medievalism-medievalismo-mediävalismus-médiévalisme

Kaufman reviews

2012-01-24T22:01:00.001-05:00

Berns, Ute and Andrew James Johnston, eds. Medievalism: A Special Issue of theEuropean Journal of EnglishStudies,15.2 (August 2011).

Reviewed by Amy Kaufman (Middle Tennessee State U)

Unique continuity?

2012-01-05T21:19:00.001-05:00

I did not know how quickly my recent claim (in "Coming to Terms with Medievalism") about the "unique continuity" between medieval culture and contemporary culture in Anglo-America would be proven right. But here it is: Some politicians in New Hampshire just introduced a bill that would demand that all new laws in NH find their origin[alism] in the 1215 English Magna Carta. Did they all watch Sir [another medievalism] Ridley Scott's Robin Hood?
This really beats some of the many other orginalist organizations' habit of using eighteenth-century dictionaries to decide today's political issues. My first reaction to all this: Grant them prima nocte!
HERE IS THE LINK to this fascinating example of medievalism. And here are three sections from Magna Carta that put the proposed law in perspective:

(6) Heirs may be given in marriage, but not to someone of lower social standing. Before a marriage takes place, it shall be made known to the heir's next-of-kin.
(10) If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age, irrespective of whom he holds his lands. If such a debt falls into the hands of the Crown, it will take nothing except the principal sum specified in the bond.
(54) No one shall be arrested or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for the death of any person except her husband. (Source: Internet History Sourcebook)

Medieval Kalamazoo

2011-12-16T11:35:00.005-05:00

A collaborative project at Western Michigan University, sponsored by the Medieval Institute, will negotiate the resonances of medieval culture in a modern North American city. LEARN MORE HERE

Old Songs

2011-12-08T11:10:00.001-05:00

Recently published: Louise D'Arcens, Old Songs in the Timeless Land: Medievalism in Australian Literature 1840-1910 (Brepols, 2011).

Publisher's summary: This volume is the first close examination of the rich and diverse body of medievalist texts produced in late colonial and early Federal (ie post-1901) Australia. It examines the many ways in which early Australian novelists, poets, and dramatists drew on the motifs, events, and personages of the medieval past, and places particular emphasis on how they used the European past to illuminate their sense of the Australian present. Broadly stated, the book argues that a study of early Australian medievalist literature and theatre uncovers a rich and revealing drama in which the forces of cultural nostalgia and cultural amnesia sometimes contended against one another, and sometimes harmonised, to produce a unique and distinctive corpus. The book significantly extends current knowledge about nineteenth-century literary and theatrical medievalism by offering an exploration of how medievalist discourses and idioms came to be taken up within a major, but as yet under-examined, branch of Anglophone literature. It aims also to broaden the cultural ambit of nineteenth-century medievalism by offering analyses of popular and ephemeral instances alongside more ‘serious’ medievalist texts. The study balances an interest in how this medievalism responded to local conditions with an interest in its international complexion, examining how Australian medievalist novels, poems, and plays, participated in imperial and transpacific intellectual and entertainment circuits. While the emphasis of the volume is on close, historically-contextualising interpretations of texts, it has woven through its arguments a series of meditations on such theoretical matters as how we determine the boundaries of medievalism, how we might develop an account of colonial medievalism as non-derivative, whether medievalist discourses are equally amenable across gender, class, and ideological lines, and how the premodern past is evoked as a means for formulating the present and the future. For additional information and the table content's see HERE.

Creole Medievalisms

2011-11-17T11:32:00.001-05:00

A fascinating addition to the field of medievalism studies: Michelle R. Warren, Creole Medievalism. Colonial France and Joseph Bédier's Middle Ages. U of Minnesota P, 2010.

The publisher summarizes: Probing the work of the once famous but little understood cultural figure Joseph Bédier, Creole Medievalism illustrates how postcolonial France and Réunion continue to grapple with histories too varied to meet expectations of national unity. Michelle R. Warren demonstrates that Bédier’s relationship to this multicultural and economically peripheral colony motivates his nationalism in complex ways.

Publisher's LINK to full information.

Negotiating Heritage

2011-11-07T06:17:00.001-05:00

Recently published: Richard Utz, "Negotiating Heritage: Observations on Semantic Concepts, Temporality, and the Centre of the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals," Philologie im Netz 58 (2011): 70-87. This essay is a revised version of a paper originally presented at the "Fifth Conference on the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals" at University of Copenhagen on October 26, 2009. It seeks to review the interdisciplinary scholarship done by the Centre of the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals, a project funded by the Danish National Research Foundation since 2001, from the perspective of Reinhart Kosellek's work on semantic concepts and temporality, focusing specifically on a 2009 Centre publication: Negotiating Heritage: Memories of the Middle Ages, edited by Mette B. Bruun and Stephanie Glaser as volume 4 in Brepols Publishers' book series, Ritus et Artes: Traditions and Transformations. By bringing the "father" of conceptual historiography to bear on some of the scholarship in Negotiating Heritage, the essay contributes to tracing, from a meta-perspective, the momentous mutations through which Western societies and their scholars continue to conceive their experiences of the medieval past.

27th Conference on Medievalism @ Kent State

2011-10-28T10:54:00.003-04:00

The 27th Annual International Conference on Medievalism will be hosted by the Kent State University Regional Campuses on October 18-20, 2012. The focus will be on

Medievalism(s) & Diversity

Is there diversity in medievalism? How has medievalism represented diversity of religion, race, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality, gender,...? How have medievalist works supported issues concerning equity and inclusion? How have medievalist works oppressed and suppressed? Are there elements of bigotry and discrimination? What about human rights as a medieval concept, as a contemporary concept? Media to consider might include (but are not limited to) any of the following: novels, plays, films, art works, the Internet, television, historical works, political works, comics, video games. Angles to consider might include (but are not limited to) any of the following: race, gender, sexuality, disability/ability, religion, corporation and/or class, nationality, human rights, political correctness, marginalization, anti-marginalization tactics, rewritten codes, rewritten ideologies, re-affirmed codes, re-affirmed ideologies.

Conference Location: Nestled on 200 beautiful acres, yet only minutes from the hustle and bustle of The Strip and Westfield Belden Village Mall, Kent State University at Stark provides a quiet, serene and picturesque setting for students and the community to enjoy. With rolling hills, a pond, walking trail, and a Campus Center and Food Emporium, it is located in Jackson Township, just five minutes from the Akron-Canton Airport and easily accessible from Interstate-77.

Publication Opportunities: Selected papers related to the conference theme will be published in The Year’s Work in Medievalism.

Deadline: June 1, 2012
Please send paper and/or session proposals to either Carol Robinson (Conference Chair) or to Elizabeth Williamsen (Conference Assistant Chair).

Carol L. Robinson, Conference Chair
International Conference on Medievalism
Kent State University Trumbull 4314 Mahoning Avenue, NW Warren, Ohio 44483 EMAIL: clrobins@kent.edu FAX: 330-437-0490

Elizabeth Williamsen, Conference Assist. Chair
International Conference on Medievalism
Kent State University Stark 6000 Frank Avenue, NW North Canton, Ohio 44720 EMAIL: ewilli46@kent.edu FAX: 330-437-0490

For more information, please visit: http://www.medievalism.net/

Anglo-SaxonISM as preferred qualification

2011-10-26T21:40:00.003-04:00

The Department of English at the U of New Mexico has just posted a position at the rank of (advanced) Assistant or Associate Professor. Of interest to those in medievalism is that the Job Ad also includes "Anglo-Saxonism, the appropriation of Anglo-Saxonliterature and ideas by later literary historical periods," as one of the preferred qualifications for the position. Congrats to the colleagues at UNM for this forward-looking position description!

26th Congress

2011-10-22T23:58:00.004-04:00

The 26th Annual International Congress on Medievalism took place this weekend at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, expertly organized by conference host, Dr. Anita Obermeier. The impressive PROGRAM focused on "Medievalism, Arthuriana, and Landscapes of Enchantment" and included exciting plenaries (see pix) by Elizabeth Sklar (Wayne State University) on "King Arthur in Kentucke: Alternative Arthurian History" and Kevin Harty (La Salle University) on "Walt in Sherwood; or, The Sheriff of Disneyland." The event was sponsored by the University of New Mexico, the UNM Institute for Medieval Studies, and the International Society for the Study of Medievalism. Next year's conference will be hosted by Dr. Carol Robinson at Kent State University-Trumbull.

Calin Reviews

2011-10-19T21:12:00.001-04:00

See William Calin's recent review, in Medievally Speaking, of Vincent Ferré, ed., Médiévalisme. Modernité du Moyen Âge (2010).

Vincent Ferré,"Introduction (I). Médiévalisme et théorie: pourquoi maintenant?":7-25. This is the longest and mostimportant essay in the collection. Ferréobserves pertinently that, although work – good work – on the presence of theMiddle Ages in the post-medieval cultures has been published in France, goingback to the Poitiers La Licornecollection of 1982, the term médiévalisme,employed in our sense of "medievalism," dates from 2007. Ferrémodestly avoids a personal plaudit; nevertheless, it would appear that heintroduced the neologism into French. Heoffers a rich, five-page (21-5) bibliography of French medievalism –specifically the works cited in his essay. Ferré is fully aware of the Anglo-American origins of the field... READ the REST of the REVIEW HERE

Coming to Terms with Medievalism

2011-10-13T20:49:00.002-04:00

The following colleagues will participate in the roundtable we are sponsoring at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in 2012:

Coming to Terms with Medievalism
Co-sponsored by Studies in Medievalism & Medievally Speaking

Organizer and Chair:

Richard Utz, Western Michigan University

Speakers:

William Calin, University of Florida
Vincent Ferré, Université de Parix XIII
Mustafa Mirzeler, Western Michigan University
Carol Robinson, Kent State University-Trumbull
Kemal Silay, Indiana University
Kristin Skottki, Universität Rostock

Imagining the Crusades

2011-10-13T16:25:00.000-04:00

Here is the line-up for the session we are organizing for Kalamazoo 2012:

Imagining the Crusades in the Nineteenth Century

Sponsors: Studies in Medievalism & Medievally Speaking

Organizers:

Megan Morris, University of Rochester

Richard Utz, Western Michigan University

Respondent: Megan Morris

University of Rochester

Paper 1: David Beasley: “The Undermining of the Crusader Myth and theAwakening of the Sexual Woman”

Independent Scholar

Paper 2: Michael R. Evans: “Crusaders and a Cross of Gold: theCrusades and Crusading imagery in nineteenth-century US progressive movements”

Mid Michigan Community College & Central MichiganUniversity

Paper 3: Christine Havens: “‘The Great Asian Mystery’: Disraeli, HisStrange Theology, and Images of the Crusades in Tancred Or, The New Crusade”

Hawkeye Community College

Paper 4: Teresa Rupp: “From Ivanhoe to Ironclad: Changing Representations of Templars inFiction and Film”

Mount St. Mary University

Paper 5: Kristan Tetens: “Sack and Slaughter: The Crusades on theNineteenth-Century Stage”

School of English, University of Leicester (UK)

It's official: Medievalism is Desirable!

2011-10-12T20:45:00.002-04:00

Medievalism makes it into position description as "desirable" subspecialty:

The U of Wisconsin-Whitewater is offering the following position: Assistant Professor in medieval literature, a subspecialtyin medievalism desirable, including science fiction or fantasy literature, tobegin late August 2012. Those interested should contact our friend, Dr. Elena Levy-Navarro, author of a fabulous essay on Andrew Marvell's medievalism in Studies in Medievalism XIII. She chairs the search committee.

