Community & Identity, Unity & Diversity in Medieval Europe (c.700-1300)

29 June-1 July 2022

Deadline: 21 March 2022: aberystwythmedievalists@gmail.com

Students of medieval identity have long been preoccupied with questions about how communities were brought together. The strategies deployed by medieval writers when devising a history for their communities, or when distinguishing them from others, can reveal much about their visions of identity.

The fifth Aberystwyth Medieval Conference will explore strategies for uniting and dividing medieval communities, how those writing about the past helped to construct – or to overcome – borders between communities, and how their visions of communal identities may have shaped, and may in turn have been shaped by, the construction of medieval polities.

The workshop will take place from 29th June to 1st July 2022. We anticipate that it will take place in-person. We warmly welcome proposals for 20-minute papers from postgraduates, early career & established scholars working on any aspect of the high medieval past (c.700-1300). Perspectives from any discipline are welcome, including but not limited to history, literary studies, art history, philosophy, archaeology, and palaeography.

Keynote speakers:

Michal Biran (Jerusalem)

Gerd Lubich (Bochum)

Hugh M. Thomas (Miami)

Alex Woolf (St Andrews)

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:

Borders and identity

The construction of networks

Relations between the “centre” and “periphery”

Disputing/dispute settlement

Belonging and exclusion.

Divisions between lay and spiritual

Ideas of “the other”

aberystwythmedievalists@gmail.com