CFP Nordic Medievalisms: Vikings and Their World in Popular Culture (Papers Session MAPACA 6/30/20; 11/5-7/20))

Nordic Medievalisms: Vikings and Their World in Popular Culture (Papers Session MAPACA 2020)

Submissions by 30 June 2020

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture seeks submissions to round out a sponsored papers session to be included in the Medieval & Renaissance Area for the 2020 meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association to be held at the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal, Princeton, New Jersey, from 5-7 November 2020. (Please note that the event is now likely to be held virtually.)

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture is a community of scholars and enthusiasts organized to promote and foster research and discussion of representations of the medieval in post-medieval popular culture and mass media. We share the Medieval & Renaissance Area’s commitment to expanding the corpus of Medievalism Studies and welcome research on neglected genres and media of modern culture.


Nordic Medievalisms: Vikings and Their World in Popular Culture (Papers Session)

The Vikings remain enormously popular in modern culture and continue to elicit much discussion and debate. We seek to continue that dialogue at MAPACA with fresh insights into their varied depictions in popular culture.



Please send inquiries and paper proposals (paper title, 300-word abstract, A/V requests and a brief academic biography) to the organizers at medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com AND submit these materials into the official proposal site at https://mapaca.net/conference/about-conference. Submissions are requested by 30 June 2020.

All presenters must be members of Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association or join for the conference. Further details on MAPACA can be accessed at https://mapaca.net/.

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture maintains a variety of blogs and discussion lists. Details on these activities can be found at our blog, Making Medievalisms Matter, accessible at https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.

The full Medieval & Renaissance Area call can be found at https://mapaca.net/areas/medieval-renaissance.

CFP Medieval Monsters Now (Papers Session MAPACA 2020 6/30/20; 11/5-7/20))

Medieval Monsters Now (Papers Session MAPACA 2020)

Submissions by 30 June 2020

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture seeks submissions to round out a sponsored papers session to be included in the Medieval & Renaissance Area for the 2020 meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association to be held at the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal, Princeton, New Jersey, from 5-7 November 2020. (Please note that the event is now likely to be held virtually.)

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture is a community of scholars and enthusiasts organized to promote and foster research and discussion of representations of the medieval in post-medieval popular culture and mass media. We share the Medieval & Renaissance Area’s commitment to expanding the corpus of Medievalism Studies and welcome research on neglected genres and media of modern culture.



Medieval Monsters Now (Papers Session)

Following two past sessions on monsters and medievalism, the goal of this session is to explore further examples of how medieval monsters continue to have an impact on the modern world. We are especially interested in recent examples, but discussions of depictions from any post-medieval era are welcome.



Please send inquiries and paper proposals (paper title, 300-word abstract, A/V requests and a brief academic biography) to the organizers at medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com AND submit these materials into the official proposal site at https://mapaca.net/conference/about-conference. Submissions are requested by 30 June 2020.

All presenters must be members of Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association or join for the conference. Further details on MAPACA can be accessed at https://mapaca.net/.

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture maintains a variety of blogs and discussion lists. Details on these activities can be found at our blog, Making Medievalisms Matter, accessible at https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.

The full Medieval & Renaissance Area call can be found at https://mapaca.net/areas/medieval-renaissance.

CFP New Chaucer Studies, Pedagogy and Profession vols 2 and 3 (9/1/2020)

Of potential interest:

New Journal: New Chaucer Studies, Pedagogy and Profession.

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2020/03/02/new-journal-new-chaucer-studies-pedagogy-and-profession


deadline for submissions:
September 1, 2020


full name / name of organization:
New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession


contact email:
ncs.pedagogyandprofession@gmail.com




New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession CFP

The mission of the New Chaucer Society is to “provide a forum for teachers and scholars of Geoffrey Chaucer and his age.” As the working conditions of those teachers and scholars change, this forum needs to expand to reflect those changes. For this reason, NCS is happy to announce the launch of a new on-line venue, New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession, hosted on the New Chaucer Society website. This peer-reviewed, open access site will offer brief essays on teaching, service, and institutional environments/ cultures. We would like to invite submissions for this new project from a wide range of contributors, including K-12 educators and independent scholars. We are particularly interested in essays that are immediately concerned with usefulness -- to readers across institutions and non-institutional settings.

