The Twenty-Eighth Annual Spring Symposium of the Medieval Studies Institute of Indiana University

8-9 April 2016

Indiana University, Bloomington

Keynote: Cecily Hilsdale, Art History and Communication Studies Department, McGill University

The Medieval Studies Institute of Indiana University invites proposals dealing with any aspect of Medieval Globalisms: movement, discourse, and cultural exchange. Scholars have rigorously interrogated modern models of globalism, but what does “global” mean for the Middle Ages? This symposium aims to identify the global perspectives that emerged in this period in which people, ideas, and objects traversed the globe through travel, trade, war, and exodus, and to explore the larger geographic context in which the Middle Ages occurred. In addition to the geographic, papers might explore studies of medieval conceptions of the globe and its relation to the self. Rather than viewing medieval places through the model of center and periphery, we ask participants to consider a de-centered medieval globe in which no one locale is given preference over another and to envision the period as a time of dynamic cross-cultural interactions. We  encourage proposals about texts, traditions, and localities outside of traditional, Eurocentric medieval studies. Continue reading →