ANZAMEMS Conference 2024
Ōtautahi Christchurch, New Zealand
8 – 11 February 2024

Legacies & Relevance

In addition to encouraging papers related to the theme, the ANZAMEMS conference welcomes paper and panel proposals on all aspects of medieval and early modern studies, including medievalism.

Submissions for individual papers and panels should be made by 15 October via the conference website: https://www.anzamems2024.co.nz/

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Tarren Andrews, Yale University
Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies in the program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University

Tarren is a Bitterroot Salish scholar and documented descendant of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Her forthcoming book brings Indigenous studies questions and methods to Old English law and literature with the aim of understanding how Anglophone settler colonial ideologies developed in the early medieval North Atlantic, long before the first contacts between Europe and North America. 

Wallace Cleaves, University of California, Riverside
Associate Dean and Director of the University Writing Program at UC Riverside, Director of the California Center for Native Nations

Wallace’s work, teaching, and research centre around the fields of composition, medieval literature, and Indigenous methodologies. He is a member of the Gabrieleno/Tongva Native American tribe, the Indigenous peoples of the Los Angeles area, and is the co-founder and president of the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy which received the first land return for the Tongva people. He is co-author of the 13th edition of St. Martin’s Guide to Writing.

Natasha Hodgson, Nottingham Trent University
Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Research in History, Heritage, and Memory Studies at Nottingham Trent University

Natasha’s research and teaching focus mainly on the medieval period, with a special interest in the crusades, gender, and social and cultural history. She is the author of Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative (Boydell, 2017), co-editor of Crusading and Masculinities (2019) and most recently edited Miracles, Political Authority and Violence in Medieval and Early Modern History (2021) for Routledge.

CONFERENCE THEME: Legacies and Relevance – Exploring the Medieval & Early Modern World Beyond Europe

How does pre-modern European History “add value” in Australasia? Is its study the vestige of an outdated colonial legacy? Or is it something else? Where does it stand in a world of toppled statues and questioned legacies? In the face of a previous Australian government overtly committed to defunding the Arts and a New Zealand government with similar aims (but a less confrontational way of putting it), and universities in both countries cutting staff, should we now re-focus the curricula of universities across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand on what matters? But what does matter? And who should decide?

In the wake of a global pandemic, which has re-written “business as usual,” is it time for a reformation or for holding fast? This conference will showcase the best of scholarship across a range of disciplines pursued by medieval and Early Modern scholars, but will also seek to ask complex and challenging questions about the future of our discipline. Can the study of medieval and Early Modern Europe help to meet the needs of our times? What is the role of the medieval or Early Modern scholar in Australasian society? Indeed, what was it? In considering these issues, we encourage the exploration of questionable as well as positive legacies, and offer a forum to consider the possible future(s) of our discipline.

ANZAMEMS SEMINAR: A seminar for PG and ECRs will take place at the University of Otago, Dunedin on 13 February. Further details to follow via the conference website.

For all academics enquiries, please contact the conference co-convenors:

Chris Jones (chris.jones@canterbury.ac.nz)
Madi Williams (madi.williams@canterbury.ac.nz)

For all practical enquiries (submission, accommodation, etc.), please contact the conference manager:

Mandy Train (mandy@conference.nz)