Newsletter
CRFF Newsletter 41 (2009:8) A
ugust/September 2009
Dear colleagues and friends,
Diligent recipients will have noticed that we have not issued a Newsletter 8 (the August-issue) until now, the middle of September. The reasons for us to withhold the newsletter were serious, as the CRFF has been greatly affected, or rather will be greatly affected, by an unsuccessful funding bid that puts its activities at stake. As this is a complicated issue, we are happy to share with you a document, where the funding situation of the centre is described in detail, how it might affect CRFF activities and how you can support us. Please contact us if you are interested, using the Enquiries-form on our website. In the current economical climate we are of course not the only academic body experiencing the full impact of the global recession. Our university as a whole is undertaking a painful cost-cutting exercise and a considerable number of staff have taken voluntary redundancy during the summer, which will result in re-organisation and the pooling of resources. It is therefore not wrong to say that we will imminently face a time when we will have to produce “Excellence without Expenditure”.
All the best,
Andreas Önnerfors
1) The CRFF Autumn Programme of Events:
PERCEPTIONS OF FREEMASONRY
First event on Dan Brown’s new novel — The Lost Symbol— on Thursday October 15
Thursday 15th October
“Lost Symbols? Discussing Dan Brown’s new novel”. A panel of researchers into freemasonry and fraternalism will discuss the book. As Dan Brown’s new novel The Lost Symbol was released today, we have decided to arrange an event “Lost Symbols? Discussing Dan Brown’s new novel” in order to examine the book and its (masonic) content on Thursday October 15th. You are invited to attend the event, ask questions and discuss the fictionalisation of facts, conspiracy theories and secret societies.
The link is officially sponsored by the Masonic Society of North America, the Masonic Memorial and the George Washington Masonic Memorial and provides correct and useful information. Please register for tickets, contributions £2. d.sommer@sheffield.ac.uk 0114-222 98 91
Friday 30th October
Margaret C Jacob (UCLA) “"Masonic Secrecy and the Paradox of Modernity: New Archives from 18th century Bordeaux"
Thursday 12th November
Dorothe Sommer (University of Sheffield) ”Masonic conspiracy online”
26th November
Robert Collis (Universities of Sheffield/Turku) “Defining Freemasonry in England 1717-1724”
10th December
Robert Peter (Universities of Sheffield/Szeged) “The Image of Freemasonry in Eighteenth-Century British Press”
All lectures/events take place in the Humanities Research Centre, 34 Gell Street, S3 7QY, 5.15 pm with light refreshments. Please note that the lecture on October 30 takes place on a Friday.
2) 24th – 25th October “The Origins of Freemasonry” 11th CMRC Conference in London
Marking a decade of successful international conferences, The Canonbury Masonic Research Centre is pleased to announce that its eleventh international conference, scheduled for 24-25 October 2009, is now a joint-venture project being co-organised with the Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism (CRFF), Sheffield University. The theme of this year's event is 'The origins of Freemasonry' and will include keynote addresses delivered by three internationally acclaimed scholars in the field: Dr. Margaret Jacob, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Professor Dr. José Antonio Ferrer Benimeli, Founder and Director of the Centro de Estudios Históricos de la Masoneria Espanola (CEHME), Zaragoza University, and Dr. David Stevenson, Professor Emeritus of Scottish History at the University of St Andrews. And the conference weekend will commence with a showing (for speakers and delegates only) of a film called The Scottish Key - a recently made documentary which examines the various theories of masonic origin
- during the evening of Friday 23 October at University College London; Conference tickets are now available priced £99 each (price includes Friday evening film showing and drinks reception, conference attendance and a buffet luncheon on both days). Cheques should be made payable to the 'CMRC' and sent to: The Conference Organiser, Canonbury Masonic Research Centre, Canonbury Tower, Canonbury Place, London N1 2NQ. Please be sure to include your full name and contact details (including phone number and email address) with your payment and state if you have any specific dietary requirements. Please also note that the CMRC does not accept credit card payment. See www.canonbury.ac.uk for more details.
3) New publications of the CRFF!
We are proud to announce that the second volume of our series Sheffield Lectures in the History of Freemasonry and Fraternalism is now at the printers and will be published very soon!
The volume with the title Freemasonry and Fraternalism in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Eds. A. Önnerfors and R. Collis) contains five papers on various aspects of Russian freemasonry and fraternalism from Peter the Great to Catherine the Great and is the first of its kind ever published in English. The remarkable history of the introduction of freemasonry and other fraternal groups clearly demonstrates that associational life was an integrated part of cultural exchange in Europe of the time and that British freemasonry freely moved across cultural and linguistic borders. Needless to say to all friends of the CRFF that all income generated by the sale of the book will directly benefit the on-going survival of the Centre. Please find the Table of Content under the link “Publications” on our website.
We will have the same retail price as Volume 1 Freemasonry and Fraternalism in the Middle East, £20 (P&P included). The same routines of payment apply, which can be found on our website under the link “Publications”.
We also want to announce the publication of No. 5 of our online series of Working Papers: Pauline Vera Chakmakjian’s paper The Fiftieth Anniversary of The Grand Lodge of Japan (1957-2007) is very soon available for free download on our website under the link “Working Papers” and we hope it will stimulate a fruitful discussion among researchers in our area!
4) New publications
We notify the publication of following books and journals:
• Zeitschrift für Internationale Freimaurerforschung 21/2009 with three though-provoking articles, an Interview, reviews and reports, for instance on the Centre for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism. To order the volume, see www.studienverlag.at or contact aboservice@studienverlag.at
• Alain de Keghel, L’ Europe des Franc-Maçons en marche, Paris 2009. From his diplomatic background de Keghel (former president of the Supreme Council of the Grand Orient de France) analyses the emergence of freemasonry in Europe and presents some rare comments on its contemporary status as well as an outlook into the future. See www.editions-tredaniel.com and info@guytredaniel.fr
• Alain Bauer and Xavier Raufer, La face noire de la mondialisation/The dark side of globalization, CNRS Editions, Paris 2009. Former Grand Master of GODF and his controversial co-author present their view upon a globalisation that has gone off the rails. See www.cnrseditions.fr/ouvrage/6164.html for more information.
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