Academic Year Program and Academic Year Fellowships at the ASCSA

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Academic Year Program and Academic Year Fellowships at the ASCSA

Athens, Greece

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ASCSA ACADEMIC YEAR PROGRAM (Regular Member Program)
Application Deadline: January 15, 2024
 
The Regular Member program runs the full academic year, from early September to late May. All advanced graduate students interested in an intensive survey of the art, archaeology, history, and topography of Greece, from antiquity to the present, are encouraged to apply. There are no grades and no university credit offered, but participation in the Regular Program is a widely recognized part of graduate training in Classics and related fields. Regular Members reside in Athens, using Loring Hall as their home base, throughout the nine-month academic year (September through May). Students receive comprehensive training through visits to the principal archaeological sites and museums of Greece as well as in seminars led by resident and visiting scholars. They also have the option to take part in the training program at the Corinth excavations. The Regular Member program is directed by the Mellon Professor who oversees and mentors the student members.

Eligibility: Regular Membership is open to citizens of the United States or Canada who are graduate students at a college or university in those countries, or to non-citizens enrolled in a graduate program at a cooperating institution. The U.S. or Canadian citizen must be enrolled in a U.S. or Canadian program at the time of application. Preferably, applicants will have completed one or more years of graduate study before entering the School, but well-qualified undergraduate seniors who will have received a baccalaureate degree by the time of entry shall be considered for admission and for the fellowship competition. For details on eligibility, see the School’s Regulations (Section VI.1-3).

Program: The Regular Program runs from early September to late May. The program requires participation in the School’s fall and winter trips, covering much of the Greek mainland and Crete. During the winter, visits to sites in Attica and Euboea, museum visits, and seminars in Athens are required, with some additional trips. In the spring, members may participate in the School’s excavations at Corinth, pursue independent research, and/or participate in optional trips. Regular Members are expected to be in residence at the School throughout the academic year.

Application: An online application and three letters of recommendation must be submitted. Applicants are required to submit scans of official academic transcripts as part of the online application. Mandatory examinations for admission and fellowship are held on the first Saturday in February. Information about the application and exams is available at: https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/apply/apply-for-regular-membership

Fellowships: A limited number of fellowships are available. Fellows receive a cash stipend of $11,500, plus room and board at Loring Hall, waiver of School fees, and coverage of transportation and lodging on required field trips. Food outside Loring Hall and incidental expenses are not included. Fellowships are awarded on the basis of application material, recommendations, and examinations (graded without access to candidates’ identity). If an applicant is admitted to the program without an ASCSA fellowship, the student is responsible for the cost of room and board (within Loring Hall or elsewhere in Athens), but School fees are waived and costs of transportation and lodging on required trips are covered by the School.

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Application Deadline: January 15, 2024
Field of Study:  Archaeology

Eligibility:  U.S. or Israeli citizens who are either Ph.D. candidates writing their dissertations in archaeology, or early-career scholars (Ph.D. earned within the last five years) completing a project that requires a lengthy residence in Greece. Applicants can propose to use any of the School’s research facilities, as long as their research topic has an archaeological component.

Terms and Duration:  Stipend of $11,500 plus room and board in Loring Hall, and waiver of School fees. Meals, Monday through Friday, are provided at Loring Hall. The fellow is expected to be engaged full-time in the supported research from early September 2024 to late May 2025. Any concurrent employment requires the permission of the Director of the School. A final report is due at the end of the award period, and the ASCSA expects that copies of all publications that result from research conducted as a Fellow of the ASCSA acknowledge the support of the ASCSA and be contributed to the relevant library of the School.

Application: Submit an online application. An application consists of a curriculum vitae, and a detailed description of the project to be pursued in Greece (250-word abstract and a statement up to 1500 words in 12pt font, single spaced). Arrange for two letters of recommendation. Student applicants are required to submit scans of official academic transcripts as part of the online application.