Some areas for inquiry might include the following: teaching medieval literature in a Gen Ed curriculum and/ or in a K-12 context; recruiting graduate students for the study of medieval literature; the impact of curricular change on medieval courses; issues of hiring, tenure and promotion; the workings of professional organizations, journals, and conferences; graduate training for a shrinking number of academic jobs; outreach to the public and to colleagues in other disciplines; strategies for equity and inclusivity in teaching, recruiting, and hiring; strategies for addressing or rectifying institutional constraints (budgets, criteria for tenure, etc.). We also welcome collaborative essays or responses unified around a single topic.

We are now seeking contributions for Issue 2, #MeToo, and Issue 3, Open Topic. Please submit essays of 3000 words to ncs.pedagogyandprofession@gmail.com by September 1, 2020 for consideration in Issue 2, to appear March 15, 2021, or Issue 3, to appear July 1, 2021.



Last updated March 4, 2020
This CFP has been viewed 526 times.

CFP Impossible Pastimes: Playing With, In, and Through the Middle Ages (815/20; ICoM 2020 Notfalk, VA/virtual))

Note the possibility of a virtual event/sessions.

Impossible Pastimes: Playing With, In, and Through the Middle Ages 

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2020/05/11/impossible-pastimes-playing-with-in-and-through-the-middle-ages

Official site: https://impossiblepastimes.org/

deadline for submissions:
August 15, 2020


full name / name of organization:
International Society for the Study of Medievalism


contact email:
kmoberly@odu.edu




Impossible Pastimes: Playing With, In, and Through the Middle Ages

35th International Conference on Medievalism

Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA, November 12-14, 2020



Play is one of the most significant sites of production in contemporary medievalism. As evidenced by the popularity and ubiquity of medieval-themed games, it is one of the primary ways through which the dominant, consensus view of the Middle Ages is reproduced as a political, historical, economic, and cultural reality in both mass culture and the popular imagination. Play, as such, functions to reify many of the most problematic aspects of traditional medievalism, including the persistent racial and gendered stereotypes that explicitly imagine the Middle Ages as a period of profound cultural crisis—a crucible of violence and want in which masculine white privilege was tested and emerged in its nascent, modern form to exercise sovereignty over the peoples and cultures that, despite their threat, were simultaneously shown to be inferior.

Yet by the same token, play inherently calls this vision of reality into question. As Johan Huizinga writes, play interpellates participants in a magic circle in which space and time are suspended—an imaginary situation that, according to Lev Vgotsky, is a manifestation of “desires and tendencies of what cannot be realized immediately.” Play, in this sense, is not an expression of what is but of what is denied. Facilitated through ritual and performance, it represents an attempt to make material and therefore real a fundamentally occult vision of what its participants want their worlds to be. Play, as such, inherently calls into question the veracity of its own productions. In the context of the medievalism of the contemporary moment, it foregrounds the fact that many of the problematic worldviews that are constructed as historical reality by contemporary medievalism are themselves fantasies.

What is more, play simultaneously recognizes that other fantasies are possible. In its ability to at once conjure and critique reality, it foregrounds the fact that there are always other ways of re-imagining ourselves and our circumstances via the Middle Ages or any number of other impossible sites of desire. Conceived as an experiment in playing with—which is to say, re-imagining the generative possibilities of the Middle Ages, the 2020 ISSM Conference seeks to interrogate the doubled potential of play as it is manifested not only in contemporary medieval-themed games, hobbies, and pastimes, but in any of the myriad ways that we play with the Middle Ages through art, scholarship, or other forms of critical inquiry and cultural production broadly defined.

Please send abstracts of c. 300 words for individual papers or entire sessions on medieval-themed games, hobbies, pastimes and all other kinds of medievalisms (which is to say, other forms of medievalesque play) by August 15 to Kevin Moberly (kmoberly@odu.edu). For the wide range of topics of interest to the study of medievalism, please visit the table of contents pages of Studies in Medievalism and The Year’s Work in Medievalism, and the reviews published in Medievally Speaking. More information about the 2020 ISSM conference can be found on our conference website.

This year’s conference will be hosted by Old Dominion University, located in Norfolk, Virginia. We are not certain whether or not the university campus will be closed due to precautions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we have not determined if the 2020 ISSM Conference will take place physically, virtually, or as a mixture of both formats. The organizing committee will announce the format of the conference once we have more information about the status of the university in the fall.


Last updated May 12, 2020
This CFP has been viewed 560 times.

