Expanding the Renaissance: RSA Graduate Student Virtual Lightning Talks

The RSA Graduate Student Advisory Committee invites the Renaissance studies community to the second session of the Online Graduate Student Lightning Talk Series “Expanding the Renaissance,” taking place on 26 February 2021 from 12:00–1:30 p.m. EST.

Join us online and engage with graduate students presenting topics, sources, or methodologies that are commonly excluded or overlooked from mainstream narratives. Register online at rsa.org.

To connect with the RSA Student Community, visit the RSA Student Community Humanities Commons page.

Programme

Anna Cruse, University of Warwick
Conditioned Perspectives: Approaching Accounts of Art in the Vijayanagara Empire

Sunghoon Lee, University of Pennsylvania
Escala: Art, Scale, and Geographic Vastness in the Art of the Spanish Empire, 1521–1621

Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh, University of Cambridge
Monuments, Hermeneutics, or Astronomy? The Jesuit China Mission and the Expansion of Historical Sources from the Late Renaissance to the Early Enlightenment

Xinyi Wen, University of Cambridge
New World materia medica in Paracelsian Medicine and the Closure of Mystical Philosophy

Amy Chang, Harvard University
Architecture at the Edge of Empire: Seville, Manila, and the Formation of Spanish National Architecture, 16th–17th c.

Luc Wodzicki, Freie Universität, Berlin
Ottoman Virtue Politics, or, the trans-Mediterranean Renaissance of Virtue

Expanding the Renaissance: Graduate Student Virtual Lightning Talks

Image: Akbar Ordering the Slaughter of Animals to Cease in 1578, attributed to Miskina, folio from the Akbarnama, ca. 1590, Mughal India; pasted into the Johnson album. British Library J.8, 4

RSA 2021 Day(s) of Digital Learning

The Renaissance Society of America is pleased to offer Day(s) of Digital Learning for the third time, in connection to the annual conference. Since the RSA conference is entirely virtual this year, we will hold the workshops separate from the conference between March 8–21, 2021.

Organized by members of the Digital and Multimedia Committee of the RSA, the Day of Digital Learning will feature a varied menu of sessions involving hands-on, participatory work with digital tools and resources. Working under the direction of scholars, librarians, and IT specialists, participants will have a chance to see how their own research and teaching might benefit from digital concepts and tools, and how to develop digital literacies that will help us all understand the new tools of the trade.

Visit the RSA 2021 Day(s) of Digital Learning website for more information. The events will be open to all RSA members without charge. Registrations will be open between February 10–25, 2021.

Meadows Museum Fellowships

The Meadows Museum in Dallas, TX is accepting applications for two graduate fellowships at the museum: the Mellon Curatorial Fellowship and the Center for Spain in America (CSA) Curatorial Fellowship. The former is a two-year, postdoctoral position for candidates who have earned their PhDs within the last five years; the latter is a one-year pre-doctoral position for candidates who have completed their coursework and have advanced to the writing stage for their PhDs. Applications for both opportunities consist of a CV, personal statement, and three letters of recommendation, and all materials are due on February 15, 2021.

These fellowships support research into all periods of Spanish art and offer scholars unique opportunities to examine art of the Hispanic world, both here in Dallas with our world-renowned collection of Spanish art that spans the tenth through the twenty-first centuries and with partner institutions around the globe. Candidates seeking a museum career will gain valuable professional skills as a part of our curatorial team, working directly with exhibitions, programming, and acquisitions.

More detailed information about the positions can be found on the Meadows Museum website, which includes a digital yearbook that highlights the activities of past fellows.

The Eugene V. Thaw Fellowship for Collections Cataloguing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is seeking eligible candidates for September 2021 through August 2022.

The Eugene V. Thaw Fellowship for Collections Cataloguing is a 12-month full-time position in the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The purpose of the Fellowship is to train students and young professionals in the practice of cataloguing works of art: the research and compilation of provenance, exhibition history, and bibliographic references, as well as documenting critical opinions from the literature. These elements are the foundation of art-historical knowledge and essential for curatorial practice. The department has a long history of maintaining records on the paintings in its collection and makes these available to anyone via the museum’s website. For over a decade it has been involved in creating an online catalogue that is currently a model for many other institutions.

The Cataloguing Fellow will participate in a range of activities in the department over the twelve month period. The position will provide training in the TMS (The Museum System) database that is used throughout the museum world. The fellow will normally focus on a specific portion of the collection. Fellows will be involved in many aspects of the department’s activities and will work closely with curators as well as conservators under the direction of the department’s Senior Collections Cataloguer.

Eligible candidates should either have completed their MA or be ABD Ph.D. candidates. Preference will be given to those with some background in cataloguing, but this is not deemed essential. Basic language skills for the area in which they propose to work is essential.

The Cataloguing Fellowship stipend for the 12 month period will be $42,000 with an additional stipend of $6,000 for project/research related travel. The twelve-month full-time position will take place from September 7, 2021–August 31, 2022.

The deadline for all applications is Wednesday, February 10, 2021. Interested applicants should submit their resume, a statement of interest, and a writing sample of no more than 1000 words to: Marcie Karp, Senior Managing Educator, Academic and Professional Programs, at Academic.Programs@metmuseum.org (subject line Eugene V. Thaw Fellowship).

[text via collegeart.org]

The Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies 2021 Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference #NLGrad21

Monday, February 8, 2021–Saturday, February 13, 2021, Online

The Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies 2021 Multidisciplinary Graduate Student Conference (#NLGrad21), organized and run by advanced doctoral students, has become a premier opportunity for emerging scholars to present papers, participate in discussions, and develop collaborations across all fields of medieval, Renaissance, and early modern studies. Participants from a wide variety of disciplines find a supportive and collegial forum for their work, meet future colleagues from other institutions and disciplines, and become familiar with the Newberry and its resources. In 2021, the conference will be held virtually in a seminar-style format.

