MZAW-Gastprofessur für Kulturgeschichte des Altertums 2022/23

CALL FOR PAPERS

INSECTS IN THE PREMODERN WORLD

July 6-7, 2023, Munich, Germany

Conference by Prof. Dr. Przemystaw Marciniak (LMU)

Abstracts Due 30 April 2023

Edward Wilson, an American biologist, and Pulitzer Prize winner estimated that there are nearly ten quintillion insects worldwide. Throughout centuries they provoked fundamentally different emotions and reactions in various cultures: from disgust to fascination. They were used and are still being used as food and medicine.

Insects have also played an important part in human culture throughout centuries.

They were used in art and literature as vehicles for symbolic meanings. During the conference at the Münchner Zentrum für Antike Welten, we propose to look at the global history of insects from the point of view of cultural entomology, that is, how insects were integrated into the cultural fabric of a given premodern society.

The list of possible topics includes but is not limited to the following subjects:

Insects in literature;
Insects in art;
Insects as animal companions;
literary Insects as invectives and praises;
Insects as a source of food;
Insects in ethnopharmacology;
archeoentomology

The chronological scope of the conference is from antiquity to ca. 1500, and the geographical perspective is global.

We invite submissions from scholars working on or interested in cultural entomology across the globe.

Date & Location: The conference will take place in Munich (LMU) on July 6-7 in a hybrid format. Please specify in your submission whether you would like to participate in person or online. Selected participants will be offered accommodation and reimbursement of travel expenses.

Abstracts: Abstracts of no more than 150 words should be sent no later than April 30 to: przemyslaw.marciniak@mzaw.Imu.de and mzaw@mzaw.Imu.de

For more information, go to https://www.mzaw.uni-muenchen.de/index.html.

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