Program. Conference 2025
23rd International Symposium 2025:
Date: May 2-3, 2025. Time: 9:00 A.M. – 5:30 P.M. each day
Location: University of Arizona, 301 Cesar Chavez Building (1110 James E. Rogers Way). When you get off the Sun Link streetcar coming from downtown (west), get off at the Olive Rd. station, walk 1 minute east, then turn right into the campus where the wall opens up for a walkway. The building is at the corner of the next street, on the southwest side.
Contact: Prof. Albrecht Classen, aclassen@arizona.edu, or call 520 621-1395 (you could reach me also via FB or Whatsapp). Our main office number in the Dept. of German Studies is: 520 621-7385 (our secretary Hector Silva will answer only between 9 a.m. and 4:45 p.m. on Friday)
Online: please enter through the zoom link (no password required): https://arizona.zoom.us/j/84039742474 (opens up at 8:50 a.m. or so, after I’ll have clicked it, and closes at 5:30 p.m.)
This is open to anyone, so just enter, but please make sure to mute yourself until you want to speak. You can always raise your hand electronically, or leave a note in the chat. I will then read it out aloud.
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO LIMIT YOUR SPEAKING TIME TO 20 MINUTES; YOU WILL THEN HAVE 10 MINUTES FOR Q & A. Each question to the speakers: 1 min., please.
SCHEDULE:
Thursday, May 1: 7:00 -9:00 p.m., Social gathering in the hospitality suite no. 134 in the hotel Ramada by Wyndham Tucson, 777 W. Cushing St, Tucson, Arizona 85745, tel.: +1-520-239-2300, or: 1-800 854-9517
Friday, May 2: 8:15 a.m. meeting in the hotel lobby, we’ll take the Sun Link streetcar to the campus, getting off at Olive Rd. station (2nd St., which is already on campus) and walk just down the street (east) for 1 minute, turn right, straight down to the next intersection, to Cesar Chavez, 301.
Again, the zoom link: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/84039742474
Welcome and Introduction: 9:00-9:15 a.m.: Albrecht Classen
9:15-9:45 a.m.: Gabriella DaCosta-Yulsman, Dept of English & Comparative Literature, Columbia University: Summum Bonum, Summum Malum: Saint Augustine’s de Civitate Dei as Ancient Sermon Against Troubled Times
9:45-10:15 a.m.: Heba Abd Elaziz, Alexandria University, Egypt: Tribalism in the Sirah of Banu Hilal (the Oral Epic of the Hilal Tribe): Migration, Conflict, and Integration in Medieval North Africa (via zoom)
10:15-10:30 a.m.: Coffee break (outside of the room)
10:30-11:00 a.m.: Asmaa Ahmed Youssef Etman, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Higher Institute of Languages, Egypt: Beyond Arabism: Shu’ubiyyah’s Role in Shaping Abbasid Literary Discourse Through the Poetry of Bashar ibn Burd and the Works of Al-Jāhiz (via zoom)
11:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m.: Filip A. Jakubowski, PhD, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland: Happiness Not Only Inside the Muslim umma. The Case of The Meadows of Gold by al-Masʽūdī (d. 956)
11:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Najlaa Aldeeb, Effat University, Effat College of Humanities, Saudi Arabia: Happiness and Its Expression in Simon Ockley’s Translation of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (via zoom)
12:15-12:55 p.m.: Lunch Break, at Panera (at 845 N Park Ave Suite 125), ca. 10 min. away on foot
1:05-1:45 p.m.: Visit of the University of Arizona Museum of Art, on campus, on 1031 N. Olive Rd.
