medieval

Geomythology is an emerging field invented by the geoscientist Dorothy Vitaliano in 1968 but has ancient roots in figures such as the mythographer Euhemerus (3rd century B.C.) as well as modern predecessors like Robert Hooke (1635-1703), the “English Leonardo,” and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), the father of modern paleontology. It has been featured in recent panels at literary and scientific conferences. Geomythology seeks to discover proto-scientific information in ancient and medieval myths, legends, and tales. Often, this information is encoded in stories originally told by eyewitnesses to make sense of traumatic events such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tsunamis.

Cunterbury is a scholarly arts & comedy podcast hosted by three Gen Z academics — A.J. Scott, Alice Fulmer-Zelinka and Shannen Escote — exploring the major works of Geoffrey Chaucer and friends, starting with The Canterbury Tales. In our first season, we are providing witty commentary and voices to discuss the Tales and their pilgrims like you’ve never heard them before. 

UVA Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference XXXIX
Undergraduate Sessions
The University of Virginia’s College at Wise
September 17-19, 2026

Keynote Address:  
“Arthur's Great Death in Malory and its Afterlives”
Karen Cherewatuk, Saint Olaf College

One of the fundamental limitations of English literature before 1800 is that in order to study this literature it must have survived to us in some form: it must have been preserved, intentionally or accidentally, in whole or in part, and usually in some form of archive. This call seeks papers that reflect on or account for the impact of this archival presence in premodern studies. How has or does the need for our texts to have been archived impact the field, whether broadly or through its effect on the understanding of a particular text, author, or genre? How does reading “after the archive” in this subfield differ from similar readings in other subfields, or from readings that do not consider the significance of the archive?

International conference co-organized

with the French School of Athens

From imagination to remains, from remains to imagination: literary representations of ancient Greece in its materiality (14th-19th centuries)

February 25-26, 2027 at the French School of Athens

Transformative Language: Literacies of Mind, Body, and Soul

Southeast Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature

Samford University

Birmingham, AL

October 22-24, 2026

Submission Deadline:  July 1, 2026

Registration Deadline: September 1, 2026

Keynote Speaker: Jason Baxter (Director for the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine University) 

Seeking papers exploring how media forms (methods of inscription, technologies of reproducing text, sound, and image, digital platforms, archives, social media, AI, and beyond) shape the production, circulation, and reception of lyric.

250-word abstract, brief bio and CV by March 20, 2026: nskillma@iu.edu 

We invite in-person or hybrid submissions on any aspect of the medieval studies and their related topics, as well as short reports on ongoing projects, research or funding opportunities, or pedagogical approaches you’d like to share. We also invite in-person and hybrid individual or panel round table submissions addressing the following topics: 

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.

(Extended Deadline)

MEMORY

University of Virginia Department of English Graduate Symposium

March 27 & 28, 2026