Call for papers
Congreso internacional/ International Conference
Recepción y usos públicos de la Edad Media Cultura, pensamiento y política
Reception and Public Uses of the Middle Ages Culture, Thought, and Politics
Universidad de Valladolid, Spain, 27-28 November 2025
Due by 7 September 2025
The past, that «strange country», as David Lowenthal defined it, has always been subject to multiple treatments in order to make it intelligible and useful for a given present. In this respect, the period historically constructed and defined as the Middle Ages has been no exception. Defamed by humanists and the enlightened authors as a symbol of obscurantism and barbarism, mythologised by Romanticism as the setting for fantastic fables and legends, depositary of ancestral essences for nineteenth-century nationalisms, resituated in its historical agency by much of modern medievalism and again deformed in today's media, the multiform images projected on the Middle Ages have varied enormously depending on the historical context. This conference aims to study the different and ever-changing uses of the Middle Ages by historiography, the intellectuality, politics, the press and literature, among other social and cultural agents, from the Modern Age onwards.
For this reason, we welcome proposals that are interested in one or more of these aspects of the different images constructed about the period. For example, for its own denomination and chronological limits as a historical period, which have not innocently contributed in a decisive way to the consolidation of a certain vision of it. Also because of the very configuration and professionalisation of medievalism as a discipline and its attempts to banish some of the myths surrounding the period. Along the same line, from the point of view of the history of historiography, this conference is interested in the image of the time that was constructed by scholars and historians of the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century. On the other hand, the medieval period has been an important supplier of myths, clichés and all kinds of arguments to modern nationalist, political and religious movements for the justification of territorial, ideological and social ambitions of many different kinds, an aspect on which we also seek to receive proposals. At the same time, it has served as inspiration for various artistic and intellectual currents, feeding the conceptual renovation in different fields and the plurality of views on the period. Similarly, we seek to understand how cultural artifacts such as novels, films, series or video games have been inspired by the Middle Ages to set their stories, thus conveying a certain image of the period, issues that have been highlighted in recent years by some works in this regard. Finally, we would also like to draw attention to more recent phenomena: the distortion ―linked to the rise of pseudohistory and amplified by digital media, social networks or artificial intelligence― of visions of the Middle Ages, which threatens to impoverish historical knowledge in favour of simplified and digestible formats.
Therefore, the aim of this conference is to promote historiographical reflection on all these different uses, narratives, representations and visions produced about the Middle Ages, in order to understand how these images of the period have been constructed. We encourage the submission of proposals for papers on any of the thematic lines aforementioned above by filling in the form with an abstract (max. 500 words) and a brief CV (max. 250 words) which can be found on the conference website. Abstracts proposals will be accepted in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. The interval for submitting proposals is between 15 May and 7 September 2025.
The scientific committee of the congress will evaluate the proposals received and will communicate the decision on their acceptance by 15 September. Then, between 16 September and 1 October, participants will have to formalise their registration through the conference website. The registration fee is €60 for general participants and €50 reduced for students and unemployed. Every person can only submit one communication, alone or in co-authorship. The organising committee is currently considering how to publish the different contributions, aspect on which we hope to provide more information in the upcoming months.
For those interested, attendance will be free, and those who wish to receive a certificate of participation will be able to do so upon registration for a fee of €15.
For more information, click here.
