Tag: conference

Ars Inquirendi – Querying the Pre-Modern in the Age of Large Multimodal Models

by

26/11/2025

20:53

Comments Off on Ars Inquirendi – Querying the Pre-Modern in the Age of Large Multimodal Models

Call for Papers

Register at https://form.jotform.com/252734707575364 to attend the conference and workshops (online or in person ) and to view the videos

NB: All times on the programme are GMT / UK Time

Join leading pre-modernists and technologists from around the world at Ars Inquirendi, 4th-7th December 2025 (online / St Edmund Hall, Oxford ), to explore how Large Multimodal Models like Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini – massive, humanly conversant assimilations of learning – are transforming pre-modern studies, and how to use them in your own research.

Format: the first three days are entirely online. Presentations will be pre-released in late November via the Oxford Medieval Studies website, with the live sessions devoted to discussion, and held in the UK afternoon to maximize participation from around the world. The hybrid workshops on Days 3 & 4 are live.

***

Day 1 (Thursday, 4th December) – A New Age of Pre-Modern Inquiry. In his opening keynote, Maurizio Forte unfolds how AI is transforming the conditions of archaeological knowledge, enabling archaeologists to rethink, reconstruct and even simulate the pre-modern world. From the evolution of ancient societies to the relations of minds and artifacts, humans and environments, he surveys emerging techniques such as agent-based reconstruction of cultural transitions, and neuroaesthetic analyses of gaze and visual attention. The following panel, Creating Research Machines with LMMs, gathers varied technologists and humanists to compare how they are already building working research systems using LMMs – and how even modest inputs can yield disproportionately large results.

12.30pm GMT (we will be replaying the day’s pre-recorded presentations on the conference zoom channel)
2.30pm GMT
Stephen Pink, Henrike Lähnemann
and Anthony J. Lappin		Welcome
2.40pm GMT Maurizio Forte (Duke)Opening Keynote (live): Rethinking the Past: An AI Perspective in Archaeology
Abstract: Archaeology, traditionally reliant on material traces and contextual interpretation, is now engaging AI to simulate the evolution and transformation of ancient societies, to generate new scenarios, and to study the relationships between minds and artifacts, humans and environments. This keynote offers a methodological overview of emerging research questions and applications across different periods, from agent-based reconstructions of cultural transitions to machine learning and neuroaesthetics applied to the analysis of gaze, attention, and affordances in art and architecture. Together, these approaches demonstrate that AI is not only a technical instrument but also a new epistemic partner. By integrating computation with contextual interpretation, AI enables us to rethink both the past itself and the conditions of archaeological knowledge in the twenty-first century.
3.45pm GMT Respondent:  Roger Martinez-Dávila (University of Colorado)Response and Questions on Keynote and the following talks (pre-released on 28th November):
Mark Faulkner & Elisabetta Magnanti (TCD), Evaluating LLM Performance on NLP Tasks for Old English: Towards Philological Benchmarks
Register to Watch Now !
Stephen Pink, The Graphom Project: A Preliminary Atlas of Pre-Modern Written Sources  



Register to Watch Now !
5.15pmBreak
5.30pm GMT
Chair: Maurizio Forte (Duke)		Roundtable. Creating Research Machines with LMMs, I All participants above, with Laura Morreale (Harvard), Achim Rabus (Freiburg)
End c. 7pm GMT 

***

Day 2 (Friday, 5th December) – LMMs and / as the Archive. Our first panel exposes the unprecedented opportunities and challenges for using the technology with archival materials and records – how can one document and trust LMM records in the same fashion as those generated by people? The second panel asks what it means for LMMs themselves to be the archive. Almost automatically, such models infer a pre-modern Graphosphere: the Old World’s totality of scratched, daubed, written, and otherwise inscribed artifacts, extant and destroyed. Yet only a fraction of what survives is imaged, let alone readable by LMMs —and that survival itself is only a fraction of what once existed. How can an LMM usefully know the pre-modern? From there, we turn to what a realised Graphosphere might enable by mapping what exists and is missing: from guiding the allocation of scant human and financial resources, and correcting long-term historical biases; to opening wholly new fields of scholarship.

