CFP: Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024: Exchanging Words

The Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group is delighted to announce the date and the theme for their 2024 conference: The conference will be held in person on June 18th 2024 with the theme of “Exchanging Words” in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library.

The aim of this conference is to explore the concept of exchange, whether it be textual or material, to, for and between women in the global Middle Ages. As a research group based upon the concept of exchanging ideas, we wish to explore medieval women’s own networks of exchange and transmission, and the influence of this upon both the literature and culture of the period as well as the present day.

We therefore welcome papers exploring any aspect of connections, correspondence and communication in the field of medieval women’s writing, from any discipline, be it literary, historical or otherwise. There are no limitations on geographical or language focus, as long as the topic falls within the medieval period.  

Examples of areas of interest may include, but are not limited to:

  • Letters to, from, between and about women
  • Female epistolary networks
  • The epistolary genre, rhetoric, and ars dictaminis
  • Manuscripts, manuscript networks and transmission
  • Gifts between women
  • Female patronage of the arts and architecture 
  • Knowledge exchange by women
  • Applying theoretical approaches (e.g. feminist or queer theory) to medieval texts
  • The material culture of women’s writing

Papers should aim to be 20 minutes, to be delivered in English.

Please submit your abstracts (250-300 words) along with a brief bio (max. 100 words) to Katherine Smith (katherine.smith@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) and Marlene Schilling (marlene.schilling@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk). The deadline for the submission is March 31st 2024 and notifications will be made in mid April 2024. The final program will be published by the end of April 2024.

Please direct any questions to any of the conference organizers Katherine Smith, Marlene Schilling, Carolin Gluchowski or Santhia Velasco Kittlaus

The research group and the conference are generously funded by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and their “Critical-Thinking Communities” Initiative. 

CFP: The Fifteenth Century Conference

St John’s College, Oxford, 5th-7th September 2024

Proposals are now invited for The Fifteenth Century Conference 2024. This annual meeting brings together established scholars and new researchers in the field, acting as a showcase for current research and a forum for encouraging new directions of enquiry. We invite proposals for research papers on any subject relating to the history of the long fifteenth century in the British Isles, Ireland, or in the French territories of the English monarchy. Proposals on all kinds of history are welcome, as are interdisciplinary ones.

Papers should be 40-45 minutes in length, to be followed by 15-20 minutes of questions and discussion. They should therefore be based on original research and be suitable for working up for submission to The Fifteenth Century, an edited series closely associated with the Conference. (Please note: there is no obligation to publish and submissions to this series undergo a separate peer-review process. For details see: https://boydellandbrewer.com/the-fifteenth-century/)

Proposals from postgraduates at the later stages of doctoral work and from early-career researchers are particularly encouraged. All speakers will be expected to deliver their papers in person and to pay the standard registration and other fees. This cost-sharing helps to make the conference as affordable as possible for everyone. However, there are two £250 bursaries for postgraduate speakers at the conference offered by the Richard III Society.

Please send proposals for papers to Laura Flannigan (laura.flannigan@sjc.ox.ac.uk) and Rowena Archer (rowena.archer@history.ox.ac.uk) by 31 January 2024. Proposals should include a title and an abstract of the paper totalling no more than 300 words, outlining the research basis, methodology, and significance for the field. Please also provide a short biography including any institutional affiliations and, in the case of postgraduate students, the name of your PhD supervisor. All proposals will be reviewed by the Fifteenth Century Conference advisory board.

CfP: Transgression in Late Antiquity and Byzantium

26th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society:
Transgression in Late Antiquity and Byzantium

24th-25th February 2024, Oxford

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the 26th Annual Oxford University Byzantine Society International Graduate Conference on the 24th – 25th February, 2024. Papers are invited to approach the theme of ‘Transgression’ within the Late Antique and Byzantine world (very broadly defined). For the call for papers, and for details on how to submit an abstract for consideration for the conference, please see below.

‘Seduced by love for you, I went mad, Aquilina … she, smouldering, not any less love-struck than me, would wander throughout the house … love alone became her heart’s obsession … Her tutor chased me. Her grim mother guarded her … they scrutinised our eyes and nods, and colouring that tends to signal thoughts … soon both of us began to seek out times and places to converse with eyebrows and our eyes, to dupe the guards, to put a foot down gingerly, and in the night to run without a sound. Our fiery hearts ignite a doubled frenzied passion, and so an anguish mixed with love rages … Boethius, offering aid, pacifies her parents’ hearts with “gifts” and lures soft touches to my goal with cash. Blind love of money overcomes parental love; they both begin to love their daughter’s guilt. They give us room for secret sins … yet wickedness, when permitted, becomes worthless, and lust for the deed languishes … so a sanctioned license stole my zeal for sinning, and even longing for such things departed. The two of us split up, miserable and dissatisfied in equal measure …’

Maximianus, Elegies, 3 (adapted tr. Juster)

The Late Antique and Byzantine world was a medley of various modes of transgression: orthodoxy and heresy; borders and breakthroughs; laws and outlaws; taxes and tax evaders; praise and polemic; sacred and profane; idealism and pragmatism; rule and riot. Whether amidst the ‘purple’, the pulpits, or the populace, transgression formed an almost unavoidable aspect of daily life for individuals across the empire and its neighbouring regions. The framework of ‘Transgression’ then is very widely applicable, with novel and imaginative approaches to the notion being strongly encouraged. In tandem with seeking as broad a range of relevant papers as possible within Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, some suggestions by the Oxford University Byzantine Society for how this topic might be treated include:

·      The Literary – deviance from established genres, styles or tropes; bold exploration of new artistic territory; penned subversiveness against higher authorities (whether discreetly or openly broadcasted); dissemination of literature beyond expected limits.

·      The Political – usurpers, revolts, breakaway regions, court intrigue, plots and coups; contravention of aristocratic or political hierarchies and their expectations; royal ceremonial and its changes, or imperial self-promotion and propaganda seeking to rupture or distort the truth.

·      The Geopolitical – stepping beyond or breaking through boundaries and borders, including invasions, expeditions, trade (whether in commodities or ideas), movements of peoples and tribes, or even the establishment of settlements and colonies.

·      The Religious and Spiritual – ‘Heresy’, sectarianism, paganism, esotericism, magic, and more; and, in reverse, all discussion of ‘Orthodoxy’, which so defined itself in opposition to that which it considered transgressive; monastic orders and practices (anchoritic and coenobitic) and their associated canons, themselves intertwined and explicative of what was deemed prohibited; holy fools and other individuals perceived as deviant from typical holy men.

·      The Social and Sartorial – gender-based expectations in public and private; the contravention (or enforcement) of status or class boundaries; proscribed or vagrant habits of dress, jewellery, fabrics, etc.

·      The Linguistic – transmission of language elements across regional borders or cultures, including loan words, dialectic and stylistic influences, as well as other topics concerning lingual crossover and interaction.

·      The Artistic and Architectural – the practice of spolia; the spread and mix of architectural styles from differing regions and cultures; cross-confessionalism evident from the layout or architecture of religious edifices; variant depictions of Christ and other holy figures; iconoclasm.

·      The Legal – whether it be examination of imperial law codes and their effectiveness or more localised disputes testified to by preserved papyri, all discussion concerning legal affairs naturally involves assessing transgressive behaviour and how it was viewed and handled.

·      It could even be that your paper’s relevance to ‘Transgression’ consists in its breaking out from scholarly consensus in a notable way!

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words, with a short academic biography written in the third person, to the Oxford University Byzantine Society at byzantine.society@gmail.com by Monday 27th November 2023. Papers should be twenty minutes in length and may be delivered in English or French. As with previous conferences, selected papers will be published in an edited volume, peer-reviewed by specialists in the field. Submissions should aim to be as close to the theme as possible in their abstract and paper, especially if they wish to be considered for inclusion in the edited volume. Nevertheless, all submissions are warmly invited.

