CFP Time and the Outlaw (Hybrid) (9/26/2025; Leeds IMC 2026)

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


Leeds International Medieval Congress 2026

6th-9th July 2026, University of Leeds, UK

Call for Papers



The theme of Leeds International Medieval Congress will be ‘Temporalities’

On the official ‘Call for Papers’ webpage, this is described as follows:

‘Diverse notions of the passage of time affected medieval people’s political decisions, economic exchanges, and production of objects and artefacts. Medieval people manipulated time to reflect their gender roles, narrative strategies, views on human ageing, shifts in ethnic or social groups, or changes in public and private spaces.

Modern concepts of medieval time are bound up with our own understanding and (ab)use of medieval temporalities. Whether we construct images of a ‘Dark Age’, or imagine a romantic time of chivalry and knighthood, these projections into the past reflect our own temporal outlooks and how today we organise ‘medieval time’ in a variety of ways that address modern diverse political or cultural agendas, which lie at the heart of our debate on medievalism.’



IARHS session proposal is ‘Time and the Outlaw’


Outlaw stories are like time travellers: they exist in their own time and seemingly outside time. Some of their elements remain fixed and unchanging whilst others are a product of negotiation between the tellers and their audiences, according to the needs of their present situations and ideological perspectives. They exist in a variety of media and in many different genres.

This session, therefore, examines outlaws and their stories through time: what they have been, what they are now, and what they may become. How have they been presented and how has that presentation changed, how might they be presented in the future – and why? Are outlaw stories simply ephemeral wish fulfilment, or do they really matter? What was their function in the past, what is it now, and what might it be in the future?

Outlaw heroes are not necessarily ‘different’ from other people – they frequently begin their stories living unremarkable lives in an everyday world – but their qualities are super-charged by their natural empathy and ability reacting to adverse circumstances created by (‘evil’) others. Their subsequent actions become the subject of myth, legend and popular culture. They speak truth to and about power in every age.

Medieval commentators regarded stories (such as those of Robin Hood) as either mindless diversions that did neither harm nor good, or as carriers of important socio-cultural messages that could be either supportive or subversive of hegemonic practices and beliefs. The outlaw’s relevance in and through time, to whom and why, is still a major subject of academic study and of interest to wider audiences.



We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on this topic. Some suitable Congress suggestions are: Medieval perceptions of time, temporality, and their modern interpretations; People in time; Time as an agent of change; Temporality in political, economic, and socio-cultural relations; Time, memory, and commemoration; Time, nature, and the environment; Medieval temporalities in film, media, digital technology, and Artificial Intelligence; Artistic representations of time and temporality; Medieval temporalities in literature, music, performing arts, and folklore; Medievalism and medieval temporalities; The future of the Middle Ages.

This is a limited list, but proposals on any aspect of time and outlaws/outlaw stories, in any or many media, medieval, post-medieval, modern or future are welcomed.

The session/s will be hybrid, so distance need not be a limitation.



To submit before the Congress deadline, proposals need to be made by midnight on Friday 26th September. There will be a waiting list in operation after that weekend.

Please send your proposal to the session organiser, Dr Lesley Coote, at coote081@gmail.com

Proposals need to be accompanied by a working title, speaker name and designation, and a contact address.

CFP Remembering the Middle Ages: Memories of the Medieval Across Time and Space (Roundtable) (Hybrid) (9/15/2025; ICMS Kalamazoo/Online 5/14-16/2026)

Remembering the Middle Ages: Memories of the Medieval Across Time and Space (Roundtable) (Hybrid)

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), Thursday, 14 May, through Saturday, 16 May, 2026

Co-sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, International Arthurian Society-North American Branch, International Association for Robin Hood Studies

Co-organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College; Siân Echard, University of British Columbia; and Alexander L. Kaufman, Ball State University

Heather Arden has argued that medievalisms manifest as the “survival, revival, or re-creation” of some aspect of the Middle Ages. As such, while they are linked to a particular period of history, medievalisms are not necessarily bound to a specific time or place. The medieval may continue or be brought back within its original location or be reset in distant lands and, even, on other worlds. As Umberto Eco has noted, “people like the Middle Ages,” and, at the most basic level, each of these manifestations illustrates the ongoing appeal of the medieval. More importantly, however, they also display the continued importance of how the era is viewed–both positively and negatively–and shape a unique relationship with those who restore and/or participate within them.

