Call for Papers: Bodies and Boundaries, Postgraduate Conference 2024, University of Bristol (11-12 April 2024), Due 22 January 2024

Call for Papers

Bodies and Boundaries

Postgraduate Conference 2024

Centre for Medieval Studies, university of bristol, 11-12 April 2024

Due 22 January 2024

Following the success of the 2023 'Identities, Communities and 'Imagine Communities' Conference, we are delighted to invite you to the next installment of the longest-standing postgraduate conference in medieval studies: the 2024 'Bodies and Boundaries' PGR Conference.

This conference marks a significant milestone as we celebrate the 650th anniversary of Bristol's royal charter which makes the subject of embodiment in medieval contexts a highly topical theme. Imagining how past people moved within Bristol, analysing the spatial and sensory dimensions of medieval Bristol and considering how those people may have understood their bodies and environments provides a fascinating lens through which we can comprehend the medieval experience.

We welcome papers that consider bodies and boundaries across the Middle Ages, exploring theories and ideologies that underpin medieval embodiment. How did medieval individuals and communities comprehend the intricacies of their individual and collective bodies, and how did they draw the boundaries between them? How did people in the past view the complex boundary between the corporeal and the spiritual, material and immaterial? These are just some of the questions participants may consider for this conference.

We encourage abstracts from postgraduates and early-career researchers, exploring aspects and approaches to bodies and boundaries in all relevant disciplines pertaining to the medieval period, broadly construed c.500-c.1500. Abstracts are 300 words for 20-minute papers. This year's conference will be a hybrid event, taking place both online and on the campus of the University of Bristol. Please indicate in your abstract whether you intend to participate in-person or online.

Abstracts and enquiries : cms-conference-enquiries@bristol.ac.uk

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Disability, race, and gendered bodies

  • Senses and spaces

  • Emotions, the soul and mind

  • Borders and Boundaries

  • Scribal culture

  • Music, rituals and performances

  • Landscapes and topography

  • National Identities

  • The visual body

  • Monstrosity

  • Migration and xenophobia

  • Law and Custom

  • The allegorical body

  • Medicine and mortality

  • The sacred, the clerical and the lay

  • Legal and jurisdictional boundaries

  • Material culture

  • Human and non-human bodies

  • Performative bodies

  • The body politic

  • Memory and objects of memory

For a copy of the Call for Papers, click here.