I am sorry to report that Marcia Colish has died after major cardiac surgery at the Yale New Haven Hospital. She taught in the history department for nearly 40 years at Oberlin College, in Ohio, and was for the last several decades affiliated with Yale University. Her many important writings include a two-volume study of the reception of Stoicism in the early Middle Ages (Brill 1985) and another two-volume study of Peter Lombard (Brill 1994).
Spring Happenings
I trust that everyone celebrated, in their own fashion, the 750th anniversary of Thomas Aquinas’s death this past week. (My own celebrations took place in Leuven.) For anyone uninspired by that anniversary, we now have the 750th anniversary of the 1277 condemnations to look forward to in three years’ time.
Here’s some information about what’s going on in the field. Many of the deadlines are for this Friday, March 15.
Notre Dame’s History of Philosophy Forum is advertising a three-year postdoc, open to any area in the history of philosophy. The application deadline is March 25, 2024. Details here.
That same Notre Dame program is advertising two funding opportunities to spend limited periods of time conducting research in South Bend. The application deadlines are March 15, 2024. Details here.
The SIEPM is advertising various prizes and funding opportunities this spring, including the Jacqueline Hamesse Award for the best paper by a younger scholar, and the one-to-one stipend for junior scholars seeking to spend time working with a senior scholar in the field.
Funded PhD positions in medieval studies are available through a program jointly sponsored by King’s College London and Kent University, thanks to a grant from the Leverhulme Trust. See details here. Students interested in applying in philosophy should contact Dr. Zita Toth (KCL).
There’s also the opportunity for PhD funding in Helsinki, working with Filipe Pereira da Silva on the topic of ancient sources of matter in late medieval commentaries on Aristotle. The application deadline is this week: March 15, 2024. Details here.
The 34th meeting of the Medieval Philosophy Network in the U.K. will take place on March 19th, 2024 in London.
The annual Journée Incipit is scheduled for March 23rd, 2024, in Paris. The keynote lecture will be given by Wouter Goris (Bonn).
In Naples next month there’s a three-day conference on San Tommaso d’Aquino, uomo del Mediterraneo, uomo del dialogo (April 25-27, 2024).
There’s a week-long summer seminar in Germany this summer on thirteenth-century debates on human freedom. The program is open to advanced undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs (July 3-7, 2024, Regensburg). Some funding is available. Despite what the website says, I have it on good authority that the correct application deadline is this week: March 15.
The Thomistic Institute (Washington DC) is sponsoring a week-long colloquium for graduate students this summer on Contemporary Thomistic Christology (July 29-Aug 3, 2024, Washington). Funding is available. The application deadline is this week: March 15.
There’s a conference in Paris in June to celebrate the joint 750th anniversaries of the death of Aquinas and Bonaventure (June 13-14, 2024). Details at Pariscope médiéval.
The University of Lisbon, in collaboration with the Society for the European History of Ideas, is organizing its own conference in October to celebrate the Aquinas-Bonaventure anniversaries (October 9-11, 2024, Lisbon). Cfp deadline: March 28, 2024. [Now extended to April 28th.] See details here.
Durham University is advertising two online, two-week intensive courses in Latin and early-modern English paleography. Details here.
A couple of significant European professorships in medieval philosophy have been filled recently. In Leuven, Jenny Pelletier has been appointed to a permanent research professorship. Meanwhile, Nicola Polloni has been appointed to a similar position in Messina.
Help wanted. Some time ago, I announced an initiative to start an open-access series of editions and translations in medieval philosophy. Through the hard work of many, this initiative—the Medieval Text Consortium—is now coming close to seeing the appearance of its first volume, with more in the works. We would be glad to receive proposals for future volumes. At the moment, though, we are looking for someone with skills in LaTeX typesetting (or at a minimum an enthusiasm to learn), who could help us bring these volumes into print. Some compensation is available. Anyone interested in being involved in the project should contact me directly.
