International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Abstracts of no more than 300 words for a 20 minute paper should be e-mailed to contact@ims-paris.org.

In addition to the abstract, please submit a CV and an assessment of any audiovisual equipment required for your presentation.

The deadline for abstract submission is 28 November 2005. The IMS will review submissions and respond via e-mail by 12 December 2005.

Deadline for Submissions: 28 November 2005
Conference Dates: 29 June – 1 July 2006

"Foreigners, Strangers, and Others"

Keynote Speaker: William Chester Jordan (Princeton University)

Respondent: Keith Busby (Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison)

The International Medieval Society of Paris (IMS-Paris) is soliciting abstracts and proposals for complete sessions for its 2006 Symposium organized around questions of foreignness, strangeness, and alterity in France from c. 500 to c. 1600. These issues have gained prominence recently as scholarship in all fields of medieval studies has redefined both the literal and figurative boundaries of medieval society to take in the geographic, social, and cultural “margins” of pre-modern Europe. This on-going project has deeply enriched our knowledge of the diversity that characterized medieval experience while at the same time it has raised questions about the meaning and location of normalcy in this historical milieu.

Papers might address such topics as nationality, language, and ethnicity, disease and disability, crime and poverty, sexual and religious difference or deviance, as well as other expressions of difference and exclusion. How is difference signaled, for example, with regard to the importation of goods, knowledge, or artistic and literary techniques? How are alterity and its counterpart, normalcy, represented visually? What kinds of spaces do foreigners and strangers inhabit?  What values are attached and how are these differences reconciled to prevailing constructions of the normal? How is “good” alterity – the exotic, the rare, the saintly – distinguished from “bad” alterity, such as the monstrous, the shocking, or the heretical? What do the boundaries or limits of alterity tell us about silent assumptions of belonging and normalcy?

A multidisciplinary examination of these and other questions promises to shed new light on the center as well as the periphery of medieval life.

Special Session: Medieval Paris
Keynote Speaker: Michael T. Davis (Mount Holyoke College)

The IMS-Paris is also seeking abstracts for its annual interdisciplinary session(s) on Medieval Paris. Papers may address any issue of medieval Paris and need not be linked to the principle theme of the Symposium. Rather, the IMS intends for these sessions to permit a comparative examination of the city to encourage future research. There will also be a visit to some of the surviving sites of medieval Paris.

Papers may be presented in either English or French. Submissions of three-paper panels will be considered as well. A limited number of papers may be considered for publication in the IMS Bulletin.

We strongly encourage submissions from a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to: Anthropology * Archaeology * Art History * Classical Studies * Comparative Literature * Gender Studies * History * History of Science * Language Studies * Literary Studies * Musicology * Philosophy * Religious Studies * Theology * Urban Studies *

Abstracts of no more than 300 words for a 20 minute paper should be e-mailed to the IMS at contact@ims-paris.org by 28 November 2005.

In addition to the abstract, please submit full contact information, a CV, and a tentative assessment of any audiovisual equipment required for your presentation.

The deadline for abstract submission is 28 November 2005. The IMS will review submissions and respond via e-mail by 12 December 2005. Titles of accepted papers will be made available on the IMS web site.

The IMS-Paris is an interdisciplinary and bilingual (French/English) organization founded to serve as a center for medievalists who research, work, study, or travel to France. For more information about the IMS and the schedule of last year’s Symposium, please see our website: www.ims-paris.org.