Call for Papers for the Leeds International Medieval Congress, 7-10 July 2025.
Textiles and textile-like materials were a fundamental part of all societies across the medieval world. While much research and practice has been undertaken on a wide variety of themes and across subjects, the role of learning — how medieval people were taught to make and learnt to understand textiles, and how people today teach and learn about Medieval textiles, has received less attention. It is the intention of the session’s organisers to change this. The session aims to be interdisciplinary and geographically wide ranging, welcoming a diverse range of individuals who are interested in exploring and discussing the processes of learning that medieval people from across the globe undertook regarding textiles, how this knowledge is shared today and how it could form a world-wide network of textile learning in the future.
The organizers invite contributions for 20-minute presentations that discuss and reconsider the processes of learning in the context of medieval textiles in their broadest sense.
Themes may include, but are not limited to:
- How medieval people learnt to make and decorate textiles and how this changed as the period progressed.
- How medieval people learnt about and understood the meanings behind textiles, their decoration and uses with-in and across medieval societies and how these changed as textiles, people, ideas and technologies travelled across the Medieval world.
- How we learn about Medieval textiles, their decoration, uses and meanings.
- How people are taught about Medieval textiles.
- Processes of learning including experimental archaeology, practice, digital approaches.
- Engaging communities across the globe.
It is the intention of the session organisers to draw together a broad range of emerging and established researchers, practitioners, teachers, heritage workers, artists and those driving history education policy, among others, from across the globe to engage in dialogs about learning and medieval textiles.
Please send questions or submission with your name, affiliation, paper title, and a 250-word abstract by 30th August to Alexandra Makin and Mary Valante at: earlymedievaltextiles@gmail.com
