Category Archives: Cfp

Louvain-la-Neuve/Leuven, 6-7 May 2025

The Society for Neo-Latin Studies (SNLS) is planning an international conference on Neo-Latin style, to be held in London on 18 and 19 September 2025.

This conference aims to bring people together to stimulate discussion on Neo-Latin material across the two days by offering a range of formats for interaction. Thus, in addition to a keynote lecture and traditional paper sessions (with papers of 20 minutes plus discussion), there will be roundtable discussions, papers followed by comments by respondents as well as a display of posters throughout the conference. Expressions of interest to contribute to any of these formats are now invited.

The conference aims to take a more in-depth look at the question of ‘Neo-Latin style’ by asking the following questions: What is meant by ‘style’? What is the early modern and the contemporary terminology to describe this phenomenon? Is there such a thing as ‘Neo-Latin style’? What features of Neo-Latin texts need to be investigated to be able to define their ‘style’? Does the style of Neo-Latin texts develop over the period traditionally defined as that of Neo-Latin literature and, if so, how? Are there any noticeable stylistic differences between texts in prose and in verse and between texts of literary genres? What is the relationship between ‘style’ and translation? How might ‘Neo-Latin’ style differ from the style of classical antiquity? Can one discern any patterns in the use or imitation of particular classical and / or other contemporary authors? Does style differ between texts produced in different countries (by writers with different vernaculars as their native languages)? How might modern research tools and methods (e.g. access to digitized and searchable texts, databases, digital humanities) contribute to research on Neo-Latin style? What has the subject already achieved in terms of research on Neo-Latin style (for instance, the recent research network on ‘Baroque Latinity’) and what would be projects for the future? These (and other) questions may be looked at in broader overviews or by means of individual case studies.

The conference will start at around midday on the first day and conclude soon after lunch on the second day, so that most attendees would only need to stay in London for one night (unless they wish to stay for longer). All presenters are expected to attend in person, though the option to join online as audience members will be set up in due course. At the moment it is not expected that there will be much funding for this conference (though funding applications are in progress). Thus, presenters and other in-person attendees should expect to pay for their own travel and accommodation; in return, there will not be any conference fees, and refreshments during the day will be provided.

Anyone interested in offering a paper, a response, a poster or participating in a roundtable discussion should send an expression of interest to the organizers (Gesine Manuwald at g.manuwald@ucl.ac.uk and Lucy Nicholas at lucy.nicholas@sas.ac.uk) by 31 October 2024. This expression of interest should include name and affiliation, indicate the format for which the contribution is intended and, where appropriate, a title for the contribution and an abstract of up to 300 words. Informal enquiries before the deadline will also be welcome.

From the 16th through to the 18th century, state descriptions were a vital part of European literary production and book markets. Such publications covered an enormous range of topics including geography, economics, cities, military, political constitutions and numerous other aspects of early modern political formations. State descriptions were written in Latin and vernacular languages alike. They could be composed as single descriptions or as collections and were often published in numerous editions and translations. Such ‘bestsellers’ on the early modern book market included several well-known works. For example, one can call to mind Lodovico Guicciardini’s description of the Low Countries (Descrittione di tutti i paesi bassi, 1567), William Camden’s description of Britain (Britannia, 1586), and the collections in Giovanni Botero’s Relationi universali (1590s), Pierre d’Avity’s Les estats, empires, et principautez du monde (1613), and the ‘Republics’, a series of Latin state descriptions printed by Elzevir and other Dutch publishers in the 1620s and 1630s. In the course of the 17th century, the production of state descriptions gained new momentum through the formal establishment of statistics as an academic discipline, in Protestant universities in Germany in particular. This development resulted in the famous “Göttinger Schule” of statistics that is associated with Gottfried Achenwall and August Ludwig von Schlözer.

