About the Conference

IONA’s conference on the islands of the North Atlantic brings together scholars of early medieval Ireland, Britain, and Scandinavia to imagine cooperative, interdisciplinary, and decolonial futures for the study of North Atlantic archipelagos during the early medieval period.

Designed less around traditional conference presentations and more as a “workspace,” IONA: Seafaring is designed to provide time and space for nascent and developing work, intellectual risk-taking, collaboration and cooperation. In addition to workshops, seminars and labs, plenary speakers and workshops shape the conference.

With its non-traditional formats and inclusive experimental approaches, IONA: Seafaring aims to forge reciprocal connections between artists and scholars in other fields, broadening, complicating, and enriching those fields in counterpoint to academic work in early medieval North Atlantic studies. These kinds of networks between early medievalists, and between early medieval studies and other disciplines give scholars foundations to build robust and productive new knowledge in the field and reshape its role in the contemporary academy, society, and politics.