Call for papers

The Seventh Century: Continuity or Discontinuity?

The 2013 Edinburgh University Seventh Century Colloquium

28 – 29 May 2013

Call for papers

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for the 2013 Edinburgh University Seventh Century Colloquium, 28 – 29 May 2013. 

The colloquium is a two-day interdisciplinary conference for postgraduate students and early career researchers.  The colloquium brings together scholars from different disciplines studying the seventh century in order to promote discussion and the cross-fertilisation of ideas.  We will explore how wider perspectives can be used to formulate new approaches to source material, drawing out fresh perspectives on both the familiar and unfamiliar.

Our general theme will be an examination of whether the seventh century can be studied as a unit across regions or whether the period represents a break in the longue durée.  What was the level of discontinuity between the ‘long sixth’ and ‘long eighth’ centuries? 

We invite those working in archaeology, art history, history, literature, numismatics, and religion, as well as in fields including Byzantine, Celtic, Classics, Islamic, and Late Antique studies to submit abstracts for papers of approximately 15 to 20 minutes that engage with all aspects of the long seventh century.

Possible topics for papers might include, but are by no means limited to:

• The seventh century ‘world crisis’ and its ramifications 
• The development of new economic relations in the North Sea
•  The Christianisation of western Europe 
• The Transformation of the Byzantine Empire 
• The Emergence of Islam 
• The transformation of ancient cities to those of the Middle Ages 
• Historiography of the seventh century

Additionally, poster presentations will be considered.

Our organisational structure is designed to encourage collaboration and cross-fertilisation of ideas; we will have no parallel sessions as we believe that everything will be useful to all of us.  To build collaboration, we will be adopting an innovative structure for the conference.  The sessions will be structured as follows:

• Prior to the colloquium, each speaker will be paired with a respondent with experience of either working on similar issues as the speaker, or using similar research methodologies 
• The respondent will have read a written version of the speaker’s paper in advance and will have prepared a detailed response prior to the colloquium. 
• After the delivery of the paper, the respondent will give a response before opening the floor to general discussion.

We hope that such methods will not only inspire genuine collaboration between the two scholars involved but will encourage a wider and livelier debate and discussion.  Similarly, we hope that all involved will feel encouraged to debate, discuss, and occasionally disagree.  We believe that through such methods all of us will advance as scholars.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to the organising committee at edinburgh7th@gmail.com  

The deadline for submission is 15 January 2013.  Early submissions are encouraged.

Persons interested in attending and serving as respondents only are also encouraged to contact us.