Malone Society blog!

This from Katharine Craik ... Dear Colleagues I'm pleased to announce that the Malone Society blog is now live, thanks to the efforts of our E-presence bursary-holder Yolana Wassersug. Those of us who saw Yolana's presentation on Saturday will already know that the URL is: malonesociety.com Please could you take a look at these pages, sign up for the blog, and send Yolana any suggestions at: "Yolana Wassersug" We will shortly request the removal of all advertisements, as agreed; and Yolana is now working on setting up PayPal facilities. Please do circulate the URL widely to anyone you think might be interested. All good wishes Katie Dr Katharine Craik Department of English Oxford Brookes University Gipsy Lane Headington Oxford OX3 OBP

Religious Archives

The Religious Archives Group website has been migrated to a new software platform, a new host and a new domain name. The opportunity has also been taken to update some of the content, although more work is planned on the help/advice and links pages. Please bookmark the new URL, which is: http://religiousarchivesgroup.org.uk/ Sincere thanks are due to the staff of the John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester for hosting and maintaining the site in recent years and for their help in migrating it to its new home. Dr Clive D Field, OBE email: c.d.field@bham.ac.uk webpage: http://clivedfield.wordpress.com/

Fellowship at the Warburg

The publishing house Brill (Leiden), is generously sponsoring a new annual research Fellowship at the Warburg Institute’s Centre for the History of Arabic Studies in Europe (CHASE). The Fellowship has been made possible by the “Sheikh Zayed Book Award” which was awarded to Brill Publishers in March 2012 for publishing excellence in Middle East and Islamic Studies. The Brill Fellowship at CHASE to be held in the academic year 2012-13 will be of two or three months duration and is intended for a postdoctoral researcher. The Fellowship will be awarded for research projects on any aspect of the relations between Europe and the Arab World from the Middle Ages to the 19th century. The closing date for applications is the 5th July 2012. Please visit our website for more details (http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/fellowships/brill-chase/).

CFP: Fifteen Years After the Discovery of a ‘New Traherne’

Thomas Traherne Studies and Future Directions Selwyn College, University of Cambridge 14-15 December, 2012 Thomas Traherne (c.1637-1674) was a polymath with a distinctive theological vision. He wrote extensively, but remains a relatively obscure figure in seventeenth-century studies. Traditionally misunderstood as a figure somewhat out of his time, he is frequently considered within the contexts of medieval mysticism or post-Enlightenment Romanticism, when in fact he was strongly engaged with the thought of his age. Traherne read, noted and wrote upon a great variety of subjects – philosophical, theological, literary and scientific – perhaps remarkably considering his geographical circumstances and the relative privacy of his life. His works are grounded in many influences and reveal a great openness as to what writings, ancient and modern, could offer inspiration and guidance. This is a writer that believed, rather emphatically, that it would be possible both to discover and to communicate to others the intrinsic nature of “ALL THINGS”. The aim of this symposium is to address the interdisciplinarity of Traherne’s work, with the hope of encouraging future interdisciplinary collaboration in Traherne studies. We are particularly interested in bringing together the endeavours of literary criticism – which cover an early and persistent association between Traherne and the metaphysical poets, the historicising of Traherne and a more recent interest in the manuscript evidence – with the fields of theology and philosophy, in which Traherne has been considered as a Christian mystic, an Anglican founding-father, a spiritual brother to the Cambridge Platonists, or a unique theological thinker with relevance to broader discussions on the practice of theology. This will be the first academic symposium on Traherne since the discovery of the new manuscripts in 1996/7. The works of the Lambeth Palace MS (Inducements to Retiredness, A Sober View of Dr Twisse, Seeds of Eternity and The Kingdom of God) and the unfinished biblical epic, The Ceremonial Law, have opened up previously unknown aspects of Traherne’s thought and shone new light on the more well-known poems, Centuries, Thanksgivings and Select Meditations. We especially welcome papers that focus on the content of the Lambeth MS and The Ceremonial Law, and work that considers ways of responding to the overall question of the symposium: what is the way forward for Traherne studies? Possible topics for papers might include, but are not limited, to: Identifying Thomas Traherne: Thomas Traherne as Poet, Theologian, Mystic, Heretic, Career Cleric, Platonist, Aristotelian, Anglican... How do we situate Traherne in his time? Is it still appropriate to associate him with the Romantics, or the metaphysical poets? How do we arbitrate between competing pictures of Traherne? Influences on Traherne: The Cambridge Platonists, the Royal Society, Thomas Hobbes, Francis Bacon, the church fathers Material Texts: The formation and editing of the manuscripts Interdisciplinary approaches to Traherne: Traherne as poetic-theologian / theological-poet New approaches to Traherne: Traherne and music, Traherne and art, Traherne and poetry, Traherne and ecology We invite proposals for 20-25 minute papers – please send an abstract of 300 words, along with a short biographical statement, to Cassie Gorman (ceg47@cam.ac.uk) and Beth Dodd (esd26@cam.ac.uk). The deadline for abstracts is August 17th, 2012. We will inform applicants about acceptance by the end of August.

Disability and the Renaissance

8 September 2012: Postgraduate Bursaries Available Thanks to the generous support of the Society for Renaissance Studies, we will be able to offer up to four bursaries to enable postgraduate students who wish to give a paper to attend the conference. If you wish to apply for a bursary, please add a short statement to this effect at the end of your abstract. For more details, see http://disabilityandtherenaissance.wordpress.com/ or email s.anderson@leedstrinity.ac.uk. Deadline for proposals: 30th June 2012.

THOMAS HARRIOT SEMINAR 2012

The Thomas Harriot Seminar (THS) exists to promote the study of the life and times of the Elizabethan mathematician and natural philosopher Thomas Harriot (1560-1621). The THS meets bienially in Durham (in December) and features papers both on the work of Harriot himself, and on various aspects of the history of sixteenth- and early-seventeenth century science and mathematics (including the history of navigation) and the discovery and colonisation of the New World. It publishes a newsletter, and a series of Occasional Papers. The next Thomas Harriot Seminar will be held at Durham Castle, Palace Green, Durham, UK, on the 15-17 December 2012. Speakers include Matteo Valleriani, Adam Mosley, Alexander Marr, Jim Bennett, Philip M. Sanders, Makiko Okamura, Jackie Stedall and Robert Goulding. For the full programme and a registration form please see our website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/english/our-research/research_seminars/thomas-harriot-seminar If you would like to hear more about the Seminar and its activities, please contact the Vice-Chairman of the Seminar, Dr Stephen Clucas (s.clucas@bbk.ac.uk). Dr Stephen Clucas, Editor, Intellectual History Review Reader in Early Modern Intellectual History, English and Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HX Tel: 020 3073 8421