Othello's Island 2016

The 4th Annual Multidisciplinary Conference of Medieval and Renaissance Studies held at the Severis Foundation, Nicosia, Cyprus, March 2016

Convenors:
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Professor James Fitzmaurice, Emeritus Professor of English (Northern Arizona University) and Director of Distance Learning in English (University of Sheffield)
Professor Lisa Hopkins, Professor of English Literature (Sheffield Hallam University)
Dr Sarah James, Senior Lecturer, University of Kent, School of English
Dr Michael Paraskos, Cornaro Institute, Cyprus
​Benedict Read FSA, Research Fellow, University of Leeds School of Fine Art

About the Conference:

Following its successful first three years this now well-established annual conference aims to explore Medieval and Renaissance artistic, literary, social, religious and cultural history in a truly multidisciplinary way.
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Cyprus is a particularly appropriate location for the study of this period, as it was a time when the island what was arguably the zenith of its civilization and international influence. Under almost 400 years of French and Italian rule, Cyprus developed a unique courtly culture and trade links that extended throughout Europe, the Eastern and Western Mediterranean and the Near East. This had an immediate impact, but the legacy of this period lived on after the fall of Venetian Cyprus to the Turks in 1571, in literature, with Shakespeare producing his play Othello, and numerous operas and other theatrical productions stemming from the memory of Cyprus.

However, we are not simply interested in Medieval and Renaissance Cyprus. This multidisciplinary conference aims to bring together academics, researchers and research students covering a wide range of topics relating to the Medieval and Renaissance periods, including art historians, social and economic historians, museum curators, archaeologists, literary historians.
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We would also welcome suggestions from individuals or groups for parallel strands and semi-autonomous conferences which might share some of the plenary sessions and social elements of the event. For example, a strand dealing specifically with Shakespeare and the Mediterranean might be big enough to require its own semi-autonomous event alongside the one we are organising.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Full Papers (20 minutes talk plus questions)

If you are interested in giving a talk at the conference please submit a proposal for a paper. Standard papers are 20 minutes long, followed by 5 or 10 minutes for questions.

We are very open minded on the topic of papers, so if you have an idea for a presentation that is not covered by the suggestions given above please feel free to submit a proposal, or contact us first to discuss the idea.
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Proposals for papers should comprise a cover sheet showing:
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1. Your title (eg. Mr, Ms, Dr, Prof. etc.) and full name
2. Your institutional affiliation (if any)
3. Your postal address, e'mail address and telephone number
4. The title of your proposed paper
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With this you should send a proposal/abstract for your paper of no more than 300 words and a copy of your CV/resume to mparaskos@mac.com with the subject line OTHELLO 2016.
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All papers must be delivered in English.

The deadline for submissions of proposals is 4 January 2016. Early submission is strongly advised. We aim to have a decision on the acceptance of papers within four weeks of submission.

Guided Poster Sessions (10 minutes talk plus "poster" display)

As an alternative to full papers, a new development for 2016 is an event called Guided Poster Sessions. Guided Poster Sessions are short presentations that are delivered in a far more informal and sociable way than full conference papers, and we are thinking of doing these at an evening event (to be confirmed).

What we ask presenters at the Guided Poster Sessions to do is provide an A2 size poster comprising at least one illustration and a body of text in English explaining some of the key points of their research.

The posters should be kept as simple as possible and not attempt to be a written paper or essay. Bullet points and headlines with very short explanatory texts are preferable.

Those showing the posters will then have ten minutes to present their key ideas to the other delegates (called "talking to the poster") and also answer questions on them.

As stated, the aim is to be very informal with the Guided Poster Sessions, so these are particularly good for researchers who want to present provisional findings or speculative ideas for informal discussion, rather than more complete academic papers. Ideas could even be highly speculative or controversial and designed simply to provoke discussion.

Poster sessions might also be useful for younger or less experienced researchers who are not used to the formality of full conference delivery. However younger and less experienced researchers are very welcome to apply to give full papers as Othello's Island and should not assume they can only give Guided Poster Session papers. Equally we welcome Guided Poster Session Papers from more experience researchers and even professors.

Proposals for Poster Session Papers should comprise a cover sheet showing:

1. Your title (eg. Mr, Ms, Dr, Prof. etc.) and full name
2. Your institutional affiliation (if any)
3. Your postal address, e'mail address and telephone number
4. The title of your proposed poster and short presentation
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With this you should send a proposal/abstract for your paper of no more than 150 words and a copy of your CV/resume to mparaskos@mac.com with the subject line OTHELLO POSTER 2016.
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All posters and papers must be delivered in English.

The deadline for submissions of proposals is 4 January 2016. Early submission is strongly advised. We aim to have a decision on the acceptance of papers within four weeks of submission.