Wednesday, June 25, 2014

SNEAK PEEK: Preview of Materiality Sessions at #Kzoo2015

by JONATHAN HSY

Hey medievalists! You can now take a sneak peek of approved sessions for #Kzoo2015 (i.e., the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI, May 14-17, 2015). The sneak preview information is on this page; you can also directly view the sneak preview of sessions as a PDF.

One idea that emerged through some private discussions on Facebook was to think creatively about more dynamic and deliberate "cross-fertilization" across disciplines and subfields. Some of my Facebook friends picked up on a real interest in materiality at the 2014 conference. Through such virtual correspondence it has been noticed (for instance) that musicologists and literary scholars don't actually interact with each other as much as they could (should!) about the intertwined materiality of sound, text, and notation -- so it would be great to put our heads together to think about things like aurality, language, embodied performance, etc. In what other ways can we all move out of our various bailiwicks and "mix things up" in our sessions?

Here's a list of materiality-related sessions for #Kzoo2015. Full contact info is on this PDF.

It's a great slate of sessions. Think creatively! Consider sending in a proposal to a session that is outside your (sub)field or discipline or otherwise allows you to interact with new people! Perhaps a compelling (unofficial) "Materiality" thread can emerge from the conversations that transpire.

Sessions with materiality in title:

Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies (2): Material Iberia I: Devotional Objects, Devoted Bodies; Material Iberia II: Shaping Bodies in Literature and Art

Friends of the Saints (1): Material Engagements with the Friends of God in Post-Roman Europe (panel discussion)

Magistra (1): Mysticism and Materiality (panel)

Material Collective (1): Transgressive Materialities

Medieval Romance Society (3): Romance Materiality I–III: The (Im)materiality of the Book; Romancing the Material; The Material Afterlife

Mid-America Medieval Association [MAMA] (1): Economic and Material Collectivity and Exchange

Musicology at Kalamazoo (1): The Materiality of Music (panel)

postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (1): Quantum Medievalisms (roundtable)

Societas Magica (1): Magic and Materiality

Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship [SMFS] (1): Gender and Materiality in the Middle Ages

Society for the Study of Disability in the Middle Ages [SSDMA] (1): Disability and Material Cultures (roundtable)

Special Session: (Im)Materiality in English and Welsh Medieval Culture (1)

Special Session: When Objects Object: Misbehaving Materiality (1)

Sessions otherwise interested in materiality:

George Washington University Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute [GW MEMSI] (1): "Lost" (panel)

Grammar Rabble (1): Unsettled Marks: To #;()@?”:-*! . . . and Beyond! (roundtable)

2 comments:

Chris said...

On proposing outside your subfield; The Grammar Rabble are very much interested in including musicologists and other people outside of literature and language studies who want to talk about punctuation and the punctuation-like material marks that encourage structure and sentiment.

Luke Fidler said...

A panel not mentioned here that would welcome proposals from folks who'd like to mix up their materialities: the "Object Iterations" panel, organized by myself, Scott Miller, and Julia Oswald (email lfidler@uchicago.edu).