Medieval and Early Modern Research (MEMO) Events

MEMO hosts an annual Symposium each June.

The 12th annual Symposium by the Sea was on the theme of

Britain and its Neighbours: Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 28-29 June 2018

Keynote speakers 

• Dr Emily Ward (University of Cambridge), on, 'Enabling Diplomacy: Royal Children and Cross-Cultural Contact in Britain, France, and Germany, c.1050-c.1250'
• Professor Sally Vaughn (University of Houston), on ' "Sooth them with Promises to be Retracted Later": A Cross-Channel Idea that Morphed from a Teaching Methodology to a Political Theory' [The David Walker Memorial Lecture]
• Dr Megan Leitch (Cardiff University), on 'Drowsy Knights and Dreamers: The Ethics and Affect of Sleep from Chaucer to Shakespeare'

The 11th Annual Symposium by the Sea was on the subject of

Litigating Women: Negotiating Justice in Courts of Law, c.1100-c.1750
28-29 June 2017, Swansea University

As part of the AHRC-funded project 'Women Negotiating the Boundaries of Justice’, the 2017 Symposium by the Sea will focus on female litigants in the medieval and early modern periods.

Keynote speakers:

• Professor Emerita Janet Loengard (Moravian College, Pennsylvania), on 'Heiresses, Widows, Felons and Others: Thirteenth-Century Women in the King's Court'
• Professor Sara Butler (The Ohio State University), on 'Women and Criminal Law in Medieval England'
• Professor Julie Hardwick (The University of Texas at Austin), on 'The first time: young workers, consensual relationships, and the shift to physical intimacy in Old Regime France'

The 10th Annual Symposium by the Sea

Art for the Historian, 23-24 June 2016, Sketty Hall, Swansea

The 10th annual symposium brought together the expertise of Swansea University’s Department of History and Classics in pre-modern visual sources, ranging from ancient Rome to the seventeenth-century Netherlands. It explored a range of the evidence available to the historian, from the religious to the secular, from the ceremonial to the permanent, and from ‘high art’ to craft forms. It considered how various art forms have come to be discovered and appreciated, either as surviving objects ‘in their own right’ or through contemporary or later descriptions.

MEMO participates in the pan-Wales IMEMS Seminar series, hosting two meetings each year. These are held in the Coleg Cymraeg Studio at Swansea University, and video studios at other Welsh institutions.

Spring 2018 dates:

23 January

20 February

6 March

17 April

1 May - Postgraduate Colloquium

MEMO also co-sponsors Research Seminars with History, English and the Centre for Gender, Culture and Society (GENCAS).

MEMO members also collaborate in the Swansea-Cardiff Early Modern seminar series

31 January 2018 (at Cardiff): Garthine Walker

7 March 2018 (at Swansea): Miranda Kaufmann

Miranda Kaufmann is the author Black Tudors: The Untold Story (2017).

MEMO will be sponsoring numerous sessions at the International Medieval Congress in July 2018. Highlights in 2018 include:

Sessions 526/626/726/826: Diana and all her Sect: Remembering Women Warriors (organised by Roberta Magnani)

701 and 801: Eadmer of Canterbury (Charlie Rozier)

Session 714/814/914: Women and Justice (organised by Emma Cavell)

1048/1148/1248/1348: Time, Science and the Body in the Anglo-Norman World (CR)

Session 1453 Racism and Nationalism in Medieval Studies and Medievalism (RM)

MEMO members are also speaking in sessions 408, 949, 1206 (Irina Metzler), 453 (CR and Catherine Fletcher), 543 (Simon John), 713 (CF) 915 and 1645 (Dan Power)