With the achievement of our Activities at the 2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies, as announced in our 2018 Congress Program<\/a>, we both give a 2018 Congress Report<\/a> and prepare a Behind the Scenes Report.<\/p>\n For updates, please watch this space and our Facebook Page<\/a>.\u00a0 [And now, with the completion of the span for the CFP in mid-September 2018, we prepare the Programs for our Sessions at the 2019 Congress, for which see, in time, our 2019 Congress Program<\/a> announcement<\/em>.]<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Now we proceed to preparations for the 2019 Congress<\/a>. This next year, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence celebrates its 20th year as a nonprofit educational corporation and its 30th year as an international scholarly organization.<\/p>\n We have a tradition of celebrating landmark Anniversaries, both for our organization, with organizations which which we share anniversaries, and for other events. As described, for example, in our 2014 Anniversary Reflections<\/a>.<\/p>\n This coming year, 2019, we prepare events at the Congress and elsewhere, so as to represent, to explore, to promote, to celebrate, and to advance aspects of our shared range of interests, fields of study, subject matter, and collaboration between younger and established scholars, teachers, and others, in multiple centers.<\/p>\n In June 2018, we learned that most \u2014 not all \u2014 of our Session Proposals (due on 1 June) for the 2019 Congress have been accepted by the Congress Committee, so that we progress to their Call for Papers<\/strong>.\u00a0 We regret the rejections for proposed Sessions which, for example, promoted initiatives by Graduate Students and by Independent Scholars, and which we wished to support.<\/p>\n As in recent years, we co-sponsor Sessions with the Societas Magica<\/a> (2 Sessions). It will be the 14th year of this co-sponsorship.\u00a0 It will be the first year of co-sponsorship with the newly-founded organization Polytheism-Oriented Medievalists of North America<\/strong> (POMONA).<\/p>\n Also, like the 2015\u20132018 Congresses, we plan for<\/p>\n As usual, we aim to publish the Program for the accepted Papers, once the Call For Papers has completed its specified span.\u00a0 We will publish the Abstracts for these Papers as the preparations for the Congress advance and as their Authors permit.\u00a0 Abstracts for previous Congresses appear in our Congress Abstracts<\/a>, conveniently Indexed both by Year<\/a> and by Author<\/a>.]<\/p>\n Glimpses of our co-sponsored Receptions<\/a> at the Congress appear in the souvenirs of our <\/a>Celebrations<\/a> and in the Reports for the individual Congresses (<\/a>2016<\/a>, <\/a>2015<\/a>, and <\/a>2014 Anniversary<\/a>).<\/a><\/p>\n 2017 Business Meeting Agenda<\/p><\/div>\n The Agendas<\/strong> for our Open Business Meetings<\/a> 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:\u00a0 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 <\/a>Publications<\/a>, are FREE, but we welcome donations, both in funds and in kind, for our nonprofit mission, with the option of tax-deduction for your <\/a>Donations<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n We look forward to your contributions.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n And now, here is the plan for 2019 at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.\u00a0 We announce the accepted Sessions, describe their aims and scope, and provide information for sending your questions and your proposals for papers to the Session Organizers.\u00a0 Herewith our Call for Papers for the 2019 Congress.<\/p>\n While our organization’s abiding mission is to consider the material evidence of written records “as carriers of text, archaeological artefacts, works of art, layers of history, and monuments of culture” (as declared in our Mission Statement<\/a>), we must wonder what happens when lacunae<\/a> \u2014 whether from scribal intentions, accidental omissions, temporal vicissitude, or other means\u00a0 \u2014 alter or limit the topography opened by a manuscript.<\/p>\n Opening Title and Opening Words of Luke. Despoiled Large-format Romanesque Bible made in Italy. Budny Handlist 1.<\/p><\/div>\n For example, how have previous receivers and transmitters negotiated these lacunae?\u00a0 How do editors amend, elide, or underscore them?\u00a0 How do scholars interpret the gaps and silences occasioned by them?\u00a0 This session may explore some options and present telling case-studies.<\/p>\n Co-organized by<\/p>\n Justin Hastings Derek Shank Please send your proposals to hastings@luc.edu<\/a><\/span> by 15 September 2018.<\/p>\n A variety of magical texts in Celtic contexts include animals or animal imagery in their spells.\u00a0 The creatures range from snakes, beetles, and worms, to dogs, wolves, deer, pigs, and birds \u2014 and many other creatures besides.\u00a0 The texts range from individual Irish incantations and collections, as found in the St. Gall Incantations, the Reichenau Primer<\/a>, the Stowe manuscript, and in the Leabhar Breacc<\/a>, amongst many others.<\/p>\n \u00a9 The British Library Board. Harley MS 1023, folio 64 verso. Part-page framed illustration in ink of the Eagle Symbol of Saint John the Evangelist.<\/p><\/div>\n Some mantic operations, like the imbas forosnai<\/em> ritual detailed in the early 10th-century Sanas Cormaic<\/a><\/em>, include the use of pig-, cat-, and dog-meat in their formulae, whilst the tarbfheis<\/em> described in some literary texts required the slaughtering of a bull. Charms designed to repel rats and other vermin were also employed, including their use into more modern periods. The medieval literate record also contains many occurrences of animals in relation to the magical actions of characters, whether human or divine, or of \u201cmagical animals\u201d of various sorts appearing as messengers, omens, or agents and characters in their own right. Whether animals or animal parts are used as components or metaphors, sacrifices or spoken formulae, narrative elements or desired outcomes, Celtic texts have ubiquitous instances of animal imagery and involvement.