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

UPDATE - CFP Games of Medievalism - International Society for the Study of Medievalism Annual Conference (3/08/2024; New Jersey 07/09-11/2024)

Call for Papers: The Games of Medievalism

International Society for the Study of Medievalism Annual Conference

Montclair and South Orange, NJ, July 9-11, 2024

Abstracts are welcomed for the thirty-seventh annual conference of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, co-sponsored by Montclair State and Seton Hall Universities, located in northern New Jersey, 14 miles from New York City (accessible by public transit). Abstracts for in-person and virtual papers and panels are welcome. To propose a panel, please include all abstracts in a single file submitted by the organizer. This file should also include the names and contact information for all participants.  

Celebrating games and sport in this Olympic summer and considering the various kinds of play inherent in Medievalism, the conference will consider the discipline’s many layers. We will arrange local visits (as interest permits) for those participating in person: to the New Jersey branch of Medieval Times, the Yogi Berra Museum, the Montclair Art Museum, and/or The Cloisters branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Housing options will include low-cost single or double accommodations on the campus of Montclair State University (circa $50-60/night) and room blocks in local hotels. 

We welcome papers and presentations on all topics of Medievalism, not limited to the conference theme.  We enthusiastically welcome proposals from presenters in (or addressing topics related to) regions outside North American, Western Europe, and the Anglophone World.  

Keynote

“A ‘Carnival of Architecture’: Race, Place, and Play in Oblivion and the Elder Scrolls Franchise," Kevin and Brent Moberly, Old Dominion University and Indiana University

Suggested Topics

• Medievalism in Video Games
• Gaming the System (Medievalism in Geo-Politics, Economics)
• Medievalism in Sports and Sports Culture
• Games in Medieval Film
• The Interplay of Medieval and Modern
• Games in Medievalist Narratives
• Jousts, Tournaments, Bohorts
• Disguise, Cosplay, and Cross-Dressing
• Games of Chance, Gambling, and Tavern Pursuits
• Medievalism in Tabletop Games
• Poetry Competitions or Challenges
• The Play(s) of Medievalism
• Playing with Medieval Medicine and other Techniques in the Modern World
• Medievalist Musicals: Spamalot, Six, Pippin, Camelot, etc.
• Games in the Construction of Medievalism
• Medieval games in medievalist art or generative AI
• Medievalism as Game
• Chivalry, Courtesy, and other codes in Medievalism

Submission Instructions

Please submit your 200 to 250-word abstracts on the following Google Form by March 8 (date extended):

https://forms.gle/KCmquR8VungYzEoz9

Questions

Please contact conference organizers Elizabeth Emery and Angela Weisl:

gamesissm@gmail.com

CFP The Games of Medievalism (2/20/2024; ISSM 7/9-11/2024)

Source: https://sites.google.com/view/thegamesofmedievalism/home

Call for Papers: The Games of Medievalism

International Society for the Study of Medievalism Annual Conference

Montclair and South Orange, NJ, July 9-11, 2024


Abstracts are welcomed for the thirty-seventh annual conference of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, co-sponsored by Montclair State and Seton Hall Universities, located in northern New Jersey, 14 miles from New York City (accessible by public transit). Abstracts for in-person and virtual papers and panels are welcome. To propose a panel, please include all abstracts in a single file submitted by the organizer. This file should also include the names and contact information for all participants.


Celebrating games and sport in this Olympic summer and considering the various kinds of play inherent in Medievalism, the conference will consider the discipline’s many layers. We will arrange local visits (as interest permits) for those participating in person: to the New Jersey branch of Medieval Times, the Yogi Berra Museum, the Montclair Art Museum, and/or The Cloisters branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


Housing options will include low-cost single or double accommodations on the campus of Montclair State University (circa $50-60/night) and room blocks in local hotels.


We welcome papers and presentations on all topics of Medievalism, not limited to the conference theme. We enthusiastically welcome proposals from presenters in (or addressing topics related to) regions outside North American, Western Europe, and the Anglophone World.


Keynote

“A ‘Carnival of Architecture’: Race, Place, and Play in Oblivion and the Elder Scrolls Franchise," Kevin and Brent Moberly, Old Dominion University and Indiana University


Suggested Topics

• Medievalism in Video Games
• Gaming the System (Medievalism in Geo-Politics, Economics)
• Medievalism in Sports and Sports Culture
• Games in Medieval Film
• The Interplay of Medieval and Modern
• Games in Medievalist Narratives
• Jousts, Tournaments, Bohorts
• Disguise, Cosplay, and Cross-Dressing
• Games of Chance, Gambling, and Tavern Pursuits
• Medievalism in Tabletop Games
• Poetry Competitions or Challenges
• The Play(s) of Medievalism
• Playing with Medieval Medicine and other Techniques in the Modern World
• Medievalist Musicals: Spamalot, Six, Pippin, Camelot, etc.
• Games in the Construction of Medievalism
• Medieval games in medievalist art or generative AI
• Medievalism as Game
• Chivalry, Courtesy, and other codes in Medievalism

Submission Instructions

Please submit your 200 to 250-word abstracts on the following Google Form by February 20:

https://forms.gle/KCmquR8VungYzEoz9


Questions

Please contact conference organizers Elizabeth Emery and Angela Weisl:

gamesissm@gmail.com

CFP Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins II: Relics and Ruins in Re/Visions of Tolkien’s Larger Legendarium at NeMLA 2024 (9/30/2023; NeMLA 3/7-10/2024)

Posted on behalf of our advisory board members who have organized this session. Please support their work if you can.

Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins II: Relics and Ruins in Re/Visions of Tolkien’s Larger Legendarium at NeMLA 2024

deadline for submissions:
September 30, 2023

full name / name of organization:
Carl Sell and Nick Katsiadas / Slippery Rock University and University of Pittsburgh

contact email:
nicholas.katsiadas@sru.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2023/06/14/tolkien%E2%80%99s-medievalism-in-ruins-ii-relics-and-ruins-in-revisions-of-tolkien%E2%80%99s-larger

With the success of two panel sessions at the 2023 NeMLA Convention, we are happy to propose a “sequel” session on the theme of “Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins” in 2024. For all that may be said about the 2023 panels, one thing is certain: The panelists highlighted the important roles of relics and ruins within Tolkien’s essay “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. While we certainly covered much ground, there is a great deal left to explore, especially within The History of Middle-earth series, The Silmarillion, and the texts that Christopher Tolkien edited and published after his father’s death (The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, The Fall of Gondolin, The Fall of Númenor). We are concerned with including presentations about the larger legendarium, and we are equally concerned with opening this sequel session to the surplus of adaptations from Tolkien’s works, including: Peter Jackson’s adaptations, Rankin & Bass adaptations, Ralph Bakshi's adaptation, Amazon's The Rings of Power, video game adaptations, graphic representations, and revisions.

We are pleased once again to welcome proposals from a variety of theoretical approaches for the 2024 NeMLA Convention in Boston. Topics and texts about Tolkien’s legendarium may include, but are certainly not limited to, the following:

• Ruins or relics and trauma
• Ruins or relics and war
• Ruins or relics and nostalgia
• Ruins or relics and melancholy
• Ruins or relics and loss
• Ruins or relics and memory
• Ruins or relics and travel
• Ruins or relics and Medievalism
• Ruins or relics and Arthuriana
• Ruins or relics and Classicism
• Ruins or relics and Romanticism
• Ruins or relics in the First, Second, or Third ages of Middle-earth
• Ruins or relics in The History of Middle-earth series
• Relics and the Silmarils
• Relics and the Arkenstone
• Relics and the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin
• Relics and Bard’s Black Arrow
• Ruins or relics in adaptations of Tolkien
• Ruins and Tolkien's critical works
• Ruins of Golden Ages
• Ruins or relics in Middle-earth and their Literary History
• Ruins or relics of Abandoned cities, locations, and peoples

We seek 250 – 300 word abstracts for presentations across periods and nations that address topics related to relics or ruins in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Panelists should use the NeMLA conference website to submit abstracts, and abstracts should clearly delineate the presentation’s argument in relation to this theme. Once abstracts have been collected and accepted, the organizers will then confer and send acceptance letters. We ask that abstract submissions follow MLA format.

Those with inquiries may email Nick Katsiadas at Nicholas.katsiadas@sru.edu and Carl Sell at cscarlsell@gmail.com.



Last updated June 20, 2023

Sponsored Session NeMLA 2023: Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins

Details on our sponsored session for the upcoming meeting of the Northeast Modern Language Association in Niagra Falls, NY.

Registration information and the full schedule can be accessed at NeMLA's website from this link: https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html.

Friday

Mar 24 Track 9

01:15-02:45

9.15 Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins: The Function of Relics and Ruins in Middle-earth (Part 1)

Chair: Nick Katsiadas, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania

Chair: Carl Sell, University of Pittsburgh

Location: Olmstead / NCC (Media Equipped)

British & Comparative Literature

"As if It Never Were: Moria, Lothlorien, and the Temporality of the Old English Ruins Motif" Mary Kate Hurley, Ohio University

"Dead at the Mountain’s Feet: Blame and Vengeance in Dwarven and Human Ruins" Victoria Smurthwaite, Kutztown University

"Tolkien’s 'Many Dark Places': Monstrous Ruins in Old English and Norse Sagas" Morgan Hunter, University of South Florida & Kyra Lance, University of South Florida

"The Blade of the King: Tolkien, Arthur, and the Remnants of Kingship" Carl Sell, University of Pittsburgh

Friday

Mar 24 Track 10

03:00-04:30

10.15 Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins: The Function of Relics and Ruins in Middle-earth (Part 2)

Chair: Nick Katsiadas, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania

Chair: Carl Sell, University of Pittsburgh

Location: Olmstead / NCC (Media Equipped)

British & Comparative Literature

"Tolkien's Tower by the Sea" Angela Fulk, SUNY Buffalo State College

"'Too greedily and too deep': Decadence and the Ruins of Empire in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings" Sandra Leonard, Kutztown University

"‘Shall I always be left behind?’: Women’s Roles and Ruins Depicted in Tolkien and Wordsworth" Katie Poland, University of Alabama

"Romantic Nostalgia in Tolkien's Relics and Ruins: Longing for Aman, Gondolin, and Númenor" Nick Katsiadas, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania

New Book: The Wife of Bath: A Biography

 

An imminent release:

The Wife of Bath: A Biography

Marion Turner

Ordering information and further details from the publisher's website at https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691206028/the-wife-of-bath. Extras include a video trailer and preview (click the text marked "Look Inside") with the contents list, introduction, and index. 

