Dear Colleagues,

I am glad to announce the call for papers for the Conference:

CONVIVENCIA: REPRESENTATIONS, KNOWLEDGE
AND IDENTITIES (500 – 1600 A.D.)

28 – 30 May 2009 Madrid, Spain



Organized by

Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Wissenschaften e.V. (MPG)


Convivencia is traditionally the term for designing the cooperative and
conflictual coexistence of Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities in the
medieval Iberian Peninsula. The conference will study this phenomenon with
regard to the interacting dimensions of representations, knowledge and
identities. Representation stands for all forms of cultural production in
art, religion, literature, science and law. Knowledge includes not only
science but also forms of practical, social as well as other forms of
knowledge. The concept of identity refers to the individual and collective
imaging of the self and the other.

The aim of the conference is to address a formative period of Europe with
its cultural and religious heterogeneity from a multidisciplinary
perspective. The encounters and exchanges between Jewish, Christian and
Islamic communities and elites constitute a historical laboratory of great
significance for understanding interaction and transformation processes of
cultures in the millennium between the decline of the Roman Empire and the
beginning of the early modern period. Aspects of these processes have been
studied by single disciplines in an isolated manner. The challenge of the
conference is to overcome such division and focus instead on overarching
questions which create an intense dialogue and collaboration between the
disciplines themselves.



Themes

Principal questions of the conference includes:

•        The appropriation of past forms of art and science in new contexts.

•        Representation of contact and conflict in texts and images.

•        Transmission and transformation of institutional and legal models.

•        Spaces of Convivencia (learnig places, sacred and profane spaces,
etc.)



Scientific Committee of the Conference

Prof. Felipe Criado-Boado, CSIC
Prof. Gerhard Wolf, MP Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florenz
Prof. Rivka Feldhay, Tel-Aviv University
Prof. Maribel Fierro, CSIC
Prof. Mercedes García-Arenal, CSIC
Prof. Eduardo Manzano, CSIC
Prof. Maria Rosa Menocal, Yale University
Prof. Jürgen Renn, MPIWG, Berlin



Conference Structure and Deadlines


Call for papers

Abstracts, not exceeding 400 words, should be submitted to the conference
organizers before 10 September 2008. These abstracts will be reviewed by
the scientific committee and authors will be notified whether or not their
abstracts have been accepted before 1 December 2008. Authors of accepted
abstracts will be asked to submit extended abstracts for inclusion in the
Book of Abstracts before 1 March 2009.

Please send your abstract before 10 September 2008 to Albert Presas i
Puig, by e-mail to: [log in to unmask]



Conference Language

The conference will be held in English. All presentations should therefore
be prepared in English.


Time and Venue

The Conference will take place in
Madrid, Spain
28 – 30 May 2009
at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CCHS), CSIC
Albasanz, 26-28
28037 - Madrid



Organisation

For further details, please contact the Conference Secretary:
[log in to unmask]



(We apologize for any duplicate mailings)