The twenty-first Medieval Studies conference at Penn State University will take on the all things nautical with Sailing the Western Sea: The Atlantic Ocean in Medieval Perspective. The conference will take place March 29 in State College, Pennsylvania.

The one-day conference will feature the following speakers:

• Benjamin Hudson, Pennsylvania State University, “Into the West: the Medieval Atlantic”

• Andrew McDonald, Brock University, “The late Nose Isle of Man in its North Atlantic context: contacts and communication, 1079-1265”

• Alfred Siewers, Bucknell University, “Desert Islands: Europe’s Atlantic Archipelago as Ascetic Landscape”

• Thomas Haine, Johns Hopkins University, “Greenland Norse Knowledge of the North Atlantic Environment”

• Kelly DeVries, Loyola University, “Into the Atlantic or Into the Mediterranean: Spanish Military Choices in the Late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries”

• Christopher Fee, Gettysburg College, “Með lögum skal land vort byggja: 'With Law Shall the Land be Built' Law-Speaking and Identity in the Medieval Norse Atlantic”

There is no fee for the conference, but registration is required.