The 7th century: continuity or discontinuity?

Can the 7th century can be studied as a unit across regions or does the period represent a break between the ‘long 6th’ and ‘long 8th’ centuries?

This question and more will be discussed at the Edinburgh University Seventh Century Colloquium, a two-day interdisciplinary conference for postgraduate students and early career researchers, 28-29 May 2013.

Impressive programme

The programme boasts an international array of distinguished speakers and the following session headings:

  • Maintaining and changing identities
  • Landscapes and settlements in transition
  • Crossing boundaries, bridging cultures
  • Remembering the past in a time of transformation
  • Urban settlement in an age of change
  • Conceptualizing rulers, real and imagined
  • Shifting frontiers and people in motion
  • Imagining the holy.

Organised by postgraduate students

The event is being organised by postgraduates Tom MacMaster, Bethan Morris, Alessandro Gnasso and Emanuele Intagliata from the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, with support from the Edinburgh Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Tom says, “The colloquium will bring together scholars from different disciplines, studying the seventh century, to promote discussion and the cross-fertilisation of ideas.

“We will explore how wider perspectives can be used to formulate new approaches to source material, drawing out fresh perspectives on both the familiar and unfamiliar.

“We invite those working in archaeology, art history, history, literature, numismatics, and religion, as well as in fields including Byzantine, Celtic, Classics, Islamic, and Late Antique studies to attend.”

Further information

Check out the colloquium’s blogspot:

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