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The Pre-Modern Institute (formerly the Medieval and Modern Institute) at theUniversity of Alberta, in collaboration with Athabasca University andPreMiss (the Pre-Modern Institute Student Society), is soliciting proposalsfor participation in a virtual (fully on-line) symposium on “Catastrophe,Calamity and Chaos in the Pre-Modern World.” The symposium time-slot (8:30 –10:30 AM PST) permits active participation from across a large number oftime zones, and is specifically designed to enable conversations amongspecialists who otherwise would not encounter one another. Participants willdiscuss previously-circulated presentations, available in advance through asymposium website.The organizers encourage presentations concerning any area of the globeduring pre-modern times, roughly understood as the period before c. 1750 CE,but allowing for flexibility where regional specialists periodizedifferently.The symposium will stimulate comparative discussion of the dynamics ofcatastrophic, calamitous and chaotic events such as volcanic eruptions,tsunamis, hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, floods, plagues, epidemics,expulsions, forced migrations, genocides, and terrorism. Presentations mayaddress the causes of the events, the events themselves, the results of theevents, the depiction of the events (in textual or visual media), or thesubsequent memory and commemoration of the events.Presentations may be in any format, including but not limited to text files(e.g. in Microsoft Word), power point presentations, pdfs of posterpresentations, MP3 audio files, or YouTube videos. Participation indiscussion, through Elluminate for Moodle, will be possible via text, voice,and/or video both in a “main” room and in topical/thematic breakout rooms.All rooms will be moderated. A link enabling access to the discussion forumwill be sent to registered participants.The organizers plan to publish fleshed-out versions of a selection of thepresentations as an edited collection.Please send 150 word (text) abstracts and a brief biography or CV byNovember 30, 2012 to memi@ualberta.ca. Questions concerning format should beaddressed to Felice Lifshitz (felice.lifshitz@ualberta.ca) or Shandip Saha(shandips@athabascau.ca). For more information, see the website:https://landing.athabascau.ca/groups/profile/145592/first-annual-virtual-symposium-on-pre-modern-studies