CFP Gender, Memory and Documentary Culture, 900-1200

The John Rylands Research Institute Annual Conference 2019, ‘Gender, Memory and Documentary Culture 900-1200’, co-sponsored by the Haskins Society, will be held at the John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK 28-29 June, 2019.

This conference brings together aspects of gender and documentary culture between the tenth and the twelfth centuries that we believe inform and engage each other, but are often studied in isolation. Although the field of medieval gender studies is an active and well-populated one, less attention is given to the role gender played in the commissioning, use and preservation of documents, whether manuscript books or other types of documentary materials. Did medieval men and women interact with documentary culture in the same way? The texture of the relationship between gender and documentary cultures has yet to be teased out, and it is hoped that this conference will provide an ideal forum to advance this field.

Paper proposals on the following broad themes are invited:

  • Lay and ecclesiastical manuscript cultures
  • Rhetorical agency
  • Documentary genre and gender
  • Manuscript and cartulary production and dissemination
  • Gendered use of manuscripts (including commissioning, production and dissemination of women’s secular and monastic writing)
  • The gendering of memory
  • Documentary artifacts as material culture.

We are pleased to announce our plenary speakers:

  • Constance B. Bouchard (University of Akron)
  • Steven Vanderputten (Ghent University)

Paper submissions that utilize resources held at the John Rylands Library (http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/search-resources/guide-to-special-collections/manuscripts-and-archives/ ) are especially welcome, as are submissions from Early Career Researchers.

To offer a paper, please send an abstract of 250 words to one of the organisers by 1 December 2018:
Laura Gathagan laura.gathagan@cortland.edu or
Charles Insley charles.insley@manchester.ac.uk

The cost of the conference will be £65, with reduced fees for postgraduate students and Haskins Society members.