It is paramount that we attain a clearer picture of the place of state descriptions in the larger context of early modern academic and non-academic learning, as well as their connections to other, non-textual media. For instance, what role did state descriptions play in the development of early modern political theory, the education of and communication between diplomats, and the knowledge networks of merchants? How did they intersect with fields such as cartography or other media concerned with the pictorial representation of geographical and political aspects of early modern states?

Our conference aims to bring together multiple interdisciplinary perspectives on early modern state descriptions to address the abovementioned areas and similar fields. Rather than investigating state descriptions as a single literary genre or form of printed publication, we want to shed light on the early modern interest in different forms of literary and non-literary representations of contemporary political formations as a broader cultural phenomenon. Contributions might address, but are not limited to, the following research questions:

• On what methodical basis can we identify target audiences and actual readers of early modern state descriptions? Which academic and non-academic factors stimulated the huge interest in such publications?
• How can we describe the relationship between state descriptions in Latin and in the vernacular languages? Are there certain focal points related to time or region? Can we recognize specific connections between the language and the target audiences of such publications? What role do translations play?
• How did the authors and editors of state descriptions systematize and manage the vast amount of potentially relevant information? How do their different forms of information management interact with the literary and academic purposes of a work?
• How can we describe these often-complicated use of literary sources more specifically, rather than applying general concepts such as ‘compilation’ or ‘anthology’ (cf. e.g. Reddemann, Staatenkunde als Weltbeschreibung, 2024)?
• How do state descriptions, as ‘factual’ representations of concrete political formations, respond to and interact with writings and trends in the field of political theory?
• How does book-historical evidence help us shape clearer ideas about the dissemination, readerships, and practical use of state descriptions? What can we say about their presence in early modern libraries and book collections and how may this reveal more about domain-specific practices of book collecting?
• Which non-literary forms of representing, illustrating, and describing early modern states can we identify? Do they interact with or react to textual state descriptions and, if so, in what specific ways?

We are looking forward to receiving contributions from researchers in the entire breadth of disciplines within the field of early modern studies. We plan to publish the revised papers in the series Intersections. Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture (Brill).

The conference will take place April 10-11, 2025, in Münster. The University of Münster will take care for travel costs for speakers and provide their hotel accommodation for the duration of the conference. The language of contributions and discussion is English. The deadline for submissions is July 21, 2024. Please send an abstract of your contribution (ca. 250 words) and a preliminary title to both organisers, Karl Enenkel (kenen_01@uni-muenster.de) and Lukas Reddemann (lukas.reddemann@uni-muenster.de).

An international conference at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies (Innsbruck, Austria) September 26-27, 2024

organized by James McNamara, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck Victoria E. Pagán, University of Florida Department of Classics

According to the Italian Renaissance philosopher and historian Francesco Guicciardini, “Cornelius Tacitus teaches those who live under tyrants quite well the way of living and governing themselves prudently, just has he teaches tyrants the ways of founding tyranny.” In the early twentieth century, Giuseppe Toffanin reframed the paradox in terms of a “red” Tacitus, champion of liberty and enemy of tyranny, and the “black” Tacitus, defender of monarchy and Realpolitik. Our project explores this phenomenon, whereby early modern interpretations of Tacitus influence later engagements in the cultural imagination. To what extent does Tacitus come pre-packaged, as it were, by pronouncements levied during a distinct period when he was radically popular and widely read? As Stephen Hinds has shown in his groundbreaking work on Latin poetry, texts accrete meaning in each successive appropriation by later classical poets. Our study, on the other hand, questions the extent to which the early modern interpretations are themselves starting points for later authors. When authors read Tacitus, to what extent are they engaging in received traditions? Is it possible to refer to Tacitus without thinking through the colored lenses of red and black?

Reinventing Tacitus closely examines and analyzes the uses of the Roman historian Tacitus since the early modern period, taking seriously the possibility of meaningful contact with Tacitus beyond superficial adornment, esoteric quotation, or learned allusion. Rather than attempt to prove unbroken continuity in the reception of Tacitus across all time periods, our project examines distinct eruptions of interest in Tacitus. As successive eras rediscover Tacitus, the echoes of previous rediscoveries either persist or die away. Ours is a study of dynamic reception that explores the influences of Tacitus on the moment as well as their effects on future iterations.

