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.

Our NeMLA 2021 Sessions

Details on our sponsored sessions this weekend. Apologies for the delay in posting. 

The 52nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association

Virtual event, 11-14 March 2021

Full details at http://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/VirtualConvention-page.html.

 

Saturday, Mar 13 (Track 22): 09:00-10:15           

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

Chair: Michael Torregrossa, Independent Scholar

Chair: Carl Sell, Lock Haven University

Pedagogy & Professional & Cultural Studies and Media Studies

"The Perverted Anglo-Saxon: White Nationalism in the Medieval Classroom"

Maggie Hawkins, New York University

"Medievalisms in the Medieval Literature Classroom, Or Attempts to Do Everything in One Semester"

Kara McShane, Ursinus College

"The Historical Novel. A Genre, Trespassing a Science-Literature Border?"

Paul Csillag, Universität Innsbruck

 

Saturday, Mar 13 (Track 23): 10:30-12:00           

23.42 Uncharted Medievalisms: Revealing the Medieval in Popular Fiction and Games

Chair: Michael Torregrossa, Independent Scholar

Cultural Studies and Media Studies & Comparative Literature

"Queer Roleplaying Impulses: Building Neomedieval Narratives in Dungeons & Dragons"

Lars Johnson, Cornell University

"Wizard Male Privilege: A Literary History of Misogyny and Gendered Magic"

Richard Fahey, University of Notre Dame

"These Are Fighting Words: Challenging and Perpetuating the Status Quo"

Rachael Warmington, Seton Hall University

"Arthurian Figures in the 41st Millennium: The Emperor and Roboute Guilliman in Warhammer 40,000"

Carl Sell, Lock Haven University

CFP 36th International Conference on Medievalism (6/30/21; virtual 11/4-6/21)

Just came across this on Richard Utz's blog. Sorry, it's not in text. 

(Update 4/5/21, an official site has now been set up for the conference. Check it out at https://medievalism.net/conference/.)

CFP Biennial Conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies (10/1/21; virtual 12/3-5/21)

Cross-posted from the IARHS List

GLOBAL OUTLAWS:

The Biennial Conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies

Tentative Date: 3-5 December 2021.                                           

Medium: VIRTUAL

Deadline for Proposals: 11 October 2021 

 

Call for Papers

 

Every country, every timespace, every culture has its outlaws, and each tells its own stories about them, in a variety of different genres and socio-cultural forms.  As outlaw studies in general can be both a wide and a narrow field, we will consider any submission on any area of outlaw studies. Papers may present some aspect/s of outlaw culture in general, or Robin Hood/other outlaws in particular, from any period or any geographic or cultural background, in any media or literary format/genre. We encourage that submissions be classified using the following headings: 

 

Society (including economics, law and crime); Literary culture (including documents and books) and Theory; Geography and Place; Play (including music and performance) and Leisure; Gender and Sexuality; Politics and political history; Cinematic and Digital Culture and Theory; Weapons, War and Fighting; Fantasy culture and Theory; Art, Archaeology and the Visual; Mystery, Superstition and Religion; Race and Ethnicity; Other Robin Hoods.

 

In response to the extraordinary events of 2020 and the continuance of a really difficult situation into 2021, this year’s conference will be an online event.  It will be co-hosted by Dr Lesley Coote (University of Hull, UK) and Dr Steve Basdeo (The American International University of Richmond, Leeds UK).  

 

Please submit a single document by 11 October 2021, containing: 

1. a brief (100 word) presenter biography, and 

2. a brief abstract of 250 words, including proposed title and topic heading/s, as above. 

 

Address proposals to both Dr. Lesley Coote FHEA, Fellow of the University of Hull (coote081@gmail.com) and Dr. Stephen Basdeo, FHEA, Richmond: The American International University (stephen.basdeo@outlook.com).

 

In the tradition of Robin Hood himself, and of other Robin Hoods, we expect the conference to be a free event.  If there should be a cost, we would expect this to be minimal.    

 Any enquiries please get in touch with us, Lesley and Steve

Hope to see as many there as possible... we will try to manage timelines as well as we can, so that everyone can take part.  

