Two weird and wonderful conferences have come through my inbox in the past few weeks. I thought some of my gentle readers might be interested. There is a face-to-face conference on the f word in France, and an online conference on the medieval world in computer games in Vienna. Linguists are where historians are going (nobody but other linguists knows what they do) but they have fun! These involve Jesse Sheidlower of the Oxford English Dictionary and Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, and James Baillie the British specialist in medieval Georgia.

The What The Fuck!? international conference is now open for submissions. It aims at exploring the manifold nature and uses of ‘fuck’—‘the most important and powerful word in the English language’ (Sheidlower 2009)—from the viewpoints of linguistics, translation studies and culture.

Keynote Speakers

• Jonathon Green, lexicographer, author of Chambers Slang Dictionary (2008) and Green’s Dictionary of Slang (Chambers 2010 and online https://greensdictofslang.com/) 
• Tony McEnery, Distinguished Professor of English Language and Linguistics, University of Lancaster, author of Swearing in English: Bad Language, Purity and Power from 1586 to the Present (Routledge 2004)
• Jesse Sheidlower, lexicographer, adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University, editor of The F-Word (4th edition Oxford University Press 2024)

Date and location

24-26th of September 2025 at Université d’Artois, Arras, France

Modalities for submission

• Abstracts in English of max. 500 words, along with a short biographical notice (as a separate file), should be submitted via the conference website.
• Submission deadline: 15 January 2025
• Notification of acceptance: 1 March 2025
• The language of the conference is English. Presentations will be 25 minutes long, followed by a 10-minute Q&A session.

From calenda

James Bailie of the Austrian Academy of Science is scheduling the next Coding Medieval Worlds, an online conference bringing game developers and academics together to talk about the middle ages in computer games.

Power and the structures that guide it have shaped the human past and our imaginations of it alike. In medieval and medieval-fantasy game worlds, institutions and power systems may differ from or align with varied imaginaries or realities of history. States, guilds, clans, confederacies, cities and monasteries offer a range of possibilities and perspectives on power and its use. Portraying dynamic medieval worlds that explore the ways power worked in premodern societies is of interest both in academia and for the narratives and mechanics of games. Coding Medieval Worlds 5 is a workshop and discussion forum for sharing developers’ and historians’ perspectives on these problems, and finding out what shared solutions we can build!

When: 22nd-23rd Feb 2024, 1:30pm — 8pm Central European Time (Possibility of optional events on evenings of 21st-23rd)

Where: Wherever you can connect to a video call!

How to participate: Email exilian@exilian.co.uk or james.baillie@oeaw.ac.at by December 31st with your name and a sentence or two on your background and interest. We have a limit of around 30 people, half spaces for developers and half for academics (independent scholars, early career researchers, and hobbyist & indie developers are all welcome). We examine all applications and ensure places are available for scholars & developers from diverse & marginalised backgrounds. Do get in touch with any enquiries at the above email addresses.

This workshop is a collaboration between Exilian and the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

You can find out more about this event and past workshops in the series here:

Coding Medieval Worlds Website

Look forward to seeing some of you there in February!

There are places like the Agade list to find ancient conferences, but I hope these medieval and modern conferences intrigue and amuse!

(scheduled 29 November 2024)