News for January 2024
Lumen Christi is offering a wide range of summer seminars, including seminars on eudaimonia (in Philadelphia, with Martin Seligman, Candace Vogler and others) and on Aquinas on Free Choice (in Chicago, with Stephen Brock). The seminars are aimed at PhD students. Application deadlines are this week — February 2 — and the funding is very generous. Details here.
The University of Notre Dame is advertising a summer school for graduate students–in Rome!–on premodern philosophy and science, on the topic Elements of Nature/Elements of Reasoning (June 17-20, 2024). Significant funding is available. The application deadline is February 15, 2024.
The Angelicum Thomistic Institute, in collaboration with Hong Kong Baptist University, is advertising a summer seminar on Asian philosophy and scholasticism: Peace, Inside and Out. Both graduate students and post-doctoral scholars are eligible to apply, and funding is available for all participants (July 15-26, 2024, Hong Kong). The application deadline has been extended to February 29, 2024.
There’s a major conference in two weeks in Paris on New Social Perspectives in Medieval Philosophy, organized by Ana María Mora-Márquez (Gothenburg) and Jenny Pelletier (Gothenburg) (February 12-14, 2024).
The Aquinas and the Arabs International Working Group is advertising its twelfth annual graduate conference (online, March 15-16, 2024). The cfp deadline is February 9.
Thomas Aquinas College (California) is again organizing a Thomistic summer conference, this year on the theme of Virtue, Law, and the Common Good (June 13-16, 2024). The cfp deadline is February 19.
Babes-Bolyai University, in Romania, is organizing a conference in April on medieval theories of the internal senses (April 19-20, Cluj-Napoca). There’s a call for abstracts that expires February 20th, 2024.
The Carmelite Institute in Rome, in collaboration with the IRHT-CNRS in Paris, is organizing a workshop on John Baconthorpe (May 9-11, 2024, in Rome). Proposals should be sent, by March, to Monica Brinzei.
Quaderni di Noctua, the open-access Italian journal, has put out a call for papers on the work of Henry of Harclay. Interested scholars should contact Francesco Fiorentino (Bari) by March 31, 2024.
The Aquinas Institute (Wyoming) is advertising bargain-priced paperback editions of its bilingual Aquinas volumes. The only catch is that these editions are for sale only outside the United States. Details here.
Congratulations to Stephen Ogden (Notre Dame) for winning an NEH fellowship to support his next book project, in which he is building on his work on Ibn Rushd on intellect to take on the topic of the active intellect in Ibn Sīnā.
Congratulations to Shane Duarte (Notre Dame) for winning an NEH fellowship to support the latest of his book-length translations of Francisco Suárez. The project the NEH is funding is Metaphysical Disputations 30, on arguments from natural reason for God’s existence and nature. Shane has already published beautiful faithful bilingual editions/translations of DM I-IV (CUA Press, 2021-2023), and he tells me that he hopes, in time, to press on to translate DM 5-11. If you see him at a conference, buy him a beer or two.
Updates from December 2023
The University of Toronto has advertised a senior position in classical Islamic philosophy. This is the faculty line currently held by Deborah Black who is, alas, retiring. The application deadline is January 11, 2024.
Tamer Nawar (Barcelona) is advertising two three-year postdoctoral positions and two four-year PhD positions, in association with his ERC project on Truth in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. The application deadlines are the end of February 2024.
The Extending New Narratives project is advertising two one-year postdocs, focused on “research related to the retrieval and recognition of philosophical works by women and individuals from other marginalized groups in both the European and non-European traditions” from the 9th century forward. Details here. The application deadline is January 3, 2024.
The History of Philosophy Forum (Notre Dame) is advertising various small grants for scholars seeking to conduct research for several weeks at Notre Dame. Details here. The application deadline is March 15, 2024.
Notre Dame is also advertising its annual Mellon Junior Faculty Fellowship in Medieval Studies. This is a year-long fellowship aimed at scholars who are assistant professors at North American universities. The application deadline is February 1, 2024. Details here.