The conference will have a hybrid format, with papers delivered at the Oxford University History Faculty and livestreamed for a remote audience. Accepted speakers should expect to participate in person.

CFP: Conflicts, Connections and Communities in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles

23 November 2023 [Australian Central Daylight Time]
Online via Microsoft Teams


Keynote speakers: Prof. Daniel Anlezark (University of Sydney) and Dr Courtnay Konshuh (University of Calgary)


The complex series of interrelated Old English annals known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (ASC) constitutes one of the richest surviving examples of historical writing from early medieval England. Compiled in several extant manuscripts at different centres of monastic, episcopal, and royal activity, these annals shed crucial light on changing dynamics of power, on important cultural developments, on linguistic evolution, and on the crystallisation of communal identities in England between the late ninth and mid-twelfth centuries. In recent decades, increased linguistic, palaeographical, historical, and literary scrutiny of the annals has laid secure foundations for fine-grained work on the ASC as cultural artefacts that were reworked, redeployed, and reinterpreted in many different contexts throughout the middle ages (and beyond).
This online symposium, hosted by researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, seeks to build on this scholarship by foregrounding new approaches to the ASC. In particular, we invite scholars from various disciplines and different career stages to submit proposals for 20-minute papers (to be presented in English) relating in some way to themes of conflict, connection, and/or community in the ASC and their wider context.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Representations of war and/or violence in the ASC
  • Discrepancies within and/or between separate versions of the ASC
  • Cross-cultural encounters and interactions in the ASC
  • Relationships between manuscripts of the ASC and related texts
  • Representations of particular communities and/or their relationships in the ASC
  • The creation and use of copies of the ASC within specific communities in early medieval England
  • The dissemination of the ASC and related texts

Please send paper proposals, including a title, 150–200-word abstract, and short biography, to Dr James Kane (james.kane@flinders.edu.au) and A/Prof. Erin Sebo (erin.sebo@flinders.edu.au).

Medieval Germany Workshop 2024, German Historical Institute London

Organised by the German Historical Institute London in co-operation with the German Historical Institute Washington and the German History Society, to be held in London.

This one-day workshop on the history of medieval Germany (broadly defined) will provide an opportunity for researchers in the field from the UK, continental Europe, and the USA to meet in a relaxed and friendly setting and to learn more about each other’s work. Proposals for short papers of 10–15 minutes are invited from researchers at all career stages with an interest in any aspect of the history of medieval Germany. Participants are encouraged to concentrate on presenting work in progress, highlighting research questions and approaches, and pointing to yet unresolved challenges of their projects. Presentations will be followed by a discussion.
Attendance is free, which includes lunch, but costs for travel and accommodation cannot be reimbursed. Doctoral students from North America (USA and Canada) who wish to present at the workshop, however, can apply for two travel grants provided by the German Historical Institute Washington. Please express your interest in this grant in your application. Support for postgraduate and early career researchers from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland is available on a competitive basis, subject to eligibility requirements: postgraduate members of the German History Society currently registered for a higher degree at a university in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, and those who have completed a PhD within two years of the deadline for application but who have no other institutional sources of funding may apply for up to £150 for travel and accommodation.
Please see the GHS website for further information and application deadlines.
Please send your proposal, which must include a title, an abstract of c.200 words, and a biographical note of no more than c.100 words, to Marcus Meer: m.meer@ghil.ac.uk. Questions about all aspects of the workshop can also be sent to Len Scales: l.e.scales@durham.ac.uk

Students and researchers interested in medieval German history are also very welcome to attend and listen to the presentations. There is no charge for attendance, but pre-booking is essential. If you would like to attend as a guest, please contact Julian Triandafyllou: j.triandafyllou@ghil.ac.uk
The deadline for proposal submissions is 20 December 2023.

