Medieval Practices of Adaptation (ICMS 2025)
At no time has intellectual culture been more committed to the notion of prior “authority” than in the Middle Ages. Yet medieval adaptations of earlier works and media objects, including classical and scriptural writings, are often boldly inventive: a paradox due for serious consideration. Existing contributions to Adaptation Studies nearly always focus on post-medieval adaptation (such as modern adaptations of medieval sources). In contrast, for this session we invite papers that redirect the insights of Adaptation Studies to build a more coherent sense of medieval ideas and practices of adaptation, especially in cases involving radical or unintuitive changes of language, medium, genre, style, context, or audience.