CFP The Ludic Outlaw: Medievalism, Games, Sport, and Play (Spec Issue Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies 7/31/20)

“The Ludic Outlaw: Medievalism, Games, Sport, and Play,” a special issue
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2020/04/14/%E2%80%9Cthe-ludic-outlaw-medievalism-games-sport-and-play%E2%80%9D-a-special-issue

deadline for submissions:
July 31, 2020


full name / name of organization:
The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies


contact email:
lfallo1@lsu.edu




From the early Atari single-player arcade game Outlaw to more recent videogames such as Activision Blizzard’s multiplayer Overwatch, modern digital outlaws have long been popular characters in gaming culture. These characters often work to resist authoritarianism within their respective gaming worlds, and they frequently evoke much older outlaw representations, such as the Robin Hood of medieval ballads, by embodying popular definitions of justice and communal welfare.



This special issue of The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies

welcomes papers that examine the specific ways in which enduring medieval outlaw tropes in modern games function as model responses to oppression. Particular attention will be given to submissions that focus on broadly defined digital ludic outlaws, though papers concerned with modern tabletop games, live action role-playing games, and immersive theater are welcome. Papers on early modern May games and festivals will also be considered. Possible themes may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Parallels between outlaw literary traditions and modern games
• Social positioning, otherness, and outlawry in games featuring playful medievalism(s)
• Gender (re)definition and performance in outlaw games
• Subversive materialities in ludic outlaw toolkits and inventories
• Medieval architecture and its uses in digital outlaw spaces
• Ergodic textuality and interactive outlaw narratives

Manuscripts of 2000-3000 words should be submitted to guest editor Gayle Fallon at lfallo1@lsu.edu by July 31, 2020. Submissions should be saved in Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx) and formatted according to the guidelines in the current Chicago Manual of Style. All work considered for this publication must not be previously published or under consideration elsewhere. Since manuscripts will go through a double-blind peer review, author names should not appear in documents or in file properties. More information about author guidelines can be found here.



Last updated April 16, 2020
This CFP has been viewed 647 times.

New Book: From Iceland to the Americas: Vinland and Historical Imagination

My thanks to Kevin J. Harty for alerting me of this collection:

From Iceland to the Americas:Vinland and Historical Imagination 
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526128751/

Edited by Tim William Machan and Jón Karl Helgason
Book Information
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-5261-2875-1
Pages: 304
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Series: Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture
Price: £80.00 / $120.00
Published Date: April 2020


Description

This volume investigates the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural and imaginative consequences. Inspired by Leif Eiriksson's visit to Vinland in about the year 1000, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all come to reflect rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, From Iceland to the Americas approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities on mythology, language, film and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception. Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone.


Contents

Introduction
1 Vinland on the brain: remembering the Norse - Tim William Machan

Part I: Imagination and ideology

2 Journeys to the centre of the mind: Iceland in the literary and the professorial imagination - Seth Lerer

3 The 'Viking tower' in Newport, Rhode Island: fact, fiction, and film - Kevin J. Harty

4 Critiquing Columbus with the Vinland sagas - Matthew Scribner

5 Vinland and white nationalism - Verena Höfig

Part II: Landscapes and cultural memory

6 Migration of a North Atlantic seascape: Leif Eiriksson, the 1893 World's Fair, and the Great Lakes landnám - Amy C. Mulligan

7 Norwegian-American 'missions of education' and Old Norse literature - Bergur Þorgeirsson

8 Americans in Sagaland: Iceland travel books 1854-1914 - Emily Lethbridge

9 The good sense to lose America: Vinland as remembered by Icelanders - Simon Halink

Part III: Recasting the past

10 Spectral Vikings in nineteenth-century American poetry - Angela Sorby

11 'Who is this upstart Hitler?': Norse gods and American comics during the Second World War - Jón Karl Helgason

12 'There's no going back': The Dark Knight and Balder's descent to Hel - Dustin Geeraert

13 Old Norse in the New World: the mythology of emigration in Neil Gaiman's American Gods - Heather O'Donoghue

Bibliography

Index




Editors

Tim William Machan is Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame

Jón Karl Helgason is Professor of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland

CFP Uncharted Medievalisms: Revealing the Medieval in Popular Fiction and Games (Panel) (9/30/2020; NeMLA Philadelphia 3/11-14/2021)

Uncharted Medievalisms: Revealing the Medieval in Popular Fiction and Games (Panel)

52nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association

Marriott Downtown Philadelphia, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 11-14 March 2021

Paper abstracts are due by 30 September 2020

Session organized by Carl B. Sell and Michael A. Torregrossa and sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture.