In this co-sponsored session, we seek to ally scholars of popular culture and medievalisms along with those who study the legendary traditions of the Matter of Britain and the Matter of the Greenwood to share new and neglected works that highlight the many ways we remember the Middle Ages and have restored it to life. 

Please post paper submissions into the Confex site using the direct link https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7245.    

Do send any questions to the organizers at medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com.  Submissions are due no later than 15 September 2025.

Please be aware that those accepted to the panel must register for the conference in order to present. Past registration costs can be viewed at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration. The International Congress on Medieval Studies does offer limited funding as travel awards and subsidized registration costs; details are available at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.   

For more information about the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, do check out our website Mass Mediævalisms: The Middle Ages of Popular Culture: https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/. 

For more information about the International Arthurian Society/North American Branch, do check out our website at https://www.international-arthurian-society-nab.org/ and consider becoming a member of our organization.

For more information about the International Association for Robin Hood Studies, do check out our website Robin Hood Scholars: IARHS on the Web: https://robinhoodscholars.blogspot.com/. 

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

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

Sharing on behalf of the organizers:

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.

CFP Ecomedieval Robin Hood (virtual) (9/15/2023; ICMS 5/9-11/2024)

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

Ecomedieval Robin Hood (virtual)

Sponsoring Organization: International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS)

Organizer: Anna Czarnowus




ECOMEDIEVAL ROBIN HOOD at ICMS in Kalamazoo (May 9–11, 2024)- AN ONLINE SESSION


Even though the Robin Hood tradition is identified as medieval, most of the texts are post-medieval, hence medievalist. These are often situated against the background of natural environment, and thus Valerie Johnson coined the term “ecomedievalism” for “the application of ecocriticism to neomedieval texts.” Therefore, discussion of neomedievalist texts of popular culture, such as films and TV series about Robin Hood that relate more to the times when they were made than to the Middle Ages, is particularly welcome. The Robin Hood tradition contains different interpretations of the environment, such as the myth of unspoiled nature, but also nature as dangerous, with apocalypse as something imminent. This session invites such ecocritical readings of various neomedievalist outlaw texts that represent nature or the relationship of nature to culture. You can focus, for example, on:

• RH and greenwood in various cultural periods
• the culture/nature divide
• apocalyptic visions of RH narrative

Please send your abstract to: annaczarnowus@tlen.pl by September 15, 2023, but an official proposal can only be made and accepted through the (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi).

CFP Robin Hood and Other Outlaws for Kalamazoo 2024 (deadline 9/15/2023)

Reposted from the IARHS listserv:

IARHS Sponsored Sessions at the ICMS, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA, May 9-11, 2024

1. ECOMEDIEVAL ROBIN HOOD

Even though the Robin Hood tradition is identified as medieval, most of the texts are post-medieval, hence medievalist. These are often situated against the background of natural environment, and thus Valerie Johnson coined the term “ecomedievalism” for “the application of ecocriticism to neomedieval texts.” Therefore, discussion of neomedievalist texts of popular culture, such as films and TV series about Robin Hood that relate more to the times when they were made than to the Middle Ages, is particularly welcome. The Robin Hood tradition contains different interpretations of the environment, such as the myth of unspoiled nature, but also nature as dangerous, with apocalypse as something imminent. This session invites such ecocritical readings of various neomedievalist outlaw texts that represent nature or the relationship of nature to culture. You can focus, for example, on:

• RH and greenwood in various cultural period
• the culture/nature divide
• apocalyptic versions of RH narrative

2. OUTLAW ENVIRONMENTS

A popular saying has it that “Robin Hood in greenwood stood” and a similar phenomenon can be found in other outlaw texts and traditions. Such outlaws as Fouke le Fitz Waryn, Twm Shon Catty, or the Slovak Janosik all functioned in a specific natural environment. It needs to be examined how important this background was for their respective legends. The landscape was presented as a romanticized version of nature or as wilderness that went well with what was believed to be the outlaws’ “natural” brutality and violence. This tradition is important to examine as it is present in various countries, not only English-speaking. We can suggest, among others, the following topics:

• outlaws against romanticized landscape
• violence of outlaws/wildness of nature
• the specificity of the landscape against which an outlaw is presented
• nature (e.g. its beauty) and nationalism in outlaw legends

Please send your abstract to: annaczarnowus@tlen.pl, but an official proposal can only be made and accepted through (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi). The deadline for proposals is Sept. 15, 2023.