12.30pm GMT (we will be replaying the day’s pre-recorded presentations on the conference zoom channel)
2.30pm Chair: Stephen PinkResponse and Questions on the following talks (pre-released on 28th November):
Madeline Rose (TCD) (Re-) Structuring the Catalogue: Limitations and Design Strategy for Applying LLMs to Medieval Manuscript Catalogues
Register to Watch Now !
Achim Rabus (Freiburg): Visual Language Models and Traditional HTR for Multilingual Handwritten Text  
Register to Watch Now !
Dmitri Sitchinava (Potsdam), ‘Birchbark letters: the case of complex fragmented texts calling for LLM reconstruction’
Register to Watch Now !
4pmBreak
4.30pm – 6pm GMT. Chairs: Anthony J. Lappin and Roger Martínez-DávilaRoundtable. LMMs as Archive All participants above, joined by Peter B. Kaufman (MIT), Laura Morreale (Harvard), and Elaine Treharne (Stanford)
Imagine a pre-modern graphosphere: an LMM-inferred reconstruction of the totality of the Old World’s scratched, daubed, written, and otherwise inscribed artifacts  –  extant and destroyed  – before the dominance of movable type. LMMs are already, almost automatically, inferring such a thing. Yet its likely centrality to future research also exposes the profound inadequacy of the current pre-modern LMM archive – that is, of the material on which these models train. This “archive” differs radically from an LMM’s usual training data. It is not the totality of printed matter (excluded by our definition of the pre-modern), nor of born-digital texts and images to which LMMs typically enjoy unfettered access. Instead it consists of the tiny fraction of extant pre-modern materials that have been transcribed or even just imaged – although most writing remains untranscribable by machine – in every case mediated by twenty-first-century technology and data forms. And the extant archive is only a fraction of what once existed. The first part of the panel examines this predicament: how the structure of digital availability shapes what AI can usefully “know” of the pre-modern world, and how technologies such as machine transcription are working to improve that structure. The second part turns to the opportunities even at this foundational phase: how LMMs can help map what exists and what is missing, guide digitisation priorities for funders, correct long-term biases in the historical record, and lay the ground for new insights, such as tracing the evolution – or polygenesis – of ideas and cultures across regions of the Old World and beyond.  

****

Day 3 (Saturday, 6th December) – Emergent Properties. We explore the unpredictable behaviours that appear as LMMs become more complex – above all, their apparent intellectual and aesthetic creativity. In his keynote, Roger Martínez-Dávila presents an AI-powered simulation of a fifteenth-century Castilian city, Plasencia, which resolved a civic dispute through an unforeseen strategy—one unattested in the sources yet historically plausible. The following panel broadens the discussion to ask what these behaviours mean for history, interpretation, and knowledge itself.

11am-1.45pm GMT (lunch provided)
Peter Broadwell, Simon Wiles (Stanford) & Katherine McDonough (Lancaster)
Introduction to Computational Map Studies with MapReader		Workshop (live: online / Doctorow Hall, St Edmund Hall).
Explore MapReader, a powerful toolkit for analysing historical maps – ideal for anyone interested in spatial humanities, cartography, or visual datasets.
1.45pm GMT . Tour of St Edmund Hall
led by Henrike Lähnemann
The rest of the day’s programme is entirely online
1.45pm GMT(we will be replaying the day’s pre-recorded presentations on the conference zoom channel)
Roger Martinez-Dávila (University of Colorado)
Keynote. When Players Rewrite History: Gameworlds, LMMs, and Alternative Medieval Scenarios

Available to watch now.
Keynote will be replayed at 2.30pm GMT.

