With the completion of our Call for Papers<\/a> for the 2018 Congress<\/a>, we prepared the Programs for our Sessions and other Events (Reception and Open Business Meeting included). With the turn of the New Year, as customary, we began to post the Abstracts of Papers and Response, as their Authors permit.<\/p>\n Now, with the publication of the full Congress Program in a “sneak preview” at the beginning of February, the allocated times and locations become known<\/a>.\u00a0 Also, more Abstracts join our Announcement here.<\/p>\n The course of announcements and reports about the 2018 Congress may follow the sequence of previous years. For example, for the 2017 Congress, we announced the Plans and the Call for Papers (which has a deadline of 15 September), the Program (once the Sessions are designed from the responses to the Call for Papers), then an updated version or versions of the Program with the addition of the Abstracts and other news (same URL), and, once the Congress is accomplished, a Report as well as, it may be, a Report Behind the Scenes.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Also, like the 2017 Congress, we plan for<\/p>\n It will be the 13th year of our co-sponsorship with the Societas Magica<\/strong>, and our 3rd year of co-sponsorship with the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University<\/strong>, now (since 2017) known as the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University.<\/strong><\/p>\n As usual, we aim to publish the Abstracts for the accepted Papers as the preparations for the Congress advance. Abstracts for previous Congresses appear in the Congress Abstracts<\/a>, listed by Year<\/a> and by Author<\/a>.]<\/p>\n Glimpses of our co-sponsored Receptions<\/strong> at the Congress appear in the souvenirs of our Celebrations<\/a> and in the Reports for the individual Congresses (2016<\/a>, 2015<\/a>, and 2014 Anniversary<\/a>).<\/p>\n 2017 Business Meeting Agenda<\/p><\/div>\n The Agendas<\/strong> for our Open Business Meetings<\/strong> are available for your inspection and perusal.<\/p>\n These 1-page statements serve as concise Reports for our Activities, Plans, and Desiderata.<\/p>\n While we’re here: Interesting, isn’t it, that these Agendas have rapidly become one of our Most-Downloaded Offerings? Some of them now stand among the Top 5 Most Popular Downloads on our site.<\/p>\n The most popular downloads still remain our copyright and FREE multilingual digital font Bembino<\/a>, and some Booklets from our Symposia and Colloquia. So far, those “best sellers” \u2014 they are FREE \u2014 include:<\/p>\n These publications, like most of our Publications<\/a>, are FREE, but we welcome donations, both in funds and in kind, for our nonprofit mission, also with the option of tax-deduction for your Donations<\/a>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n And now, here is the plan for 2018 at the International Congress on Medieval Studies. We announce the Programs for our Sessions, describe their aims and scope, and outline our other Events.<\/p>\n Customarily, we publish the Abstracts for the Papers and Responses, if the Authors wish.<\/p>\n Session 176 This session will consider how manuscripts and their contents have changed over time, by focusing on transmission and reception history, so as to understand better how the material witnesses to these processes \u2014 including copying, scholia, glosses, marginalia, excisions, palimpsests \u2014 convey meaning. Guiding research questions include but are no means limited to, these issues:<\/p>\n The session aims to provide a clearer understanding of the processes through which texts have been transmitted and preserved through and within manuscripts, resulting in a more dynamic conception of how material texts interact with the world. Examples might offer new discoveries and applicable methodologies.