepts of both books and book bindings. It will also consider the challenges that these may pose for research libraries and conservators.

9.00 – 9.20pm: Sensory books – coming back to our senses to transform children’s digital reading
Natalia Kucirkova, Professor of Early Childhood Education and Development at the University of Stavanger, Norway

This taster talk will explore a cutting-edge project researching the power of smells and scents to transform children’s reading. The project includes a scented adventure trail which engaged children’s sense of smell in their exploration of the story ‘The Three Little Pigs’.

More highlights

The Smell Archive
Dr Cecilia Bembibre Jacobo, UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage and Sarah McCartney, Perfumer
Space for Reading, 20-minute sessions at 7.15pm, 8.00pm and 8.45pm – sign up on arrival

After decades of engaging with history in museums and archives primarily through our eyes, we are rediscovering the value of a multi-sensory approach to cultural heritage. Smells, for example, are linked to aspects of heritage like traditions and tourism; they stand as symbols of a shared past and enhance visitors’ museum experience. In this session, we will share a framework to document scents and their meaning as personal or collective heritage. Sarah McCartney will provide creative context for the smell archival framework. Please join us for a nose-on evening, where we will develop an archive for a particular scent and explore its collective meanings and significance.

When Air Becomes Breath and Breath Becomes Spirit
Áine O’Dwyer and Hannah White, artist-performers
Blackwell Hall, 8.30pm – 8.45pm

Coupling the corporeal and ritual elements of mediaeval manuscript culture, and drawing from the agency of matter artist-performers, Áine O’Dwyer and Hannah White interpret the visual score element of Helen Frosi‘s installation, When Air Becomes Breath and Breath Becomes Spirit. Here, the body magics air into creative potential (inspiration), and the breath becomes a potent symbol of life itself.

B42 (Surrogate)
David Gauthier and Sam Skinner
Blackwell Hall, 7 – 9.30pm (drop-in)

Meet the artist Sam Skinner (Oxford Brookes University) and explore the leporello style book he produced in collaboration with David Gauthier (Utrecht University) which reproduces a section of the Gutenberg Bible using conductive ink, transforming the page into a capacitive sensor and enabling the reader’s touch to trigger recorded readings of the text.

Singing from the St Edmund Consort
Blackwell Hall, 7.30pm and 9pm

A Narrative Approach to Early Chinese Buddhist Prose

16/10/2022

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michaelmas 22

Speaker: Professor Antje Richter, University of Colorado Boulder
Chair: Dr Xiaojing Miao, Pembroke College
Location: Harold Lee Room, Pembroke College
Time: December 1st, 2022, 14:00-16:00

The silence of Vimalakirti is a famous moment in Mahayana Buddhism. The householder’s decision to
respond with “thundering silence” when asked to explain his understanding of non-duality forms the
doctrinal and narrative culmination of the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra, a text that mostly consists of a lively
and occasionally even humorous back and forth in conversation in front of various audiences. The
“scripture of the teaching of Vimalakirti” emerged in India in the first or second century CE and gained
immense literary, religious, and cultural currency in East Asia, through Chinese translations that started
circulating since the late second century. Scholars have discussed the sutra from many angles, but its
narrative form has received little scholarly interest so far.

This talk analyzes Vimalakirti’s silence against two foils that the sutra itself sets up. The first foil
is one of non-silence: the conversational pattern that underlies the sutra’s narrative and discursive
progression. Turn-taking in this text is both highly formalized and open to surprising twists, not least
because the setting of the conversation moves several times, both in this world and to alternative
universes, along with the composition of the internal audience. The second foil is one of silence, because
Vimalakirti’s celebrated silence is not the only occasion a main protagonist of the text chooses not to
answer a question asked of him. Both foils contribute to the performative effect of Vimalakirti’s silence,
in narrative as well as doctrinal terms. The talk will embed reflections on the narrative role of silence in
the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra into native Chinese notions of speaking and not speaking, which both
precede and postdate the introduction of the sutra in China. On a metalevel, the talk hopes to contribute
to the extension and establishment of narrative approaches to Buddhist texts and medieval Chinese
literature.

