CFP IARHS-Sponsored Session (6/25/2025; Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, Cincinnati 11/6-8/2025)

Sharing on behalf of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies:

CFP: IARHS-Sponsored Session, Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, November 6-8, 2025, University of Cincinnati

Proposed Sponsored Session Title: “Confluences in the Robin Hood Tradition”


The theme of SEMA’s 50th annual conference is “Confluences”:
https://southeasternmedieval.wordpress.com/2025/05/07/sema-2025-cfp/


With that theme in mind, the IARHS welcomes abstracts for formal paper sessions to be considered for 1-2 possible sessions at SEMA’s in-person conference.

• How does the Robin Hood tradition explore political, environmental, geographical, natural confluences in its body of literature?
• In what ways does the Robin Hood tradition merge disparate or similar cultures, ideologies, texts to form something new?
• In what ways is the Robin Hood tradition fixated upon or enamored with concepts of hybridity of physical, ideological, or textual bodies/forms? 
• "Confluences" suggests movement, which results in an overlapping, a layering, and/or a merging of objects or forms. As such, in what ways is the Robin Hood tradition (its body of literature, its various media texts) reliant upon existing or nascent textual conjunctions, accretions, convergences, and meetings not only to sustain itself but also to create new works?

Please send to Alex Kaufman (alkaufman@bsu.edu) by June 25, 2025 the following items in a Word Document or a PDF for consideration for an IARHS-sponsored session at the SEMA Conference:


1. Your name
2. Your email
3. Your affiliation
4. A 250-word abstract
5. 3-5 keywords
6. If you will need technology to present at the conference

CFP Fantasy & the Fantastic Area / Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Narratives (5/15/2025; PAMLA San Francisco 11/20-23/2025)

Sharing on behalf of Kristin Noone, Fantasy & the Fantastic Area Chair for the Pacific Ancient & Modern Language Association (PAMLA)

PAMLA Conference: Nov 20-23, 2025; Location: the InterContinental Hotel, San Francisco

Abstract / Proposal Deadline: May 15 (it'll stay open through the 16th for any late ones)

PAMLA general website: https://www.pamla.org/pamla2025/

Full CFP with all areas (my specific areas linked below): https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/CFP

Standing Session: Fantasy and the Fantastic

Area Chair: Kristin Noone, Irvine Valley College (kristinlnoone@gmail.com)

Fantasy and the supernatural, broadly defined, shape many of the most popular contemporary narratives and universes—from Lord of the Rings to Game of Thrones, from World of Warcraft to The Witcher, from classical and medieval tales of monsters and dragons to the worlds of N.K. Jemisin, Terry Pratchett, Tracy Deonn, Nnedi Okorafor, and Ursula K. Le Guin. As a genre, fantasy engages with questions of rhetoric, identity, and power in multiple ways, across multiple media, subgenres, and cultural traditions; the enchantment of fantastic and supernatural narratives has cast a persistent and global spell. We welcome proposals both related to the conference theme, "Palimpsests: Memory and Oblivion," and those not related.

Direct submission portal: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19602

Special Session: Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Narratives (co-sponsored by the International Association for Robin Hood Studies)

Session Chair: Kristin Noone, Irvine Valley College (kristinlnoone@gmail.com)

Robin Hood and other outlaw figures exist as polymorphous, shifting, persistent presences across space and time, inhabiting storyworlds that respond to and reflect the needs of the society in which the outlaw emerges. The Robin Hood tradition is a rich and varied one, appearing across many forms of media and numerous adaptations; outlaw heroes—or anti-heroes, protagonists, or even antagonists—can be found in cultures from the medieval to the present, spanning the globe.

For this special allied session, the International Association for Robin Hood Studies invites papers and presentations which explore the myriad faces and evolutions and representations of the outlaw, from the medieval to the modern, in various cultural traditions and media. This year’s overall PAMLA conference theme is “Palimpsests: Memory and Oblivion,” and particular attention will be given to proposals which incorporate these concepts, but we are certainly open to all outlaw-related proposals regardless of theme—in keeping with the greenwood community spirit!

Direct submission portal: https://pamla.ballastacademic.com/Home/S/19616

Kalamazoo Report - More than The Green Knight: Exploring the Ongoing Tradition of Adapting and Appropriating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Hybrid)

We co-sponsored another great session today at Kalamazoo. My thanks to our chair, my fellow presenters, and our audience (both on-site and in Zoom).