The monthly KU Leuven hybrid Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy has announced its schedule this academic year, on the general theme of “Encounter, Dialogue, and Integration: The Reception of Western Medieval Philosophy in East Asia.” The schedule, and details on how to join, by zoom or in person, can be found here.
The XXIV European Symposium in Medieval Logic and Semantics has extended its cfp deadline until December 20th, 2023. The theme is Truth, Falsity and Lying (Parma, June 17-20, 2024).
The University of Tulsa (Oklahoma) is holding an interdisciplinary conference in March to honor the 750th anniversary of Thomas Aquinas’s death (March 7-9, 2024). The Cfp deadline is December 31, 2023. Participants will receive a travel stipend.
Symposium Thomisticum VII meets next June on the topic of Aquinas in History. The cfp deadline is February 29, 2024 (Vienna, June 6-8, 2024).
St. Louis University is advertising its annual interdisciplinary Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies. They welcome proposals for individual papers and complete sessions (June 10-12, 2024). The submission deadline is December 31, 2023.
The annual Marquette Summer Seminar on Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition has put out a call for submissions. This year’s topic is “Knowledge, Nous, and Noetics in Aristotle and the Aristotelian Traditions” (Milwaukee, June 24-26, 2024). The cfp deadline is February 15, 2024.
The International Society for the Study of Medieval Theology is holding a conference next summer on The End: Finiteness, Death, and Completion in Medieval Theology (Utrecht, June 26-28, 2024). The application deadline is December 20th, 2024.
The SIEPM has put out the call for proposals for its 2024 annual colloquium, in Prague, on the topic Communities of Debate: Collective Intellectual Practice in Medieval Philosophical Thought. (Sept. 4-6, 2024, Prague). Cfp deadline is Jan. 31, 2024.
Congratulations to Stephen Ogden (Notre Dame), who has won the annual book prize from the Journal of the History of Philosophy for Averroes on Intellect (OUP, 2022).
Congratulations to Colin Murtha (Nijmegen) for winning the SMRP’s 2023 Founder’s Award for the best paper by a younger scholar. The paper’s title is “A Stratified World: Avicenna’s Theory of the Sublunary Strata.”
Back in October, Brill and De Gruyter announced that they would be combing as a single press, De Gruyter Brill. To be exact, De Gruyter is buying Brill. It will be interesting to see the impact this has on these two important presses in our field.
C. H. Kneepkens (1944-2023)
I am sorry to report that Onno Kneepkens died last week. He was professor of medieval Latin at the University of Groningen until his retirement in 2009, and published quite extensively on medieval logic and grammar. He served for many years as editor of Vivarium, and was a beloved colleague and mentor over his long career to many scholars.
News from October 2023
The Aquinas and the Arabs International Working Group (AAIWG) is advertising online classes in both Latin and Arabic. The Latin course, which is for beginners, is free, but it begins tomorrow morning (October 7). The Arabic course–classical Arabic at various levels of instruction–involves a fee. Details here.
There’s a large international conference on medieval theories of intentionality scheduled to begin in 10 days in Romania. There apparently is an online option to attend the conference, although I have not found details online. For participants and contact information see here. (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, October 16-17, 2023).
The whole of the Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii Aevi is now available, for free, in electronic form, here. If you’re looking for So-and-So “of Dacia,” this is the place.
Congratulations to Andreas Lammer (Nijmegen), who has just won an ERC Starting Grant on the topic Avicenna Live: The Immediate Context of Avicenna’s Intellectual Formation. This €1.5M grant will fund a team of scholars working on this project for 5 years. Scholars seeking to work in this area should keep an eye out for opportunities to be funded through this grant.
David Burrell (1933-2023)
Father David Burrell died this past Sunday. He was a member of the Congregation of Holy Cross, and spent most of his teaching career at the University of Notre Dame, where he had also been an undergraduate. His many publications are concerned especially with interfaith dialogue among the Abrahamic traditions. There is a brief obituary here.
