Proposals are invited for two panels being organised by the Australian Early Medieval Association for the ANZAMEMS 2019 conference, 5 – 8 February 2019, University of Sydney. A summary of each panel follows. See the attached PDFs for full proposal requirements and contact details. Call for proposals closes 3 August 2018 (extended to 17 August for Panel 2).
Panel 1: Cultural Identity in the Early Medieval Celtic World
Identity is a cultural marker that is almost ephemeral, so hard is it to pin down in the sources. It is a quality which varies over time, has different meanings depending on the intended audience, and an individual can hold multiple identities. Yet in the early medieval world, a person’s identity could be readily discerned from various visual and aural markers. This session will seek to uncover how identity was understood among early medieval communities, tribes, and kingdoms within the Celtic-speaking lands of Europe.
Proposals are invited for 20 minute papers on any aspect of Celtic cultural identity including, but not limited to:
- Etymology, Categorisation, and the description of identity in the early medieval period
- The changing nature of cultural boundaries and horizons over time
- Modes of change for cultural and/or personal identity across time and space
- The individual within society: definitions of self
- How did individuals change their identity: war, migration, conversion, marriage and death
- How were strangers identified in the context of pilgrimage, mercantile travel, or war
- The limitations of modern categories of cultural identification
- The role of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research
Panel 2: Cultural Identity in the Anglo-Scandinavian World
Scandinavian migration and settlement in the British Isles and Ireland in the early Viking Age effected significant cultural and social change among communities as cultures interacted, assimilated and, at times, rejected one-another. For scholars, categorising the resultant cultural groups has proved contentious, with a proliferation of overlapping terms such as ‘Anglo-Dane,’ ‘Anglo-Scandinavian,’ ‘Hiberno-Norse,’ ‘viking,’ ‘Norse,’ and ‘Dane,’ used interchangeably as ethnic identifiers. Contemporary sources, in contrast, do not clearly ascribe identity to ethnicity, but rather by cultural origin or religion. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for example, primarily refers to those of a Scandinavian cultural identity simply as Dene [Dane] or, at times when interactions were hostile, as hæðene [heathen]. Which gives rise to the question: how was cultural identity perceived in the Early Medieval Anglo-Scandinavian world and to what degree was self-identity associated with ethnicity, religion, or language?
Proposals are invited for 20 minute papers on any aspect of Anglo-Scandinavian cultural identity including, but not limited to:
- Migration and the inter-cultural exchange of ideas
- Religious identity and Christianisation
- Linguistic identity and cross-cultural communication
- Characterisations of the foreign in saga literature
- The utility of modern categories of cultural identification