Register to Watch Now !
Abstract: In this keynote I’ll present Virtual Plasencia v4.0: The Medieval Vines of Three Religions, an AI-powered simulation of a fifteenth-century Castilian city, modeling its social, religious, and economic networks. In a course test run, a student team resolved a dispute involving a senorial lord, civic council, and bishop in an unforeseen way—one not attested in primary sources—yet arrived at the same result. Their novel strategy hints at a plausible but unrecorded historical pathway. I’ll analyse this surprise and propose that AI simulations like Virtual Plasencia v4.0 function not as rigid reconstructions, but as speculative spaces where LMM-driven agents can explore trajectories beyond the constraints of archival silence.
3.30pm GMT Respondent: Anthony J. LappinResponse and Questions to Keynote and Following Talks (pre-released 28th November)
Anthony Harris (Cambridge)
Using Generative AI for Medieval Studies Research (I)
( live ) 
Peter Broadwell, Simon Wiles (Stanford) & Katherine McDonough (Lancaster)
AI Models for Transcription and Exploration of Historical Maps and Other Troublesome Materials
Register to Watch Now !
Damon Wischik (Cambridge), Agentic AI and Homoiconic Coding 
Register to Watch Now !
4.45pmBreak
5pm-7pm GMTRoundtable. The Future of Pre-Modern Inference Studies
All participants above, with Sarah Bowen Savant (Aga Khan University), Peter B. Kaufman (MIT), Tom Revell (Oxford), Daniele Nardi (Sapienza), Pablo Acosta-García (UAB)

****

Day 4 (Sunday, 7th December) – Workshops. A hands-on continuation of Day 1’s theme, hybrid online / in-person workshops at St Edmund Hall, Oxford invite all participants to begin building and experimenting directly in their browsers. From promptotyping to map-based AI exploration and automated manuscript transcription, tutors guide attendees through the practicalities of integrating LMMs into their research.

1pm GMT
Anthony Harris (Cambridge)
Using Generative AI for Medieval Studies Research (II)
In this self-guided hands-on workshop attendees will have an opportunity to try out some of the things discussed by Dr Harris in the Saturday session –  ask questions, get feedback on problems with suggested solutions, and look at problem areas such as avoiding hallucinations, keeping research data confidential from the general model, and more advanced prompt engineering.  
Note, it is very important that delegates attending the session:
i. have a paid version of either ChatGPT (EDU is OK but the full version is preferred), Copilot for Office 365, Google Gemini, Claude or Perplexity.
ii. should have already logged into one or more of these Generative AI Sessions and have entered the prompt  ‘Give me a list of ten rhyming words of three syllables that do not end with Y’.
3.45pm GMT
Ben Kiessling (Université Paris Sciences et Lettres)
Unpacking Large Language Models: Design, Limitations, and Solutions for Humanities Research		Although LLMs have transformed text analysis, they remain optimised for the modern, leaving the pre-modern underserved.  Learn how LLMs are constructed, and how the chosen parameters intersect, and often conflict, with common scholarly practice. The session concludes with practical strategies for overcoming such limitations.
End 6.30pm GMT 

The conference is organised in collaboration with Dr Stephen Pink; Prof. Henrike Lähnemann, Oxford Medieval Studies; Dr  Anthony John Lappin at the University of Stockholm; and the Plus Ultra Collective—a network of 40+ international scholars advancing intercultural studies and the digital humanities. If you have any further queries, please email us at arsinquirendi@gmail.com

Heritage Science and Manuscripts Conference: Programme

by

26/10/2025

13:31

Comments Off on Heritage Science and Manuscripts Conference: Programme

Around Oxford, conference

,

New directions in the study of written artefacts from Antiquity to the late Middle Ages.
Organised by the Crafting Documents project (AHRC-DFG) and co-sponsored by the Centre for Manuscripts and Text Cultures, University of Oxford.
13-14 NOVEMBER 2025, SHULMAN AUDITORIUM. THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Register for free here

