In November 2015, the Faculty of humanities invites to an international, interdisciplinary conference – Exploring the Middle Ages (500–1600).

The conference will take place in the University Aula at the University Museum, 25.–27. November.

In addition to various interdisciplinary panels at the University Aula, there will be a concert with the French ensemble Coclico and a reseption in Håkons hall.

The conference language will be English.

A complete programme will be published in August.

Excerpts from the programme:

Maritime law and city law – traveling in the Nordic region

Session based on the Middle Ages law material within the themes maritime law and city law. Aims to examine how the legal situation was for those who traveled over large distances and crossed the territorial boundaries of areas of law.

Cultural Encounters in the Medieval North

Medieval European perspective. Various talks: Pagan god figures in sources. Artifacts from the migration period. God figure Odin in the high and late Middle Ages.

Fragments of European heritage on Norwegian shelves

Manuscript Studies. Short talks with respondent and discussion. One of the talks will be on French medieval handwriting. There will be a digital and interactive installation available via internet and a touch screen.

New Directions in Medieval Religious Literature

This panel will tap into the growing interdisciplinary community of UiB’s new Literature and Religion Research Group. These researchers are doing some of the most innovative work on the religious aspects of literature in Anglo-Saxon England, and exploring how we can understand that literature in terms of material culture, reader-response theory, and archeological context.

Perspectives from Below

The talks in this session give a presentation of recent trends and studies in archaeology. Implicit in studies ‘from below’ archeological sources set the agenda, and thematically the lives and worlds of ordinary people are at focus. Themes are approached through the lenses of actors from lower levels of the social hierarchy. The studies cross over traditional boarders within archaeology and between culture and nature studies and are in this sense cross disciplinary.

Christian Materiality. Practices, Perception and Mediation in the Middle

This trans-disciplinary session focus on the instrumental aspects of Christian piety and devotional practices; the interrelationship between material culture and religious life with attention to how music, prayer books, poetry, images etc. intensified and expressed religious sentiments, ideas and piety in Christian Culture.