ICMS, 61st International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 14-16, 2026
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI
Panel : “Landscapes Lost and Found: Navigating in and out of the Medieval Italian City”
This in-person panel explores how Italian literature, art, and culture reflect on the experience of navigating within and without the medieval city in an age of increasing intercultural connectivity. As city walls marked both division and porous exchange, so texts, images, and historical actors negotiated the boundaries between center and peripheries, built and natural environment, identity and alterity. From Dante’s political geography to Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s allegorical landscapes, from Boccaccio’s urban navigations to the journeys of Marco Polo and Saint Francis, this panel examines how past visions of movement through and beyond the city speak to today’s ecological and geopolitical crises.
Emphasizing interdisciplinary dialogue, we welcome a wide range of critical approaches—from ecocriticism and environmental history to political geography, art history, and the study of space and mobility. By bringing together diverse methodologies, the panel aims to foster conversation across disciplines and time periods. We especially encourage contributions that draw connections between medieval representations of movement, place, and boundaries, and contemporary questions of climate, migration, and the human shaping of landscape.
Please submit your paper proposal for consideration by session organizers directly on the Confex portal by Friday, September 15, 2025: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7157
Proposals must include the author’s name, affiliation and contact information; a title and an abstract (300 words); and a short description (50 words) that may be made public, if the proposal is accepted.<
