Mapping the Medieval City: space, place and identity

Mapping the Medieval City: space, place and identity
An Interdisciplinary Colloquium
Swansea University, 30-31 July 2009
CALL FOR PAPERS

This colloquium, held to mark the completion of the AHRC-funded
research project 'Mapping Medieval Chester'
(www.medievalchester.ac.uk), will launch the digital materials
produced by the project and provide a forum for wider discussion of
place and identity in the medieval city, as well as concepts of
'mapping' in the Middle Ages and today. The colloquium will feature
papers on medieval Chester, but we are also seeking inter-disciplinary
contributions relating to the medieval city more generally.

The 'Mapping Medieval Chester' project has brought together scholars
working in the disciplines of literary studies, geography, archaeology
and history to explore how material and imagined urban landscapes
construct and convey a sense of place-identity. The focus of the
research project itself is the city of Chester and the identities that
its inhabitants formed between c.1200 and 1500. A key aspect of the
project is to integrate geographical and literary mappings of the
medieval city using cartographic and textual sources and using these
to understand more how urban landscapes in the Middle Ages were
interpreted and navigated by local inhabitants. We hope the colloquium
will use our research on Chester as the basis for broader discussions
centering on the project's themes, methods and theoretical
preoccupations.

We therefore invite 20-minute paper proposals (abstracts of around 300
words) on any subject relating to the project's broad themes of place
and identity in the medieval European city. These might include:

- Place and identity in medieval Chester
- Writers and texts of medieval Chester (e.g. Lucian, Higden, The
Cycle Plays, Bradshaw, medieval Welsh poetry)
- Place and identity in the medieval city

- Medieval border towns and/or border writing
- Writers and texts of the medieval city (e. g. Benedict's Mirabilia
urbis Romae, William FitzStephen, Richard Devizes, vernacular drama
and verse)
- Multilingualism and the medieval city

- Theories of space, place and mapping

Proposals should be sent to Mark Faulkner (mailto:m.j.faulkner@swan.ac.uk) by
23 February 2009.

For further information on the 'Mapping Medieval Chester' project,
please visit www.medievalchester.ac.uk or contact Mark.