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ASCSA Advanced Fellowships (for returning members)
Application Deadline: February 15, 2024
Several fellowships for the full academic year at the School are available to students to pursue independent research in Greece, usually for their Ph.D. dissertation. Applications for Advanced Fellowships are adjudicated based on the need to be in Greece and the feasibility of the proposed project. Current and past Regular and Student Associate Members who plan to pursue research in Greece are encouraged to apply for the following fellowships:

• The Samuel H. Kress Fellowship in art and architecture of antiquity (stipend $15,000)
• The Gorham Phillips Stevens Fellowship in the history of architecture (stipend $11,500)
• The Ione Mylonas Shear Fellowship in Mycenaean archaeology or Athenian architecture and/or archaeology (stipend $11,500)
• The Homer A. and Dorothy B. Thompson Fellowship in the study of pottery (stipend $11,500)
• The Edward Capps Fellowship, the Doreen Canaday Spitzer Fellowship, and the Eugene Vanderpool Fellowship (unrestricted in area of research) (stipend for each is $11,500)

Eligibility:  Advanced graduate students, who have completed all requirements for their degree other than the dissertation, in classical studies, ancient Mediterranean studies, post-classical Greek studies, or related fields who have a specific project that requires extended residence in Greece. All applicants must have completed the Regular Program or one full academic year (Sept. – May) as a Student Associate Member.

Terms:  Stipend of $11,500 plus room and board in Loring Hall, and waiver of School fees. The Kress Fellowship provides a stipend of $15,000 plus room and board (in Loring Hall) and waiver of fees. Meals, Monday through Friday, are provided at Loring Hall for all fellows. A final report is due at the end of the award period, and the ASCSA expects that copies of all publications that result from research conducted as a Fellow of the ASCSA be contributed to the relevant library of the School. Fellows are expected to conduct their work in Greece and to discuss the progress of their project with the Mellon Professor throughout the academic year. Fellows are required to give a public presentation of their research. Fellowship holders are considered full-time researchers and may not take on other employment without the express permission of the Director of the School.

Application:  Submit an online application. The application will include the following: An up-to-date curriculum vitae; a project statement of no more than three single-spaced pages in length, and a bibliography of not more than one page may be submitted along with the project statement; a list of other fellowships, if any, applied for with dates of notification of these awards; a letter of reference from your dissertation advisor on the feasibility of your work.

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Academic Year Fellowships Available for Study at the Gennadius Library
The Gennadius Library houses today 145,000 titles of rare books and bindings, research materials, manuscripts, archives, and works of art that illuminate Hellenism, Greece, and neighboring civilizations from antiquity to modern times.

Academic Year Fellowships Available for Study at the Wiener Laboratory
The archaeological science laboratory serves the interests of archaeological scholars both in Greece and abroad. Its research and cutting-edge scientific analysis, through over 150 sponsored projects to date under our fellowship scheme and numerous studies from independent researchers, have helped us better understand the past.

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American School of Classical Studies at Athens
321 Wall Street
Princeton, NJ 08540-1515
Email: programs@ascsa.org
Website: https://www.ascsa.edu.gr

26th OUBS International Graduate Conference Call for Papers

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Transgression in Late Antiquity and Byzantium

26th International Graduate Conference of the Oxford University Byzantine Society, 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.

Connecting Histories: The Princeton and Mount Athos Legacy

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From the Index of Medieval Art:

We are excited to announce a new multi-year project, Connecting Histories: The Princeton and Mount Athos Legacy, that aims to create an international team of faculty, staff, and students that will explore and bring awareness to the rich, complex, and remarkable historical and cultural heritage of Mount Athos, and its connection to Princeton. The collaborative team will engage in research, teaching, digitization projects, and descriptive cataloging over three years (2023–2026), exploring holdings throughout the Princeton campus, including Visual Resources and the Index of Medieval Art in the Art & Archaeology Department; the Mendel Music Library; and the Graphics Art Collection and Manuscript Division at Princeton University Library.

We have two short-term research opportunities opening up and details can be found in the ‘Announcements’ page of the website: https://athoslegacy.project.princeton.edu/

One of the two research positions is a part time graduate opportunity at the Index of Medieval Art. This is a two to three-month remote, part-time research opportunity to help incorporate key works of art on Mount Athos into the Index database. The position would require the student to examine the Index legacy records, update the metadata, identify new color images, and incorporate them on the online database. They will be trained in Index norms in cataloging works of art, describing the iconography, transcribing inscriptions, and adding bibliographic citations. This opportunity offers a stipend of $2,500 and has been generously funded by the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, with the support of the Dimitrios and Kalliopi Monoyios Modern Greek Studies Fund and Art & Archaeology Department at Princeton University.

For more details about eligibility criteria and the application process, please check the ‘Announcements’ page: https://athoslegacy.project.princeton.edu/announcements/

Dumbarton Oaks Fellowships (Deadline Nov. 1)

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Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship Programs welcome applications for 2024-2025. Since 1940, the institution has supported scholarship in the Humanities through its fellowships and grants.

