Conferences
SELIM conferences are held as three-day events and follow the traditional pattern of plenary lectures and panel sessions.
Plenary lectures are delivered by leading international figures in the field and address subjects that range from historical linguistics and Old and Middle English literature, through paleography and book culture in medieval England, to the reception of pre-modern English texts.
Varied aspects of the linguistic, literary, and material features pertaining to Old and Middle English manuscripts and texts, their historical contexts and transmission, are also explored in thematic panels of individual papers.
Both plenaries and panels schedule time for audience discussion.
Our conferences take great care to programme social events for the enjoyment of all participants and accompanying persons. These are intended to provide a worthwhile opportunity, not only to bring people together, but also to get to know Spain and its main cultural landmarks.
Find out about our current and past conferences here.
Online Seminars
In Sept 2021, SELIM celebrated its first International Research Seminar. A hundred participants from around the world gathered in a Zoom room. We were encouraged to plan future editions. In 2022 opens a series of four Spring Online Seminars (2022-2025). All will be free and open to the public. The first one is on Old English Linguistics. You are invited!
Find out about our current and past seminars here.
Prizes & Awards
The Patricia Shaw Memorial Lecture Award
The Patricia Shaw Memorial Lecture Award has been established to honour Prof Patricia Shaw (1931-1998), founder and first president of SELIM, her service and legacy to the Society and devoted work in supporting Old and Middle English studies.
The Bruce Mitchell Research Prize
The Bruce Mitchell Prize for early-career scholars honours the memory of Dr Bruce Michell (1920–2010), a distinguished scholar of Old English, his long-enduring contribution to the field of medieval English language and literature and active involvement with the Society's activities and journal in their early decades.
Latest sponsored events
Seminar: 'The dynastic Drama of Beowulf'
University of Seville
18-19 March 2019
In this seminar, Francis Leneghan (University of Oxford) unravelled the web of Scandinavian royal legends structuring the Old English epic, which were known to the work's original audience, but are obscure and confusing for modern audiences. The seminar explained Beowulf as a dynastic drama centred on the fortunes of the royal houses of the Scyldings, Scylfings and Hrethlings, with the Geatish hero's adventures providing the link between the three. A new way of appreciating the role of the monsters as portents of dynastic and national crises, and Beowulf as a created a fictionalized monster-slaying hero dramatizing specific moments of dynastic crisis. Organised by Mercedes Salvador-Bello at the University of Seville.
Traductio et Traditio International Conference
University Jaume I
14-16 March 2019
Hosted by the research group in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies at the Universitat Jaume I in Castellón, the International Conference Traductio et Traditio Mediaevales: Science, Knowledge and Ideology delved into translation, rewriting and compilation as tools for knowledge transmission in the Middle Ages, in disciplines such as Medicine, Scholasticism, and Oratory, with the pervasive presence of Graeco-Latin authorities in them. Keynote speakers: Carlos Alvar (Université de Genève), Lluís Cifuentes (Universitat de Barcelona) and Isabel de la Cruz (Universidad de Alcalá). Organised by María José Esteve Ramos, among others.