We invite papers that explore the reception of Tacitus diachronically, investigating receptions of Tacitus which bear the imprint of the early modern period. Such comparisons will illustrate continuities and breaks in the history of thought. Through recourse to the notions of reinvention and reappropriation, we hope to generate discussion that moves beyond insights about Roman historiography in general, beyond identification of the presence of Tacitus in a later text, and indeed beyond Tacitism as a distinct period. Our method aims at encouraging historically situated readings capable, as appropriate, of demonstrating both how an ancient author is reinvented in light of contemporary concerns and how the drive to understand the present through an ancient touchstone can create a sense of community across time. Through close engagement with scholars of the early modern period, we hope to initiate conversations that contribute to the history of European intellectual life, and ultimately to help us understand our own peculiar moment in a world that is increasingly either “black” or “red.”

Confirmed speakers include Claudio Buongiovanni, Professor of Latin, Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli,” Naples; John-Mark Philo, UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellow 2023-24; Shushma Malik, College Lecturer, Newnham College, University of Cambridge; and Lucie Claire, Lecturer in Latin language and literature, Université de Picardie Jules Verne.

Please send abstracts of no more than 800 words to vepagan@ufl.edu and James.McNamara@neolatin.lbg.ac.at by Friday May 10, 2024. Notifications of acceptance will be sent on Friday May 17, 2024.

Classical bilingualism in the early modern languagescape: Interactions of Latin with Greek and beyond
IANLS Conference Aix-en-Provence (14-20 July, 2025)
Organizers: Isabelle Maes, Raf Van Rooy, Manou Vermeire
(KU Leuven, Seminarium Philologiae Humanisticae)

We invite all members of the IANLS to contribute abstracts for a special session planned for the
forthcoming IANLS conference in Aix-en-Provence. The special session shall be dedicated to Neo-Latin
in a multilingual context. Special attention will be paid to interactions with Greek, whether in connection
with other vernacular and/or learned languages or not. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Code-switching, translation, or original composition in the two classical languages, whether in
  connection with other languages or not;
• The appearances and uses of classical bilingualism and multilingualism in relation to e.g. genre,
  period, and context;
• Tools or methods to investigate classical bilingualism and multilingualism or the problems raised
  in developing them;
• The sociocultural significance of language choice;
• Material and book-historical aspects of classical bilingualism.

You are welcome to send your abstracts for a paper aligned with the topic of this special session to
Isabelle Maes (isabelle.maes1@kuleuven.be) and Manou Vermeire (manou.vermeire@kuleuven.be) no
later than April 25, 2024. We are open to both case study-based and data-driven analyses of classical
bilingualism in the early modern languagescape. Submissions in any of the official languages of the
IANLS are accepted and should be between 150 words minimum and 200 words maximum in length.
Detailed guidelines for the submissions are found in the First circular letter for the triennium 2022-2025.
The Organizers will evaluate all submitted abstracts and notify authors by May 8, 2024 regarding the
inclusion of their paper in the special session. To participate at the special session, speakers must be
active members of the IANLS. Upon acceptance of their proposal, speakers will have to register
individually for the conference in Aix-en-Provence.

