Inside Out: Dress and Identity in the Middle Ages

 

38th Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, New York City, March 17-18, 2018.  Abstracts due Sept. 15, 2017

 

Dress was a primary expression of identity in the Middle Ages, when individuals made strategic choices about clothing and bodily adornment (including hairstyle, jewelry, and other accessories) in order to communicate gender, ethnicity, status, occupation, and other personal and group identities. Because outward appearances were often interpreted as a reliable reflection of inner selves, medieval dress, in its material embodiment as well as in literary and artistic representations, carried extraordinary moral and social meaning, as well as offering seductive possibilities for self-presentation.

 

This conference aims to bring together recent research on the material culture and social meanings of dress in the Middle Ages to explore the following or related issues:

 

·       The implications of being able to study medieval dress only in representation

·       The strategies that were served by dress, either embodied or in representation

·       The effects of cultural economic factors, such as cross-cultural contact and trade, commerce, and/or technology on dress and its uses

·       The development of the so-called ‘Western fashion system’ and the cultural changes which it inspired or reflected
 

Please submit an abstract and cover letter with contact information by September 15, 2017 to Center for Medieval Studies, FMH 405B, Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458, or by email to medievals@fordham.edu, or by fax to 718-817-3987

 

Saturday March 17 –Sunday March 18, 2018
Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus
113 W. 60th St., New York, NY 10023