Calls for Papers

For a more exhaustive list of calls for papers and upcoming conferences relating to Medieval Studies, see the website of the Medieval Academy of America.

17th Annual Concordia Graduate Student History Conference

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17th Annual History in the Making Conference
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Concordia University, Montreal

“Shattered Spaces: Piecing Together Narratives of Crisis and Change”

As we approach the centenary of the First World War, which fueled a maelstrom of death and destruction on unprecedented scales, we may be inclined to consider the Great War a historical watershed that shattered countless physical and ideological spaces. War, genocide, economic collapse, and natural disasters can all be called shattering forces that catalyze crisis and change.The Concordia University Graduate History Students’ Association is pleased to announce the 17th annual History in the Making Conference. This year’s theme, “Shattered Spaces: Piecing Together Narratives of Crisis and Change”, will investigate the ways that victims of crises have reconciled, reconstructed, or parted with ruptured spaces. These spaces can be physical, through the shattering of populations, institutions, and landscapes, or metaphorical, through the shattering of ethnic, religious, gendered, and ideological spaces. How, then, have political, economic, social, and natural forces brought about crisis and change? By following the trajectory of crisis and change, how might these rupturing experiences be historicized and incorporated into the larger discourse of the shattered space?
We welcome presentation topics that explore a variety of issues:
Shattered (physical) spaces:
War, zones of conflict, contentious borderlands, urbanization, natural disasters.

Shattered (social, political, and economic) spaces:
Genocide, coup d’états and regime changes, economic collapse, revolution, social movements, immigration/emigration.

Shattered (ideological) spaces:
Ethnic, religious, gender and sexual identity; memory, stories and oral testimony.

Shattered (transnational) spaces:
The environment, disease, inventions and innovations, media and communication.

We encourage perspectives across all historical disciplines and time periods, as well as cross-disciplinary approaches such as museum studies, art history, and medicine.Candidates must submit a brief biographical sketch (max. 150 words) and a paper abstract (max. 250 words) no later than January 9th, 2012. Successful applicants will be invited to present their papers by January 23rd via e-mail.

Please send submissions to the Graduate History Students’ Association [GHSA] at email hidden; JavaScript is required select number of conference papers will be published in the spring 2012issue of our peer-reviewed History in the Making journal. Graduate History Students’ Association [GHSA]Department of History, Concordia University1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, LB-1001,03,Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8E

mail: email hidden; JavaScript is required

The Graduate Conference of Magdalene Medievalists Society

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Medieval Multilingualism in the British Isles
Magdalene College, Cambridge, Saturday 21st July 2012
Keynote Speaker: Dr Tony Hunt, St Peter’s College, Oxford

The phenomenon of multilingualism in the Middle Ages has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention in recent years, with at least two major essay collections and one conference devoted to the topic since the Millennium, and numerous articles and book chapters. This graduate and early career conference aims to give those new to the field an opportunity to contribute to what has become an important site of critical debate.

Whilst recent scholarship has become steadily more aware of the interconnected nature of Anglo-Norman and Middle English, the use of Latin and its links to the vernaculars has often provoked less sustained attention than is justified by the language’s conceptual and administrative importance. The relationships between the mainstream trilingual culture of England and its contiguous linguistic enclaves (such as Cornish, Cumbric, Welsh, Hebrew, Flemish, Norse, Pictish, Manx, Irish and Scottish Gaelic) also frequently remain comparatively obscure. There is conflicting evidence about the medieval awareness of multilingualism, of the relationships between languages and of the phenomenon of language change; such contemporary treatments of these phenomena as survive often rely extensively on Biblical and Patristic accounts of sacred languages. In view of this complex picture, the conference is intended not only to facilitate a closer examination of the phenomenon of multilingualism, but also of medieval attitudes to its manifestations.

We invite papers that address any aspect of the interaction between the speakers of different languages in the Middle Ages, including, but not limited to:

- attitudes to the tres linguae sacrae and to the vernaculars
- pedagogy and medieval perceptions of language acquisition
- translation
- orality and its depictions
- medieval views of linguistic history
- code-switching, miscellanies, and scribal practice

We will accept submissions from graduate students and early career scholars in English and other languages and literatures, History, Linguistics, and all related disciplines. Papers should be no more than 20 minutes in length; please send abstracts of 250 words or less to Sara Harris, email hidden; JavaScript is required by February 1st, 2012. Further information will be available at www.magdalenemedievalists.wordpress.com/conference.

Annual Symposium of the Friends of the Mediaeval Studies Society of the Royal Ontario Museum

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24th MARCH 2012
CALL FOR PAPERS

This is to announce, and is a call for papers to be presented at, the 7th Annual Symposium of the Friends of the Mediaeval Studies Society of the Royal Ontario Museum (FMSS-ROM). The FMSS-ROM is an association of ROM members and individuals that are professionally involved with the mediaeval period, who collectively wish to forward understanding of the mediaeval period.

