The Medieval Academy Blog

Call for Papers: MAA Sponsored Sessions at Kalamazoo, May 11-14, 2017

The Medieval Academy of America seeks proposals for two sponsored sessions at the 2017 International Congress on Medieval Studies, on the topic of “Mobility of Things and Persons.” These sessions will build on the Medieval Academy of America plenary lecture, to be delivered by Leor HaLevi (Vanderbilt Univ.).

I: “Cross-Cultural Images and Crafts: Transcultural Objects and Artisanal Migration”
II: “Trading with Infidels: Legal Approaches to Interfaith Commerce.”

Please send proposals with a one-page abstract and Participant Information Form
(https://wmich.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/u434/2016/medieval-pif-2017.pdf)
to Sara Lipton (sara.lipton@stonybrook.edu) by September 15, 2016.

The Normans in the South
Mediterranean Meetings in the Central Middle Ages
Friday 30 June – Sunday 2 July 2017
St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford

By some accounts, 1017 marked the advent of the Norman presence in Italy and Sicily, inaugurating a new era of invasion, interaction and integration in the Mediterranean. Whether or not we decide the millennial anniversary is significant, the moment offers an ideal opportunity to explore the story in the south, about a thousand years ago. To what extent did the Normans establish a cross-cultural empire? What can we learn by comparing the impact of the Norman presence in different parts of Europe? What insights are discoverable in comparing local histories of Italy and Sicily with broader historical ideas about transformation, empire and exchange? The conference aims to draw together established, early-career and post-graduate scholars for a joint investigation of the Normans in the south, to explore together the many meetings of cultural, political and religious ideas in the Mediterranean in the central Middle Ages.

Keynote Speakers
Professor Graham Loud (University of Leeds)
Professor Jeremy Johns (University of Oxford)
Professor Sandro Carocci (University of Rome II)

Call for Papers
Proposals for three-paper sessions, as well as individual proposals for 20-minute papers, are welcome. Comparative studies are particularly encouraged. Submissions should include: an abstract of 200–300 words, paper title, name and academic position, institutional affiliation and durable contact details for all speakers.

Themes and topics could include:

• Sicily as a cultural crossroads
• Crusading
• The Normans and empire
• Islamic interactions
• Political leadership
• Social change: women, men and families
• Norman Conquests compared: Italy, Sicily and other parts of Europe
• Reactions to the Norman presence in the south, then and now
• Impact on Italy as a whole
• Migration
• Local history: micro-perspectives on macro-trends

Submission Deadline: 15 November 2016
Please direct paper and session proposals, requests to join the conference mailing list, ideas for themes, and all other enquiries to:

Dr Emily A. Winkler
emily.winkler@history.ox.ac.uk

conference sponsored by
www.haskinssociety.org

Call for Papers
Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts Sponsored Session
at the 52^st International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 11-14, 2017

We seek proposals for the following session:

Networks of Transmission: Histories and Practices of Collecting Medieval Manuscripts and Documents

This session will focus on the mapping of those networks of sale and purchase through which medieval manuscripts have been pursued and on the collectors and collecting that have catalyzed this transmission across the centuries. This session – like The Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts itself – is rooted in the belief that studying manuscripts’ provenance can have dynamic and profound effects not only on our understanding of these medieval materials as objects to be bought and sold but also on their texts through mapping their circulation and reception. We particularly welcome proposals that explore diverse topics from the role of digital technologies such as the SDBM in conducting provenance research, the relationship between institutional and private ownership of manuscripts, specific case studies of collecting practices, the transatlantic travels of medieval materials, collectors’ roles in the dispersal of libraries and the fragmentation of manuscripts, collectors and manuscript preservation, and how a manuscript’s provenance history can affect its value and collectability on the rare books market, to how collectors and the act of collecting can shape and influence interpretations of manuscript evidence.

Please send proposals with a one-page abstract and Participant Information Form (www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html) to Lynn Ransom (lransom@upenn.edu ) by September 1, 2016.

CFP: Rethinking the Post-Gothic in Medieval Iberia

Special Session, 52^nd International Congress on Medieval Studies
May 11-14, 2017
Organizer: Ksenia Bonch Reeves, Wright State University, xenia.bonch@wright.edu

Call for proposals

Mid-eighth century Iberian chronicles famously describe post-Visigothic Spain as a landscape of ruins. The period “after the Visigoths”, which began with the Arab and Muslim invasion and settlement of the Iberian Peninsula (711) and fortuitously ended with the presumed reestablishment of the Visigothic royal bloodline in Asturias, was long considered an unfortunate stumbling block in the otherwise straightforward process of Spanish nation-building. As these foundational narratives came under scrutiny, the Iberian post-Gothic has emerged as an area of inquiry in its own right. Rather than just a hiatus, the period encompassing the Iberian eighth and ninth centuries is now being seen as a crucial one for our understanding of ideological support mechanisms of Christian survival in al-Andalus and the emergence of new centers of power and sovereignty in the post-Visigothic Iberian Peninsula.

In the newly fragmented and unstable Iberian landscape, Visigothic heritage becomes an anchor of stability and continuity, with Christian as well as Muslim ruling elites claiming Visigothic legacy. The legitimation mechanisms varied greatly, with some of the principal vehicles having been chronicle writing, royal ceremonial, construction and consecration of buildings in Asturias; oral traditions in Muslim al-Andalus; hagiography among the Mozarabs; and legislative activity in Gothic Septimania and the Hispanic March. Much of our knowledge of these mechanisms remains work in progress, but claims of Visigothic heritage are by no means consigned to the distant past. Since 2003, by sponsoring efforts to preserve a collection of Arabic manuscripts from Timbuktu, Mali, Spain has embraced the narrative of Visigothic origins put forth by manuscript owner and curator Ismael Diadié Haidara, who asserts himself to be a modern-day descendant of King Rodrigo through his ancestor, Muslim judge ‘Ali ibn Ziyad of Toledo. The involvement of the Spanish government and private entities in the support and preservation of this African library, known as the ‘Kati (‘Gothic’) Fund’, is yet another example of powerful ways in which the post-Gothic narrative continues to shape Spain’s historical mythology.

Given these new developments, how can we explain the extraordinary success of the Asturian royal myth of direct Visigothic descendancy? What was the contribution of the Mozarabs, the other, forgotten descendants of Visigoths, to the post-Visigothic Iberian theological, political, literary, and cultural landscape? What were the mechanisms by which both Iberian Christians and Muslims claimed Visigothic heritage throughout history? Which other individuals and groups legitimized themselves as descendants of Visigoths, in and outside the Iberian Peninsula, and how were these claims expressed at various times in literary, historiographical, legal, and theological testimonies, songs and folklore, theatrical works and novels, as well as art and architecture? How can we continue to critically engage with historical claims of Spain’s Visigothic origins in today’s post-national, global, and interconnected world?

Please e-mail proposals for 20-minute paper presentations to xenia.bonch@wright.edu.
Deadline: Thursday, September 15, 2016.