CFP: ‘Remembering Jerusalem: Imagination, Memory, and the City’, London, 6-7 Nov. 2014

Remembering Jerusalem: Imagination, Memory, and the City
6th-7th November
King’s College London

Organised by the AHRC-Funded Research Network ‘Imagining Jerusalem, 1099 to the Present Day’

Keynote speakers: Professor Anthony Bale (Birkbeck), Professor Eyal Weizman (Goldsmiths).

Further keynotes TBA.

Perhaps the world’s most iconic city, Jerusalem exists both as a physical space and as a site of memory, ideas, and re-memberings. In art, literature, film, and history writing; in acts of public and private worship; and in communities across the globe, memories of Jerusalem have, for centuries, been created, invoked, and relived. This cross-period, interdisciplinary conference invites paper and panel submissions on the theme of Jerusalem and Memory, c. 1099 to the Present Day. Topics may include, but need not be limited to:

– techniques of memorialisation / techniques of memory
– place, space, and memory
– souvenirs, mementoes, and memory aids
– the materiality (or immateriality) of memory
– memory and sensation
– memory, land and environment
– memory and warfare
– memory and governance
– forgetting, false memory, and fictional remembering
– narrative and memory
– memory and the archive
– national, local, and transnational memories
– memory and community
– ethnography as remembering
– ritual, repetition, and performance
– sacred and secular memory

The organisers are particularly keen to receive panel submissions which address a shared theme across more than one discipline and/or historical period.

Abstracts of c. 300 words for single papers and c. 1000 words for panels consisting of three papers should be sent to imagining-jerusalem@york.ac.uk by 1st July 2014. For more details or inquiries, please contact the same address or visit the Network website: https://jerusalems.wordpress.com/

This conference is organised by the lead members of the Network: Dr Anna Bernard (KCL), Dr Michele Campopiano (York), Dr Helen Smith (York), Dr Jim Watt (York), and the Network Coordinator, Hannah Boast (York).

Download the Call for Papers.

The Franciscan Library and bookshop in Jerusalem

By Dr Michele Campopiano, University of York.

Between the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, among the narrow and busy streets of the Holy City, there is a place which is remarkable for its peacefulness: the Franciscan Convent of San Salvatore. It is one of the convents of the Franciscan Custodia Terrae Sanctae. Following the example of the founder of the order Saint Francis, who visited the Holy Places, the Friars Minor have had a continuous presence in Jerusalem since the 14^th century. They have welcomed and helped pilgrims since the Late Middle Ages, and they continue their function as ‘guardians’ of the Holy Places for the Catholic Church.

One of the first things a traveller will notice by entering the walls of the convent is the fascinating encounter of languages and forms of writing: Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian (the official language of the Custodia) and many other languages all resound among these ancient walls.

The Custodia is also an important centre of learning. It hosts the library Biblioteca Generale della Custodia di Terra Santa (the General Library of the Custody of the Holy Land), with its important patrimony of manuscripts and modern and ancient printed books.

The library is in a crucial phase of reorganisation and modernisation in order to improve the availability of the patrimony for scholars. Thanks to the kind hospitality of Father Lionel Goh, the director of the Library, and of the helpful employees of the Custodia, I have been able to spend a month in Jerusalem working on the medieval manuscripts of the Custodia. My research will be presented in full in a book I am writing about the history of the Franciscan presence in the Holy Land between the 14th and 16th centuries. Some of the first results of my research will be presented in an article to be published in a collective volume edited in Italy by Franco Cardini.

The scholarly activity of the Franciscans themselves is expressed in particular by the work of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum which publishes extensively on biblical archaeology and exegesis, as well as on the history of the Holy Land. Many of the publications of the scholars of the institute can be found in the lovely Franciscan Corner- the Franciscan International Bookshop, near Jaffa Gate, in front of the Tower of David. In this bookshop the publications of the Franciscan Printing Press of Jerusalem and of the Edizioni Terrasanta of Milan, and other books on Biblical studies and the Holy Land and its history can be found. When you enter Jaffa look on your left side, you’ll be pleasantly surprised!