9:30 Arrival and registration (coffee and tea available for all attendees)
9:45 Welcome
Julia M. H. Smith (Crafting Documents co-PI, All Souls College, University of Oxford)
Martin Kauffman (Head of early and rare collections, Special Collections, Bodleian Library)
Dirk Meyer (Director of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures, The Queen’s College, Oxford)
10:00 Brent Seales (University of Kentucky): UnLost: uncovering lost knowledge from the ancient library of Herculaneum
10:50 Richard Gameson (Durham University): The Hereford palimpsest psalter
11:40 Jess Hodgkinson (University of Leicester)
Insular manuscripts and their readers: using photometric stereo imaging
to study drypoint writing
12:30 Lunch Break
TECHNOLOGIES TO RETRIEVE WRITING
(Chair Lesley Smith, Harris Manchester College, Oxford)
INKS AND PARCHMENT
(Chair Martin Kauffman, Bodleian Library)
2:30 Kristine Rose-Beers (University Library Cambridge)
Early Islamic manuscripts on parchment: surface preparation and
practice-based research
3:20 Andy Beeby (Durham University)
On the variation in the density of writing as seen by multi and hyper-spectral
imaging: looking over the scribe’s shoulder
4:10 Coffee and tea break
5:00 Ira Rabin (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung)
Ana de Oliveira Dias (University of Oxford)
Ink analysis of early medieval relic labels
Wine reception sponsored by the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures,
The Queen’s College, Oxford
(6:00 – 7:00)DAY 2
MATERIAL SCIENCE AND HERITAGE RESEARCH
9:30 Alberto Campagnolo (Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven)
Approaches to heritage science for manuscripts in the Digital Humanities
10:20 Michael Marx, Institut für Studien der Kultur und Religion des Islam
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt / Institute of Advanced Studies Jerusalem
Results of carbondating of early Qurʾānic manuscript and their implications for
our understanding of the history of the Qurʾān
11:10 Coffee and tea break
11:40 Matthew Collins (University of Copenhagen/University of Cambridge)
Proteomics analysis of parchment samples
12:30 Colloquium pause
(Chair Dirk Meyer, The Queen’s College, Oxford)
4:00 Coffee and tea
4:30 Tessa Webber (Trinity College, University of Cambridge)
Early medieval written artefacts: a palaeographical perspective
5:00 Round table discussion
BROADER PERSPECTIVES
(Chair Julia Smith, All Souls College, University of Oxford)

Heritage Science and Manuscripts programmeDownload

Call for Committee Members – Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference

by

08/10/2025

12:46

Comments Off on Call for Committee Members – Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference

opportunities

The Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference (OMGC) is one of the highlights of the graduate academic calendar every year. Over two days, this interdisciplinary conference brings together graduate students from the UK and around the world to present their research on a wide variety of topics from across the Middle Ages. Read a review of the 2025 conference. If you think you might be interested in becoming a committee member and gaining experience organizing conferences, please send an expression of interest to oxgradconf@gmail.com. The committee is also excited to announce that the theme for the 2026 Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference will be Sounds and Silence! Until then, keep an eye on the OMGC website and social media (Bluesky / Twitter) for updates on this year’s conference.

Medieval Insular Romance Conference

by

23/08/2025

15:27

Comments Off on Medieval Insular Romance Conference

Around Oxford, Call for Papers

,

OXFORD, 8–10 APRIL 2026

Plenary speakers: James Simpson and Carolyne Larrington

We welcome proposals for papers at the 2026 Medieval Insular Romance conference.

Papers may address any aspect of romance composed in the languages of medieval Britain and Ireland, along with the ways that Insular romances engage with texts and traditions beyond those islands. The focus on discussion at these conferences is traditionally non-Chaucerian, non-Arthurian romances.
We especially welcome papers that respond to the theme of the conference, ‘Moving Medieval Romance’. This may be interpreted broadly, from the ways that romances stage and provoke emotion; to studies of physical movement, travel and exchange; to textual shifts, adaptation and the remediation of romances, in and beyond the medieval period.

Proposals for 20-minute papers; complete sessions of three papers; or roundtables on a particular theme, should be sent to the conference organizers, Lucy Brookes (Merton College, Oxford) lucy.brookes@ell.ox.ac.uk and Nicholas Perkins (St Hugh’s College, Oxford) nicholas.perkins@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk. Please include: your name; affiliation; contact details; title of paper/session; and an abstract of up to 250 words.