Comedy, satire, Lucianism – whenever one of these keywords is used in connection with Early Modern literature, it also brings to mind the genre of the mock, or ironic encomium (also known as parodic / satirical eulogy; in German: ironisches / paradoxes Enkomion, or Scherzenkomion; in French: éloge paradoxal): that is, the laudatory description of an unworthy object. This concise definition aptly characterizes a type of text that could already be found in Greek and Roman Antiquity (e.g. the Praise of Helen by the Sophist Gorgias, 5^th century BC, Lucian’s Praise of the Fly, 2^nd century AD, or Apuleius’ Laus Paupertatis in his Apology, 2^nd century AD). In the age of humanism, the genre spread in both the Latin and the vernacular literature of Europe. As far as Latin is concerned, this literary fashion undoubtedly reached its climax in the sixteenth century, with Erasmus’ Laus stultitiae (1511) as the most famous example, and Girolamo Cardano’s Encomium Neronis (1562), an important contribution to the debate on the reliability of historiography. Hence, it is scarcely surprising that the first half of the seventeenth century saw the appearance of numerous compendia which assembled the ‘sum’ of the relevant output, the largest and most widespread being Caspar Dornavius’ Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Socraticae Joco-Seriae (1619). In Italy, France, and England, more than in Germany, ironic praises and mock encomia were often also written in the vernacular, even by quite prominent authors like Francesco Berni (I capitoli, 1537), François Rabelais (Tiers livre, 1546), Joachim Du Bellay (Hymne de la Surdité, 1558), or Thomas Nashe (Praise of the Red Herring, 1598).

A more detailed definition of the genre in question could include the following aspects: A mock encomium is a text in verse or in prose which, in a positive manner, pays tribute to an object – animate or inanimate, concrete or abstract –, although this object is, in the commonly prevalent view, ludicrous or harmful. This positive appraisal is ironic to the extent that it should be partially, even if often not entirely, understood in the contrary sense. Following textual-linguistic or rhetorical criteria, the praise can be bestowed in different ways, albeit less in the narrative or dramatic mode. In various settings, the speakers might either argue on their own account or with regard to an object.

The general definition of the genre should omit any allocation of function because the purposes for which these texts were composed are exceptionally varied, and this also applies to the authors’ poetological self-testimonies. To give just one example, John Donne made a particularly provocative statement on his Paradoxes (1633): “If they make you to find better reasons against them, they do their office.” Annette H. Tomarken, one of the specialists in this field, describes the range of the genre with the greatest possible objectivity (1990): “The mock encomium is marked by a degree of praise variable in intensity, and by a degree of satire or irony that can vary from the merely playful to the overtly satirical.” At any rate, mock encomia are considerably more than exercises in rhetorical style, a play with intertextual references, or witty popular fiction. Rather, most texts are closely linked to the social, political, confessional, philosophical, or cultural discourses of the age in which they were created. Due to their particular formal structures and communicative strategies, they are in a position both to influence and to depict the Zeitgeist of the Early Modern period. For this very reason, it is extremely important to analyze not only the linguistic and stylistic aspects, but also the context and the possible intentions behind the writing of such texts.

The majority of Early Modern mock encomia are about diseases (e.g. plague, podagra, blindness), human vices (drunkenness, debts; also wicked men and women, like Nero or Julian the Apostate) or insignificant or harmful animals (fleas, lice, flies and the like). The spectrum of genres in which ironic praise manifests itself ranges from the panegyric speech or treatise to the anti-Petrarchist sonnet, the French contre-blason or the ironical capitolo of the Italian tradition. Special forms are mock epitaphs or witty funeral speeches, even on animals (e.g. Ortensio Lando’s Sermoni funebri nella morte de diversi animali, 1548), ironic defence speeches (e.g. Willibald Pirckheimer’s Apologia seu Podagrae Laus, 1522) or logical paradoxes such as the numerous writings on ‘Nobody’ (e.g. Ulrich von Hutten, 1518) and ‘Nothing’ (e.g. Jean Passerat, 1582).

Until now, only a few of these texts that often fascinate with their originality and humour have been examined more closely – despite the fact that the source material is very extensive nowadays thanks to the digitisation of even the least known texts. We would like to encourage researchers from different countries and disciplinary backgrounds to identify and analyze such little-known texts. Of course, we also welcome studies that refer to famous examples of mock encomia, especially if they discuss or continue previous research. We invite papers that address individual texts or offer comparative analyses as well as papers that approach the genre of the mock encomium from a more theoretical perspective. We would further like to encourage you to present texts written by women or to examine aspects of ironic praise and intermediality in the visual arts (e.g. in Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s still lifes).

