Call for Papers: Terra incognita? Making space for medieval geographies

Call for Papers: Terra incognita? Making space for medieval geographies


The Royal Geographical Society in London will be holding its annual
international conference from September 1-3, 2010. The organizers of the
session: Terra incognita? Making space for 'medieval geographies' have
issued this call for papers:

Historical geographers appear to be increasingly occupied with the modern
or post-Enlightenment world, with 'medieval geographies' becoming, for
many in the field, a terra incognita. Yet over the past century, the
Latin, Byzantine and Arabic worlds of the Middle Ages (c. 500 - 1500 CE) have
been a key focus for geographical study. Whether in charting geography's
medieval history and historiography, or in reconstructing spatial
histories of medieval landscapes, territories and societies, geographers
have thus recognized the importance of geographies before the modern age.
H owever, during the past three decades, these geographies 'in' and
'of' the Middle Ages have noticeably shifted further to the margins
of Anglophone historical geography, at a time when, paradoxically,
the geographical and spatial are growing concerns among medievalists,
for example in art and literary history, and in architecture and
archaeology.

In the context of these shifting disciplinary terrains, this session seeks
to make space for medieval geographies by providing a forum for recent and
ongoing studies that encompass both geographies in and of the Middle Ages.
Papers of an empirical or theoretical nature are sought, particularly
those engaging in critical ways with medieval geographies and which
encourage further cross-disciplinary exchange with medievalists in cognate
areas. Far from being a terra incognita, the session will expose some of
the contemporary resonances of medieval geographies, and one of its
intended outcomes is to entice historical geographers to consider the
spatial and tempo! ral cont inuities, discontinuities and connections that
run between the 'medieval' and the 'modern'.

Paper proposals and abstracts should be sent to: Dr Keith Lilley
(k.lilley@qub.ac.uk) by January 31, 2010.

The session is being organized by Dr Lilley (Queen's University Belfast)
with Veronica Della Dora (University of Bristol) and Stuart Elden
(University of Durham).

For more information about the conference, please go to:
http://www.rgs.org/ac2010