Let's congratulate the folks at UW-Whitewater on their smart inclusion of medievalism.

Post-Historical

2011-09-27T13:04:00.003-04:00

See my recent review in the Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 110/4 (2011), 520-22, of:

The Post-Historical Middle Ages. Edited by Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico. The New Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

The front cover of this essay collection gives equal space to a picture of Karl Marx and a medieval manuscript, but neither of them is at the center of what the editors and contributors really have in mind for their readers. In fact, George Edmondson’s essay on the “Naked Chaucer” in Brian Helgeland’s 2001 movie A Knight’s Tale may serve to explain why Marx and manuscripts can only serve as backdrops to the scholarship presented in this volume....

READ COMPLETE REVIEW HERE

Makers of the Middle Ages now Online

2011-09-05T19:03:00.004-04:00

Richard Utz and Elizabeth Emery, eds. Cahier Calin. Makers of the Middle Ages. Essays in Honor of William Calin. Print: Kalamazoo, MI: Studies in Medievalism, 2011, is now available in electronic format. You can access a .pdf of the complete volume at: http://works.bepress.com/richard_utz/86/ (please be patient since it is a huge file).

Here is the Table of Contents:

Jesse G. Swan: Erasmus, Calin, Reading and Living -2 Alicia C. Montoya: Madame de Sévigné’s Aristocratic Medievalism -3 William Paden: Pound’s Troubadours -5 Roy Rosenstein: Helen Waddell at Columbia: Maker of Medievalists -6 M. Jane Toswell: Seamus Heaney and Beowulf -9 Tom Shippey: Rudyard Kipling -10 Gwendolyn Morgan: J.R.R. Tolkien: Medievalism and Middle Earth -12 Edward Risden: Shakespeare: Making Medieval Character -13 Barbara K. Altmann: Christine de Pizan as Maker of the Middle Ages -15 Nils Holger Petersen: B.S. Ingemann: Danish Medievalism of the Early Nineteenth Century -17 Veronica West-Harling: Errol le Cain’s Fairy Tales as Manuscript Illustration -18 Carol Robinson: Edna Edith Sayers (f.k.a. Lois Bragg) -20 Pam Clements: Margaret Atwood and Chaucer: Truth and Lies -21 Richard Utz: Bernhard ten Brink and German English Studies in Lotharingia -23 Gayle Zachmann: Marcel Schwob’s Archeologies and Medievalism -24 Elizabeth Emery: Albert Robida, Medieval Publicist -26 Gina Psaki: C.S. Lewis: More Maiorum -29 Kathleen Verduin: The Medievalism of Charles Eliot Norton -30 Karl Fugelso: Tom Phillips’ Dante -32 Caroline Jewers: Six Views of William Morris -33 List of Contributors -35.

New Age and Neopagan Medievalisms

2011-08-31T05:24:00.003-04:00

Call for Submissions

We welcome contributions to a collection of essays that explores the medieval in New Age and Neopagan movements. Scholars of Religious Studies, Gender Studies, Art History, Music History, and Cultural Studies, as well as historians and literary critics, are particularly encouraged to contribute.

Current topics included in the volume:

- New Age appropriations of Kabbalah

- The medieval in New Age masculinities

- Hermeneutics and medieval-themed tarot decks

- Hildegard in the New Age

Abstracts of approximately 500 words and a brief academic bio should be sent to Dr. Karolyn Kinane at kkinane@plymouth.edu by December 1, 2011. Abstracts should clearly articulate how the article will advance theoretical and cultural understandings of medievalism and/or New Age and Neopagan movements. Acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee inclusion in the volume.

Upon preliminary acceptance, contributors will be asked to submit articles of approximately 7,000 words by August 1, 2012. Editors reserve the right to reject articles that do not meet editorial standards. We anticipate a Fall/Winter 2013 publication date.

recently published: coming to terms with medievalism

2011-08-05T05:48:00.003-04:00

Recently published in the European Journal of English Studies, volume 15/2, 2011 (special issue on Medievalism, ed. Ute Berndt and Andrew James Johnston): "Coming to Terms With Medievalism," by Richard Utz.

Abstract: "Medievalism, the continuing reception of medieval culture in post-medieval times, has existed as an amphibolous term since the mid-nineteenth century, when it was employed as a synonym for the medieval period. Following the foundational theoretical work by conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck, this essay investigates the history of the concept, ‘medievalism,’ as a linguistic performance responding to particular pressures inside and outside the academy. The concept can be shown specifically to be the product of what Koselleck calls the process of ‘temporalization’ (Verzeitlichung) which marks the transition from early modern mentalities to modernity and the modern university. Rejected as the dilettante ‘Other’ of academic medieval studies in the late nineteenth century, the English term survived probably due to the unique continuity postmedieval British subjects have felt with their medieval past. ‘medievalism’ has since transmuted into a scholarly practice (‘medievalism studies’), spawned a subfield (‘Neomedievalism’), competed with coeval movements (‘New medievalism’), and become, most recently, the linguistic and epistemological weapon of scholars who would like to bridge the rigid alterity toward medieval culture with the assistance of presentist empathy, memory, subjectivity, resonance, affection, desire, passion, speculation, fiction, imagination, and positionality. Based on its historical priority and conceptual inclusiveness, ‘medievalism’ is apt to encompass and reconfigure the various ways in which we will continue to receive medieval culture inside and outside the academy."

The dark side of medievalism

2011-07-26T08:15:00.000-04:00

Killer Breivik stylized himself as Knights Templar.

Salisbury and Schulman join Advisory Board of Medievally Speaking

2011-06-15T10:25:00.005-04:00

Eve Salisbury and Jana Schulman, both medievalists at Western Michigan University, have recently joined the advisory board of Medievally Speaking, the online review arm of Studies in Medievalism, the leading publication investigating the ongoing reception of the Middle Ages in postmedieval times. While Medievally Speaking draws from a vast pool of international scholars dedicated to the multilingual and interdisciplinary negotiation of medievalia, it is also firmly anchored in the English Department at WMU, with Richard Utz as editor and Mustafa Mirzeler, Eve Salisbury, and Jana Schulman as members of the advisory board.

Eve Salisbury studied English literature and language at the University of Rochester and the State University of New York at Geneseo and has taught at Eastman School of Music and Rochester Institute of Technology. At Western Michigan University, she teaches the works of late medieval poets—Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Gower, Christine de Pizan, and Marie de France—Middle English and Arthurian literature, Medieval Literary Theory, British Literature I, and Medieval Drama. She has also taught a graduate seminar on medieval marriage at the Newberry Library in Chicago.
Her publications include three volumes for the Middle English Text Series—The Trials and Joys of Marriage, Four Romances of England, and The Middle English Breton Lays—an edited collection, Domestic Violence in Medieval Texts, in which her essay on Chaucer's 'wife' and the law appears, and essays in journals such as Medieval and Early Modern English Studies, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, a monograph series (Speculum Sermonis), and special collections on medieval violence. She has written book reviews for Speculum and reviewed submissions for PMLA, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Chaucer Review, and Brepols. Her current research focuses on domesticity and the concept of the child in Chaucer's work as well as intersections of poetry, legal fiction, and historical documentation. Salisbury has presented her work in over forty conferences both in the U.S. and abroad. She has served as senior editor of Comparative Drama since 2003.

Jana K. Schulman studied medieval English, German, and Scandinavian languages and literatures at the University of Minnesota. At Western Michigan University, she teaches Old English (Introduction and Seminar), Old Norse (Introduction and Seminar), Medieval Literature, British Literature I, and Western World Literature, and her scholarship centers on law and literature in medieval Iceland and Anglo-Saxon England as well as on women and epic. She is the editor of The Rise of the Medieval World (Greenwood, 2002), co-editor of Women and Medieval Epic: Gender, Genre, and the Limits of Epic Masculinity (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007), co-editor of Beowulf at Kalamazoo: Essays in Translation and Performance (MIP, Forthcoming), and editor and translator of The Laws of Later Iceland: Jónsbók (A-Q Verlag, 210). Her essays have appeared in Scandinavian Studies and the Germanic Review as well as in essay collections; she has reviewed publications for the Journal of English and Germanic Philology and Speculum. Schulman has been the recipient of a FRACASF grant from WMU (2003-2004), a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for College Teachers (2001), and several Fulbright grants for research in Iceland.

Mapping Medievalism

2011-06-14T10:40:00.003-04:00

Kathryn Brush, ed., Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier. London, ON: Museum London & McIntosh Gallery, 2010.

In 2012 it will be 20 years that I attended my first Medievalism conference at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Then, as a European greenhorn who thought that growing up among the remnants of medieval architecture automatically conferred authority on me to speak of the Middle Ages, I voiced some glib doubts about the location for the conference among palm trees and close to Busch Gardens. The conference participants and their papers convinced me otherwise. In fact, ... READ THE FULL REVIEW.

Holy War Redux

2011-06-08T12:58:00.009-04:00

The most recent issue of PMLA (126.2 [2011]) contains Geraldine Heng's essai on "Holy War Redux: The Crusades, Futures of the Past, and Strategic Logic in the 'Clash' of Religions" in the Theories and Methodologies section. Highly recommended reading for those interested in medievalism/pre-modern studies and temporality. I have long had the suspicion that most critical theories from deconstruction to medievalism could, in the end, be turned against their own academic supporters, but this is the first article to provide me with the critical vocabulary and convincing examples to prove the point. I applaud Heng's call for "theory to be open to the potentiality of an intellectual crowdsourcing" to renegotiate "relations between the state of the field and the state of the world" (p. 428). For access to the uncorrected proofs of this quite brilliant article, see HERE.

German Griselda

2011-06-01T10:03:00.001-04:00

Achim Aurnhammer and Hans-Jochen Schiewer recently edited Die deutsche Griselda. Transformationen einer literarischen Figuration von Boccaccio bis zur Moderne (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010). As the publisher notes, "this volume documents the German reception of the last novella of Boccaccio's Decameron. It is about Griselda, a poor daughter of a peasant, whom the Marquis Gualtieri marries and subsequently repudiates and humiliates in an inhumane way. Finally, after being subjected to numerous trials which she endures patiently, she is reinstated as wife and marchioness. The book explores the German reception of the Griselda figuration as gender paradigm from the Middle Ages up to the Modern Age in a European context." I recommend this volume to all those interested in processes of cultural figuration and re-figuration. For a full critical evaluation, see The Medieval Review.

Mapping Medievalism (in Canada)

2011-05-31T14:46:00.003-04:00

See HERE for an exiting project at the University of Western Ontario on how the European Middle Ages expanded into the New World wilderness.

Review of Matthews, Ed., In Strange Countries. Middle English Literature and its Afterlife

2011-05-28T23:42:00.001-04:00

Richard Utz recently reviewed: David Matthews (ed.). In Strange Countries: Middle English Literature and its Afterlife: Essays in Memory of JJ Anderson, for The Review of English Studies.

"With this Festschrift, colleagues and friends honour the memory of John Julian Anderson (1938–2007), an internationally known medievalist and co-founder (with Gail Ashton) of the Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture book series...." READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE.

