History

The International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England (ISSEME) was founded in 1983 as the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (ISAS). Throughout its history, the society has provided scholars interested in the languages, literatures, arts, history, and material culture of early medieval England with support in their research and to facilitate an exchange of ideas and materials within and among the disciplines. Here you will be able to find out more about the history of the society.

In the course of its history, the society has expanded its missions. Our first mission was to organize a biennial international conference for our members and the society had met in many places since our initial meeting in Ghent (1983). Soon, the conference became an opportunity to offer specialized workshops for early-career scholars, to award prizes for the best publications in the field and to publish collections of essays based on the conference papers. ISSEME also started offering New Voices sessions in Kalamazoo and Leeds, to ensure younger voices could also be heard, at a time when graduate students were not always welcome to present their papers in major conferences. In 2021, the society also started offering its mentoring programme, which takes place every year either virtually or at the big conferences (Kalamazoo, Leeds and our own). In 2022, we decided to take advantage of the possibilities offered by new technologies to offer a Virtual Seminar.

For overviews of these activities, see the links below.

In 2019, this society voted to change its name from “International Society of Anglo-Saxonists” (ISAS) to “International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England” (ISSEME), in recognition of the problematic connotations that are widely associated with the terms “Anglo-Saxon” and “Anglo-Saxonist” in public discourse.