Medievalists @ Penn 11th Annual Conference - Mediocrity in the Middle Ages: Finding the Middle Ground
Mediocrity in the Middle Ages: Finding the Middle Ground11th Annual Medievalists @ Penn (M@P) Graduate ConferenceUniversity of Pennsylvania, February 22nd, 2019Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Sonja Drimmer (UMass Amherst, Art History) What makes something “mediocre” in the Middle Ages? We often assume that if a manuscript, literary text, or work of visual or performance art has survived from the medieval period, it is exceptional in some way. Modern scholarship tends to enforce this assumption by either praising a work for its beauty and importance, or arguing for the centrality and exceptionality of something that past scholarship has ignored. But what of things that have survived that are just OK?