The RELICS research group invites paper proposals for the 2020 International Medieval Congress in Leeds, more specifically for a panel on literary dialogues in medieval traditions across the globe. In connection with the thematic strand of IMC 2020, “Borders”, the central point of interest in this panel will be how dialogues across linguistic, religious, and cultural borders offer space for different and possibly conflicting voices. Its goal will be to explore medieval literary dialogues as places of linguistic, cultural, and religious encounters. The focus is both on works that take the form of dialogues and on dialogues that are part of larger writings. At the same time, this panel aims to bridge modern institutionalized boundaries by giving preference to contributions that investigate the possible interconnections, similarities, and differences between medieval dialogue literature in different languages, including, but not limited to Latin, Hebrew, the European vernaculars, Greek, Arabic, Syriac, etc. 

Abstracts (in any major academic language and no longer than 150 words) should be sent to relics@ugent.be before September 1, 2019. Notifications about acceptance will be sent out by September 15 at the latest. Both junior and senior scholars are welcome to submit an abstract. Contributors may later be invited to submit their paper to a special thematic issue of the international double-blind peer reviewed and open access journal JOLCEL (Journal of Latin Cosmopolitanism and European Literatures).

The panel will be organised by RELICS, but the participants are responsible for their own registration costs. For further queries, please contact one of the organisers of the panel, Dinah.wouters@ugent.be or Klazina.staat@ugent.be