medieval

What is real and what is fake? And why does it matter? As soon as objects, texts and utterances (be they pragmatic or artistic) become imbued with a sense of authority or authenticity, there is a potential to produce other objects, texts and utterances which mimic and attempt to siphon off that authority and authenticity. In late medieval and early modern European culture (1400-1750), this potential was realized in new and unprecedented ways. Social, technological, and intellectual developments forever altered many activities which fall under the remit of forgery and fabrication, spurring lively debate about truth and falsity. The printing press transformed the production, distribution and marketing of texts and images.

This survey panel aims to establish dialogues between experts in early literatures. The confluence of epochs facilitates cross-historical discussion and provides a means for thinking about ways to teach early survey courses in university or college classrooms. This panel focuses on identities (racial, gendered, sexual, or mediatized, etc.). In recent years, scholars have labelled efforts to locate early forms of contemporary identity in early literature as presentist, an approach that tends to overlook differences between historical eras by prioritizing current concerns. However, are presentist methods actually flawed? And does any effort to trace earlier forms of current interests automatically constitute presentism?

This session of the Comparative Drama Conference explores the ways in which this year’s conference locale—Orlando, Florida—crosses paths with the culture of medieval and early modern drama. Included among Central Florida’s most notable and popular theatrical productions are theme park stage adaptations of animated films and cinematic blockbusters (think Finding Nemo-The Musical etc.). How do medieval and early modern dramatic works similarly appropriate, convert and dramatize other types of scripted or choreographed performances (oral legends; religious rituals and practices; courtroom dramas; political spectacles etc.) —and to what practical and ideological ends?

Call For Papers for Sponsored Session

2019 MAP/ACMRS Conference;Magic, Religion, and Science in the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance 

“The Magical Mammal in Marie De France”

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?