Eight speakers will talk on various aspects of the Mediaeval world, including archaeology, history, culture, and art. The nature of the talks will be scholarly, but accessible to non-specialists. Chronologically, the scope of the society, and of the symposium, runs from the late classical world leading up to mediaeval times, and encompasses the Renaissance at the end. Geographically it crosses the Old World from Europe to Asia and Africa, having a general interest in the Age of the Stirrup wherever it occurs.

The FMSS-ROM invites scholars to submit proposals for papers to be given at this symposium. The deadline is JANUARY 15th 2012, and the proposals should eventually comprise a single page comprising your name, contact address, affiliation, and an abstract of the paper; but if you are pressed for time a title and a rough idea what you want to speak about may get you a spot. Proposed papers can deal with any subject in the broad remit of the FMSS-ROM. The subject need not be an object or collection at the ROM. Presentations cannot be longer than 30 minutes in length.

The Symposium papers will be presented on SATURDAY, 24TH MARCH, 2012 in the ROM Eaton Theatre, 100 Queen’s Park Crescent, Toronto. The event will take place from 9:30am to 5pm. The format is usually two speakers separated by breaks and lunch, for which lunch and refreshments are provided.

Participation in the symposium is free to speakers and those accompanying them, and professional mediaevalists (faculty and graduate students). Entry fee for the public is typically around $70, and will be used entirely to support the event, with any surplus going to support mediaeval-themed programming at the ROM. We can support travel costs of some speakers, but the event is chiefly aimed at raising funds for public programming towards the FMSS objectives.

All paper proposals and enquiries should be sent to Robert Mason at email hidden; JavaScript is required.

Work in Medieval Studies: Fall 2011

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WIMS (the Work in Medieval Studies Series) is CMS’s graduate lecture and workshop series, a venue for the graduate students of CMS to develop our professional presentation skills and respond to each other’s ideas, sharing works in progress in an informal but constructive forum.

Presentations typically last anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes and can consist of (draft) conference papers, dissertation chapters, articles, former term papers – or just interesting ideas worth an airing! Each talk is followed by a short discussion period giving students the opportunity to receive feedback on their work in a supportive environment. We meet in the Great Hall on Fridays at 3pm and although WIMS is housed in CMS, we welcome students from all disciplines and departments working on a medieval topic. WIMS events are a truly excellent way of being involved at the Centre, and coffee, tea, and snacks are always on offer. Last year, WIMS had one of its best years yet – this year, it will also provide a good opportunity to get ready for CMS’s own 33rd Medieval Colloquium in March.

So, we are now looking for volunteers among you who would like to speak during the Fall 2011 term, and in particular for those keeners who would be willing to present for us in September and October.

After a year of setting the bar very high indeed, Richard Shaw is retiring as WIMS co-chair, and Jessica Lockhart will be joined by new co-chairs Annika Ekman and Eduardo Fabbro for the 2011-2012 series. If you want a bit more information about WIMS, and especially if you’re interested in giving a talk, then please contact us directly at email hidden; JavaScript is required, email hidden; JavaScript is required or email hidden; JavaScript is required.

CFP: Atlantic Medieval Association Annual Conference

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The Atlantic Medieval Association (AMA) will hold its annual conference at Dalhousie University in Halifax September 30-October 1.

The Plenary Speaker will be Dr. Toni Healey, Editor ofthe Dictionary of Old English.

Paper proposals are welcome on all topics concerning the Middle Ages; abstracts of 250 words should be sent to Kathy Cawsey at email hidden; JavaScript is required by
August 30, 2011.

Non-presenting participants who wish to develop relationships with other Atlantic medievalists are also very welcome.

CFP: 32nd Canadian Conference of Medieval Art Historians

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32nd Canadian Conference of Medieval Art Historians, University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada / 9-10 March, 2012

We would like to inform you that the 32nd annual CCMAH will be co-hosted by the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg on 9-10 March, 2012. We are calling for papers on any subject related to medieval or medieval revival art, architecture or visual culture. Papers may not exceed 20 minutes in length. Please submit a max one-page abstract by 15 September, 2011 to either: Claire Labrecque, email hidden; JavaScript is required, or Jim Bugslag, email hidden; JavaScript is required. We are hoping to receive your proposals as soon as possible, as we plan to apply for grants in September. Please feel free to forward this message to anyone else who may be interested. We look forward to seeing you in Winnipeg in March 2012.

