CFP Robin Hood: The Legend in Social-Cultural and Political Contexts (7/7/2024; SEMA Augusta, GA 10/10-12/2024)

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Robin Hood: The Legend in Social-Cultural and Political Contexts

International Association for Robin Hood Studies
Call for Papers
2024 Conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association
10-12 October, Augusta College, Augusta, Georgia

The Robin Hood/Greenwood legend has endured for over 500 years, largely because of its mutability. As social-cultural and political climates change, Robin and Marian and the legend shift accordingly, sometimes in seemingly extreme directions. From the late 15th-early 16th-century Gest of Robyn Hood to the Late Medieval and Early Modern ballads and plays; to the folklore enthusiasts and the plays, poems, and episodic 19th-century novels; to the 20th-century’s plethora of novels, children’s books, movies, television programs, comics, and games; to the 21st-century’s novels, films, and streaming video: Robin and Company have been yeoman outlaws, aristocratic outlaws, outlaws who help the poor and oppressed, outlaws who seek to help restore traditional government, outlaws who seek to help create a more equality-based government, outlaws who protest foreign wars, outlaws who participate in foreign wars. They can be congenial, aloof, intense, detached. Their Greenwood homes range from forest floor to treehouse community. Their numbers include men, women, and even children of an increasingly wide variety of races, ethnicities, and religions. They may appear medieval, somewhat medieval, early modern, modern, or a bewildering mix of times and places. They inhabit not only England, but Scotland, Wales, and the United States, among other places.
What social-cultural or political climate changes might influence one or more of these expressions of the Greenwood legend?

In keeping with the 2024 conference theme of the Southeastern Medieval Association (SEMA), “Climate,” the International Association for Robin Hood Studies invites paper proposals for a session titled “Robin Hood: The Legend in Social-Cultural and Political Contexts.” SEMA 2024 will be in-person in Augusta, Georgia, 10-12 October. 

Please send a 150- to 250-word abstract or proposal on any aspect of social-cultural and/or political climate and the Greenwood legend or various aspects thereof to Sherron Lux at sherron_lux@yahoo.com by Sunday 7 July 2024, with any technology requests.