CfP/CfA events

Postgraduate workshop: Medieval German Literature in the Age of Digital Humanities, Cambridge (15.03.2023)

Abstract submission deadline
15.03.2023

DAAD-University of Cambridge Research Hub for German Studies

Postgraduate workshop: Medieval German Literature in the Age of Digital Humanities

Cambridge, 13–15 July 2023

Doctoral students at any university in Germany who are working in the field of medieval German literature are invited to take part in a workshop in Cambridge on 13–15 July 2023.

The purpose of the workshop is to facilitate exchange between senior faculty and doctoral students from the German- and English-speaking worlds. The organizers attach particular importance to the intellectual and professional development of graduate participants from Germany, who will benefit from networking opportunities; from the opportunity to present and discuss their projects with each other; from advice and mentoring by established senior researchers; from exposure to different traditions of medieval studies, and also to interdisciplinary perspectives. German graduates will also gain experience in presenting and discussing academic papers in English.

Each participant will give a short (15-minute) presentation in English about their research, so as to allow plenty of time for discussion and feedback. Presentations should foreground those aspects of the research that are relevant to medieval studies at large, for example (but not necessarily only) questions of approach and method, representativeness of the particular subject matter, interdisciplinary dimensions.

Participating senior faculty in 2023 will be: Mark Chinca (Cambridge); Henrike Manuwald (Göttingen); Michael Stolz (Bern); Sean Curran (Cambridge).

Since an important aim of the workshop is to provide exposure to interdisciplinary approaches and international perspectives, the panel will also be joined by a distinguished scholar in a medieval discipline other than German studies. We are delighted to announce that in 2023 that scholar will be Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, Professor of History at New York University. Her work, which aims at constructing a semiotic anthropology of the western Middle Ages, explores the relationship between medieval sign theory and both the concept of and markers of personal identity. Her research on seals and signing practices, imagistic scripts, and charismatic art has appeared in When Ego was Imago. Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages (Brill, 2011), Sign and Design. Script as Image in a Cross-Cultural Perspective (Dumbarton Oaks/Harvard, 2016, co-edited with Jeffrey Hamburger), The Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West (Brill, 2018, coedited with Martha Rust), and Seals.Making and Marking Connections across the Medieval World (Arc Humanities/Amsterdam U. Press, 2019). Her current book project is about imprinting as the mode of production of medieval signs of identity and authority; it explores the ways in which medieval imprinting mapped areas of human experience unrelated to the logocentric matter of printed texts.

Cambridge is a world-leading center for medieval studies. In the field of German literature alone, it has produced outstanding works on orality and literacy (D.H. Green, Medieval Listening and Reading, 1994) and literary history (L.P. Johnson, Die höfische Literatur der Blütezeit, 2000); between 2012 and 2017 it was home to the Kaiserchronik project (http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/de/kcd/index.html). Other medieval philologies are represented by (among others) Nicolette Zeeman (English), Heather M. Webb (Italian), Maíre Ní Mhaonaigh (Celtic); scholars in other disciplines include Nora Berend and John Arnold (history). The Cambridge University Library and Cambridge college libraries contain rich manuscript holdings, and the British Library is 45 minutes away, directly at the end of the Cambridge–London train line.

Up to six places for applicants from Germany will be available. Travel, accommodation, and meals will be paid for by the DAAD-University of Cambridge Research Hub for German Studies.

Applications should be sent to Mark Chinca (mgc1000@cam.ac.uk) by 15 March 2023. They should consist of a one-page abstract, in English, describing your research and emphasizing the aspects of it that are generalizable across the field of medieval studies, and a curriculum vitae, in German or English, which should contain a statement of the status of your project (e.g. whether dissertation is in progress / completed / accepted etc.) and the number of years of doctoral research you have completed to date.

Source of description: Information from the provider

Fields of research

Literature from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Digital Humanities, Literary historiography, Literature and cultural studies, Literature of the Middle Ages (6th-13th century)

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Institutions

University of Cambridge
Date of publication: 13.01.2023
Last edited: 13.01.2023