CALL FOR PAPERS
 ‘Terra incognita’? Making space for medieval geographies

An HGRG-sponsored session of the RGS/IBG Annual Conference
at the
Royal Geographical Society, London, UK
September 1-3 2010

Conveners: 
Keith Lilley (Queen’s University Belfast)
Veronica Della Dora (University of Bristol)
Stuart Elden (University of Durham)

Historical geographers appear to be increasingly occupied with the modern or 
post-Enlightenment world, with ‘medieval geographies’ becoming, for many in 
the field, a terra incognita. Yet over the past century, the Latin, Byzantine 
and Arabic worlds of the Middle Ages (c.500-1500CE) have been a key focus 
for geographical study. Whether in charting geography’s medieval history and 
historiography, or in reconstructing spatial histories of medieval landscapes, 
territories and societies, geographers have thus recognized the importance of 
geographies before the modern age. However, during the past three decades, 
these geographies ‘in’ and ‘of’ the Middle Ages have noticeably shifted further 
to the margins of Anglophone historical geography, at a time when, 
paradoxically, the geographical and spatial are growing concerns among 
medievalists, for example in art and literary history, and in architecture and 
archaeology. 

In the context of these shifting disciplinary terrains, this session seeks to 
make space for medieval geographies by providing a forum for recent and 
ongoing studies that encompass both geographies in and of the Middle Ages. 
Papers of an empirical or theoretical nature are sought, particularly those 
engaging in critical ways with medieval geographies and which encourage 
further cross-disciplinary exchange with medievalists in cognate areas. Far 
from being a terra incognita, the session will expose some of the contemporary 
resonances of medieval geographies, and one of its intended outcomes is to 
entice historical geographers to consider the spatial and temporal continuities, 
discontinuities and connections that run between the ‘medieval’ and 
the ‘modern’.

Paper proposals and abstracts should be sent to 
Dr Keith Lilley ([log in to unmask]) by January 31 2010.

A link to further information about the conference is: 
http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+C
onference/Call+for+Papers.htm