A conference sponsored by Stockholm University in partnership with the Program in Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
When Janet Abu-Lughod sketched the contours of a medieval “world system” in her landmark study Before European Hegemony, published nearly thirty years ago, she located the preponderance of global trade and the density of communication networks in the southern hemisphere. In recent decades, however, new trends in research and new forms of evidence have complicated, enriched, and expanded this picture, geographically as well as chronologically. We now know that vast portions of the world were interconnected throughout the Middle Ages and Early Modern era; moreover, that the entire circumpolar North was a contact zone in its own right, with many connections to the rest of the medieval globe. We invite scholars of many disciplines to explore the spaces, connections, and networks of the Global North within a long time frame and to offer new perspectives that cross the frontiers of traditional national historiographies or insular regional studies. We welcome relevant contributions by scholars of late antiquity/Viking period, the Middle Ages, and the Early Modern period whose work sheds light on the central themes of the conference. Select papers drawn from the conference proceedings will be revised for publication.
Keynote speakers:
Viking Age and Early Medieval: Neil Price, Uppsala University
Middle Ages: Felicitas Schmieder, FernUniversität in Hagen
Early Modern Era: TBA
Abstracts should be submitted by email to: [email protected] and [email protected] No later than December, 15, 2018.