Princeton University Press.

Hardcover Price: $29.95/£20.00. ISBN: 9780691206011. Pages: 336. Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in. 

Ebook Price: 30% off with code PUP30 - Sale Price: $20.97/£17.50; Price: $29.95/£25.00. ISBN:

9780691206028. 

Published: Jan 17, 2023

Illus: 14 color illus.

From the award-winning biographer of Chaucer, the story of his most popular and scandalous character, from the Middle Ages to #MeToo

Ever since her triumphant debut in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath, arguably the first ordinary and recognisably real woman in English literature, has obsessed readers—from Shakespeare to James Joyce, Voltaire to Pasolini, Dryden to Zadie Smith. Few literary characters have led such colourful lives or matched her influence or capacity for reinvention in poetry, drama, fiction, and film. In The Wife of Bath, Marion Turner tells the fascinating story of where Chaucer’s favourite character came from, how she related to real medieval women, and where her many travels have taken her since the fourteenth century, from Falstaff and Molly Bloom to #MeToo and Black Lives Matter.

A sexually active and funny working woman, the Wife of Bath, also known as Alison, talks explicitly about sexual pleasure. She is also a victim of domestic abuse who tells a story of rape and redemption. Formed from misogynist sources, she plays with stereotypes. Turner sets Alison’s fictional story alongside the lives of real medieval women—from a maid who travelled around Europe, abandoned her employer, and forged a new career in Rome to a duchess who married her fourth husband, a teenager, when she was sixty-five. Turner also tells the incredible story of Alison’s post-medieval life, from seventeenth-century ballads and Polish communist pop art to her reclamation by postcolonial Black British women writers.

Entertaining and enlightening, funny and provocative, The Wife of Bath is a one-of-a-kind history of a literary and feminist icon who continues to capture the imagination of readers.

Author:

Marion Turner is the J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford, where she is a Professorial Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. Her books include the prize-winning biography Chaucer: A European Life.

CFP Bodies and Borders: PKMS 2023 CFP (1/31/2023; online event 5/5/2023)

Bodies and Borders: PKMS 2023 CFP

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/09/14/bodies-and-borders-pkms-2023-cfp

deadline for submissions:
January 31, 2023

full name / name of organization:
Pearl Kibre Medieval Study

contact email:
medieval.study@gmail.com



What: Pearl Kibre Medieval Study 17th Annual Conference

Where: Online, hosted through The Graduate Center, CUNY
When: Friday 5 May 2023
Submission Form: https://forms.gle/4cUBLj9oXepsvwsV7

Jeffery Jerome Cohen argues in his introduction to Medieval Identity Machines that these systems of meaning making pull the “human outside of itself, breaking its self-contained organization to disaggregate the body into pieces more intimate with stars and planets than with each other” with a “pancosmic fluidity that mingles the human, animal, vegetal, and inorganic” (xvi). Recognizable medieval images like the zodiac man, the knight riding his horse, and the lovesick lovers are all identity machines, disrupting the stable borders of the body and giving medieval people the language and the models to imagine their bodies as extending beyond their physical form alone. The barber surgeon with his scalpel; the farrier and his horses; the woman in labor wrapped in a prayer scroll to St. Margaret - all of these people learned that their bodies were not limited by the boundary of their skin. What happens to the category of “the human” when these medieval systems of meaning-making decentralize the anthropocene and disrupt definitions of bodily integrity?

This conference is interested in exploring the limits, borders, and boundaries of the medieval body, broadly understood as both the physical body and larger structural understandings of medieval societies as bodies that rely on their component parts to survive. The concept of a “body” itself in a medieval context is a flexible one, encompassing not only an individual’s body but metaphors for social concepts and institutions, in which every member of society is associated with part of a larger whole. Concepts like the social body, the body of the nation, and the king’s two bodies are both comprehensive and limited, encompassing entire societies but also frequently excluding those outside their boundaries. We are interested in projects that explore these wider systems as well as the more granular system of natural bodies, both in their normal operations and in the ways they break down, confuse, and conflict.