Applications and instructions are available online. The deadline to apply for these opportunities is Wednesday, November 1 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

Research Fellowships

Fellowships are awarded to scholars who hold a PhD or appropriate final degree at the time of application, or who have established themselves in their field, and wish to pursue their own research.

Junior Fellowships are awarded to degree candidates who at the time of application have fulfilled all preliminary requirements for a PhD or appropriate final degree, and plan to work on a dissertation or final project while at Dumbarton Oaks, under the direction of a faculty member from their own university.

Fellowships and Junior Fellowships are normally awarded for the academic year, and recipients are expected to be in residence at Dumbarton Oaks to devote full time to their study projects without undertaking any other major activities.

William R. Tyler Fellowships are for Harvard graduate students in art history, archaeology, history, and literature of the Pre-Columbian/early Colonial or Mediterranean/Byzantine worlds; or in Garden and Landscape history.

Intended to expand significantly the opportunities offered by Dumbarton Oaks to study the history and future of landscapes through the lenses of democracy, race, identity, and difference, Mellon Fellowships in Democracy and Landscape Studies are available, with preference given to candidates with terminal degrees, such as a PhD or MLA.

The Flora Clancy Summer Fellowship in Maya Studies for Latin American Researchers is available to scholars in the field of Maya studies on any level of advancement beyond the first year of graduate study (post-Licenciatura) who are academically based in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, or El Salvador.

The I Tatti–Dumbarton Oaks Joint Fellowship for Eastern Mediterranean Studies is available to early- and mid-career scholars whose work explores cross-cultural contacts in and beyond the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean.

Grants

Project Grants support scholarly projects by applicants holding a PhD or the equivalent. Support is generally for archaeological investigation as well as for the recovery, recording, and analysis of materials that would otherwise be lost.

ASCSA Summer Travel/Study Programs for 2024

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ASCSA Summer Travel/Study Programs for 2024: 

    Warrior Sailors, Traders, and Pirates: Aegean Islands Through the Ages (June 17 to July 5, 2024)
    Alexander to Actium: The Archaeology of Hellenistic Greece (July 11 to July 29, 2024)
Application deadline: January 8, 2024
*NEW* One online application form to apply for any (or all) of these three summer program offerings!
Scholarships available for all programs.
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ASCSA SUMMER SESSION
The Summer Session program of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens is a six-week travel study course designed for those who wish to become acquainted with Greece and its major monuments, and to improve their understanding of the country’s landscape, history, material culture, and literature from antiquity to the present.

The 2024 Summer Session runs from June 10 to July 24, 2024, and its Directors are Professor Amelia R. Brown, of the University of Queensland, and Professor Amy C. Smith, of the University of Reading.

Format: The ASCSA Summer Session has provided extensive exposure to Greece, ancient and modern, for generations of students of Classics and related fields. It has a strong academic component with participants researching and presenting topics on site and offers unique opportunities to interact with eminent archaeologists in the field. Roughly half of the session is spent in travel throughout Greece. Three trips give participants an introduction to the major archaeological sites and museum collections throughout the country. The remainder of the session is devoted to study of the museums and monuments of Athens and the surrounding area with day trips to such sites as Marathon, Sounion, and Eleusis. The Summer Session Program is designed to present a comprehensive view of Greece’s rich history and archaeology. Participants should expect long days at sites and museums, extensive walking on uneven and rocky terrain, and Mediterranean temperatures well above 30ºC/86ºF for extended periods without ready access to shade. Prospective applicants uncertain about their ability to participate in all program activities are encouraged to contact the ASCSA office for more information.

Eligibility: Enrollment is open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students, and to high school teachers and college/university faculty of Classics and related subjects. Enrollment is limited to twenty participants. The language of instruction is English.
ASCSA SUMMER SEMINARS
The Summer Seminars of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens are 18-day programs that focus on specific cultural themes, historical periods, or geographical regions. The Seminars are led by exceptional scholars of Classics and related fields. Under their direction, participants study texts, visit archaeological sites and museums, and engage with expert guest speakers in order to deepen their understanding of Greece’s landscape, history, literature, and material culture.

