Gender and Transgression in the Middle Ages
University of St Andrews
April 26-28, 2016

Conference Website

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for Gender and Transgression in the Middle Ages 2015, an interdisciplinary conference hosted by the University of St Andrews Institute of Mediaeval Studies (SAIMS). Entering into its seventh year, this conference welcomes participation from postgraduate, postdoctoral and early career researchers interested in one or both of our focal themes of gender studies or more general ideas of transgression in the mediaeval period.

This year’s conference will have a keynote presentation by Dr Rob Meens of the Utrecht Universiteit. Other speakers include Dr Liana Saif (University of Oxford), Dr Megan Cavell (Durham University) and Dr Zubin Mistry (Queen Mary University of London).

We invite proposals for papers of approximately 20 minutes that engage with the themes of gender and/or transgression from various disciplinary standpoints, such as historical, linguistic, literary, archaeological, art historical, or others. Possible topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

• Depictions of violence: visual and literary images of violence, verbal and non-verbal violence, gendered violence
• Legal Studies: women in the courtroom, gendered crimes, law breaking and law making
• Penance: men, women and penance, penance as punishment, rituals of penance, penitential discourses and ideals, penance and power
• Orthodoxy and Heresy: transgressing orthodox thought, portrayals of religious ‘outsiders’, monasticism, lay religion, mysticism
• Moral transgression
• Homosexuality and sexual deviancy
• Masculinity and/or femininity in the Middle Ages: ideas of gender norms and their application within current historiography

There will be four set strands of Medieval Law and Literature, Transgression in the Medieval East (with Liana Saif), Bodies and Violence (with Megan Cavell), and Crimes of
Sex (with Zubin Mistry). There will be several other sessions within the broader conference theme.

Those wishing to participate should please submit an abstract of approximately 250 words to genderandtransgression@st-andrews.ac.uk by 13 February, 2015. Please attach your abstract to your email as a Microsoft Word or PDF file and include your name, home institution and stage of your postgraduate or postdoctoral career.

Registration for the conference will be £15. This will cover tea, coffee, lunch and two wine receptions. All delegates are also warmly invited to the conference meal on Friday 8 May. Further details can be found at our website, http://www.standrews.ac.uk/saims/gender/index.html as they become available. Please also follow us on Twitter @standgt and find us on Facebook!

Beyond Borders: Mutual Imaginings of Europe and the Middle East (800-1700)
Barnard College’s 25th Biannual Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference
December 3, 2016

Recent scholarship is challenging the stark border between Europe and the Middle East during the long period between 800-1700. Rather than thinking of these areas in isolation, scholars are revealing the depth of their mutual influence. Trade, war, migration, and scholarly exchange connected Europe and the Middle East in ways both cooperative and adversarial. The distant world was not only an object of aggression, but also, inextricably, of fantasy and longing. Jewish, Muslim, and Christian thinkers looked to each other to understand their own cultural histories and to imagine their futures. Bringing together art historians, literary scholars, historians, scholars of the history of science, and scholars of religious thought, this interdisciplinary conference will explore the real and imaginary cultural interchanges between Europe and the Middle East during their formative periods. The conference will feature plenary lectures by Professors Nancy Bisaha of Vassar College, and Nabil Matar of the University of Minnesota.

This conference is being organized by Professors Rachel Eisendrath, Najam Haider, and Laurie Postlewate of Barnard College.

Please send an abstract (with title) of approximately 200 words and CV to lpostlew@barnard.edu. Presentations should be 20 minutes.

Deadline: April 10, 2016.