How Christian was Early Christian England?
October 1, 2004
In this lecture, CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar John Blair (Fellow and Tutor in History, The Queen's College, Oxford) will explore the impact of Christianity on Anglo-Saxon society and cult practice during the seventh to ninth centuries. Using archaeological and topographical evidence in conjunction with the few faint clues offered by written sources, Professor Blair will argue that a well-integrated religious culture was established within only a few generations of the conversions of kings and courts: the 'abuses' attacked by Bede, Boniface, and Alcuin are evidence for the strength rather than the weakness of grass-roots Christianity.
"Urbanisation, Economy, and Religious Sites in Developing Cultures: the Case of Anglo-Saxon England"
October 5, 2005 A lecture by CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar John Blair (Fellow and Tutor in History, The Queen's College, Oxford).
CMRS Open House
October 12, 2004
The Center invites faculty and graduate students with an interest in medieval and Renaissance studies to attend an open house to mark the opening of the new academic year. Meet the Center's staff and find out about the programs, awards, and fellowships available to students from CMRS. As a special bonus, there will be a small used book sale featuring items of interest to scholars of medieval and Renaissance studies. Drop by and see us!
"What We Don't Know about Medieval Welsh Poetry . . ."
October 14, 2004 A lecture by Patrick K. Ford (Robinson Professor of Celtic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University). Sponsored by the UCLA Celtic Colloquium, the Department of English, and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Rediscovering Columbus
October 15, 2004
This one-day symposium celebrates the successful conclusion of the Repertorium Columbianum, and examines recent scholarship on Columbus and the impact of his voyages on the New World. Speakers and topics include introductory remarks by Repertorium general editor Geoffrey Symcox (UCLA); Jesús Carrillo (UA Madrid), "Columbus and the Imperial Controversy;" Helen Nader (University of Arizona), "Columbus's Legacy to Magellan;" Anthony Pagden (UCLA), "Sailing West to Reach the East: Columbus and the Quest for Cathay;" Claudia Parodi-Lewin (UCLA), "Languages in Contact: First Encounters and Columbus;" William D. Phillips, Jr. (University of Minnesota), "The Columbian Quincentennial and Its Scholarly Legacy;" and Kevin Terraciano (UCLA), "New Perspectives on the Encounter from Indigenous Points of View.." The event will conclude with a program of Spanish secular music from the early Renaissance, performed by Jouissance under the direction of Nicole Baker (CSU Fullerton). The conference is cosponsored by the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities, the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, the UCLA CMRS, and the UCLA Departments of History, and Spanish and Portuguese.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable
October 20, 2004
Professor Edward Condren (English) will discuss "Chaucer's 'Parliament of Fowls': An Adventure into Higher Learning." Widely admired as the finest of Chaucer's dream visions, "The Parliament of Fowls" continues to elude critical scrutiny. We have long known how accomplished a piece of literature it is, how lively and vivid are its portraits of birds, and how satisfying is the "rime royal" stanza Chaucer invented for it. But we still do not know what the poem itself is. At this inaugural Roundtable of Fall 2004, Professor Condren discusses how the "Parliament" demonstrates the unity of the created universe, as did the Somnium Scipionis with which it begins. Above it all, the realm of mathematics, the executive design used by the Creator in fashioning the universe, exerts final control. Faculty, associates, students, and friends of the CMRS are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide soft drinks and coffee.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable, "The Latinity of Loss"
October 26, 2004 A special meeting of the CMRS Faculty Roundtable. Professor Shane Butler will discuss "The Latinity of Loss."
The bombast with which Renaissance humanists celebrate their revival of classical Latin often drowns out the quieter resonance of the classical turn. In this talk, Professor Butler (Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvania) takes a brief look at three seemingly disparate texts from the late quattrocento: a poem by Savonarola, court records of a Tuscan hill town, and an early work by Poliziano. Together they describe a kind of Latin that was classicizing but decidedly anti-heroic, valuable not so much for what it could say as for what it left unsaid.
Faculty, associates, students, and friends of the CMRS are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide soft drinks and coffee.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable
November 3, 2004 Professor Ricardo Quinones (Claremont McKenna College, and CMRS Associate) will discuss his work. CMRS faculty, associates, graduate students, and friends are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide soft drinks and coffee.
California Medieval History Seminar
November 6, 2004 The California Medieval History Seminar meets at the Huntington Library to discuss four, pre-distributed research papers. Participants are expected to have read the papers in advance and come prepared to discuss them. The California Medieval History Seminar is supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as the CMRS, the Huntington Library, and the Caltech Huntington Committee for the Humanities.
Papers scheduled for discussion at this session are:
"Hell in Western Europe, c. 400 – c. 800: From Internal Discipline to External Sanction"; Alan Bernstein (University of Arizona)
"The Caravan Rests: Innocent III's Use of Itineration"; Brenda Bolton (University of London, and Visiting Professor, UC Berkeley);
"What's in a Name? Clerical Representations of Parisian Beguines (1200-1327)," Tanya Stabler (UC Santa Barbara);
"Administrating the Lands and Medicating the Minds of the Feeble Minded," Wendy J. Turner (Augusta State University).
The Poetics of Penance in Medieval Wales
November 16, 2004 In this lecture, CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar Catherine McKenna (English, and Irish Studies Program, CUNY) looks at medieval Christian penance from the perspective of the beirdd y tywysogion 'poets of the princes' who composed and performed their poetry in the courts of the Welsh princes between ca. 1137 and 1282, when the last independent native Welsh prince, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, died in an ambush by forces loyal to Edward I. She reads the religious lyric of these poets as performance of a form of extra-ecclesial communal public penance, situating both poetry and performance within the contexts of the conventions of poetic performance in the Welsh courts and also of the numerous and varied ways in which those courts and the world in which they were embedded constituted a theatre for the performance of penance, both public and private, and for the confession mandated by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.
CMRS Faculty Roundtable
November 17, 2004
Professor Marianna Birnbaum (Germanic Languages, UCLA) discusses "The Long Journey of Gracia Mendes." CMRS faculty, associates, graduate students, and friends are invited to attend. Bring your lunch! The Center will provide soft drinks and coffee.
Bride's Head Revisited
November 19, 2004
It is axiomatic in the study of Irish saints' cults that we have a trove of reliquaries and many objects associated with early medieval holy persons—bells, books, and crosiers—but virtually no physical remains. Saint Brigit is a prime example of this physical absence; some would argue that she has left no 'footprint' in Ireland but that of a fifteenth-century shoe reliquary in the National Museum. The fact is, however, that Brigit is intensely present in the Irish landscape, particularly in the holy wells associated with her that are still the centers of vibrant cults. And there are, as well, relics of what is believed to be Brigit's body, recovered from sanctuaries on the continent where they were taken for safekeeping during the Reformation. This presentation by CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar Catherine McKenna (English, and Irish Studies Program, CUNY) will survey some of the most interesting aspects of the material dimensions of the cult of Saint Brigit in Ireland.
The Annual Hammer Foundation Lecture, "Genoa 'La Superba': Art, Family, and Civic Life in the “‘Mediterranean World’”
December 1, 2004 From Petrarch's humanist praise for "Genova 'La Superba' " to Fernand Braudel's and Roberto Lopez's modern histories of the "Mediterranean world," this major maritime city highlights a dramatic tension between art and architecture, family and civic life, mountain and harbor amphitheatre that warrants particular attention today. In this lecture, George L. Gorse (Viola Horton Professor of Art History at Pomona College, and CMRS Associate) looks at the place Genoa back in early modern history.
