Category Archives: Conferences/CFPs

Editing and Interpretation: Literatures of Medieval England (8-10 Sep)

Derwent Building, The University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX

This three-day conference, held under the auspices of the Andrew Marvell Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, will focus on three overlapping areas central to all text-based work on medieval literatures: the identification, editing, and interpretation of texts. Major attention will be given to Medieval English, especially Middle English prose, but Anglo-Norman and Latin materials will also be discussed, as will verse texts and book illustration.

Speakers include: Julia Boffey (Queen Mary, University of London); A. S. G. Edwards (University of Kent); Martha Driver (Pace University, New York); Erik Kooper (Universiteit Utrecht); William Marx (University of Wales; Trinity St David, Lampeter); Kari Anne Rand (Universitetet i Oslo); John Thompson (Queen’s University, Belfast); and Ronald Waldron (Emeritus, King’s College London).

Registration (including meals): £60 full fee; £40 for postgraduates

Booking: Please send the booking form (available at http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/english/news-and -events.aspx), with a cheque for the relevant amount made payable to ‘The University of Hull’, to Veronica O’Mara, Department of English, The University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX

Registration Deadline — with conference-arranged accommodation: 30 April 2015; without conference-arranged accommodation: 30 July 2015

CFP (22 June): Transforming Male Devotional Practices from the Medieval to the Early Modern

UntitledSubmission deadline: June 22, 2015
Conference date(s): September 16, 2015 – September 17, 2015

This conference is co-hosted with the Universities of Reading and Liverpool Hope. It aims to explore the social, economic and spatial factors underpinning the changing way ordinary men demonstrated their commitment to God and the church(es) in a period of significant turmoil. Papers that address English male devotional experience from historical, literary, gender studies and material culture perspectives are welcomed. Suggested themes include:

  • Religion and Society: Domestic piety and lay/household Catholicism.
  • Material Culture and ritual objects.
  • The economy of piety: indulgences, relics and paying for piety.
  • Personal and public piety: Continuity and change over the medieval and early modern periods.
  • Devotional reading, writing and performance.
  • Geography, place and space in Catholic piety.

It is anticipated that selected papers will be published as part of an edited collection.

Please send proposals to: devotionalpracticeconference@gmail.com

CFP (24th Jul.): ‘Medieval Myths and British Identities: Past, Present, Future’

Call for papers now open for ‘Medieval Myths and British Identities: Past, Present, Future’, Postgraduate Conference at Cardiff University, 18th September 2015.

Postgraduate researchers in the fields of archaeology, art history, linguistics, literature, music, philosophy, politics, social science, theology, and any other relevant disciplines are invited to submit abstracts. Papers may include, but are not limited to the following topics:

  • British identities in medieval literature
  • Genealogy and national identity
  • Myth and cartography
  • Myth and historical memory
  • Myth and national separatism
  • Myth and theories of race
  • National heroes
  • National histories
  • National identity and forgery
  • National myths and gender identities
  • National myths in the visual arts
  • Nationalism and Medievalism
  • Origin stories
  • The politics of myth
  • Regional and local myths

For more information, please visit the conference’s website: https://britishmedievalmyths.wordpress.com/call-for-papers-2/

CFP (25 May): Magic and the Supernatural in the Medieval Periods

A graduate conference on the topic of magic and the supernatural will be held on 21st July 2015 in Cardiff University.

An understanding of magic and the supernatural is crucial to the study of the medieval and early modern periods. Magic was part of everyday life, ingrained into the cultural world view and popular imagination. It was also elusive, encompassing a plurality of meanings and forms that permeated every level of society and resulted in a wide range of practices, from those based on folkloric beliefs to quasi-religious rituals. As a means of understanding and attempting to control the social, spiritual, and natural world, it could be both a comfort and a threat to established norms. (See CFP for details)

Abstracts are welcomed from postgraduate students and early career researchers on all aspects of this topic in medieval and early modern history, literature, art, archaeology, architecture, and music. Please end abstracts of 200-300 words to supernatural@cardiff.ac.uk for papers no longer than 20 minutes by Monday 25th May, 2015.

CFP (31 May): Annual Conference of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society

The Annual Conference of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society will be held at the Centre for Medieval Studies, King’s Manor, University of York Monday 7 September – Wednesday 9 September 2015.

If you would like to present a 20-minute paper on any topic related to Arthurian studies, please send a title and abstract (maximum 200 words) to the organiser by the deadline of 31 May 2015. Speakers must be members of the Society at the time of the conference.

We also welcome proposals from members for round tables and themed sessions in which at least one participant is a current member of the Society. Please remember to include your name, affiliation, and contact details with your proposal.

Small bursaries will be available to assist with travel costs for postgraduate students. Details will be available nearer the time of the conference.