More than The Green Knight: Exploring the Ongoing Tradition of Adapting and Appropriating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Hybrid)

60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI)


Session 247 (Sangren Hall 1320): Friday, 9 May, from 3:30-5:00 PM EDT

Principal Sponsoring Organization:

Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

Co-Sponsoring Organization(s):

International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB), International Pearl-Poet Society


Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College; Joseph M. Sullivan, Univ. of Oklahoma; Amber Dunai, Texas A&M Univ.–Central Texas

Presider: Amber Dunai, Texas A&M Univ.–Central Texas

There Are Many Ways to the Green Chapel: Creating a Resource Guide to Adaptations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Virtual)

Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College

Michael A. Torregrossa (he/him/his) is a graduate of the Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) and works as an adjunct instructor of writing and literature courses in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts. His research focuses on popular culture’s adaptation, appropriation, and transformation of literary classics, including the Arthurian legends. In addition to these pursuits, Michael is the founder of The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain (2000-) and The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture (2004-). He also serves as editor for these organizations' various blogs and as moderator of their discussion lists and leads the development of their conference activities. Besides this work, Michael is active in the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (a.k.a. NEPCA) and organizes sessions for their annual conference in the fall. Since 2019, Michael has been NEPCA’s Monsters and the Monstrous Area Chair, but he previously served as its Fantastic (Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror) Area Chair, a position he held from 2009-2018.

Not a Knight, but a Turtle: Looking at Children’s Media and Medievalism through Franklin and the Green Knight (Virtual)

Sam Lehman, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Sam Lehman is a PhD Candidate who studies Arthurian literature and popular culture on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, Canada; her thesis project looks at women and trauma in The Mists of Avalon and Le Morte Darthur.

“Finn is totally getting played:” Carnival Games and Imbalanced Knowledge in Adventure Time’s Adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Prudence J. Ross, Brown Univ

Prudence Ross is a PhD candidate at Brown University in the Department of English. Their work is focused on considering the ways in which poetry, affect, and memory relate to and produce one another in early modern and medieval texts. Prudence’s dissertation project, entitled Poetic Joinery: Remembering the Passion in Early Modern Poetry, examines how the image of the joint in its various contexts – bodily, architectural, and mechanical - are employed in devotional poetry towards establishing a deeply felt readerly memory of the Crucifixion.

In His Own Time, On His Own Terms: Neuroqueer Medievalisms in Jes Battis’s The Winter Knight (Virtual)

Miles Smith, Fordham University

Miles Smith is a PhD candidate in English at Fordham University. Their dissertation project focuses on rhetoric and nonnormative bodyminds in late medieval literature, with a particular emphasis on gender, animality, and disability. They use they/them pronouns.

Funding Request METS

I've been asked to share this by the Middle English Text Series based at the University of Rochester. Do consider helping them out if you can.

On April 3, the Department of Government Efficiency summarily cancelled almost all grant support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  This cancellation had an immediate and destabilizing effect on the Middle English Text Series (METS), which was nearing the mid-point of a three-year NEH grant that had provided essential funding for the compensation of METS Managing Editor and the remainder of our editorial and research staff.  In the days since, we have been scrambling to assemble new internal sources of funding that will allow METS to bring to completion editions currently under way (online and print) and to support further editions in the series.  While we are hopeful that we will soon have a short-term plan in place to see these editions through to publication, that plan cannot succeed without your support.

METS issued its first volume in 1989, and published its hundredth volume in 2023. In November 2024 METS launched its completely renovated website and digital edition (www.metseditions.org):  this offers a new reader interface, intuitive access to the texts, glosses, notes, and introductions, along with TEI encoding of all new editions, improved metadata, and enhanced transparency and accessibility.  MIP has kept all volumes continuously in print, and the METS website (available through the University of Rochester Libraries) has attracted over a half million hits per year from more than one hundred thirty-five countries and language groups.  The Series currently has some sixteen volumes in progress, and plans to publish two of these in print and online this year. The Series is also working on updating all its backlist editions for the new website, including adding TEI markup to each edition.

The abrupt loss of NEH support threatens all of this.  While we have been working over the last several years to transition METS to a more sustainable funding model, we are not there yet. The emergency measures are just that: temporary.  Without new sources of funding, METS will be unable to sustain its staff or operations beyond the near future., 

We are calling on the medievalist community: editors, scholars, instructors, and everyone who has relied on METS for teaching, research, or simply the joy of engaging with medieval texts to help ensure the survival of this vital resource.  METS has long stood as a shared foundation for the field.  Now, its future depends on those who believe in the value of collaborative, open-access scholarship and of engagement and understanding of history. 

To that end, we have established the Russell Peck Memorial Fund through the University of Rochester.  All contributions to this fund will go directly toward supporting METS’ editorial staff and ensuring the continued production of high-quality, freely available editions.   If you have ever assigned a METS volume in a syllabus, cited one in your research, or found inspiration in a medieval text thanks to METS, we ask you to consider giving back.  Every donation – no matter the size – helps sustain the work that makes our field accessible to the world. These donations are tax deductible for US taxpayers.

Donations can be made via our website: https://metseditions.org/donate. This link will take you to the University of Rochester's giving portal. 

