IMC 2026 will take place from Monday 06 July to Thursday 09 July 2026 and this will be the fifth fully-hybrid event. There will be an in-person gathering in Leeds with a virtual component for those unable to attend in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Call for Papers: IMC 2026 – Temporalities<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The IMC provides an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of\u00a0all aspects of Medieval Studies. Proposals on any topic related to the Middle Ages are welcome, while every year the IMC also chooses a special thematic focus. In 2026 this is \u2018Temporalities<\/strong>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Temporality, commonly understood as the study of time, how people perceived it, and its impact on the human experience of life, is a rich and multifaceted concept that spans many disciplines, including philosophy, history, literature, sociology, psychology, archaeology, art history, music, and science. While earlier studies often treated time as an \u2018object\u2019, today\u2019s medieval scholarship increasingly explores temporalities – the many ways in which time is intertwined with human existence and agency. This approach seeks to understand how medieval people perceived, structured, and interacted with time, considering their past, present, and future perspectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The relationship between medieval people and time was dynamic, evolving over epochs and involving diverse manifestations and outlooks. It also influenced contemporary perceptions of the medieval period, as well as modern identities and memories of the past. This makes temporality a pivotal feature of medieval cultures spread across the entire medieval globe and a universal theme of study in the world that succeeded the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most common way of studying medieval temporalities is by focussing on medieval people\u2019s views and experience of time. How they viewed their past, present, and future was deeply influenced by religious beliefs and exegetical interpretations of the \u2018world\u2019s beginnings\u2019, eternity, and end. Along with these shared understandings, everyday lives were shaped by nature and its seasonal changes. Their livelihoods often depended on aligning their daily activities with the natural rhythms of time, interpreted by calendars or more advanced ways of measuring time. Diverse notions of the passage of time affected medieval people\u2019s political decisions, economic exchanges, and production of objects and artefacts. Medieval people manipulated time to reflect their gender roles, narrative strategies, views on human ageing, shifts in ethnic or social groups, or changes in public and private spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Modern concepts of medieval time are bound up with our own understanding and (ab)use of medieval temporalities. Whether we construct images of a \u2018Dark Age\u2019, or imagine a romantic time of chivalry and knighthood, these projections into the past reflect our own temporal outlooks and how today we organise \u2018medieval time\u2019 in a variety of ways that address modern diverse political or cultural agendas, which lie at the heart of our debate on medievalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By examining the temporalities of the medieval world, together with our present-day perspectives on the spectrum of the medieval past, present, and future, the Congress aims to encourage a lively debate by international scholars about medieval people\u2019s relation with time and the impact of this relation on our present-day agencies, mentalities, and global experiences of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key topics across different fields that shed light on the relationship between time and medieval people include, but are not limited to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IMC welcomes session and paper proposals submitted in all major languages.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n IMC 2026 is the global medieval platform which promotes a broad spectrum of perspectives and critical discussions on medieval history. We aim to engage scholars working at all geographical scales, from global to local contexts, and across various time periods – whether linking the Middle Ages to Antiquity, the early modern era, or focussing on a specific year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The number of IMC sessions focussed on regions outside Europe continues to grow, and we hope to sustain this trend in 2026. Our contributors come from all areas of medieval studies, including economic, political, social, cultural, demographic, literary, linguistic, artistic, visual, spatial, religious-historical, intellectual, environmental fields, and those addressing landscape and material culture. Moreover, we encourage approaches that integrate evidence from fields beyond traditional medieval studies, such as genetics, bioarchaeology, historical climatology, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Special Thematic Strand \u2018Temporalities\u2019<\/strong> will be co-ordinated by Nada Ze\u010devi\u0107 (Filozofski fakultet, Sveu\u010dili\u0161te u Zagrebu).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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