CCMAH 2012 organizing committee: Claire Labrecque, University of Winnipeg, and Jim Bugslag, University of Manitoba

CMS’s Thirty-Third Medieval Colloquium

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Imitation, Emulation, and Forgery: Pretending and Becoming in the Medieval World
March 2–3, 2012
The Thirty-Third Medieval Colloquium of the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

Opening Keynote: Jan Ziolkowski, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin, Harvard
Closing Keynote: Marjorie Curry Woods, Jane and Roland Blumberg Centennial Professor of English and Distinguished University Teacher, The University of Texas at Austin

Imitation is a central concept within medieval thought, linking disparate genres and avenues of human experience within a network of interconnected models and interpretive structures. Medieval people saw their work standing within a relationship of resemblance to models and sources that predated their efforts, from the image of God in man, to the examples of poets, historiographers and hagiographers. Imitation implies both a faithfulness to its sources and also an inherent differentiation, and medieval culture used this space that embodied both sameness and difference as a particularly fertile zone; the religious found an imperfect mirror within the world and humanity, reflecting the transcendent world beyond matter; saints imitated Christ and one another, authors and poets looked to the models of both Christian and pagan antiquity, texts were copied and diffused, artists looked to the work of their forbears and the world around them, and knights fashioned themselves in the guise of the heroes of romance. Establishing a relationship to a transcendental model was a primary mechanism of producing authority, and it formed the basis for traditions of textual transmission, institutional legitimacy, personal identity, and a sweeping range of other persistent ideas. While scholars of medieval subjects have each grappled with imitation in their own fields, rarely have those discoveries been brought together in a concentrated interdisciplinary conversation.

We invite abstracts of 250 words together with a 1-page CV by the deadline of 1 September 2011 that deal with the broad issue of imitation in the Middle Ages as encountered in (but not limited to) literature, theology, hagiography, historiography, art history, and philosophy. We hope to bring together scholarly discourses regarding the imitative traits found in medieval subjects in ways that combine and seek to reveal the often-neglected similarities present in medieval forms of imitation.  Topics might include, but are not limited to

  • Literary, dramatic, or artistic mimesis
  • Medieval forgeries and frauds
  • Textual copying and diffusion
  • Legal precedents
  • Vernacular translations and adaptations of Latin classical or patristic sources
  • Dionysian mysticism, the imitatio Christi and the theology of imitation
  • Imagination and simulation in the Middle Ages
  • Magic and illusion (including diabolic deception)
  • The Speculum as concept and organizational method
  • Genre building and imitation
  • Historiography and ‘borrowing’
  • Discipleship and ‘following’
  • Sacred topology

Papers should be 20min in length. To submit a proposal, or for any other inquiries, please email the Conference Committee c/o Daniel Price at email hidden; JavaScript is required.

CFP: Prandium, A UTM Lunchtime Seminar Series

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Presenters at this seminar series will include Graduate Students in the  departments from which Historical Studies draws its teaching assistants, namely Classics, Diaspora and Transnational Studies, Drama, History, Medieval Studies, Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations, Religion, and Women & Gender Studies. The committee will choose 3 applicants per term to present a 20-minute paper to an audience of faculty, staff, librarians,  undergraduate and graduate students affiliated with the Department  of Historical Studies.

Graduate students may use this opportunity as a complement to their studies, to present their research to a non-threatening audience and to practice for future job interviews. Students may also note this distinction on their CVs. Each student selected for the series will receive a prize of $200.

‘Prandium’ comes from Latin for ‘lunch’. The seminar series is intended to bring people to the department to share a lunch meal in harmony and to provide them some ‘food for thought’. It is also meant to enhance the experience of graduate and undergraduate students, introducing undergraduate students to graduate studies and increasing synergies between graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, librarians and staff. For more information on the UTM Department of Historical Studies, please visit our website at: http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/3386.html

Second submission deadline: July 5th, 2011

Students are asked to submit a completed Prandium proposal form to Dr. Mairi Cowan at email hidden; JavaScript is required.

CFP: Freiburg-Toronto Graduate Student Colloquium

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We are soliciting one-page abstracts from CMS students for papers dealing with all aspects of medieval studies. Abstracts that respond directly to the provisional theme of the colloquium, “Art, Language, Knowledge: Urban Life in the Middle Ages,” will be most welcome, but those that extend beyond or fall outside the proposed theme will also be given full consideration.

The colloquium is jointly sponsored by the Centre for Medieval Studies and the
Mittelalterzentrum of the Universität Freiburg and will take place at Freiburg on 3–5 November 2011. The aim is to promote discussion and exchange between graduate students and faculty from both institutions. Costs for travel and accommodation will be covered, and six abstracts will be selected on a competitive basis.

Abstracts should be submitted by 31 May to email hidden; JavaScript is required.