If you prefer to donate via check, please send to: University of Rochester, Office of Gift and Donor Records, 300 East River Road, BOX 270032, Rochester, NY 14627, with a note indicating that you wish the gift to go to the Russell Peck Memorial Fund. You can also support this initiative through gifts of stocks and securities; Qualified Charitable Distributions; or cryptocurrency. If you are interested in any of these options, please contact Pam Jackson at pamela.jackson@rochester.edu or 585.281.9061. 

This is a time of crisis for our field and for the humanities. It is also an opportunity for us to come together as a field to protect what we’ve built together and to ensure that METS will continue to support future generations of students, readers, and scholars. Thank you for joining us in our mission.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Anna Siebach-Larsen (annasiebachlarsen@rochester.edu) and Thomas Hahn (thomas.hahn@rochester.edu).

Thank you for your support,

Thomas Hahn (General Editor) & Anna Siebach-Larsen (Executive Director)

Job Posting: Assistant Editor of Year's Work in Medievalism (apply by 5/16/2025)

Sharing on behalf of the Internation Society for the Study of Medievalism:

The Year’s Work in Medievalism is seeking applications for the position of Assistant Editor. The selected individual will work alongside the current editors on future issues of the journal, undertaking administrative and editing tasks as needed and directed. While this is not a paid position, it is one that offers considerable insight into and experience with the operations of an academic journal. It is also an excellent opportunity for displaying service to the field.

Prior experience in the areas of editing and publishing is an asset, as is familiarity with MS software and the Chicago Manual of Style, though neither is required. Candidates for this position should have a strong interest in, and hopefully some prior experience with, researching the reception of medieval culture in post-medieval times. Experience in asynchronous collaboration, synthesizing reports, and providing constructive feedback on writing would all also be most welcome.

The average weekly workload for the position varies based on the publishing cycle. The appointment will be for a two-year period.

Please send a concise "letter of interest" and CV in PDF to Renée Ward (rward@lincoln.ac.uk) and Valerie Johnson (vjohnso6@montevallo.edu). The deadline for applications is 16 May 2025.

CFP Medievalisms Area at SWPACA Summer Salon 2025 (4/15/2025; online 6/26-28/2025)

Medievalisms Area at SWPACA Summer Salon 2025

deadline for submissions: 

April 15, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Southwest Popular/American Culture Association

contact email: 

adunai@tamuct.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/03/27/medievalisms-area-at-swpaca-summer-salon-2025.

Call for Papers

Medievalisms Area

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

2025 SWPACA Summer Salon

 

June 26-28, 2024

Virtual Conference

https://swpaca.org/

Submissions open on March 25, 2025

Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2025

 

Proposals for papers are now being accepted for the SWPACA Summer Salon. SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas in a variety of categories encompassing the following: Film, Television, Music, & Visual Media; Historic & Contemporary Cultures; Identities & Cultures; Language & Literature; Science Fiction & Fantasy; and Pedagogy & Popular Culture. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit https://swpaca.org/subject-areas/

 

The Medievalisms Area invites papers exploring constructions and representations of the medieval from any number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. This area is broadly interested in how meanings, uses, and signifiers of the medieval are engaged and negotiated, both in specific instances and across time. Papers might approach medievalism with attention to media (e.g., literary medievalisms, cinematic medievalisms, etc.); historical, regional, and cultural contexts (among others); theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary approaches; and any other scholarly (including scholarly-creative and pedagogical) perspectives and topics.

 

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at https://swpaca.org/app

 

For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general, please see the Summer Salon FAQs and Tips page at https://swpaca.org/faq-summer-salon/

Registration information for the conference will be available at https://swpaca.org/summer-salon/

Unfortunately, we are not able to offer any financial assistance for the Summer Salon.

 

Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words. Only one proposal per person, please; unfortunately, we cannot accommodate roundtables for the Summer Salon.  

 

If you have any questions about the Medievalisms area, please contact its Area Chair, Amber Dunai, at adunai@tamuct.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you.

 

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

Last updated March 31, 2025

CFP MMLA 2025 Permanent Session: Old and Middle English Language and Literature (4/21/2025; online 11/14-16/2025)

 

MMLA 2025 Permanent Session: Old and Middle English Language and Literature

deadline for submissions: 

April 21, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Midwest Modern Language Association

contact email: 

kathleen.burt@mga.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/02/25/mmla-2025-permanent-session-old-and-middle-english-language-and-literature.

Note: this conference has a hybrid format  (both virtual and in-person sessions). This session will be virtual.

The general call for this year, inviting “papers that explore the value of the Humanities in relation to a more hopeful future” in areas including but not limited to “languages, literature, pedagogy, writing studies, linguistics, folklore, film studies, the digital humanities, and library studies”, has broad possibilities within the languages, literatures, histories, and cultures related to Old and Middle English. This panel welcomes papers that address the presence, importance, and/or relevance of hope as a concept, mindset, language, and/or practice in Old and Middle English works of any kind, as well as explorations, arguments, or discussions of the relevance or importance or perceptions of these texts and ideas in both the medieval and the modern world.

