Call for Papers, International Medieval Congress (Leeds) 2025, 7-10 July 2025

In recent years, scholars have begun to revisit sources from Late Antique and Merovingian Gaul from a perspective of intellectual history. Scholars including Danuta Shanzer, Helmut Reimitz, Philip Wynn, Guy Halsall, and Yaniv Fox have drawn attention to the ways in which Late Antique and Medieval authors such as Gregory of Tours, the anonymous author of the Liber Historiae Francorum, and Venantius Fortunatus constructed history. This post-structuralist approach argues that the consumption and production of history is malleable, as it is highly dependent on the subjective worldviews of the author and audience. Thus, analysing how authors interpreted and narrated events of the distant and recent past, and the ways in which they spoke about the future and its potentialities, can unlock the individual worldviews of those who constructed these foundational texts ﹘ some of which contain the only accounts we have of their era.

We intend to submit a three to four-strand session to the IMC 2025 entitled ‘Narrating Gender and Temporality in Late Antique and Merovingian Gaul: 300-750 AD’. In this series of panels, we will extend this existing work by focusing specifically on the relationship between gender and temporality. The ways in which authors conceptualised time, either as something that is malleable or fixed, linear or layered, shaped the way they narrated gendered histories. In like manner, each individual’s theories on gender were inherently linked to time, whether past texts or people that informed these opinions, contemporary models, or beliefs about the afterlife of individuals and the eventual apocalypse of mankind.

We encourage participants to consider how a narratological approach to Late Antique and Merovingian texts, whether literary or non-literary, anonymous or clearly authored, can offer a new angle on the significance and mutability of gender performance, expectations and potentials in the past, present, and future of Gallic thinkers and their various imagined and intended audiences. To do so, we encourage participants to think about the specific techniques used, and how these shape the relationship between gender and temporality or construct gendered temporalities. These techniques can include the manipulation of chronology, authorial intrusion, and naming and namelessness, and reveal the unspoken theories and frameworks which underpin an author’s thinking. 

We are particularly interested in pagan, Christian, and Jewish narratives and stories that relate to life cycles, the afterlife, intercession, and the ways in which the spiritual and secular collide in fatal moments or moments of trial. However, we are also interested in other suggestions and ideas that speak to the theme of gendered temporality and what that could entail. Some suggested questions are: How does the lens of gender change the way we (and other audiences) read such narratives? How do narrative techniques (such as omission or digression) comment on or emphasise gendered temporalities? What is the relation of fate, gender, agency and predestination in these narratives? We invite all interested scholars of Late Antique and Merovingian Gaul to submit their proposals for consideration by 8 September 2024. Replies will be returned within approximately one week. 

Our intention is to turn these conference proceedings into a special edition in subsequent years. More detail will be given on this closer to the time.

What we are looking for:

• 250-word proposal abstract
• Please include how your proposal relates to the narration of both gender and temporality.
• Proposals must demonstrate a topic primarily related to Late Antique or Merovingian history in the time period from 300-750 AD. While we will consider topics that offer a comparative approach to other periods, preference will be given to topics that primarily focus on the period outlined.
• Your university affiliation, position (i.e. PhD, Postdoc, Lecturer, Professor), and preferred email address (ideally one that will remain active for the next year).
• Whether you wish to attend the IMC virtually or in person, and any accessibility needs

N.B. Presenters will need to secure their own funding to attend the Leeds IMC. We advise all applicants with insecure funding backgrounds to consider applying for the IMC bursary scheme.

Please submit your proposal to Associate Professor Lisa Kaaren Bailey (lk.bailey@auckland.ac.nz), Dr Becca Grose (rcg20@st-andrews.ac.uk), and Michaela Selway, M.A. (michaela.selway@uni-tuebingen.de) no later than 5pm (17:00) on 08 September 2024 British Summer Time (UTC+1).