Last Call CFP: IARHS Robin Hood/Outlaw Sessions for Kalamazoo 2023 (deadline 9/15/2022)

From the IARHS listserv:

(Note that the listserv stripped the emails from the message. Refer to the Congress site for that information,)


We are approaching the deadline of 15 September 2022 to submit paper proposals for the ICMS in Kalamazoo, 11-13 May 2023. The IARHS has a formal paper session and a roundtable approved, and both will be held virtually. Please see below for their descriptions. All proposals must be submitted to the ICMS's Confex system.



Best wishes,
Alex Kaufman

(1) The Mutable Ideologies of the Robin Hood Tradition (Session of Papers)

Contact: Anna Czarnowus

Modality: Virtual

Robin Hood narratives, whether literary or other media (cf. film), have always contained embedded ideologies. From social hierarchies of the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 18th-century nostalgic Anglo-Saxonism (taken up again in Romanticism, Victorianism, and Modernism) to contemporary American designations, the Robin Hood tradition hosts conflicting ideological perspectives. These conflicts ensure the tradition is diverse, and interpretations of the story reproduce that diversity. Exploring the origins and implications of these perspectives is key to scholarly analysis of the trans-temporal and increasingly global Robin Hood tradition.

The Robin Hood tradition has never been objective or ideologically naïve: alongside their undeniable entertainment value, the narratives served to bolster, create, or attack ideological perspectives. Yet diverse interpretations of the story coexist with each other, and apparently mutually exclusive interpretations of the tradition can enhance its popularity. This panel seeks papers that explore these ideological perspectives across media, whether the traditional late medieval / early modern ballads, novels, performances, art, music, and modern film. How are ideologies of the past still relevant within medieval and post-medieval Robin Hood texts? How do post-medieval ideologies contribute to or problematize the tradition?

Please send a 250-word abstract by 15 September 2022 to the email and simultaneously submit it to the Confex system for the ICMS: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi. Proposals must be uploaded to the Confex system for consideration.

(2) Robin Hood Fantasies: Beyond Realism and Verisimilitude (A Roundtable)

Contact: Alexander L. Kaufman
Modality: Virtual
For audiences of Robin Hood texts, there is a tendency to describe the tradition as grounded in realism. This roundtable seeks papers that explore how the medieval and post-medieval Robin Hood tradition negotiates the reality of outlawry and the historical contexts associated with the outlaw, alongside tropes that belong to genres such as speculative fiction, fantasy, science fiction, fairy tales, and contemporary romance in literature and media. Have we fully moved toward an un-real Robin Hood, and if so, what are the implications? In focusing on the fantastical, this panel seeks to interrogate the value of fiction as fiction.

The Robin Hood tradition has been connected in some manner with a historical reality, and some scholars continue to seek the “real” that is within literary texts or historical records. This panel further seeks to underscore how the histories that are a part of Robin Hood texts are themselves fictive, literary representations of a history, historical event, or figure. We should begin to consider how Robin Hood literary and media texts belong to the broad genre of fantasy and its numerous sub- and adjacent-genres.

Please send a 250-word abstract by 15 September 2022 to  and simultaneously submit it to the Confex system for the ICMS: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi. Proposals must be uploaded to the Confex system for consideration.

CFP Outlaw Bodies Updated Deadline (6/26/2022; SEMA Birmingham 11/10-12/2022)

Updated deadline:

Dear IARHS Members,


SEMA has extended its deadline for abstracts. Please see below and contact Sherron Lux if you'd like to propose a paper in a session that the IARHS sponsors for the conference.


Best wishes,
Alex Kaufman





International Association for Robin Hood Studies

Call for Papers

2022 Conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association

10-12 November in Birmingham, Alabama

Robin Hood and other medieval outlaws of fact and fiction engage in a variety of physical endeavors: archery, swordsmanship, wrestling, quarterstaff, hunting, even cross-dressing; they also pursue and escape (or seek to escape). When they fail to escape, their bodies may be tortured or killed in some manner. Living or dead, their bodies may also be objects, the subject of the gaze.

