The 28th Annual New England Medieval Studies Consortium Graduate Student Conference is requesting submissions for its annual conference which will take place at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday, March 5th, 2011. By bringing together scholars with varied interests, the conference encourages dialogue across and between disciplines.The keynote address, "The Friars and the City" will be given by Professor Caroline A. Bruzelius, Anne M. Cogan Professor at Duke University.

This year’s conference will engage with issues of reading medieval landscapes, both visually and textually, from Late Antiquity through the Late Middle Ages. Contributors are encouraged to interpret this theme broadly. We encourage papers from a variety of disciplines, including: Anthropology – Archaeology – Art History – Byzantine Studies – Classical Studies – Comparative Literature – History – History of Science – Islamic Studies – Language Studies – Literary Studies – Musicology – Philosophy – Religious Studies – Theology – Urban Studies – Women’s and Gender Studies.

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to: Depictions and descriptions of built and unbuilt environments or cultivated and wild landscapes, Medieval urban topographyLandscapes and the past: medieval interpretations of ancient monuments, Spiritual landscapes, such as New Jerusalem and the theological underpinnings for medieval understandings of urban space, Borders between communities; segregated communities and marginalized populations; territories and the frontier, Movement through landscapes: travel, pilgrimage, and crusades Monasteries and landscapes: imprints through settlements, domains and interactions of cloistered communities with rural and urban centers, Medieval textual communities or intellectual networks, Critical approaches, interpretations, or readings of medieval topics.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words for a 15-20 minute paper should be e-mailed to brown.nemsc.2011@gmail.com. In addition to the abstract, please include a one-page personal statement or Curriculum Vitae, with full contact information.

Deadline for submissions is Monday, November 1, 2010. Participants will be notified by December 1st. For more information, please contact the conference committee at brown.nemsc.2011@gmail.com.