Call for Papers: Entangled Histories Seminar Series 2026–2027
Theme: Borders and Sustainability: Human and Natural Resources across Time and Space

ORGANIZERS
Dr. Maria Pia Ester Cristaldi (Üsküdar University) & Dr. Elisa Ramazzina (University of Insubria)

PATRONAGE, SPONSORING INSTITUTIONS & PARTNERS
- Üsküdar University
- Shandong Association for International Exchange of Personnel
- UniGR-Center for Border Studies (UniGR-CBS) / University of the Greater Region
- Centre for Languages and Multicultural Communication (CLMC), Woxsen University

OFFICIAL WEBSITE
https://sites.google.com/view/entangledhistories/home

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Entangled Histories Seminar Series is formally pleased to announce and invite proposals for its upcoming academic cycle for 2026–2027. Embracing an expansive, rigorously structured, long-term diachronic perspective, this seminar series spans across a vast and comprehensive chronological arc—stretching seamlessly from Prehistory and Antiquity, passing through the complexities of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, extending across the Modern era, and reaching directly into the Contemporary Era.

The core intellectual mission of this seminar series is to thoroughly investigate and interrogate sustainability not merely as a modern catchphrase, but as a multifaceted, deeply relational, and historically grounded memorial process. We aim to explore in profound depth how human societies across different historical epochs, diverse cultural landscapes, and distinct environments have continually negotiated ecological limits, managed vital resources, and facilitated the complex, often contested circulation of knowledge, culture, power, and materials across physical, conceptual, and political boundaries.

While maintaining our foundational and primary focus on water systems, aquatic ecosystems, and intricate hydro-historical dynamics, our scholarly inquiry extends broadly and systematically across all fundamental elemental domains. This encompasses land and soil, fire, air, timber and wood, and metals, deeply analyzing how material constraints, environmental pressures, and elemental availability have actively shaped human history, technological development, and cultural production across the centuries.

We strongly encourage comparative, interdisciplinary, philological, literary, historical, art-historical, and digital methodological approaches. We particularly welcome submissions and contributions that actively engage with global and local transitions, bridging historical perspectives from the Old World to the Americas. This encompasses comprehensive investigations into Pre-Columbian and Post-Columbian histories, specialized island studies and isolated ecosystems (such as Rapa Nui), as well as the active preservation, study, and documentation of indigenous perspectives, endangered minority languages, rich vernacular literatures, and the enduring traditions of local history and communal resilience.

DETAILED CORE RESEARCH DOMAINS AND CHRONOLOGICAL SCOPE

- Deep-Time, Landscape, and Environmental History: Tracing resource management, human-nature interactions, ecological adaptations, and profound landscape transformations across all material elements (water, earth, fire, air, wood, and metals) from Prehistory and Antiquity through the Middle Ages, Early Modern, and Modern eras up to the Twenty-first Century.
- Medieval Studies, Art History, and Material Culture: Comprehensive, specialized investigations into manuscript studies, visual culture, Romanesque and Gothic architecture, medieval and pre-modern art, sacred and domestic spaces, iconography, and the material circulation of artifacts, texts, and artistic traditions across shifting cultural, religious, and geographical borders.
- Water Resources, Elements, and Aquatic Imaginaries: Analyzing the management, sacred status, ritual uses, pollution, symbolic representations, literature, and socio-political control of water bodies, river basins, oceans, marine environments, and natural resources across time and space.
- The Americas (Pre-Columbian & Post-Columbian): Exploring complex entangled histories, indigenous resilience, colonial and post-colonial encounters, ecological shifts, socio-environmental transformations, and the profound alteration of traditional territories throughout North, Central, and South America.
- Island Studies and Isolated Ecosystems (e.g., Rapa Nui): Rigorous micro-historical and macro-ecological analyses focusing on remote human settlements, resource exhaustion, insular adaptation strategies, cultural survival, and isolation dynamics.
- Indigenous Studies, Minority Languages, Literatures, and Endangered Voices: Centering non-majoritarian perspectives, oral traditions, cultural heritage preservation, textual traditions, and the critical documentation of endangered and minority languages within shifting linguistic, cultural, and political borders.
- Local History, Journalism History, Folklore, and Cultural Memory: Utilizing regional archives, the history of journalism, oral history, comparative folklore, ethnography, and vernacular records to thoroughly document community adaptation, local resilience, and collective memory.
- Digital Humanities and Spatial Analysis: Implementing advanced computational approaches, GIS mapping, digital archives, and sophisticated corpus analysis applied to historical, archaeological, artistic, and linguistic datasets.

MANDATORY SUBMISSION RULES & INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLICANTS

1. Border-Sustainability Nexus (Strict Mandatory Requirement): Proposals MUST explicitly, thoroughly, and theoretically unpack how the author intends to decline, intersect, and address the relationship between "Borders" (whether political, geographical, linguistic, cultural, religious, or symbolic) and "Sustainability" (encompassing ecological, material, economic, or heritage management across time and space). The abstract must clearly and transparently articulate this theoretical and analytical connection to be considered for evaluation.
2. Proposal Content Requirements: Each submission must include a clear and definitive Title, an Abstract of 250–300 words (which must fully satisfy the mandatory requirement stated in rule 1), a short Academic Bio of 100–150 words, complete Institutional Affiliation, and the Preferred months of availability for delivering the presentation.
3. Strict File Format Requirement: All application materials must be compiled strictly and exclusively into a SINGLE file in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format. Multiple or separate attachments will under no circumstances be accepted, reviewed, or considered.
4. Presentation Format: The seminar series is held entirely online, consisting of an approximate 30-minute presentation followed by an open academic discussion.

IMPORTANT DATES & DEADLINES
- Deadline for abstract submission: August 31, 2026
- Notification of acceptance: By September 30, 2026

PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITY
A rigorous editorial selection of the most significant, fully developed, and expanded contributions presented during the seminar series will be published either as a peer-reviewed special journal issue or within a dedicated edited volume issued by a major international academic publisher.

SUBMISSION CONTACT & INQUIRIES
Please submit your proposal, compiled strictly into a single file, to our official email address:
👉 entangledhistories.seminars [@] outlook.com

For any further information, updates, detailed schedules, and organizational guidelines, please visit our official website:
https://sites.google.com/view/entangledhistories/home