International Conference in Valetta, June 16-19th, 2026
Organizers: Mohamad Ballan (Stonybrook University) and Katharina Heyden (University of Bern)
Our upcoming conference "Insular Entanglements: Malta, 300-1700" examines Malta as a case-study of Mediterranean entanglement from Late Antiquity through the Early Modern period. The notion of entanglement that we propose is quite capacious, encompassing not only (nor even primarily) quotidian interreligious interactions but ideas of connections, polemics, memory, histories, and texts more broadly. This will include intellectual networks, economic and political connections, language, cultural encounters, religious thought and polemics, as well as the relationship between the local (Malta) and regional (Mediterranean). The idea of frontiers and borderlands will constitute an important theme of the conference, but we will also explore questions of materiality and material culture in early Christianity, the complex (and ever-changing) relationship between religious and cultural traditions, and the larger political transformations taking place across the medieval and early modern Mediterranean world.