Such considerations might take the form of (but need not be limited to) exploring any or all of the following: hope in, with, for, by humans and/or humanity; development of humanism as a literary, scientific, or historical or cultural movement; medieval literature/history/culture and medievalism as sources of study of or inspiration for hope; hopes for the field(s) now and in the future, and/or ways to cultivate such hopes.

 

Please send abstracts of approximately 350 words, along with a cv or brief biographical statement, to Dr. Kathleen Burt at kathleen.burt@mga.edu by no later than April 21, 2025.

Last updated March 24, 2025

CFP UVA Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference XXXVIII (6/23/2025; 9/18-20/2025)

 

UVA Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference XXXVIII (9/18-20)

deadline for submissions: 

June 23, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

University of Virginia-Wise Center for Medieval-Renaissance Studies

contact email: 

kjt9t@uvawise.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/03/07/uva-wise-medieval-renaissance-conference-xxxviii-918-20.

Sponsored by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference promotes scholarly discussion in all disciplines of Medieval and Renaissance studies. The conference welcomes proposals for papers and panels on Medieval or Renaissance literature, language, history, philosophy, science, pedagogy, and the arts.  Abstracts for papers should be 300 or fewer words.  Proposals for panels should include: a) title of the panel; b) names and institutional affiliations of the chair and all panelists; c) a 200-250 word description of the panel).  A branch campus of the University of Virginia, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise is a public four-year liberal arts college located in the scenic Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia. 

Keynote Address

Frederick de Armas, University of Chicago  Cervantes’ Architectures: Windows, Holes, Corners and Fissures

Professor de Armas’ keynote address arises out of his study of the architectures in Cervantes’ works, especially depictions of smaller architectural elements such as rooms in the attic, shuttered windows and even keyholes. Professor de Armas will investigate other holes, along with corners and fissures, conjugating the apparent insignificance of some architectural features or flaws, with their inordinate consequences. Specifically, his address will discuss the three moments in the Don Quixote in which the story of Pyramus and Thisbe come into play and show how its cracks and fissures are spaces for innovation in Cervantes’ novel. 

Frederick De Armas received his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1969) and was awarded a doctorate Honoris Causa by the Université de Neuchatel (Switzerland) in 2018. He also received the Norman Maclean Faculty Award in 2023. Professor De Armas has taught at Louisiana State University, Duke University and Pennsylvania State University. He has been Andrew W. Mellon Professor and then Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor in Romance Languages and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago (2000-2024). At Chicago, he has served as Chair of the Department of RLL and Director of Graduate Studies. He has been President of the Cervantes Society of America and President of AISO (Asociación Internacional Siglo de Oro). He is now Honorary President of AISO and of EMIT: Early Modern Image and Text Society.  He has been awarded several NEH Fellowships and has directed several NEH Seminars.

His interests include the politics of astrology; ekphrasis; the uses of architecture in early modern prose fiction; the relations between the verbal and the visual particularly between Spanish literature and Italian art; and the interconnections between myth and empire during the rule of the Habsburgs. He is the author of numerous books and edited volumes. Some of the more recent ones: 

Writing for the Eyes in the Spanish Golden Age (Bucknell UP2004);
Ekphrasis in the Age of Cervantes (Bucknell UP 2005);
Quixotic Frescoes: Cervantes and Italian Renaissance Art (Toronto 2006);
Ovid in the Age of Cervantes (Toronto UP 2010);
Don Quixote among the Saracens: Clashes of Civilizations and Literary Genres (Toronto UP 2011);
El retorno de Astrea: astrología, mito e imperio en Calderón (Iberoamericana 2016);
Women Warriors in Early Modern Spain (U of Delaware P, 2019):
Cervantes’ Architectures: The Dangers Outside (Toronto UP, 2022).He is also the author of several short stories and has published two novels: El abra del Yumurí (2016) and Sinfonía Salvaje (2019), both set in Cuba in the late 1950’s. Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words by June 23, 2025 to: https://www.uvawise.edu/webform/medieval-renaissance-proposals/ For more information, please visit our website: https://www.uvawise.edu/academics/department-language-literature/medieval-renaissance-conference/ or contact

Kenneth J. Tiller
Professor of English
Co-director, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
UVA’s College at Wise
Wise, VA 24293
(276) 376-4587
kjt9t@virginia.edu  

Last updated March 14, 2025

CFP 2025 Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association (3/10/2025; Logan, UT 5/29-6/1/2025)

Sharing from email:

Dearest members and friends,


Just a reminder that the CFP is open for our 2025 conference through March 10. As we get more conference info, it will be posted on our conference website: https://rmmra.org/conferences


If you have any suggestions for keynote speakers, please reply with your ideas!