CFP Medievalism Area at PCA Conference (2/28/21; virtual 6/2-5/2021)

cross-posted



PCA/ACA 2021 National Conference

June 2nd – 5th – PCA has gone virtual!!



The Medievalism in Popular Culture Area (including Early to Later Middle Ages, Robin Hood, Arthurian, Chaucer, Norse, and other materials connected to medieval studies) accepts papers on all topics that explore either popular culture during the Middle Ages or transcribe some aspect of the Middle Ages into the popular culture of later periods. These representations can occur in any genre, including film, television, novels, graphic novels, gaming, advertising, art, etc. For this year’s conference, I would like to encourage submissions on some of the following topics:


· Medievalism and Intersectionality
· The Arthurian World
· Medievalism in Advertising
· “Medieval” as a social and political signifier
· Medievalism in Television (e.g., The Spanish Princess, Miracle Workers: Dark Ages, etc.)
· Robin Hood
· Medievalism and Teaching (especially remote/distance education strategies)
· Chaucer (The Cachoeira Tales, etc.)
· Board Games (e.g., Coup, Carcassone, etc.)/Online Gaming and/or Cosplay
· Anglo-Saxon or Viking Representations in Popular Culture
· Medievalism in Novels/Short Stories/Poems/Graphic Novels

If your topic idea does not fit into any of these categories, please feel free to submit your proposal as well. I would like to encourage as much participation as possible, and depending on submissions, I may rearrange the topic groupings.

All papers will be included in sessions with four presenters each, so plan to present on your topic for no more than 15 minutes, inclusive of any audio or visual materials.

Panel submissions are also welcome on any topic of medievalism. If you would like to propose a panel, please submit your complete panel to me directly at cfrancis@bloomu.edu. Individual papers will then have to be submitted to the PCA online system (see below).



Submission requirements:



Please submit a title and a 250 word abstract to http://conference.pcaaca.org. All submissions must be directed to the online database.

Deadline for submission: February 28, 2021.



If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Christina Francis, Associate Professor of English, Bloomsburg University, at cfrancis@bloomu.edu.

CFP Essays for Neo-medievalism Media in the New Millennium (2/28/2021)

 Last call for proposals:

Call for Abstracts - Essays for Neo-medievalism Media in the New Millennium

deadline for submissions: 

February 28, 2021

full name / name of organization: 

Nicholas Diak

contact email: 

vnvdiak@gmail.com

Call for Proposals: Essays for Neo-medievalism Media in the New Millennium

Introduction

The critical and commercial success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy ushered in a new era of fantasy-medieval and historic-medieval texts in the new Millennium. These neo-medieval texts were not restricted to the big screen, but in true transmedia fashion, exploded on the small screen, in video games, comics, and a variety of other medias as the genre became popular and hence, lucrative. Nearly twenty years later, depictions of the medieval period, be it authentic or moored in fantasy, remain a dominate component in the greater pop culture, with shows like Game of Thrones, video games like Skyrim, many fantasy-medieval books, young adult comics, and the like.

With neo-medieval texts enjoying heightened popularity, it invites an academic gaze to unearth their importance. What is it about these texts that makes them fascinating, especially considering that they are rooted in the distant past as compared to the new Millennium we are living in? What are the different approaches we can take to make sense of these films, shows, books, etc. which in turn can be used to understand not just our present world, but the future we are going into?

This anthology is looking for shorter-form essays (2.5k – 4k words in length) that aim to explore fantasy-medieval and historic medieval films, television shows, comics, video games, literature, and other works that add and expand the genre’s canon. The result would an anthology of 22-28 essays that touch upon a variety of texts with a plethora of academic lenses and approaches, grouped together to support a series of wider topics under the neo-medievalism banner.