In keeping with the 2022 conference theme of the Southeastern Medieval Association (SEMA), “The Body and the Human,” the International Association for Robin Hood Studies invites paper proposals for two sessions titled “Outlaw Bodies.” SEMA 2022 will be in-person in Birmingham, Alabama, 10-12 November. Please send a 150- to 250-word abstract or proposal on any aspect of medieval outlaw bodies – historical, fictional, dramatized, filmed, etc. – to Sherron Lux at sherron_lux@yahoo.com by Sunday, 26 June 2022, with any technology requests.



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CFP Outlaw Bodies (6/1/2022; SEMA, Birmingham, AL, 11/10-12/2022)

CFP: Outlaw Bodies, SEMA, 10-12 Nov. 2022

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/04/25/cfp-outlaw-bodies-sema-10-12-nov-2022

deadline for submissions:
June 1, 2022

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

contact email:
sherron_lux@yahoo.com



International Association for Robin Hood Studies

Call for Papers

2022 Conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association

10-12 November in Birmingham, Alabama

Robin Hood and other medieval outlaws of fact and fiction engage in a variety of physical endeavors: archery, swordsmanship, wrestling, quarterstaff, hunting, even cross-dressing; they also pursue and escape (or seek to escape). When they fail to escape, their bodies may be tortured or killed in some manner. Living or dead, their bodies may also be objects, the subject of the gaze.

In keeping with the 2022 conference theme of the Southeastern Medieval Association (SEMA), “The Body and the Human,” the International Association of Robin Hood Studies invites paper proposals for two sessions titled “Outlaw Bodies.” SEMA 2022 will be in-person in Birmingham, Alabama, 10-12 November. Please send a 150- to 250-word abstract or proposal on any aspect of medieval outlaw bodies – historical, fictional, dramatized, filmed, etc. – to Sherron Lux at sherron_lux@yahoo.com by Wednesday, June 1, 2022, with any technology requests.



Last updated April 26, 2022

CFP Playing Robin Hood: Theatricality in the Robin Hood Tradition (9/1/21; ICoM 5/9-14/2022)

On behalf of Dr. Lorraine K. Stock:


CFP: 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, MI, USA, which will take place FULLY VIRTUALLY from 9th May to 14th May 2022.

PLAYING ROBIN HOOD: THEATRICALITY IN THE ROBIN HOOD TRADITION

This session is sponsored by the International Association for Robin Hood Studies.

From its inception, the Robin Hood tradition has incorporated aspects of the theatrical, including: early plays about Robin Hood performed at May games, Whitsun ales, and Robin Hood Revels; Early Modern drama about the outlaw; 18th-19th-century sung broadside ballads, Christmas plays, and operas; modern dramatic pieces; staged depictions of the outlaw in 19th-20th-century operas, pantomimes, burlesques; even 20th-21st-century films (watched in theaters) that employ elements of music and stagecraft. This session seeks 3-4 papers that explore any aspect(s) of how the theatrical has been employed to deliver the Robin Hood tradition to audiences.

The abstract should be 250 words. Indicate whether there will be supporting visuals.

Please send the abstract for your proposed paper by 1st September 2021 to

Lorraine K. Stock

University of Houston

lstock@uh.edu

CFP Neomedievalist Images and the Robin Hood Tradition (9/1/21; ICoM 5/9-14/2022)

 On behalf of Dr. Anna Czarnowus:

CFP: 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, MI, USA, which will take place FULLY VIRTUALLY from 9th May to 14th May 2022.

NEOMEDIEVALIST IMAGES AND THE ROBIN HOOD TRADITION

This is a session sponsored by the International Association for Robin Hood Studies.

Neomedievalism is understood as ideas or concepts that are detached from the historical Middle Ages, but are nonetheless seen as of medieval origin. The Robin Hood tradition has long inspired neomedievalist imagery: for example, the idea that medieval outlaws protected women and children. Such images are not confirmed by history or the literary Robin Hood texts. Neomedievalist ideas inspired by the Robin Hood tradition can be found in film, children’s literature, and other media. We seek paper proposals that address the question of how the medieval is reworked in such imagery and images.

The abstract should be in 250 words.

Please send the abstract for your paper proposal by 1st September 2021 to Dr. Anna Czarnowus at: annaczarnowus@tlen.pl

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CFP Outlaws, Boundaries and Borders (9/20/19; Leeds 2020)

From the Robin Hood list:

The IARHS are seeking papers for up to two sessions at the Leeds IMC in July next year.  The overall theme for this Congress is ‘Borders’, and our sessions will be entitled ‘Outlaws, Boundaries and Borders’.

