Panel: On the Path of Joan of Arc: Tracing Johannic Itineraries through Art, War, and Tourism (Panel at International Conference for Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI)

deadline for submissions: 
September 15, 2025
full name / name of organization: 
International Joan of Arc Society
contact email: 

 Key cities in Joan of Arc’s history often emphasize associations with the Maid as important parts of their cultural identities and contributors to their economies. Catholic and secular organizations alike propose tours for those who wish to “live” some dimension of Joan’s history by visiting the sites where she was born, fought, and died. This panel is concerned with itineraries: either those undertaken by Joan or her entourage (military routes, Isabelle Romée’s supposed pilgrimage), those recreated, (history-inspired travel plans), or those that emerge, (the itinerant afterlives of objects representing Joan, like artwork or statuary). We invite a range of creative and scholarly approaches including but not limited to: analysis of fictionalized travel narratives featuring Joan of Arc, commentaries on Joan’s real-life travel companions, ethnographies of Johannic destinations or festive practices (e.g. re-enactments and parades), personal narratives of pilgrimages, interpretations of the “traveling theater” of Joan’s nullification proceedings or the multi-city tours of Joan impersonators à la Claude des Armoises, studies of the trajectories of Johannic tropes, texts, or objects, as well as explorations of wrong turns, chosen detours, inevitable backtracking, and travel tools like maps and schedules, designed to prevent such mishaps. For more information, please contact Tara Smithson (tsmithson@saintmarys.edu) or Scott Manning (smanning@gmail.com). Please submit via the website for The International Conference for Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, Michigan- May 14-16, 2026) https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7398