<\/p>\n Papers in this session may relate to theoretical approaches toward the material of animal imagery, thematic explorations of different types of usage of animals, or attempts to survey, catalogue, and analyze the nature of particular animal appearances in these texts and operations, as well as anything else which may relate to the broad topic of animals and Celtic magical texts.<\/p>\n Organized by<\/p>\n Phillip A. Bernhardt-House<\/strong> Please send your proposals to\u00a0phillip.bernhardthouse@gmail.com<\/a> by 15 September 2018.<\/p>\n Although texts of ritual magic circulated widely during the later Middle Ages, the opprobrium they attracted both elevated the risks for\u00a0their owner-users, and limited the physical lifespan of the codices themselves when they caught the attention of Church authorities. Consequently, texts of ritual magic often survive not as independently circulating treatises, but rather as subsections of more innocuous-seeming treatises on other topics such as\u00a0natural philosophy or\u00a0medicine. This session aims to bring to light and discuss this particular sub-category of magical treatises, their transmission histories, and the intertextualities between them and their textual \u201chosts\u201d.<\/p>\n Organized by<\/p>\n Vajra Regan<\/strong> Nicolas Fouch\u00e9, “Pomona” (circa 1700). Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts. Via Wikipedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n After the suppression of polytheistic religious activities in the fourth century CE, some sites and images \u2014 and certainly citations in literature\u00a0\u2014 of the classical Greek and Roman (and occasionally other Mediterranean) deities had a \u201csecond life\u201d in places like Italy, Spain, Greece, and North Africa.\u00a0\u00a0However, even if imported and syncretistic cultus to these deities existed in more northern climes (including the former Roman provinces of Germania, Gaul, and Britain), the various Latin and vernacular literatures of the Germanic, French, British, and Irish peoples of medieval and later periods gave some of these deities a \u201cthird life,\u201d and often one rich in interpretive possibilities for the learned authors who discussed them.<\/p>\n Whether the authors derived their knowledge of these deities from various classical, biblical, or patristic sources, the influence specifically of Isidore of Seville\u2019s\u00a0Etymologiae<\/a><\/em>, or their own re-interpretation of originally local practices, this tendency gave rise to such intriguing instances as<\/p>\n Papers in this session will explore these themes and thereby work to contextualize these reinterpretations historically, politically, and theologically, as well as via other vectors of analysis.\u00a0 They also seek to catalogue and to increase the visibility of these phenomena.<\/p>\n Organized by<\/p>\n Phillip A. Bernhardt-House<\/strong> Please send your proposals to\u00a0phillip.bernhardthouse@gmail.com<\/a> by 15 September 2018.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n Please send your proposals for papers, along with the completed Congress Participant Information Form<\/a>, to the Session Organizer(s) or to director@manuscriptevidence.org<\/a> to reach us on or before 15 September 2018<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Please Contact Us<\/a> with your questions and suggestions. For our nonprofit educational mission, with tax-exempt status, donations in funds and in kind (expertise, materials, time) are welcome<\/a>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n![\"Logo](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Heavy-LOGO1-150x138.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>The Congress Committee will publish the full 2019 Call for Papers for the 54th ICMS<\/a>, with the list of Session Titles and Sponsors. Here we announce our 5 sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions and describe their aims.<\/p>\n\n
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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\")
<\/a>\n
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Sessions for the 2019 Congress<\/h2>\n
<\/a>I.\u00a0 Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence<\/h3>\n1. In the Absence of Manuscript Evidence:
\nConsidering Lacunae in Manuscript Studies<\/h4>\n![\"Detail](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/DSCN1914-Italian-Bible-Luke-Gospel-Opening-branded-276x300.png\")
<\/a>
\n<\/strong>English Department
\nLoyola University Chicago
\nLoyola Hall
\nColumbia, SC 2920|
\nhastings@luc.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
\n46 Snowden Lane
\nPrinceton, New Jersey 08540-3916
\nderekshank@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\nII. Co-Sponsored with the Societas Magica<\/a><\/h3>\n
![\"Logo](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/SocMaghead23.png\")
<\/a>2 Sessions<\/p>\n2. Animals in Celtic Magical Texts<\/h3>\n
![\"Harley](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Harley-MS-1023-f-64v-6a013488b5399e970c01b8d0ec13de970c1-237x300.png\")
<\/a>
\n101 SE Ely Street, #D-102
\nOak Harbor, Washington 98277
\nphillip.bernhardthouse@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n3. Embedded in the Mainstream:\u00a0 Ritual Magic Incorporated in ‘Legitimate’ Texts<\/h3>\n
\nCentre for Medieval Studies
\nUniversity of Toronto
\n125 Queens Park
\nToronto, ON M5S 2C7
\nCANADA<\/span>
\nvajra.regan@mail.utoronto.ca<\/a><\/p>\nIII. Co-Sponsored with the Polytheism-Oriented Medievalists of North America (P.-O.M.o.N.A.<\/strong>)<\/h3>\n
4. Classical Deities in Medieval Northern European Contexts<\/h3>\n
![\"Pigment](\"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Nicolas_Fouch\u00e9_001-Pomona-235x300.jpg\")
<\/a>\n
\n101 SE Ely Street, #D-102
\nOak Harbor, Washington 98277
\nphillip.bernhardthouse@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n