The 2nd annual Ceræ conference, organised around the theme of Dreams, Visions, and Utopias, will begin this weekend on 26–27 April! Because our conference is truly an international affair with presenters and attendees from numerous countries and timezones, our schedule is based on UTC time. The schedule is now available to view on our website.
The conference will begin at 0730 UTC on Saturday 26 April 2025 with a keynote by Docent Jesse Keskiaho (University of Helsinki) at 0800–0900 UTC. Dr Keskiaho’s paper, “Early Medieval Dreams and Visions“, will discuss what we know of early medieval dreams, the way they were understood in early medieval learned traditions, and the extent to which visions were distinguished from dreams and the reasons for such distinctions.
Following this, the conference will run in a unique, continuous format from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon (UTC), to provide for equitable access to sessions for all global timezones and to allow audience members to attend as many panels as their own schedules permit. All sessions will be recorded and made available only for registered conference attendees to view for a limited time following the conference. To view all presenters’ abstracts and biographies, please visit the website here.
Closing the conference, at UTC 1500–1600 on Sunday 27 April 2025, is our second keynote speaker, Associate Professor Chloë Houston (University of Reading). Dr Houston’s paper, “In defense of utopia, or: the early modern utopia as radical dreaming (and why we need it now)“, promises to look at the problems of the utopian form in the early modern period, arguing that utopias often used these radical dreams to model small and achievable social reforms, as well as how these lessons relate to our own age.
Registration and cost
The cost to attend the conference is $15 AUD (currently around £7.50 / €8.50 / $9.50 USD). As Ceræ is an independent journal without any institutional support, 100% of the registration fees will go towards funding our website costs. Please register on the website here. Payments are made via PayPal. Australian residents who would prefer to pay via direct bank transfer, please contact us for the details.
We hope to see you online with us this weekend!
Featured image: Humankind before the Flood (central panel detail), c. 1503, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch; Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid/Taschen.