medieval

The literature produced by the communities of early Northern Europe, where the elements of craft and material culture informed the descriptive matter of both poetry and prose, has left a legacy which demands critical analysis of the ways in which the trappings of the real and the imaginary were represented.  What were the relationships between figurative language, mimetic representation, the production of craft, and perceptions shaped by the visual arts?  Did the allegories, symbols, emblems, fancies, and verisimilitude of literature in Old and Middle English, Old Norse/Icelandic, Early Welsh, or Early Irish provide opportunities to discuss the interface of descriptive writing with other modes of representation?  Potential papers are asked to cons

The assumption that science largely ceased to be an area of human endeavor between the Hellenistic period and the age of Galileo has given way to an increasing awareness of the continuity of scientific thinking throughout the medieval period, especially as regards cosmology and astronomy. The notion of a more scientifically aware Middle Ages may seem at odds with the boundaries of medieval thought presented in the paradigms of western medievalism created by authors C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. But the popular image of the Middle Ages they created may be less incompatible with recent work on medieval science than might initially be supposed.

We seek papers to compose a session sponsored by the Centre for Arthurian Studies at Bangor University. The session will include 3 or 4 papers on the subject of “Animals and Materiality in the Arthurian Tradition” for the 2019 International Medieval Congress at Leeds. The Congress theme is “Materialities.”

54th International Congress on Medieval Studies. May 9-12, 2019. Kalamazoo, Michigan

Special Session: Manuscript Culture and the Reception of Medieval Literature in Post-Reformation Iceland

Organizer: Daniel C. Najork, Arizona State University

Presider: Daniel C. Najork, Arizona State University

Free Will, defined by Dante's Virgilio as the noble power to guide and constrain the soul's natural inclination and desires (Purg 18.73),  holds a place of central concern in the Commedia. Elaborating on Marco Lombardo's discourse, the roman poet asserts that it is Free Will that accounts for the justice in feeling joy for doing good and misery for doing ill. While offering a general outline of the fundamental importance of Free Will in the ethical and moral rationale for the fate of departed souls, the pilgrim's first guide promises that Beatrice will provide clarity on this and other topics of particular complexity beyond the purview of his Classical pagan understanding.