Gender and Medieval Studies

GMS 2023 information: https://gms2023.wordpress.com/

GMS Call for Papers 2023

We are living through an ongoing state of crisis, an experience which produces an equally constant longing for aftermath, recovery, and repair. Where does our research into gender and sexuality in the medieval past sit in the ‘new normal’, and what part can it play in cultures of recuperation? For marginalised individuals in the Middle Ages, as in the present day, experiences of crises were inflected by identity and inequality – and the consequent aftermath, recovery, and repair were similarly differentially distributed according to gender, sexuality, race, disability, and class.

This edition of the Gender and Medieval Studies Conference invites abstracts for 20-minute papers that explore any aspect of medieval studies research on the theme of Aftermath, Recovery, and Repair. How are destabilising events influenced by identity? Whose recovery is prioritised and enabled? How does the labour of recovery vary amongst marginalised actors? How can manifestations of repair be used to resist structural oppression? How can crafting and mending be therapeutic?

Proposals for papers may include, but are not limited to:
• recovering from trauma, violence, and loss
• medical cures, healing, and recovery
• disability, neurodivergence, and longterm health conditions
• labour and care
• intersectionality
• non-European medieval studies
• postcolonial and antiracist scholarship
• reclamation of silenced narratives
• material and metaphorical repair
• modern medievalisms
• activism and aftermath
• restoration, craft, and mending
• repair, re-use and the environment

As well as a call for papers, the 2023 GMS Conference is looking for creative contributions. There will be a small gallery space as part of the conference, and we are keen to exhibit creative responses to the theme of Aftermath, Recovery, and Repair in relation to medieval
gender/sexuality. Please get in touch with any questions.

This conference will be hybrid (in person and online).

Please send 250-word abstracts and a brief CV to: gmsconf2023@gmail.com by 5th September 2022.