Outlaws traverse, transcend and transgress borders of many kinds: geographical, societal, political and ideological.  Their stories have been continually popular since the Middle Ages, crossing boundaries between the literary and the oral (spoken and sung), word and image, verbal and physical performance.  Some, such as the tales of Robin Hood, have had international, multilingual appeal and influence.  Outlaw tales have appeared in a wide variety of media, never more so than in modern times, with the advent of film, gaming and other forms of digital technology. As the general Congress call for papers puts it:

‘Borders are associated with power and the formation of states, definitions of self and other, violence and military engagement, belonging and becoming, material and symbolic construction, relational and perspectival production of space, mapping and discourse, experience and theory, to negotiation and performance. Borders occur in frescoes, textiles, clothing, ceramics or coins, with practical, symbolic or aesthetic functions. Borders are also subject to evolution and significant change over time not just between the medieval and modern, but also within the medieval period.’

Themes given include:

• Political and military borders
• Living in border zones
• Medieval and Modern perceptions, descriptions, and conceptualizations of borders
• Delimiting borders, border markers
• Border maintenance
• Encountering and experiencing borders
• Bordering practices
• Borderscapes in the longue durée
• Symbolic borders
• Belonging and exclusion
• Mapping borders and border zones
• Border institutions
• Materiality of borders
• Border and power
• Migration
• Medieval imagery of borders
• Transnationalism
• Political, social, cultural, religious performance of borders
• Village and parish boundaries
• Boundaries between town and countryside and within towns
• Practices of delimitation
• Blurring boundaries such as human/animal, animate/inanimate, gender, age, status, religion
• Self and other, boundaries of the self
• Fluidity and fixity of borders
• Borders in manuscripts
• Material and visual borders
• Processual and performative turns and medieval borders
• Disciplinary boundaries
• Paratexts as borders
• Borders of the body
• Transcending and reaffirming boundaries between life and death
• Borders, boundaries, frontiers

 

If you would like to offer a paper for a session on ‘Outlaws, Boundaries and Borders’, please send your proposal, including the paper’s title and an abstract of 100-200 words, together with your preferred contact address and email, to Dr Lesley Coote (L.A.Coote@hull.ac.uk) by September 20th 2019 (at the very latest).  Although we especially welcome papers on medieval outlaws, papers may focus on any historical period from the medieval to the modern, and on any national culture.

CFP Ludic Outlaw: Medievalism, Games, Sport, and Play (9/15/19; Kalamazoo 2020)

CFP: “The Ludic Outlaw: Medievalism, Games, Sport, and Play”

Roundtable sponsored by the International Association for Robin Hood Studies

International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS), Kalamazoo 2020
   

Cross-platform video games are now so popular as to constitute a financial threat to Netflix and other digital content services. One feature of many of these games is the ludic outlaw figure—found, for example, in the 2016 multiplayer Overwatch—that works to resist oppression within the game world. Because they signify popular definitions of justice and communal welfare, modern digital outlaws frequently evoke medieval outlaw representations, such as Robin Hood. In what specific ways do enduring medieval outlaw tropes function as model responses to oppression in modern games?


This roundtable session seeks 10- to 15-minute papers that interrogate the role(s) of any outlaw figure that fights for popular interests in games. Though particular attention will be given to papers that include an examination of a digital ludic outlaw, submissions concerned with tabletop games, live action role-playing games, and others will be considered. Analyses of the ways in which ludic outlaw figures are poised as responses to the dominant narrative within gaming culture are especially welcome.



Please send your 250-word abstract, Participant Information Form (https://wmich.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/u434/2019/medieval-pif-2020.pdf), and brief bio to Gayle Fallon at lfallo1@lsu.edu by September 15, 2019.

CFP Reassessing the Matter of the Greenwood (9/15/19; Kalamazoo 2020)

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Reassessing the Matter of the Greenwood”

Sponsored Session of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS)

International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 7-10, 2020


Historian Maurice Keen’s study The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, first published in 1961, remains a significant contribution to outlaw studies. After noticing a number of shared themes, motifs, and styles in medieval outlaw narratives, Keen argued for a new fourth “matter” to join those of Britain, France, and Troy: the greenwood. It is time for a reassessment of his contribution. What are the significant characteristics of a text needed to classify it as a greenwood matter? Can medieval outlaw works exist as hybrid matters? How can we account for matters of the greenwood outside of medieval Western Europe? The papers in this session will examine verse and prose literary texts from the Middle Ages, and scholars are encouraged to think critically about genre and generic markers, the transmission of texts into various literary, cultural, and historical environments, and how shared textual characteristics formulate traditions.



