Conferences
Digital Humanities Conference
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 | Conferences, News | 7 Comments
If the conference this past week at Barnard College (June 16-17, 2010) is any indication, medievalists are leading the way in the field of digital humanities. Illustrating this phenomenon, John Unsworth (Dean of Library and Information Science at Illinois) gave a plenary entitled, “Why have medievalists been early adopters of digital technology, and what can others learn from them?
The conference brought together participants from all over the world– a quick glance shows papers from the US, Canada, Wales, England, Scotland, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Australia, Denmark, Japan, and Switzerland.
Many of the papers focused on specific projects, like the Anglo-Norman online dictionary and the Global Chant Database project. Others dealt with teaching topics such as using GIS in teaching and research. Even work on very specific topics still managed to provoke ideas for use in other areas. Some of the projects that I found most exciting for SCGMA included the Digital Mappaemundi Resource at Drew University, using GIS in research (also from Drew University), and an interactive platform to teach medieval language that is currently under development by Serina Patterson of the University of British Columbia. The GIS project uses a tool called Simile from MIT (http://simile-widgets.org/exhibit/), a tool that should prove useful for the Discoveries of the Americas project under the SCGMA umbrella. Once the map is in place, users can add data and comment on specific spots. The digital mappaemundi project (http://bob.drew.edu/mappaemundi/) is an ambitious plan to digitize many medieval maps, which should prove invaluable to understanding how some medieval people envisioned the world. Finally, the language learning site, while very much at the beginning stages, is exciting for the social networking model that it employs.
Again, however, every session offered something valuable to the digital humanist, especially digital medievalists. An excellent conference!
Kalamazoo 2010: Sponsored Session - SCGMA
Friday, August 28th, 2009 | Conferences, News | No Comments
“Global Progeny: Medievalisms in Children’s and Young Adults’ Literature” - (Kalamazoo 2010)
Sponsored Session–SCGMA
Children’s and young adults’ fantasy works are often rife with
medievalisms, and in the past few decades the impact of globalization has emerged in the expanding scope of fantasy worlds.
For example, children’s literature often features a big desert to the south inhabited by turbaned, scimitar-wielding neighbors who are typically enemies. In recent years, these “others” have been brought to the forefront and are heroes/allies rather than villains.
Tamora Pierce’s feminist children’s fantasy series Protector of the Small, for instance, includes a cultural exchange with the “Yamani Islands’—basically a representative of medieval Japan. In addition, Linda Sue Park’ book A Single Shard (2002 Newberry Medal winner) details the life of a girl in mid- to late- 12th century Korea, while Kevin Crossley Holland writes about a boy’s experiences on the Fourth Crusade, and a girl’s on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in his Arthur trilogy and its companion book, Gatty’s Tale.
While we’ve detailed modern interpretations in this proposal, this session invites papers not only on modern re-interpretations of global perspectives of the medieval, but also presentations on medieval fantasy texts written outside of Britain/Europe addressed to or focused on children and young adults.
Please submit a 250-300 word abstract for a 20 minute paper to gabriel gryffyn (ggryffyn.cms@gmail.com) by 15 September 2009.
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“Globalizing the Middle Ages?” - (Kalamazoo 2010)
The Scholarly Community for the Globalization of the Middle Ages’
mission statement indicates that it “seeks to reconceive the field of Medieval Studies not in terms of Europe alone but also in relation to Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia, and Asia.”
As scholars, we strive to bring a larger perspective into our work as well as our classrooms. When most of Medieval Studies is focused on western culture, how can we incorporate a global perspective—whether we study non-western texts directly or compare eastern and western texts as part of our studies?
This panel is open both to presentations on how to incorporate global texts/ideas into scholarly work and class settings, and also to papers which analyze global perspectives of western or non-western texts.
Please submit a 250-300 word abstract for a 20 minute paper to gabriel gryffyn (ggryffyn.cms@gmail.com) by 15 September 2009.
Call for papers: Mapping Medieval Geographies
Thursday, April 30th, 2009 | Conferences, News | No Comments
Thanks to Dr. Anne Hedeman at UIUC we are posting this information on the following conference taking place next month
Mapping Medieval Geographies: Cartography and geographical thought in the Latin West and beyond: 300-1600
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Thursday May 28th - Saturday May 30th 2009
Full program Save the dates!
Posted by Ana Boa-Ventura
Seminar at UCLA - Mediterranean Studies: East and West at the Center, 1050-1600
Monday, January 26th, 2009 | Conferences, News | No Comments
Mediterranean Studies: East and West at the Center, 1050-1600
Mediterranean Studies: East and West at the Center, 1050-1600 is a series of seminars organized by Professor Zrinka Stahuljak (UCLA French and Francophone Studies, and CMRS Associate Director for Medieval Studies) and funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
[The seminar] “will consider the Mediterranean as a geographical and environmental entity, the center for both East and West, and the site of a world system rather than a line of separation between the emerging “West” and an exotic “East.” ”
Schedule for upcoming seminars:
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Monday, January 26, 2009, 3:30-6:30 pm, Royce 306 |
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Monday, February 2, 2009, 3:30-6:30 pm, Royce 306 |
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Monday, February 9, 2009, 4-7 pm, Humanities Building 193 |
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 4:30-7:30 pm, Royce 306 |
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Monday, February 23, 2009, 4:00-7:00 pm, Humanities Building 193 |
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Monday, March 2, 2009, 3:30-6:30 pm, Royce 306 |
Posted by Ana Boa-Ventura
Conference News
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 | Conferences, News, Resources | No Comments
SCGMA will run 3 panels, including a roundtable forum, at the Medieval Institute’s 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies in May 2009.
SCGMA will also have a panel at the annual conference of the American Historical Association in 2010.