1:45-2:15 p.m.: Doaa Omran, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque: Saladin’s Jaffa Peace Treaty
2:15-2:45 p.m.: Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona, Department of German Studies: Community and Peace: The Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages Regarding the Peaceful and Harmonious Community: Margareta Ebner, Christine de Pizan, and Frances Eiximenis
2:45-3:00 p.m. Coffee break
3:00-3:30 p.m.: Fidel Fajardo-Acosta, Creighton University, NE: Peace, Friendship, and Community: The Green Knight’s Christian Message in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
3:30-4:00 p.m.: Chiara Benati, Università di Genova: Erwirdiger freundt Bernnharde…: Friendship and Community Among Late Medieval Surgeons as Presented in the Vernacular Translations of Lanfranc of Milan’s Surgical Works
4:00-4:30 p.m.: William M. Mahan, Northern Arizona University: The Perfect Community? Proto-Capitalism and Proto-Socialism as Conceptual Antimonies in Medieval Visions of Utopia
4:30-5:15: Campus tour
5:30-5:45 p.m.: Ride with the Sun Link streetcar to the restaurant
6:00-7:15: Dinner at La Yaquesita, 500 N 4th Ave, so very close (southeast corner) of the stop for the streetcar; located at the Northeast corner of N. 4th Ave. and E. 6th St., tel.: (520) 622-1924
7:30 p.m., departure with the Sun Link streetcar back to the hotel (going west, until Cushing Street station)
Ca. 8:00 p.m.: social gathering in suite 134
Saturday, May 3, 2024
Meet in the lobby, 8:15 a.m.
Departure with the Sun Link streetcar at 8:30 a.m.
9:15-9:45 a.m.: Imants Lavins, University of Economics and Culture in Riga, Latvia: Not only erotic or religious narrative – Cosmographic Vision in Nizāmī’s Romantic Epic “Haft Paykar” (via zoom)
9:45-10:15 a.m.: Kristof Szitar, Yale University and Université de Lausanne: The Concept of Peace in Ghaznavid Poetic Sources
10:15-10:45 a.m.: Emanuele Piazza: Department of Educational Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Italy: A Path to Peace at the End of the Carolingian Empire: A Reading of the Gesta Karoli Magni Imperatoris of Notker the Stammerer (via zoom)
10:45-11:00 a.m.: Coffee break
11:00-11:30 a.m.: Birgit Wiedl, Institute for Jewish History in Austria, St. Pölten, Austria: My dear friend, the Jew. The Multitude of Jewish-Christian Relations in Medieval Ashkenaz
11:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Karen Pinto, Associate Scholar, Religious Studies, University of Colorado-Boulder: Making it onto the KMMS Map: Why is al-Basra, Morocco, Marked on Medieval Islamicate Images of the Maghrib and Mediterranean? (via zoom)
12:00 p.m.-1:15 p.m.: Lunch break, food delivered by Beyond Bread. Outside of our conference room; or enjoy the sun outside of the building
1:30-2:00 p.m.: Warren Tormey, English Department, Middle Tennessee State University: “A Faire Field Full of Folk”: Envisioning Community in Piers Plowman
2:00-2:30 p.m.: Daniel F. Pigg, University of Tennessee at Martin: Finding Empowering Communities: Margery Kempe’s Quest for Friendship and Affirmation
2:30-3:00 p.m.: David Tomíček, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic: Plague and Consolation: Medical Treatises as Tools for Coping with Crisis in Early Modern Bohemia
3:00-3:15 p.m.: Coffee break
3:30-4:00 p.m.: Thomas Willard, University of Arizona: The Utopian Journey of Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654)
4:00-4:30 p.m.: John Pizer, Louisiana State University: Poetic Community, Social Standing, Friendship, and Happiness in Contexts of War and Peace: Contrasting Simon Dach with Sigmund von Birken
4:30:4:45 p.m. Concluding remarks, forward looking
5:00-6:00 p.m.: tour of the campus
6:15 p.m. Departure for dinner, we walk to 1st Street and Cherry, take the Sun Link streetcar going west, getting off at 9th St. and 4th Ave.
6:30-7:30 p.m. Dinner at the Box Yard, 238 N 4th Ave, Tucson, AZ 85705, (520) 306-1686. There are ca. 5 different options. You just order what you want, including soft drinks or juice, and I’ll pay for you all. There is also a bar, so you can order and pay for what you prefer.
7:45 p.m.: Departure for hotel, with Sun Link streetcar
8:15-10:15 p.m.: Social gathering in the hospitality suite # 134, business meeting, planning for the volume to be published. Then, good-bye!
Sunday, May 4: free day
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO LIMIT YOUR SPEAKING TIME TO 20 MINUTES; YOU WILL THEN HAVE 10 MINUTES FOR Q & A
Sunday, May 18: Submission of first full draft of your paper — just kidding
I mean: Oct. 1, 2025, seriously!