Papers might address the following topics:

• Boundaries and limits of the human body
• Symbolic categories of “bodies”, both human and non-human
• Posthumanism, bestiaries, and the borders of the anthropocene
• Speculative fictions, both premodern (history plays, medieval political imaginaries) and modern (cyberpunk, afrofuturism, etc.) that imagine a social body
• Disability and prosthesis
• The body as imagined in medievalism vs. the medieval conception of the body
• Medical humanities and the history of medieval emotions (the borders of the body/mind)

Abstract Deadline: Jan 31 2023
Registration Deadline: April 5 2023


categories
gender studies and sexuality
graduate conferences
interdisciplinary
medieval
theory

Last updated November 7, 2022

CFP 2023 International Conference for the Study of Medievalism (8/15/2023; online 10/26-28/2023)

2023 International Conference for the Study of Medievalism

October 26-28, 2023
The UNICORN Castle
Submission Deadline: August 15, 2023

cfp at https://medievalisms.org/cfp-2023-international-conference-for-the-study-of-medievalism/

The 2023 conference will be hosted by The UNICORN Castle, a haunted museum, currently in the process of evolving into an online virtual environment. Most scholarly presentations will be conducted via Zoom technology; some of the entertainment and scholarly presentations (by request) will be conducted in a 3D environment created with Mozilla Hub.

 

Theme: The Medieval in Cyberspace

From Beowulf on Steorarume to contemporary novels (in e-text form), films, and video games: the medieval has been represented in digital form on the World Wide Web since the late 1990s. This conference invites proposals for papers, paper sessions, round tables, panels, and workshops that celebrate, rebuke, categorize, visualize, analyze, and/or prophesize all items that contain elements of the medieval to be found on the Internet. However, we invite papers and presentations on all topics of medievalism, not limited to this year’s conference theme. We particularly welcome proposals from presenters in (or addressing topics related to) regions outside North America, Western Europe, and the Anglophone world.

Topic Suggestions:

• Medieval Studies Online
• Medieval Pedagogy Online
• Medievalism and Online Politics
• Medievalism and Propaganda
• Medievalism and Religion Online
• Digital Facsimiles of the Medieval
• The Business Philosophy of Medievalism
• The Video Game Industry and Medievalism
• The Film Industry and Medievalism
• Fan Fiction and Medievalism
• Art and Medievalism
• Global Medievalism Online
• Cyberpunk Medievalism
• Medievalism and Racism Online
• Medievalism and Misogyny Online
• Medievalism and Ablism Online
• Medievalism and Homophobia/Transphobia Online
• Lost Provinces, or Lost and Found Medievalisms Online

Send proposals (abstracts of 250-300 words each) by August 15, 2023 to Carol L. Robinson at clrobins@kent.edu.

*This conference will be 100% online.

Coming Soon: Pavlinich's Erotic Medievalisms

Erotic Medievalisms: Medieval Pleasures Empowering Marginalized People

By Elan Justice Pavlinich
Copyright Year 2023
ISBN 9781032232058
January 31, 2023 Forthcoming by Routledge
208 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations

Full details and ordering information from Routledge are available at this link.

Book Description

Erotic medievalisms expose modern apparatuses of oppression, reclaim histories for marginalized people, and promote more inclusive representations in popular culture. Modern representations of the Middle Ages—including Santiago García and David Rubín’s graphic novel, Beowulf; Lil Nas X’s music video for "Montero (Call Me By Your Name);" Patience Agbabi’s retelling of Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale, entitled "The Kiss;" and some BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism) practices—challenge pervasive power structures that privilege heterosexual male dominance commonly associated with medieval origins in popular culture. This comparative study between medieval and modern texts foregrounds the sexual gratification of people who are typically excluded from representations of the Middle Ages, specifically women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Erotic displays of marginalized people in medieval contexts disrupt prevalent forms of oppression rooted in institutions that censor human experiences and they direct sexual desires towards social justice.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments


Foreplay: Eroticizing the Middle Ages


Grendel’s Cumming!: (Homoerotic) Horror in García and Rubín’s Beowulf


Ass-ention of the Black Power Bottom in Lil Nas X’s "Montero"


The Cunning Linguist of Agbabi’s "The Kiss"


BDSMedievalisms: Past, Power, Pain/Pleasure


Walk of Shame: The Conservative Assault on Sexual Liberties


Index

Author(s)

Biography

Elan Justice Pavlinich is a Byron K. Trippet Assistant Professor of English at Wabash College where he teaches medieval and early modern literatures and medievalisms. His publications include cognitive approaches to the Old English Boethius and feminist approaches to Disney’s medievalisms.

EVENT: Mythical Pasts, Fantasy Futures: The Middle Ages in Modern Visual Culture Symposium (9/8-9/2022)

Mythical Pasts, Fantasy Futures: The Middle Ages in Modern Visual Culture Symposium

ONLINE EVENTS: TALKS

Thursday, Friday, September 8 - September 9

ONLINE ONLY


Free


To attend the Day 1: September 8 keynote panel, register here.

To attend the Day 2: September 9 symposium, register here.

The visual and conceptual relationships between modern fantasy, popular culture, and the medieval era are a lively area of inquiry in a variety of cultural studies disciplines. They are also the focus of two current or upcoming exhibitions: The Fantasy of the Middle Ages (Getty Museum) and J. R. R. Tolkien: The Art of the Manuscript (Haggerty Museum of Art). This online symposium brings together an interdisciplinary group of academics and museum professionals to examine how the Middle Ages appear in the contemporary imagination, and how its aesthetics have inspired a wide variety of media.