The CFP is as follows:


We are excited to announce that RMMRA 2025 will be held at Utah State University!!!

The conference will be hosted by the research library and will feature a special exhibit including materials from both Utah State and University of Utah as a part of the conference! (See page 6 for more information)

Call for Proposals

The 57th annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association will take place in Logan, Utah, May 29-June 1, 2025, hosted by Utah State University in a hybrid format. Participation is welcome both in person and online for all events.

The RMMRA is seeking proposals on any topic relating to the period 400-1700 CE in a variety of formats that address some aspect of medieval and early modern studies. We encourage proposals that are both within and across traditional disciplines, including (but not limited to) history, art, literature, architecture, art history, religious studies, history of science, politics, languages, and digital humanities. We also encourage proposals that move across or outside of the traditional academy, including (but not limited to) archival work, K-12 teaching, popular history, and other venues.

We welcome papers on any medieval or early modern topic ca. 500-1700, including pedagogy, medievalisms, revisions and reimaginings, and other related works. We are particularly interested in promoting scholarship that crosses traditional boundaries of time and space, including comparative work, focus on the global medieval/early modern and precolonial cultures, and work that crosses disciplinary boundaries.

All are welcome to submit proposals until March 10, 2025.

Participants are encouraged to propose any of the following with a 100-200 word abstract:

- a paper to be read in a typical panel;

- a full panel of papers linked by theme or approach;

- a work-in-progress for detailed workshop feedback;

- a moderated discussion panel.

All participants are also welcome to volunteer as readers for works-in-progress seminars, which will involve pre-reading submitted papers and offering critical feedback during the conference.

Visit www.memberplanet.com/s/rmmra/rmmra2025submissions to submit a proposal.


Rocky Mountain Medieval & Renaissance Association

Kristin M.S. Bezio, President

Jessica Brown, Secretary

Samantha Dressel, Treasurer

Vincent Patarino, Membership Officer

Alani Hicks-Bartlet, Affiliations Officer & Associate Organization Rep.

Corinne Wieben, Communications Officer

Charles Smith, Registered Agent

CFP 2026 Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting (Amherst, MA 3/19-21/2026)

2026 Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting:

Consortiums and Confluences

Call for Papers

The 101st annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place on March 19–21, 2026 on the campuses of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst College, and will also include events at Mt. Holyoke College and Smith College. Hosted by the Five College Consortium, the theme of the meeting is “Consortiums and Confluences.” The program will bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds addressing the medieval world and critical topics in Medieval Studies. Our plenary lectures will be given by Elly Truitt (Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania), Peggy McCracken (Incoming President of the Medieval Academy of America and Professor of French, Women’s Studies, and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan), and Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco (Augustus R. Street Professor of Spanish & Portuguese and Comparative Literature at Yale University). We are excited to welcome you to Amherst, MA, and its environs, and look forward to meeting you, learning from you, and celebrating our shared commitment to Medieval Studies.

Click here for more information and the full Call for Papers.

NeMLA Sponsored Sessions March 2025

We are organizing the following sessions for the 56th Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association to be held in Philadelphia, 6-9 March. The full schedule is available online and registration is required to attend. 

Thursday, Mar 6 - Track 4 (02:15-04:15 PM)

4.12 Saving the Day for Medieval Studies: Using Comics for Teaching the Middle Ages (Roundtable)
Chair: Michael Torregrossa, Bristol Community College
Chair: Karen Casebier, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga
Location: 402 (Media Equipped)
Pedagogy & Professional & Cultural Studies and Media Studies

"The Medieval Comics Project: Ongoing Efforts to Expand the Field of Medieval Comics Scholarship" Michael Torregrossa, Bristol Community College

"From Borders to Panels: Integrating Comic Books into Medieval Studies Pedagogy" Rachael Warmington, Seton Hall University

"Reshaping Literary Canon: Graphic Novels as the Future of Classics" Derek Castle, University of New Hampshire

"Marvel 1602 and its Connection to the Scientific Enlightenment" Madison Cothern, University of Memphis

Sunday, Mar 9 - Track 22 (08:15-10:15 AM)

22.20 (Re)Animating the Middle Ages: Adapting the Medieval in Animated Media (Seminar)
Chair: Michael Torregrossa, Bristol Community College
Chair: Karen Casebier, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga
Location: 410 (Media Equipped)
Cultural Studies and Media Studies & Interdisciplinary Humanities

"Animating Marie de France : Emile Mercier’s Bisclavret (2011)" Karen Casebier, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga

"Possibilities and Pitfalls in Arthurian Animation: An Exploration of the Darkstalkers Series (1995)" Michael Torregrossa, Bristol Community College