PUMA

2011-05-24T11:07:00.001-04:00

Cahier Calin

2011-05-17T16:28:00.002-04:00

Cahier Calin: Makers of the Middle Ages. Essays in Honour of William Calin, ed. Richard Utz and Elizabeth Emery, was presented to Bill Calin at the International Congress on Medieval Studies on Saturday. This bibliophile volume, which will also be published in a more affordable print version and with an electronic journal later this year, contains 20 essays about scholars, artists, writers, and thinkers who helped create various ideas of the medieval.

Wheeler Fellowship

2011-05-16T14:22:00.000-04:00

At this year's Kalamazoo Congress, Lorraine K. Stock (U of Houston) became the first recipient of the Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship. The Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship is an internationally focused private fund created by fellow medievalists and admirers of Dr. Wheeler and administered by the non-proﬁt The Dallas Foundation. More women scholars are needed at the top scholarly tier. Men and women are still not represented in equal numbers in the upper ranks of academia. This Fellowship will support women scholars from around the nation as they complete major research projects that will satisfy professional promotion requirements—and that will help them break through the “glass ceiling.” Your gift will enable future scholars to beneﬁt from the enormous generosity set in motion throughout Dr. Wheeler’s distinguished career. If you should like more information about the fellowship, please click HERE. The picture shows Bonnie Wheeler at the Kzoo Radisson, holding forth about the progress of the Fellowship.

Fugelso reviews Koman

2011-04-11T15:29:00.000-04:00

Karl Fugelso recently reviewed Alan J. Koman's A Who's Who of Your Ancestral Saints for medievally speaking.

Annual Intl Conference on Medievalism 2011

2011-02-09T10:41:00.000-05:00

Medievalism, Arthuriana, and Landscapes of Enchantment

Call for Papers

The conference committee for Studies in Medievalism is pleased to invite paper and session proposals for its 26th Annual International Conference on Medievalism, to be held at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, on October 20–22, 2011.

The theme of this year's conference is “Medievalism, Arthuriana, and Landscapes of Enchantment.” We therefore especially invite proposals addressing any or all of these concepts. We will also welcome proposals on any topic related to the invocation or representation of the Middle Ages in post-medieval periods. As an interdisciplinary organization, we also encourage proposals from all areas of the humanities, social sciences, and beyond, particularly proposals that address interdisciplinary themes or employ interdisciplinary theories and methods. Post-medieval interest in Arthuriana has flourished unabatedly since the 19th-century medieval revival and is, for instance, reflected in the 2010 publication of Joerg O. Fichte’s From Camelot to Obamalot: Essays on Medieval and Modern Arthurian Literature.

Subthemes for the conference might include, but are not limited to:

Re-imaginings of important Arthurian figures (King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawain, Morgan le Fay, Perceval, Lady of the Lake, etc.)
Representations of Arthuriana in art
Women and questions of gender in Arthuriana
Arthurian themes in music
Roles of landscapes in modern Arthurian works
Arthuriana and enchantment in modern historical novels (including mysteries)
Connections between magical enchantments and landscapes
Arthuriana and enchantment on the contemporary stage
Arthuriana in Shakespeare
Tolkien, Arthuriana, and enchantment
Enchantment in contemporary Arthurian works
Arthuriana portrayed on film, television, and/or the radio
Arthuriana and enchantment on the Internet
Arthuriana and enchantment in electronic and/or non-electronic games

Publication Opportunities:

Selected papers related to the conference theme will be published in The Year’s Work in Medievalism.

Submission Deadline: April 18, 2011

Please send 250-word abstracts for individual papers and session proposals as an email attachment in Word or pdf formats to:
Anita Obermeier, Conference Chair
International Conference on Medievalism
Institute for Medieval Studies
University of New Mexico
AObermei@unm.edu
http://ims.unm.edu/sim

The University of New Mexico is located in Albuquerque, in the Land of Enchantment.

Fugelso reviews Chwast,

2011-01-28T16:54:00.000-05:00

Karl Fugelso reviewed Seymour Chwast's Dante's Divine Comedy: A Graphic Adaptation, for medievally speaking.

Year's Work in Medievalism 25 (2010) published

2011-01-28T10:50:00.000-05:00

Gwen Morgan recently edited The Year's Work in Medievalism for 2010. The volume includes the following contributions:

Richard Utz, Pi(o)us Medievalism vs. Catholic Modernism: The Case Of George Tyrell
Martha Oberle, The Legacy of the Medieval Mendicant Orders
Chelsea Gunter, Mysticism and Messianism in the Poetry of Paul Celan
William Calin, Postcolonialism and Medievalism: How French Regional Cultures/Literatures Reshape Their Past and Present
Jana K. Schulman, Retelling Old Tales: Germanic Myth and Language in Christopher Paolini's Eragon
Arthur Russell, From English Stage to American Page: The Transatlantic Dissemination of Leonard MacNally's Robin Hood; or, Sherwood Forest
Gwendolyn Morgan, The Battle of Maldon in Imitative Translation
Edward L. Risden, The Battle of Maldon: A One-act Play for Readers' Theater
T.S. Miller, A Look at Some New Lays of Beowulf: The Misunderstood Monsters of Contemporary Popular Music
Aspen Hougen, Debilitating Dracula: Vampire as Illness Metaphor from the Middle Ages to the Present Day
Peter Johnsson, Purged by Fire: The Influence of Medieval Visionary Literature on Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction
Gerald Nachtwey, Unburied Corpses: The Violence of the Past in William Morris's Froissartian Poems
Karl Fugelso, Dante as Surfer Medievalism: Sandow Birk's Commedia Illustrations

medievally speaking moves to Google

2010-11-19T11:22:00.001-05:00

Dear friends laboring (joyfully) in the vineyard of medievalism,

I recently transferred all files from the original website for medievally speaking over to Google. This means that I can now upload files and make changes from anywhere, including my iPhone. I will keep the old site running for another two months or so and then delete it. Thus, if you have created links to files on the old website, please update them asap.
Our new site, http://medievallyspeaking.blogspot.com/, will continue to provide reviews on all negotiations, academic and/or popular, of medieval culture in postmedieval times. I am still working on some design issues, but the basic site is up and running
Please note that the new site contains two new reviews, by Lesley A. Coote, of Jerome de Groot's The Historical Novel, and by Michael Evans, of Nickolas Haydock and E. L. Risden's Hollywood in the Holy Land. Please continue to bring new publications to my attention and encourage publishers, directors, artists, etc. to send in studies, art, music, etc. for review.

With collegial regards,
Richard

Burt on Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media

2010-11-19T11:05:00.002-05:00

From Palgrave/Macmillan: "Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media contextualizes historical films in an innovative way--not only relating them to the history of cinema, but also to premodern and early modern media. This philological approach to the (pre)history of cinema engages both old media such as scrolls, illuminated manuscripts, the Bayeux Tapestry, and new digital media such as DVDs, HD DVDs, and computers. Burt examines the uncanny repetitions that now fragment films into successively released alternate cuts and extras (footnote tracks, audiocommentaries, and documentaries) that (re)structure and reframe historical films, thereby presenting new challenges to historicist criticism and film theory. With a double focus on recursive narrative frames and the cinematic paratexts of medieval and early modern film, this book calls our attention to strange, sometimes opaque phenomena in film and literary theory that have previously gone unrecognized."

camelot to obamalot

2010-10-29T09:27:00.001-04:00

Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier announces the publication of a collection of 12 essays by Joerg Fichte, entitled From Camelot to Obamalot: Essays on Medieval and Modern Arthurian Literature.

memesak conference on once and future romance

2010-10-28T11:54:00.001-04:00

This year's International Conference of the Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Association of Korea (MEMESAK) took place on October 23, 2010, at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea. The topic of the conference was "The Once and Future Romance: The Transformation of Romance Tradition in the Middle Ages and Beyond." Please find full program information below:

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▪ Opening Remarks: Duck-Ae Chung (President of MEMESAK, Ewha Womans Univ.)

MORNING SESSION

10:30-12:00

Presider: Nicholas Koss (Professor of Peking Univ. and Fu Jen Catholic Univ.; President

of the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies)

Presenters

▪ Wen Ting Ting (Providence Univ., Taichung, Taiwan)

“Imprisoned Heroes, (Un)Fulfilled Wishes”

▪ Dongill Lee (Professor, Hankuk Univ. of Foreign Studies)

"Implication of Weapon (Sword) in Heroic Poetry"

Commenters: Hyonjin Kim (Seoul National Univ.), Minwoo Yoon (Yonsei Univ.)

PLENARY SESSION

13:30- 14:30

Presider: Julie Choi (Ewha Womans Univ.)

▪ Speaker: Richard Utz (Professor & Chair, Dept. of English, Western Michigan Univ.,: "Medievalism and Medieval Romances"

AFTERNOON SESSION I

14:40-16:00

Presider: Sonjae Ahn (Brother Anthony of Taize; Professor Emeritus, Sogang Univ.)

Presenters

▪ Emma Lee (Dayeh Univ., Changhua, Taiwan)

“'The token for chivalrous/ Men to know adventure': Chivalry as a Conflicting

Concept in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

▪ Juok Yoon (Yonsei Univ.)

"Maternal Agency: Mother, Daughter, and Marriage in Sir Degrevant"

Commenters: Gwanghyun Shynne (Seoul National Univ.), Jisoo Kang (Inha Univ.)

AFTERNOON SESSION II

16:20-17:40

Presider: Jongsook Lee (Seoul National Univ.)

Presenters

▪ Kyungjin Bae (Inha Univ.)

"Transformation of Courtly Love in Astrophil and Stella"

▪ Chung-in Im (Seoul National Univ.)

"The Appropriation of Chivalric Romance in The Island Princess"

Commenters: Michael Foster (Korea Univ.), Tai-won Kim (Sogang Univ.)

Amy Kaufman on Mass Market Medieval, ed. David Marshall

2010-08-23T22:27:00.003-04:00

Amy Kaufman recently reviewed David W. Marshall, ed., Mass Market Medieval: Essays on the Middle Ages in Popular Culture, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007, for medievally speaking.

Janice Mann on Michael Camille's The Gargoyles of Notre Dame

2010-08-23T17:08:00.001-04:00

Janice Mann recently reviewed Michael Camille, The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame: Medievalism and the Monsters of Modernity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, for medievally speaking.

Mustafa Mirzeler on Medievalism in the Postcolonial World, ed. Davis/Altschul

2010-08-12T15:45:00.003-04:00

Mustafa Mirzeler recently reviewed Medievalism in the Postcolonial World: The Idea of “The Middle Ages” Outside Europe, edited by Kathleen Davis and Nadia Altschul, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2009, for medievally speaking.

sessions planned for kalamazoo 2011

2010-06-02T16:45:00.002-04:00

Dear colleagues,

I am organizing the following three sessions for Kzoo 2011 on behalf of Studies in Medievalism and medievally speaking:

Session 1: Nineteenth-Century Medievalisms

Session 2: Teaching Medievalisms (roundtable)

Session 3: Makers of the Middle Ages: Papers in Honor of William Calin

Please let me know if you are interested in participating asap.

Katie Lister Reviews Women Writers and Nineteenth-Century Medievalism

2010-05-24T02:00:00.002-04:00

A very fine review of Clare Broome Saunder's distinguished monograph, Women Writers and Nineteenth-Century Medievalism, is now published, by medievally speaking.

