The journal invites submissions for the upcoming themed issue Creating the Medieval Now, which will be guest edited by Eleanor Barraclough and Laura Varnam. 

The deadline for submissions is 1 May 2026.

Description

This special issue investigates the dynamic crossroads of medieval scholarship and contemporary creative practice, presenting auto-ethnographic and creative-critical reflections from medievalists who are also practicing artists— poets, writers, musicians, visual artists, storytellers, and zinesters— to bring fresh, imaginative, and embodied perspectives to the study of the medieval past.

We invite contributions of 2000-3000 words from medieval scholars who are engaging in creative practice not as outreach or supplement but as a core mode of their scholarly inquiry into the Global Middle Ages. Rather than focusing on how the Middle Ages are used in popular culture— as in much traditional work in medievalism— this collection turns inward, towards the creative outputs of trained medievalists themselves, to ask: 

• How do artistic processes inform and reshape scholarly research?

• What resources does creative practice offer to mainstream/traditional scholarship?

• How might scholarship itself become a creative artform?

 This issue is interested in topics including: creative re-imaginings of medieval voices through poetry, fiction, and performance; the use of autoethnography, memoir, and trauma-informed methods; feminist, queer, and intersectional engagements; the public-facing power of creative dissemination via radio, zines, podcasts.

Contributions should include examples of and reflections upon the contributor’s creative work to show how ‘making with’ the Middle Ages creates new possibilities for the forms and modes of academic criticism, and offers the potential for new, recreative methodologies that are transferable beyond the individual practitioner’s skillset. 

We are actively seeking submissions from early career researchers and from Global South and non-white contributors, across disciplines, especially those who are engaging with Islamic, Byzantine, African, and East Asian medieval worlds. In addition to essays reflecting on past and ongoing projects, the issue may also feature new creative-critical pairings: original artistic pieces published alongside scholarly reflections.

All submissions should be written in accessible language for audiences within and beyond the academy.

The ‘Gender & Creativity’ conference will take place at University College, Oxford, on 8 – 10 September 2026, in association with the Guild of Medievalist Makers.

Confirmed keynote speakers Kristen Haas Curtis, Teresa Pilgrim, and Into the Mystic film-makers Mirabelle Dominé-Walley & Luke Walker. CFP available to download on the GMS website.

Creacioun (n.): the act of creating, making, inventing, begetting, appointing (Middle English).

Creativity has always been a key theme, and resource, in the expression and performance of
gender identity in both the Middle Ages and in modern scholarly work on the topic. Responding to the burgeoning field of creative criticism, this conference will explore
creativity both in the intersectional gender identities of our medieval subjects– in historical documents, literary texts, visual art, and beyond– and in our modern approaches to
representing, studying, and analysing them.

The key questions that the conference will address include:

• How might we define ‘creative’ approaches to the conceptualisation, expression, and
subversion of gender identity, both in the Middle Ages and in modern critical analysis?
• What can we learn about medieval sources, across different media, if we use ‘creative’
methodologies as our mode of inquiry?
• How might practice-based investigations (such as visual art, creative writing, zinemaking, or performance) enable the recovery of marginalised voices and lead to a
more inclusive and intersectional history of gender that can have an impact in the
modern world?
• Can the modern creative practices of individual writers and makers be brought
together in a meaningful methodology for the field of medieval gender studies?

Abstracts of 300 words max (plus speaker bio) for the following categories of panel are due
by 13 April 2026 to laura.varnam@univ.ox.ac.uk. Please put ‘GMS Creativity Abstract’ in the subject line of your email and make sure to indicate which session you would prefer to speak in (although we reserve the right to offer you a different session, if that seems appropriate). Please note that there will be no parallel sessions at this conference so there will be fewer slots available for speakers than usual.

• 20min papers
• 7min lightning talks
• 10min roundtable contribution

Lightning talks will be on the broad topic ‘Medieval Gender: Being Creative.’ Contributions
might include medieval examples of creativity in gender representation or performance; or,
they could include creative-critical modern responses to medieval gender, either by presenters themselves or by other writers/artists.

The roundtable will be on the topic ‘How can creative-critical approaches help us to explore
medieval gender? Methods, Benefits, and Challenges.’ Contributors will have ten minutes to
speak before panel discussion and Q&A.

The conference will also include an exhibition and ‘open mic’ showcase for participants’ creative work; a creative workshop led by Kristen Haas Curtis; and a raffle of donated
creative work to raise money for gender charities in the UK.

The conference is organised by Laura Varnam. GMS website can be found at https://medievalgender.co.uk/ For advice on writing conference abstracts, see Laura Varnam’s website.

The conference is generously funded by the University of Oxford’s John Fell Fund as part of the Creating Medieval Criticism Now project (PI Laura Varnam); the Overbrook Research Fund at University College, Oxford; the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship; and The Gender & Medieval Studies group.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to kirsty.bolton@ell.ox.ac.uk or rebecca.drake@york.ac.uk by Friday 27 February 2026. Please feel free to get in touch with any questions before then.

Water is essential to human life. It nourishes and connects our bodies and environments, provides passage, and has long inspired literature and culture. The fast-growing field of the Blue Humanities explores the multitudinous relationships humans have with water–whether with sea, inland waters, or bodily waters–and the effects these waterscapes have on our imaginations. In medieval literature, these relationships emerge as self-reinvention, alimentary entanglements and post-human hydrocommons. 

This special issue of Green Letters gathers research working across ‘Blue Medievalisms’, presenting a timely survey of current scholarship in this new but fast-growing field. What might a medieval blue humanities look like? And how might the study of water in medieval literature, art, and culture go beyond Medieval Studies to advance the Blue Humanities in unexpected transtemporal, transnational, and interdisciplinary avenues? 

The editors invite papers of 8,000–9,000 words (peer-reviewed articles), or equivalent creative pieces, on the topic of ‘Blue Medievalisms’ broadly construed. This might include but is not limited to: women and water, literary and cultural hydrocommons, post-human identities, queer identities, non-human identities, trade and connectivity and environmental history. We encourage interdisciplinary and creative-critical submissions, and are actively seeking submissions from early career researchers, independent scholars, and from Global South and BIPOC contributors, especially those who are engaging with Islamic, Byzantine, African, and East Asian medieval worlds.