Delaware Valley Medieval Association

The doctoral students in The Program in Medieval Studies at Princeton University invite abstracts for the 24th Graduate Conference on “Vulnerability in the Middle Ages,” which will take place on Friday, April 28, 2017.  Sharon Farmer (UC Santa Barbara) will deliver the keynote lecture this year.

Vulnerability in the Middle Ages

At a moment that has brought economic, political, and physical vulnerabilities (new and old) abruptly to the surface, we invite papers on the topic of vulnerability and insecurity in the Middle Ages. Recent scholarship in medieval poverty, gender, disability, and racial difference has greatly enhanced our sense of the variety of vulnerable experiences, and we seek to connect these conversations through their shared perspective on power. We welcome proposals from a variety of disciplines on vulnerability and the concepts that surround it, including weakness, insecurity, injury, disability, and difference. Papers might consider both the portrayal and the experience of the vulnerable life, as well as the systems that lead to vulnerability. We are interested both in the conditions that made individuals vulnerable within communities, and in those that threatened communities within larger polities. In a period where vulnerability typically precluded creating and maintaining records, unfamiliar readings of familiar sources are especially necessary, as are approaches that access vulnerable experiences in imaginative ways. Such approaches might challenge more conventional relationships between scholars and their objects of study, and ask how scholarship itself can perpetuate, create, or mitigate vulnerabilities in the past and present. 

Some themes might include, but are not limited to:

• Contradictory perspectives on vulnerability (sympathy/revulsion, admiration/contempt)
• How difference (racial, gender, physical, economic, geographic) contributes to vulnerability
• Vulnerabilities specific to catastrophes, including war, famine, disease, and panic
• The relationship of systems of power to vulnerability
• The experience and portrayal of physical vulnerability
• The treatment (medical or otherwise) of vulnerable conditions
• Religious practices and perspectives on weakness
• “Vulnerability” in other words, such as vernacular translations and terminologies
• Documenting vulnerability and (materially, philologically, hermeneutically) vulnerable documents
• Populations vulnerable to scholarship, via origin or identity myths, institutions, and ideologies

Please submit your abstract (250 words) for a fifteen-minute presentation to the conference organizers (medievalvulnerabilities@gmail.com) by February 15th, 2017.

All abstracts should be in English, and include your name, contact information, and academic affiliation.

MAKE _YOUR_ EDITION:
MODELS AND METHODS FOR DIGITAL TEXTUAL SCHOLARSHIP

Call for applications: Summer 2017 NEH Institute for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities

DEADLINES: Applications are due Tuesday, February 28, 2017. Applicants will be notified of acceptance by March 15, 2017.

INSTITUTE DATES: July 10-29, 2017

Synopsis

The University of Pittsburgh is pleased to invite applications to an NEH Advanced Institute in the Digital Humanities for summer 2017 entitled _Make YOUR edition: models and methods of digital textual scholarship_. The target audience for this workshop is digital textual scholars who are already comfortable editing their texts (in TEI XML or comparable alternatives); the goal of the Institute is to assist them in moving beyond textual editing to imagining, creating, and publishing research-driven, theoretically and methodologically innovative digital editions.

Rationale

Digital humanists already have access to workshops and tutorials to help them learn to transcribe, edit, and tag a text in preparation for publishing a digital edition. These training resources play a vital role in empowering editors to formalize and instantiate their interpretations as markup, so as to make them available for subsequent analysis. Nonetheless, sophisticated markup expertise alone is not enough to make an edition, and learning nothing more than tagging may leave scholars staring at their angle brackets and wondering what to do next. For some a solution like TEI Tapas provides an adequate next step, but for those who wish to ask new types of questions of their documents, and to produce new types of editions that enable new types of research, an
understanding of how to turn a set of tagged texts into a customized edition that meets individualized research goals is crucial. Digital humanists cannot build editions that break new methodological ground solely on the basis of solutions prepared largely by others, and the focus of this Institute is on the creation of digital editions motivated by project-specific research questions and implemented from a perspective driven first by theory of edition, second by editorial methodology, and necessarily but less importantly by specific toolkits. In this respect we foreground not learning a particular programming language or technology or framework, but learning to think and act digitally about the process of creating a digital edition. Because tools and technologies come and go, the Institute emphasizes learning to translate original digital thinking about editions into implementations of those editions, rather than on “tooling up” in the context of currently popular frameworks. In this respect, the Institute recognizes thinking digitally in ways driven by project-specific research goals as the most important feature of _sustainable Digital Humanities training and education_.