Hans Gerhard Senger (1936-2023)
I have just learned from Andreas Speer that Hans Gerhard Senger died yesterday. He was, since 1962, a researcher at the Thomas-Institut in Cologne, and devoted himself particularly to the critical edition of the Cusanus Opera omnia, as well as associated translations, monographs, and papers. Further information about his work is available here, and Dr. Speer’s memorial notice is available here.
John F. Wippel (1933-2023)
I am sorry to report that Father John Wippel died yesterday morning. He taught at Catholic University of America for his entire career, from 1960 on, and was one of the principal figures shaping the study of medieval philosophy in America over the last half century. His work focused particularly on the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas, but made important contributions as well to our understanding of Latin Averroism and Godfrey of Fontaines. There is a brief biography on Wikipedia.
Upcoming Conferences on Zoom and Others
The annual medieval colloquium at the University of Toronto takes place at the end of next week. Details here. (Toronto, Sept. 22-23, 2023.)
The Fourth International Meeting of the Avicenna Study Group, starting in Paris in two days, is also accessible remotely. Details here. (Sept. 13-15, 2023.)
The previously advertised SIEPM annual colloquium starts tomorrow in Trento, on the subject of divine foreknowledge. Those unable to attend in person are invited to join remotely. Details here. (Sept. 12-15, 2023.)
In honor of the 800th anniversary of Thomas Aquinas’s birth, Notre Dame is sponsoring what looks to be quite a large conference next fall, Aquinas at 800: Ad multos annos. The cfp deadline is November 1, 2023. (South Bend, Indiana, Sept. 22-25, 2024.)
Johns Hopkins University is beginning what it hopes will become an annual event, the Hopkins Seminar in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. One-page abstracts are due October 10, 2023. (Baltimore, December 10-11, 2023.)
Monika Michałowska and Michael Dunne are sponsoring an international conference on Will-Discourse in the Late Middle Ages. (Łódź, June 20-21, 2024.) The deadline for receiving abstracts is October 31, 2023.
The XXIV European Symposium in Medieval Logic and Semantics will be held next summer in Parma, on the topic of Truth, Falsity and Lying (June 17-20, 2024). The cfp deadline is November 30, 2023.
The Franciscan Institute will be holding a conference next summer on the topic, “Qui primus legit: Studies in Sentence Commentaries on the Eighth Centenary of Alexander of Hales’s Lectures.” The conference’s focus is the broad subject of Sentences commentaries as a genre. Paper proposals should be submitted, by Nov. 15, 2023, to Prof. Aaron Gies. At the moment there seems to be no web page. (St. Bonaventure, New York, July 11-13, 2024.)
The Franciscan Institute is also sponsoring a session at the Leeds medieval studies conference next summer on “Bonaventure as a Reader of Albertus Magnus.” Brief proposals need to be sent by this Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, to Prof. Luke Togni (July 1-4, 2024, Leeds).
If anyone has a paper lying around on Irrationality and Madness (or perhaps just one of the two?), they’ve got four days to submit it to David Bennett and Filip Radovic, who are organizing a session at the Kalamazoo medieval studies congress on the subject. Papers can be submitted here. (Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 9-11, 2024.) Proposals due Sept. 15, 2023.
The international History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) conference will be in Vienna next July, and they are calling both for individual papers and for symposium proposals. The proposal deadline has been extended to October 1, 2023. Details here. (Vienna, July 9-12, 2024.)
The University of Wisconsin (Madison) is again advertising its Solmsen fellowships, aimed at scholars in the humanities working on Europe pre-1700.
Claus Andersen (Louvain) has continued his efforts to provide us with a guide to medieval editions available at the Internet Archive. His latest list provides links to William of Ockham’s Opera theologica and Opera politica. (But not the Opera philosophica, which, oddly, does not seem to be available there.)
Congratulations to Peter Hartman (Loyola Chicago), who won a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study medieval theories of consciousness. Announcement here.
In medias PHIL 