To go directly to the review, click here.

new journal: postmedieval

2010-05-18T10:06:00.002-04:00

The inaugural issue of postmedieval is now available in print and online. ‘When did we become post/human?’, a double, themed issue edited by Eileen A. Joy and Craig Dionne, features nearly 30 short essays from leading medieval scholars, with responses from Andy Mousley, Kate Soper and N. Katherine Hayles.
Palgrave Macmillan, the publisher, has this to say about the new publication: "postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies is a cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed journal in medieval studies that aims to bring the medieval and modern into productive critical relation. The journal will work to develop a present-minded medieval studies in which contemporary events, issues, ideas, problems, objects, and texts serve as triggers for critical investigations of the Middle Ages. Further, we are concerned to illuminate the deep historical structures–mental, linguistic, social, cultural, aesthetic, religious, political, sexual, and the like–that underlie contemporary thought and life, and therefore, we are also interested in attending to the question of the relation of the medieval to the modern (and vice versa) in different times and places. We want to also demonstrate the important value of medieval studies and the longest possible historical perspectives to the ongoing development of contemporary critical and cultural theories that remain under-historicized. Finally, we will advocate for and support the continuing development, from any and all disciplinary directions, of historicist, materialist, comparatist, and theoretical approaches to the subjects of the Middle Ages."

Hollywood in the Holy Land

2010-05-17T09:49:00.001-04:00

Hollywood in the Holy Land: Essays on Film Depictions of the Crusades and Christian-Muslim Clashes, edited by Nickolas Haydock and E.L. Risden, has just come out from McFarland. Here is a description of the volume: This collection of essays analyzes film representations of the Crusades, other medieval East/West encounters, and the modern inheritance of encounters between orientalist fantasy and apocalyptic conspiracy. From studies of the filmic representations of popular figures such as El Cid, Roland, Richard I, and Saladin to examinations of such topics as Templar romance and the role of set design, location and landscape, the essays make significant contributions to our understanding of orientaist medievalism in film.

Modern Subjections

2010-05-16T20:48:00.000-04:00

Courtly Seductions, Modern Subjections: Troubadour Literature and the Medieval Construction of the Modern World (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2010). Fidel Fajardo-Acosta (Creighton University)
Publisher's description: A critical analysis of courtly love and medieval troubadour literature, this book claims they were instrumental in the constitution of the modern subject and its preparation for life in the highly regulated societies of the modern world. Relating troubadour texts to the rise of commerce, luxury commodities, social differentiation, the centralization of authority, and the crusades, the author proposes that western romantic love, from its courtly beginnings, eroticized the forms and values of the early European commercial economy and nation-states—playing a key role in the subjection of medieval hearts, minds and bodies to the disciplines of emerging modern powers.

Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages contains entry on "Medievalism"

2010-05-16T17:22:00.001-04:00

The new Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Robert Bjork (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010) contains a 500 word entry on "Medievalism," written by Richard Utz, another indication of the coming of age of our academic field.

Middle-earth Minstrel

2010-04-14T09:56:00.000-04:00

McFarland recently published Bradford Lee Eden, ed., Middle-earth Minstrel
Essays on Music in Tolkien. The publisher's description reads: "The twentieth century witnessed a dramatic rise in fantasy writing and few works became as popular or have endured as long as the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien. Surprisingly, little critical attention has been paid to the presence of music in his novels. This collection of essays explores the multitude of musical-literary allusions and themes intertwined throughout Tolkien’s body of work. Of particular interest is Tolkien’s scholarly work with medieval music and its presentation and performance practice, as well as the musical influences of his Victorian and Edwardian background. Discographies of Tolkien-influenced music of the 20th and 21st centuries are included."

2010-03-08T19:01:00.000-05:00

Please find Gwen Morgan's review of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Be þam lytlan æþelinge. Trans. Fritz Kemmler, at _medievally speaking_: http://web.mac.com/ricutz/iWeb/medievally%20speaking/Kem%2003-05-10.html .

call for papers: year's work in medievalism

2010-03-05T15:03:00.000-05:00

Gwen Morgan at Montana State is inviting submissions for this year's issue of The Year's Work in Medievalism. Essays and notes on all matters regarding the critical and creative reception of the Middle Ages in postmedieval times are welcome. Please send electronic submissions asap to gmorgan@english.montana.edu.

Jesse Swan reviews Eisenbichler, Renaissance Medievalisms

2010-02-06T17:14:00.000-05:00

medievally speaking published Jesse G. Swan's review of Konrad Eisenbichler, ed., Renaissance Medievalisms. READ HERE.

new entries on italian medievalism

2010-02-03T19:43:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri, University of Urbino, Italy, we now have better insight into Italian publications on Medievalism since 1973 on the "timeline" page of medievally speaking.

Clare Broome Saunders, Women Writers and Nineteenth-Century Medievalism

2010-01-20T21:02:00.000-05:00

Publisher's description: In a thoughtful and detailed study, Women Writers and Nineteenth-Century Medievalism considers the ways in which women poets, biographers, and historians used medieval motifs and settings to enable them to comment on controversial contemporary issues. Broome Saunders' illuminating discussion focuses on women working during the socio-political and religious upheaval of the nineteenth century and mines the poetry of Felicia Hemans, Letitia Landon, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning; portrayals of Joan of Arc and Guinevere in art and literature; and non-fiction sources such as women's letters and diaries during the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars.

Medievalism in the Postcolonial World, ed. Davis & Altschul

2010-01-20T20:51:00.001-05:00

Medievalisms in the Postcolonial World: The Idea of "the Middle Ages" Outside Europe
edited by Kathleen Davis and Nadia Altschul
Publisher's description: This fascinating study explores the intersection of postcolonial theory and medievalism. While the latter has traditionally been defined primarily in terms of European nationalism, the essays in this volume discuss medievalism in regions as wide—ranging as the United States, India, Latin America, and Africa. This innovative approach demonstrates the ways alternative conceptions of medieval and modern history can provide new insights into the idea of the Middle Ages and the origins and legacy of colonialism. Through diverse and thought—provoking essays, the contributors demonstrate that writing the Middle Ages has been key in colonial and postcolonial struggles over racial, ethnic, and territorial identity. They also argue that colonial medievalisms are crucial to understanding the history of entrenched temporal and political partitions, such as medieval/modern and East/West. The essays are divided into four sections that address a set of related questions raised by the literary and political intersections of medievalism and colonialism. Each section is followed by a response -- two are by postcolonial theorists and two by medievalists -- that carefully considers the essay's arguments and comments on its implications for the respondent's field of study. This volume is the first to bring medievalists and postcolonial scholars into conversation about the shared histories of their fields and the potential for mutual endeavor. Medievalisms in the Postcolonial World will both redirect scholarship in medievalism and inform approaches to temporality in postcolonial studies.

Ilse Schweitzer reviews Dinah Hazell, The Plants of Middle-Earth

2009-12-30T17:31:00.000-05:00

As its inaugural review, medievally speaking published Ilse A. Schweitzer's review of Dinah Hazell's The Plants of Middle Earth. READ HERE.

fifth conference on the cultural heritage of medieval rituals

2009-10-27T11:16:00.000-04:00

On October 25-26, the Centre for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals, a center funded by the Danish National Research Foundation, organized its fifth conference at the Theological Faculty of Copenhagen University, Denmark. Papers were meant to contribute to the understanding of modern Western European culture by highlighting the resonance and resurfacing of medieval church rituals in the modern arts and culture. This conference marked the final stage of the almost eight year long project of the Centre. Participants included (among many others; from right to left) Mett Bruun (Copenhagen), Nils Holger Petersen (Copenhagen), Martin Wangsgaard Jürgensen (Copenhagen), Richard Utz (Western Michigan), Sieglind Bruhn (Michigan), and Magnar Breivik (Trondheim).

24th Intl. Conference on Medievalism at Siena College

2009-10-10T22:51:00.001-04:00

Participants at work & a new Everyman

XXVe Conférence Internationale sur le Médiévalisme

2009-09-29T22:40:00.000-04:00

XXVe Conférence Internationale sur le Médiévalisme, organisée en partenariat avec Modernités médiévales

« Dialogues transatlantiques : Parler du Moyen Age »

Université de Groningen (Pays-Bas), 8-10 juillet 2010

Appel à communications
Studies in Medievalism, en collaboration avec Modernités médiévales, invite à envoyer des propositions d’ateliers et de communications en vue de son colloque pluridisciplinaire annuel, qui aura lieu du 8 au 10 juillet 2010 à l’université de Groningen (Pays-Bas). Les communications porteront sur le médiévalisme, dans ses versants recherche et enseignement ; et plus précisément sur le double thème de cette année : « Dialogues transatlantiques / Parler du Moyen Age ».
Ce thème est inspire par le cadre européen du colloque, et l’héritage de Paul Zumthor, élu à Groningen en 1948, pour son premier poste universitaire. D’une part, son livre, Parler du Moyen Age (1980) est l’un des ouvrages de référence du médiévalisme. D’autre part, Zumthor est le symbole même du dialogue transatlantique qui fonde les études médiévalistes : d’origine suisse, il a exercé en Europe avant de partir en Amérique du Nord. Alors que le « Moyen Age » sert à designer une période de l’histoire européenne, ce sont en effet des chercheurs et des artistes d’Amérique du Nord, en particulier, qui ont élaboré de nouvelles manières d’envisager cette période, en littérature, en peinture, dans la musique, le cinéma et d’autres médias. Enfin, l’œuvre de Zumthor témoigne de l’importance que revêt la réflexion théorique sur les concepts du Moyen Age et du médiéval.

Conférences plénières par Joep Leerssen (université d’Amsterdam), Richard Utz (Western Michigan University) and Michèle Gally (université Aix-Marseille).

Les communications (en anglais ou en français) pourront envisager les questions et sujets suivants (sans en exclure d’autres, en relation avec la question du médiévalisme)

• De quel « Moyen Age » parle-t-on, lorsque l’on parle du Moyen Age ? Comment est défini ce qui est « médiéval » ?
• Que peut apporter la « théorie européenne » aux chercheurs en médiévalisme d’Amérique du Nord ?
• Comment le Moyen Age européen est-il repensé dans d’autres traditions ? (par ex. : dans le western, les dessins animés japonais) ?
• Variations sur le Gothique américain (architecture, peinture, musique)
• Echos médiévalistes du colonialisme : quelle théorie pour les médiévalismes (post)coloniaux ?
• Médiévalismes d’Amérique du Sud, d’Amadis à Borges : miroirs et contrepoints de l’Europe ?
• Appropriations du médiévalisme par les féministes américaines
• Médiévalisme et traductions (en particulier, français / anglais)
• Rôle des médiateurs culturels entre l’Europe et l’Amérique
• Médiévalisme et voyages / tourisme transatlantiques

Publication :
Une sélection de communications paraîtra dans The Year’s Work in Medievalism et/ou Studies in Medievalism ainsi que dans un volume en français.

Date butoir : 15 novembre
Merci d’envoyer une proposition d’environ 300 mots (20 à 30 lignes) à Alicia C. Montoya et Vincent Ferré : A.C.Montoya@rug.nl / ferre@fabula.org

Eminent Chaucerians published

2009-09-16T17:12:00.000-04:00

Richard Utz and Peter Schneck are coeditors of Eminent Chaucerians? Early Women Scholars and the History of Reading Chaucer. The essay cluster appeared as a special issue (Supplement 4/2009) of Philologie im Netz, a refereed quarterly specializing in linguistics, literary, and cultural studies.