Antje Richter, Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder,
received her PhD from LMU Munich 1998. Her publications include Letter
Writing and Epistolary Culture in Early Medieval China (2013), A History of Chinese
Letters and Epistolary Culture (2015), several co-edited volumes, and more than
30 articles. She is currently completing a monograph on notions of health and
illness in medieval Chinese literature.

To sign up, please contact Dr Xiaojing Miao (xiaojing.miao@pmb.ox.ac.uk) or Dr Christopher
Foster (cf44@soas.ac.uk)

Short Films on Love, Hope, Death Eternity

16/10/2022

19:12

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events

St John’s Film Club presents two new short films on Love, Hope, Death and Eternity. The first of these, Complete Surrender (dir. Louise Nelstrop) will be of particular interest to Medievalists.

When: Wednesday 26^th October, 5pm-6.30pm

Where: St John’s College, the Mark Bedingham Room (located in St John’s Library)

Both films have won numerous awards in recent film festivals and are not currently on general release.
There will be an opportunity to discuss the films with the directors after the screening.

Film Synopsis

Complete Surrender 2020 (29 mins), directed by Louise Nelstrop (UK) and Pol Herrmann (Belgium), is a short documentary that explores what love is through the eyes of five celebrated Belgian artists and three religious sisters as they engage with the erotic mysticism of the female medieval mystics Hadewijch and Marguerite Porete.

Official Trailer: https://bit.ly/3ywk4Bm

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3epZYSk

Bizzarro e Fantastico 2020 (26 mins), directed Kris Krainock (USA), by is a dark comedy that explores the meaning of life and morality. A Roman everyman discovered a violently ill intruder on his sofa after returning from the market, who he must to health. He discovers his mysterious guest has otherworldly intentions — a reminder that life is for the living.

Official Trailer: https://imdb.to/3Mrs1gB

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3Crmylx

Review: https://filmthreat.com/reviews/bizzarro-e-fantastico/

About the Directors

Louise Nelstrop is a member of the Department of Theology and a non-stipendiary lecturer in theology at John’s College, where she teaches papers on Mysticism, Medieval Religions and Jesus through the Centuries. This is her first short film made in collaboration with Belgian filmmakers, including cinematographer Pol Herrmann, who co-directed and shot the film.

Kris Krainock is an American filmmaker and playwright, who began his professional career with the publication of poetry and short stories in local and national literary journals. Krainock’s major upcoming projects include the feature motion picture ‘Madame X,’ where he’s been able to collaborate with legends in the field such as Stanley Kubrick’s director of photography Douglas Milsome and Stanley’s widow, the artist Christiane Kubrick. Krainock is also developing the television series ‘The Idiot’ and the darkly comedic web series ‘It’s All Downhill From Here.'” (https://www.kriskrainock.com/)

The screening is open to anyone interested. Please email Louise Nelstrop if you have any questions: louise.nelstrop@theology.ox.ac.uk

ETC Research Seminar on Pre-modern Commentaries (MT22)

by Early Text Cultures

13/10/2022

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commentaries, michaelmas 22, seminar

The Early Text Cultures Research seminar for Michaelmas Term will be on the theme of Pre-modern Commentaries. We hope that the seminar will enable us to denaturalise default definitions of ‘commentary’ and to bring out key similarities and differences across a broad spectrum of pre-modern exegetical and interpretive practices. Speakers will discuss commentary features in Old Norse, Medieval Chinese, Sanskrit and Latin contexts. After a ca. 20-min presentation, there will be ample opportunity for cross-disciplinary discussion.

Programme

The seminar will be held at Corpus Christi College in even weeks, on Wednesdays at 2–3pm.

To join remotely, please register here.

