Gender and Medieval Studies

2024 GMS conference
Gender, Connections, and Reconnections

 University of Lincoln

26th – 28th June 2024 (note new summer date)

Conference schedule and bookings

Questions? Contact Amy Livingstone (ALivingstone@lincoln.ac.uk)

The Debbie White Gender and Medieval Studies Student Essay Prize 2024

The Gender and Medieval Studies Group offers a postgraduate student essay prize, which is awarded at the GMS conference in January each year. The competition is open to students at all levels of graduate study including those who will be completing their degree in the coming year.

Essays should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words in length. This word limit is inclusive of footnotes but exclusive of the bibliography. Entries should engage with questions of gender and/or sexuality in the Middle Ages and follow a recognised academic referencing system (such as MHRA). A full bibliography should be included, and all images should be captioned.

Submissions from postgraduates working within any discipline in the field are encouraged.

The prize gives free conference fee registration to the GMS conference (held every January at a different UK institution) for two years (2024 and 2025).

The winning essay will also be considered for publication in the academic journal Medieval Feminist Forum, run by the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS).

There may be years when no prize is awarded, depending upon submissions in any given year.

To keep up-to-date on the GMS conference series, please subscribe to the listserv address:  GMS-LIST@jiscmail.ac.uk or follow the link on the GMS homepage.

Inclusivity, Harassment & Accessibility

INCLUSIVITY AND HARASSMENT

Conference organisers are required to include a statement of inclusivity and accessibility, including an anti-harassment statement in the programme and on any individually managed website. As a body, the GMS is committed to valuing diversity, difference and inclusivity, and to opposing most actively any form of discrimination based on gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, age or religion. The annual conference is designed to encourage full inclusivity, based on mutual respect, collegial and collaborative interactions, and friendship. As such, we are also dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone in attendance. As a group, we do not tolerate harassment of or by conference participants in any form. Conference participants violating these rules for respectful interaction may be subject to sanctions or required to leave the conference, without a refund, at the discretion of the conference organizers.

ACCESSIBILITY

Many who work in academic settings live with disabilities and/or chronic conditions which mean that attending conferences can be a difficult issue. This can be the case for students, early career researchers, independent scholars, tenured academics and support staff, and all need support so that their conference experience is as good as it possibly can be. We have created guidelines for GMS conference organisers in line with advice offered by the Medievalists with Disabilities group that include:

• Full accessibility for all spaces used during the conference, including social spaces.
• Sufficient seating at all events, including social events and receptions.
• Clear and visible signposting for all toilet facilities, including those for disabled or non-gendered access.
• Provision of a quiet room in addition to other conference spaces.
• Use of inclusive language in all communications and conference spaces.
• Accessibility built into all conference trips and venues.

Important advice on accessibility is available via the Medievalists with Disabilities accessibility guide:

https://rereadingdantesvitanova.wordpress.com/medievalists-with-disabilities-guidelines/

GMS Steering Committee

Nominations are invited from colleagues interested in joining the GMS steering committee. The GMS steering committee oversees the Gender and Medieval Studies conference, manages the postgraduate travel fund associated with the conference, maintains a website and runs an annual postgraduate student essay prize. It also makes provision for gender and sexuality studies at other medieval conferences and generally works to promote the field, particularly, through support for postgraduate researchers.

Eligibility: nominees should have a position (temporary or permanent) at a UK HEI, they should have research interests in the field of gender and/or sexuality in medieval studies in any discipline. We would particularly welcome colleagues working in early Medieval studies which is currently under-represented on our steering committee.

Nominations should be sent, with a brief biography, to: Isabel Davis (i.davis@bbk.ac.uk) and marked GMS Steering Committee Nomination.