Thursday, January 16, 2025

CFP International Conference "Monsters, Sorcerers, and Witches of Northwestern Europe" (proposals 3/2/2025; Siena 7/9-11/2025)

International Conference "Monsters, Sorcerers, and Witches of Northwestern Europe"


deadline for submissions:
March 2, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Prin 2022 Project "Monsters, Sorcerers, and Witches of Northwestern Europe: The Medieval and Early Modern Construction of Otherness in Literature for Popular Audiences

contact email:
monsterswitchesnorthwesterneu@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/01/10/international-conference-monsters-sorcerers-and-witches-of-northwestern-europe.



To mark the conclusion of a biennial research carried out by four Italian Universities (Siena, Turin, Florence, and Naples “L’Orientale”), the scientific committee of the PRIN 2022 Project Monsters, Sorcerers, and Witches of Northwestern Europe: The Medieval and Early Modern Construction of Otherness in Literature for Popular Audiences invites abstract submissions for a three-day international conference, to be hosted at the University of Siena on 9-11 July 2025.

The conference will devote attention to monstrous births of human beings, illicit magic, and witchcraft – three features at the core of the Renaissance preternatural imagination – in order to highlight the connection between prodigious events and marginality, placing a special emphasis on the resulting social relegation of the individuals involved in them.

Particularly appreciated will be contributions taking into examination non-canonical sources, such as ballads, broadsheets, pamphlets, as well as manuals, sermons, and annals, which were destined for large and culturally varied audiences, including those with limited literacy. The time frame under consideration will encompass the late Middle Ages and the whole early modern period, so as to inspect both the genesis, development, and aftermath of such phenomena in Northwestern European texts.

Proposals seeking to investigate the processes of interpretation and exploitation of the preternatural will also be very welcome, as will those scrutinising the mechanisms of repression underlying the narration of preternatural events, by relating them to their prescriptive framework.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

  • Monstrosity, witchcraft, and gender.
  • The witch, the deformed child’s mother and their connections with other liminal subjects.
  • Metamorphosis and shapeshifting.
  • Crossing boundaries with monstrosity and witchcraft.
  • Border conflicts or crossings between normativity and non-normativity.
  • Transgression through monstrosity and witchcraft.
  • Classifications and fluidity of monstrosity and magic.
  • The non-normative body and/or intellect in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period.
  • Monstrosity and witchcraft as markers of physical and intellectual disability.
  • Medical, legal, religious, social or political evaluations of monstrosity and witchcraft.
  • Monstrosity, witchcraft and related textual genres (teratologies, chronologies of strange events, demonological treatises, etc.).



We are particularly keen to promote interdisciplinary approaches and encourage submissions that engage with literary, historical, theological, medical, legal, or cultural perspectives.



Papers should not exceed 20 minutes and will be followed by a five-minute discussion.



Paper submission

If you wish to present a paper, email an abstract of 250-300 words alongside a short bionote (100-150 words).

Please send your proposals to: luca.baratta@unisi.it; monsterswitchesnorthwesterneu@gmail.com

Deadline for proposals: 2 March 2025

Notification of acceptance: 16 March 2025



Conference dates: 9-11 July 2025

Venue: Department of Philology and Literary Criticism

University of Siena

Pionta Campus – Logge del Grano Hall

Piazzetta Logge del Grano, n. 5 – 52100 Arezzo (Italy)



Project & Conference website: https://sites.google.com/view/monsterswitches/conferences/international-conference-prin2022-project-monsterswitches


Last updated January 10, 2025

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