Program

The Institute will introduce textual and manuscript scholars to a powerful and broad-reaching skill set of digital methods and technologies, grounded in a context that prioritizes a research-driven theory of edition. The course moves in a three-week succession from novice to experienced level, and from base textual data to full digital publication of scholarly editions. The Institute assumes that participants will have meaningful prior experience in digital editing (in TEI XML or a comparable framework), but it makes no other assumptions about prior knowledge or skills.

–   An optional first-week _boot camp_ establishes basic infrastructure skills (operating comfortably at the command line, handling files, navigating file systems, sharing resources and code responsibly, running Python programs from the command line, etc.).

–   The second week allows participants to practice and advance their basic skills when they start combining digital textual scholarship theory (e.g., McGann 2004[1], Andrews 2012[2], Siemens 2012[3], Robinson 2013[4], Haentjens et al. 2015[5]) with standard (e.g., XML, Python, Jupyter Notebooks) and advanced digital technologies (e.g., StemmaWeb, CollateX, Neo4j, Tinkerpop, eXist-db).
–   By the end of the third week, participants will be able to conceptualize from theory a perspective on digital textual scholarship and digital scholarly editions. They will also know how to go about planning and implementing such an edition by engaging programmatically and algorithmically with digital data, handling it computationally, and querying, analyzing, and transforming it into visualizations that transcend the digital translation of a text as a codex.

The Institute will meet at the main (Oakland) campus of the University of Pittsburgh from Monday, July 10, 2017 through Friday, July 28, 2017 and will draw on an international faculty of distinguished scholars, practitioners, and teachers of digital philology from several collaborating institutions. On Saturday, July 29, 2017 there will be an optional pedagogical review of the Institute, designed to assist participants in organizing and conducting their own workshops at their home institutions.

Instructors

–   Tara Andrews (Institute of History, University of Vienna)
–   David J. Birnbaum (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures,
    University of Pittsburgh)
–   Hugh Cayless (Duke Collaboratory for Classics Computing [DC3], Duke
    University)
–   Ronald Haentjens Dekker (Huygens Institute, Royal Netherlands
    Academy of Arts and Sciences)
–   Na-Rae Han (Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh)
–   Mike Kestemont (Department of Literature, University of Antwerp)
–   Leif-Jöran Olsson (Department of Swedish Language, University of
    Gothenburg)

The instructors will be assisted by Gabrielle (Gabi) Keane (Senior Undergraduate Institute Assistant, University of Pittsburgh).

Details

Applications are invited for the full three-week Institute or, in the case of those who are already comfortable with the types of first-week topics described above, for just the second and third weeks. Applicants should already be proficient with digital textual editing in TEI XML or similar technologies, and should be seeking guidance and training in how to move their texts into innovative digital editions that will enable them to explore project-specific research questions. Evidence of meaningful prior hands-on digital textual editing experience is required, but prior experience in programming for textual exploration and publication is not. Applicants who do not have prior experience with the Python programming language must agree to complete a recommended free online introductory Python course before the beginning of the Institute, for which the Institute will maintain its own support and discussion board. For budgetary reasons, preference will be given to applications from within North America.

