The International Medieval Congress (IMC) will be held in Leeds, England, 1-4 July 2013. Here is a list of sessions of special interest for medieval environmental historians.

Session 228: Hunting for Fun and Political Gain

• Hunting and Pleasure, Hannele Klemettilä, University of Turku
• Forbidden Pleasure or Pragmatics of Power?: Bishops’ Hunting in the Late Middle Ages, Ewa Wółkiewicz, Deutsches Historisches Institut, Warsaw
• The ‘Delights’ of the Courtly Hunt, Ryan Judkins, University of Massachusetts

Session 733: Water in Medieval Society: Economic, Social, and Religious Implications, I

• Water Culture: The Hydraulic Constructions of the Almoravid Period in North Africa and Al-Andalus, Maria Marcos Cobaleda, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
• Water in Medieval Islamic Valencia (Spain): Hydraulic Structures and the Configuration of the Urban Area and Its Surroundings, Josefa Pascual Pacheco, Servicio de Investigación Arqueológica Municipal (SIAM), Valencia
• The Urban Evolution of Medieval Córdoba through Its Water Supply during the Middle Ages, Guadalupe Pizarro Berengena, Universidad de Córdoba
• The Hydraulic Systems in Medieval Islamic Córdoba: The Case of the Occidental Suburbs, Belén Vázquez Navajas, Universidad de Córdoba

Session 833: Water in Medieval Society: Economic, Social, and Religious Implications, II

• Water in Everyday Life: From the Material to the Symbolic in Late Medieval Spain, Maria Isabel del Val Valdivieso and Olatz Villanueva Zubizarreta, Universidad de Valladolid
• Sprinkling Water on the Corpse and the Tomb: The Rite of the Absolution of the Dead in the Middle Ages, Ana del Campo Gutiérrez, Yale University
• Fountains, Gardens, and Pleasure: The Image and the Symbolic Meaning of Water in the Hispanic Courts at the End of the Middle Ages, Germán Gamero Igea and Diana Pelaz Flores, Universidad de Valladolid
• The Configuration of Water and Gardens in Late Medieval Islamic Cordoba (Qurtuba), Rafael Blanco Guzman, Universidad de Córdoba

Session 1222: Animals and the Diversity of Pleasure, I

• Fun in the Chicken Run: Two 14th-Century German Poultry Poems, Gabriele Klug, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Krems
• ‘[…] copia autem piscium excedit fere omnia regna’: The Delight of Fishes in Medieval Hungary, Balázs Nagy, Central European University
• When Pets Go Bad: Animal Bites and the Loss of Pleasure, Kathleen Walker-Meikle, University of York

Session 1322: Animals and the Diversity of Pleasure, II

• Possessing Wild Beasts in Monastic Menageries: A Condemnable Effeminate Pleasure?, Thierry Buquet, Institut Français du Proche Orient, Beirut
• Turning Heads: The Sartorial Use of Fur, Eva Fairnell, University of York
• Animals of Pleasure: Touch, Function, and Materiality in Gothic Ivory Carvings, Naomi Speakman, British Museum

Session 1422: Ostriches: A Round Table Discussion

Sponsored by Medieval Animal Data Network. Participants include Thierry Buquet (Institut Français du Proche Orient, Beirut), Alice Choyke (Central European University, Budapest), Dragoş Gh. Năstăsoiu (Central European University, Budapest), and Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo (Universidad Complutense de Madrid).

Session 1620: Perceiving and Explaining Weather in the Middle Ages

• Pleasure into Pain: Weather in the Old Norse Sagas, Bernadine McCreesh, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi
• Explaining Weather and Natural Hazards to a Wider Public: Konrad of Megenberg’s Book of Nature (1349), Christian Rohr, Universität Bern
• Late Medieval Weather Diaries in England, Kathleen Pribyl, University of Brighton