Co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and the Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee.

Thursday, September 8, 2022
3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m. CT

Keynote Panel: This keynote panel features scholars of medieval and modern fantasy visual cultures and will explore current issues and debates in this growing field of research.

Panelists:
Roland Betancourt is professor of art history at the University of California, Irvine. In the 2016-2017 academic year, he was the Elizabeth and J. Richardson Dilworth Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Betancourt's work has looked at the role of Byzantine art in modern and contemporary art and popular culture, as in his edited volume Byzantium/Modernism: The Byzantine as Method in Modernity (Leiden: Brill, 2015). His first monograph Sight, Touch, and Imagination in Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) proposes a new understanding of theories of vision in the ancient Greek and Byzantine worlds by distancing sight from touch and placing a central focus on the workings of the imagination. He is also the author of a forthcoming book Byzantine Intersectionality on the intersection of race, sexuality, and gender identity in the medieval world, and another book on the recitation and performance of the Gospel in the Divine Liturgy, looking at relationships between words and images in manuscripts and in the space of the Byzantine church.

His research also covers contemporary concerns, including an interest in new media, online culture, and fandom (i.e. YouTube and YouTubers) as well as an ongoing book project on simulacral spaces and theme parks (i.e. Las Vegas and Disneyland).

Andrea Wolk Rager is a specialist in 19th-century British and European art, with a particular focus on the work of painter and decorative artist Edward Burne-Jones. Her research interests include Pre-Raphaelitism and Aestheticism in 19th-century Britain, the history of photography from the 19th century to the present, art and imperialism in the long 19th century, and the relationship between art, the environment, and eco-criticism from the 19th century to the present.

Dr. Wolk Rager’s publications include “‘Smite this Sleeping World Awake’: Edward Burne-Jones and The Legend of the Briar Rose,” which appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of the journal Victorian Studies, and the essay, “Purchasing Paradise: Nostalgic Longing and the Painter of Light™,” which appeared in the volume Thomas Kinkade: The Artist in the Mall (2011), edited by Alexis Boylan for Duke University Press. She has also published several reviews of recent publications on artists such as G. F. Watts and Walter Crane, as well as an extended consideration of the recent exhibition The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photography and Painting, 1848–1875 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) that will appear in the forthcoming issue of Victorian Literature and Culture.

Bryan C. Keene (Moderator) is an assistant professor of art history at Riverside City College and a former associate curator of manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. He specializes in Italian manuscript illumination and codex cultures of the global Middle Ages.


Friday, September 9, 2022
Symposium

9:00 a.m. PT / 11:00 a.m. CT
Introduction

9:30 a.m.–11:00 a.m. PT / 11:30–1:00 p.m. CT
Panel 1: The Stuff of Fantasy

• Alexandra Alvis, “The Idea of the ‘Medieval’ Book in Magic: The Gathering”
• Francesco Bernuzzi, “Heraldry and Fantasy Fiction”
• Kristine M. Larsen, “Images of the Alchemical Laboratorium in the Medievalist World of The Witcher”

Break (30 minutes)

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. PT / 1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. CT
Lightning Talks

• Angelica Verduci, “Frank Dicksee, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1902”
• Nadège Le Lan, “Stage set of Le Chevalier de Neige, opera by Georges Delerue and Boris Vian, 1957”
• Ryan Linkof, “Gone Berserk: Frank Frazetta and the Pulp Fantasy of the Super Barbarian”
• Susana Montañés-Lleras, “The Loom and the Fountain: Reading Edward Burne-Jones's The Garden Court”
• Dayanna Knight, “The Binding of Fenrir, Lokasenna stanza 38"

Break (30 minutes)

1:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m. PT / 3 p.m.–4:30 p.m. CT
Panel 2: Illuminating Identities

• Blair Agpar, “The Folly of the ‘Great Man Theory’ in Modern Medieval Media: Crusader Kings III”
• Elisabeth Buzay, "An Illuminated Bande Dessinée?: The Sumptuous (Neo)medievalist Art of Cyril Pedrosa and Roxanne Moreil’s L'âge d’or"
• Baylee E. Woodley, “What a Knight: Exploring the possibilities of anachronistic fantasy and cross-temporal drag"

Break (15 minutes)

2:45 p.m.–3:30 p.m. PT / 4:45 p.m.–5:30 p.m. CT
Concluding Discussion

CFP Special issue on Translation in and from the Middle Ages (10/31/2022)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Special issue on Translation in and from the Middle Ages

Posted on April 13, 2022 by Chris

Source: http://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/call-for-papers-special-issue-on-translation-in-and-from-the-middle-ages/


Medieval Studies is a particularly fruitful field of study, especially in combination with other areas, Translation Studies being no exception. Indeed, the combination of these two areas is of extreme importance, providing a better understanding of medieval texts, as well as a broader understanding of the meaning, value, and consequences of translation within this timeframe. Despite its importance, medieval translation remains poorly researched and promoted in academia. In an effort to fill this gap, submissions are invited for a special issue of the open-access journal, Translation Matters, on the subject of Translation in and from the Middle Ages.