Table of Content

Richard Utz

Introduction

Margaret Connolly:	'Dr Furnival and Mother like the same old books': Mary Haweis and the Experience of Reading Chaucer in the Nineteenth Century
Louise D'Arcens:	"She ensample was by good techynge": Hermiene Ulrich and Chaucer under Capricorn
William Snell:	A Woman Medievalist Much Maligned: A Note in Defense of Edith Rickert (1871–1938)
Juliette Dor:	Caroline Spurgeon (1869–1942) and the Institutionalisation of English Studies as a Scholarly Discipline

CFP 25th Conference on Medievalism

2009-09-10T12:57:00.009-04:00

25th International Conference on Medievalism, jointly organized with Modernités médiévales

Transatlantic Dialogues / Speaking of the Middle Ages

University of Groningen (The Netherlands), 8-10 July 2010

Call for papers

Studies in Medievalism, in collaboration with Modernités médiévales, invites session and paper proposals for its annual interdisciplinary conference, July 8-10, 2010. We welcome papers that explore any topic related to the study and teaching of medievalism, and especially those that focus on this year's double theme of “Transatlantic Dialogues / Speaking of the Middle Ages.” The two conference languages will be English and French.

This year’s conference theme is inspired, on the one hand, by its European venue and, on the other, by the legacy of Paul Zumthor, who started his academic career at the University of Groningen in 1948 and whose book Parler du Moyen Age (Speaking of the Middle Ages) is one of the seminal works of academic medievalism. As a Swiss scholar who worked in Europe and later emigrated to North America, Zumthor represents an outstanding example of the transatlantic nature of medievalist studies. While the Middle Ages we refer to today are European, it is North American scholars (in particular) and artists, who have developed new ways of imagining this era in literature, film, music, painting and other media. At the same time, Zumthor’s work reminds us of the importance of theoretical reflection on the concept of the medieval.

Key-note addresses will be given by Joep Leerssen (University of Amsterdam), Richard Utz (Western Michigan University) and Michèle Gally (Université Aix-Marseille).

Papers, in English or French, might address the following questions and topics (or any other topic relevant to the general theme of medievalism): what can European theory bring to North American medievalist scholarship? how are the European Middle Ages reconceptualized in other national genres and traditions (e.g. American westerns, Japanese anime); whose Middle Ages do we speak of when speaking of the Middle Ages? who defines what is medieval? who “owns” the medieval? varieties of American Gothic (architecture, painting, music); medievalist refractions of colonial encounters / theorizing (post)colonial medievalisms; South American medievalisms, from Amadis to Borges, as a reflection on/of Europe; American feminist appropriations of medievalism; medievalism and translation studies (particularly French-English); the role of transatlantic cultural mediators; medievalism and transatlantic travel and/or tourism

Selected papers related to the conference theme will be published in The Year’s Work in Medievalism and/or Studies in Medievalism, and in a separate French-language volume.

Deadline: November 15, 2009

Please send 300-word paper proposals to Alicia C. Montoya and Vincent Ferré: A.C.Montoya@rug.nl / ferre@fabula.org

Robinson and Swan speak to Medievalism seminar

2009-08-05T09:12:00.001-04:00

On July 30 and August 4, Drs. Carol Robinson and Jesse Swan addressed Richard Utz's graduate seminar on Studies in Medievalism via Skype. Robinson, who teaches at Kent State Trumbull, is one of the most widely known experts on the subject of Neomedievalism and founding member of MEMO, the Medieval Electronic Multimedia Organization. She is also editor of the essay cluster on "Medievalism in Video Games" in Studies in Medievalism XVI: Medievalism in Technology Old and New, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2008.
Swan, who teaches at the University of Northern Iowa, is coeditor, with Richard Utz, of Studies in Medievalism XVI: Postmodern Medievalisms, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005, and of The Year's Work in Medievalism 2002, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003. He spoke to the seminar and guests (Drs. Beth Bradburn and Grace Tiffany) about "Medievalism, the Book, and Post-Counter-Reformation Anglo-Catholicism, Or, Another Way To Appreciate Elizabeth Cary."

CFP: MEMO sessions for 2010 Kzoo Congress

2009-07-27T10:58:00.001-04:00

The 45th International Congress on Medieval Studies (2010)

MEMO is soliciting proposals for two sessions to take place at the 45th (2010) International Congress on Medieval Studies. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words and a completed Participant Information Form (available on the International Congress website at http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#Paper), as well as any questions you may have, to:

N. M. Heckel, 132 Penhurst St., Rochester NY 14619

The deadline for proposals for both the paper session and the workshop is September 15th .

*Sessions:*

* /*Paper Session:*/ *Time, Space, Place: Geographies and Cartographies in Neomedieval Electronic Media*
This session is concerned not only the maps and virtual landscapes created for and used in neomedieval electronic media, but also with the "virtual landscape" of the internet, and the way that it
lends itself to the creation of neomedieval communities and connections vastly different from the real world in which participants live.

* */Workshop:/ Gaming Neomedievally: A Festive Video Game Workshop
and Poster Session*
The gaming workshop and poster session has grown since MEMO started it a few years ago, and once again we're looking for academic gamers who would be willing to share their favorite neo-medieval games with the rest of the medievalist community. Participants need to be able to provide the game and the system to run it (whether a laptop or game console); other A/V equipment such as televisions can be reserved through Congress channels. In addition to bringing the game, participants are asked to provide an informational "poster" that explores some aspect(s) of the game's neo-medievalism. Posters can be in hard copy format or in Powerpoint; if the latter, please also bring or request on your A/V sheet a laptop on which to run the presentation.

Lewis Pyenson speaks to Medievalism Class

2009-07-18T20:44:00.002-04:00

On Thursday, July 16, Dr. Lewis Pyenson, Dean of the WMU Graduate College, presented a visiting lecture to the participants in Richard Utz's Graduate Seminar on Studies in Medievalism. Pyenson sketched a panoramic picture of the changing views on medieval culture from the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Modernism through Postmodernism, focusing on the history of ideas and the medievalism of several seminal modernist scholars, e.g., Henri Pirenne, Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Henri de Man, and George Sarton.

Queer Movie Medievalism

2009-07-15T09:34:00.003-04:00

About to be published with Ashgate: Kathleen Coyne Kennedy and Tison Pugh, eds., Queer Movie Medievalism.

Here is the publisher's description: How is history even possible, since it involves recapturing a past already lost? It is through this urge to understand, feel and experience, that films based on medieval history are made. They attempt to re-create the past, but can only do so through a queer re-visioning that inevitably replicates modernity. In these mediations between past and present, history becomes misty, and so, too, do constructions of gender and sexuality leading to the impossibility of heterosexuality, or of any sexuality, predicated upon cinematic medievalism. "Queer Movie Medievalisms" is the first book of its kind to grapple with the ways in which mediations between past and present, as registered on the silver screen, queerly undercut assumptions about sexuality throughout time. It will be of great interest to scholars of Gender and Sexuality, Cultural and Media Studies, Film Studies and Medieval History.

Contents: Introduction: queer history, cinematic medievalism, and the impossibility of sexuality, Kathleen Coyne Kelly and Tison Pugh; The law of the daughter: queer family politics in Bertrand Tavernier's La Passion Béatrice, Lisa Manter; Queering the Lionheart: Richard I in The Lion in Winter on stage and screen, R. Barton Palmer; 'He's not a ardent suitor, is he, brother?': Richard the Lionheart's ambiguous sexuality in Cecil B. DeMille's The Crusades (1935), Lorraine Kochanske Stock; 'In the company of orcs': Peter Jackson's queer Tolkein, Jane Chance; The Eastern Western: camp as a response to cultural failure in The Conqueror, Anna Klosowska; 'In my own idiom': social critique, campy gender, and queer performance in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Susan Aronstein; Performance, camp, and queering history in Luc Besson's Jeanne d'Arc, Susan Hayward; Sean Connery's star persona and the queer Middle Ages, Tison Pugh; Will Rogers' pink spot: A Connecticut Yankee (1931), Kathleen Coyne Kelly; Danny Kaye and the 'fairy tale' of queerness in The Court Jester, Martha Bayless; Mourning and sexual difference in Hans-Jürgen Syberbergs's Parsifal, Michelle Bolduc; Superficial medievalism and the queer futures of film, Cary Howie; Afterword, Glenn Burger and Steven F. Kruger.

Scala and Federico's Posthistorical Middle Ages

2009-07-12T13:55:00.004-04:00

Liz Scala and Sylvia Federico have recently published an essay collection of great interest to scholars of medievalism, The Post-Historical Middle Ages (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). The publisher's summary reads: "This collection of original essays repositions medieval literary studies after an era of historicism. Analyzing the legacy of Marxist and materialist theory on medieval literary criticism, the collection offers new ways of reading texts historically. Drawing upon aesthetic, ethical, and cultural vantage points and methods, these essays demonstrate that a variety of approaches and theories are “historical” and can change what it means to historicize medieval literature. By defining our post-historical moment in medieval English literary studies in terms of new possibilities, this collection will have broad appeal to those interested in the English Middle Ages, history, culture, and reading itself."
Table of Contents: Introduction--Sylvia Federico and Elizabeth Scala * Amorous Dispossessions: Knowledge, Desire, and the Poet’s Dead Body--Patricia Clare Ingham * Time Out of Memory--Jeffrey J. Cohen * Historicism after Historicism--Maura Nolan * (Dis)Continuity: The History of Dreaming--Aranye Fradenburg * Recovering the Middle Ages?--Thomas Prendergast and Stephanie Trigg * Naked Chaucer--George Edmondson * Biography After Historicism--Daniel Birkholz * The Gender of Historicism--Elizabeth Scala * From Clio to JHMuse©: Literacy and the Muse Of Digitalia--R. Allen Shoaf

Verduin speaks to wmu medievalism class

2009-07-09T22:32:00.006-04:00

Kathleen Verduin, one of the most experienced practitioners of medievalism, Associate Editor of Studies in Medievalism from 1982 to 1998 and Professor of American Literature at Hope College, recently led a workshop on Medievalism and the American Renaissance at the graduate seminar on "Studies in Medievalism" at Western Michigan University. Participants were able to learn about the genesis of medievalism as an academic specialty area and discuss the views on medieval culture expressed by famous Americans from William Bradford through Walt Whitman.

SIM conference deadline extended

2009-07-07T16:10:00.001-04:00

The deadline for the fall Studies in Medievalism conference has been extended to August 1rst. The CFP and other information for the conference can be found at the Studies in Medievalism web site. Once again, the dates are October 8-10, at Siena College near Albany, New York, and this year's theme is "Medievalism and Religion."

Michael Camille on Medievalism

2009-06-27T21:44:00.003-04:00

Check out a wonderful volume the U of Chicago Press just published, Michael Camille's The Gargoyles of Notre Dame. Medievalism and the Monsters of Modernity. The publisher's synopsis reads: "Most of the seven million people who visit the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris each year probably do not realize that the legendary gargoyles adorning this medieval masterpiece were not constructed until the nineteenth century. The first comprehensive history of these world-famous monsters, The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame argues that they transformed the iconic thirteenth-century cathedral into a modern monument. Michael Camille begins his long-awaited study by recounting architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s ambitious restoration of the structure from 1843 to 1864, when the gargoyles were designed, sculpted by the little-known Victor Pyanet, and installed. These gargoyles, Camille contends, were not mere avatars of the Middle Ages, but rather fresh creations—symbolizing an imagined past—whose modernity lay precisely in their nostalgia. He goes on to map the critical reception and many-layered afterlives of these chimeras, notably in the works of such artists and writers as Charles Méryon, Victor Hugo, and photographer Henri Le Secq. Tracing their eventual evolution into icons of high kitsch, Camille ultimately locates the gargoyles’ place in the twentieth-century imagination, exploring interpretations by everyone from Winslow Homer to the Walt Disney Company. Lavishly illustrated with more than three hundred images of its monumental yet whimsical subjects, The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame is a must-read for historians of art and architecture and anyone whose imagination has been sparked by the lovable monsters gazing out over Paris from one of the world’s most renowned vantage points."