Visit the #NLGrad21 website for the complete conference schedule or download the PDF conference schedule. The roundtable sessions are free and open to the public, but registration in advance is required. To register, complete the online registration form.

Organizers

Rachel Carlisle, Florida State University
Charmaine Cordero, Claremont Graduate University
Maggie Heeschen, University of Minnesota
Paulina Leon, University of Chicago
Hayla May, Oklahoma State University
Matthew Mullin, University of Notre Dame
Elizabeth Neary, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Arianna Ray, Northwestern University
Pierpaolo Spagnolo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Krislyn Zhorne, Loyola University Chicago

RSA Volunteer Opportunities

Volunteers at the Renaissance Society of America dedicate their time and skills to enrich the Society and support the study of the period 1300–1700. We hope you will consider volunteering. There are several opportunities for RSA members to become involved including:

Please click the links above for additional information and to volunteer. Thank you in advance for your dedication to the Society. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Post-Doc Fellowships at the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel 2022

The Herzog August Bibliothek is an independent research centre funded by the State of Lower Saxony. The scope of the library’s holdings constitutes a unique archive of European culture. Manuscripts, incunabula, rare books and special collections such as engravings, maps and 20th-century artists’ books, enable almost unlimited studies of cultures of knowledge in a global perspective.

The library conducts its own research projects in the fields of medieval and early modern studies. Among the topics which currently form the focus of the library’s own research programmes are cultural translation, material culture and the history of collections and collecting. The library also welcomes applications from scholars who are working on projects related to its new research programmes Religion & Emotion and Historical Image Cultures.

Fellowships are open to all researchers who have already received their PhD. The international programme welcomes applications from all historically oriented disciplines. The deadline for applications is 31 January 2021. Fellowships have a residence requirement. The library offers accommodation in its own guest houses.

There are two categories of fellowships:

  • Post-doc Fellowships: Early career scholars who are within 6 years of receiving their PhD, may apply for a long-term fellowship of between 6 and 10 months (for applications submitted in January 2021 the PhD must have been awarded in 2015 or later). The monthly fellowship is € 2.200. The fellowship holder will receive a one-time reimbursement for the cost of travel to and from Wolfenbüttel (max. € 2.000). Fellows who bring their families to Wolfenbüttel may apply for a monthly child supplement (one child: € 300; two children € 400; three or more € 500).
  • Short-term Fellowships: The fellowships are addressed to a broad range of scholars of all career stages (from post-doc to emeriti) wishing to make a short visit in order to gather source material. Applications can be made for stays of between one and three months. The monthly fellowship is € 1.800. A travel subsidy will also be paid (between € 150 and max. € 650, depending on country of origin).

Please request an application form by email, stating your research topic and either the reference “post-doc” or “short-term”, depending on which programme you are interested in: forschung@hab.de. For further information on the library, its holdings and programmes visit: www.hab.de.

Scholars of Colour MA Bursary

As part of a positive and practical effort to attract more early career scholars of colour to the Renaissance, the Society for Renaissance Studies (SRS) is launching a fund to support MA Bursary Awards for Scholars of Colour. SRS plans to offer 3 MA bursaries of £2,500 each, to contribute to the costs of postgraduate study.

These bursaries are open to those who identify as scholars of colour. The topic on which you choose to work, and the discipline in which you are centred, is entirely open, so long as it fits within a broad definition of Renaissance studies (c. 1400-1700). The awards can be held at any institution in the UK or Ireland.

The scheme this year will have a deadline of 1 May 2021, for postgraduate taught courses running in 2021-22. Please visit the Scholars of Colour MA Bursary page for more information and to access the application form.

Grants for RSA Virtual 2021

The RSA will offer a limited number of competitive, need-based grants to assist scholars presenting a paper at RSA Virtual 2021 with the cost of registration. Presenters of panel papers and seminar papers are eligible; session monitors and discussants in roundtables are not. To be considered for a grant, please submit the grant application by 19 January 2021.

If you have a question about the grants or the application, please email rsa@rsa.org.

Call for Nominations: RSA Board of Directors

The RSA seeks to fill the position of Student counselor on the Board of Directors.

Eligibility

The Student Counselor must be currently enrolled in a PhD program and be at the dissertation writing phase of their graduate work. They must also have been an RSA member since at least January 2020.

Duties

The Student Counselor will be a full voting member of the Board of Directors and will attend all Board meetings and perform all duties incumbent upon Directors. For Board meetings held in person, the student’s expenses for travel and accommodation will be reimbursed. The Student Counselor will also serve ex officio on the RSA Graduate Student Advisory Committee, which meets with the RSA President via Zoom. The optimal candidates will have both a record of involvement with graduate students beyond their own institution and a demonstrated interest in governance and organizational strategy.

Nominations

Students may be nominated by others or may nominate themselves. In either case, they should submit a CV and a statement that explains how they would be able to address the following priorities:

  1. Helping the Board to think about new and diverse career paths for RSA student members
  2. Advancing representation of the range of situations and concerns of RSA student members
  3. Contributing to the goal of expanding diversity, equity, and inclusion at the RSA
  4. Providing advice on the best channels of communication for keeping students connected with the RSA.

The RSA Nominating Committee will review nominations and select a final candidate, whose name will be placed on the ballot for approval by the RSA Members at the Society’s spring 2021 Member Meeting.

The Student Counselor will serve up to a three-year term beginning on 1 July 2021, provided continued student status.

Contact the RSA Executive Director with any questions regarding this position.

To submit a nomination or self-nominate for this role on the RSA Board, complete the application form on the RSA Board of Directors Nomination page. Applications are due on 20 January 2021.