7th Century Colloquium

REMINDER: The 2013 Edinburgh University Seventh Century Colloquium
Final call for papers:
Please  distribute widely:

*The Seventh Century: Continuity or Discontinuity?*
*The 2013 Edinburgh University Seventh Century Colloquium*

*28 – 29 May 2013*

*Call for papers*

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for the 2013 Edinburgh
University Seventh Century Colloquium, 28 – 29 May 2013.

The colloquium is a two-day interdisciplinary conference for
postgraduate students and early career researchers.  The colloquium
brings together scholars from different disciplines studying the
seventh century in order to promote discussion and the
cross-fertilisation of ideas.  We will explore how wider perspectives
can be used to formulate new approaches to source material, drawing
out fresh perspectives on both the familiar and unfamiliar.

Our general theme will be an examination of whether the seventh
century can be studied as a unit across regions or whether the period
represents a break in the /longue durée/.  What was the level of
discontinuity between the ‘long sixth’ and ‘long eighth’ centuries?

We invite those working in archaeology, art history, history,
literature, numismatics, and religion, as well as in fields including
Byzantine, Celtic, Classics, Islamic, and Late Antique studies to
submit abstracts for papers of approximately 15 to 20 minutes that
engage with all aspects of the long seventh century.

Possible topics for papers might include, but are by no means limited to:

   * The seventh century ‘world crisis’ and its ramifications
   * The development of new economic relations in the North Sea
   * The Christianisation of western Europe
   * The Transformation of the Byzantine Empire
   * The Emergence of Islam
   * The transformation of ancient cities to those of the Middle Ages
   * Historiography of the seventh century

Additionally, poster presentations will be considered.

Our organisational structure is designed to encourage collaboration
and cross-fertilisation of ideas; we will have no parallel sessions as
we believe that everything will be useful to all of us.  To build
collaboration, we will be adopting an innovative structure for the
conference.  The sessions will be structured as follows:

   * Prior to the colloquium, each speaker will be paired with a
respondent with experience of either working on similar issues as the
speaker, or using similar research methodologies
   * The respondent will have read a written version of the speaker’s
paper in advance and will have prepared a detailed response prior to
the colloquium.
   * After the delivery of the paper, the respondent will give a
response before opening the floor to general discussion.

We hope that such methods will not only inspire genuine collaboration
between the two scholars involved but will encourage a wider and
livelier debate and discussion.  Similarly, we hope that all involved
will feel encouraged to debate, discuss, and occasionally disagree.
We believe that through such methods all of us will advance as
scholars.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to the organising
committee at edinburgh7th@gmail.com edinburgh7th@gmail.com

> The deadline for submission is 15 January 2013. Early submissions are encouraged. Persons interested in attending and serving as respondents only are also encouraged to contact us. We have received a grant that we hope will enable us to offer limited travel bursaries for participants. Visit our blog at http://7thcentury.blogspot.co.uk/ for updates.