"The Black Knight: Women “Passing” as Knights in Children’s Entertainment" Megan Arnott, Lakehead University

"Cartoon Saloon's Wild Women: Monstrous Genders in Irish Animated Medievalism" Colin Wheeler, Kennesaw State University

"A Modern Look at Late Medieval Religion and Literacy in Obsidian Entertainment’s Pentiment" Olivia Mathers, Lehigh University

"Heresy and Crusades: How Modern Fascists Appropriated the Medieval Aesthetics of Warhammer 40k" William Weiss, Independent Scholar

CFP Tolkien and War! - Tolkien at UVM Conference (2/2/2025; Hybrid 4/5/2025)

Tolkien at UVM Conference

deadline for submissions:
April 5, 2025

full name / name of organization:
The Tolkien at the University of Vermont Conference

contact email:
cvaccaro@uvm.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/10/31/tolkien-at-uvm-conference

Tolkien and War! is the theme of the 21st annual Tolkien at the University of Vermont conference on April 5th. This is a hybrid event!!

We are excited to have John Garth as our keynote speaker, and we are encouraging all abstracts but will give priority to those on the theme. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• War in Europe
• War in Middle-earth
• War and Tolkien's poetry
• Heroic battle poetry
• War and Tolkien's English
• War in the films/Tv shows
• Gender/Sexuality and War
• Psychology and War
• Religion and War

Please submit 200 word abstracts to cvaccaro@uvm.edu by Sunday February 2nd!


Last updated November 1, 2024

CFP Social Media and the Medieval - TSW Special Issue (2/28/2025)

Social Media and the Medieval - TSW Special Issue

deadline for submissions:
February 28, 2025

full name / name of organization:
The So What (Arthuriana's Public Humanities Project)

contact email:
thesowhatpub@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/12/02/social-media-and-the-medieval-tsw-special-issue

The So What welcomes proposals for short, public-facing pieces — whether critical, pedagogical, or creative — on social media accounts that engage with the medieval period for a special issue of TSW planned for on-line publication in 2025 or early 2026.



Whether it’s Instagram, Twitter (currently known as X), YouTube, TikTok, or other social media platforms, we’re interested in social media that engages with, or remediates, the medieval period on various subjects, including history, literature, manuscripts, animals, physical objects, etc. Some accounts may take a more straight forward, literal approach while others may utilize humor and parody. We are interested in pieces on any medieval-focused social media, with potential topics included, but not limited to:



- Intersections of social media and public humanities

- The role of social media within the digital humanities

- Social media and humor (obscure jokes, parody accounts, medieval camp, and more!)

- Social media’s role in academia

- Using social media in the classroom

- How social media does or does not expand the idea of the medieval beyond western Europe

- How social media reinforces and/or subverts periodization

- Intersection of social media and modern meme culture

- Critical readings of specific accounts and using medievalism to include or exclude

- Fama in the Internet Age

- Medieval (and Medievalist) Influencers



Full CFP also available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i-E14ByShGSq2TQYRLWa4-695xsHo8H5/edi...



Last updated December 5, 2024

CFP Spanning the Globe: Thinking across Geographies in Medieval and Medievalism Studies (1/22/2025 Medieval and Renaissance Forum, Kenne NH 3/28-29/2025)

45th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum: Spanning the Globe: Thinking across Geographies in Medieval and Medievalism Studies

deadline for submissions:
January 22, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Medieval and Renaissance Forum

contact email:
mpages@keene.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/01/02/45th-annual-medieval-and-renaissance-forum-spanning-the-globe-thinking-across. 

45th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum:

Spanning the Globe: Thinking across Geographies in Medieval and Medievalism Studies

Keene State College

Keene, NH, USA

Friday and Saturday March 28-29, 2025



Call for Papers and Sessions



We are delighted to announce that the 45th Medieval and Renaissance Forum will take place in person on Friday, March 28 and Saturday March 29, 2025 at Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire. This year's conference considers the Global Turn in all elements of our field—Medieval Studies, Renaissance/Early Modern Studies, Medievalism, and "Renaissance-ism." As always, we also welcome papers on any and every topic related to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance as well as papers on medievalism. We plan to hold the 45th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum in person with a limited number of virtual presentations.

We welcome abstracts (one page or less) from faculty, students, and independent scholars. If you are an undergraduate student, we ask that you obtain a faculty member's approval and sponsorship.



Graduate students are eligible for consideration for the South Wind Graduate Student Paper Award upon submission of their essays by March 1, 2025. The winner of the South Wind Graduate Student Paper Award will win $100 to be used for registration and/or travel expenses to the 46th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum (travel expenses including but not limited to transportation to and from the conference and accommodations while in Keene). The winner of the South Wind Graduate Student Paper Award will be announced at lunch on Friday, March 28, 2025.



