Category Archives: News

DCAMP goes to IMC Leeds!

DCAMP is very pleased to announce that we will be sponsoring not one, not two, not three, but FOUR sessions on medieval philosophy at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 2019! Here are the details of the four sessions:

Session 1035: What Is the Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?, I: The Matter of Logic

Wednesday July 3, 9-10:30.

This is the first of four panels on ‘What Is the
Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?’, bringing
together papers addressing the subject matter of
medieval philosophy, including how subfields of
philosophy were demarcated; how philosophy was
separated from other disciplines; how medieval
philosophy is separated from (and continuous with!)
ancient and early modern philosophy. This panel on
the subject matter of logic brings together three
papers on medieval accounts of the subject matter
of logic; the use of the notion of ‘verificare’ in
medieval logic, semantics, and epistemology; and the
role of logic in theology and philosophy.

  • Jacob Archambault, “Dialectically Situating Medieval Accounts of the Subject Matter of Logic”
  • Anastasia Kopylova, “The Role of Verificatur in W. Ockham, J. Buridan, and W. Chatton’s Semantics”
  • Claudia Appolloni, “Mundana and Sermocinali Philosophia in Peter John Olivi’s Writings”

Session 1135: What Is the Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?, II: The Matter of Metaphysics

Wednesday July 3, 11:15-12:45.

This is the second of four panels on ‘What Is the
Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?’, bringing
together papers addressing the subject matter of
medieval philosophy, including how subfields of
philosophy were demarcated; how philosophy was
separated from other disciplines; how medieval
philosophy is separated from (and continuous with)
ancient and early modern philosophy. This panel on
metaphysics brings together three papers on
Suarez and the real essence of objects; Suarez on
natural distinctions in metaphysical philosophy; and
the substance of artifacts in Aquinas.

  • Stephen Boulter, “What Philosophers Used to Know about Distinctions”
  • Jack Robert Coopey, “Francisco Suárez and Heidegger’s Modernity of Metaphysics: A Baroque Contribution to the Downfall of Scholastic Thought”
  • Sean M. Costello, “Substantializing Aquinas’s Artifacts: A Path to
    Substancehood for Chemically-Constituted Artifacts in
    the Thought of Thomas Aquinas”

Session 1235: What Is the Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?, III: The Matter of the Mind and Soul

Wednesday July 3, 14:15-15:45.

This is the third of four panels on ‘What Is the
Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?’, bringing
together papers addressing the subject matter of
medieval philosophy, including how subfields of
philosophy were demarcated; how philosophy was
separated from other disciplines; how medieval
philosophy is separated from (and continuous with)
ancient and early modern philosophy. This panel on
philosophy of mind (including the soul) brings
together three papers on the nature of the soul
and its experience of pain; the role of reason in
personal responsibility; the faculties of the
soul.

  • Elena Baltuta, “Ouch!: On Pain and Its Intentional Character in Robert Kilwardby”
  • Jordan McFadden, “The Scope of Responsibility for Aquinas: Does Ought
    Imply Can?”
  • Lydia Deni Gamboa López, “Ockham on the Acts and Faculties of the Sensitive Soul”

Session 1335: What Is the Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?, IV:
The Reception, Transmission, and Teaching of Medieval
Philosophy

Wednesday July 3, 16:30-18:00.

This is the fourth and final panel in a series on
‘What Is the Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?’,
bringing together papers addressing the subject
matter of medieval philosophy, including how
subfields of philosophy were demarcated; how
philosophy was separated from other disciplines; how
medieval philosophy is separated from (and continuous
with) ancient and early modern philosophy. This panel
focuses on what medieval philosophy is, what it
received from ancient philosophy and what it
transmitted to post-medieval philosophy, and what
role medieval philosophy has in the present day
classroom.

  • Daniel Contreras: “Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus on the Proper
    Object of the Intellect and the Distinction between
    Philosophy and Theology”
  • Tommaso Manzon, “The Serpent’s Body: St John Bonaventure and St
    Gregory Palamas on Philosophy and Theology, with
    Particular Rreference to On the Reduction of the
    Arts to Theology
    and the First Triad”
  • Martin Lenz, “Predate the Scientific Revolution!: Highlighting
    (Strategic) Continuities between Medieval and Modern
    Philosophy”

PGR Applicant Bursaries

We are offering travel and accommodation bursaries of up to £250 to enable prospective applicants for the PhD programme at Durham University to visit in order to meet and work with a potential supervisor on their research proposal and / or funding application. The bursaries will be awarded on a competitive basis to applicants who have a strong draft proposal in a field covered by the Centre, and have the explicit support of at least one of its members (listed here: www.dcamp.uk/people/), who must be available to work with them during their visit.

