Mirabile dictu! October 2014 Mirabile dictu! The Newsletter of the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS) at the University of Colorado Medieval Materiality: The Life and Afterlife of Things by Professor Scott G. Bruce Mirabile dictu! will present their work on material culture and the The autumn weather is upon us: there is a crispness history of the Middle Ages. Please read on to learn in the air; the bears are foraging in the backyards of more about our invited plenary speakers and make the Boulder neighborhoods adjacent to the foothills; sure to check out p. 2 for news about of this year’s and the mice are into the bird seed again. October James Field Willard Lecture, which will serve as the also heralds our much-anticipated international, conference’s keynote address! We look forward to interdisciplinary conference on medieval materiality. seeing you all in Boulder! In another two weeks, the CU Boulder campus will buzz with the industry of over 35 medievalists, who Continued on 4 The Second Annual James Field Calling All Scholars Working CFP for Graduate Students in Willard Lecture on Oct. 23 on Medieval Material Culture Medieval History We are proud to welcome Prof. Anne E. Lester and Katie Little The German Historical Institute Caroline Walker Bynum to the to co-edit a thematic issue of wants you for its Medieval CU Boulder campus! English Language Notes. History Seminar (Oct. 2015)! Page 2 Page 3 Page 6 Mirabile dictu! October 2014 Caroline Walker Bynum, an expert on religious ideas in the Middle Ages, is widely recognized as the most influential medievalist of her generation. It is with great pleasure that philosophy and theology. For the CMEMS welcomes Professor Second Annual Willard Lecture, Caroline Walker Bynum to Bynum will introduce us to a host deliver the Second Annual James of medieval liturgical furnishings Field Willard Lecture in that survive from Protestant Medieval History at CU Boulder. Germany. This survival has Her public lecture on 23 October sometimes been attributed to also serves as the keynote for the Martin Luther’s doctrine of the major conference on medieval “indifference” of objects. Using materiality that will take place on three examples, one from south the CU Boulder campus on 24-25 Germany and two from former October. Her most recent book, women’s convents in the north, Christian Materiality (2011), is a Bynum argues not only that SPEAKER PROFILE: radical reinterpretation of the religious objects are far from CAROLINE W. BYNUM nature of Christianity on the eve “indifferent,” but also that they of the reformations of the promise to alter our standard Caroline Walker Bynum sixteenth century, which locates opinions about the Observant earned her Ph.D. from the upsurge of new forms of art Reform of fifteenth-century Harvard University in 1969 and devotion in the fourteenth Germany and the Protestant and has taught at Harvard and fifteenth centuries against the Reformation of the sixteenth (1969-1976), the University backdrop of changes in natural century. of Washington (1976-1988), and Columbia University On Thursday September 23, Professor Caroline (1988-2003). In 2003, she Walker Bynum will deliver the Second Annual succeeded Professor Giles James Field Willard Lecture in Medieval History, Constable as Professor of Medieval History at the entitled “The ‘Indifference’ of Things: Do Objects Institute for Advanced Change Our Understanding of Chronology?” Study in Princeton. She studies religious ideas and On Thursday 23 October at 5pm in the British and Irish Studies Room on practices of the European the fifth floor of Norlin Library, Middle Ages from late Professor Caroline Walker Bynum antiquity to the sixteenth will deliver the Second Annual James century. In the 1980s, her Field Willard Lecture in Medieval book Holy Feast and Holy History, an annual public lecture Fast was instrumental in sponsored by CMEMS in honor of James Field Willard, CU Boulder’s introducing the concept of first medieval historian. Professor gender into medieval Bynum’s public lecture is entitled studies. Her research has “The ‘Indifference’ of Things: Do won many awards and Objects Change Our Understanding of prizes, including the Chronology?” A Q&A and reception Haskins Medal from the will follow the lecture. This event is free and open to the public. Please Medieval Academy of encourage your students to attend America. what promises to be a stimulating talk. 2 Mirabile dictu! October 2014 CFP: Papers on Medieval Materiality for English Language Notes 53.2 Fall/Winter 2015 In conjunction with the major conference taking We will consider essays of 5000-7000 words as place at CU Boulder this month, our very own well as shorter notes and reviews (3000-4000 Professors Anne E. Lester (HIST) and Katie Little words). Essays will be reviewed by external (ENG) are guest-editing an upcoming issue of English readers. All submissions should adhere to the Language Notes (ELN) on the theme of medieval Chicago-style end-note citation format. Please materiality. Here is the official call-for-papers: submit