Participants accepted to the Institute will receive a travel allowance, complimentary accommodation in single-occupancy dormitory rooms, and a complimentary meal plan in the University Dining Services in lieu of per diem. Access to the University libraries, computer labs, and networked digital resources will also be provided. Participants must bring their own laptops (Windows 7–10, Mac OS, or Ubuntu/Debian Linux). We welcome scholars at all career levels from advanced graduate students through senior faculty. Applications to the Institute should include the following:

–   A one- to two-page statement about how participation in the Institute will enhance the scholarly and professional goals of the applicant. This statement should describe the digital edition project that the applicant plans to pursue or undertake, with special attention to the research questions motivating the creation of that edition. Preference will be shown to applications that articulate a clear understanding of the textual research potential of digital scholarly editions.
–   A one-page description of the applicant’s experience with textual editing. Prior experience in programming for text processing is neither required nor expected, but those who have such experience should describe it here.
–   Brief CV (maximum of two pages), concentrating on textual editing and Digital Humanities experience.
–   Indicate whether you are applying for the full three weeks or only for the second and third, and in the latter case please describe your background in the areas related to those described above as part of the “boot camp” week.
–   Indicate whether you wish to participate in the optional one-day pedagogical review of the course on Saturday, July 29.
–   Participants are required to participate full-time in the Institute for the two or three weeks that they are in residence, and must confirm that they will not undertake other significant commitments during the Institute period.

All application materials should be submitted by email as a single PDF file to djbpitt+neh@pitt.edu. The deadline for applications is Tuesday, February 28, 2017, and applicants will be notified by March 15, 2017. Questions may be directed to djbpitt+neh@pitt.edu.

David J. Birnbaum, Institute Director
Professor and Chair, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Faculty Fellow, University Honors College
Email: djbpitt+neh@pitt.edu
_____

References

1.  McGann, Jerome, 2004. “Marking texts of many dimensions.” In Susan Schreibman, Raymond Siemens, and John Unsworth, eds. _A companion to
    Digital Humanities_. Oxford: Blackwell.
2.  Andrews, Tara L., 2012. “The third way: philology and critical edition in the digital age.” _Variants_ 10, pp. 61–76.
3.  Siemens, Raymond et al., 2012. “Toward modeling the social edition: An approach to understanding the electronic scholarly edition in the
    context of new and emerging social media.” _Literary and linguistic computing_, 27(4), pp. 445–61.
4.  Robinson, Peter, 2012. “Towards a theory of digital editions.” _Variants_ 10, pp.105–31.
5.  Haentjens Dekker, Ronald, Dirk van Hulle, Gregor Middell, Vincent Neyt, Joris van Zundert, 2015. “Computer-supported collation of modern manuscripts: CollateX and the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project”, _Digital scholarship in the humanities_, 30(3), pp. 452–70.

Please save Thursday, Feb. 23 for the following:

Professor Renata Holod, University of Pennsylvania

“Lighting the Great Mosque of Cordoba:  A Digital Reconstruction of Vision and Memory for 10th century CE Interiors”

5:30 p.m., Temple University (specific location TBD)

Abstract: Intersecting polylobed arcades of Andalusia, whether in structural actuality or as ornamental designs, have been taken as geometric exercises within the setting of Umayyad and Taifa period productions, or later as markers of superior ‘Moorish’ craftsmanship on Iberian or Moroccan soil.  Yet, the roots for the genesis of these arcades and patterns may lie in an entirely different sector of experience. This paper proposes a different source for the genesis of these constructions, a source located within the experience, cognitive recall and the arts of memory.  Preparatory work for the study has been carried out and published with the Digital Media Design group of the School of Engineering, UPenn: http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1629&context=cis_papers. A subsequent iteration of this exploration with expanded and corrected results was developed through the UPenn School of Design. The version presented in this lecture is a further refinement on these results.

Please join us Monday, November 28th, for the next meeting of the Workshop in the History of Material Texts. We will convene at our usual time and place: 5:15pm in the Class of 1978 Pavilion in the Kislak Center on the 6th Floor of Van Pelt-Dietrich Library.

Abstract: The printing revolution of the fifteenth century has informed interpretations of the large quantity of printed material that circulated in medieval Europe teleologically. With a focus on documentary authentication and sealing practices in Western Europe between the eighth and the thirteenth centuries, I propose to re-examine the usual conflation of printing and book by considering printing as a technology that marked many types of material supports, producing and reproducing diverse artifacts, many of which were central to medieval lives. I will argue that it was a process of manufacture, the act of imprinting, that imbued printed matter, sealed charters in particular, with their particular potency during the Middle Ages. The argument will be supported by attention to three distinct aspects of seal agency: the conception of the imprinted image as an achiropoietic object; the inherent properties of printed material and the metaphors thereby generated sublimating representation as presence; and the imprint, understood as a natural sign, which complicated the philosophical field of natural magic.