For Summer 2024, the two seminars are:
Warrior Sailors, Traders, and Pirates: Aegean Islands Through the Ages (June 17 to July 5, 2024)
This seminar will discuss issues of insularity and connectivity in the Mediterranean, from the Bronze Age to the 20th century. Using a mix of chronological (e.g., Iron Age networks and colonization) and thematic approaches (e.g., raw materials and trade routes) the course explores the islands in their multifaceted cultural roles as places of inhabitation and worship, sources of desired raw materials, marketplaces, strategic locations during the wars –from the Delian League to World War II– as well as paradise destinations of modern tourism. The course will spend time around Athens and Euboea, the Cycladic islands, and Crete. Taught by Professors Emilia Oddo (Tulane University) and Bice Peruzzi (Rutgers University).

Alexander to Actium: The Archaeology of Hellenistic Greece (July 11 to July 29, 2024)
This age of cultural globalization that followed in the wake of Alexander’s campaigns saw great developments in science, medicine, literature, art, and political organization. In Greece these developments played out under the clouds of state violence and imperialism as foreign powers fought for control of Greece or fought each other in Greece for control of more expansive Mediterranean empires. Participants will explore the material remains of the programs of construction and commemoration, explore how foreign powers exploited important routes and garrisoned strategic areas to transform Greece into a landscape of control, and explore the ways in which varied Greek polities negotiated these transformations by exploring the history and archaeology of Northwest and Central Greece.  Taught by Professors Jake Morton (Carleton College) and Thomas C. Rose (Randolph-Macon College).

Internationally known scholars of Greek history, art, and archaeology will participate as guest lecturers in both seminars. Students are expected to give on-site reports, which they will prepare in their home libraries before the program begins. The program is designed to present a comprehensive view of Greece’s rich history and archaeology. Participants should expect long days at sites and museums, extensive walking on uneven and rocky terrain, and Mediterranean temperatures well above 30ºC/86ºF for extended periods without ready access to shade. Prospective applicants uncertain about their ability to participate in all program activities are encouraged to contact the ASCSA office for more information.

Eligibility: Enrollment is open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students, as well as to high school and college/university teachers of classics and related subjects. Each seminar is limited to twenty participants. The language of instruction is English.

For more information, link here: https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/programs/summer-session-and-seminars.

The American School of Classical Studies at Athens does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, gender identity or expression, genetic information, national or ethnic origin, pregnancy, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation when considering admission to any form of membership or application for employment.

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American School of Classical Studies at Athens
321 Wall Street
Princeton, NJ 08540-1515
Email: programs@ascsa.org
Website: https://www.ascsa.edu.gr

12th Biennial Medieval Slavic Summer Institute (MSSI)

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12th Biennial Medieval Slavic Summer Institute (MSSI)

June 17 – July 12, 2024
The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio, USA
Deadline for submission of application: March 1, 2024
The Hilandar Research Library (HRL), the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies (RCMSS), and the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures (SEELC) at The Ohio State University host a four-week intensive Summer Institute for qualified graduate students in Columbus, Ohio, every other year. The Medieval Slavic Summer Institute (MSSI) offers lectures in two areas: (1) Manuscript Description and Access and (2) Readings in Church Slavonic. Manuscript material on microform from the HRL’s extensive holdings forms a large part of the lectures and homework assignments. There are also a number of lectures on related specific topics. By the end of the Institute, each participant will be able to describe an original Slavic manuscript relying on lectures and hands-on work.

Space is limited to 12 participants.

The intensive nature of the Institute leaves little to no room for participants to have time to pursue outside commitments such as teaching online courses, studying for general exams or spending significant time conducting their own research. (HRL/RCMSS offers other types of grants for individual research.)

Applicants must be graduate students with a BA degree and with a reading knowledge of Cyrillic and of at least one Slavic language. Preference will be given to applicants with reading knowledge of Old Church Slavonic or some other pre-modern Slavic language.

The HRL is the largest repository of medieval Slavic Cyrillic texts on microform in the world and includes holdings from over 100 monastic, private, museum, and library collections from twenty-three countries. There are over 6,000 Cyrillic manuscripts on microform in the HRL, as well as over 1,000 Cyrillic early pre-1800 printed books on microform. The holdings range from the eleventh to twentieth centuries, with a particularly strong collection of manuscripts from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. About half of the manuscripts are East Slavic, with much of the remainder South Slavic in provenience. Learn more about the HRL here.
For further information on eligibility, credit, housing, or financial aid, please contact hilandar@osu.edu.
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Hilandar Research Library
Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies
The Ohio State University
119 Thompson Library
1858 Neil Ave Mall
Columbus, Ohio, 43210-1286
USA

Nodegoat for Byzantinists Workshop

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The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and Byzantine Studies Association of
North America are pleased to offer an introductory workshop on Nodegoat for graduate students
and early career researchers in collaboration with Dr. Jesse W. Torgerson of Wesleyan

University.