As Umberto Eco once observed, “people like the Middle Ages,” and medievalism flourishes across the globe, with medievalist settings and ideologies used in popular, fictional settings that are widely known in their respective communities. However, critical exploration of these medievalisms has been lacking, save for the most common such settings, like Lewis’s Narnia, Le Guin’s Earthsea, Martin’s Westeros, and Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Consequently, this panel proposes to examine the extent to which medievalism is used by other, perhaps less well-trodden settings, including, but not limited to, the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons, Chaosium’s rereleased Pendragon RPG, and Terry Brooks’s Shannara and Terry Goodkind’s The Sword of Truth series; the Old World and 41st Millennium of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000; the video game realities of Diablo, Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy, Fire Emblem, and Warcraft; and similar popular shared worlds of other board games, comics, fiction, RPGs, and video games. Critical explorations of the ways that these settings use and add to medievalism(s), including the more famous worlds, are encouraged.


This session is a paper panel in traditional format, which will include 3-4 participants, reading a formal paper of 15-20 minutes (2500-3000 words) as set by the chair, followed by Q&A.

The direct link for this session is https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/18676. Please contact the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com with any questions or concerns.


Abstract submissions must be made through NeMLA’s official site. Applicants will need to login or create an account at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/login. Submissions must begin with a paper title of not more than 100 characters (including spaces) and adhering to the following: capitalize titles by MLA formatting rules unless the title is in a language other than English; do not use quotation marks in the session title or abstract title itself but please use only single quotation marks around titles of short stories, poems, and similar short works; italicize the titles of long works mentioned in the paper title; and do not place a period at the end of the title. Submissions should also include an academic biography (usually transferred from your NeMLA profile) and a paper abstract of not more than 300 words; be sure to italicize or use quotation marks around titles according to MLA guidelines.


Please be aware that NeMLA membership is not required to submit abstracts, but it is required to present at the convention. In addition, note that it is permissible to present on (1) a panel (or seminar) and (2) a roundtable or a creative session, but it is not permissible to present on a panel and a seminar (because both are paper-based), on two panels or two roundtables (because both would be the same type). Further information on these and other policies can be accessed at http://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/callforpapers/submit.html.


Chairs will confirm the acceptance of abstracts before 15 October 2020. At that time, applicants must confirm the panel on which they wish to participate. Convention registration/membership for 2020-2021 must be paid by 9 December 2020.

CFP Can We Be More Than the Middle Ages? Medievalism Studies and Medieval Studies (Roundtable) (9/30/2020; NeMLA Philadelphia 3/11-14/2021)

Can We Be More Than the Middle Ages? Medievalism Studies and Medieval Studies (Roundtable)

52nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association

Marriott Downtown Philadelphia, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 11-14 March 2021

Paper abstracts are due by 30 September 2020

Session organized by Michael A. Torregrossa and Carl B. Sell and sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture.


Academics, in general, have embraced the study of popular culture in recent decades seeing value in both the texts they and their students experience on a daily basis as well as those works that held the attentions of previous generations. Complementing this movement, the academic study of medievalism has been viewed as a legitimate avenue of inquiry for just over forty years, and scholarship on medieval-themed art, comics, drama, fiction, film, games, and television programming has grown considerably over time. However, is the phenomenal success of Medievalism Studies more a curse than a blessing? Are Medieval Studies and its more traditional sub-disciplines as welcoming of this material as they appear? Is the pursuit of medievalisms a worthwhile endeavor or something capable of causing stigma or even harm to fall upon the researcher?

Through this roundtable, we seek to explore the answers to these and similar questions. Medievalisms are the lifeblood of our field. They create interest in the Middle Ages and keep its legacies alive despite our distances from the era in time and space, but does our fascination with this material come at a cost, one few are willing to pay? Can medievalists, of all levels, successfully integrate popular representations of the medieval into their research and careers, or must Medievalism Studies remain an outlier, a guilty pleasure rather than an appropriate option to further the field?


This session is a roundtable, in which 3-10 participants give brief, informal presentations (5-10 minutes) and the session is open to conversation and debate between participants and the audience.

The direct link for this session is https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/18580. Please contact the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com with any questions or concerns.