Please submit abstracts and full contact information on the google form available at:



https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfmaw5chDsckRFiAhXQVDA61v6uznfNjwVaEVHXZ4MWQT1xgg/viewform?usp=dialog



This year’s keynote speaker is Angela Jane Weisl, Professor of English at Seton Hall University, who will speak about "Spanning the Globe: Getting Global in Medievalism and Medieval Studies"

Angela Jane Weisl is Professor of English at Seton Hall University. A scholar of both Medieval Studies and Medievalism, she is the author of Conquering the Reign of Femeny: Gender and Genre in Chaucer’s Romance, The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative Adventures in Contemporary Culture, and the co-author, with Tison Pugh, of Medievalisms: Making the Past in the Present. Her collection, Medievalisms in a Global Age, co-edited with Robert Squillace came out from Boydell and Brewer in 2024, and their co-authored project, tentatively titled Global Medievalisms and the Contest of Space, is under contract at Routledge. She is also the Executive in Charge of Presentations for the International Society for the Study of Medievalism. She played Mean Teacher and Zombie Chaucer in the Seton Hall University English Club Zombie Movie. From years of teaching History of the English Language, she is known around Seton Hall as the “Dr. of HEL.”

Abstract deadline: January 22, 2025



Presenters and early registration: March 15, 2025



As always, we look forward to greeting returning and first-time participants to Keene!




Last updated January 2, 2025

CFP ‘Getting Medieval’: Fantasy and the Middle Ages (2/3/2025; Spec Issue Messengers from the Stars)

Messengers from the Stars: On Science Fiction and Fantasy No. 8, 2025 [updated]

deadline for submissions:
February 3, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Messengers from the Stars

contact email:
mfts.journal@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2024/07/22/messengers-from-the-stars-on-science-fiction-and-fantasy-no-8-2025-updated

Messengers from the Stars is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal, offering academic articles, reviews, and providing an outlet for a wide range of creative work inspired by Science fiction and Fantasy. The 2025 issue will be dedicated to the following theme:

‘Getting Medieval’: Fantasy and the Middle Ages

Traditionally distinguished by the presence of supernatural or magical elements, otherworldly settings, epic quests and archetypal characters, Fantasy fiction has been an incredibly popular genre since its inception. Indeed, as highlighted by scholars like John Clute, much of world fiction “has been described, at one time or another, as fantasy” (337). Although Fantasy is sometimes perceived as a form of escapism and at other times as a legitimate fictional realm with its own internal logic, the influence of the Middle Ages has remained a constant element in the construction of Fantasy worlds. From the use of folklore, myths, medieval legends and sagas, different contemporary authors look to the past as a source of inspiration, adapting, transforming and rewriting narratives to not only suit contemporary tastes and ideals but also to mirror present-day anxieties and fears. The works of J. R. R. Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, Robin Hobb, Joe Abercrombie, Marion Zimmer Bradley or Juliet Marillier, among others, are good examples of how the Middle Ages have served to fire the imagination.

Bearing this in mind and acknowledging that Fantasy continues to expand and develop, offering a diverse array of narratives as well as endless possibilities for storytelling and creative exploration, in this number we are especially interested in how Fantasy fiction uses the medieval past to create storylines that resonate with contemporary audiences across geographic, linguistic, cultural and political boundaries. We consider Fantasy in broader terms, including literature, cinema, television, comics/graphic novels, video games, music, etc., and are especially interested in submissions that expand the fields of knowledge and landscapes represented in the journal.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Arthuriana in Fantasy;
• Female Agency in Medieval Fantasy;
• Fantasy and the Global Middle Ages;
• Heroism and Monstrosity in Fantasy;
• Medieval Emotions in the Fantasy Genre;
• Medieval Spaces and Places in Fantasy;
• Medievalism, Neomedievalism and Fantasy;
• (Mis)Perceptions of the “Medieval” and the “Middle Ages” in Works of Fantasy;
• Which Middle Ages is it? – Identity in Fantasy.

Submissions, between 4000 and 6000 words in English, must be sent to mfts.journal@gmail.com by February 3, 2025. The authors will be notified by the end of March, 2025.

In addition, you can propose a book or film review. We welcome book and film reviews on current science fiction and fantasy research and PhD dissertations. Reviews should be between 500 to 1,000 words. Longer reviews, e.g. dealing with more than one book, must be agreed upon with the Editorial Board.

Books available for review:

Kotsko, Adam. LATE STAR TREK: The Final Frontier in the Franchise Era. University of Minnesota Press, 2025. ISBN 978-1-5179-1910-8
Lapoujade, David. Worlds Built to Fall Apart: Versions of Philip K. Dick. Trans. by Erik Beranek. University of Minnesota Press, 2024. ISBN 978-1-5179-1461-5.