The deadline for submitting proposals is 31 October 2025.

Illustration: Cristabel and her baby are cast out to sea; from Eglamour of Artois, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Douce 261, fol. 39v. Creative commons licence: CC-BY-NC 4.0

Penn’s LJS 267, De ludo schacchorum seu de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium, fol. 4r

Making the Medieval Archive: Celebrating Elizabeth A. R. Brown at Penn

by

11/08/2025

09:27

Comments Off on Making the Medieval Archive: Celebrating Elizabeth A. R. Brown at Penn

events, Medieval Matters, News

, ,

September 12, 2025, 10:00am–7:00pm

Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadephia
And online via Zoom

On September 12, 2025, the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania will host a day-long symposium commemorating Elizabeth (Peggy) A. R. Brown’s extraordinary legacy in the field of Medieval Studies. The event will also mark the official launch of the Elizabeth A. R. Brown Medieval Historians’ archive, a new initiative at Penn Libraries to collect the professional papers of scholars of the Middle Ages and of associated professional organizations. The goal of the symposium is to honor Peggy’s legacy and gift by celebrating research on her area of specialty, namely Medieval France.

The symposium will consist of three panels of short papers devoted to subjects featured in Peggy’s work: Source and Archive; Politics and Kingship; and Liturgy and Sacred Image.

The day will also include an introduction to the research possibilities and historical interest of the medievalists’ archive at Penn, presented by the inaugural Elizabeth A.R. Brown Archivist, an endowed position in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. The day will conclude with reminiscences by friends, students, and mentees, and a reception for all attendees.

Co-organized by Nicholas Herman (Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Penn) and Ada Kuskowski (Department of History, Penn). Closing reception generously sponsored by the New York Medieval Society.

See here for event details, program, and abstracts.
For Registration, click here.
Donations to the Elizabeth A. R. Brown Medieval Historians’ Archivist Fund can be made here.
Public messages honoring Peggy Brown’s contributions to the field of medieval studies can be left here.

The Sorrowful Virgin: Medieval and Early Modern Devotion

by

16/01/2025

11:32

Comments Off on The Sorrowful Virgin: Medieval and Early Modern Devotion

Around Oxford, events

,

In association with Oxford Medieval Studies, sponsored by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), and the Centre for Early Modern Studies, convened by Anna Wilmore, Taro Kobayashi, and Katerina Levinson on 24 March 2025 in St Hugh’s College

9:15-10:15am – Panel 1: Textual and Visual Devotion

  • Susanne de Jong (Leiden): Praying with Compassion: The Devotion of Mary’s Sorrows in Middle Dutch Books of Hours
  • Fiammetta Campagnoli (Sorbonne): A “Devotional Mirror”: Following Mary’s Footsteps through Her Sorrow and Meditations

10:35-11:35am – Panel 2: Sacred and Secular

  • Joana Balsa de Pinho (Lisbon): Piety and welfare: the Sorrowful Virgin in the context of the Portuguese Confraternities of Mercy
  • Serena Cuomo (Santiago de Compostela): Mother of all mothers – Affective Piety and Maternal Grief in the Roman de Troie

11:35am-12:35pm – Panel 3: Emotion and Trauma

  • Costas Gavriel (Oxford): ‘You know my pain’: Trauma, Self-Narrative and Marian Devotion in the Memorias of Leonor López de Córdoba
  • Ana Vitoria Lopes (Sao Paulo): Crying Women in Devotional Panels: A Study through the Lens of the History of Emotions

2-3pm – Manuscript workshop at the Weston Library. Handout.