Please send 250-word abstracts and a completed Participant Information Form (PIF) by September 15, 2019, to Alex Kaufman: alkaufman@bsu.edu.



PIF form can be found here: https://wmich.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/u434/2019/medieval-pif-2020.docx

CFP International Association for Robin Hood Studies (9/15/18; Kalamazoo ICMS 2019)

A notice from the Robin Hood Scholars Google Group. Please consider submitting a proposal, if you can:

A reminder that the International Association for Robin Hood Studies is sponsoring three sessions at the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo (ICMS 2019), 9-12 May 2019. The session themes are: "Rhetoric of Resistance," "Social Bandits," and "Animal Crime."


The organizers of these three sessions are still accepting abstracts and PIFs for consideration.


See below for details and contact information about each session.


CFP: ICMS 2019 "Rhetoric of Resistance"

Though banished from society for real or alleged crimes, the deeds of outlaws are celebrated in popular narratives and ballads. Marginalized figures, they exist on the fringes of civilization in an adversarial relationship with the representatives of the law. In this session, we will address the political status of the Green Wood as a rhetorical concept of "safe harbor," a refuge for the displaced, the ostracized, and the dispossessed. We welcome papers on medieval narratives and ballads of such celebrated outlaws as Robin Hood, Hereward, Eustace the Monk, and Fouke Fitz Waryn, among others, and aim to address the ethical, political, and ecological issues raised by the rhetoric of this body of medieval literature. Collectively, the session and its participants will consider how outlaw rhetoric comments upon the justice system and its representatives, thereby formulating a medieval rhetoric of resistance.


This is a paper session (15-20 minute papers) for the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo. Please send abstracts (150-250 words) and a completed PIF form (see links below) to Lydia Kertz at lydia[dot]kertz@gmail.com with a subject line "Rhetoric of Resistance" by September 15th, 2018.


CFP: ICMS 2019 “Social Bandits”

The idea of the social bandit, aka the good thief or the noble robber, reaches back millennia and is found around the globe. The social bandit, whether an individual or a group, historical or fictional, is seen by a segment of a society as protecting and assisting them. Even an historical social bandit may develop into myth or legend, and the legend lives and changes long after the originator is dead. The legend of a fictional social bandit likewise shifts over time; as Brian Alderson states that while many years ago he wrote that “’Every generation gets the Robin Hood that it deserves,’” he now believes that, “Every generation surely creates for itself the Robin Hood that it needs” (Forward to Kevin Carpenter’s 1995 Robin Hood: The Many Faces of that Celebrated English Outlaw, p. 9). This could be said not only of Robin Hood but of all fictional and even historical social bandits who are perceived as robbing the rich to help the poor in some way or other.


This session seeks 15- to 20-minute papers on any aspect of the social bandit, with special consideration given to papers focusing on the medieval and early modern periods. It is also worth remembering that one person’s social bandit is another’s common criminal; consider the viewpoint of the Sheriff of Nottingham, for example, or other antagonists, as well as that of people kindly disposed towards the outlaw.


Please send a short proposal and completed PIF form (see links below) to Sherron Lux at sherron_lux@yahoo.com BY noon (Central Time) on Wednesday 12 September 2018.


CFP: ICMS 2019 “Animal Crime”

Outlaws and outlawry are commonly associated with the human; yet, throughout the medieval period, animals were both the subject of crime, as when they were stolen, maimed, or killed, and its perpetrator; for example, the sow and piglets put on trial for murder for killing a 5-year old boy in Savigny, France in 1457. Documented legal trials from a variety of cultures featuring pigs, goats, horses, dogs and cows suggest that medieval understandings of the moral agency, ethics, and politics of outlaws and outlawry was decidedly not simply a human affair, but extended to our animal counterparts. Papers might consider the historically-documented or literary or textual (re)imagining of a trial or set of trials featuring an animal or animals; how animals interact with outlaw humans; the moral agency of animals on trial; the ethics of putting animals on trial; the ethics of outlawing animals; how animals can be constructed as outlaws philosophically, legally, or by other means, how and where animals appear in laws, the treatment of animal outlaws, animal exiles, and similar.


