Agenda
Call for abstracts 20th Annual MEMSA Conference (Durham University, UK) – deadline 9 March 2026
On 13 and 14 July 2026, the Medieval and Earl Modern Student Association (MEMSA) will organise its 20th Annual Conference at St. John’s College at Durham University. This year’s conference theme is ‘Connection, conversation and contention: encounters in the Medieval and Early Modern World’.
All kinds of connections took shape in the period of 500 AD – 1800 AD through different means. The founding and spreading of the major monotheistic religions like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, for example; the establishment of the silk roads, the sub-Sahara trade and other major trading sea-lanes in South East Asia; or the colonisation of the America’s and the founding of trade posts in Africa and Asia by Europeans. It was also a period of conversation, the founding of European medieval universities, the house of wisdom in Baghdad, and the emergence of a republic of letters in the Early Modern period. However, with connection also comes contention; the Arabic conquests, the crusades, the colonial conquests or the many devastating wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
To investigate these interactions, the MEMSA conference committee invites postgraduates to send paper abstracts of 300 words. The papers must focus on either connection, conversation or contention in a broader sense during the Medieval or Early Modern period. Abstracts should be submitted ultimately by 9 March 2026 via the dedicated form (see full info via button below).