Applications should take the form of a draft PhD research proposal (1-2 pages long, including a statement of the significance of the proposed work, research questions and methodology), which should be sent in the first place to the prospective supervisor, who should be requested to send it with his or her support to dcamp@dur.ac.uk

Visits should be planned to take place before the end of December 2018, ahead of the January funding deadlines for the Northern Bridge (www.northernbridge.ac.uk/) and Durham Doctoral Studentships (www.dur.ac.uk/arts.humanities/funding_opportunities/facultydoctoralfunding/), and might be timed to coincide with the University Postgraduate Open Day on 28th November (www.dur.ac.uk/study/pg/visit/opendays/). Visitors (funded or not!) will be welcome to join in with any DCAMP event while they are here.

BSHP Graduate Essay Prize

Attention MA / PhD students! This competition opens on 1st November, with a deadline of 30th November. It is open to anyone registered on a Masters’ or PhD degree (any nationality, any country, any discipline), writing on any aspect of the history of philosophy. Essays may be up to 10,000 words long. Entrants need not be members of the BSHP. The prize fund is £1000. Details: www.bshp.org.uk/funding/gradprize

Call for Papers: International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 1-4, 2019

What is the Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?

Call for paper proposals in the area of medieval philosophy for one or more sessions to be submitted to the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, July 1-4, 2019

Sponsored by the Durham Centre for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

The International Medieval Congress (IMC) is Europe’s largest gathering of medievalists, with the 25th anniversary edition (2018) featuring more than 600 papers on all aspects of the Middle Ages. The theme for 2019 is “materialities” and in keeping with this theme, we are looking for paper proposals to put together a strand of sessions on the topic of “What is the Matter of/with Medieval Philosophy?” We aim to address both questions on the content and nature of philosophy in the Middle Ages, as well as questions about the content and nature of the study of medieval philosophy in the early 21st century. The following topics are representative, not exhaustive of possible paper topics:

  • How is philosophy defined in the Middle Ages?
  • What is philosophy’s relationship to other disciplines in the Middle Ages?
  • Medieval philosophy outside of Europe: What is the ‘matter’ of philosophy in the medieval periods of non-European cultures?
  • Why is medieval philosophy underrepresented in today’s curriculum — and what can we do to change this?
  • What matters in medieval philosophy?

In addition to papers on broad topics like these, we also welcome paper proposals on individual “matters” of philosophy. If it’s medieval philosophy, and it matters, we want it!

The deadline for paper proposals is September 15, 2018. To propose a paper, send the following information to Dr. Sara L. Uckelman (Durham University) at s.l.uckelman@durham.ac.uk:

  • Paper title
  • Brief abstract (100-200 words)
  • Language of delivery
  • Speaker’s full name and time
  • Speaker’s affiliation, including mailing address, email, and telephone

Speakers will be notified of whether their papers will be included in the session proposal(s) to the IMC by September 25, 2018.

Any questions should be directed to Dr. Uckelman.

New Research Fellows 2018/2019

We are delighted that we will be welcoming three research fellows hosted by the IAS in the coming year: Dr Anders Dahl Sørensen  (currently Copenhagen) and Dr Myrthe Bartels as JRFs, and Ilaria Ramelli (Milan) as an SRF in April-June. Dr Sørensen  will be working on the ‘Anonymus Iamblichi’, an ancient political text; Dr Bartels (currently Bucharest ) on ‘Plato’s Plato’s Mimetic Approach to Music and its Reception in Renaissance and Baroque Musical Literature’; and Prof. Ramelli on Origen and Plotinus.

Item updated 16.6.2018

Setting Plato Straight: Discussion

A Roundtable Discussion of Professor Todd Reeser’s Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance chaired by Dr. Anthony Hooper (Classics) with remarks by Professor Reeser and responses from Professor Jennifer Ingleheart (Classics), Dr. Andrea Capra (Classics) and Dr. Marc Schachter (MLAC).

Thursday, June 7th from 16:30-18:00 in the Ritson Room, Department of Classics, 38 North Bailey

Professor Reeser will also present a talk entitled “Affect Theory and Masculinity Studies” on Friday, June 8th at 17:30 in Seminar Room 1, History Department, 43 North Bailey.

Todd Reeser is Professor of French and Program Director of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. In Setting Plato Straight, Professor Reeser undertakes the first sustained and comprehensive study of Renaissance textual responses to Platonic same-sex sexuality. Reeser mines an expansive collection of translations, commentaries, and literary sources to study how Renaissance translators transformed ancient eros into non-erotic, non-homosexual relations. He analyzes the interpretive lenses translators employed and the ways in which they read and reread Plato’s texts. In spite of this cleansing, Reeser finds surviving traces of Platonic same-sex sexuality that imply a complicated, recurring process of course-correction—of setting Plato straight.

Edith Hall on Aristotle

DCAMP friend Edith Hall will be speaking about ‘Aristotle on True Happiness’ at the Lit&Phil in Newcastle next week, where she features as part of their On Philosophy season. Tuesday, 15th May; 7 p.m.; £4 admission (£10 for the season): free for students/unwaged. Address: The Literary and Philosophical Society, 23 Westgate Road, Newcastle NE1 1SE (just next to the station). Download flyer here.