PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN

This two-day interdisciplinary conference (23–24 September 2011), hosted by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (University of Cambridge), will feature papers by historians, archaeologists and philologists who study conversion to Christianity in the Insular world. The conference will offer participants a unique forum in which to explore conversion comparatively by focusing on different parts of Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia and Iceland in the early and central middle ages. The combination of places chosen for the discussion reflects our wish to establish a wide comparative framework, covering areas that are of significance to the study of conversion in both the pre-Viking and the Viking era.

Speakers include Dr Edel Bhreathnach (UCD), Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards (Oxford), Professor Orri Vésteinsson (Reykjavík), Professor Martin Carver (York), Professor Barbara Yorke (Winchester), Dr Tom Pickles (York), Professor Thomas Clancy (Glasgow), Dr Nora Berend (Cambridge), Dr Sarah Semple (Durham), and Dr Haki Antonsson (UCL).

The conference will lay the conceptual and methodological foundations for the activities of Converting the Isles, an international research network for the study of conversion to Christianity in the Insular World. This will be an interdisciplinary network that seeks to foster collaboration between scholars working on different aspects of conversion in the early middle ages. The network is organised collaboratively by historians and archaeologists from the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Bangor, and University College Dublin. The members of its steering committee are Dr Lesley Abrams (Oxford), Dr Edel Bhreathnach (UCD), Prof. Nancy Edwards (Bangor), Dr Roy Flechner (Cambridge), Dr Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (Cambridge), and Dr Elizabeth O'Brien (UCD). The network intends to hold two conferences a year for a period of two years, with one conference being held at each of the above universities.

A revised Conference Programme is now available to download (13th September 2011)