Friday, January 20, 2012

West[Michigan]ward, Ho! 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies

by EILEEN JOY

The schedule for the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies [10-12 May 2012, Western Michigan University] is now published, and that means this is the time of year to start thinking about which chain-mail dress you want to pack, which medievalists you want to either hug or slap this coming May, and how you are going to sneak your way into Elizabeth Teviotdale's bedroom, thereby ensuring better time slots at next year's Kalamazoo -- that is, if you're a great lover and you're her type [gosh, I really hope Liz Teviotdale has a good sense of humor; I think she does, actually].

All kidding aside, I thought I would highlight here some sessions that In The Middle-ers, BABEL, postmedieval, and GW-MEMSI will be involved in, and PLEASE feel free to tell us in the comments section which sessions you think we should take note of [and yes, isn't it refreshing to use those dangling participles, now that we're allowed to?]. I know there are a LOT more sessions I am not listing here that promise to be REALLY interesting, like Session 124 on "Thing Theory and Object-Oriented Studies in Medieval Contexts" and Session 437 on "Cosmopolitanism in the Middle Ages," and I could go on and on, but I won't. 

Session 12: Literature, Theory, and the Future of Medieval Studies: Middle English and Its Others
Thursday, May 10 @10:00 am
Sponsor: Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

A roundtable discussion with Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington Univ.;
Theresa M. Coletti, Univ. of Maryland; Donna Beth Ellard, Rice Univ.; Eileen A.
Joy, Southern Illinois Univ. Edwardsville; Karla Mallette, Univ. of Michigan–Ann
Arbor; Deborah McGrady, Univ. of Virginia; and Zrinka Stahuljak, Univ. of
California–Los Angeles. 

Session 70: Fuck Me: On Never Letting Go (A Roundtable)
Thursday, May 10 @1:30 pm
Sponsor: BABEL Working Group

"Tearsong," Anna Klosowska, Miami Univ.
"Why I Can't Let Go of Mysticism," Christopher Roman, Kent State Univ.-Tuscawaras
"61 Reasons I Can't Leave This Ashmole," Myra Seaman, College of Charleston
"Sticking Together," Lara Farina, West Virginia Univ.
"Hymns of Invitation," Cary Howie, Cornell Univ.
"Rickrolled by Beowulf," Marcus Hensel, Univ. of Oregon
"Cathexis: The Litel Clurgeon's Closure Comes as a Cost," Miriamne Krummel, Univ. of Dayton 

Session 117: Fuck This: On Finally Letting Go (A Roundtable)
Thursday, May 10 @3:30 pm
Sponsor: BABEL Working Group

"Splitting Hairs, Spitting Feathers," Elaine Treharne, Florida State Univ.
"Fuck Romance," Cord Whitaker, Univ. of New Hampshire
"Fuck Activism/Forget Feminism," Martha Easton, Seton Hall Univ.; Maggie M. Williams, William Paterson Univ.
"Letting Go of the Dead Hand," Carolyn Anderson, Univ. of Wyoming
"Fuck Readers,"  M.W. Bychowski, George Washington Univ.
"Historicism and Its Discontents," Erik Wade, Rutgers Univ.
"Fuck Orientalism," Erin Maglaque, Univ. of Oxford
"Fuck Point of View," Valerie Vogrin, Southern Illinois Univ. Edwardsville 

Session 154: Burn After Reading: Miniature Manifestos for a Post/medieval Studies (A Roundtable)
Thursday, May 10 @7:30 pm

"Intentionally Good, Really Bad," Heather Bamford, Texas State Univ.–San Marcos
"Kill the Shakespeareans," Will Stockton, Clemson Univ.
"Waging Guerrilla Warfare against the Nineteenth Century," Matthew Gabriele, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ.
"Net Worth," Bettina Bildhauer, Univ. of St Andrews
"The Gothic Fly," Shayne Aaron Legassie, Univ. of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
"This Is Your Brain on Medieval Studies," Joshua R. Eyler, George Mason Univ.
"The Material Collective," Asa Simon Mittman, California State Univ.–Chico; Nancy Thompson, St. Olaf College
"Blast This: Manifestos, Credos, and Statements of (Mis)belief," Ruth Evans, St. Louis Univ.
"De catervis ceteris," Chris Piuma, Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Toronto
"History and Commitment," Guy Halsall, Univ. of York
"Burn(ed) before Writing," David Hadbawnik, Univ. at Buffalo
"Second Program of the Ornamentalists," Daniel C. Remein, New York Univ.
"Radical Ridicule," Noah D. Guynn, Univ. of California–Davis 

