Monthly Archives: May 2015

Senses of Liturgy

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University of Bristol, 21-22 May, 2015

Despite the importance of liturgical commentaries for understanding the liturgical record and the experience of religious practice, particularly in the still largely understudied Old Hispanic Office, they have not received scholarly attention as an important genre for the history of medieval religion. Senses of Liturgy will bring together scholars from across the UK, Europe and the USA over the course of two-days (May 21-22, 2015) in order to discuss liturgical commentary and practice from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives (musicological, art historical, theological, historical, manuscript studies). The seeks answers to questions that are both methodological and practical. How can liturgical commentaries be studied in conjunction with or in the absence of liturgical sources? What information can they provide to fill in the gaps in the manuscript record? How did the liturgy interact with theology? Was the liturgy influenced by theological movements or vice versa? The involvement of scholars dealing with liturgical and theological sources from a wide chronological and geographical spread will allow us to engage with current scholarly interest in the history of religious experience and performance through the lens of a highly informative genre.

For conference details and the register, click here.

The Council of Constance: Europe in Conversation

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Arts Two, Room 3.16, QMUL

Wednesday, May 13, 2015 from 9:45am

The Council of Constance (1414–1418) was a momentous event which witnessed far-reaching debates about the reform of the Church. It also acted as a hugely important forum for the exchange of ideas, texts and traditions from across Europe. The colloquium will highlight the council’s significance to a range of disciplines, including literature, history and music. It will address themes as diverse as the role of the Bohemians at the Council, the interaction between the council and the universities and the dissemination of music at Constance. The colloquium will also address the literary influence of the council, evaluating its place in the European imagination and sixteenth-century political thought.

For details and to register, click here

Sonorous Sublimes: Music and Sound 1670–1850

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23 June 2015 – 25 June 2015

University of Cambridge, CRASSH, Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, CB3 9DT – SG1&2

This interdisciplinary conference is dedicated to the sublime in music and sound, c.1670–1850. It brings together scholars from across the humanities to re-sound the sublime, from its rise to prominence in the age of Boileau and Lully, to its saturation of European culture in the mid-nineteenth century. The sublime has long been recognised as a crucial cultural category in this period, involved not only in the emergence of aesthetics and radically changing artistic practices, but in politics, science, theology, gender history, histories of the subject, and so on. Until very recently, attention to sonorous sublimes beyond music has circled round a narrow range of terrifying noises – screams, canons, rushing waters – identified in Burke’s famous theory of the sublime. Music itself has appeared as a latecomer to the feast of the sublime, feeding off an established discourse concerned with the verbal and visual. Responding to new developments in musicology and sound studies, this conference aims to explore both the rich variety of sounds heard as sublime by past listeners, and the complex roles played by music in forming and transforming the discourse, practice, and politics of the sublime.

Speakers: Andrew Bowie, Kiene Brillenburg-Wurth, Stijn Bussels, Keith Chapin, Sophie Hache, Lydia Hamlett, Matthew Head, Sarah Hibberd, Nils Holger Peterson, Corinna Russell, Philip Shaw, Elaine Sisman, Miranda Stanyon, David Trippett

For further information and to register online, click here.