double-spaced, 12-point font, .doc file abstracts and submissions to our Editorial Recent work in medieval history and art history has Manager site (www.edmgr.com/eln/). Please focused on materiality, specifically the object-ness of omit identifying information from all pages the things – relics, cloth, books, and other materials – except the cover page, as we use a blind review that survive. At the same time, scholars of medieval process. literature have approached materiality by reinvigorat- ing manuscript studies and by incorporating theories Specific inquiries regarding issue 53.2 may be of digital media and networks. Most of these addressed to its editors Anne E. Lester discussions have happened within disciplinary bound- ([email protected]) and Katie Little aries and within a traditional periodization: the ([email protected]). For more Anglo-Saxon, the late medieval, the early modern. information about ELN, please visit their Despite this apparent atomization, scholars are website: english.colorado.edu/eln/ asking related questions, often guided by or in response to contemporary theories of materiality, Interested contributors are welcome to such as the work of Jane Bennett and Bruno Latour. submit inquiries and abstracts before 15 This is, therefore, an opportune moment to reflect on November 2014. The deadline for papers is 1 materiality from an interdisciplinary perspective and March 2015. to investigate the status of the medieval, and historical periods more generally, in contemporary theory. This issue ENL invites research and reflections on materiality from across the disciplines of history, art history, all fields of literature, philosophy, and the social sciences and from across traditional periods. We pose a number of related questions: What do we mean when we speak of medieval materiality? How does medieval materiality relate to the materiality of other periods? And, finally, what are the ram- ifications of this recent focus on materiality both for the Middle Ages and for literary and cultural studies more broadly? Some potential and welcome avenues of inquiry would be the relationship between objects and their social environments, between objects and their spiritual power, between the literal and the spiritual in biblical exegesis, between descriptions of objects, theories of ekphrasis, and the literal presence of things, and between medieval and post-modern approaches to things. At the same time, we welcome papers that investigate the ethical and political consequences of such a focus on materiality – both for medieval thinkers and for ourselves. 3 Mirabile dictu! October 2014 (continued from p. 1) Aden Kumler The second day of the Daniel Lord Smail conference begins with our third After some introductions, the plenary lecture, which will be conference begins on Friday delivered by Professor Aden morning at 9:30am with our Kumler (Department of Art first plenary lecture by Professor History, University of Chicago). Daniel Lord Smail (Department Her presentation, entitled of History, Harvard University), “Manufacturing the Sacred in who will deliver a paper entitled the Middle Ages: The Eucharist “The Snare of the Material: and Other Medieval Works of Debtors and their Things in the Art,” will take place at 9:30am Lucchesia in the Later Middle in Atlas 100. Professor Kumler Ages.” (British and Irish Studies teaches western medieval art, Room, Norlin Library M519). architecture, material culture, Professor Smail is professor of manuscript illumination and History at Harvard, where he manuscript studies, including Jessica Brantley works on the history and codicology and paleography. The second plenary lecture of anthropology of Mediterranean Her first book, Translating Truth: the conference will take place societies between 1100 and Ambitious Images and Religious on Friday at 1:30pm (also in the 1600. His work has explored Knowledge in Late Medieval British and Irish Studies Room, the social and cultural history of France and England (Yale UP, in Norlin Library M519). the cities of Mediterranean 2011), is a novel and compelling Professor Jessica Brantley Europe with a focus on account of how illuminated (Department of English, Yale Marseille in the later Middle vernacular manuscripts trans- University) will deliver a lecture Ages. He has covered subjects formed conceptions of Christian entitled “In Things: The Rebus ranging from women and Jews excellence in the later Middle in Pre-modern Devotion.” to legal history and spatial Ages. Her current research Professor Brantley is a specialist imagination. His new research considers the understanding of in Old and Middle English approaches transformations in the Eucharist in the Middle literatures, manuscript studies, the material culture of late Ages, which she will explore in and the history of the book. medieval Europe using house- a new study called The Her research examines the hold inventories and inventories Multiplication of the Species: cultures of medieval reading as of debt recovery from Lucca Medieval Economies of Form, they are preserved in manu- and Marseille.