We welcome articles dealing one of the following topics:

The phenomenon of translation during the Middle Ages:

• Theoretical articles exploring the concept of translatio in the Middle Ages, as well as the theory behind the practice of translation in the medieval period
• Case studies dealing with the translation or transmission of different texts, genres or concepts between two or more medieval vernaculars or between Latin (or another lingua franca or lingua sacra) and a vernacular
• Medieval matters and cycles involving translational processes

The translation of medieval texts into contemporary languages:

• Theoretical articles exploring methodologies, strategies and problems of the translation of medieval texts into contemporary languages
• Case studies on the translation of specific texts or concepts
• Contemporary reception and neo-medievalism: theory and practices.

Articles, in English or in Portuguese, should be 6000-8000 words in length, including references and footnotes, and be formatted in accordance with the guidelines given on the journal’s website. Papers should be uploaded onto the site by 31st October 2022. http://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/tm/index.

CFP “Re-new-al: connecting culture and history, past and present” (4/15/2022; MMLA 2022 Permanent Session: Old and Middle English Language and Literature)

“Re-new-al: connecting culture and history, past and present” MMLA 2022 Permanent Session: Old and Middle English Language and Literature

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/03/04/%E2%80%9Cre-new-al-connecting-culture-and-history-past-and-present%E2%80%9D-mmla-2022-permanent

deadline for submissions:
April 15, 2022

full name / name of organization:
Midwest Modern Language Association

contact email:
kathleen.burt@mga.edu



“Re-new-al: connecting culture and history, past and present”

MMLA 2022 Permanent Session: Old and Middle English Language and Literature



The general conference theme “post-now” presents some very current and relevant possibilities for the study of late antique and medieval English languages and literatures. Any proposal that considers this theme in general will be welcome, but two foci will be of particular interest.

Firstly, the medieval is a common element in many modern public cultural discussions in general with varying degrees of historical accuracy and/or understanding. Discussions of medievalisms in any form and how the past is related to the present, either in historical accuracy or perception, or exploration of any intersections between the shifting understandings, uses, adaptations, and appropriations of the medieval past and our present now, are encouraged. The focus might be political, historical, ethnic or racial, cultural, linguistic, artistic or visual, literary, pop culture, etc..

Second, perception and definition of self and other in times of change is a current scholarly concern addressing medieval eras in many places, including England and Europe. Definition and perception of self or other could include individual or collective identity according to language, geography, nationality, gender, race, etc., especially in response to challenge or shift in identity or identifier. As above, the focus might be political, historical, ethnic or racial, cultural, linguistic, artistic or visual, literary, etc.



Please send abstracts of approximately 350 words, along with a cv or brief biographical statement, to Dr. Kathleen Burt at katheen.burt@mga.edu by no later than April 15, 2022.



Last updated March 8, 2022

CFP Performing Medievalism (3/31/2022)

CFP Performing Medievalism

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2022/03/08/cfp-performing-medievalism

deadline for submissions: March 31, 2022

full name / name of organization: Ellie Chadwick & Ollie Jones, University of Bristol and University of York, UK

contact email: oliver.jones@york.ac.uk

DEADLINE EXTENDED -- CFP: Performing Medievalism: Tricks, Tips and Tropes from Early Artistic Practice for the Modern-Day Performer

The residual influence of the medieval is visible in today’s performance practice in various ways, yet this inheritance is perhaps not valued as highly as it might be, and oftentimes goes entirely unnoticed. Although there has been a soaring in popularity of medievalesque fantasy films and television shows such as The Witcher or Game of Thrones in recent years, as well as a renewal of interest in historical fiction based in the medieval period with television shows such as The Vikings and The White Queen, there are still significant gaps in the understanding and appreciation of the multiple ways in which the medieval has residual impact on creative performance practices today. What associations do the words ‘medieval’ and ‘Middle Ages’ trigger for those working within a performance context? How are performers currently engaging with the medieval, whether purposefully or subconsciously? What might enhanced knowledge of medieval influences offer performers today in practical terms?



This volume seeks to illuminate the extensive and diverse ways in which the medieval interweaves with, and provides inspiration to, the modern in a wide variety of performance practice, by providing both critical and artistic analysis of the varying forms of medievalism in today’s theatre, dance, music, or television/film performances, as well as practical direction for modern-day performers looking to actively engage with early performance materials (in music, theatre, dance, etc) or to incorporate early tropes and structures into the creation of new medievally-inspired work. This is not limited to working with medieval themes or historical stories but also includes styles of storytelling which hearken back to early forms; many theatre techniques that are becoming popular again today have their roots in the early theatre of the medieval period, from audience participation and immersion to non-linear theatre experiences, as well as genre-busting combinations of theatre with installation, experimental technologies, and performance art.



