Welcome to the International Arthurian Society-North American Branch

Membership in the International Arthurian Society, an academic, not for profit organization, is open to all persons interested in the study of the Arthurian realm in literature, history, art, film, and popular culture. Applicants should be advised of Statute IX of the International Arthurian Society, which states: “Application for membership in the Society shall normally be made to the National or Regional Branch where an individual resides. Admission to membership shall be at the discretion of the Committee of the Branch in question.”

National and Regional Branches of the Society include those of Australia & New Zealand, France, Germany and Austria, Great Britain and Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, North America (U.S.A. and Canada), Spain and Portugal, Romania, Scandinavia (“Nordic”), and Switzerland. The Society has Corresponding Secretaries in Finland, Hungary, Israel, and Russia. At present, there are about 1,000 individual members in the society, and over 300 libraries subscribe to its annual Bibliography of the International Arthurian Society (formerly the Bibliographical Bulletin). The North American Branch (i.e., NAB) has approximately 240 individual members, including professional academics, students, and non-academics with an interest in the Arthurian tradition. As of January 2022, approximately 84% of our members live in the United States, 12% in Canada, 3% in Europe, and 1% in other countries throughout the world.

International congresses are held every three years, most recently in Utrecht in 2005, in Rennes in 2008, in Bristol in 2011, in Bucharest in 2014, and in Würzburg in 2017. The one planned for Catania in 2020 (rescheduled to 2021) was cancelled on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. The 2024 conference is being held in Aix en Provence (more information here). In addition, the North American Branch holds an annual meeting in May, in conjunction with the International Congress on Medieval Studies organized by the Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo) and also has a mini-conference status at the Symposium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (SMRS) at Saint Louis University, held each June.

At the international level, in addition to the triennial congress, the Society has two annual publications. The Bibliography of the International Arthurian Society (BIAS) contains notices of scholarly books, articles, and reviews on Arthurian subjects that have appeared during the preceding year as well as a list of the members of the Society with their addresses. The annual printed edition of the bibliography was discontinued and converted into a searchable database: https://bias.internationalarthuriansociety.com. The new (as of 2013) Journal of the International Arthurian Society (JIAS), which members receive in hard copy, features scholarly articles and book reviews and is scheduled for publication annually during the Fall.

Members of the North American Branch also receive four issues annually of the branch's official journal Arthuriana, the premier journal of Arthurian Studies published in North America, in their choice of hard copy or web-based delivery. News of the North American Branch (i.e., "The Round Table") appears twice a year in Arthuriana. For further information about Arthuriana, please consult the Arthuriana web site: https://www.arthuriana.com. 

Here are the Statutes of the International Arthurian Society.

Here are the By-Laws of the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch.