Call for papers for International Medieval Congress 2022

Submissions for International Medieval Congress (IMC) 2022 papers close on Tuesday 31 August.

The IMC, organised by the Institute for Medieval Studies, is one of the biggest online academic conferences in the world and is dubbed the ‘Medieval Glastonbury Festival’ by delegates.

The 2022 conference will take place from 4-7 July, focusing on the theme of ‘Borders’, whilst also welcoming proposals on any topic related to the Middle Ages. It seeks to bring together medievalists of all fields interested in both the theory and practice of borders in all their variety, from physical boundaries and material borders to dynamic and spatial relationships.

Themes to be addressed may include, but are not limited to:

  • Political and military borders
  • Living in border zones
  • Medieval and Modern perceptions, descriptions, and conceptualizations of borders
  • Delimiting borders, border markers
  • Border maintenance
  • Encountering and experiencing borders
  • Bordering practices
  • Borderscapes in the longue durée
  • Symbolic borders
  • Belonging and exclusion
  • Mapping borders and border zones
  • Border institutions
  • Materiality of borders
  • Border and power
  • Migration
  • Medieval imagery of borders
  • Transnationalism
  • Political, social, cultural, religious performance of borders
  • Village and parish boundaries
  • Boundaries between town and countryside within towns
  • Practices of delimitation
  • Blurring boundaries such as human/animal, animate/inanimate, gender, age, status, religion
  • Self and other, boundaries of the self
  • Fluidity and fixity of borders
  • Borders in manuscripts
  • Material and visual borders
  • Processual and performative turns and medieval borders
  • Disciplinary boundaries
  • Paratexts as borders
  • Borders of the body
  • Transcending and reaffirming boundaries between life and death
  • Borders, boundaries, frontiers

The IMC welcomes session and paper proposals submitted in all languages, which fit within the Participation and Acceptance Criteria.

The deadline for paper proposals is 31 August 2021, and the deadline for session proposals is 30 September 2021.