Send abstracts and a completed PIF form (see links below) to Dr. Melissa Ridley Elmes at MElmes@lindenwood.edu by 15 September, 2018.


2019 Medieval Congress Participant Information Form (PIF):
https://www.wmich.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/u434/2018/medieval-2019-pif.pdf
or see https://www.wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions for a form in Microsoft Word.

CFP Robin Hood at Kalamazoo (updated deadline 9/10/17)

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

We are extending the deadline to September 10 for IARHS abstracts for the 2018 ICMS in Kalamazoo, May 10-13.

We have two sessions that have been approved by the Congress. Both could use at least one more abstract. Please see below for descriptions of the two sessions and who to contact with abstracts and queries.

Best wishes,
Alex Kaufman

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS) is sponsoring two sessions at the 53^rd International Congress on Medieval Studies. Please see below for session details and submission information.

  1. Multicultural, Multimedia Outlaws (Session of Papers)

The outlaw figure is a universal cross-cultural phenomenon. This session solicits papers that analyze adaptations of narratives about outlaws, whether literary or historical, male or female, from any period (medieval through contemporary), in any medium (ballad, saga, drama, novel, young adult fiction, films, television, comic books, opera, music, to name a few) from any location (Britain, Europe, America(s), Australia, Asia, ranging from the Merry Men to Icelandic outlaws, Ned Kelly, Pancho Villa, and Moll Flanders.

Please send 300-word abstracts, a brief bios, and completed Participant Information Forms to Lorraine Kochanske Stock (lstock@uh.edu) by September 1, 2017.

  2. Oral Tactics of Medieval Outlaw Literature (Session of Papers)

This formal session of papers explores the modes of writing and of performance (and their interconnectedness) that exist within medieval outlaw tales. From the The Outlaw’s Song of Trailbaston to the late-medieval rhymes, plays, games, and “talkings” of Robin Hood, medieval outlaw tales are, like the medieval lyric, ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational works or literature. This session, inspired by Ingrid Nelson’s recent study Lyric Tactics, explores the ways in which the religious, societal, political, and manuscript contexts inform the genre, form, vernacular language, semantics, and voice of a medieval outlaw tale. 
 

Please send 300-word abstracts, a brief bios, and completed Participant Information Forms to Lesley Coote (L.A.Coote@hull.ac.uk) and Alexander L. Kaufman (akaufman@aum.edu) by September 1, 2017.

Here is a link to the ICMS’s Participant Information Form:

http://www.wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions

 

 

CFP International Association for Robin Hood Studies for Kalamazoo 2018 (9/1/17)

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies has also posted their calls for papers for the 2018 Medieval Congress. Session details are as follows:

 1. Multicultural, Multimedia Outlaws (Session of Papers)

The outlaw figure is a universal cross-cultural phenomenon. This session solicits papers that analyze adaptations of narratives about outlaws, whether literary or historical, male or female, from any period (medieval through contemporary), in any medium (ballad, saga, drama, novel, young adult fiction, films, television, comic books, opera, music, to name a few) from any location (Britain, Europe, America(s), Australia, Asia, ranging from the Merry Men to Icelandic outlaws, Ned Kelly, Pancho Villa, and Moll Flanders.

Please send 300-word abstracts, a brief bios, and completed Participant Information Forms to Lorraine Kochanske Stock (lstock@uh.edu) by September 1, 2017.






  2. Oral Tactics of Medieval Outlaw Literature (Session of Papers)

This formal session of papers explores the modes of writing and of performance (and their interconnectedness) that exist within medieval outlaw tales. From the The Outlaw’s Song of Trailbaston to the late-medieval rhymes, plays, games, and “talkings” of Robin Hood, medieval outlaw tales are, like the medieval lyric, ad hoc, improvisatory, and situational works or literature. This session, inspired by Ingrid Nelson’s recent study Lyric Tactics, explores the ways in which the religious, societal, political, and manuscript contexts inform the genre, form, vernacular language, semantics, and voice of a medieval outlaw tale.

Please send 300-word abstracts, a brief bios, and completed Participant Information Forms to Lesley Coote (L.A.Coote@hull.ac.uk) and Alexander L. Kaufman (akaufman@aum.edu) by September 1, 2017.


Here is a link to the ICMS’s Participant Information Form:
http://www.wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions