Friday, January 27, 2017

#Kzoo2017 Preview: Rogue Workshop and an Invitation

Dearest ITM Readers:

The draft program for #Kzoo17 (International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, MI) is now online. Check it out!

As you start to plan out your conference schedule, note this event not listed on the official program:
Whiteness in Medieval Studies: a rogue workshop on racial politics that will explore how medievalists in all areas of study can be effective allies for diversity and inclusion within our institutions and across our field. Saturday, May 13th, 6-7:30pm, Fetzer 1005. UPDATE: NEW VENUE: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS) Business Meeting and Reception, Saturday, May 13, with this conversation starting at 5:45pm in Fetzer 1045. [more updates here]
And also an invitation:
If you're a person of color (i.e., racial or ethnic minority) working in medieval studies and you'd like to be added to a listserv of Medievalists of Color (MOCs), please contact the current list administrator Jonathan Hsy: jhsy [at] gwu [dot] edu.
This message is posted on behalf of an open fellowship of medievalists of color.

2 comments:

Liz said...

Who has arranged this event? The Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University has reserved and paid dearly for this space at this time. So far as we know, the Fetzer Center has not released this space that we reserved at this time. If this is to be a "rogue" session, it cannot be at the expense of the Medieval Institute (and, by extension, to registrants of the International Congress on Medieval Studies).

Jonathan Hsy said...

Hello there Liz -

The Pseudo Society, as has been a longstanding ICMS tradition, has reserved the space that evening and we have coordinated with the PS organizers to use this space during the idle waiting time that has always been set aside for people to gather and assemble before the PS session begins. While the session is “rogue” insofar as it is not listed on the official program, it is not “rogue” in the sense that all the organizers and attendees will be registered Congress participants. I will happily contact you directly (along with the co-chair of the workshop and one of the PS organizers) if it would help to discuss this further. We are eager to move within existing structures of the conference organization to make this workshop successful and informative for all members of the ICMS community who wish to participate. We feel it a very important intervention to make at this point, but its urgency could not have been foreseen during the official planning stage.

- Jonathan