Potential Essay Topics

The following is a list of possible (but not comprehensive) topics that contributors could submit on:

Auteur theory on filmmakers and their medieval films/TV shows (e.g. Neil Marshall, Guy Ritchie, Uwe Boll, etc.)
Adaptations of the Matter of Britain
Adaptations/portrayal of historic figures (Robert the Bruce, Robin Hood, Marco Polo, etc.)
Adaptations of fairy tales, stories, and myths
Adaptations of video games (In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale [2007] (and its sequels), Warcraft [2016])
Blending medieval with other genres, such as horror (The Head Hunter [2018]) or sci-fi (Transformers: The Last Knight [2017])
Close readings of specific texts
Colonialism
Covid-19 and plague texts (A Plague Tale: Innocence [2019 video game], The Last Witch Hunter [2015], Black Death [2010]) 
Currency/economics in medieval video games (Skyrim, The Witcher, Final Fantasy) compared to current economic anxieties
Fan and fandom studies
Gender studies
History of the portrayal of medieval times from the past to the present
Intersectionality
Intertextual analysis
Medieval monsters as metaphors
Monomyth/heroes journey
Non-Occidental medieval films:
    Indian neo-peplum films: Baahubali: The Beginning (2015), Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017), and Veeram (2016 film)
    Late-era Mesoamerica films: Apocalypto (2006)
    Russian medieval films: Furious (2017)
    Chinese historic epics: Hero (2002), Genghis Khan (2018), House of Flying Daggers (2004)
    Adaptations of One Thousand and One Nights
Portrayals of religions and nationalities (Vikings, Saxons, etc.)
Portrayals of bodies (such body builders and muscular heroes)
Race portrayals (example: white characters in Eastern settings such as The Great Wall [2016])
Semiotic analysis
Surveillance/panopticon in scrying magic: Lord of the Rings films
Temporal texts (time traveling): medieval in modern times or modern times in medieval
Torture porn genre in movies with medieval torture scenes: Red Riding Hood (2011)
Vernacular film theory
And others

List of Media Texts

Below is a list of media titles (from films, TV, comics, games, etc.) that could potentially fit into the neo-medieval formula. This list is by no means complete, but it is presented to give title examples that fit within this genre and to inspire creative ideas on topics to write about. The below list contains titles that are historic-medieval, fantasy-medieval, and medieval combined with other genres.

Films

Black Death (2010)
Dragonheart: A New Beginning (2000)
Dragonheart 3: The Sorcerer's Curse (2015)
Dragonheart: Battle for the Heartfire (2017)
Dragonheart: Vengeance (2020)
The Head Hunter (2018)
The Hobbit trilogy (2012-214)
The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016)
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Last Knights (2015)
The Last Witch Hunter (2015)
Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003)
Maleficent (2014)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Robin Hood (2010)
Robin Hood (2018)
Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

Television

Britannia (2018-present)
Cursed (2020)
Deus Salve o Rei (2018)
Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
The Hollow Crown (2012, 2016)
Knightfall (2017-2019)
The Last Kingdom (2015-present)
The Letter for the King (2020)
Marco Polo (2014)
Miracle Workers (season 2)
The Name of the Rose (2019)
Robin Hood (BBC) (2006-2009)
The Witcher (2019-present)

Literature

Ascendance Series (Nielsen)
Codex Alera (Butcher)
The Kingkiller Chronicle (Rothfuss)
Ranger’s Apprentice (Flanagan)
Sabbath (Mamatas)
Sands of Arawiya series (Faizal)
A Song of Fire and Ice series (Martin)
Throne of Glass series (Maas)
The Witcher series (Sapkowski)
The Wrath & the Dawn (Ahdieh)

Comics

Berserker Unbound (Dark Horse)
Birthright (Image)
Cursed (Simon & Schuster)
A Game of Thrones (Dynamite)
Lady Castle (Boom!)
Nimona (web comic)
Northlanders (Vertigo)
The Witcher (Dark Horse comics)

Video games

Assassin’s Creed series
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare (2012)
Crusader Kings series
The Cursed Crusade (2011)
Fable series
The First Templar (2011)
Game of Thrones (2012)
Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series (2014-2015)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018)
A Plague Tale: Innocence (2019)
Stronghold series
The Witcher series from CD Projekt Red

Music

Dungeon synth music
Adventure/power metal bands like Blind Guardian and Keep of Kalessin

Again, the above list is not comprehensive, but to illustrate a general idea of titles from different media that could fit into this essay collection.

