The Early Medieval~Medieval~Renaissance~Reformation~Early Modern Postgraduate Forum

CALL FOR PAPERS
'Whores and Virgins, Heroes and Villains', Friday 16th and Saturday 17th March 2012
Westmere, Edgbaston Park Road, University of Birmingham

Papers are invited for the 2012 EMREM two-day interdisciplinary symposium, to be held at the University of Birmingham. The theme for this year’s event is 'Whores and Virgins, Heroes and Villains from the early medieval to the early modern period’. How were social labels such as ‘whore’, ‘virgin’, ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ used and understood in the EMREM period? How were people idealised and demonised in literature, art and other media? By what criteria were people celebrated or condemned, and to what extent were the boundaries between such categories blurred? How were those who failed to adhere to society’s standards treated and portrayed? Who decided what was acceptable behaviour and to whom did such concepts of respectability and ‘goodness’ apply?

Postgraduate speakers from all fields of EMREM studies are welcome to share their research and build networks at this friendly and well-established symposium.

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to:
• Cultural stereotypes
• Social mores and sensibilities
• Sexuality and sexual appetite
• Crime, criminality and misbehaviour
• Didacticism
• Heroism
• Gender relations
• Sexual deviance
• Exclusion and disempowerment
• Literary traditions
• Church doctrine
• Artistic depictions of the saintly and of the demonic
• The ‘ideal’
• Virtue and vice

Papers should be 20 minutes in length. Please send proposals of approximately 300 words to: emremforum@googlemail.com by Friday 17th February 2012.

There is limited funding available to help cover external speakers’ travel and accommodation expenses. Refreshments and numerous networking opportunities will be provided.