CALL. 15.09.2018: Writing Stone: Describing Urban Materialities in Late Antiquity and the Early Mid
The twenty-sixth International Medieval Congress will take place in Leeds, from 1-4 July 2019.
FECHA LÍMITE/DEADLINE/SCADENZA: 15/09/2018
FECHA CONGRESO/CONGRESS DATE/DATA CONGRESSO: 01-02-03-04/07/2019
LUGAR/LOCATION/LUOGO: Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures, Univeristy of Leeds (Leeds, England)
ORGANIZADOR/ORGANIZER/ORGANIZZATORE: Mateusz Fafinski ; Jakob Ecker. International Medieval Congress; University of Leeds.
CALL:
The post-Roman city is not only a fascinating material space of research for archaeologists and historians but also a methodological challenge where interdisciplinary approaches seem to meet naturally. Taking advantage of the IMC 2019 theme “Materialities”, we would like to explore further the post-Roman urban space as a physical framework of research and a methodological challenge. How can we bring together various urban materialities? How can we expand the budding post-Roman urban studies so that they can include wider geographical and methodological scopes? How to investigate the material/symbolical interface that we witness when comparing archaeological and written evidence?
We would therefore like to invite submissions that explore the various aspects of the urban world in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In particular, we are interested in presentations that bridge the gap between disciplines, challenge the existing narratives, and engage with the historiographical tradition of our field. Employment of new methods, particularly from the field of digital humanities, is most welcome. We are inviting scholars from History, Archaeology, Philology, Numismatics and other fields of research to join our conversation.
Possible themes include:
- the relation between the description of urban spaces and their archaeological remains, especially exploring the archeology/history interface in post-Roman urban studies
- traditions and innovations in describing urban spaces in different genres as well as techniques of narration in texts describing urban material remains in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
- methodology of materiality in Late Antique and Early Medieval urban zones, including analyses of current and past research
- Late Antique and Early Medieval cities as postcolonial spaces
- ruins and ideologies
– historiography of Early Medieval and Late Antique urban remains
- the role of (the) people in the description of a city and especially describing the other: perception, defamation, separation (or acceptance) of other cultures/religions/peoples etc. in descriptions of urban materiality
- the interface between materiality and identity in post-Roman cities
We are looking to organize two sessions of three speakers each, your presentation should therefore not exceed 20 minutes. Please send your title and an abstract of 200-250 words to Mateusz Fafinski (mateusz.fafinski@fu-berlin.de) and Jakob Ecker (Jakob.ecker@uibk.ac.at) by the 15th of September 2018. Submissions from early career scholars are especially welcome.