Renaissance Medievalisms Published

2009-06-26T21:56:00.006-04:00

Just published: Renaissance Medievalisms, ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler (Toronto: Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2009). Publisher's description: "In the wake of the extensive debates over terminology that have occupied historians of the "Renaissance" over the last few decades, there seems to be some movement towards a compromise that postulates both a rebirth and a multifaceted continuum. Such a solution allows for the awareness of a "rebirth" clearly evident in intellectuals and artists of the Renaissance, for the reformulation of that awareness as a historical construct by nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars, and also for the idea of a slowly developing continuum in European society leading up to the "modernity" that is us. The articles in this collection seek to contribute to the ongoing debate on the Renaissance and further our understanding of this brilliant period in European history and culture. The collection's premise is that there obviously was some continuity from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, but also that the world did change dramatically and that this change is evident, in part, in the manner the "Renaissance: used, adapted, and manipulated its "medieval" inheritance."

Table of contents:

Paul F. Grendler , "Continuity and Change in Italian Universities Between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance "

Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, "What Counted as an 'Antiquity' in the Renaissance?"

James Nelson Novoa, "Leone Ebreo's Appropriation of Bocaccio's De genealogia deorum gentilium

Donald Beecher, "The Fables of Bidpai from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance"

Gary Waller, "Shakespeare's Reformed Virgin"

E. Natalie Rothman, "Self-Fashioning in the Mediterranean Contact Zone: Giovanni Battista Salvago and his Africa Overo Barbaria (1625)"

Lidia Radi, "Joan of Arc and the Crusade: Memorising Medieval Examples to Improve a Renaissance King"

Brian Gourley, "Carnivalising Apocalyptic History in John Bale's King John andThree Laws

Philippa Sheppard, "The Puzzle of Pucelle or Pussel: Shakespeare's Joan of Arc Compared With Two Antecedents"

Linda Vecchi, "A Vale of Tears: Early Modern Women's Writing and the Lamentory Style"

Michael Edwards, "Medieval Philosophy in the Late Renaissance: The Case of Internal and External Time in Scotist Metaphysics"

Richard Raiswell, "Medieval Geography in the Age of Exploration: The Fardle of Factions in its English Context"

Hans Peter Broedel, "Now I will believe that there are unicorns": The Existence of Fabulous Beasts in Renaissance Historiae Naturales

Gabrielle Sugar, "Medieval Universes and Early Modern Worlds: Conceptions of the Cosmos in Johannes Kepler's Somnium"

Vittoria Feola, "Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652): The Relation Between Antiquarianism and Science in Seventeenth-Century England"

SIM sessions at 2010 Congress

2009-06-23T15:18:00.001-04:00

Studies in Medievalism is sponsoring two sessions at the 2010 Medieval Congress, I. Remembering the Middle Ages: Medievalism and Memory; and II. Medievalism in Music and the Fine Arts. If interested, please contact:

Richard Utz
Western Michigan Univ.
Dept. of English
1903 W. Michigan Ave.
Kalamazoo, MI 49008
Phone: 269-387-2571
Fax: 269-387-2562
richard.utz@wmich.edu
www.medievalism.net

Congress sessions honoring K. H. Göller

2009-06-23T15:12:00.002-04:00

Some weeks ago, Karl Heinz Göller (1924-2009), former plenary speaker at the Kalamazoo Congress, founding Dean of the College of Languages and Literatures at the University of Regensburg, and founder and Honorary President of the German Mediävistenverband (German Medieval Academy), passed away. Several of his collaborators, students, and friends are organizing two sessions (one on Arthuriana, one on Medievalia in general) at the 2010 Congress to honor his memory. If you are interested, please contact me asap (richard.utz@wmich.edu)

Graduate Summer Seminar on Medievalism at WMU

2009-04-14T21:07:00.004-04:00

English 6100: Studies in Medievalism, Western Michigan University, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:00 am-11:30 am; Brown 2048 -- Dr. Richard Utz

Medievalism might be defined as the ongoing reception, academic and popular, of medieval culture in post-medieval times. As a phenomenon, at least from a Eurocentric perspective, it could be said to commence with Renaissance humanists’ invention of their own era as rebirthing the glory of Ciceronian Rome or Periclean Athens and their concomitant debasement of the period in between Early Modernity and Classical Antiquity as a mere medium aevum, a Middle Age. Medievalism ends, but then it never really does, with your muffler repair at Merlin’s, your drive by the Neogothic Water Tower, or your annual pilgrimage to the International Medieval Congress. In this interdisciplinary graduate seminar we will explore how various ideas and functions of the ‘medieval’ have evolved through the centuries and why the ‘Middle Age’ as a cultural signifier has been able to encompass these various, often mutually exclusive ideas and functions. Areas of inquiry may include textuality, authority, periodicity, pastism, presentism, reception, nationalism, memorialization, musealization, sedimentization, and other concepts yet to be boldly neologized. Several experienced practitioners of medievalism from around the world will hopefully join us as ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ guests.
This class should be valuable to students of medieval studies as well as those interested in the early modern, modern, and postmodern readings of medieval culture. Participants interested in the seminar will be ready to engage with different modes of critical inquiry from Francis Petrarch through Umberto Eco, to participate actively in intellectually challenging seminar style discussion, and to research and write a substantial, original, and expertly edited research paper of publishable quality. For a first impression of the definition and scope of medievalism, please visit: web.mac.com/ricutz/iWeb/site/Medievalism.htm

CFP Annual Conference on Medievalism

2009-03-28T11:14:00.001-04:00

Studies in Medievalism invites session and paper proposals for its annual interdisciplinary conference, October 8-11, 2009. We welcome papers that explore any topic related to the study and teaching of Medievalism, and especially those that focus on this year's theme of “Medievalism and Religion.”

This interdisciplinary conference seeks to bring together aspects of the Middle Ages with the ways artists and scholars since medieval times have imagined these eras in literature, film, music, painting, sculpture and other media, as well as in other (non-humanities) institutions. One does not have to look far to find connections between medievalism and religion. For example, in her book's Epilogue, Karen Armstrong writes, "Crusading is not a lost medieval tradition: it has survived in different forms in both Europe and the United States and we must accept that our own views are as likely to be blinkered and prejudiced as either the Arabs' or the Jews'. It is probably impossible for us to change these old crusading attitudes overnight." Points of focus might include (but are not limited to):

Counter cultural medievalists beliefs
Misrepresentations of medieval religion in contemporary society
(including Neopaganism)
Medievalism, religion, war and other contemporary crusades
Medievalist contemporary religious music
The “gothic” architecture of American churches
Re-imaginings of important religious figures
(Cuthbert, Saladin, Catherine of Siena, Maimonides, Margery Kempe)
Travel and/or pilgrimage literature (early or modern)
Modern historical novels (including mysteries)
Medievalist religious works on the contemporary stage
Shakespeare and medievalist beliefs
Tolkien and Religion
Religion in contemporary Arthurian works
Medievalist religion portrayed on film, television and/or the radio
Medievalist religion and the Internet
Medievalist religion in electronic and/or non-electronic games
Gender identity and sexuality, medievalism and religion
Publication Opportunities:

Selected papers related to the conference theme will be published in The Year’s Work in Medievalism.

Deadline: July 1, 2009

Please send session proposals to Pam Clements, along with the technology request form (available at the website). Email submissions are welcome: clements@siena.edu.

Siena College is located near Albany in beautiful upstate New York, 2 hours north of New York City, with easy access via Albany International Airport (ALB) and by Amtrak train and auto. October is prime leaf-peeping season with an average temperature of 65 degrees. Siena College, a contemporary institution that is yet also firmly grounded in the traditions of Franciscan Catholicism, is the perfect setting for our exploration of medievalism and religion.

Pam Clements, Ph.D., Conference Chair
CLEMENTS@siena.edu
International Conference on Medievalism
Siena College
515 Loudon Rd.
Loudonville, NY 12211-1462
518-783-2359
Fax 518-783-6548

New SIM Site

2009-03-26T13:45:00.003-04:00

Thanks to the wonderful work by Carol Robinson (Kent State Trumbull), we now have an updated Studies in Medievalism site at: http://www.medievalism.net/ Please also watch for forthcoming information about SIM's Annual Conference, this year organized by Pam Clements at Siena College, NY.

Medievalism Sessions at Kalamazoo 2009

2008-10-01T13:56:00.002-04:00

Pending final approval from Congress organizers, Studies in Medievalism will be sponsoring the following panel and sessions at the International Medieval Congress in 2009:

Panel Discussion: "What, in the World, is Medievalism? Global Reinventions of the Middle Ages."
Organizer: Richard Utz, Western Michigan University, USA
Chair: Richard Utz

- Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri, University of Urbino, Italy
- Florin Curta, University of Florida, USA
- Louise D’Arcens, University of Wollongong, Australia
- Mustafa Kemal Mirzeler, Western Michigan University, USA
- William Snell, Keio University, Japan
- Sandy Straubhaar, University of Texas at Austin, USA
- Piotr Toczynski, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland

Paper Session: "Expatriate Medievalisms"
Organizer: Richard Utz, Western Michigan University, USA
Chair: Karl Fugelso, Towson University, USA

- Chris Jones, St. Andrews University, UK, and Louise D’Arcens, University of Wollongong, Australia: “Fossil and Root: Anglo-Saxonism Beyond Britain”
- Richard Utz, Western Michigan University, USA: “On the Wings of Philology: Ewald Flügel in the Wild West”
- Kathleen Verduin, Hope College, USA: “True Brit: Leslie J. Workman and the Founding of Medievalism”

3) Paper Session: "Religious Medievalisms"
Organizer: Richard Utz, Western Michigan University, USA
Chair: Richard Utz

- Agshin Jafarof, Western Theological Seminary: “Recapturing the Medieval Notions of Love in Said Kurban’s Novel, Ali and Nino”
- William Calin, University of Florida, USA: “The Christian Middle Ages: A Scholars' Myth”
- Martha Oberle, Frederick Community College, USA: “Medieval Monk to Modern Man: A Lasting, Adaptable Path”

Jarbel Rodriguez to teach Imagining the Middle Ages

2008-08-28T13:41:00.006-04:00

This semester, Dr. Jarbel Rodriguez, History Department, San Francisco State University, offers a course on "Imagining the Middle Ages." He has kindly agreed to share information on his class with all of those laboring in the vineyard of Medievalism:

http://bss.sfsu.edu/jrodriguez/courses/720/720home.htm

Call for Papers: Medievalism at the Kzoo

2008-07-18T09:05:00.003-04:00

Studies in Medievalism is sponsoring three sections for next year's International Medieval Congress. If you are interested, please contact Richard Utz (richard.utz@wmich.edu).