Project Timetable

This anthology has not yet procured a contract, but will be submitted for consideration to Peter Lang Publishing to be part of the Genre Fiction and Film Companions series. The following a proposed timetable to realize this project:

February 28, 2021 – Deadline for abstract submissions
March 7, 2021 – Notification of acceptance
March 14, 2021 – Submission of preliminary table of contents to Peter Lang Publishing for consideration for their Genre Fiction and Film Companions series
    If rejected, submit to alternative publisher, repeat process
    If accepted, distribute style guide to authors
+ Five months after publisher acceptance – Chapter drafts are due
+ Four months – Chapter revisions are due
+ One month – Submission of manuscript to publisher

Drafts and revisions are strongly encouraged to be submitted before the deadlines.

Abstract Submission Information

Please submit your abstract(s) of roughly 500 words along with your academic CV/resume and preliminary bibliography to the email address below before February 28, 2021. Please use an appropriate subject line when submitting – have it contain the phrase “medieval submission.” I will confirm each submission via email within 72 hours. I will also accept multiple abstract submissions.

This CFP is open to all academics and scholars. Underrepresented scholars researching this genre are greatly encouraged to submit.

Nicholas Diak, editor

Email: vnvdiak@gmail.com
Website: http://www.nickdiak.com

Nicholas Diak is a pop culture scholar of neo-peplum and sword and sandal films, industrial music, synthwave, exploitation films Italian genre cinema, and H. P. Lovecraft studies. He is the editor of The New Peplum: Essays on Sword and Sandal Films and Television Programs Since the 1990s (McFarland, 2018) and the co-editor of Horror Literature from Gothic to Post-Modern: Critical Essays (McFarland, 2020). Along with Michele Brittany, he co-created and co-chairs the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference and co-hosts the H. P. Lovecast Podcast. He has contributed articles, essays, and reviews to numerous journals, academic anthologies, magazines, and websites.

Last updated October 28, 2020
This CFP has been viewed 227 times.

Conferences Update February 2021

Some updates on upcoming conferences:

The program for the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies is now available online. The event, usually held at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, is virtual this May and runs from Monday, May 10, through Saturday, May 15, 2021. Further details on the conference home page. 

On a related note. the Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University has been postponed again. The event hopes to resume in 2022. Further details on the cancelation were posted on the event's main page. 

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

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

Submissions by 30 June 2020

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

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


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

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



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

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

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

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

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

Medieval Monsters Now (Papers Session MAPACA 2020)

Submissions by 30 June 2020

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

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



Medieval Monsters Now (Papers Session)

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



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

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

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

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

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

Of potential interest:

New Journal: New Chaucer Studies, Pedagogy and Profession.

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


deadline for submissions:
September 1, 2020


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


contact email:
ncs.pedagogyandprofession@gmail.com




New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession CFP

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

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

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



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

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

Note the possibility of a virtual event/sessions.

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

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

Official site: https://impossiblepastimes.org/

deadline for submissions:
August 15, 2020


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


contact email:
kmoberly@odu.edu




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

35th International Conference on Medievalism

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



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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

deadline for submissions:
July 31, 2020


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


contact email:
lfallo1@lsu.edu




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



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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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


Description

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


Contents

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

Part I: Imagination and ideology

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

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

4 Critiquing Columbus with the Vinland sagas - Matthew Scribner

5 Vinland and white nationalism - Verena Höfig

Part II: Landscapes and cultural memory

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

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

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

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

Part III: Recasting the past

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

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

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

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

Bibliography

Index




Editors

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

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

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

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

52nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association

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

Paper abstracts are due by 30 September 2020

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


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


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

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


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


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


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

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

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

52nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association

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

Paper abstracts are due by 30 September 2020

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


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

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


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

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


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


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


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

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

Call for Submissions

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

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

Deadline for submissions: August 31, 2020.

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

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

The Year's Work in Medievalism 33 (2018)

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


Full contents as follows:


The Year's Work in Medievalism 33 (2018)

Edited by Valerie Johnson & Renée Ward, with Laura Harrison

Valerie Johnson & Renée Ward: Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call For Submissions

St Louis Medieval and Renaisance Symposium Cancelled

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SUBMISSION STYLE SHEET

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

Leeds Medieval Congress Cancelled

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

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

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