Notes and Comments

Association News

At its meeting in Seattle on January 6, 2005, the Executive Council of the American Catholic Historical Association decided to increase the membership fees modestly as follows: for ordinary membership from $45 to $50; for life membership from $850 to $1,000; for retired membership (after twenty years of continuous ordinary membership) from $35 to $40. The fee for students remains unchanged, i.e., $30. The increases were required mainly by the higher subscription rate now charged by the Catholic University of America Press for the Catholic Historical Review.

The Executive Council also appointed Timothy Meagher assistant secretary and treasurer of the Association for one year. Dr. Meagher is curator of the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archivist of the Catholic University of America as well as an adjunct assistant professor in its Department of History.

The president of the Association, Thomas Kselman of the University of Notre Dame, who is also chairman of the Committee on Program for the eighty-sixth annual meeting, which will be held in Philadelphia on January 6–8, 2006, has appointed Brad S. Gregory and John T. McGreevy, both of the University of Notre Dame, and Margaret M. McGuinness of Cabrini College to the Committee.

The Association's new representative on the joint committee for the three Marraro Prizes is Kenneth Gouwens of the University of Connecticut. He succeeds Frederick J. McGinness of Mount Holyoke College, who served on that committee from 2001 to 2004.

Meetings, Institutes, and Seminars

The Centro Italiano di Studi sull' Alto Medioevo will hold its fifty-third study week at Spoleto from March 31 to April 5, 2005. Under the theme "Comportamenti e immaginario della sessualità nell'Alto Medioevo" some of the papers that will be presented are "La sessualità nell'etica pagano-cristiana tardoantica" (the inaugural address) by Lellia Cracco Ruggini of the University of Turin; "Astinenza dal sesso e perfezione cristiana," by Giuseppe Cremascoli of the University of Bologna; "Virginité ascétique: choix et contrainte," by Christine Angelidi of the Institut de Recherches Byzantines, Athens; "La sessualità nella letteratura agiografica," by Emore Paoli of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata"; "A (re)vision of sex in the Middle Ages: The Penitentials," by Hubertus Lutterbach of the University of Essen; "Monaci e chierici di fronte alla sessualità," by Giuseppe Picasso of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan; "La sexualité dans le droit canonique oriental," by Constantinos G. Pitsakis of the University of Thrace, Komotini; and "Teologie della concupiscenza nell'Alto Medioevo," by Francesco Santi of the University of Lecce. Full information may be found on the web site www.cisam.org. The e-mail address is cisam@cisam.org.

The Institut d'histoire de la Réformation at the University of Geneva will offer two seminars in its summer course for 2005. One is entitled "Ministers and Magistrates in the Reformed Tradition, 16th–17th Centuries"; it will be conducted by Philip Benedict and Maria-Christina Pitassi, both professors at the Institut, and will be held on June 6–11. The other will deal with "Ghosts, Devils and Miracles in the 16th Century"; the instructors will be Irena Backus, "professeur titulaire" at the Institut, and Bruce Gordon, reader at the University of St. Andrews; the dates are June 13–17. Further information may be obtained from the Institut at Place de l'Université, CH-1211 Genève 4, Switzerland.

A summer institute for college and university teachers, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, on "Inquisitions and Persecutions in Early Modern Europe and the Americas" will be held at the University of Maryland from June 13 through July 15, 2005. Full information may be obtained from Adele Seeff at her e-mail address: crbs@umd.edu, or from the project web site: www.crbs.umd.edu/inquisitions.

The annual Dies Academicus of the Accademia di San Carlo will be held in Milan on November 25–26, 2005, and will be devoted to the theme "Cultura e spiritualità borromaica tra Cinque e Seicento." Alain Tallon will...