We are pleased to announce this year's keynote speaker, Robin Stacey, Professor of History at the University of Washington. Opening with an address by Professor Stacey that investigates the intersection of law and literature through the example of thirteenth-century Welsh law books, the conference invites students to discuss the social and cultural aspects of law in the Middle Ages.

In an effort to better understand how people conceived of and used codes of behavior and judicial recourse in their communities, this conference explores ways that law was identified, upheld, challenged, idealized, and reinvented in a period of great legal diversity and innovation.

In keeping with the Program's aim to promote interdisciplinary exchange among medievalists, we encourage proposals from a variety of chronologies, geographies, and disciplines. Topics could include, but are of course not limited to:

-dispute resolutions
-the intersection of law and literature
-modes of proof and legal technologies
-religious prescription
-custom and codification
-manorial courts, by-laws, and rural society
-law and gender
-the profits of justice
-legislative idealism
-legal commentary and criticism

In order to support participation of speakers from outside the northeastern United States, we are offering a limited number of modest subsidies to help offset the cost of travel to Princeton. Financial assistance may not be available for every participant; funding priority goes to those who have the furthest to travel. Every speaker will have the option of staying with a resident graduate student as an alternative to paying for a hotel room.

Papers should take no more than twenty minutes to deliver.

Please submit a 250-word abstract of your project by 16 January 2009 to Jamie Kreiner (jkreiner@princeton.edu) or Mary Campbell (mmcampbe@princeton.edu).