Session 215: Ecologies (A Roundtable)
Friday, May 11 @10:00 am
Sponsor: Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute (MEMSI), George Washington University

"Fluid," James Smith, Univ. of Western Australia
"Trees," Alfred Siewers, Bucknell Univ.
"Human," Alan Montroso, Independent Scholar
"Post/apocalyptic," Eileen Joy, Southern Illinois Univ. Edwardsville
"Hewn," Anne F. Harris, DePauw Univ.
"Recreation," Lowell Duckert, George Washington Univ.
"Green," Carolyn Dinshaw, New York Univ.
"Matter," Valerie Allen, John Jay College of Justice, CUNY 

Session 218: Insular Perspectives I: Anglo-Saxon Elements in Medieval Literature
Friday, May 11 @10:00 am
Sponsor: The Chaucer Review

"The Blind Briton and the Book: Unsettling English History in the Man of Law’s Tale," Paul A. Broyles, III, Univ. of Virginia
"Becoming English in the Man of Law’s Tale," Mary Kate Hurley, Columbia Univ.
"Anglo-Saxon Saints in the South English Legendary," Andrew M. Pfrenger, Kent State Univ.–Salem
"English Saints’ Lives, Bury Saint Edmund’s Abbey, and Lydgate the Monk," Timothy R. Jordan, Zane State College 

Session 402: Activism and the Academy
Saturday, May 12 @1:30 pm
Sponsor: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship

A roundtable discussion with Eileen Gardiner, Medieval Academy of America; Dorothy Kim, Vassar College; Asa Simon Mittman, California State Univ.-Chico; and Sara Ritchey, Lousiana State Univ.-Lafayette 

Session 460: Medieval(ist) Alterities: Cultural and Temporal Alterities in Transdisciplinary Perspective
Saturday, May 12 @3:30 pm
Co-Organizers: Beatrice Michaelis, Justus-Liebig-Univ. Giessen and Wolfram R. Keller, Humboldt Univ.-Berlin
Presider: Eileen Joy, Southern Illinois Univ. Edwardsville

A panel discussion with Andrew James Johnston, Freie Univ. Berlin; Sharon
Kinoshita, Univ. of California–Santa Cruz; Ursula Peters, Univ. zu Köln; and Kristin
Skottki, Univ. Rostock. 

Session 467: The Canon in the Classroom
Saturday, May 12 @3:30 pm
Sponsor: Medieval Academy Graduate Student Committee

A roundtable discussion with David Wallace, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Fiona Somerset,
Duke Univ.; Ian Cornelius, Yale Univ.: Ann Marie Rasmussen, Duke Univ.; and
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington Univ.

For those interested in the entire Congress program, go HERE.

7 comments:

  1. Liz Teviotdale does have a sense of humor, but her cell phone number and her room in the dorms are deeply guarded secrets. Only her suitemate knows for sure!

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  2. MIght I suggest these Babel/ITM/MaterialCollective/MEARCSTAPA-friendly sessions?


    Session 45
    Bernhard 204

    You’re So Juvenile: Monstrous Children in Medieval Culture
    Sponsor: Monsters: The Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory and Practical Application (MEARCSTAPA)
    Organizer: Asa Simon Mittman, California State Univ.–Chico; Melissa Ridley
    Elmes, Carlbrook School
    Presider: Ana Grinberg, Univ. of California–San Diego

    Is It a Boy, a Girl, or an Other? Monstrous Births of Non-monstrous Origins
    Lisa Leblanc, Anna Maria College
    Born For Monstrous Sanctity: Margaret and Her (Uncontainable) Dragon
    Beth Sutherland, Univ. of Virginia
    Twins and Hermaphrodites in Albertus and Pseudo-Albertus
    Sarah Alison Miller, Duquesne Univ.



