Calls for Papers

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17th Annual Graduate Conference in Medieval Studies
Princeton University
17 April 2010

“Ghosts, Angels, and Demons: Ethereal and Material”

The Program in Medieval Studies at Princeton University invites submissions for its seventeenth annual graduate conference. We are pleased to announce this year's keynote speaker, Nancy Caciola, Associate Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego.
This conference invites participants to consider the idea of ghosts in its broadest sense. We encourage papers not only on ghosts as 'ethereal' beings, but also submissions that play with the metaphor of ghosts as it relates to things like memory and the material remains of the medieval past. Thus, one successful proposal might deal with apparitions as they appear in monastic literature. Others might make the "ghost" of the Middle Ages in contemporary film or the 'ghostly' ruins of Cistercian monasteries in France their subject of inquiry.
In keeping with the Program's aim to promote interdisciplinary exchange among medievalists, we encourage proposals from a variety of chronologies, geographies, and disciplines. Topics might include but are not limited to:

• The Liturgy of the Dead
• Spirit possessions and exorcisms
• Medieval near death experiences and otherworldly journeys
• Ghosts in monastic literature and exempla
• Ghosts in vernacular literature (epic, romance, sagas, etc.)
• Saints' lives and hagiography
• Medieval modes of remembrance
• Ruins in Medieval Europe
• The "ghost" of the Middle Ages today
• Angelology
• Demonology and Witchcraft
• Representations of Heaven and Hell in Literature (e.g. The Divine Comedy) Eschatology and Apocalypticism Angels and Demons in medieval art

In order to support participation of speakers from outside the northeastern United States, we are offering a limited number of modest subsidies to help offset the cost of travel to Princeton. Financial assistance may not be available for every participant; funding priority goes to those who have the furthest to travel. Every speaker will have the option of staying with a resident graduate student as an alternative to paying for a hotel room.
Deadline: March 1st, 2010
Papers should take no more than twenty minutes to deliver. Please submit a 250-word abstract of your project to Troy Tice (ttice@princeton.edu) or Andrew Lemons (alemons@princeton.edu).