Presented by Anna Wilmore and Susanne de Jong, with manuscripts being shown by Bodleian curator Matthew Holford

  • Private Devotions:
    – MS Douce 264: early 16th century book of private prayers and devotions (Latin and French) printed for a member of the family of Scepeaux
    – MS Lat Liturg .e .36: Italian collection of prayers written for a nun, 14th /15th century
  • Latin and Vernacular:
    – MS Douce 1: A tiny prayer book c. 1460 England, containing prayers in Latin and Middle English
  • Speculum humanae salvationis:
    – MS Lyell 67: late 14th century, Bohemia. f. 46r and 87v (Crucifixion), 90v (Virgin pierced by sword) and 91v (Virgin surrounded by arma Christi)
    – Arch. G d. 56, digitised, a hybrid Dutch incunable/blockbook c. 1470, see the description of the John Rylands copy and the CERL entry
  • Middle Dutch Books of Hours – MS Douce 243: Dutch; 3rd quarter 15th Century
    – MS Buchanan f. 1: These are both Dutch Books of Hours using the translation of Geert Grote.

3:45-5pm – Montgomery Powell (Oxford): Myn kynt unde ok myn god: Sorrowful Participation in the Bordesholmer Marienklage, followed by performance and discussion of Marian laments. Handout

5pm-6pm  – Keynote by Prof. Lesley Twomey (Northumbria): The Sorrows of the Virgin Mary at the Foot of the Cross in vernacular Vitae Christi in Medieval France, England and Spain.

The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin from The Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, approx 1525-35, Simon Benning, Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig IX 19 (83.ML.115), fol. 251v

Old Frisian Summer School 2025

by

13/01/2025

16:42

Comments Off on Old Frisian Summer School 2025

events, opportunities

, ,

The Oxford/Groningen 2025 Old Frisian Summer School (OFSS25) will take place in Groningen (Netherlands), 7th-11th July. This will be a fun way to learn Old Frisian in a week, to view original Old Frisian manuscripts and to see the world heritage landscape of old Frisian ‘terps’ or dwelling mounds.

OFSS25 : Old Frisian : A Gem within the OId Germanic Languages.

The OFSS25 should be of special interest to students (UG and PG) and Early Career Researchers of Old English, Old Norse, Old High German or Gothic who are interested in learning Old Frisian. You will be taught grammar and practice translation in hands-on workshops. Invited speakers will give lectures by on the Old Frisian text corpus and history to provide historical and cultural context. Library visits to view the manuscripts are on the programme and a tour around the ‘terps’ will be organised on 12th July.

Further info: https://www.rug.nl/education/summer-winter-schools/old-frisian/

Questions?? Attend as a taster session a lecture by Johanneke Sytsema (as part of Henrike Lähnemann’s lecture series ‘Topics in Historical Linguistics’) on Strong Verbs Across English, Frisian, Dutch, Low German, High German, an introduction to the crucial place of Frisian in the history of Germanic Languages. Watch the recording from the Taylor Library, room 2, Friday week 5 (21 Feb), 2–3pm, on Panopto or below as part of the Paper IV youtube series

For more information, email Johanneke Sytsema on oldfrisian@ling-phil.ox.ac.uk

You can find more information on the blog post for the Old Frisian Summer School 2023

Introductory Lecture as part of the series Topics in German Historical Linguistics

Epiros: The Other Western Rome, Workshop 8th-9th November 2024

by

05/12/2024

11:36

Comments Off on Epiros: The Other Western Rome, Workshop 8th-9th November 2024

Around Oxford, blog, events

, , , , , ,

On Friday 8th and Saturday 9th November, the online workshop Epiros: The Other Western Rome was held, platforming twenty-one papers from sixteen universities. As the second phase of a new international project, the workshop investigated the Byzantine successor-state of Epiros (1204–1444). Formed from the Fourth Crusade, this Balkan state existed as an alternative narrative and third Byzantine-Roman context, encompassing a vast variety of peoples of the former empire.

Originally envisioned as a one-day workshop, the programme was expanded to two days to accommodate so many excellent submissions. As a result, we were able to offer panels on, The ‘Post-Komnenian System’, ‘Epiros and Bulgaria’, ‘Epiros and its other Neighbours’, ‘Network Analysis,’ ‘Hybrid Material Culture,’ and more. The workshop’s convenors are hugely grateful for the participation of speakers and attendees, as well as the support of both The Oxford Centre Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research (OCBR).

