CFP: Seeing, Hearing, Reading and Believing

Please visit also the conference homepages at
http://www.glossa.fi/authorities




Seeing, Hearing, Reading and Believing


Authorities in the Middle Ages




International Conference
Helsinki, Finland
20-23 September 2010


Seeing, Hearing, Reading and Believing. Authorities in the Middle
Ages will be arranged in Helsinki 20-23 September 2010. This
international conference seeks to offer a multidisciplinary forum for
researchers and academics, enhance interdiscpilinary discussion,
promote scholarly networking, and set up an innovative platform for
scholars who engage with questions of power and authority.

The conference is aimed at established researchers, doctoral studens
and those working on their master"s thesis in medieval history or art
history, archaeology, theology, philosophy or literature. Conference
sessions will be open to the public. The conference will be held in English.

The conference is organised by Glossa, the Society for Medieval
Studies in Finland, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
(HCAS) and the Written Culture in Medieval Finland -Project at the
University of Helsinki.

Selected conference papers will be published as a refereed theme
issue in Mirator, an electronic open
access jourrnal on medieval studies.



Call for Papers

The Latin word auctoritas means not only authority and influence, but
more generally opinion, encouragement, decree or example. The concept
thus resonates deeply in the study of social structures,
communication or religious culture, for instance. Who had auctoritas,
and how? How was influence built and maintained, how was it lost? How
was authority contested? What about model and precedent?

Glossa - the society for medieval studies in Finland is arranging
with the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Sudies the multidisciplinary
conference SEEING, HEARING, READING AND BELIEVING. AUTHORITIES IN THE
MIDDLE AGES in Helsinki, 20-23 September 2010. The organisers seek
proposals for papers on the topic of authorities in the Middle Ages.
Themes include (but are not limited to) authority/-ies in politics,
military history, trade and communication, intellectual history, art
and literature as well as religious conformism, adaptation and
dissidence. We invite explorations of exercise of authority in
different spheres of life, as well as of medieval meditations on the
nature of authority, or of the authority of texts and traditions. The
conference welcomes researchers across all scholarly fields and disciplines.

Confirmed keynote speakers include
Professor
David Abulafia (University of Cambridge),
Professor
Sverre Bagge (University of Bergen) and
Professor
Albrecht Classen (University of Arizona).

We welcome working papers from established researchers, doctoral
students and those working on their Master's thesis. Please send
proposals for individual papers of twenty minutes or for whole
sessions of three papers with contact details and a 200 word abstract
to Tuija Ainonen, at tuija.ainonen@helsinki.fi by 15 December 2009.