34th Annual Medieval Studies Student Colloquium, Cornell University via Zoom, March 2, 2024

The Medieval Studies Program at Cornell is pleased to announce the 34th annual Medieval Studies Student Colloquium (MSSC), which takes the idea of “Subjectivities” as its theme. The conference will be held virtually over Zoom on Saturday, March 2nd, 2024.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers investigating the various subjectivities present in the Middle Ages or later understandings of or scholarship on the medieval period. Such papers are encouraged to approach this theme from an expansive range of disciplines and perspectives, especially those which have been absent or underrepresented within medieval studies.

“Subjectivities” can refer to the various ways in which individuals’ perceptions are influenced by their unique identities, experiences, feelings, beliefs, and tastes. For the purposes of this conference, papers may address the myriad relationalities and orientations that connect medieval subjects to each other. Papers might engage with the ways in which identities, communities, religions, affects, archives, arts, or the environment inform medieval subjectivities. Papers might also consider how medieval subjectivities function across spatial and temporal boundaries. How can conceptions of the Global Middle Ages be used to understand medieval subjectivities? What is the relationship between postmedieval and medieval subjects? What subjectivities do modern readers bring to medieval texts, and how do those subjectivities impact scholarship? What are the ramifications of using contemporary critical theories to interpret medieval subjects? How do modern subjectivities affect retellings and re-imaginings of the Middle Ages in pop culture and speculative media? Papers may respond to, but are certainly not limited to, these questions.

Papers from underrepresented fields and backgrounds are particularly welcome, and we strongly encourage papers that look beyond Christian, Eurocentric, and Anglocentric contexts. We invite submissions from all fields and disciplines adjacent to Medieval Studies, including but not limited to Africana Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, Asian Studies, Classics, Critical Race Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, History, Indigenous Studies, Literature, Near Eastern Studies, Philosophy, and Theology. While we will consider all abstracts that are submitted, we will give priority to those aligned with the colloquium’s theme.