Call for papers for parenthood and childhood conference *INCLUDE*

19 February 2015

Papers are invited for this two-day conference that bring together scholars from across the Humanities whose work engages with any aspect of ‘parenthood’ or ‘childhood’ in the medieval period.

Event description

This two-day conference will take place on Thursday 8 and Friday 9 October 2015 at the University of Edinburgh.

Papers are particularly encouraged from postgraduate students and early career researchers.

In recent years, scholars from across the Humanities have employed gender as an analytical tool for exploring the daily lives and experiences of the inhabitants of the medieval world.

Family life and the home have proved particularly fruitful subjects for analysis, with an ever-growing body of literature exploring the ways in which various femininities and masculinities were shaped by familial relationships.

Academic literature on the subject has invited a reassessment of the roles of men, women and children by considering the various representations of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters in textual, visual and material evidence.

These approaches have drawn attention to the formation and enactment of social interactions, highlighting the ways in which familial relationships impacted upon wider interactions and the more formal structures of medieval society.

Keynote speakers

The confirmed keynote speakers are Dr Rachel Moss (University of Oxford) and Dr Sarah Dunnigan (University of Edinburgh).

Call for papers

The call for papers is now open. Proposed paper topics that will be considered are detailed below, other themes will also be considered.

The deadline for abstract submissions is Sunday 12 April 2015.

• The spaces and objects of medieval family lifeTitle of paper
• Discipline and disobedience
• Pregnancy and childbirth
• Foster parents, wards, godparents and adoption
• Education
• Discord and harmony
• Holy and secular families
• Belonging and exclusion
• Legal disputes and inheritance

Submission details

Prospective speakers are invited to submit abstracts of no more than 300 words for twenty-minute papers, along with their paper title, name and affiliation to the organisers, Rachel Delman (University of Oxford) and Phoebe Linton (University of Edinburgh).

A small number of modest grants will be available to support the travel costs of accepted speakers.