The volume invites contributors to actively engage with current creative ideas and artistic practices that relate to or are inspired by the medieval, whether through detailing specific projects, offering tips for modern performers and practitioners when engaging with medieval texts, or commenting on recent performances that draw on medieval tropes or utilise medieval materials. It interrogates the ways in which performers and performance practices variously approach the medieval today: as obscure or primitive, as interesting but distant oddity, or as a worthy and relevant source of inspiration and creative material. It offers a critical appraisal that challenges, provokes, and disrupts ideas around the medieval-as-primitive and the modern-as-innovative, offering both scholarly and practitioner perspectives to provide a useful and in-depth look at the way in which the medieval resurfaces in performance practices of all kinds today.



Offerings on music, theatre, storytelling, dance or any artistic performance practice are welcome, for critical and scholarly articles of 8,000-10,000 words in length, documentations of performer training/approaches of 4,000-8,000 words (e.g., interviews, performance reviews, documentation of artistic processes), and shorter pieces of 1,500-3,000 words (e.g., artist’s notes). (These word count ranges are inclusive of notes and references.)



Contributions may address, but are not limited to:

• The medieval in modern storytelling e.g. medieval tropes and how they’re utilised;
• “Artist’s notes” style essays on own medievally-rooted artistic projects;
• Skill and training of medieval performers;
• Approaching medieval materials: tips for actors/musicians/dancers;
• Approaching contemporary artistic performance practices (acting, storytelling, dancing, performing music etc) via a medieval lens;
• Analysis of acting/performances of medieval historical fiction in television, theatre, film;
• Tracing medievalisms in the performance of modern fantasy characters;
• Intersectional feminist perspectives on medieval performance practice;
• Critical appraisement of modern performances of medieval plays/music/stories/other material (e.g. Chester Mystery Plays, Sheffield Mysteries, Everyman (NT), Lincoln Mystery Plays);
• Material culture and medieval performance practice;
• Medieval performance and the archive (e.g. analysis of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection’s Medieval Players archive; York Mystery Plays archive; Poculi Ludique Societas (https://pls.artsci.utoronto.ca/); performances associated with REED-NE (Durham); analysis of personal archives relating to own artistic practice; etc).

Please send abstracts of up to 400 words along with a short (c. 100 word) biography to Ellie Chadwick and Ollie Jones at e.chadwick@bristol.ac.uk and oliver.jones@york.ac.uk. Deadline: 31st March 2022.




Last updated March 8, 2022

CFP Modern Iberian (Neo)Medievalisms in Postcolonial Contexts and Diaspora (9/15/21; ICoMS 5/9-14/2022)

 From the ISSM listserv:

CFP: Modern Iberian (Neo)Medievalisms in Postcolonial Contexts and Diaspora

57th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo

May 9-14, 2022 (Virtual)

Sponsored by La corónica: A Journal of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures & Cultures

This panel welcomes papers from scholars working on the use and transformation of the medieval past in a variety of contexts in the Hispano- and Lusophone worlds beyond Iberia, from Latin America and the Philippines to the Sephardic and morisco diasporas in the Mediterranean and beyond.

Submissions due by September 15th:

https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call 

Contact: Rebecca De Souza, University of Oxford

rebecca.desouza@hertford.ox.ac.uk  

Best wishes,

Rebecca

___

Rebecca De Souza

DPhil Candidate in Spanish

Hertford College, the University of Oxford

rebecca.desouza@hertford.ox.ac.uk

CFP Sponsored Sessions for MAPACA 2021 (7/15/21; 11/21-23/21)

Medieval in Popular Culture Sponsored Sessions for MAPACA 2021

Panels to run under the Medieval & Renaissance Area

2021 Annual Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association

Virtual Event, 10-13 November 2021



The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture seeks paper proposals related to the following three topics for inclusion in the Medieval & Renaissance Area sessions at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association.

• Medievalisms on Screen (films, television, electronic games, Internet culture, etc.)
• Magic in Medievalism: White Wizards, Wicked Witches & Racialized Sorcerers
• Recalling the Middle Ages: Nostalgia, Relics, Ruins in Medievalisms

Proposals are due by 15 July 2021. Please send your proposal and contact information to the organizers at medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com. Presenters must also create an account with MAPACA and submit their proposals and biographies into their online conference system at https://mapaca.net/conference; be sure to select Medieval & Renaissance for your submission.



More details on the sponsoring organization at https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.

CFP Global Medievalism Conference (4/11/21; Brazil virtual 4/28-30/21)

From the ISSM listserv:

Call for Papers

GLOBAL MEDIEVALISM: culture, appropriations and reinventions

From Q-Shaman's tattoos to Game of Thrones' resounding success, the medieval is undoubtedly the order of the day. With this popularity, the need to understand the origins of these many representations of the Middle Ages, their mistakes, interests, inspirations and objectives, is also reinforced. The field of study of medievalism is currently the fastest growing within medieval studies around the world. In Brazil, it could not be different: over the past 5 years, we have seen more and more academic and dissemination works focused on the reception of the medieval and an increasing interest in the subject.


Organized by GEHM (Grupo de História Medieval-Unimontes) and by the Estate University of Montes Claros, Brazil, this conference was conceived in dialogue with professors and researchers from different countries and institutions, aiming to put the Brazilian public in direct contact with the international academic debates in medievalism studies.