<\/p>\n Paris, BnF, MS latin 17987, folio 46 recto. Horaces ‘Odes’ (Carmina), Book IV.10-11 with commentary. Via gallica.bnf through Creative Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n Co-organizers<\/p>\n Derek Shank<\/strong> (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence) Presider<\/p>\n Derek Shank<\/strong><\/p>\n Presenters<\/p>\n Justin Hastings<\/strong> Rachael McNelis<\/strong> (Case Western Reserve University) Jaclyn Reed<\/strong> (Western University, London, Ontario) Paris, BnF, MS latin 17987, first opening with front endleaf and folio 1 recto. Ownership marks and first page of Horace’s ‘Carmina’, with commentary. Via gallica.bnf through Creative Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n \u200b<\/p>\n ‘The Great Picture’, commissioned in 1646 by Lady Anne Clifford, 14th Baroness de Clifford, Countess Dowager of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery (1590-1676). Kendal, Cumbria, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal. Image in the Public Domain, via Wikipedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n *****<\/p>\n Session 318 Libro de los juegos. Madrid, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, folio 1 recto, detail.<\/p><\/div>\n Alfonso X, \u201cthe Wise,\u201d of Castile was a polymath himself, and sponsored many more across the various communities of Iberia. His court was the political center of Castile, at least until the rethinking of law and politics he promulgated in the Siete Partidas<\/em> combined with his (invited) Ghibelline bid for the Holy Roman Emperorship to provoke a civil war in his realms, led by his second son Sancho IV.<\/p>\n Seal of Alfonso X of Castile. As reproduced by Otto Posse (1847-1921) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>Iberia was also a crossroads of travelers \u2013 scholars, pilgrims, diplomats, merchants \u2014 from all over the world, with destinations like the courts of Castile and of the Crown of Aragon. Among the vast corpus of works which Alfonso X either directly or indirectly composed, his book on games and gaming, the Libros de ajedrez, dados y tablas<\/em> (also known as the Libro de los juegos<\/em>)<\/a>, likely finished in the early to mid-1280s at the end of his life, seems to have reflected these intellectual and political dynamics, and recorded many such travelers and dwellers of his court.<\/p>\n In spite of a facsimile from the late 1980s (ISBN 84-85935-28-4), this book has until recently garnered very little attention, particularly attention that considered it beyond the domains of chess and gaming, and art history. With Sonja Musser Golladay\u2019s 2007 dissertation<\/a> and Olivia Remie Constable\u2019s article of the same year<\/a>, however, and more recent studies, analysis of the book and its context have begun to contribute to our understanding of many other aspects of the 13th<\/sup> century, due to its incredibly rich representation of layers of information, ranging from the portraits in its miniatures to the intertextual networks of translation in multiple domains.<\/p>\n In this era of \u201cbig data\u201d and datamining, the Libro de los juegos<\/em> offers a significant counter-case: one specific manuscript of only moderate length that provides insight into a multiple domains. It is \u201csmall data,\u201d but data so rich that it produces \u201cbig results\u201d when placed in productive tension across domains and disciplines. It is a book that lends itself to interdisciplinary conversation, and to conversations that trace its contents and its effects over time, as part of a particular corpus and part of a concrete library. The purpose of this session is to encourage a lively interdisciplinary discussion of its texts, images, and the physical book from a variety of domains, perspectives, and methods in order to address a broad array of questions both related to and beyond its explicit topic, games and aristocratic leisure, and, as such, welcomes participants from all quarters interested in cross-disciplinary analysis and discussion of the Libro de los juegos<\/em>.<\/p>\n Organizer<\/p>\n Linde M. Brocato<\/strong> (University of Memphis)<\/p>\n Presider<\/p>\n Mildred Budny<\/strong> (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)<\/p>\n Presenters<\/p>\n Lola Bollo\u2013Pandero<\/strong> (Colby College, Waterville, Maine) Michael A. Conrad<\/strong> (Institute of Art History, University of Z\u00fcrich, Switzerland) Ulrich Sch\u00e4dler<\/strong> (Mus\u00e9e Suisse du Jeu, La Tour-de-Peilz; and University of Fribourg, Switzerland)<\/span> [Note<\/em>:\u00a0 We have learned that Ulrich Sch\u00e4dler cannot attend the Congress, nor present his Paper.]