Week 2, 19 October (CCC Seminar Room)

Katherine S. Beard (Oxford): Old Norse

The Chieftain at Reykholt: Snorri Sturluson’s Impact on Old Norse/Icelandic Studies

I’ll be speaking about Icelandic historian and politician Snorri Sturluson (1178/9-1241) and the impact the texts attributed to him have had on studying Old Norse/Icelandic literary culture. I’ll focus primarily on Snorra Edda (sometimes called the Prose Edda), and I will also briefly touch on Heimskringla, Snorri’s book of sagas about the Norwegian kings. Snorra Edda was originally intended as a manual of poetics written to give his contemporary readers background knowledge of Norse mythology enough to understand the intricacies of skaldic poetry. Snorri often uses much older mythological poems as examples, and his references to these poems are often the only surviving place where these poems are preserved. Snorri’s Edda is not only a work that has become important to Old Norse literary scholars, but also to scholars of Mythology and Religion, for Snorra Edda is often the only place where several mythological stories of the gods like Þórr and Óðinn are recorded. However, Snorri was both a Christian and a politician and often took creative license with his source material. Snorri’s motivations aside, there is no denying that Snorra Edda has profoundly impacted the modern view of Old Norse mythology.

Week 4, 2 November (CCC Auditorium)

Peter Smith (Oxford): Medieval Chinese

Lin Xiyi’s Commentary to the Zhuangzi: Historical Context and Literary Analysis

In this seminar I will explore exegesis of the Zhuangzi 莊子 (4th century BCE), a classic of ancient Chinese literature associated with Daoism. Comprised of narratives and dialogues, this text is often humorous and subversive and has inspired a range of responses throughout Chinese history. The presentation will focus on the Song dynasty commentary written by Lin Xiyi 林希逸 (1193–1271), exploring the importance of context and process in his work. Lin was influenced by Neo-Confucian thought, a dominant feature of the times, and also by ongoing debates as to whether literary writings were valuable or harmful to ethical cultivation. Of particular interest will be two questions: (1) how is the commentary arising out of Lin Xiyi’s interaction with previous thinkers as well as his contemporaries, and (2) how is his literary analysis of the Zhuangzi featuring within this matrix?

Week 6, 16 November (CCC Auditorium)

Vishal Sharma (Oxford): Sanskrit

The Process of Commentary: Interpreting a 100,000-verse Epic

This talk will focus on the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata (1st c. BCE) and its commentaries in the late medieval and early modern period (13th-17th c.). I will address the following questions: In what ways do intertextual relations inform the development of written commentary? How can written commentaries ‘import’ meanings into a text from other genres, and how can they also ‘export’ those interpretations into other genres?

Week 8, 30 November (CCC Seminar Room)

Vittorio Danovi (Oxford): Latin

Medieval Commentaries on Virgil (Bern scholia and Servius Auctus)

My research is primarily concerned with the commentary on Vergil’s Eclogues and Georgics known as Bern scholia and with the augmented version of Servius’ commentary on the whole of Vergil known, after its first editor Pierre Daniel, as Seruius Danielis or DS scholia. Both commentaries were probably assembled in seventh-century (Insular?) scriptoria by anonymous compilers who resorted to pre-existing commentaries, but almost all their extant witnesses date back to the Carolingian period. I am currently aiming to analyse the characters of the different versions of the Bern and DS scholia transmitted by each witness and to establish their genealogical relationships. On these grounds, I hope to shed some new light on the Carolingian engagement with the two commentaries.

Palaeography Self-Help Groups

1 Comment on Palaeography Self-Help Groups

11/10/2022

15:25

manuscripts, reading group

Students in the history and MML faculties are working together on two palaeography groups, one every week of term, alternating between French and Iberian palaeography. They are both student run, collaborative groups where people can bring something they’re working on to get help from others and work through things together, and improve their skills. We also share resources and course recommendations.

The Iberian Palaeography group will meet weeks 2, 4, 6, and 8, on Tuesdays at 5pm, via Teams.

We will be scheduling the French Palaeography group based on members’ availability.

If you’d like to be involved please email Clare Burgess at clare.burgess@univ.ox.ac.uk, and state which group (or both!) you’re interested in.

Header image: Livre de Merlin (Arras, 1310), Add MS 38117, f. 76r(Source: British Library)

Medieval Matters: Week 1

10/10/2022

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Michaelmas term has officially begun! Oxford is looking beautiful in the October sun, the libraries are once again full, and our programme of events is now fully underway. To mark the start of term, here is some advice chosen specially for our new MSt students:

Magistris adsidete, aperite libros, perspicite litteras, intellegite sensus illarum!
[Sit with your teachers, open your books, study the text, understand its meaning! Ep. 27]

Of course, this advice does not only apply to those on taught degree courses. Being a researcher does not proclude anybody from sitting and studying together, and in fact our many seminars and reading groups are an excellent place to do just that. To help you navigate them all, I have attached a pdf version of this term’s Medieval Booklet to this week’s email for your convenience. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to it: I know I speak for all of us when I say that I am excited for all of the many medieval things in store for us!

