Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium [CICS]
12th-13th July 2008
University of Cambridge.
Chronicles are a fertile area of academic research focusing on a genre of historical
literature written mainly in a time before departments of English and History had yet
come into existence. The Cambridge International Chronicle Symposium is
interdisciplinary conference conceived to open the debate between literature and history
and to test the nexus of conventional classification. The CICS is principally organized to
further research at a graduate level and to strengthen the network of chronicle studies in
universities. The proceedings will take place over two days with five open sessions of
three twenty-minute papers and publication talks to follow.
The aim of the CICS is to attract scholars from various departments of learning and
critical methodologies, as such the scope of the presentations is not limited to a particular
historical period and may range from the canonical Books of Chronicles in the Old
Testament to Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the work of
chroniclers in between. Presenters are asked to take an interdisciplinary approach as a
stepping off point to discuss texts in relation to current theoretical concerns and criticism.
We invite scholars from any discipline including but not limited to English, History,
Literature, Philosophy, and Religious Studies.
Suggested topics for discussion might include:
 The chronicle: literary genre or historical artifact?
 Investigation of chronicle: historiography or literary analysis?
 The narrative mode of the chronicle.
 Language in the chronicle, convention or motif?
 Chronicles, the perception of time and historical awareness.
 The content of form, paschal tables and the annalistic framework.
 The space and interaction between chronicles and their audience.
 Digital publication, the next step in chronicle studies.
Please send your abstract (of no more than 250 words) and cover
sheet to ns410@cam.ac.uk by no later than 01 November 2007.