1) "What, in the World, is Medievalism? Global Reinventions of the Middle Ages."
For next year's congress, Studies in Medievalism is sponsoring a roundtable discussion which, as the punctuation in the session title attempts to indicate, would like to extend existing discussions of Medievalisms in the postmedieval west to non-western, westernized, or only marginally western regions, nations, and cultures. Specifically, we intend to include five to eight scholars from the areas of political science, anthropology, economics, cultural history, literary and language study, music, and the fine arts to discuss notions of the "medieval" in Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria, China, Japan, Korea, South America, India, and Australia/New Zealand (to name but a few) to present a panoramic view of global receptions. The main goal of the round table is to provide a forum for congress participants to encounter the rich, but often less well-known notions of the "medieval" in countries and cultures which negotiate prevalent western ideas of the past with their traditional cultural paradigmata.

2) "Expatriate Medievalisms." This paper session wants to investigate the experience of western voyagers, expatriates, and emigrés who, displaced from their countries and cultures of origin, brought with them and often transmuted ideas of the "medieval" to their new "homes." The "extraterritorial" experience, as George Steiner called it, provides for often original insights into definitions of the Middle Ages, as new architectures, landscapes, climates, literary genres, languages, and theories lead to a veritable "Babel" of identities among political exiles, sentimental travelers on the grand tour or "going west," from soldiers on foreign shores to scholars and artists on their year(s) "abroad." Contributions to this topic might include personal biographical accounts of current medievalist expatriates.

3) "Religious Medievalisms." This paper session intends to provide a forum for the discussion of how various religious traditions have viewed the Middle Ages or how images and stereotypes of, for example, the Catholic or Christian Middle Ages have dominated the popular and scholarly reception since the Renaissance. Specifically, the session is meant to seek answers as to diverse reconfigurations of the "medieval" by the Reformation, Counterreformation, Enlightenment, Modernism, and Postmodernism, Vatican II; by writers, artists, musicians, etc. with missionary intentions; and by scholars who recognized the central role of Medieval religion for their cultural theories. Finally, the organizers would welcome scholarship on how specific religious organizations and communities have redefined their own medieval roots through the centuries.

Regional Medievalisms

2008-04-17T11:41:00.002-04:00

The Regional Medievalisms website has been updated with a conference program and information about travel, hotels, and registration: http://moria.wesleyancollege.edu/faculty/akaufman/regionalmedievalisms

Mass Market Medieval

2008-04-09T12:03:00.002-04:00

Mass Market Medieval. Essays on the Middle Ages in Popular Culture. Edited by David W. Marshall (215 pages; Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2007). The 13 essays in this book explore the medieval invasion of today's media and consider the various ways--from film and print to websites and video games--that the Middle Ages have been packaged for consumption. Essays encompass diverse theoretical perspectives and are grouped loosely around distinct functions of medievalism, including the exposure of recent social concerns; the use of medieval images in modern political contexts; and the medieval's influence on products of today's popular culture. The legitimization of the study of medievalism and the effect of medievalism on the more traditional subject of medieval studies are also discussed.

CREATIVE FANTASY IN RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION

2008-04-08T13:55:00.000-04:00

CALL FOR PAPERS
The Sydney Society for Literature and Aesthetics and
The Society for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts

Invite submissions for papers on

CREATIVE FANTASY IN RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION
for the Conference organized at the University of Sydney on
Friday-Saturday, September 26-27, 2008.

The 20th century has witnessed a renewed expression of religious
imagination
through modern literary, artistic and philosophical forms.
The conference invites papers discussing the new religious creativity as
found in the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Philip K. Dick, Philip
Pullman and others beyond any religious or cultural boundaries.
Special emphasis is given to new forms of religious imagination through the
internet, cinematic transformations and new movements both in East and
West.
The Conference would like to address issues of both traditional and
contemporary post-modern spirituality
as expressed through the mytho-poetics of fantasy and imagination.

Date for submission of abstracts: 29 June 2008

Abstracts to 300 words sent
To be emailed to
The conveners
Vras Karalis: Vrasidas.Karalis@usyd.edu.au
Chris Hartney: chris.hartney@usyd.edu.au

Call for Papers: Regional Medievalisms

2008-01-17T09:16:00.000-05:00

I am happy to announce:

REGIONAL MEDIEVALISMS
The 23rd Annual Conference on Medievalism
International Society for Studies in Medievalism
October 9th -11th, 2008
Wesleyan College: Macon, Georgia

http://moria.wesleyancollege.edu/faculty/akaufman/regionalmedievalisms

Papers will be welcome on all aspects of medievalism, but we are especially interested in submissions that focus on the medievalism of a particular time and place. The 19th Century American South, World War II Germany, and contemporary Japan, for instance, all 'get medieval' differently. At this conference we hope to explore how and why the medieval is put to to work to create culturally specific meaning.

The deadline for abstracts is April 15, 2008.

The full CFP and additional information about the conference can be found at our website, linked above. I will be updating the site with information about registration, travel, and accomodations in the coming months, and I will also post important updates and reminders here.

If you have any questions or you would like any additional information, please contact me at akaufman@wesleyancollege.edu.

I hope to see you in October!

Constructing Nations, Reconstructing Myth: Essays in Honour of T. A. Shippey

2007-12-21T10:48:00.000-05:00

This collection of essays, edited by Andrew Wawn with Graham Johnson and John Walter, examines the 'Grimmian Revolution', the paradigm shift in the humanities that came with the publication of Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Grammatik. In doing so, they honour T.A. Shippey, who has been a leading figure in reconsidering the contributions of the Old Philology and its impact on the humanities, particularly the rediscovery of the ancient languages and literatures of Northern Europe; the role this has played in the creation of national and regional identities; the attempts to extend the methods of comparative philology to comparative mythology; and the collection of folktales, folk-ballads, and the development of folkloristics. The sixteen essays in this collection focus on the impact made by nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century philology in the fields of medieval studies and language studies, and in the construction of Northern European national identities, mythologies, and folklore.

Translating the Sagas

2007-12-21T10:44:00.000-05:00

Brepols Publishers' "Making the Middle Ages" series recently published John Kennedy's Translating the Sagas. Two Hundred Years of Challenge and Response. Saga translations have played a major role in shaping attitudes towards Viking-age Scandinavia in Britain, the British Commonwealth, and the United States. This is the first examination in a socio-historical framework of the development of Icelandic saga translation into English from the late 18th century to the present day.

Michael Wood on Dark Ages

2007-10-21T11:15:00.000-04:00

BBC books has just republished Michael Woods' 1987 volume, In Search of the Dark Ages, in a new paperback edition. Based on the well-known BBC television series of the same title, the text focuses on the centuries following the breakdown of the Roman empire. Like many popularizations of historical research, Wood has chosen what some would regard as the pivotal moments in the history of early medieval England, including Queen Bodicea's resistance against the Romans, the legendary figure of King Arthur, the discovery of Sutton Hoo, and the Battle of Hastings.

Terry Jones & SIM in the Press

2007-10-14T13:10:00.000-04:00

For news releases on Terry Jones' plenary at the 22nd International Conference on Medievalism, U of Western Ontario, October 2-6, 2007, click:

London Free Press

Western News

Reviews of Postmodern Medievalisms

2007-10-13T16:25:00.000-04:00

Please find below recent reviews of Postmodern Medievalisms (Studies in Medievalism, XIII), ed. Richard Utz and Jesse Swan, with the assistance of Paul Plisiewicz (Woodbridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 2005):

Angela Jane Weisl, in The Medieval Review (2006).
E.C. Evershed, Medium Aevum (2007), 370.
K.J. Harty, Arthuriana 16/4 (2006), 113-14.

Recently Published

2007-10-13T12:03:00.000-04:00

Michael Alexander, Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England (Yale UP, 2007)

Publisher's summary: The style of the medieval period, which flows through the bloodstream of western culture, was vigorously re-established in post-Enlightenment England. This one-volume history of the Medieval Revival is the first coherent account of it, especially those aspects that are expressed and reflected in literature. The book focuses on the period 1760 to 1971, with an Epilogue on the reverberations of medievalism in the present day.

The rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, after its destruction by fire in 1834, re-established Gothic as the national style. But medieval imitation manifests itself wherever one cares to look: in literature, architecture, the applied arts, religion, politics, and even Hollywood. In this skilled dissection of the components of this pervasive cultural movement, Michael Alexander rejects the idea that medievalism was confined to the Victorian period, and overturns the suspicion that it is by its nature escapist.

22nd International Conference at Western Ontario

2007-10-11T18:11:00.001-04:00

The 22nd International Conference on Medievalism took place on the campus of the University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, October 4-6. Expertly organized and hosted by M. Jane Toswell, speakers from Canada, the United States, Britain, Denmark, France, and Switzerland met to discuss issues regarding Neomedievalism and various other forms of the reception of medieval culture in postmedieval times.

Conference Program:

Thursday, 4 October, 2007

Plenary Session
Chair: M.J. Toswell, Western
Welcome: F.J. Longstaffe, Provost, University of Western Ontario
Introduction: Carol Robinson (Kent State)
Terry Jones (UK), ‘Was Richard II a Tyrant?”

Friday, 5 October 2007

Session 1: Tolkien
(Chair: Megan Cavell, Toronto)

Gwen Morgan (Montana State University) “Medievalism and Miscegenation: An Alternate Reading of Tolkien's Races and ‘Racism'”
Edward L. Risden (SNC), “What Tolkien really says about Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ”
Breeman Ainsworth (Montana State University), “Tom Bombadil and Wyrd ”

Session 2: Neo in the Matrix of the Medieval I: Chaucer's Trauma, Postcolonialism, and Embodiment
(Chair: Richard Moll, Western)

Pam Clements (Siena College), “Neomedieval Trauma: Chaucer as Film”
N.M. Heckel, (Rochester) “Postcolonial Medievalism: Warcraft and the Settlement of the New World”
Lauryn S. Mayer (Washington and Jefferson College), “Graphic Bots and Textual Bodies in Online Medieval Communities”

Session 3: Redrawing the Medieval World
(Chair: Laurence deLooze, Western)

Amy S. Kaufman (Wesleyan), “Jesus Built My Hot-Rod: Masculinity, Medievalism, and the American Romance with God”
Pamela Bastante (Queen's University), “The Mexican Calavera : A Neomedieval Representation of Death”
Tom Shippey (St Louis University), “Turning sagas into novels: unexpected problems”

Session 4: Beowulf and the Modern Era?
(Chair: Heather Desserud, Western)

K.A. Laity (College of Saint Rose), “ Heofen rece swealg : Neomedievalism and Spectacle in Grendel: Transcendence of The Great Big Bad ”
Alexandra Krakus (Western), “Hwæt Hollywood! Beowulf and the Contemporary, North American, Film Industry”
Karen Borresen Walsh (Montana State University), “The ‘LOST' World: Different Ocean, Same Island”

Session 5: Neo in the Matrix of the Medieval II: Consumption and Cost
(Chair: Nick Dyer-Witheford, Western)

KellyAnn Fitzpatrick (State University of New York at Albany), "Shopping in/for the Middle Ages: Consumptive Practices in 'Medieval' Video Games"
Scott P. Randby (University of Akron), "The Battle for Wesnoth: A Free Software Medieval Video Game"
Carol L. Robinson (Kent State University), "'Millions of Players. One Game to Rule Them All' - The Last Laugh in Wash and Wear Sorcery"

Session 6: Reconstructing the Middle Ages: Scholars and Medievalism
(Chair: Marjorie Ratcliffe, Western)

Siân Evans (Western), "Mythologizing Meyer: Medieval, Modern, and Postmodern in Meyer Schapiro"
Nils Holger Petersen (University of Copenhagen), "Medievalism and Medieval Reception: A Technological Question"
Marian Bleeke (SUNY Fredonia), "Prosper Merimee's Venus d'Ille and the Power of the Past"

Plenary Session
(Chair: William Calin)
Welcome: Trish Fulton (Dean, Huron University College)
Alain Corbellari (Université de Lausanne), "Le médiévalisme est-il réactionaire? Du <> de notre vision du Moyen Age."

