Location
Royal Armouries Museum
Call for Papers, deadline – 11 December 2023, 9 am
Throughout history, arms and armour have often been as highly prized for their value and artistry as their ability to kill or protect. This dual role, reflecting the best and worst of the human character, makes them a particularly insightful means of understanding phenomena ranging from culture and sensation to science and industry. This conference therefore welcomes contributions without limits of time and place that connect arms and armour with broader social, cultural and political trends.
Illustrating the range of forms that arms and armour research takes, and the venues in which it takes place, the conference will act as a springboard for productive collaboration between academia and the heritage sector. With the Royal Armouries, the national collection of arms and armour, as the backdrop, it seeks to link the latest intellectual discoveries with the benefits of working up-close with collections and artefacts.
To this end, we invite the submission of papers, posters, or chaired panels, based on original research from any perspective or discipline and relating to the subject of arms and armour. We particularly welcome innovative and/or interdisciplinary methodologies that highlight the range of insights which the study of arms and armour can bring, and global or transnational studies that deal with traditionally understudied subject areas or conceptual topics. We welcome submissions from early career or postgraduate researchers, as well as those working in the heritage sector and independent scholars.
Individual papers should be no more than 20 minutes. Themes may include, but are not limited to:
- Social and national trends as exemplified by individual objects or families thereof;
- The significance of weapons and armour in popular or elite culture;
- Transnational and international contexts of weapons and armour, from trade to gift to trophy;
- Weapons and armour as memorial, art, currency, tools or status symbols, including as markers of gender.
To apply, please submit through https://forms.gle/EfXgscW6H85ssGP36 by 9 am on Monday 11 December 2023.
The conference will take place in Leeds on Tuesday 12 March 2024. For questions or advice, contact the organisers at mark.bennett@armouries.org.uk