{"word_count": 466, "character_count": 3450}
In the Shanameh written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi at around the turn of the Christian millennium, the conqueror Sekandar (aka Alexander the Great) encounters a speaking tree that foretells his doom, saying:  Fewdays remain; Youmust prepare your final baggage train. Neither your mother, nor your family, Northe veiled women of your land will see Your face again. Like the tree of the Dream of the Rood, which speaks foritself, or the dream tree of Nebuchadnezzar in the Book ofDaniel, which portends the Babylonian king’s own fall, the speaking tree facedby Sekandar is a being that possesses knowledge and understanding of the worldthat far exceeds his own. There is something magnificent about trees, a majestyto their towering figures that singles them out as more than just a part of ournatural surroundings. Rooted in the soil, they emerge from below and aim high:forever branching never-ending fractals. Exhaling, we relax and sink into theirrepeating patterns. Why do we recognize them as objects of beauty? How is thisloveliness captured in medieval imagery? Is the method different acrosscultures? Why? Are arboreal images particularly well-suited to certain types ofknowledge communication? What might they be? We are interested in how humansuse these images drawn from nature to communicate effectively. This one-day symposium aims toexplore the image of the tree as a conduit for the exploration of humanengagements with environment in the global middle ages, broadly defined, andseeks to encourage cross-cultural, trans-national, and interdisciplinaryunderstanding of the role of trees, woodland, and other vegetation in variouscontexts. We want to better understand human responses to nature. What is itabout ‘arboreal beauty’ that connects it with the divine? Recognized acrosscultures as axis mundi, the tree shoots upwards, its trunk and branchesstretching, reaching, growing towards the light as it seeks to bridge thein-between space that divides earth from the heavens. The liminal quality offoliage, trees, and forests is recognized by artists and weavers of imagesacross the world.&#160; Papers may include, but are not limited to, consideration of trees: ascentral and marginal images&#160; as symboland metaphor for systems of kinship/networks/communities&#160; as amaterial for craft/manufacture that acknowledges/utilizes arborealmateriality&#160; andgeographical/regional variation in their symbolic, religious, and culturalsignificance&#160; andforests as persons, and the emotional/sensory life of trees&#160; pre-/post-Industrialage&#160; asmeans of expressing human emotion&#160; as ameans of considering Deep Time, timelessness, eternity, and temporality&#160; andtheir connection with ‘folk’ customs and practices &#160;as asymbol for negotiation across cultures, religions, and cultural traditions&#160; asan image of salvation, with life-giving properties, for the body and/orsoul&#160; asunderlying diagrammatic structures in mapping and communicating knowledge Anyone interested inparticipating should send a paper title and brief abstract (max 250 words) for20-minute papers to the organizers, Mike Bintley (michael.bintley@bbk.ac.uk)and Pippa Salonius (pippa.salonius@monash.edu), by 1st March, 2019.&#160; Please include your full contact details, including institutional affiliation and professional status. LieuBirkbeckCollege, University of London ASymposium Hosted by Medieval Ecocriticisms and N/EMICS 