Brigitte Bedos-Rezak is Professor of History at New York University (NYU) and affiliate Professor at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. She is currently at work on a monograph devoted to Printed Matter in the Middle Ages, and on a special issue of issue of the journal, The Medieval Globe, devoted to Seals: Imprinting Matter, Exchanging Impressions.

If you have an interest in the application of digital humanities to medieval studies, please consider completing this survey and becoming part of the Digital Medievalist community if you aren’t already.

Hey Digital Medievalists!

We need your help.

In order to better understand what you are looking for as a member of the Digital Medievalist community, the DM Executive Board invites you to complete a survey to help us better understand your interests and the expectations. The results of the survey will help us shape community priorities as we prepare a new strategic vision for the community.

Please use the following link to participate in the survey: https://goo.gl/JFSkPQ

Note: This survey has already been issued during the executive board election last July. If you have already completed the survey, your answers have been saved and we award you a virtual gold star for your effort and support. Thank you! You do not need to fill it out again.

Many thanks,

The Digital Medievalist Executive Board:

Alberto Campagnolo, President

Emiliano Degl’Innocenti

Greta Franzini

Els De Paermentie

Franz Fischer

Mike Kestemont

Lynn Ransom

Dominique Stutzmann

Georg Vogeler

9th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age

November 17-19, 2016

Reactions: Medieval/Modern

In partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Schoenberg Institute of Manuscript Studies (SIMS) at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries is pleased to announce the 9th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age. This year’s theme, “Reactions: Medieval/Modern,” gives us space to explore the many and varied ways that people have reacted to, and acted upon, manuscripts from the Middle Ages up to today. Reactions take many forms. They include the manipulation of physical objects through, for example, the marking up of texts, addition of illustrations, the disbinding of books or rebinding of fragments, as well as the manipulation of digital objects, thanks to new technologies involved in digitization, ink and parchment analysis, virtual reconstruction, among many other processes. This symposium will also tackle how popular culture has reacted to manuscripts over time as witnessed by their use and appearance in books, games, films, and tattoo art. Our keynote speaker will be Michelle P. Brown, Professor emerita of Medieval Manuscript Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and former Curator of Manuscripts at the British Library.

For more information and to register, visit the website: http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/lectures/ljs_symposium9.html.

Andrea Olsen Lam, “The Expectant Icon: Transformation and Ritual in Byzantium”

Andrea Olsen Lam, Instructor, Dept. of Art, Biola University specializes in the art and architecture of Christian pilgrimage, private devotional arts and the history of the medieval icon.

Date: Thursday, October 27 at 6:00 PM

Location: Temple University, Anderson Hall, Room 007

The event is free and open to the public: sponsored by the Department of Art History, Tyler School of Art and Temple University’s General Activities Fund.

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies is pleased to announce the following seminar to be given by our current Visiting Research Fellow, Dr. Aleksandra Bunčić.

Illuminating the Skies: Jews, Science and an Astronomical Anthology (LJS 57) in Medieval Catalonia

Thursday, October 27, 5:15-6:30 PM

Rm 625, 6th Floor, Kislak Center

This seminar explores the dissemination of scientific knowledge in medieval Spain through the lens of an extraordinary illuminated manuscript that is housed at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies and catalogued as an astronomical anthology (LJS 57). Produced in the second half of the fourteenth century (c. 1361) in Catalonia, in Hebrew, this manuscript includes a collection of astronomical texts, a copy of a treatise on the calendar compiled for King Pedro IV of Aragon, works by the twelfth-century scientist Abraham Ibn Ezra, an introduction to astrology, and a Hebrew translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest. By examining this manuscript’s art historical, cultural, and local contexts, the seminar consider developments in book production, astronomical iconography, and the identities and roles of Jewish scientists in late medieval Spain. The manuscript will be on display throughout the seminar.

The seminar is free and open to the public, but seating is limited. For more information and to register, go to : http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/illuminating.html

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