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International Medieval Congress sessions as they will occur

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It has been a long time since there was action here, for which I apologise, but a lot is going on behind the scenes to put the next instalment of Rethinking the Medieval Frontier together. In the meantime, the project will as already forecast be bursting back into action at this year's International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds, with an exciting and newly international set of sessions, as follows:

Rethinking the Medieval Frontier 2018, I: Iberian Spaces

Because my own interests mean that my networks in the Iberian Peninsula often seem to dominate this project, I thought that for once it might be best to let the regional specialty have its own session. In actual fact, though, I know neither of the other speakers in person, so it's going to be exciting. The speakers are:

  1. Jonathan Jarrett (University of Leeds), "Ends of Empire: Two Island Frontiers between Byzantium and Islam", which will be a comparison of the Balearic Islands and Malta arising from a recent publication of mine
  2. Stacey Murrell (Brown University), "Centering the Marginal: Concubines on Castilian Frontiers, c. 1050-1350"
  3. Sandra Schieweck (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg), "Iberian Border Regimes: The Case of Castile and Navarre in the Late Middle Ages"

That session happens first thing on Tuesday morning, at 09:00 on 2nd July 2019, and then we charge onwards!

Rethinking the Medieval Frontier 2018, II: Administration and Control

This session is sadly down by one speaker from our original plan, but includes one of our other network members, the stalwart Dr Luca Zavagno. Papers are as follows:

  1. Luca Zavagno (Bilkent Universitesi), "'The Byzantine liquid frontiers': Or, How to Administer Insular and Coastal Peripheral Spaces and Stop Worrying about It". (We're quite interested in islands, you see...)
  2. Davor Salihović (University of Cambridge), "The Distribution of Bordering Power in Late Medieval Hungary"

And that is at 11:15 on Tuesday 2nd July 2019. We resume after lunch, with two more sessions!

Rethinking the Medieval Frontier 2018, III: Between Religions

An obvious and perpetual area of interest for the frontiers scholar, and it will be being explored by these speakers:

  1. Roberta Denaro (Università degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale), "Far from the Corrupting City: Building the Frontier as a Stage for Martyrdom and Asceticism, 8th-10th Centuries"
  2. Turaç Hakalmaz (Bilkent Universitesi), "'Islandness' of a Coastal Kingdom: The Case of Cilician Armenia". (I did mention our interest in islands, yes?)
  3. Aniket Tathagata Chettry (North Bengal University), "Conceptualizing a Frontier: Exploring the Complexities of a Brahmanical Frontier in Bengal"

I feel that that is hard to beat for cross-cultural comparison, myself, and it starts at 14:15. But it's not all over at 15:45! We resume with a last blast at 16:30.

Rethinking the Medieval Frontier 2018, IV: Dealing with Power on the Frontier

Wrapping up with questions close to my own heart, we have:

  1. Jakub Kabala (Davidson College), "Claiming Authority over the Edge of the World: Frontier Strategies in Salzburg, c. 870"
  2. Zeynep Aydoğan (Istanbul), "Conquest and Territoriality in the Late Medieval Anatolian Frontiers"
  3. Andreas Obenaus (Universität Wien), "To Whom Might/Do They Belong?: Claims to Newly Discovered Atlantic Islands in the Late Medieval Period".
  4. You see, with four islands papers there wasn't any way to put us all in one session, so instead everybody else has to contend with one of us going, "ah yes, but does it work with islands, eh?" I think this can only do us good.

Seriously, though, I am delighted with our comparative scope here and I hope for some really good discussions to come out of it. Come and see!