Proposals and enquiries should be sent to the organiser: Professor Helen Fulton, University of Bristol: helen.fulton@bristol.ac.uk

Call for Papers – British Branch Annual Conference 2015

CFP (12 April): Parenthood and Childhood in the Middle Ages

Parenthood and Childhood in the Middle Ages, University of Edinburgh, 8-9 October 2015

In recent years, scholars from a range of disciplines have considered how concepts such as ‘family’ and ‘the home’ can be used to understand and explore the wider structures of medieval society. This two day interdisciplinary conference will bring together researchers from across the Humanities, in order to consider these approaches and to identify new avenues for the study of family life in the medieval world.

Participants are invited to respond broadly to the title of ‘Parenthood and Childhood in the middle ages’ and we welcome papers which adopt interdisciplinary approaches, or which make geographical and thematic comparisons. Paper topics may include, but are not limited to: the spaces and objects of family life, discipline and disobedience, pregnancy and childbirth, foster parents, wards, godparents and adoptive parents, education, discord and harmony, holy and secular families, belonging and exclusion and legal disputes and inheritance. For full details click here for the conference poster: Parenthood_and_Childhood_Poster-libre

CFP (17 April): Darkness and Illumination

Medieval and Early Modern Student Association postgraduate conference: Darkness and Illumination: the Pursuit of Knowledge in the Medieval and Early Modern World, 15-17 July 2015

The pursuit of knowledge has had an essential and constant influence upon the shaping of society. The means of its acquisition, interpretation, and dissemination informs the way in which people interact with the world around them, forming religious and cultural identities, scientific knowledge and gender roles among other things. This was as much true in the past as it is today.

This year’s Medieval and Early Modern Student Association conference will focus upon aspects of knowledge, learning, and control over information in the medieval and early modern periods and in doing so broaden perspectives not just about how people perceived their world, but also how they interpreted the past and the idea of progress. Click here to see the full conference poster: Memsa 2015 CFP.

Early Announcement: Romance in Medieval Britain (17-19 Aug 2016)

At the 14th Biennial Romance in Medieval Britain conference, held at the University of Bristol in April 2014, it was decided that the 15th Biennial Conference (2016) would be held outside of the British Isles for the first time.

It is now, therefore, my pleasure to make an early announcement of the date and location of the 2016 Romance in Medieval Britain Conference, which will be held at the Point Grey Campus of The University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada, from the 17th – 19th August, 2016.

As many of you will know, the Biennial Romance in Medieval Britain conferences have concerned themselves with that diverse body of literature generally termed ‘Romance’ originating from, and/or circulating within, the British Isles during the medieval period. Its remit also includes the circulation of British romances on the continent, and the post-medieval influences of romance. All boundaries – temporal, linguistic, geographic, and generic – are flexible. As the 2016 conference will be held in Canada, we will be especially encouraging bi-lingual and multi-lingual approaches to Romance.

At this stage, this is merely a ‘hold this date’ announcement, and a full notification of the conference and a formal Call For Papers (both open and thematic streams) will be circulated in late 2015.

CFP (23 Feb): Oxford English Graduate Conference – Value

In times of austerity, it is more than ever essential that what and how we value, and the far-reaching effects of any such valuation, be closely examined. The need for such attention has become particularly urgent within universities, where recent reductions of funding have sparked a sharp increase of debate over ‘the value of the Humanities’. With that in mind, the Oxford English Faculty Graduate Conference 2015 invites papers on all aspects of ‘value’, as a concept that has, and will always inspire great passion, and great controversy.

Contributors may consider, but need not be limited to:

– Texts that reflect certain values, and how they are constructed.
– Markers of value: use and usefulness, difficulty, religious significance, political engagement, artistic integrity etc.
– Valuations along lines of gender, racial, national, linguistic and sexual difference.
– The combining and clashing of distinct value-systems.
– Valuation in material culture: money, wealth, and commodity, especially in the literary marketplace.
– The idea of intrinsic versus commodity value.
– The relationship between aesthetic and ethical values.
– Value and the canon: ways in which one set of texts becomes valued above another.
– Formal value: emphasis and accent within texts.
– Value and editorial decision: the formation of the ‘authoritative text’.
– The value, or non-value, of certain methods and approaches to the study of literature.
– Attempts to resist the allocation or expression of value; hidden or concealed values; the power of assumed values.

Applications are welcome from graduate students at all stages irrespective of institutional affiliation, and working on all aspects of English Studies. Proposals are invited for twenty-minute papers, to be delivered as part of panels of three. Individual proposals (of 250 words), and panel proposals (of up to 700 words), for three papers that interact under a common theme, are accepted.  Please send proposals to value.conference@ell.ox.ac.uk.

The deadline for submissions is *23rd February 2015.* The one-day conference will take place on *Friday 5 June* 2015.