<\/span><\/p>\n Respondent<\/p>\n Linde M. Brocato<\/strong> Libro de los juegos. Madrid, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de El Escorial, MS T.1.6, folio 17 verso, detail.<\/p><\/div>\n Note:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>Our Session Organizer and Respondent will present a Paper of her own on this Subject at another Session at the Congress Session 441 (Saturday, 1:30 \u2013 3:00 p.m. at Bernhard 208)<\/p>\n Linde M. Brocato<\/strong> *****<\/p>\n Session 127 The medieval Insular Celtic cultures \u2014 particularly those of Ireland and Wales \u2014 have a variety of magical texts which survive, but often in literally marginal locations in manuscripts, or embedded within narratives and other literary contexts. While these are receiving increasing attention amongst the specialist audience of Insular Celticists, they are sadly unknown and relatively inaccessible to the wider academic attention of scholars of magic, as well as medieval academia generally. This session will feature the work of established and emerging scholars who are working on these primary sources and the issues raised by them, including how each of these cultures defines “magic,” specific issues in textual editing in the respective Insular Celtic languages, and particular themes and patterns observable in the content of these magical texts.<\/p>\n Organizer<\/p>\n Phillip A. Bernhardt-House<\/strong> (Skagit Valley College, Whidbey Island Campus, Oak Harbor, Washington)<\/p>\n Phillip at our 2008 Congress. Photograph by Larissa Tracy.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Presider<\/p>\n Mildred Budny<\/strong> (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)<\/p>\n Presenters<\/p>\n Phillip A. Bernhardt-House<\/strong> Ilona Tuomi<\/strong> (Department of Early and Medieval Irish, University College Cork, Ireland) Bridgette Slavin<\/strong> (Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Medaille College, Buffalo, New York) You may glimpse the “Saint Gall Incantations” here, on the verso of a single despoiled leaf (via www.e-codices.unifr.ch\/<\/a>, specifically at page 419<\/a>).\u00a0 First the recto with an illustration of the Evangelist Matthew as a scribal author, then the verso with the charms in Old Irish, presumably added to an originally blank page on the back of the illustration, offering an available space for the record.<\/p>\n Saint Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1395, page 418 (https:\/\/www.e-codices.ch) = recto with a framed illustration of the scribal evangelist Matthew with his winged symbol, a Man. Via Creative Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n Saint Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1395, page 419 (https:\/\/www.e-codices.ch) = verso with the Saint Gall Incantations. Via Creative Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n I. The Picatrix (A Magical Bestseller)<\/strong><\/p>\n Session 439 The Picatrix<\/em><\/a>, as is well known, was without question historically the most popular of all Arabic occult-scientific manuals\u2014but only in Latin Europe. The first session of this pair will focus on the Picatrix<\/em> at the intersection of the Latin and Arabic worlds, featuring new research based on a forthcoming new critical edition of the latter and a new scholarly translation with commentary on the former.<\/p>\n Organizer<\/p>\n David Porreca<\/strong> (Department of Classical Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada)<\/p>\n Presider<\/p>\n Claire Fanger<\/strong> (Department of Religion, Rice University)<\/p>\n Presenters<\/p>\n Daniel Attrell<\/strong> (Department of Classical Studies, University of Waterloo, and The Modern Hermeticist<\/a>) Abstract of Paper<\/a><\/p>\n David Porreca<\/strong> Abstract of Paper<\/a><\/p>\n Liana Saif<\/strong> (Oriental Institute, University of Oxford) II. Arabic and Persian<\/strong><\/p>\n Session 491 While the original Picatrix<\/em><\/a> \u2014 in Arabic the Goal of the Sage<\/em> (Gh\u0101yat al-\u1e25ak\u012bm<\/em> or \u063a\u0627\u064a\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u062d\u0643\u064a\u0645)\u00a0\u2014 was certainly long prized in the Islamicate world as well, however, other Arabic and Persian manuals came to far outstrip it in popularity and influence from the 12th century onward, and circulated over geographical areas equally vast. Due to persistent Eurocentrism, these occult blockbusters of the Islamicate world remain virtually unknown to the scholarship on medieval and early modern Western (Islamo-Judeo-Christianate) occultism. To help rectify this gross imbalance, the second session presents four Islamicate occult-scientific manuals, three in Arabic and one in Persian, that too enjoyed blockbuster status over centuries.