2021 CFP
The Court in the World; the World in the Court
12–13th April 2021
University of Cambridge (online)
The ICLS British Branch is pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the 2021 Branch Conference. Please note that this meeting is a rescheduling of the 2020 Conference, which was sadly cancelled due to restrictions relating to Covid-19. Priority will be given, therefore, to proposals from speakers accepted for the 2020 conference. The 2021 conference will be held online via videoconferencing. Details to follow.
Building on the success of the 2019 international congress in Exeter, which explored notions of courtly communities and networks, the 2021 meeting of the ICLS British Branch focusses on the theme of the court in its global contexts, asking: what can medieval literary texts tell us about the place of the court in the world and, concomitantly, the place of the world in the court? What is the relationship between the local and the global in the courtly world? What are the court’s connections to the wider world? How are we to conceptualise them? What are the roles played by narratives, texts, manuscripts, and other cultural artefacts in making and maintaining those networks?
Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers addressing the following themes:
- Courtly culture and premodern globalities
- Distance and connection; isolation and community
- Religious networks of the court
- Ecologies and landscapes of the courtly world
- Race and diversity in the courtly world
- Travel and mobility in the courtly world
- Courtly knowledge and science
- The colonial and the postcolonial in the courtly world
- Porous boundaries of the court
- Representations of the world and otherworlds
- Translation in courtly culture
- Courtly cosmopolitanism
- Multilingualism and multilingual encounters in the courtly world
We particularly welcome proposals for full panels (of 3 to 4 papers) in order for the programme to represent a wide range of languages and disciplines. We also warmly welcome expressions of interest for short, informal ‘poster’ presentations.
Please send proposals to Dr Matt Lampitt (ml536@cam.ac.uk) by 15th December 2020.
Please note that speakers are required to be members of a branch of the ICLS. For joining details, please see: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ren/icls/membership/