An edited volume of papers is planned, and a selection of images below.

Epiros-Workshop-Programme-Final-Download

Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024: Exchanging Words

by

17/06/2024

10:02

Comments Off on Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024: Exchanging Words

Around Oxford, events

, , , ,

The Medieval Women’s Writing Research Group Conference 2024 will be held on 18th June 2024 with the theme of “Exchanging Words” in Room 2 of the Taylor Institution Library both in person (presenters/attendees) and online (attendees).

Tuesday 18 June 2024, 9am – 5pm
Online and In-person, Room 2, Taylor Institution Library, Saint Giles’, Oxford OX1 3NA
Free but registration required
Register here for in-person attendance – Sold out
Register here to join the conference online
Online registration closes 15 minutes before the start of the event. You will be sent the joining link within 48 hours of the event, on the day and once again 10 minutes before the event starts.

The aim of this conference is to explore the concept of exchange, whether it be textual or material, to, for and between women in the global Middle Ages. As a research group based upon the concept of exchanging ideas, we wish to explore medieval women’s own networks of exchange and transmission, and the influence of this upon both the literature and culture of the period as well as the present day.

We are delighted to present the programme for the day:

9:00-9:30 Registration 
9:30-9:45 Welcome and Opening Remarks 
9:45-11:15 Session 1 “Scholarly Networks” 
Katrin Janz-Wenig (SUB Hamburg) & Lenka Panušková (The Czech Academy of Sciences) | Communication Strategies Through Change: Translations, Compilations and Ekphrasis 
Ved Prabha Sharma (Independent Researcher) | Women Scholars and Knowledge Exchange in Medieval Indian shāstrārth Tradition 
Tatiana Barkovskiy (University of Cambridge) | A Beguinian Learning Network, or How to Approach ‘Medieval Women Mystics’ as Philosophers  
11:15-11:45 Break with Refreshments 
11:45-13:15 Session 2 “Relationships With and Between Women” 
Costas Gavriel (University of Oxford) | Gaining the Queen’s Confidence: The Relationship Between Leonor López de Córdoba and Catherine of Lancaster, Queen of Castile 
Lucia Akard (University of Oxford) | Talking About Rape and Exchanging Knowledge in Medieval Dijon 
Meg Greenough (Independent Researcher) | The Wilton Matrix: Mothering in Goscelin of Saint Betin’s Liber Confortatorius
13:15-14:30 Lunch Break 
Exploring the Taylorian’s Treasures, with Professor Henrike Lähnemann (University of Oxford) 
14:30-15:45 Keynote Address 
Professor Diane Watt (University of Surrey) | Medieval Women Writers: Troubling a Feminist History of British Women’s Writing
15:45-16:15 Break with Refreshments 
16:15-17:45 Session 3 “Nuns’ Words” 
Francesca Maria Villani (University of Bari) | Eloise’s Psalmody: Body and Voice Through the Epistles
Jane Bliss (Independent Researcher) | The Nun Changes her Library Book 
Hilary Pearson (Independent Researcher) | Teresa de Cartagena’s Models of Female Authority 
17:45 Closing Remarks 
18:00 End of Conference

Please direct any questions to any of the conference organizers: 
Katherine Smith (katherine.smith@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) 
Marlene Schilling (marlene.schilling@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) 
Carolin Gluchowski (carolin.gluchowski@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) 
Santhia Velasco Kittlaus (santhia.velascokittlaus@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk)

The research group and the conference are generously funded by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and their “Critical-Thinking Communities” Initiative.

