Across the North Sea: North Sea Connections from 400 AD into the Viking Age

Across the North Sea
North Sea Connections from AD 400 into the Viking Age
Second Interdisciplinary Symposium on Runes and Related topics in Frisia
Date: 5-8 June
Venue: Fries Museum (Frisian Museum). Wilhelminaplein 92, 8911 BS Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
Co-organizers: Prof. John Hines (Cardiff University), Nelleke IJssennagger MA (University of Groningen/Fries Museum), Dr. Tineke Looijenga, Dr. Tim Pestell (Norwich Castle Museum), Dr. Gaby Waxenberger (LMU Münster), Dr. Kerstin Kazzazi (University of Eichstätt), Dr. Han Nijdam (Fryske Akademy).
Theme: North Sea connections from AD 400 into the Viking Age, from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Subthemes: Runes, Archeological finds, Identities, Historical research, Law, Linguistic research, Archaeogenetic research.
General aim: to advance the discussion on the early Frisian–Anglo-Saxon and other cross-North Sea relations within a fully cross-disciplinary and international framework.
Summary
Three-day symposium, including one day of excursion, at the newly opened Fries Museum in Leeuwarden (www.friesmuseum.nl). This symposium will focus centrally on the challenges of measuring and explaining the demographic and linguistic relationships across the North Sea between England and the continental coasts in the decisive period of the early 5th century AD into the Viking Age, with a particular focus on the earlier period. This topic can be approached from a runological, a linguistic, a toponymic, a historical, an archaeological, a legal, and an archaeogenetic angle: that is, it is an interdisciplinary subject. Papers of 20 to 30 minutes, in English, each discussing a topic related to the central theme will be given. Room for general discussion will be reserved, as one of the aims of the symposium is to advance the discussion on the early Frisian–Anglo-Saxon and other cross-North Sea relations within a fully cross-disciplinary and international framework. Room for a round table on how these themes can be presented to the general public in the future is reserved as well. Ideally, papers and the outcome of the general discussion could be published as proceedings.
Funding
The symposium registration fee will be kept as low as possible. We are applying to several sources for financial support for the conference and we hope to be able to subsidize part of the cost for speakers. At present, however, participants must budget for their own travel expenses, housing, and meals.
Call for papers
We would like to invite people from all fields and disciplines to send in paper proposals related to the symposium theme. Please send a summary of your paper of no more than 250 words to Nelleke IJssennagger: n.ijssennagger@friesmuseum.nl before 1 December 2013. Please enclose your full contact details in the document. A notification of which papers are accepted will be sent as soon as possible after 1 December.
If you wish to attend the symposium without presenting a paper, please register before 15 December 2013 by sending an email with your contact details to n.ijssennagger@friesmuseum.nl.
Updates regarding the program, fee and funding and related matters will be sent in due course.