One particular event to draw your attention to this week: we at the OMS team invite you to the Medievalist Coffee Morning this Friday, 10:30-11.30am for a Mini Medieval Roadshow. If you don’t know where this takes place, check the Friday announcements below. This is a great chance to meet your OMS team for this year (including some brand new faces!), advertise your seminar / reading group, or just enjoy some free coffee and biscuits. We’d love to see you there. On to the announcements for this week:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Call for Participants: Song and lyric workshop with Ardis Butterfield, 3rd November, 3–5pm: Ardis Butterfield will be visiting Oxford this term and not only give the OMS Michaelmas Lecture on 31 October but has also kindly agreed to take part in a workshop on medieval lyric and song. This will take place in Lecture Room 4, New College on 3^rd November, 3–5pm. We are looking for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers who are working on a medieval song or lyric text that they would like to discuss in the workshop with Professor Butterfield. All that is required is to provide an edition of the text of the song or lyric, ideally with a translation and edition of the music (if there is any). The workshop will be an informal opportunity to workshop songs/lyric texts together and benefit from Professor Butterfield’s expertise. If you would like to contribute a song/lyric, please send your suggestion to <joseph.mason@new.ox.ac.uk> by Friday 14^th October. You are very welcome to attend the workshop without bringing along a text to discuss. If you wish to attend, please RSVP to <joseph.mason@new.ox.ac.uk> by Friday 28^th October for catering purposes.

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 10th October:

The Medieval History Seminar takes place at 5pm in the Wharton Room, All Souls College and on Teams (Teams link here). This week’s speaker will be John Watts (Corpus), ‘Political Economy and the Wars of the Roses’. The Teams session can be accessed by logging in to Teams with your .ox.ac.uk account and joining the group “Medieval History Research Seminar” (team code rmppucs). If you have any difficulties please email: medhistsem@history.ox.ac.uk.
The Old Norse Reading Group meets at 5.30-7.30pm. Please email Ashley Castelino (ashley.castelino@lincoln.ox.ac.uk) to be added to the mailing list.

Tuesday 11th October:

The Medieval English Research Seminar takes place at 12.15pm in Lecture Theatre 2, English Faculty. This week’s speaker will be Nicola McDonald (York), ‘Doing Justice: Who Read Middle English Romance and Why Does it Matter?’. The paper will be followed by lunch with the speaker. All welcome!
GLARE (Greek and Latin Reading Group) takes place at 4-5pm at Harold Wilson Room, Jesus College. Please meet at Jesus College Lodge. This week’s text will be Aristotle, Poetics. All welcome to attend any and all sessions. For more details and specific readings each week, or to be added to the mailing list, email john.colley@jesus.ox.ac.uk or jenyth.evans@seh.ox.ac.uk.

The Medieval French Research Seminar takes place at 5pm at the Maison française d’Oxford (www.mfo.ac.uk). Presentations begin at 5.15pm. This week’s seminar will be a doctoral student research showcase. For more information and to be added on the seminar’s mailing list, contact sophie.marnette@balliol.ox.ac.uk
The Medieval Church and Culture Seminar takes place at 5pm at Charles Wellbeloved Room, Harris Manchester College. The theme for this term is ‘Women’. This week’s speaker will be Luisa Ostacchini (Exeter): The World of the ‘Old English Martyrology’: Carthage and the case of St Perpetua’s sword. Everyone is welcome at this informal and friendly graduate seminar.

Wednesday 12th October:

The Medieval German Graduate Seminar meets for an organising session on ‘Dietrichs Flucht’ at 11:15am in Somerville College – ask at the Lodge for directions. If you want to be added to the mailing list for this term’s seminar, please email henrike.laehnemann@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk
The Medieval Latin Document Reading Group meets on Teams at 4-5pm. We are currently focusing on medieval documents from New College’s archive as part of the cataloguing work being carried out there, so there will be a variety of hands, dates and types. A document is sent out in advance but homework is not expected. Contact Michael Stansfield (michael.stansfield@new.ox.ac.uk) for further details and the Teams link.
The Late Antique and Byzantine Seminar takes place at 5pm at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles. This week’s speaker will be Claudia Rapp (Vienna), The Oxford conundrum: Cyril Mango and Byzantine elitism, or: what about popular culture?.

Thursday 13th October:

The Invisible East Lecture takes place at 5pm online. The speaker will be Reza Huseini, A Day in Late Antique Bactria. Register for the webinar here; the lecture is in Persian.
The Celtic Seminar will take place at 5.15pm via Zoom and at the Council Chamber, National Library of Wales. This week’s speaker will be Imanol Larrea Mendizabal (Soziolinguistika Klusterra), The Etxepare Basque Institute Alan R. King Professor in Residence: “Hizkuntza ohiturak aldatzeko ikerketa soziolinguisikoa Euskal Herrian: hainbat esperientzia” (Ymchwil Sosioieithyddol a newid arferion iaith: profiad Gwlad y Basg). Please note that this is a Basque language seminar with translation into Welsh. Please contact david.willis@jesus.ox.ac.uk if you need a link.

Friday 14th October:

The Medievalist Coffee Morning takes place at 10:30-11.30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre in the Weston Library (access via the Readers Entrance on Museum Road: straight ahead and up two floors!). This week will be a Mini Medieval Roadshow: please do come along to meet the team and to advertise your events / seminars! There will be manuscripts on show!
The Anglo-Norman Reading Group meets at 5-6.30pm at St Hilda’s College, in the Julia Mann Room. This week, please meet at the lodge and arrange swipe-card access. The text will be extracts from the Chronicle of Langtoft; pdf will be provided. For access to the text and further information, please email: stephanie.hathaway@gmail.com or jane.bliss@lmh.oxon.org.

OPPORTUNITIES:

CFP: The Schoenberg Symposium this year is on the theme of TRANSLATING SCIENCE, and we are seeking proposals for 5 minute lightning talks to be posted to YouTube as part of the event. Translating Science considers the networks of exchange, transmission, and translation of natural knowledge evident in manuscript culture in the pre- and early modern periods. We will examine in particular the role of the manuscript book in the translation of natural knowledge across linguistic, regional, disciplinary, and epistemic boundaries. Proposals should be relevant to the theme of TRANSLATING SCIENCE and must be 5 minutes long or shorter. The deadline for submitting proposals for a lightning talk is Friday, October 14: submit your proposals using this form: Lightning talk submission form. Applicants will be notified by October 21. Videos must be submitted to SIMS by November 7. For more information see the Symposium page or email dorp@upenn.edu.

Finally, some advice for this week from Alcuin:

Videte librorum thesaura; considerate ecclesiarum decorem, aedificiorum pulchritudinem

[“Look at the treasures of your library, the beauty of your churches, the fairness of your buildings!, Ep. 27]

I take this to mean: enjoy how beautiful Oxford looks in the autumn sun! May you all have an enjoyable week appreciating the treasures of our libraries, communities and seminars.

*[A Medievalist looking at the Medieval Booklet to work out which treasures of Oxford’s medieval offerings to attend this week]*
Ashmole Bestiary, Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 1511, f. 65 v.
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

Germanic Reading Group

1 Comment on Germanic Reading Group

06/10/2022

12:42

Around Oxford

events, reading group

Michaelmas: Fridays at 4 pm. Week 2, 4 — online. Week 6 — hybrid. Week 8 — in person (venue TBC).

Friday, 21 October. Old Dutch/Old Low Franconian — Johanneke Sytsema leading

Friday, 4 November. Old Saxon — Will Thurlwell leading

Thursday (!), 17 November. Gothic: ‘The linguistic relationship between the Gothic Bible and its Greek source’, by Professor Carla Falluomini (University of Perugia)
Where: Oxford Linguistics Faculty, Common Room / via Zoom

Friday, 2 December. Modern Bernese German (Bärndütsch) — Philomen Probert leading

To join the mailing list or receive the zoom-link, email howard.jones@sbs.ox.ac.uk.
The handouts will be circulated a few days before each meeting.

Header image: Page from the Codex Argenteus showing part of the Gothic (Wulfila) Bible (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Workshop with Prof. Ardis Butterfield: Song and Lyric

04/10/2022

14:41

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Around Oxford, events, opportunities

michaelmas 21, workshop

Thursday 3 November, 3-5pm, in New College, Lecture Room 4

We are looking for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers who are working on a medieval song or lyric text that they would like to discuss in the workshop with Professor Butterfield.

All that is required is to provide an edition of the text of the song or lyric, ideally with a translation and edition of the music (if there is any). The workshop will be an informal opportunity to workshop songs/lyric texts together and benefit from Professor Butterfield’s expertise.

If you would like to contribute a song/lyric, please send your suggestion to joseph.mason@new.ox.ac.uk by Friday 14^th October.

You are very welcome to attend the workshop without bringing along a text to discuss. If you wish to attend, please RSVP to joseph.mason@new.ox.ac.uk by Friday 28^th October for catering purposes.

Header image: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848
Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift (Codex Manesse) fol. 124r

Medieval Matters: Week 0

03/10/2022

13:16

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Here we are, at the beginning of a new term, and a new academic year. It gives me great pleasure to extend a warm welcome to those of you new to our Medievalist community at Oxford! You are now part of a network of over 200 medievalists across a wide range of disciplines and faculties. This weekly Medieval Matters Newsletter is you first port of call for all of Oxford’s rich and diverse medieval happenings, from CFPs and job opportunities to weekly seminars and reading groups.
I am thrilled to be returning as your Communications Officer for this year. Unfortunately we are running short on uplifting Old English wisdom, so this year I will be providing you with wisdomous tidbits from Alcuin of York (c. A.D. 732 to 804). As a polymath who taught and studied an exceptionally wide curriculum on both sides of the English channel and promoted education as a goal in and of itself, Alcuin embodies everything that we celebrate here at OMS. Here to get us started is his call for people to make good use of his work collecting sources:

Ne pereat labor noster in librorum collectione
[Don’t let the work I did building up the library go to waste!, Ep. 167]

This is a particularly relevant call for this week’s email, as I have been carefully compiling a ‘library’ of all of Oxford’s medieval seminars, events, reading lists and opportunities, for your perusal: the Medieval Booklet is now available! You can browse it at your leisure here. Please make good use of it: do not let my work go to waste! I will attach a “hard copy” to next week’s email, so if you have any last-minute changes or additions, please email them to me during this week.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

St Edmund Hall Old Library Exhibition: Poem, Story, and Scape in the work of Kevin Crossley Holland’. This exhibition explores the work of Kevin Crossley-Holland (Honorary Fellow and 1959, English), prize-winning children’s author, translator, poet, librettist, editor and professor. Kevin engages creatively with language and poetry, place, history and legend. He captivates us by telling stories deeply rooted in past cultures, which he remakes to be compellingly contemporary and relevant. For this exhibition, Kevin has generously loaned items from his private collection to add to material from St Edmund Hall’s Archives and Special Collections. The exhibition will run from Friday 8 September – Monday 31 October. Visit by arrangement with the Librarian: library@seh.ox.ac.uk or 01865279062. Public opening on Monday 24 and Friday 28 October 10am-4pm.
Booking is now open for Oxford Latinitas 2022/23 online classes in both Latin and Ancient Greek. The Autumn Term runs from 10th October to 2nd December, and classes are available at all levels in both languages; bookings may also now be made for two terms or for the whole year. Students new to Oxford Latinitas (or new to our courses in either language) will have a short diagnostic call with one of our teachers in order to make sure they are placed in the right group. Full details and link to application sign-up can be found here.
Booking is now open for the Oxford Latinitas Septimana Latina Hiemalis, to be held at Palazzola, Rome, from 3rd-9th December 2022. Whatever your current level of Latin, from beginner to advanced, this week offers you the opportunity to make real progress towards fluency, while enjoying like-minded company in a beautiful location. Full details and link to application sign-up can be found here.
Medieval Postdoctoral Network: The Medieval Postdoctoral Network is a small group of postdocs, new and returning, who work on various aspects of medieval studies. We meet once a month to discuss the development of our work, set goals, and share skills and tips which may be helpful for Early Career Researchers. All are welcome – please email Rebecca Menmuir (r.menmuir@qmul.ac.uk) or Julie Mattison (j.r.mattison@rug.nl) to be added to the mailing list.
The Medievalist Coffee Morning is back! We kick off properly next week with a Mini-Medieval Roadshow. Join us at 10.30-11.30am next Friday, 14 October to meet all of the OMS Team and to hear more about events, seminars and reading groups taking place this term! If you would like to present your event/seminar etc, please do come along to advertise it! There might actually be manuscripts…

EVENTS THIS WEEK:

Monday 3rd October:

The Invisible East Lecture takes place at 4pm in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Lecture 1. The speaker will be Jonathan L. Lee, The History of the Armenian Community of Afghanistan. More information here.

Thursday 6th October:

The Invisible East Lecture takes place at 5pm online. The speaker will be Majid M. Mahdi, Islamisation, a closer look. Register for the webinar here.

Friday 7th October:

The Medievalist Coffee Morning takes place at 10:30-11.30am in the Visiting Scholars Centre in the Weston Library (access via the Readers Entrance on Museum Road: straight ahead and up two floors!).

OPPORTUNITIES:

CFP: The German Historical Institute Medieval History Seminar invites proposals from all areas and periods of medieval history and is not limited to historians working on German history or German-speaking regions of Europe. All methodological approaches are welcome. Applications from neighbouring disciplines are welcome if the projects have a distinct historical focus. The seminar is bi-lingual and papers and discussions will be conducted both in German and English. Participants must have a good reading and listening comprehension of both languages. Successful applicants must be prepared to submit a paper of approximately 5,000 words by August 15, 2023. They are also expected to prepare and present a commentary on the papers of another session. For full details, see our blog post.
Claudio Leonardi FELLOWSHIP for a critical edition of a medieval latin text (deadline November 7, 2022): The scholarship offered is aimed at the purpose of supporting research on medieval Latin culture and texts and especially to produce critical editions. The scholarship, in the amount of €30,000.00 is for one year from January 1, 2023. The critical edition produced will be published by the publisher SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo (www.sismel.it) after passing the usual peer-review procedures. The fellow agrees to present his/her research during the General Assembly of S.I.S.M.E.L. (Florence, April 1, 2023) and to give three lectures at S.I.S.M.E.L. during the term of the fellowship. Applications, addressed to the president of S.I.S.M.E.L, must be received by e-mail at presidenza@sismelfirenze.it no later than 10. 00 on November 7, 2022.
Call For Papers – Contesting Authenticity in Literature, 1200-1700. Proposals are warmly welcomed for this two-day conference, which aims to bring together speakers from across languages, disciplines, and period boundaries. The conference will explore literature which engages with ‘contesting authenticity’ in some way: pseudotexts, forgeries, imitations, narrative authenticity, the practice of contesting authenticity, and many more interpretations of the conference scope. The conference will take place on 30-31 March 2023 at Senate House, University of London; speakers will present in-person. A limited number of bursaries will be available for speakers and attendees. The Call For Papers and further conference information can be found at: https://authenticity2023.wordpress.com/.

I started this email by extending a welcome to our new members, so it seems fit to end on a ‘welcome back’ for those returning. For those of you returning to Oxford, whether from summer holidays or from careers elsewhere, we are delighted to have you back! If you (like me) managed to get less work done over the summer vac than you had hoped, some reassuring words:

Fervor mensis Augusti desidem, non voluntatis efficatia pigrum efficit
[It is the heat of August that has made him idle, not his desire to be lazy, Ep. 119]

Now we are in the cold of October, I am sure we will all get lots of productive research done! I am so looking forward to seeing many of you at events and seminars throughout the term. Wishing you all a successful and enjoyable term, filled with exciting research discoveries and the joys of medievalist community.

*[Stepping into the RadCam after a summer away, a Medievalist shakes off their summer “idleness” and begins to feel much more like themselves again!]*
Ashmole Bestiary, Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 1511, f. 84r.
Viewable in full at Digital Bodleian

Queer and Trans Medievalisms: A Reading Group