Abstract submissions must be made through NeMLA’s official site. Applicants will need to login or create an account at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/login. Submissions must begin with a paper title of not more than 100 characters (including spaces) and adhering to the following: capitalize titles by MLA formatting rules unless the title is in a language other than English; do not use quotation marks in the session title or abstract title itself but please use only single quotation marks around titles of short stories, poems, and similar short works; italicize the titles of long works mentioned in the paper title; and do not place a period at the end of the title. Submissions should also include an academic biography (usually transferred from your NeMLA profile) and a paper abstract of not more than 300 words; be sure to italicize or use quotation marks around titles according to MLA guidelines.


Please be aware that NeMLA membership is not required to submit abstracts, but it is required to present at the convention. In addition, note that it is permissible to present on (1) a panel (or seminar) and (2) a roundtable or a creative session, but it is not permissible to present on a panel and a seminar (because both are paper-based), on two panels or two roundtables (because both would be the same type). Further information on these and other policies can be accessed at http://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/callforpapers/submit.html.


Chairs will confirm the acceptance of abstracts before 15 October 2020. At that time, applicants must confirm the panel on which they wish to participate. Convention registration/membership for 2020-2021 must be paid by 9 December 2020.

CFP Intersections (Spec Issue of Year's Work in Medievalism) (8/31/2020)

Call for Submissions

The Year’s Work in Medievalism 34 (2019): Intersections
(PDF version accessible at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Sy_4ZE-eV8kiz1bo9Rw8gjRy-FlXdpUv/view)

The thematic focus for Issue 34 (2019) of The Year’s Work in Medievalism is intersections.
Medievalism studies sit at numerous crossroads; many works of medievalism bridge multiple
traditional boundaries, whether of discipline, genre, historicism, medium, mode, and more. We
therefore invite submissions, both scholarly and creative, that address, explore, contextualize, or
otherwise grapple with intersections and intersectionality within the field. Contributions arising
from the 2019 meeting of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism are also welcome.
The Year’s Work in Medievalism is a peer-reviewed open access journal providing codisciplinary
and interdisciplinary communication for scholars interested in the reception of medieval culture in
post-medieval times. We welcome submissions in English covering all aspects of medievalism,
including traditional essay-style submissions that are 3,000-4,000 words (including notes) in
length, as well as creative works.

Deadline for submissions: August 31, 2020.

Submissions and inquiries regarding submissions should be directed to both Renée Ward
(rward@lincoln.ac.uk) and Valerie Johnson (vjohnso6@montevallo.edu). Please follow the
journal style sheet when preparing your submission for consideration.

Style sheet accessible at https://docs.google.com/document/d/19xf8jLunL5KHP7YjtdDf2ml3LvADNZe_ZmpFdrm4LeY/edit?usp=sharing.

The Year's Work in Medievalism 33 (2018)

The latest volume of The Year's Work in Medievalism has been released. It can be accessed at https://sites.google.com/site/theyearsworkinmedievalism/all-issues/33-2018.


Full contents as follows:


The Year's Work in Medievalism 33 (2018)

Edited by Valerie Johnson & Renée Ward, with Laura Harrison

Valerie Johnson & Renée Ward: Introduction

Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand: East Meets West? Heritage, Medievalism, and the Nibelungenlied on the Danube

Sarah J. Sprouse: From ides aglæcwif to “shebeast”: The Loss of the Wrecend in Thomas Meyer’s Translation of Beowulf

Loredana Teresi: Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman and the Myth of Týr: Addressing Contemporary Issues through Literary Tradition

Karl Fugelso: A Mickey Mouse Inferno: Medievalist Legacies and the Marketing of the Middle Ages

Alicia McKenzie: A Patchwork World: Medieval History and World-Building in Dragon Age: Inquisition

Scott Manning: Warriors “Hedgehogged” in Arrows: Crusaders, Samurai, and Wolverine in Medieval Chronicles and Popular Culture

Adam Debosscher: #ForTheThrone: A Study of the Emphasis on the Medievalism in the Paratext of G. R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire in HBO’s Game of Thrones

Call For Submissions

St Louis Medieval and Renaisance Symposium Cancelled

This might be the last major conference I missed posting on.

In April, the organizers of the Eighth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, to be held at Saint Louis University in June, was cancelled.

Full details have been enclosed in a letter to participants and posted online at https://www.smrs-slu.org/uploads/1/2/1/6/121687599/2020_cancellation.pdf.

CFP Political Medievalism II (Studies in Medievalism 30; 8/1/2020)

Not sure if I posted this earlier in the year or not:

From the website of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism.