<\/p>\n Organizer<\/p>\n Matthew Melvin\u2013Koushki<\/strong> (Department of History, University of South Carolina)<\/p>\n Presider<\/p>\n Liana Saif<\/strong> (Oriental Institute, University of Oxford)<\/p>\n Presenters<\/p>\n Michael Noble<\/strong> (Warburg Institute, London) Emily Selove<\/strong> (University of Exeter) Nicholas G. Harris<\/strong> (Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania) Matthew Melvin\u2013Koushki<\/strong> Note:\u00a0 Glimpses online of Arabic manuscripts of the Picatrix appear, for example, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This session is announced also, for example, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Thursday 10 May 2018 at 12:00 \u2013 1:00 p.m. Through a donation, Lunch will be provided.\u00a0 All are welcome.<\/p>\n The Agendas<\/strong> for our Open Business Meetings<\/strong> are available for your inspection and perusal.\u00a0 They outline our activities, aims, requests, and possibilities, with invitations for suggestions and contributions.<\/p>\n Thursday 10 May 2018 at 5:15 \u2013 7:15 p.m. As in recent years, the Reception is co-sponsored with The Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University<\/a>.<\/p>\n This Reception has an Open Bar (not a Cash Bar).\u00a0 All are welcome.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Please visit our Facebook Page<\/a> for news and updates.<\/p>\n For our nonprofit educational mission, with tax-exempt status, Donations in Funds and in Kind (expertise, materials, time) are welcome<\/a>.<\/p>\nBackground and Foreground<\/h3>\n
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<\/a>As in recent years, we co-sponsor Sessions with the Societas Magica<\/a> (3 Sessions), and we co-sponsor a Reception.<\/p>\n\n
<\/h3>\n
Background and Foreground<\/h3>\n
![\"Agenda](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/RGME-Business-Meeting-Agenda-2017-on-9-May-2017-with-border-116x150.png\")
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Sessions for the 2018 Congress<\/h2>\n
<\/a>I. Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<\/h3>\n1. Manuscript (Trans)formations: Transmission and Reception<\/h4>\n
\nFriday 11 May at 10:00 \u2013 11:30 a.m.
\nSchneider 1125<\/p>\n\n
![\"Paris,](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Q_Horatius_Flaccus_Carmina_1-48v_-fol-46r-rotated-sharpened-214x300.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nJustin Hastings <\/strong>English Department, Loyola University Chicago)<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAllegoresis, Source-Text, and Paratextual Distortions:
\nHorace\u2019s Ode<\/em> 4.10 in Paris, Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France, MS Latin 17897″<\/a>
\nAbstract of Paper<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\nTitle in Congress Program:
\n“A Labyrinthine Puzzle:
\nMusical, Textual, and Visual Discourse in En la maison Dedalus<\/em><\/a>”
\nRevised Title:
\n“Traversing the Labyrinth in Song:
\nTextual, Musical, and Visual Discourse in En la maison Dedalus<\/em><\/a>”
\nAbstract of Paper<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\u201cFashioning an Aristocratic Identity for Posterity:
\nAnne Clifford and the Rhetoric of Clothing”
\nAbstract of Paper<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Paris,](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Q_Horatius_Flaccus_Carmina_1-48v_..._btv1b9067207q-1024x724.jpeg\")
<\/a>![\"'The](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/TheGreatPicture_AnneClifford_1646_ByJanVanBelcamp.png\")
<\/a>2. Alfonso X’s Libro de los juegos<\/em>: Big Results from Small Data<\/h4>\n
\nFriday 11 May at 3:30 \u2013 5:00 p.m.
\nBernhard 204<\/p>\n![\"Libro](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/fig.1.juegos_Fol1r.cropped-1024x612.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Seal](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Alfonso_X_of_Castile.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n“El Libro de los juegos<\/em> como reproducci\u00f3n y recreaci\u00f3n de la visi\u00f3n pol\u00edtica de Alfonso X”
\nAbstract of Paper in Spanish and in English Translation<\/a><\/p>\n
\n“Prudence in Play:\u00a0 Alfonso X’s Libro de acedrex e tablas<\/em> as a Theory of Decision-Making”
\nAbstract of Paper<\/a><\/p>\n
\n “Of Games, Man, and True Faith”<\/span><\/p>\n
\n” ‘The Most Dangerous Game’:\u00a0 The Libro de los juegos<\/em>, the Castilian Royal Library, and Aristocratic (Non-)Leisure”
\nAbstract of Response<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Libro](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/fig.4.juegos_Fol17v.cropped-1024x677.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
\n” ‘The Most Dangerous Game’:\u00a0 The Libro de los juegos<\/em>, the Royal Library, and Royal Repudiation”<\/p>\nII. Co-Sponsored with the Societas Magica<\/a><\/h3>\n
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<\/a>3 Sessions<\/p>\n3. Celtic Magic Texts<\/h3>\n
\nThursday 10 May at 3:30 \u2013 5:00 p.m.
\nBernhard 204<\/p>\n![\"Phillip](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Zoo-2008-session-3-cropped-1024x814.jpg\")
<\/a>
\n“Christ and the Irish Gods:
\nTraces of Polytheism in Medieval Irish Magical Texts”
\nAbstract of Paper<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\n” ‘Three Nuts Which Decay, Three Sinews Which Weave’
\nThe Language of Magic in Medieval Ireland”
\nAbstract of Paper<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
\n“Gendered Magic in Early Irish Texts”
\nAbstract of Paper<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n![\"Saint](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/e-codices_csg-1395_418_large-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Saint](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/e-codices_csg-1395_419_large-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/a>*****<\/h3>\n
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<\/a>4\u20135. Occult Blockbusters of the Islamic World (I\u2013II)<\/h3>\n
\nSaturday 12 May at 1:30 \u2013 3:00 p.m.
\nBernhard 204<\/p>\n
\n“The Goal of the Sage: What’s It Take?”<\/p>\n
\n“The Latin Picatrix<\/em>:
\nA New English Translation, A New Assessment”<\/p>\n
\n“Pingree and Me:
\nComprehending the World-View of Maslama al-Qur\u1e6dub\u012b\u2019s Gh\u0101yat al-\u1e24ak\u012bm<\/i>”<\/p>\n
\nSaturday 12 May at 3:30 \u2013 5:00 p.m.
\nBernhard 204<\/p>\n
\n“Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s Hidden Secret<\/i> and Islamic Occult Soteriology”<\/p>\n
\n“A Sorcerer’s Handbook: al-Sakkaki’s 13th-century Complete Book”<\/i><\/p>\n
\n“‘If You Don’t Learn Alchemy, You’ll Learn Eloquence’:
\nThe Golden Slivers<\/i> by Ibn Arfa’ al-Ra’s”<\/p>\n
\n“Kashifi’s Qasimian Secrets<\/i>:
\nThe Safavid Imperialization of a Timurid Manual of Magic”<\/p>\nOpen Business Meeting<\/h3>\n
\nFetzer 1125<\/p>\n\n
![\"Invitation](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-Business-Meeting-Invite-Full-Page-with-border1.png\")
<\/a><\/h3>\nReception<\/h3>\n
\nBernhard Faculty Lounge<\/p>\n![\"Invitation](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-Reception-Invite-Full-Page-with-border1.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n