An Introduction to Nodegoat for Byzantinists, workshop by Jesse W. Torgerson (Wesleyan

University), Zoom, Friday, October 13, 2023, 12:00–3:00 PM EDT.

How many of us organize key portions of our research and notes in spreadsheets? Whether
comparing manuscripts, organizing lists of persons and places, cataloguing objects, or creating
tallies of any kind, digital spreadsheets have become a ubiquitous scholarly tool. For many of us,
our spreadsheets have started to become unwieldy (how many columns is too many?), or they
would benefit from being able to “talk” to open-source reference information like the historical
locations in Pleiades. If this is you, then you would benefit from learning about how to build

your own relational database: come and learn.

Nodegoat (https://nodegoat.net/) is an open-source software, built to allow scholars with no
training in computer programming, doing historical social science and humanities research, to
turn their research notes into a custom database. Nodegoat’s free platform allows you to turn an
organized spreadsheet into data entry platforms for whatever kind of notes you want to create, to
explore new possibilities for analysis, visualization, and links with other projects, and to allow
you to set up custom visualization tools to analyze and present what you have. This introductory
workshop will introduce you to the concepts behind Nodegoat, guide you in setting up an initial
research environment, and leave you with the information to develop that environment.
For those who are interested in setting up their own Nodegoat database, a follow-up workshop
will provide guidance and the opportunity to learn additional customizations. Information about
the follow-up workshop will be shared with participants after the initial workshop.
Registration closes Monday, October 9, 2023.

Who is eligible?
* Graduate students and early career researchers (PhD received after October 2015) in the
field of Byzantine studies.
* All participants must be BSANA members. BSANA membership is free for graduate
students and early-career contingent scholars who have earned their PhD within the last
eight years and who do not hold a permanent or tenure-track appointment. If you are not
already a BSANA member, please complete the BSANA Membership Form
(https://bsana.net/members/) before registering for the workshop. Your membership
status will be confirmed before your space in the workshop is confirmed.

To read a full description of the workshop and register your interest, please visit

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art
and Culture, with any questions.

CFP: IMC 2024: ‘Getting it Wrong in Late Antiquity’

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Getting it Wrong in Late Antiquity: Call for Papers

International Medieval Congress, 1-4 July 2024, University of Leeds, UK

The Postgraduate and Early Career Late Antiquity Network (LAN)

The theme of next year’s IMC is ‘crisis’ – a word that is often recurrent in scholarship about the late antique world. Crisis itself is also usually associated with ideas of mistakes and failure, but how did late antique individuals and societies deal with being or doing wrong? Many late antique communities saw a fundamental wrongness in themselves and their world stemming from the Fall of Man and the coming apocalypse. This strand seeks to investigate how, and how far, ideas of wrongness shaped late antique societies. In a world irretrievably ribboned with error, what types of wrongness did late ancient people seek to correct, and why? How did people go about detecting wrongness in themselves, each other, and their environments? How far did they believe the eradication of wrongness from their world was a possible – or even a desirable – goal?

We invite postgraduate and early career researchers from a variety of backgrounds to discuss wrongness in late antiquity across a series of panels. The Late Antiquity Network was founded in 2012 to provide a platform for junior scholars working on a range of geographical and disciplinary areas within the period. We have held a number of workshops and conferences that aim to provide opportunities for junior researchers to present their research and build connections with others in the field and to discuss their work in a constructive environment. The participants in these panels are strongly encouraged to interpret wrongness in late antiquity within the context of their research interests. Applications from masters students, those in the early stages of their PhD, and those without a current institutional affiliation are particularly encouraged. Papers should be no more than 20 minutes, leaving 10 minutes for discussion and question time.