POLITICAL MEDIEVALISM II
http://medievalism.net/?p=154

From Hitler’s“Third Reich”to Bush’s “crusade”against terrorism, professional politicians have often invoked the Middle Ages to justify their actions. But they are far from alone, for many of their constituents have also deployed medievalism for political purposes, as in condemning impoverished countries for “failing to escape”the Middle Ages. Indeed, much of medievalism, not to mention the study of it, has revolved around politics of one kind or another, as became evident from the unprecedented number of submissions to our previous volume (XXIX) on this theme. Studies in Medievalism, a peer-reviewed print and on-line publication, is therefore once again seeking not only feature articles of 6,000-12,000 words (including notes) on any postmedieval responses to the Middle Ages, but also essays of approximately 3,000 words (including notes) on the intersection of medievalism (studies) and politics. How exactly have professional and amateur politicians misconstrued, mangled, and manipulated the Middle Ages and to what end? How have politics influenced the development of medievalism and/or study of it? In what sense, if any, is it possible to have medievalism (studies) without politics? How might medievalism otherwise be deployed in professional or amateur politics? In responding to these and related questions, contributors are invited to give particular examples, but their submissions, which should be sent to Karl Fugelso (kfugelso@towson.edu) in English and Word by August 1, 2020 (note that priority will be given to papers in the order they are received), should also address the implications of those examples for the discipline as a whole.

SUBMISSION STYLE SHEET

Studies in Medievalism is the oldest academic journal dedicated entirely to the study of post-medieval images and perceptions of the Middle Ages. It accepts articles on both scholarly and popular works, with particular interest in the interaction between scholarship and re-creation. Its aim is to promote the interdisciplinary study of medievalism as a contemporary cultural phenomenon. Originally published privately, Studies in Medievalism is currently published by Boydell & Brewer, Ltd.. Click on the below links to Back Volumes for details and to order online.

Leeds Medieval Congress Cancelled

A much belated announcement that the 2020 International Medieval Congress at Leeds was also cancelled in March.

Further details are available at https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2020-cancelled-due-to-coronavirus-covid-19/.

It looks like the organizers are planing some type of virtual event this summer. Updates can be found on the conference main page at https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/.

CFP 2021 Annual Meeting of Medieval Academy of America (6/1/2020; Bloomington 4/15-18/2021)

In the wake of all the cancellations, some are asking us to think about the future. Here's the recent call for the Medieval Academy of America's 2021 meeting.There are at least three themes/tracks that will allow participants to make medievalisms matter: After Dante, 1321-2021, Approaching the Middle Ages with Modern Science (possibly), and Appropriation of the Middle Ages.

The call can also be accessed direct at https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/2021AnnualMeeting.

96th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America

Indiana University, Bloomington
15-18 April, 2021

Call for Papers

The 96th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place on the campus of the Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. The meeting is jointly hosted by the Medieval Academy of America and the Medieval Studies Institute of the Indiana University.  The conference program will feature a diverse range of sessions highlighting innovative scholarship across the many disciplines contributing to medieval studies.  

The Program Committee invites proposals for papers on all topics and in all disciplines and periods of medieval studies. Any member of the Medieval Academy may submit a paper proposal; others may submit proposals as well but must become members in order to present papers at the meeting. Special consideration will be given to individuals whose field would not normally involve membership in the Medieval Academy.

The program committee encourages medievalists of all professional standing to submit abstracts. We are particularly interested in receiving submissions from those working outside of traditional academic positions, including independent scholars , emeritus or adjunct faculty, university administrators, those working in academic-adjacent institutions (libraries, archives, museums, scholarly societies, or cultural research centers), editors and publishers, and other fellow medievalists.

Theme(s): Rather than a single overarching theme, the 2021 Program Committee has put together a set of themes (listed below), and hopes to put in conversation papers that approach each theme from diverse chronological, geographical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives.  We also welcome innovative sessions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries or that use various disciplinary approaches to examine an individual topic.  The themes listed below have been proposed by the Program Committee but the list is not meant to be exhaustive or exclusive.

Proposals: Individuals may propose to offer a paper in one of the themes below, a full panel of papers and speakers for a listed theme, a full panel of papers and speakers for a session they wish to create, or a single paper not designated for a specific theme. Sessions usually consist of three 25-minute papers, and proposals should be geared to that length, although the committee is interested in other formats as well (poster sessions, digital experiences, etc). The Program Committee may choose a different format for some sessions after the proposals have been reviewed.

Submissions:
The deadline for proposals is June 1, 2020.
Please do not send proposals directly to the session organizers.
All proposals, for individual papers, sessions, or special formats, must be submitted through the conference web portal; please see instructions at https://maa2021.indiana.edu/.

Selection Procedure: Paper and panel proposals will be reviewed for their quality, the significance of their topics, and their relevance to the conference themes. The Program Committee will evaluate proposals during the summer of 2020 and the Committee will inform all successful and unsuccessful proposers by 1 September 2020.

Information Needed for Proposal Submission:
All proposals will be submitted online, and will require the following pieces of information:
- Proposer's name (in format for the program)
- Statement of Medieval Academy membership (or statement that the individual’s specialty would not normally involve membership in the Academy)
- professional status/affiliation (in format for the program)
- email address
- postal address
- telephone number(s)
- paper title
- theme for which the paper should be considered (or "general session")
- abstract (max 250-words)
- audio-visual equipment requirements

If a full panel is being proposed, the above information will be required for each paper, as well as for the session as a whole.  For alternative format session proposal submissions, also a description of the alternative format (max. 300 words).

Important Regarding Evaluation:  Since all submitted proposals will undergo blind review, any identifying information inadvertently left in proposals will be removed before the review process begins.  Please help us by ensuring that your abstract is free of all references to your name, your institution, and your publications.  

Themes:
After Dante, 1321-2021
Approaching the Middle Ages with Modern Science
Appropriation of the Middle Ages
Commemoration
Connections and Networks in Medieval Social Life
Digital Humanities
Form and Genre
Humans and the Natural Environment
Identity, Race, and Ethnicity
Manuscripts and Book History
Migration, Immigration, and Exile
Moments of Intercultural Interaction
Multilingualism and Diglossia
Natural Philosophy and its Applications
Objects and Material Culture
Performance from Sacred to Secular
Playfulness

Location:
Founded in 1820, Indiana University Bloomington welcomes more than 48,000 students from Indiana and all 50 states, as well as from 165 foreign nations.  Of particular note for medievalists is the Lilly Library, which holds a large collection of medieval manuscript books and fragments, especially from the 14th and 15th centuries.  All sessions and events will be held in the Biddle Hotel and Conference Center in the Indiana Memorial Union, located at the center of campus; other hotel and dining options are located a short walk away in Bloomington's downtown.   

Program Committee: maa2021@indiana.edu

Program Committee Chairs:

Deborah Deliyannis, History, Indiana University Bloomington

Diane Reilly, Art History, Indiana University Bloomington

Communication Chair:

Kalani Craig, History, Indiana University Bloomington

Local Arrangements Chair:

Shannon Gayk, English, Indiana University Bloomington

Asma Afsaruddin, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University Bloomington
Daniel Caner, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University Bloomington
Kalani Craig, History, Indiana University Bloomington
Deborah Deliyannis, History, Indiana University Bloomington
Giuliano Di Bacco, Musicology, Indiana University Bloomington
Nahyan Fancy, History, DePauw University
Shannon Gayk, English, Indiana University Bloomington
Ryan Giles, Spanish & Portuguese, Indiana University Bloomington
Margaret Graves, Art History, Indiana University Bloomington
Liz Hebbard, French & Italian, Indiana University Bloomington
Sarah Ifft Decker, Jewish Studies, Indiana University Bloomington
Patty Ingham, English, Indiana University Bloomington
Kevin Jaques, Religious Studies, Indiana University Bloomington
Akash Kumar, French & Italian, Indiana University Bloomington
Jennifer Lee, Art History, IUPUI (Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis)
Amy Livingstone, History, Ball State University
Karma Lochrie, English, Indiana University Bloomington
Manling Luo, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Indiana University Bloomington
Dana Marsh, Music, Indiana University Bloomington
Rosemarie McGerr, Comp Lit, Indiana University Bloomington
Joey McMullen, English, Indiana University Bloomington
Morton Oxenboell, EALC, Indiana University Bloomington
Diane Reilly, Art History, Indiana University Bloomington
Jeremy Schott, Religious Studies, Indiana University Bloomington
Leah Shopkow, History, Indiana University Bloomington
Barbara Vance, FRIT, Indiana University Bloomington
Sonia Velázquez, Religious Studies, Indiana University Bloomington
Nick Vogt, EALC, Indiana University Bloomington
Rega Wood, Philosophy, Indiana University Bloomington
 

Call for Book Proposals: Series in Literary Studies (4/2/2020; Vernon Press)

Of potential interest:


Call for Proposals: Literary Studies

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/09/30/call-for-proposals-literary-studies

deadline for submissions:
April 2, 2020

full name / name of organization:
James McGovern / Oxford University

contact email:
james.mcgovern@kellogg.ox.ac.uk



We invite proposals for monographs or edited volumes for our Series in Literary Studies.

