RHN 40/2022 | Call
Organiser: Arnoud Jensen, University of Antwerp
12–15 April 2023, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Deadline for abstract submission: 30 March 2022
Call for Papers for a Session at the
14th European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC):
Farming and Environmental Sustainability in the later Middle Ages
Although studies on sustainability and resource conservation in the past have increasingly gained traction today, applying the notion of sustainability on the medieval period is far from evident. The later Middle Ages is a particularly challenging period for anyone searching for signs of sustainability in agriculture. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were plagued by a sequence of crises which could be considered antitheses of sustainable management. Moreover, this was also the period when some European regions embarked on a transition towards agrarian capitalism, with profit-seeking becoming the main organising principle of agriculture.
How sustainable was late medieval agriculture? And was the ‘peasant agriculture’ per definition more sustainable than the ‘commercial agriculture’? What were the mechanisms and drivers which generated or impeded sustainability in late medieval agriculture?
For a session proposal, we welcome papers that engage either directly or indirectly with these questions, through a range of related subjects: (un)wanted fauna and/or flora, risk-management, agricultural productivity, the interplay between sustainability, commercialisation and crises, innovations in agriculture, etc., but also papers that deal with ‘sustainability’ as a concept itself, or ecocritical readings, etc.
Please submit a title and an abstract (100-500 words) before 30th March to arnoud.jensen@uantwerpen.be
All practical information about the conference can be found here: https://esshc.iisg.amsterdam/en/esshc-conference-2023
Source: H-Rural