The Singapore Symposium on the Middle Ages is intended to lay a platform for the establishment of a new regional academic network for East Asia-based scholars of medieval Europe. We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers from scholars and graduate students working on any topic touching on medieval Europe, but will give special consideration to papers that relate to the symposium’s theme of multilingualism.
Over the past decades in medieval studies, scholars have turned increasingly toward multilingualism as a defining historical reality of the European Middle Ages. This conference will explore the implications of this multilingualism for the literary, artistic, and material cultures of medieval Europe. How did medieval writers imagine the challenges and possibilities of multilingualism? How did cross-cultural exchange shape intellectual history, artistic production, or reading communities? In what ways did languages traverse political borders and complicate cultural identities? Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Representation of spoken and written languages
- Multilingual manuscripts and reading communities
- Imagined linguistic/cultural heritages
- Circulation and reception of texts
- Language and cultural identity
- Contact zones
- Urban multilingual communities
- Language and education
- Translation and translatability
- Genre and hybridity
The conference will be held virtually, and papers must be presented in English. Abstracts should be between 150 and 200 words and should be accompanied by a brief speaker’s biography. Submissions should be emailed to sesamesymposium2022@gmail.com by 22 July 2022.
The new regional network’s primary focus will be the dissemination of information regarding events, publications, calls for papers and graduate student opportunities, especially those compatible with our regions and time zones. Any such scholars with an interest in the network, regardless of participation in this symposium, are welcome to sign up to our mailing list at https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/sesame.