Medieval Chronicle Call for Papers

The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at The University of Liverpool will be hosting the 7th International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle July 7–10, 2014.

Papers are invited in English, French, or German in accordance with the following main themes:

Chronicle: history or literature?

The chronicle as a historiographical and/or literary genre; genre identification; genre confusion and genre influence; typologies of chronicle; classification; conventions (historiographical, literary or otherwise) and topoi.

The function of the chronicle

The function of chronicles in society; contexts historical, literary and social; patronage; reception of the text(s); literacy; orality; performance.

The form of the chronicle

The language(s) of the chronicle; inter-relationships of chronicles in multiple languages; prose and/or verse chronicles; manuscript traditions and dissemination; the arrangement of the text.

The chronicle and the representation of the past

How chronicles record the past; the relationship with ‘time’; how the reality of the past is encapsulated in the literary form of the chronicle; how chronicles explain the past; motivations given to historical actors; the role of the Divine.

Art and Text in the chronicle

How art functions in manuscripts of chronicles; do manuscript illuminations illustrate the texts or do they provide a different discourse that amplifies, re-enforces or contradicts the verbal text; origin and production of illuminations; relationships between author(s), scribe(s) and illuminator(s).

For further information, please email the conference organizers at medchron@liverpool.ac.uk.