The session "Voices and Voicelessness" proposes to examine the uses of speech, both salvific and illicit or idle, in late medieval literature in light of recent scholarly interest in the plurality of ways in which speech was understood throughout the late medieval period -- as one of the five chief senses, a force for good and evil, a form of touching, an outward expression of an inner state. The organizers of the sessions are specifically interested in papers considering a wide range of speech acts, both orthodox/salvific (confession, prayer) and non-orthodox/illicit (gossip, slander, backbiting) as a form of action in Middle English romances and penitential texts, as well as papers that consider the roles of speechlessness and silence as both active choices and enforced states. In addition, the organizers will welcome papers which will purport to explore the relationship between different forms of speech and late medieval narrative experimentations.

*Submission Details:* Submit one-page abstracts and contact
information to Olga Burakov at burakov@fordham.edu or to Rachel Moss at rem117@york.ac.uk no
later than September 15, 2009.