CALL FOR PAPERS

Rituals of Mothering in the Middle Ages
Leeds IMC 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Cyprus-based interdisciplinary project ‘Breastfeeding and Mothering in Antiquity and Byzantium’ (https://www.ucy.ac.cy/motherbreast/) – co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research and Innovation Foundation (EXCELLENCE/0524/0012) and the University of Cyprus – warmly invites proposals for a series of sessions at the International Medieval Congress 2026 (University of Leeds, 6-9 July 2026).

The project approaches mother as a premodern identity that can only be fully understood through the use of the modern concepts of “gender”, “body”, and “performance”. These are useful concepts for describing a biological act that is nevertheless culturally constructed in the way in which it reflects the values and structures of the societies in which it exists. As such, mothering is associated with certain gestures, behaviours, rituals, prejudices, and ideologies. For the purposes of this event’s thematic, we approach the rituals of mothering alongside their medical, familial, social, ideological, religious, literary, and visual uses. Prospective speakers are invited to address the following questions:

• What rituals marked the transition into mothering, and how did these reflect broader ideologies about femininity and purity?
• Which general typology can be derived from approaching a broad spectrum of carefully chosen medieval rituals of mothering?
• What are the predominant values of mothering rituals in medieval cultures?
• How do rituals of mothering intersect with power, authority, and lineage in medieval political or aristocratic families?
• What role do rituals of mothering have in medieval art and literature?
• How do the literary enunciations of mothering rituals relate to their visual representations?

We welcome paper proposals which explore and theorise mothering rituals, their place and various meanings and uses in medieval cultures in any of the above and/or other interrelated ways. We are open to various approaches, especially the ones which explore the interconnections between different methods and disciplines, such as Late Antique and Medieval Studies, Philology, Art History, Archaeology, History of Medicine, Gender and Performance Studies, Ritual Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, and Theology. Selected papers will be published in the diamond open access peer-reviewed journal Eventum: A Journal of Medieval Arts and Rituals (https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/eventum).

Please send your abstract (200 words maximum) and a short CV including your email and affiliation no later than the 5th of September 2025 to [email protected].

Please note that the organizers (Stavroula Constantinou, Eirini Panou and Savvas Mavromatidis) cannot cover conference registration fee and travel or accommodation expenses.