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The Royal Castle in Warsaw is organising a conference on ‘Rituals of Power’, to be held on 6 to 8 October 2016.In recent years, scholars from different disciplines have begun to give serious attention to ceremonial events, including coronations, solemn entries, openings of parliaments and the daily routines of princely courts, analysing and interpreting them as means of communication between different participants in political and courtly life.This conference aims to address the subject of ceremonial and ritual in the sphere of politics from this perspective, bringing together scholars from the fields of cultural, political, diplomatic and court history, as well as art historians and historians of literature, to discuss different aspects of ceremonial and ritual, ranging from the late medieval period to the mid-20th century.The keynote lecture will be given by Professor Jeroen Duindam (Leiden University). Proposals are also invited for papers addressing other aspects of court ceremony, especially the communicative power of ceremonies and rituals, the role of ceremonies and rituals as cultural and artistic events, the evolution and change of ceremonies and rituals over time, and the strengths and weaknesses of current scholarly approaches to the study of ceremony and rituals.Proposals for 20 minute papers (in English or Polish) should be sent to conference@zamek-krolewski.pl by 15 February 2016. They should include a title, an abstract of up to 300 words, a brief biography, contact information, and any institutional affiliations. The organising committee will inform authors of the acceptance of their abstracts by 15 March 2016.