Call for Papers: Entangled Histories Seminar Series 2026–2027
Following the success of the current edition, the Entangled Histories Seminar Series invites abstracts for its 2026–2027 cycle:
“Borders and Sustainability: Human and Natural Resources across Time and Space.”
This edition explores sustainability not as an exclusively environmental concern but as a multifaceted concept that intersects with borders across diverse cultural, material, and ecological contexts.
The series adopts a diachronic and interdisciplinary perspective, spanning from prehistory to the contemporary world.
Sustainability and Borders: A Broad Perspective. We seek to investigate sustainability in its multiple dimensions:
- Material sustainability: recycling of resources (manuscripts, architectural structures, waste, and landscapes).
- Ecological sustainability: relationships between humans, animals, and environments; balance between preservation and exploitation.
- Social, linguistic, and cultural sustainability: transmission of knowledge, endangered languages, healing practices, migration, and community resilience.
- Symbolic sustainability: representations of ecological limits, hybrid beings, and cultural imaginaries of nature and borders.
Conceptual Framework At the heart of the series lies the concept of borders, understood as dynamic thresholds that shape access to resources and regulate interactions. Borders are not only physical or political: they can be ecological, cultural, social, linguistic, political and material. While we encourage long-term temporalities and global spatial entanglements, we also offer the elements (earth, water, air, fire, ether, wood, etc.) as a possible heuristic framework to explore these dimensions across different historical strata.
Topics of Interest: We encourage contributions from a wide range of disciplines, including but not limited to:
- Archaeology and Prehistory: Resource use, landscapes, indigenous practices, and environmental interactions over time.
- Medieval Studies, Philology, and Manuscript Cultures: Material sustainability of manuscripts, palimpsests, intellectual ecologies, literatures and languages, and the transmission of knowledge.
- Art History and Visual Culture: Representations of nature, landscapes, borders, and material practices across different periods.
- Anthropology and Folklore: Vernacular ecological knowledge, oral traditions, liminal beings, and environmental imaginaries.
- History of Science and Medicine: Healing practices, scientific knowledge, and environmental understanding across cultures.
- Environmental Humanities and Ecology: Human–non-human relations, ecosystems, climate, and resilience.
- History of Economy, Trade, and Food Systems: Circulation of resources, subsistence, scarcity, and sustainability practices.
- Architecture and Infrastructure Studies: Built environments, water and soil management, roads, and material borders.
- Geography, Cartography, and Media Studies: Spatial representation, mapping, and communication of environmental knowledge across borders.
High-Impact Publication Opportunity: A selection of the most significant contributions will be published in a dedicated edited volume or a special issue with a leading international publisher (past collaborations and ongoing projects include prestigious venues such as Brill, De Gruyter, and Routledge). This ensures that the research presented reaches a global audience of specialists.
Submission Guidelines
- Format: Online seminar (approximately 30-minute talk + discussion).
- Schedule: October 2026 – Summer 2027.
- Required: Title, Abstract (250–300 words), Short Bio (100–150 words), Affiliation, email address, and preferred months of availability.
- Deadline: 31 August 2026.
- Send to: entangledhistories.seminars@outlook.com.
Contact Information
Organized by:
- Dr. Maria Pia Ester Cristaldi (Üsküdar University)
- Dr. Elisa Ramazzina (University of Insubria)
Under the patronage of: The Faculty of Communication and the Master’s Programme in Media and Cultural Studies at Üsküdar University.
Contact Email
entangledhistories.seminars@outlook.com
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