 Suggested areas for discussion include, but are not limited to:

  • Ideas about progress, apocalypse, and systems collapse

  • Wrongness and the fall of the Roman empire

  • Stories of notable mistakes in literature

  • Taxonomies of wrongdoing and strategies for redress: classification of criminal acts, composition of law codes, trials, acquittal, torture, punishment

  • Theories of disability and physical difference (especially scholarly approaches informed by Queer Theory and Critical Disability Studies)

  • Social and sexual deviants

  • Religious wrongness: heresiology, doubt, conversion, confession; theological ideas of in/fallibility; public displays of wrongness (penance, renunciation of former beliefs and associates, shame culture)

  • Error in the material record; spoliation, repair, abandonment

  • Speaking and writing incorrectly in ancient education: literary models, genres, rhetoric

  • Wrongness in nature: extreme weather events and their interpretation; monsters, omens, marvels and miracles which rely on the transgression of natural laws

  • Mistakes and blame at government/state level: historical narratives surrounding defeat and failure, elite blame culture, political scapegoats, damnatio memoriae, and the ‘righting’ of wrongs by political successors

Abstracts should be limited to 300 words and accompanied by a short academic bio (c. 100 words). The deadline for submission is 11:59pm (GMT) on Thursday, 31st August 2023. Abstract submissions and/or queries should be sent to lateantiquenetwork@gmail.com.

Ella Kirsh (Brown) and Henry Anderson (Exeter)

LAN Steering Committee

Call For Participants: Studying East of Byzantium X: Communities

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The Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA, are pleased to invite abstracts for the next Studying East of Byzantium workshop: Studying East of Byzantium IX: Communities.

Studying East of Byzantium IX: Communities is a three-part workshop that intends to bring together doctoral students and very recent PhDs studying the Christian East to reflect on how to reflect on the usefulness of the concept of “Community” in studying the Christian East, to share methodologies, and to discuss their research with workshop respondents, Michael Pifer, University of Michigan, and Salam Rassi, University of Edinburgh. The workshop will meet on November 17, 2023, February 9, 2024, and June 6–7, 2024, on Zoom. The timing of the workshop meetings will be determined when the participant list is finalized.

We invite all graduate students and recent PhDs working in the Christian East whose work considers, or hopes to consider, the theme of communities in their own research to apply.

Participation is limited to 10 students. The full workshop description is available on the East of Byzantium website (https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/). Those interested in attending should submit a C.V. and 200-word abstract through the East of Byzantium website no later than September 13, 2023.

For questions, please contact East of Byzantium organizers, Christina Maranci, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Harvard University, and Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at contact@eastofbyzantium.org.

EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA. It explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

Dumbarton Oaks Graduate Student Museum Study Day

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Dumbarton Oaks Graduate Student Museum Study Day October 13, 2023
In conjunction with the ongoing interdepartmental project “Passage Between Worlds: Exchanges Along the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean in the Middle Ages.”

Egyptian Textiles and Medieval Indian Ocean Trade

Friday, October 13, 2023
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Applications due: July 17, 2023

In conjunction with the ongoing interdepartmental project “Passage Between Worlds: Exchanges Along the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean in the Middle Ages,” the 2023 Dumbarton Oaks Museum Graduate Study Day Egyptian Textiles and Medieval Indian Ocean Trade will consider Indian cotton textiles found in Egypt, India, and Indonesia and emblematic of a vibrant maritime trade network found east of the Mediterranean Sea in the late antique and medieval periods.

The workshop will be co-taught by Elizabeth Dospel Williams (Dumbarton Oaks), Anna Kelley (University of St. Andrews), Sumru Belger Krody (The George Washington Museum and The Textile Museum), and Arielle Winnik (Yale University), who will discuss the trade, manufacture, and use of textiles across the Indian Ocean in the premodern periods.

In the morning, these scholars will present their current research, with a particular focus on recent exhibitions featuring Indian textiles. After lunch, participants will spend the afternoon studying textiles from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection in object storage and the Cotsen Textiles Collection at the Textile Museum.

Funding

Dumbarton Oaks will reserve participants’ accommodation in its on-site Guest House for one night (October 12) and will arrange for Friday lunch in the Refectory. Participants should book their own travel to Washington, to be reimbursed up to $600 upon submission of receipts.

Applications

Currently enrolled graduate students in good standing are eligible to apply. Dumbarton Oaks does not sponsor J1 visas for Study Day attendees. We encourage applicants from graduate programs in art history, archaeology, history, classics, religious studies, and other fields who might benefit from close engagement with our collections and from training in material culture approaches.

To apply, please submit a CV and cover letter with a brief summary of the candidate’s research interests, plans for future research, and an explanation of why attendance is important to the candidate’s intellectual and professional development. All materials should be submitted as one pdf to museum@doaks.org. Applications are due July 17, 2023.

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