medieval

Walls, barriers, barricades, borders are lines (real and imaginary) reified to divide, define, and contain, but there are also borderlands and border crossings which necessarily blur and defy arbitrary lines and lead to rethinking notions of belonging and belongings.

Call for Participants: Medieval Studies, Leadership, and Public Humanities Advocacy
MLA 2027 (Los Angeles)
Forum: French Medieval Language and Literature
Roundtable Session

We are pleased to announce that the theme for our 3rd annual online Conference is Fame and Fortune. We invite submissions to both the conference and the journal on this theme.

Writing about a series of human-object relationships, Robin Bernstein employs the term “scriptive thing” to articulate how objects become things when they orient, choreograph, or compel human action. In one such case study, she analyzes a photograph of a woman posing with a racist caricature at the Hotel Exposition in New York’s Grand Central Palace, circa 1930. Using this photo, she further clarifies the nature of this particular subject-object relationship, stating that it is “neither an isolated woman and her ‘whys’ nor an isolated caricature and its textual ‘hows,’ but instead through a complex interaction between the two figures,” that the photo constructs race.

The recent Mandarin Chinese translation of The Canterbury Tales (Linking Publishing, 2025) by Dr. Francis K. H. So offers a timely opportunity to reflect on the growing presence, vitality, and diversity of Chaucerian studies outside the Anglophone world. This significant contribution not only opens new avenues for engaging with Geoffrey Chaucer’s language and narrative art, but also foregrounds the crucial role of translation, pedagogy, and local scholarly traditions in shaping how Chaucer is read, interpreted, and taught across different linguistic and cultural contexts.