Mediterranean Studies, Present & Future: The “California School” Twenty Years On, Mediterranean Seminar Fall 2023 Workshop, UC Santa Cruz, November 3–4, 2023

The Mediterranean Seminar (www.mediterraneanseminar.org) is seeking proposals for papers to be workshopped and for round-table participants for the Mediterranean Seminar Fall 2023 Workshop to be held at UC Santa Cruz on 3 & 4 November on the subject, “Mediterranean Studies, Present & Future: The “California School” Twenty Years On.”

From its inception at UC Santa Cruz in 2003, the “California School” of Mediterranean Studies has promoted the Mediterranean not (pace Braudel) as a predefined place of the olive and the vine, but as a heuristic rubric useful for disrupting or reconfiguring existing categories of analysis (especially those defined by nation-states, continents, or religious cultures)—in the process generating new questions and bringing new objects, case studies, or perspectives into focus. Now, two decades on, the Fall 2023 Mediterranean Seminar Workshop will return to UCSC on the 20th anniversary of the foundation of the UCSC Mediterranean Studies Reading Group, the precursor to the Mediterranean Seminar, to take stock of the field and suggest new avenues of research and methodologies. The Mediterranean Seminar invites contributions for our Fall 2023 Workshop that reflect the depth and breadth of Mediterranean Studies and its approaches, whether applied to the Mediterranean itself or adjacent or comparable regions, from the earliest historical period up to today. 

The meeting will consist of three workshopped papers, three round tables, and two keynote speakers. 

In addition, two special sessions will reflect on different aspects of the evolution of the field. Applicants may apply for both a workshop and round-table session (separate applications). 

We welcome contributions rooted in any humanities, social sciences and art methodologies and disciplines, and particularly those with a strong comparative or theoretical element. For both workshop and round-table sessions, scholars of all ranks, and especially graduate students are encouraged to apply, as are scholars who identify with underrepresented communities and constituencies. 

For the Friday workshop, we invite abstracts (250 words) from scholars and graduate students for in-progress articles or book or dissertation chapters that have not yet been accepted for publication. Successful applicants agree to submit a 35-page (maximum) double-spaced paper-in-progress for pre-circulation by Tuesday 10 October 2023.

For the Saturday round tables, we invite abstracts (150 words) that respond to one of the following questions. 

• How does Mediterranean Studies interact with (connect with, diverge from, contest) categories configured around other maritime spaces (Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Pacific, Baltic, etc.), emerging continental histories (Africa, Inner Asia), or scales (World History, Deep History, etc.)?
• How does/should Mediterranean Studies invite conversations or cross-fertilizations between different disciplines (including, but not limited to, History, Art History, Religious Studies, Anthropology, and Sociology)?
• How does Mediterranean Studies invite or enable us to re-read, reassess, or re-interpret canonical texts, artifacts and works of art, events and narratives?

Successful applicants agree to submit a 3-to-5 page (double-spaced) “position paper” for pre-circulation by Friday 20 October.

Workshop presenters and round table speakers will receive up to three nights’ lodging (Thursday through Sunday). Workshop presenters will be reimbursed for travel expenses (economy airfare). Round table speakers are eligible to apply for (partial) reimbursement of their travel costs, though we cannot guarantee the availability of funds at this time. All participants are expected to attend the full two-day program. 

A separate call for non-presenting attendees will go out in early September. 

This is an in-person meeting only.

This workshop is sponsored by the Literature Department and The Humanities Institute of the University of California Santa Cruz, the Mediterranean Seminar and the CU Mediterranean Studies Group.