COLSONOEL 2024 in Review

by

05/06/2024

09:24

Comments Off on COLSONOEL 2024 in Review

Around Oxford, events

, ,

Putting a halt to in-person events, face-to-face conversations unmediated by a digital screen, and forcing people around the world to re-think how the interacted with each other, COVID-19 also placed a stranglehold on much academic dialogue and conferences experiences. One of the victims of the pandemic era was the Cambridge, Oxford, and London Symposium on Old Norse, Old English, and Latin (COLSONOEL). The last COLSONOEL was due to take place in St. John’s College, University of Oxford in May 2020 but which was sadly cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

In 2024 a new committee at the University of Oxford, headed by Natasha Bradley, and comprising of Ashley Castelino, Simon Heller, and Mary Catherine O’Connor, took up the reins to bring this symposium back to life. In the spirit of its return to the world of conferences and academic discourse, the theme of COLSONOEL 2024 was ‘Rebirth, Renewal, Renaissance’. This symposium for post-graduate students and early career researchers was set up as a supportive and welcoming academic environment for presenters to test new ideas and to share their research. And it is in this vein, that COLSONOEL began again and hopes to continue for many years to come.

COLSONOEL 2024 kicked off on a wet and dismal Friday 3rd May in St Hilda’s College in the Garden Room Suite, which transformed into an exciting day of papers and conversations. Exquisite views stretching over Oxford with its dreaming spires rising to the rain-sodden heavens framed the speakers and their presentations at St Hilda’s as we welcomed ten speakers from Oxford, Cambridge, and Birkbeck.

Considering the question of reception and intertextual relationships in the first session, David Bond West opened COLSONOEL with his paper on ‘Rhetorical Storytelling in Bergr Sokkason’s Mikjáls saga’. Moving from Old Norse to Old English, Mingwei Lu examined the relationships between psalms and elegies in the paper ‘“Hu lange wilt þu, Drihten” – A Comparison of Religious Revival in the Old English Psalms and the Old English Elegies’. Leaping forward to the modern era, Emily Dixon asked what it meant to think through soil and landscapes in her paper ‘Rebirth through soil: The earth of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Beowulf and The Wanderer’.

Following this line of movement to earth-centred evidence and thinking about what can be uncovered through archaeology, Katie Beard opened the second session with her investigation into amulets, ‘Armaments as Amulets in Old Norse in Old Norse Literature and Archaeology’. Daisy Bonsall worked through the theme of the conference in thinking about the multiple uses and re-purposing of textiles in Anglo-Saxon England in ‘A Case for Regifting: Reusing Textiles to Create and Renew Connections in Anglo-Saxon England’.

The inter-relationship of life and death and the possibility of comparing through these ontological concerns took centre stage in session three as Alexia Kirov discussed images and themes of birth and death in ‘Re: birth and death – from (pre-)cradle to grave in Early English Literature’. What are the appropriate responses to the death of king and what is the emotional performance a poet may engage in when his king dies? Molly Bovett looked at some of these questions and more in ‘The Death of the King in Hallfreðar saga vandræðaskálds’. Staying in the realm of Old Norse literature but migrating from the historical world of medieval Norway and Iceland to the world of the mythological texts, Kendra Nydam closed the third session with her paper ‘Thrice-burnt, Thrice-born: Revisiting the Fateful Role of Gullveig in Norse Mythology’.

How different medieval historians and societies think about and write about the past formed a key concern of the concluding papers in the fourth and last session of the day. In ‘Reviving the Gothic Past and justifying a Swedish present in the Festum patronorum regni Suecie’ Adrián Rodríguez turned attention to historiographical concerns in fifteenth-century Sweden. Moving one last time from Scandinavia back to medieval England, Emily Clarke gave the closing paper ‘Reforming the Past: History and Antiquarianism in the English Benedictine Reform’.

An intellectually curious atmosphere and friendly environment created a fertile and productive day of discussions in the form of question-and-answer sessions after the papers as well as more informal conversations in the tea breaks and lunch. The COLSONOEL Committee would like to thank everyone who attended this year’s symposium. We would also like to extend a special thanks to our sponsors, Oxford Medieval Studies and TORCH, who made COLSONOEL 2024 possible. We look forward to the return of COLSONOEL 2025.

Mary Catherine O’Connor, June 2024