Dear Colleagues,

Please consider submitting a paper proposal to the panel, "Boccaccio and Boccaccian Medievalisms: Representatives of Gender in Storytelling" for the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The dates of the conference are May 14-16, 2026. The deadline to submit a paper proposal is September 15. This panel will be in person and is organized by Italian Studies@Kalamazoo.

Description

This session seeks to interrogate representations of gender inspired by the works of Giovanni Boccaccio. In the proem of the Decameron, the Boccaccio-narrator promises that his hundred short stories will ease Fortune’s blows to the dilicate donne who - according to him - suffer from the trials of heartache. Beyond the text, the cento novelle and its themes have been adapted into visual form. From painted cassoni to Federico Fellini’s towering Anita Ekberg in Boccaccio ‘70, the Decameron continually informs medievalisms of gender, including themes like sartorial disguise, social structure and domesticity, and labor.

We invite scholars who engage with a long genealogy of literary, visual, dramaturgical, and historical representations of gender in storytelling from an interdisciplinary perspective. In addition to literary studies, we welcome fields of inquiry including critical theory, performance theory, gender studies, and visual studies. This panel will feature comparative and cross-cultural work to reframe ideas about gender in the Middle Ages and suggest “medievalisms” that resonate in works beyond those by Boccaccio.

Click here to submit a proposal: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7454