The Medieval Association for Rural Studies (MARS) is looking to hold multiple panels on medieval and early modern European food production, procurement, storage and shortage at the 2013 meeting of the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 3-6 April 2013 – And we would like you to participate!

The ASEH’s annual meeting provides a wonderful opportunity for practicing and ‘new’ environmental historians of pre-industrial Europe to interact with and learn from each other. It also furnishes the chance to engage the methods, angles and sources of scholars working on familiar issues but in unfamiliar regions and periods. Additionally, by assembling multiple papers that share a common theme, we at MARS intend to create an environment in which scholars working on medieval and early modern food really stand to gain.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to) hunting, crop disease, fishing and fisheries, soil management and fertilisation, problems and costs associated with food storage and transportation, the effects of climatic anomalies and extreme weather on arable and pastoral husbandry, food entitlements, agricultural technology, the cultivation of fruit-bearing trees, and livestock disease.

If you are interested in presenting a paper with us, we ask that you submit to this email (newfield.timothy@gmail.com) a 200-word paper proposal pertaining to our theme of food before 5 June 2012. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

See additional information about the ASEH and the meeting in Toronto. While MARS is unable to support travel or lodging, the ASEH offers a number of travel grants.

We encourage you to submit a proposal and hope to see you in Toronto in 2013!