The Medieval Academy Blog

Call for Papers: “Perceptions of Just War in the Middle Ages”, International Medieval Congress 2025

The Research Training Group “Byzantium and the Euro-Mediterranean Cultures of War” (JGU Mainz) invites scholars to submit paper proposals for a series of sessions on “Perceptions of Just War in the Middle Ages” at the IMC in Leeds, taking place from 7th to 10th July 2025. These sessions aim to explore the diverse theological, philosophical, legal, and cultural perspectives on Just War in medieval Europe and beyond, focusing on the distribution and evolution of associated knowledge traditions.

We welcome contributions on, but not limited to, the following topics:

1. Theological and philosophical foundations

– Just War doctrines and comparable concepts in Western Christian thought and in the Orthodox tradition (Byzantium, etc.)

– Jewish, Islamic or Oriental Christian views and debates on war and justice/righteousness

2. Legal frameworks

– Rules and norms for warfare in legal traditions

– Comparative analyses of different legal systems

3. Cultural and literacy representations

– Narratives and symbolisms of Just War in literature and historiography

– Iconography of justice and war in the visual arts

4. Historical case studies

– Analyses of specific wars and their justifications

– Chroniclers and historiographers on Just Wars

5. Ethical and moral debates

– Ethical justifications and criticisms of Just War

– Concepts of peace and their interactions with war ideologies

Interested scholars are welcome to submit an abstract (no more than 150 words) along with a brief CV (including current affiliation and contact information) to the session organizers, Marco Büttner (marco.buettner@uni-mainz.de), Bart Peters (bart.peters@tu-braunschweig.de) and Johannes Pahlitzsch (pahlitzsch@uni-mainz.de), by 8 September 2024. Acceptance notifications will be sent out by 22 September 2024. Depending on the number of accepted proposals, each presentation will last 15 or 20 minutes.

Co-organizers Michael A. Torregrossa, Karen Casey Casebier, and Carl B. Sell

Sponsored by Medieval Comics Project, an outreach effort of the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2024

56th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)

Philadelphia Marriott Downtown (Philadelphia, PA)

On-site event: 6-9 March 2025

Rationale

Interest in comics has steadily expanded as the medium has moved from a niche culture to mass media, and it is now well-attested that comics can serve as effective tools in the classroom for conveying information as well as expressing new interpretations of familiar stories and tropes. Consequently, we believe that many disciplines can benefit by using comics and related texts for teaching purposes. Our students are readily familiar with the conventions of the medium, and the interplay of text and image offers innovative ways to engage with course material.

Our focus in this session is on Medieval Studies and what comics can contribute to furthering the field. Comics based on medieval themes include adaptations of medieval stories as well as works that appropriate aspects of the medieval and transform this content into new characters or adventures.

In this session, we seek to build upon the work of medieval-comics scholars and share strategies for incorporating comics into the teaching of the various subfields of Medieval Studies, including art, history, languages, literature, and philosophy.  We hope these ideas can help invigorate the discipline and bring more students into our classrooms. (As you plan your proposal, please see our growing resource guide for studies on medieval comics scholarship at https://tinyurl.com/MedievalComicsProjectBiblios.)

Submission Instructions

Our focus in this session is on Medieval Studies and what comics can contribute to furthering the field. We seek to build upon the work of medieval-comics scholars and share strategies for incorporating comics into the teaching of the various subfields of Medieval Studies, including art, history, languages, literature, and philosophy.  We hope these ideas can help invigorate the discipline and bring more students into our classrooms. (As you plan your proposal, please see our growing resource guide for studies on medieval comics scholarship at https://tinyurl.com/MedievalComicsProjectBiblios.)

All proposals must be submitted into the CFPList system at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21106 by 30 September 2024. You will be prompted to create an account with NeMLA (if you do not already have one) and, then, to complete sections on Title, Abstract, and Media Needs.

Notification on the status of your submission will be made by 16 October 2024. If accepted, NeMLA asks you to confirm your participation with the session chairs by accepting their invitations and by registering for the event. The deadline for Registration/Membership is 9 December 2024.

Be advised of the following policies of the Convention: All participants must be members of NeMLA for the year of the conference. Participants may present on up to two sessions of different types (panels/seminars are considered of the same type). Submitters to the CFP site cannot upload the same abstract twice.(See the NeMLA Presenter Policies page, at https://www.nemla.org/convention/policies.html, for further details,)

NeMLA offers limited funding for travel to graduate students and to contingent faculty, adjunct instructors, independent scholars, and two-year college faculty. Details can be found at the NeMLA Travel Awards page at https://www.nemla.org/awards/travel.html.

Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at Comics.Get.Medieval@gmail.com.

For more information on the Medieval Comics Project please visit our website at https://Medieval-Comics-Project.blogspot.com/.

Call for Papers:
Sessions at the International Medieval Congress,
Leeds, 07-10 July 2025
Learning in Iberia, Learning from Iberia

Organizers:
Alexander Marx, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Laurin Herberich, University of Heidelberg

Sponsor: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ibero-Mediaevistik

This call for papers invites contributions concerned with the Iberian Peninsula and neighbouring regions in the Mediterranean World. Papers can focus on any period throughout the Middle Ages. The thematic focus is concerned with this year’s subject of “Worlds of Learning” (but not strictly limited to it), including, for example, clerical education, the formation of universities, manuscript production, exegetical endeavours, or preaching efforts.

Besides this thematic focus, these sessions have the goal to seize the opportunity provided by the IMC to bring together scholars from different scholarly and national communities, since many different groups are working on the Iberian Peninsula, and via these sessions we hope to encourage stronger interaction between these groups. This includes several nationally determined groups such as the strong German scholarship on Iberia (as united in the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Ibero-Mediaevistik) as well as several subject-related groups such as crusade scholars devoted to corresponding phenomena on the Peninsula. These sessions, therefore, have the goal to put various communities into conversation, and to generate new synergies between different scholarly traditions.

If you are interested in presenting in these sessions, please send a title and c.250 words abstract (in English) to the two organisers by 15 Sept. 2024.

Contact:
alexander.marx@oeaw.ac.at
laurin.herberich@zegk.uni-heidelberg.de

Deadline for proposals: 15 Sept. 2024

(Re)Animating the Middle Ages: Adapting the Medieval in Animated Media
Co-organizers Michael A. Torregrossa, Karen Casey Casebier, and Carl B. Sell

Sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2024
56th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown (Philadelphia, PA)
On-site event: 6-9 March 2025

Rationale

Our conception of the Middle Ages is usually formed by the versions of the medieval past we experienced as children, and, because they are considered suitable for young viewers, animated depictions of this world often represent our earliest exposure to the events, personages, and stories of this era. Consequently, the animated creations of the Walt Disney Company have played a huge part in shaping our collective image of the Middle Ages, but the corpus of medieval-themed animation is truly vast. It has been expanded greatly by the output of many other content producers across the globe through anime, cartoons, films, games, streaming videos, and theatrical shorts. (See our list of representative texts–at https://tinyurl.com/ReAnimatingtheMiddleAgesCFP–for examples.)

Despite animation’s important role in shaping how we perceive and receive the medieval past, the field of Medieval Animation Studies remains limited, especially compared to the fluorescence of Medieval Film Studies and Medieval Television Studies over the past four decades. In this panel, we seek in particular to build upon the pioneering work of medieval-animation scholar Michael N. Salda and provide additional insights into the ways medieval-themed animation has impacted our contemporary world. Presenters might explore anime, cartoons, films, games, shorts, and videos produced through traditional ink-and-paint, stop-motion, claymation, or computer-generated imagery. Selections should represent and/or engage with some aspect of the medieval, such as artifacts, characters, settings, themes, etc. These might be central to the narrative, tangential, or appearing solely as cameos. (For ideas and support, we have created a list of representative texts and a resource guide devoted to studies of medieval-themed animation. It can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/ReAnimatingtheMiddleAgesCFP.)

Submission Instructions

In this panel, we seek in particular to build upon the pioneering work of medieval-animation scholar Michael N. Salda and provide additional insights into the ways medieval-themed animation has impacted our contemporary world. Presenters might explore anime, cartoons, films, games, shorts, and videos produced through traditional ink-and-paint, stop-motion, claymation, or computer-generated imagery. Selections should represent and/or engage with some aspect of the medieval, such as artifacts, characters, settings, themes, etc., presented as central to the narrative, tangential, or appearing solely as cameos.

For ideas and support, please see our list of representative texts and resource guide devoted to studies of medieval-themed animation at https://tinyurl.com/ReAnimatingtheMiddleAgesCFP.

All proposals must be submitted into the CFPList system at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21105 by 30 September 2024. You will be prompted to create an account with NeMLA (if you do not already have one) and, then, to complete sections on Title, Abstract, and Media Needs.

Notification on the status of your submission will be made by 16 October 2024. If accepted, NeMLA asks you to confirm your participation with the session chairs by accepting their invitations and by registering for the event. The deadline for Registration/Membership is 9 December 2024.

Be advised of the following policies of the Convention: All participants must be members of NeMLA for the year of the conference. Participants may present on up to two sessions of different types (panels/seminars are considered of the same type). Submitters to the CFP site cannot upload the same abstract twice.(See the NeMLA Presenter Policies page, at https://www.nemla.org/convention/policies.html, for further details,)

NeMLA offers limited funding for travel to graduate students and to contingent faculty, adjunct instructors, independent scholars, and two-year college faculty. Details can be found at the NeMLA Travel Awards page at https://www.nemla.org/awards/travel.html.

Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com.

For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at https://MedievalinPopularCulture.blogspot.com/.