The Medieval Academy Blog

The Mediterranean Studies Association’s 16th annual International Congress will be held on May 29- June 1, 2013, at the University of the Azores in the historic city of Angra do Heroísmo, Terceira, Azores. As is the case each year, papers and sessions on all subjects relating to the Mediterranean region and Mediterranean cultures around the world from all periods are welcome. Following optional excursions, the Congress will open with a plenary session and reception on the evening of Wednesday, May 29. Over 150 scholarly papers will be delivered before an international audience of scholars, academics, and experts in a wide range of fields. The official languages of the Congress are English and Portuguese. Complete sessions in any Mediterranean language are welcome. A number of special events are being planned for Congress participants that will highlight the unique cultural aspects of the Azores Islands.
Sponsors of the Congress are the Mediterranean Studies Association, the University of the Azores, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the University of Kansas, Utah State University, and the Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Busan University of Foreign Studies, Korea. Selected revised papers may be considered for publication in the Association’s journal, Mediterranean Studies, published by Penn State University Press.

The Mediterranean Studies Association, an interdisciplinary organization, promotes the scholarly study of the Mediterranean region in all aspects and disciplines. Proposals for papers and sessions are now being solicited. Proposals for roundtable discussions of a topical work or theme are also welcome. The typical panel will include three-four papers, each lasting twenty minutes, a chair, and (optionally) a commentator. For examples of paper and session topics, and the range of subjects, see the programs from previous congresses.

Proposals must include a 200-word abstract in English for each paper and a one-page curriculum vitae for each participant, including chairs and commentators. (If you have participated in a recent congress, you need not submit your cv again; we have it on file.) Each participant’s name, e-mail and regular address, and phone number should also be listed. Only ONE paper proposal per person will be accepted. If you are also willing to chair a session, please let us know.
Proposals for papers and/or sessions must be submitted through this MSA website:

https://www.mediterraneanstudies.org/

The deadline for submission of proposals is February 1st, 2013

NOTE: The MSA regrets that no funding is available to support travel and other costs of participants.

Questions concerning the conference should be directed to Louise Boudreau medstudiesassn@umassd.edu

Gender and Medieval Studies Conference 2013
Corsham Court, Bath Spa University

Gender in Material Culture
4th-6th January 2013

Keynote Speakers
Prof. Catherine Karkov, University of Leeds
Dr Simon Yarrow, University of Birmingham

From saintly relics to grave goods, and from domestic furnishings to the built environment, medieval people inhabited a material world saturated with symbolism. Gender had a profound influence on production and consumption in this material culture. Birth charms and objects of Marian devotion were crafted most often with women in mind, whilst gender shaped the internal spaces of male and female religious houses. The material environment could evoke intense emotions from onlookers, whether fostering reverence in religious rituals, or inspiring awe during royal processions. How did gender influence encounters with these objects and the built environment? Seldom purely functional, these items could incorporate complex meanings, enabling acts of display at every level of society, in fashionable circles at European courts or amongst civic guilds sponsoring lavish pageants. Did gender influence aesthetic choices, and how did status shape the way that people engaged with their physical surroundings? In literary texts and in art, the depiction of clothing and objects can be used to negotiate symbolic space as well as class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity. Texts and images also circulated as material objects themselves, with patterns of transmission across the British Isles, the Anglo-Norman world, and between East and West. The exchange of such objects both accompanied and enacted cross-fertilisation in linguistic, political and cultural spheres.

The Conference will consider the gendered nature of social, religious and economic uses of ‘things’, exploring the way that objects and material culture were produced, consumed and displayed. Papers will address questions of gender from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives, embracing literature, history, art history, and archaeology.

Themes will include:

•  adornment, clothing and self-fashioning
•  the material culture of devotion
•  objects and materialism
•  the material culture of children and adolescents
•  the material culture of life cycle
•  emotion, intimacy and love-gifts
•  entertainment and games
•  memory and commemoration
•  pleasure, pain, and bodily discipline
•  production and consumption
•  monastic material culture
•  material culture in literary texts

Please e-mail proposals of approximately 300 words for 20 minute papers to the GMS committee at gms.bathspa.2013@gmail.com by 14 September 2012. Please also include your name, research area, institution and level of study in your abstract.