Film Screening: "The Meaning of Life"

Videogame Workshop (Room A1). Organized by Carol Robinson and Scott Ranby.

Session 7: Finding the "other"
(Chair: Karis Shearer, Western)

Jonathan Rollins (Ryerson University), "On the Threshold: The Liminal Self in the 12th and 20th Centuries"
Suha Kudsieh (Trent University), "Neo-Medieval Adaptations of the Myth of Saladin: The Case of Sir Walter Scott's Talisman (1825) and Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005)"
William Calin (University of Florida), "Is Orientalism Medievalism? Or, Edward Said, Are You a Saracen?"

Session 8: Finding the "self"
(Chair: Russell Poole, Western)

Michael R. Kightley (Western), "Hereward the Viking and the English, but not the Saxon: Kingsley's Racial Medievalism"
Catherine Parayre (Brock University), "Last speakers of Occitan and the medieval past: a summer festival"
Janice Liedl (Laurentian University), "'That Indomitable Race': Victorians, Nationalism, and the Norse Discoverers"

Session 9: Italian Medievalism
(Chair: Elias Polizoes, Western)

Kathleen Verduin (Hope College), "Haste that Mars All Grace of Action: Longfellow's Genteel Dante"
Karl Fugelso (Towson University), "Neomedievalism as Revised Medievalism in Commedia Illustrations"
Matthew O'Donnell (University of Georgia), "The Cult of Mary Magdalene: The Problem of Neomedieval Heresy in Eco's 'Ten Little Middle Ages'"

Session 10: Knights, Soldiers, and Poets
(Chair: Margaret McGlynn, Western)

Megan Stein (UC-Riverside), "Black Knights: Masculinity and the American Medieval Imaginary"
Elizabeth K. Harris (USM), "Reputation as Evidence: Good Soldiers and Good Knights"
Denis Hüe (Université de Rennes), "Une appropriation du Moyen Age: Villon chez Rimbaud"

Film Screening of a Selection of Neomedieval Films (Audience choice of 5-6 films)

Saturday, 6 October 2007

Session 11: Disease in the medieval film
(Chair: Mary Catherine Davidson, York)

Christine Neufeld (Eastern Michigan University), "Courting the Leper King: The Masked Other in The Kingdom of Heaven"
Martin Schichtman (Eastern Michigan University), "A Plague on All Our Houses: Vincent Ward's The Navigator"
Laurie Finke (Kenyon College), "Re-imagining Plague: Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal"

Session 12: Women as Saints and Rulers
(Chair: Sean Henry, Western)

Michael R. Evans (University of Reading), "A 'remarkable woman'?: Eleanor of Aquitaine in context"
Kathy Garay (McMaster), "Manufacturing Majesty: Elizabeth of Hungary, Diana of England and the Construction of Royal Saints, 1207-2007."

Session 13: Arthurian Worlds
(Chair: Richard Moll, Western)

Tamara F. O'Callaghan (Northern Kentucky University), "Back to the Future: Neomedievalism and The Dark Age of Camelot"
Dominick Grace (Brescia University College), "Arthur and Dilbert"
Joanna Luft (University of Windsor), "Skirting the Wyrale: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight meets Alice Munro's 'Wenlock Edge'"

Session 14: Pre-Raphaelites I
(Chair: Corinne Davies, Huron)

Suzanne Clark (Western), "The Sights and Sounds of the Body and Soul in William Morris's 'The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems'"
David Latham (York), "Cultural Origination and the Pre-Raphaelite Tongue"
Christine Bolus-Reichert (University of Toronto), "A Thing to Dream of Not to Build: John Ruskin, Walter Scott, and the Ethics of Neomedievalism"

Session 15: Opera and Spectacle
(Chair: Norma Coates, Western)

Ed Haymes (CSU-Ohio), "'Eurotrash' Productions of Wagner's Ring: Anti-Medievalism or Neo-Medievalism"
Robert Clark (Kansas State), " Massenet's Thaïs: Orientalism, Medievalism, and 'Couleur antique' at the Opéra"

Plenary Session
Chair: Dominick Grace (Brescia)
Richard F. Green (OSU), "Sir Eglamour and Sir Lionel"

Session 16: Pre-Raphaelites II
(Chair: Crystal Taylor, Western)

D.M.R. Bentley (Western), "'The World of Our Fathers with Its 4 Charackteristicts, Religion, Art, Chivalry & Love': Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 'The Staff and Scrip' and Related Paintings"
Alison Syme (University of Toronto) "The Nature of Abstraction: from the Roman de la Rose to Tales of Pistils and Stamens"
Clare Simmons (OSU), "New Golden Legends: Neo-Saints of the Nineteenth Century"

Session 17: Fourteenth Century Passions & Protests Revisited
(Chair: Keith Russo, WMU)

Kara Cahill (University of Missouri-Columbia), "Pilgrimage, Passion, and Pasolini: Neo-Tales of Canterbury on Film"
Richard Moll (Western), "The Wife of Eatonville's Tale: Zora Neale Hurston on Chaucer"
Peter G. Christensen (Cardinal Stritch), "The Jacquerie of 1358 in Three Novels of the 1960s"

Session 18: Contemporary Fantasy
(Chair: J. Weldon, Wilfred Laurier)

Ruth Wehlau (Queen's), "The Harrowing of Hell in Contemporary Fantasy Fiction"
Christine Havens (University of Northern Iowa), "A World That Dies Within: Stephen King's All-World as an Alternate Reality Mappa Mundi"
Jana K. Schulman (Western Michigan), "Retelling Old Tales: Germanic Myth and Language in Christopher Paolini's Eragon"

Memory and Medievalism

2007-10-09T18:58:00.001-04:00

Volume XV of Studies in Medievalism, expertly edited by Karl Fugelso, centers on the topic of Memory and Medievalism. It contains the following contributions:
From Cabaret to Lecture Hall: Medieval Song as Cultural Memory in the Performances of Yvette Guilbert - Elizabeth Emery
Hic iacet Arthurus? Situating the Medieval King in English Renaissance Memory - Richard J. Utz
Remembering our Saxon Forefathers: Linguistic Nationalism in Ivanhoe - Mary Catherine Davidson
Civilizing the Savage Ancestor: Representations of the Anglo-Saxons in the Art of Nineteenth-Century Britain - Chris Bishop
"It's prolly fulla dirty stories": Masturbatory Allegory and Queer Medievalism in John Kennedey Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces - Tison Pugh
Heaney's Sweeney Astray: Acts of Omission, Translation, and a New Medievalism - Lahney Preston-Matto
Dante and Wendell Berry's Modern Book of Memory - Dominic Manganiello
Creating Scottish Nationalism: English Translations of the Fourteenth- Century Declaration of Arbroath - Mark P. Bruce
Juggling the Middle Ages: The Reception of Our Lady's Tumbler and Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame - Jan Ziolkowski

Welcome

2007-10-08T21:37:00.000-04:00

Welcome to MEDIEVALISM!

This blog will serve as a forum for communicating about all aspects regarding the reception of medieval culture in postmedieval times, usually referred to as "medievalism," from active production or recreation of medieval music, art, literature, etc. to the academic study of such phenomena. While the blog may be read by anyone interested in medievalism, contributions to the blog may only be made by a number of active practitioners, mostly those involved in the Studies in Medievalism movement founded by Leslie J. Workman. This group of scholars and writers, who organize an annual conference, edit and publish two journals (Studies in Medievalism; The Year's Work in Medievalism), and regularly review and write on the subject, includes interdisciplinary specialists from all over the world. I hope that their postings will contribute to an increased understanding of the manifold medievalist practices in societies and by individuals from the Renaissance through the present.

With collegial regards,
Richard Utz

medievalism-medievalismo-mediävalismus-médiévalisme

Kaufman reviews

Unique continuity?

Medieval Kalamazoo

Old Songs

Creole Medievalisms

Negotiating Heritage

27th Conference on Medievalism @ Kent State

Anglo-SaxonISM as preferred qualification

26th Congress

Calin Reviews

Coming to Terms with Medievalism

Imagining the Crusades

It's official: Medievalism is Desirable!

Post-Historical

Makers of the Middle Ages now Online

New Age and Neopagan Medievalisms

recently published: coming to terms with medievalism

The dark side of medievalism

Sponsored Sessions at Kzoo 2012

Salisbury and Schulman join Advisory Board of Medievally Speaking

Mapping Medievalism

Holy War Redux

German Griselda

Mapping Medievalism (in Canada)

Review of Matthews, Ed., In Strange Countries. Middle English Literature and its Afterlife

PUMA

Cahier Calin

Wheeler Fellowship

Fugelso reviews Koman

Annual Intl Conference on Medievalism 2011

Fugelso reviews Chwast,

Year's Work in Medievalism 25 (2010) published

medievally speaking moves to Google

Burt on Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media

camelot to obamalot

memesak conference on once and future romance

sponsored medievalism sections @ kzoo 2011

Amy Kaufman on Mass Market Medieval, ed. David Marshall

Janice Mann on Michael Camille's The Gargoyles of Notre Dame

Mustafa Mirzeler on Medievalism in the Postcolonial World, ed. Davis/Altschul

sessions planned for kalamazoo 2011

Katie Lister Reviews Women Writers and Nineteenth-Century Medievalism

new journal: postmedieval

Hollywood in the Holy Land

Modern Subjections

Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages contains entry on "Medievalism"

Middle-earth Minstrel

call for papers: year's work in medievalism

Jesse Swan reviews Eisenbichler, Renaissance Medievalisms

new entries on italian medievalism

Clare Broome Saunders, Women Writers and Nineteenth-Century Medievalism

Medievalism in the Postcolonial World, ed. Davis & Altschul

Ilse Schweitzer reviews Dinah Hazell, The Plants of Middle-Earth

fifth conference on the cultural heritage of medieval rituals

24th Intl. Conference on Medievalism at Siena College

XXVe Conférence Internationale sur le Médiévalisme

Eminent Chaucerians published

CFP 25th Conference on Medievalism

Robinson and Swan speak to Medievalism seminar

CFP: MEMO sessions for 2010 Kzoo Congress

Lewis Pyenson speaks to Medievalism Class

Queer Movie Medievalism

Scala and Federico's Posthistorical Middle Ages

Verduin speaks to wmu medievalism class

SIM conference deadline extended

Michael Camille on Medievalism

Renaissance Medievalisms Published

SIM sessions at 2010 Congress

Congress sessions honoring K. H. Göller

Graduate Summer Seminar on Medievalism at WMU

CFP Annual Conference on Medievalism

New SIM Site

Medievalism Sessions at Kalamazoo 2009

Jarbel Rodriguez to teach Imagining the Middle Ages

Call for Papers: Medievalism at the Kzoo

Regional Medievalisms

Mass Market Medieval

CREATIVE FANTASY IN RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION

Call for Papers: Regional Medievalisms