Mock encomia in the strict sense of the word – Latin and vernacular – will be at the centre of the conference. Under the heading of ‘paradoxical humour’, however, we encourage you to deal with texts that formally belong to a different genre – for instance, Menippean satires – but partly show structural analogies to the mock encomium. Questions that could be asked are: How do these texts turn established ideas upside down in a perverted and/or parodic form to create a moment of wonder and to elicit critical reflection on the readers’ part by disappointing their expectations? How do they further challenge or contest the prevailing opinion and which serio-comic strategies do they apply to envision an alternative? Well-known examples of this type would be the Epistolae obscurorum virorum (1515/17), Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) or Michel de Montaigne’s Essais (1580). Likewise, mock encomia integrated into larger texts can be treated, such as the eulogies on various vices in Molière’s Dom Juan (1682) or the praise of debt in Rabelais’ Tiers livre (1546). Moreover, academic culture brought its own highly interesting forms to the genre, such as mock dissertations and quodlibet discussions (e.g. Caspar Diepelius’s Quaestio an ridere liceat, 1582, or Erycius Puteanus’s Democritus sive de Risu dissertatio saturnalis, 1612). Contributions that do not deal with ‘real’ mock encomia should always refer to the genre model in one way or another. Together, we hope to reevaluate, challenge and expand existing genre definitions, while examining a variety of texts by Neo-Latin and vernacular authors.

The conference will take place at the beginning of September 2025 at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. The exact date cannot yet be finalized as it has to be coordinated with the schedule of the trade fairs in Frankfurt. The planned date is 4^th to 7^th September, but a deviation of a few days is still possible. The conference will be held in English. The revised papers will be published in the Intersections series (Brill: Leiden).

We are confident that the conference will be funded by external donors (travel expenses, accommodation). We are, however, unable to cover the costs of flights from overseas and ask participants from these countries to apply for appropriate funding.

We kindly ask you to submit a title and a short synopsis of your current ideas on the topic (150–250 words) by 31^st May 2024. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

Sari Kivistö: sari.kivisto@tuni.fi

Katharina-Maria Schön: katharina-maria.schoen@univie.ac.at

Robert Seidel: robertcseidel@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de

Selected Bibliography

Billerbeck M. – Zubler C., Das Lob der Fliege von Lukian bis L. B. Alberti. Gattungsgeschichte, Texte, Übersetzungen und Kommentar, Sapheneia 5 (Bern – Berlin – Brussels – Frankfurt am Main – New York – Oxford – Vienna: 2000).

Brummack J., “Zu Begriff und Theorie der Satire”, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 45 (1971) Sonderheft, *275–*377.

Colie R., Paradoxia Epidemica. The Renaissance Tradition of Paradox (Princeton: 1966).

Crimi G. (ed.), Francesco Berni e la poesia bernesca, L’Ellisse 1/2 (Rome: 2021)

Dandrey P., L’ Éloge paradoxal de Gorgias à Molière, Écriture (Paris: 1997).

De Smet, I. Menippean Satire and the Republic of Letters 1581–1655, Travaux du grand siècle 2 (Genève: 1996).

Eberl N., Cardanos Encomium Neronis. Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentar, Europäische Hochschulschriften 15, 66(Frankfurt am Main – Berlin – Bern – New York – Vienna: 1994).

Erasmus von Rotterdam, “Morias enkomion sive Laus stultitiae”, in Welzig W. (ed.), Erasmus von Rotterdam, Ausgewählte Schriften, vol. 2 (Darmstadt: 1975) 1–211.