CALL FOR PAPERS: GENDER AND SAINTHOOD, C. 1100–1500

Conference at the University of Oxford and Online, 5–6 April 2024

Gender and sanctity are inextricably intertwined. Medieval saints and holy people exceeded, enshrined, and subverted cultural constructions and expectations of gender, yet were also contained, defined, and controlled by these same practical and discursive ideas. In the later Middle Ages, conceptions of gender and gendered roles changed: the sacralisation of marriage came hand in hand with new ideals of marital sexuality; the mendicant orders and other movements opened up new forms of lay piety and new routes for sanctity; and growing urbanisation and centralisation enabled the tightening of everyday gender roles,
but also a sphere in which different performances of gender could be broadcast to a wider audience. At the same time, the vitae of late antique and early medieval saints continued to circulate, leading to a myriad of co-existing, intertwined, and interacting modes of gender and sanctity. Later medieval holy women had gender non-conforming experiences of Christ, the saints, and the Virgin, and expressed their
own (a)gendered modes of holiness in different ways; the vitae of many saints complicate and expand a binary understanding of gender; male monks and bishops positioned themselves as female in relationship to the Divine – everywhere one turns, questions of gender and exceptional holiness converge.

This conference aims to put two immensely complex cultural categories, those of gender and sanctity, into conversation with one another. Both are multivalent, unstable categories of being, capable of both enforcing and disrupting hegemonic cultural and social structures and extending beyond themselves to unsettle and reinvent wider categories of meaning. Since the 1980s and the field-defining work of Carol Walker Bynum (1982) and Barbara Newman (1987, 1995), medievalists have embraced the importance of viewing sanctity and holiness through a gendered lens. More recent work (Bychowski and Kim, 2019; Spencer-Hall and Gutt, 2021) has expanded the methodological and conceptual toolkit with which we can approach the intersection of gender and sanctity and made clearer the political and ideological stakes of undertaking such research. The medieval world has become a totemic utopia for the modern far-right, where questions of gender, race, and normativity can be considered largely settled, and then deployed as a weapon in modern political discourse. This practice aids in the political project of abolishing or refusing the rights of transgender and nonbinary people. Against this backdrop, it is crucial that medievalists discuss these issues within their own research, and demonstrate the vibrancy, instability, and complexity of medieval categories of identity.
We particularly invite contributions from postgraduate and early career researchers, but proposals from scholars at any career stage are welcome. To apply, please send an abstract (max. 300 words) and a short biography to Edmund van der Molen (edmund.vandermolen@nottingham.ac.uk) and Antonia
Anstatt (antonia.anstatt@history.ox.ac.uk) by 15 October 2023. The conference is expected to take place in a hybrid format; please indicate whether you would like to give your paper online or in person.
We invite paper proposals for 20-minute papers to consider the relationship between sanctity and gender in the medieval period, with both concepts understood as broadly and inclusively as possible.

Topics could include, but are not limited to:
● Saints transcending and disrupting gender (transgender, intersex, agender, non-binary saints and sainthood)
● The use of sanctity and/or gender to challenge hegemonic power structures
● Queer readings of sainthood, hagiography, or cultic practice
● The role of gender in constructing a saint (both paradigmatic and individual)
● Operations of gender and power within canonisation processes
● Material culture and gendered sainthood
● Gendered relationships within a saint’s cult – saint/confessor relationships, saint/devotee relationships, etc
● Non-Western, non-Christian religious and gender categories
● The role of embodiment in sanctity and devotion to the saints
● Sainthood and sexuality

CFP: Affiliations: Towards a Theory of Cross-Temporal Comparison

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 

24–25 MAY 2024  

Keynote speakers
Seeta Chaganti, Professor of English, University of California, Davis
Mark Currie, Professor of Contemporary Literature, Queen Mary, University of London
Carla Freccero, Distinguished Professor of Literature and History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz 

Funded by
Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT) Research Centre, University of Oxford 

