The fifth annual Conference for Medieval Studies, a graduate student conference
sponsored by Comitatus, the Purdue Medieval Studies group, will be held at
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana on February 23-24, 2007. The theme
for this year's conference is "On the Edge: Representations of Liminality in
Medieval Europe."

Patricia Clare Ingham, Indiana University, Bloomington, will be the plenary
speaker for this year's conference.

Our theme of representations of liminality looks at people or events that are or
would have been socially disruptive because those moments can be very productive
by creating changes within a culture and also often providing an entry point
into the period for our own research. We determine (partially) what was normal
by seeing where normality was stretched or outright challenged.

Possible topics for consideration include but are not limited to the following:
- "representations" as visual elements, especially regarding art/art history,
material culture, and iconography
- historicity and questions of who gets to tell the stories of the past
- people and events on the edge of normality
- people and events on the cusp of historical moments
- people and events on the fringes of religious orthodoxy
- the tension between public/private, home/work, etc.
- linguistic boundaries between various time periods or language groups (or
within them)
- how women and men represent themselves/are represented when they fall outside
normative bounds
- challenges to religious orthodoxy
- significant moments/pieces in art history

We invite paper abstracts (250 words) as well as panel proposals (panel abstract
as well as abstracts for each paper in the panel) from graduate students and
advanced undergraduates to be submitted by October 15, 2006. Send abstracts to:
Karen Robinson
krobinson_at_purdue.edu (preferred)
Purdue University
Department of English
500 Oval Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2038

For information about the conference, visit our website at
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~comitatu/conference2007.html

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Received on Wed Aug 23 2006 - 17:58:02 EDT