The conference is accepting papers, and entire sessions, submitted in Portuguese, English or Spanish. The selected works will, later, be considered for a digital peer-reviewed publication. Submissions are open until April 11, 2021.

This is a 100% online conference to reduce foreign interaction costs and per the precautionary measures recommended by WHO concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.


For more information, please see the website: https://en.globalmedievalism.com/.


Proposal:

• Each participant may submit up to 2 papers.
• Proposals for entire sessions can include a maximum of up to 6 people divided into two tables of 3.
• Papers in Portuguese, English and Spanish will be accepted. The themes of the proposals must include medievalisms, neo-medievalisms or medieval reception. Papers that work with representations and memories of the medieval period and the history of historiography about the period are also welcome.
• In addition to the abstract (maximum of 500 words), it is possible, but not mandatory, to send the full text upon registration. This can assist in the evaluation of the proposal.
• A revised version of the full text may be sent from April 30 to September 30, 2021, to compose the e-book of the event's proceedings.
• For proposals for a complete session, the abstract must (in up to 600 words) describe the theme as a whole, as well as clearly identify what each proponent will talk about.

Evaluation:

• The evaluation, acceptance, or elimination of submission are the conference's Scientific Council's responsibility through a double-blind reviewing process.

General Observations:

• The certificate of presentation will be issued only to presenters who were not absent during the entire panel in which they participated.
• The result will be published on the website until April 25, 2021

Notice MAA 2021 Conference (4/15-18/21)

 Just came across this as well.

The program and registration information have been posted for the following event:

96th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America

Indiana University Bloomington

15-18 April 2021

Further details at the conference website. Most of the events are said to be remote. 

I see a number of papers/sessions on medievalism and some devoted to pedagogy and professionalism. 

 

CFP CEMERS Conference 2021: Medieval Cultural Heritage Around the Globe (5/15/21; Binghamton/remote 10/22-23/21)

Just discovered this over the weekend. It is a very interesting theme for a conference.

Originally posted at https://www.binghamton.edu/cemers/conference/index.html.

2021 CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS:
Medieval Cultural Heritage Around the Globe:
Monuments, Literature, and the Arts, Then and Now

BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY (IN PERSON AND ONLINE) – OCTOBER 22–23, 2021

The field of cultural heritage has experienced a great increase in scholarly and media attention in recent years. Events such as the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials have made evident how controversial cultural heritage can be, and the central role it plays in defining communal identities at all levels, from small villages to multi-state entities, such as colonial empires or, more recently, the United States and the European Union. This interdisciplinary conference, hosted by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMERS) at Binghamton University will explore cultural heritage, broadly conceived, as it relates to the global Middle Ages (ca. 500 – ca. 1500). Topics will range from medieval approaches to the cultural heritage inherited or claimed by medieval societies, to the transformation of medieval heritage through the centuries, to the yearning for medieval times that has inspired, in the modern era, the architecture of university campuses, the rebuilding of Japanese castles to assert communal identity, and the revival of traditional crafts and performing arts, among others.

This conference aims to bring together scholars from a range of backgrounds whose work sheds important new light on our relationship with the medieval past. We hope to foster conversations across traditional disciplinary and geographic boundaries about the definitions, cultural significance, and use of cultural heritage in disparate parts of the medieval and modern worlds. How does examining conceptions and problems related to cultural heritage inform our understanding of medieval cultures? How does modern engagement with the medieval past shape debates about power, identity and belonging? What determines how heritage is defined and what merits preservation? What is the state of medieval heritage today?

We invite papers from a variety of disciplinary and methodological perspectives on any topic related to cultural heritage and the Middle Ages, including:

• Medieval heritage and identity in the early modern and modern worlds
• Trafficking in and questions surrounding the restitution of cultural artifacts
• Heritage across borders and global diasporas
• Cultural heritage sites connected to legends, literature, and theater
• Pilgrimage and tourism
• Issues of representation and exclusion
• UNESCO and the handling of medieval cultural heritage
• Literature and film tourism at heritage sites
• Violence, atrocity, and difficult heritage
• Heritage-making and cultural appropriation
• Heritage and communities
• Cultural heritage in the digital world

Click here to view event poster

We are planning for an on-site hybrid conference in Binghamton incorporating both face-to-face meetings and virtual options. We will be monitoring the situation around COVID-19 throughout the conference planning process. More information will be shared in the summer.
Deadline: May 15, 2021

Abstracts for individual papers and sessions are invited. We encourage scholars working in different disciplines to organize panels together. Papers should be 20 minutes in length.
Send abstracts and CVs to cemers@binghamton.edu. Please indicate whether you are interested in coming to Binghamton or plan to participate remotely.

Contact Roberta Strippoli for more information.

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

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

Submissions by 30 June 2020

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

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


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

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



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

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

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

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

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

Medieval Monsters Now (Papers Session MAPACA 2020)

Submissions by 30 June 2020

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

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



Medieval Monsters Now (Papers Session)

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



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

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

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

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