Organised by
Joseph Hankinson, Career Development Lecturer in English, University of Oxford
Gareth Lloyd Evans, Rebecca Marsland Lecturer in Medieval Literatures, University of Oxford 

In recent years, comparison and comparability have generated thorough critical discussion within the fields of cultural and literary studies. But despite the popularity of comparison as a critical methodology, it is nevertheless the case, as Rita Felski notes, that ‘comparison across space—that is to say, across nations, cultures, or regions—has received far more attention in comparative literature than comparison across time.’ To some extent, existing disciplinary distinctions produce this uneven distribution of attention. Period boundaries impose an often arbitrary temporal delimitation of inquiry, which in turn lends weight to reified and institutionalised categories of thought. Consequently, cross-temporal work is, as Felski argues, habitually ‘seen as evidence of dilettantism or insufficient professionalization.’ But, we suggest, that which has been dismissed as dilettantism itself promises reinvigoration and expansion of the possibilities of literary criticism more generally. Xiaofan Amy Li’s work on the ‘three kinds of comparabilities’ associated with the conventions of ‘existing comparative literature’ (the ‘genealogical, temporal, and generic comparabilities’) has provided a vocabulary for understanding the ways comparative thought makes assumptions about how texts might relate across time (2015, 14). Like the ‘world’ of world literature, which can serve, as Karima Laachir, Sara Marzagora, and Francesca Orsini have argued, as ‘dominant explanatory grid’ (2018, 291-2), time in ‘existing comparative literature’ tends to be either reduced to lines of inheritance or treated as a static frame or macro-category that justifies comparability in advance. With this in mind, this conference seeks to provoke discussion of and experimentation with asynchronous encounters, to stage interactions between texts and fields of research routinely kept separate, and to develop collectively a theory of cross-temporal comparison. 

Seeking to bring into discussion a wide variety of perspectives on the theory and practice of ‘cross-temporal comparison’, we invite proposals for papers of relevance to the subject of the conference, which might include considerations of: 

  • Case-studies which stage encounters between texts and contexts from antiquity to the present day, without recourse to lines of influence and inheritance, or a shared cultural context.  
  • Broader conceptual, philosophical, methodological considerations of the theory of cross-temporal comparison.  
  • Examinations of the role that social, political, economic, and cultural contexts play in shaping the ways in which cross-temporal comparisons are made, and how can we account for these factors when making such comparisons.  
  • Explorations of the pedagogical and institutional implications of any thinking-beyond the limits of periodisation. 

The conference will be in-person at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. We welcome (but do not require) joint proposals and innovative styles of presentation. To submit a proposal, please include in one document the following information: proposals for 20-minute papers (300 words), paper title, and participant(s) biography (100 words). 

Please send proposals by email to affiliations.conference@gmail.com

The deadline for submissions is 15 November 2023.

Call for Papers
Interfacing with linguistic norms, 323 BCE – 1453 CE 

Organisers: Dr Chiara Monaco, Dr Ugo Mondini 

This panel focuses on the use of linguistic norms in literature between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. From the idea of Hellenismos/Latinitas/ʿArabiyya until the development of the concept of ‘national language’, the promotion of language correctness and the imitation of canonical texts are elements of continuity in the endless compromise between norms and usage. At the same time, every literature has breakpoints in which canons are contested/complemented by new (literary and/or linguistic) models; consequently, the interfacing with norms changes.  

Our aim is to study what happens when literature interfaces with norms; the following research questions are the foundation of our reflection:  

  1. To what extent do norms influence usage and vice versa? Does the use comply with the norm always and in the same way, or not?  
  2. How is the terminology of norms shaped and how does it change throughout time?  
  3. What is the relationship between literature and the formulation of linguistic norms? And which role does the idea of literary canon play in the formulation of grammatical norms? 
  4. What happens to customary norms and their use in literature when the canon changes? What is the reaction from contemporary voices?  

The panel focuses on a period longer than Antiquity (323 BCE – 1453 CE) to understand if, when and how the use of norms changes throughout time. This allows making broader considerations on the topic, which are particularly helpful to understand 1) canonical texts, their transmission, and their reception(s); 2) how linguistic norms act in diachrony; 3) how norms shape language usages and vice versa; 4) how the relationship between norms and usage changes over time.  

The aim of this panel is to gather scholars working on norms, the reception of norms, the relationship between grammatical texts and literary/non-literary usages in different traditions, and literature within its historical context. We would be particularly glad to discuss case studies that relate norms from ancient or medieval sources to their origin from past models and their use, misuse, or rejection within literary texts, in a diachronic perspective; or case studies that stress breakpoints along with their consequences. The panel will also be the perfect occasion to reflect on how past and present scholarship has dealt with this challenging topic. Latin and Greek literature and language are the fields of expertise of both organisers; however, proposals on different languages and cultures of the broader area of antique and medieval Eurasia and Africa will be considered with great favour. In this case, chronological boundaries can be discussed with organisers, although the panel focuses on premodern era. 

Interested scholars are invited to submit abstracts of maximum 500 words by 20th February 2023 to the organisers (chiara.monaco@ugent.be; ugo.mondini93@gmail.com).  

We will select speakers working on different languages, epochs, and geographical areas. After the selection, we will provide the speakers with a methodological framework, which they will be asked to consider while producing their paper. This way, consistency and dialogue are assured during the panel in Coimbra (14th Celtic Conference in Classics). 

For more details about the conference, see: https://cechfluc.wixsite.com/ccclassics2023 

CFP: Priests and their Manuscripts in the Holy Land and Sinai

Conference at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna

Institute for Medieval Research, Department of Byzantine Research

8–10 November 2023

Call for Papers

Where did priests learn to read and write? What did they copy and where? How did their libraries look? What did they do with their books? Little is known about these topics, and a general overview is missing, especially if we focus on clerics active in the Holy Land and Sinai. By addressing these and related topics, this conference will aim at gaining a better understanding about the social and cultural role of priests latu sensu (preferably priests and priestmonks, but also monks, nuns, lectors, deacons, bishops) in the Holy Land and Sinai.

We invite the submission of abstracts (300 words max.) for 20-minute papers dealing with manuscripts copied, owned, and used by priests in Sinai and Palestine during the Byzantine and immediate post-Byzantine period in the languages of the Christian Orient. Contributions by historians, archaeologists, art historians, epigraphers, liturgiologists, which aim at shedding light on the social and cultural role of priests in this region and historical period are welcome as well.

Topics that that may be addressed include the following, but participants are encouraged to develop their own questions and approaches within the parameters of the conference theme:
Social context: Which sources offer information about the social role and cultural life of priests in the Holy Land and Sinai? What can we learn from them?
Priests as copyists of manuscripts: Where and how did priests learn how to read and write? What was their level of literacy? Which script styles did they use? Which techniques of book-making did they employ? How many languages did they know and write?
Priests as owners of manuscripts: Which manuscripts did priests own? What do we know about their private ‘libraries’?
Priests and their use of manuscripts: Which signs of use (including annotations, colophons, etc.) did priests leave on the manuscripts they used? Where were manuscripts used and how?

Organizer: Dr. Giulia Rossetto (Austrian Academy of Sciences)

Please send the title of your paper and an abstract (max. 300 words) to Giulia Rossetto (giulia.rossetto@oeaw.ac.at) no later than March 15, 2023. The speakers will be notified by April 15.

If selected, we can offer you reimbursement for your travel expenses (second-class) as well as pre-paid accommodation for two nights in Vienna. 

This conference is organized within the framework of the project “Priests, Books and the Library at Saint Catherine’s (Sinai)” (T1192 – G25) funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF.

“INVESTIGATIONS INTO ROMANIAN AND EUROPEAN BIBLICAL TRADITIONS”
INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi
Institute of Interdisciplinary Research – Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
Centre for Biblical and Philological Studies “Monumenta linguae Dacoromanorum”,
Romanian Association of Philology and Biblical Hermeneutics
Metropolitanate of Moldavia and Bukovina
“A. Philippide” Institute of Romanian Philology


are pleased to invite you to the

“INVESTIGATIONS INTO ROMANIAN AND EUROPEAN BIBLICAL TRADITIONS”
INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM

12th Edition
Iaşi, 18-20 May 2023


The Symposium aims to encourage multi- and interdisciplinary debates on the issues raised by the publication, translation, interpretation, dissemination and reception of sacred texts into Romanian and other modern languages.
Sections

  1. Philological Challenges
    – Publication of the biblical texts. Textual criticism and palaeography. Sacred texts computerization and digitization.
    – The biblical text as a reference point in the diachronic study of language. Lexicology and biblical semantics.Biblical phraseology. Biblical onomastics.
    – Lesser known, partial translations of the Bible: books and book fragments kept in old manuscripts from the 16th and 17th centuries, and their textual relationship with popular Romanian versions.
    – Stylistic interference and demarcation: biblical, liturgical and theological-sapiential varieties of clerical styles. The role of the Bucharest Bible (1688) in the creation of the Romanian clerical style in the 18th and 19th centuries.
  2. Translation Challenges
    – Typology of biblical translations. Literal and free translation. Translation theory and sacred texts.
    – Unique source vs. multiple source. The “original texts” of the Bible – different textual traditions reflected in the Romanian translations.
    – Relationships among successive biblical versions: the Sibiu Gospels (1551-1553) and the Coresi Gospels; the Coresi Gospels and Epistles and the Bălgrad New Testament (1648); the Bucharest Bible (1688) and the Blaj Bible (1795); the Blaj Bible and the Şaguna, Filotei editions and the 1914 Bible, the Cornilescu versions etc.
    – Reference works for all time Bible translations: lexicons, dictionaries, concordances, critical editions,
    auxiliary versions, etc.
  3. Biblical Hermeneutics
    – Confessional and theological choices and conditioning (dogmatic, canonical, clerical, worship-related etc.). Theological censorship, political censorship.
    – Patristic tradition — reference points and criteria for sacred texts’ interpretation.
    – The Bible and the literary clerical system: relationships and determinations between the sacred text and clerical hymnography, worship-related literature, iconography, exegetic and homiletic literature.
  4. Sacred Texts’ Historical Reception
    – Integration, dynamics and stylization of biblical quotations in Romanian and other literatures.
    – Dissemination of Romanian Bible versions. Historical references and main Romanian biblical versions criticism (the Bucharest Bible, the Blaj Bible etc.). Textual relationships (borrowing, “corrections”, adaptations etc.) between different biblical versions.
    – Romanian culture and the Bible. Biblical motifs, symbols, structures and characters.
    – Cultural interferences and mentalities impacting the reception of sacred texts: anthropological, sociological, political or philosophical aspects.

    In addition to the traditional sections, for this edition the organizers propose two thematic sections:
    I. Saint Nicodemus of Tismana – 700 years. Production and transmission of the biblical manuscript in the Byzantine Commonwealth
    These years mark seven centuries since the birth of Saint Nicodemus from Tismana, the author of the oldest dated manuscript from Wallachia and the founder of the first Romanian monasteries. These were the first major cultural centers in the Romanian countries, which were incorporated into the network of cultural centers already existing in the Byzantine Commonwealth of Greek and Slavonic languages, which produced biblical manuscripts of great value, with circulation throughout this cultural area, on which the oldest biblical Romanian texts are based. We propose the following thematic directions, any other approaches being welcome:
    – Nicodemus’ Tetraevangelion – the oldest dated manuscript from Wallachia
    – Byzantine biblical lectionaries: production, typikon, circulation, textual tradition
    – Biblical manuscripts in the monastic scriptoria and libraries of the Byzantine Commonwealth
    – Biblical manuscript copying and diffusion centers in the Byzantine Commonwealth
    – Patrons, scribes, calligraphers, illuminators and possessors of biblical manuscripts
    – Illumination of biblical manuscrips in the Byzantine Commonwealth
    – From the Old Church Slavonic to the oldest Romanian lectionaries: Tetraevangelion, Apostle, Psalter and Prophetologion
    II. 350 years since the publication of the Dosoftei’s Rhymed Psalter. The versification of the Psalms in the Romanian and European culture
    – Dosoftei’s Rhymed Psalter: sources, genesis, reception
    – Dosoftei’s Rhymed Psalter as a monument of the Romanian language
    – The place of Dosoftei’s Rhymed Psalter in the history of Romanian literature
    – Rhymed / Metrical Psalters in the European culture
    – Versification as interpretation
    – Rhymed Psalters in Romanian literature: Teodor Corbea (ca 1705), Ioan Prale (1827), Nicolae Liciu (1846), Vasile Militaru (1933), Eugenia Adams Mureşanu (1985), etc.

    We also welcome other interpretations of the Conference theme.

    The official languages of the Symposium will be Romanian, English and French.
    The organisers invite all interested participants to fill in the registration form and send it at simpozionmld@gmail.com. Please email for the form. Selected papers will be published in Reception of the Holy Scriptures: at the crossroads between philology, hermeneutics and translation studies (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Press, Iaşi), a CEEOL indexed journal.

    The conference fee is 180 lei (40 Euro) and will cover organisation and publication costs. You will only be required to pay this fee if you are accepted to the symposium, in which case we will kindly ask you to transfer the money to the following bank account:

    – Account holder: Asociaţia de Filologie şi Hermeneutică Biblică din România;
    – IBAN code: RO72BRDE240SV57759112400;
    – Bank: BRD, Agenţia Copou, Bd. Carol I, nr. 8, Iaşi

    (Please include Investigations into Romanian and European Biblical Traditions Symposium in the transaction details, and kindly e-mail a scanned copy of the bank receipt to simpozionmld@gmail.com)

    Important dates:
    March 1 – abstract submission deadline
    March 10 – decision for acceptance
    April 15 – fee payment deadline (180 RON / 40 EUR)
    May 18-20 – conference days
    July 15 – full paper submision for the proceedings of the conference

    Information about the previous editions:
    http://consilr.info.uaic.ro/~mld/monumenta/simpozionMLD.html

    Scientific Committee:
    Prof. Eugen Munteanu, Ph.D. (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iaşi) (chairman)
    Rev. Dragoş Bahrim, Ph.D. (“Saint Basil the Great” Orthodox Theological Seminary, Iaşi)
    Prof. Gheorghe Chivu, Ph.D. (University of Bucharest)
    Prof. Ioana Costa, Ph.D. (University of Bucharest)
    Prof. Mihai Moraru, Ph.D. (University of Bucharest)
    Prof. Mihaela Paraschiv, Ph.D. (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza University”, Iaşi)
    Prof. Andrei Pleşu, Ph.D. (New Europe College, Bucharest)
    Rev. Prof. Gheorghe Popa, Ph.D. (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza University”, Iaşi)
    Rev. Prof. Ion Vicovan, Ph.D. (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza University”, Iaşi)
    Prof. Wilhelm Tauwinkl, Ph.D. (University of Bucharest)
    Prof. Rodica Zafiu, Ph.D. (University of Bucharest)
    Organising Committee:
    Iosif Camară, Ph.D. (secretary)
    Anca Bibiri, Ph.D.
    Ana Catană-Spenchiu, Ph.D.
    Mioara Dragomir, Ph.D.
    Ana-Maria Gînsac, Ph.D.
    Maria Moruz, Ph.D.
    Mariana Nastasia, Ph.D. student
    Mădălina Ungureanu, Ph.D.