The International Medieval Society (IMS-Paris) invites proposals for its 18th annual conference, "Medieval Communities," to be held July 3-5, 2025. Keynote addresses will be from Sharon Farmer of the University of California, Santa Barbara's Department of History, and Cécile Voyer from the Centre d’Etudes supérieures de civilisation médiévale at l’Université de Poitiers.

How did people in the Middle Ages define, create, and maintain a sense of community? The International Medieval Society, Paris (IMS-Paris) invites abstracts and session proposals for our 2025 symposium on the theme of Communities in Medieval France.
The word “community” may be defined as a group of people with shared characteristics, emotional values, or interests who perceive themselves as distinct from others. From communes, monasteries, and confraternities to soldiers, lepers, and the blind, medieval people formed close emotional ties and created rituals and other practices that constituted community. This symposium invites new lines of investigation that will deepen our knowledge of the medieval sense of community, broadly defined.

Proposals should focus on France during the Middle Ages, but do not need to be exclusively limited to this period and geographical area. We encourage proposals and papers from all fields of medieval studies, such as anthropology, archeology, history, economic and social history, art history, gender studies, literary studies, musicology, philosophy, etc.

Proposals of 300 words (in English or French) for a 20-minute paper should be e-mailed to imsparissymposiumgmail.com no later than December 1, 2024. Abstracts should be accompanied by full contact information and a short bio.

The IMS-Paris is an interdisciplinary, bilingual (French/English) organization that fosters exchanges between French and foreign scholars. For more than a decade, the IMS has served as a center for medievalists who travel to France to conduct research, work, or study.