If you wish to review a title which is not in the list, then please email the Editors directly with your suggestion, as we do consider all requests for recent and forthcoming titles, especially from publishers already listed. If the book or film you wish to review is more than 3 years old, then you would need to demonstrate its significance to its field for it to be considered.

All submissions must follow the journal’s guidelines available here: https://messengersfromthestars.letras.ulisboa.pt/journal/submission-guid....


Last updated January 14, 2025

CFP Robin Hood and Other Social Bandits in Folk and Popular Culture (3/31/2025; IARHS Conference 6/26-27/2025 Hybrid)

Robin Hood and Other Social Bandits in Folk and Popular Culture

HYBRID biannual conference of

the International Association for Robin Hood Studies

26-27 June 2025

The Jagiellonian University, Cracow (Poland)

(and ONLINE)

source: https://robinhoodscholars.blogspot.com/2024/04/biennial-iarhs-conference-cfp.html

The Robin Hood tradition has inalienably been a part of popular culture and some of its elements undoubtedly come from folk culture. Already Robin Hood ballads or rhymes, as they are also called, represented popular culture. The idea of a social bandit or a bandit rebel, understood by Eric Hobsbawm as the one who “challenges the economic, social and political order” (Bandits 7), is related to social justice and injustice, which has always been present in folklore. Not only the medieval and later Robin Hood can be defined as a social bandit, but such outlaws as Janosik and Ondrašek, provincial as they are according to Hobsbawm (Bandits 47), fulfill the criteria for it. The two lived respectively in the Slovakian and Polish mountains in the 18th and 19th centuries and in the legends they opposed both aristocracy and the Hapsburg rule that stood behind this aristocracy. In Australia Ned Kelly has its admirers, who relate him both to the class conflicts of the 19th-century Australia and to the social wrongs that supposedly affect some Australians at present.

Both folk and popular cultures have been open to the concept of social ills that outlaws may oppose, or at least such are the legends about them.



The topics related to this may refer to literary texts, films, graphic novels, and all the other material that represents popular and folk culture. The topics may include, for example:

-outlaws that opposed social injustice: the legend and the historical background

-reworking old myths into those that cater for the current needs

-ideologies behind the idea of social justice in the texts of culture about outlaws

-the concept of the law and justice in outlaw narratives

-popular reworkings of old myths about social bandits

-nationalistic and racist uses of the outlaw myths



All other topics related to this are also welcome.



Please send your 200-word abstract by March 31, 2025 to Dr. Anna Czarnowus at:

annaczarnowus@op.pl.

CFP Medievalism in Theory / Medievalism in Politics (Studies in Medievalism 35; 6/1/2025)

Sharing on behalf of the editor:

CALL FOR PAPERS

STUDIES IN MEDIEVALISM XXXV

MEDIEVALISM IN THEORY

At one time or another, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and many other stars of late twentieth- or early twenty-first-century theory built at least a portion of their approach on medieval examples. Indeed, quite a few of those scholars, such as Umberto Eco and Hans Jauss, began their career as students of the Middle Ages. We are therefore invited to ask why medievalism played such a prominent role in these developments. Of all the possible past and/or imaginary milieux on which these approaches could have been built, why the Middle Ages? And to the degree that these scholars have referenced specific aspects of that era, why did they do so? What did those particular references bring to theory and how have they impacted its development? Moreover, how has that development commented on those references and perhaps on the Middle Ages as a whole, not to mention Medieval Studies and Medievalism Studies? How has it informed our understanding of what we study and what we do? Studies in Medievalism, a peer-reviewed print and on-line publication, is seeking not only feature articles of 6,000-12,000 words (including notes) on any postmedieval responses to the Middle Ages, but also 3,000-word essays that respond to one or more of these questions. Applicants are encouraged to give particular examples, but submissions, which should be sent in English and Word to Karl Fugelso at kfugelso@towson.edu by 1 June 2025, should also address the implications of those examples for the discipline as a whole. (Note that priority will be given to papers in the order they are received and submissions that have not been translated into fluent English will not be considered.)

MEDIEVALISM IN POLITICS

Owing to multiple inquiries inspired by current wars and/or forthcoming elections, a new short-essay section has been added to SIM 35. As noted in previous CFPs and their results for SIM 29-31, 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. Indeed, much of medievalism, not to mention the study of it, has revolved around politics of one kind or another. Thus, in addition to 3,000-word essays on medievalism “in theory” and to longer articles of 6,000-12,000 words on any postmedieval responses to the Middle Ages, Studies in Medievalism is seeking 3,000-word essays (including notes) on post-medieval ways the Middle Ages have been referenced for political gain. Applicants are encouraged to give particular examples, but submissions, which should be sent in English and Word to Karl Fugelso at kfugelso@towson.edu by 1 June 2025, should also address the implications of those examples for the discipline as a whole. (Note that priority will be given to papers in the order they are received and submissions that have not been translated into fluent English will not be considered.)