Hartung, S., “Rehierarchisierungen und Systemverschiebungen in der paradoxen Lob- und Tadelliteratur der Renaissance”, in: Föcking M. – Huss B. (ed.), Varietas und Ordo. Zur Dialektik von Vielfalt und Einheit in Renaissance und Barock, Text und Kontext 18(Stuttgart: 2003) 91–114.

Hauffen A., “Zur Litteratur der ironischen Enkomien”, Vierteljahrsschrift für Litteraturgeschichte 6 (1893) 161–185.

Jones-Davies M.-Th. (ed.), Le Paradoxe au temps de la Renaissance, Centre de Recherches sur la Renaissance 7 (Paris: 1982).

Kaiser W., Praisers of Folly: Erasmus, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Harvard studies in comparative literature 25 (Cambridge, Mass.: 1963)

Kirk, E. P., Menippean Satire. An Annotated Catalogue of Texts and Criticism, Garland reference library of the humanities 191 (New York – London: 1980).

Kivistö S., “Painfully Happy: Satirical Disease Eulogies and the Good Life”, in id., Medical Analogy in Latin Satire (New York: 2009) 62–102.

MacPhail, E. Odious Praise. Rhetoric, Religion, and Social Thought (University Park, PA: 2022).

Malloch A. E., “The Techniques and Function of the Renaissance Paradox”, Studies in Philology 53 (1956) 191–203.

Meyer W., Laudes inopiae (Göttingen: 1915).

Miller H. K., “The Paradoxical Encomium with Special Reference to its Vogue in England, 1600–1800”, Modern Philology 53 (1956) 145–178.

Ogino A., Les éloges paradoxaux dans le Tiers et le Quart Livre de Rabelais. Enquête sur le comique et le cosmique à la Renaissance (Tokyo: 1989).

Pease A.S., “Things Without Honor”, Classical Philology 21 (1926) 27–42.

Pouey-Mounou A.-P., Panurge comme lard en pois. Paradoxe, scandale et propriété dans le ‘Tiers Livre’, Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 513 (Genève: 2013).

Schnoor F., Das lateinische Tierlobgedicht in Spätantike, Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, Lateinische Sprache und Literatur des Mittelalters 52 (Bern – Brussels – Frankfurt am Main – New York – Oxford – Warsaw – Vienna: 2017).

Seidel R., “Einleitung”, in id. (ed.), Caspar Dornavius (Dornau), Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Socraticae Joco-Seriae. Schauplatz scherz- und ernsthafter Weisheiten. Neudruck der Ausgabe Hanau 1619, Texte der Frühen Neuzeit 9 (Goldbach: 1995) VII–XLVIII.

Tomarken A.H., The Smile of Truth. The French Satirical Eulogy and Its Antecedents (Princeton: 1990).

Verberckmoes J., “Puteanus’ Democritus, sive de risu”, Humanistica Lovaniensia 49 (2000) 399–409.

White P., “The Poetics of Nothing: Jean Passerat’s De Nihilo and its Legacy”, Erudition and the Republic of Letters 5 (2020) 237–273.

Call for papers voor een conferentie die gehouden zal worden van 31 oktober tot 2 november 2024 in Praag. De deadline is 1 mei. Zie voor meer informatie: https://www.utkk.ee/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cfp_muscovites.pdf

Call for papers voor een internationale conferentie in Naarden/Amsterdam op14-16 November 2024. De deadline is 29 februari 2024. Voor meer informatie, zie: https://networks.h-net.org/system/files/attachments/call-papers-2024.pdf

The 24th NeoLatina conference on The Afterlife of Neo-Latin Literature will take place from June 27th to 28th, 2024 in Freiburg im Breisgau. The organizers invite paper proposals in German or English, containing a provisional title and an abstract of a few sentences. Please send your proposal to Prof. Dr. Stefan Tilg (stefan.tilg@altphil.uni-freiburg.de) or Dr. Stefano Poletti (stefano.poletti@altphil.uni-freiburg.de) by 31 January 2024.

For further information please see: https://www.altphil.uni-freiburg.de/termine/neolatina2024