2014 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America.

The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of California Los Angeles is pleased to host the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America. The conference will meet on the campus of UCLA April 10-12, 2014. 

The program will include three plenary speakers and at least one plenary session. 

Proposals

deadline 15 June 2013

The Program Committee invites proposals for papers on all topics and in all disciplines and periods of medieval studies. Any member of the Medieval Academy may submit a paper proposal, excepting those who presented papers at the annual meetings of the Medieval Academy in 2012 and 2013; others may submit proposals as well but must become members in order to present papers at the meeting. Special consideration can be given to individuals whose specialty would not normally involve membership in the Medieval Academy.

Theme 

“Empires and Encounters” will be the theme of the meeting. The Medieval Academy welcomes innovative sessions that explore sites of encounter — both as places where new cultural forms emerge and where conflict and difference are manifest — or that examine the fallout from the formation and dissolution of empires. The broadest possible range of proposals on topics and for time periods, within and across all the disciplines, is sought for both commissioned and open sessions.

The year 2014 highlights the 1200th anniversary of the death of Charlemagne, whose empire claimed to have revived the fallen Roman Empire and set the stage for later imperial concepts in medieval Europe. It seems fitting, therefore, to choose “Empires and Encounters” — in all of their various manifestations — as the theme of the 2014 Annual Meeting.

Empires, of course, never exist in isolation; by nature they create along their boundaries zones of contact between ethnic, religious, political and cultural groups that in turn challenge the concepts of center and periphery through various forms of non-conflictual encounter. In drawing under the same rubrics peoples of varied traditions, histories, languages and customs, empires and encounters also challenge and change the nature and definition of such categories.

* The Program Committee welcomes submissions on other topics and will organize additional sessions to accommodate the best submissions.

Info