Literary studies is one of the richest and most interdisciplinary fields of study, encompassing a wide array of valid approaches, from the historical, to the theoretical, to the experimental. Broadly speaking, works of literary scholarship aim to change or enhance the way we read texts by investigating their complexity.

We are particularly interested in books on English Literature, although we are open to proposals which examine any type of world literature.

The scope of the present call is broad. Possible topics include (non-comprehensive list):

• Female writers in English Literature
• Origins of the English Language
• Medieval literature
• Literary objects/Material culture
• Ecopoetics
• Mass media and pop culture
• Reading scripture
• Early modern theatre; Shakespeare
• Post-colonial literature
• Writing lives
• History of rhetoric
• Modernism/post-modernism
• Literary journalism
• Jewish literature
• War poetry
• New Historicist approaches
• Literary theory
• Close/distant reading techniques; practical criticism

How to submit your proposal

Please submit one-page monograph proposals to james.mcgovern@vernonpress.com, including a summary, a short biographical note and (if applicable) a list of similar titles. Proposals that treat other topics of relevance to the series in Literary Studies are also welcome. More information on what we look for in a proposal is available on our website. James McGovern is Commissioning Editor at Vernon Press with a background in English Literature and Creative Writing.

About the publisher

Vernon Press is an independent publisher of scholarly books in the social sciences and humanities. We work closely with authors, academic associations, distributors, and library information specialists to identify and develop high quality, high impact titles. Recent and forthcoming titles in this series include The Picturesque, The Sublime, The Beautiful: Visual Artistry in the Works of Charlotte Smith (1749-1806) and The Poetics of Fragmentation in Contemporary British and American Fiction.



Last updated October 8, 2019

Kalamazoo 2020 Cancelled

I am sad to report that this year's International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University has now been cancelled due to the coronavirus.

Full details at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress.

The Medieval Institute is seeking donations to offset the cost of this decision. The link is available on the same page.

MAA 2020 Annual Meeting Cancelled

The Medieval Academy of America has cancelled its upcoming 2020 Annual Meeting at UC Berkeley due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Further details at http://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/maa2020-at-uc-berkeley/.

CFP MAPACA Sponsored Sessions - Getting Medieval on Popular Culture (6/15/20; 11/5-7/20)

Getting Medieval on Popular Culture at MAPACA 2020

Submissions by 15 June 2020

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture seeks submissions for the following sponsored roundtable and papers sessions to be included in the Medieval & Renaissance Area for the 2020 meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association to be held at the Princeton Marriott at Forrestal, Princeton, New Jersey, from 5-7 November 2020. 

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture is a community of scholars and enthusiasts organized to promote and foster research and discussion of representations of the medieval in post-medieval popular culture and mass media. We share the Medieval & Renaissance Area’s commitment to expanding the corpus of Medievalism Studies and welcome research on neglected genres and media of modern culture. 

Making Medievalisms Matter (A Roundtable)

The goal of this session is on the professionalism of Medievalism Studies. We seek to highlight successful strategies for integrating popular representations of the medieval into our academic lives. Participants would share their experiences in researching, teaching, and (hopefully) publishing. 

Medieval Monsters Now (Papers Session)

Following two past sessions on monsters and medievalism, the goal of this session is to explore further examples of how medieval monsters continue to have an impact on the modern world. We are especially interested in recent examples, but discussions of depictions from any post-medieval era are welcome.

Nordic Medievalisms: Vikings and Their World in Popular Culture (Papers Session)

The Vikings remain enormously popular in modern culture and continue to elicit much discussion and debate. We seek to continue that dialogue at MAPACA with fresh insights into their depictions in popular culture.

Please send inquiries and paper proposals (paper title, 300-word abstract, A/V requests and a brief academic biography) to the organizers at medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com.  Submissions are requested by 15 June 2020. 

All presenters must be members of Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association or join for the conference. Further details on MAPACA can be accessed at https://mapaca.net/. 

The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture maintains a variety of blogs and discussion lists. Details on these activities can be found at our blog, Making Medievalisms Matter, accessible at https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/. 

The full Medieval & Renaissance Area call can be found at https://mapaca.net/areas/medieval-renaissance.