Now in its sixth year, and attracting speakers from all over the world, Othello's Island is a liberal-minded conference, run on a not-for-profit basis, to present and discover the latest research on the Byzantine, medieval, renaissance and early modern periods.

As well as fully-formed papers on new research, it is a place to discuss sometimes highly-speculative ideas on these periods that might not find an easy home in other conferences. It is a place where you can also make new and fruitful connections with colleagues in sometimes very different academic disciplines.

Our location in Cyprus is stunning, with the conference located at the CVAR (Centre for Arts and Research), in the heart of the Old Town area of Nicosia. Nicosia is full of surviving medieval and renaissance buildings, not least the Venetian city walls with its impressive gate houses, the French gothic cathedral of Saint Sophia, and numerous vernacular buildings, from the Lusignan, Venetian and Ottoman periods. It is a friendly and easily walkable city, with many museums, Byzantine churches and other sites to visit, and it is full of cafes, bars and restaurants in its narrow medieval streets.

At the conference, we try to avoid excessive subject streaming. This is a deliberate policy based on previous experience, that encourages participants to make unexpected links across disciplines and time periods. This can lead to some remarkable discoveries and revelations.

As almost all participants in the conference over the past five years will tell you, Othello's Island has a reputation for being one of the most open, friendly and life-affirming academic conferences on Byzantine, Medieval and Early Modern studies currently in existence. In an academic world that can seem increasingly like a factory or business, Othello's Island acts as a timely reminder to many of us as to why we became academic researchers and tutors in the first place –namely that we have a straightforward love of our subject and we want to share our knowledge and enthusiasm with others.

We run the event on a not-for-profit basis, and the organisers are not paid for their work in staging this event.

Although we avoid excessive streaming of papers, below are some broad guidelines for the types of paper we tend to receive, from PhD and graduate students, and more experienced academics. However, if your topic does not fit into any of these, contact us and we can let you know if it might be a fit for the conference.