    Session 138
    Schneider 136
    Eyes of the Beholders: A Roundtable Discussion on the Monstrous
    Sponsor: Monsters: The Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory and Practical Application (MEARCSTAPA)
    Organizer: Asa Simon Mittman, California State Univ.–Chico; Renee M. Ward, Wilfrid Laurier Univ.
    Presider: Larissa Tracy, Longwood Univ.

    Us and Them: Cultural Relativism in the Middle French Secrets de l’histoire naturelle
    John Block Friedman, Univ. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign
    Monsters in Dante’s Hell: Cultural Implications and Unorthodox Religion
    Eric Morningstar, Univ. of Michigan–Flint
    Monsters, A Definition
    Marcus Hensel, Univ. of Oregon
    Dogs, Devils, and the Rhetoric of Total Audibility
    Jeannie Miller, New York Uni


    Session 203
    Schneider 113
    Active Objects I: Optics and Transparency
    Sponsor: International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA)
    Organizer: Karen Overbey, Tufts Univ.
    Presider: Maggie M. Williams, William Paterson Univ.

    Active Optics: Carolingian Rock Crystal on Later Medieval Reliquaries
    Genevra Kornbluth, Kornbluth Photography
    Copper-Alloy Substrates in Precious Metal Treasury Objects: Concealed and Yet Excessive
    Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Institute of Fine Arts, New York Univ.
    Crystal Words: Transparent Objects in Medieval German Literature
    Bettina Bildhauer, Univ. of St. Andrews
    Between Optics and Preaching: Pacino di Bonaguida and the Artistic Mediation of Vision
    Christopher R. Lakey, Johns Hopkins Univ

    Session 367
    Schneider 113
    Active Objects II: Agency and Phenomenology
    Sponsor: International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA)
    Organizer: Benjamin C. Tilghman, George Washington Univ.
    Presider: Asa Simon Mittman, California State Univ.–Chico

    The Inner Life of Objects: Materiality as Agency in Medieval Art
    Gerry Guest, John Carroll Univ.
    The Instrumental Pictorial Cross-Sign in Troyes, Bibliothèque Municipale MS 960
    Beatrice Kitzinger, Harvard Univ.
    Liturgical Combs as Active Objects in the Liturgy
    Eric Palazzo, Univ. de Poitiers/Institut Universitaire de France
    Materia Meditandi: Tactile Pleasure and Spiritual Signification in Parisian Ivory Virgins, 1300–1330
    Alexa Sand, Utah State Univ


    Session 402
    Valley II 202
    Activism and the Academy (A Roundtable)
    Sponsor: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS)
    Organizer: Sally Livingston, Ohio Wesleyan Univ.
    Presider: Sally Livingston

    A roundtable discussion with Eileen Gardiner, Medieval Academy of America; Dorothy Kim, Vassar College; Asa Simon Mittman, California State Univ.–Chico; and Sara Ritchey, Univ. of Louisiana–Lafayette.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Liz: speaking as your suitemate, your secrets are safe with me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Another Babely session suggestion for those hanging on to the bitter and early end:


    Sunday 8:30 a.m.
    Italian Medievalisms in Contemporary Poetry
    Sponsor: Italians and Italianists at Kalamazoo

    Organizer: Lisa Ampleman, Univ. of Cincinnati
    Presider: Karina Attar, Queens College, CUNY

    Virgil as Skeptical Guide: Dante and Kent Johnson’s Travels and Interactions
    through Poetry
    Jonathan Lohr, Temple Univ.

    Poetic Deaths: Memento Mori in Dante’s La vita nuova and Louise Glück’s Vita
    nova
    Ellen Elder, Clermont College, Univ. of Cincinnati

    Wonder and The Other-World of Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde Medieval
    Italian Poetry
    Daniel C. Remein, New York Univ.

    “A Poetry Not to be Squandered”: Richard Jackson and Contemporary
    Reception of Petrarch
    Lisa Ampleman

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  5. This is all suitably exciting. It sounds like Kzoo is going to be very rich indeed for BABEL, postmedieval and GWMEMSI!

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  6. I have to say, I picked a good year to have my 10th Kalamazoo, and my paper only conflicts with one session (that I can tell) that I really wanted to be a part of. Of course it would be MEMSI, but I'll find a way through it, hoping we'll see some of these papers in other formats.

    ReplyDelete
  7. SKYPE ME IN PLEASE.


    Oh well. See (many of) you at NCS, I hope?

    ReplyDelete

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