Year's Work in Medievalism 31 (2016) Published

Dear colleagues,

The International Society for the Study of Medievalism is an association whose members cherish collegial collaboration. Unlike so many other associations in higher education, we have always welcomed ALL lovers of medieval culture and the myriad of receptions, creative and scholarly, of medieval culture, including those without the authority delegated from specific titles and degrees. And we have always taken the time to recognize those among us who have advanced our work and taken on responsibilities, academic and organizational, that created the intellectual and managerial framework within which the rest of were able to produce our own contributions. It is in this latter tradition of collegial recognition that we honored Leslie Workman in Medievalism in the Modern World (1998), Bill Calin in Cahier Calin: Makers of the Middle Ages (2011), and Kathleen Verduin in Medievalism: Key Critical Terms (2014). And it is in this same tradition that we are now honoring Gwen Morgan, friend, editor, director of conferences, and colleague and scholar extraordinaire with a special issue of The Year's Work in Medievalism, a journal she herself edited for many years. 

The official ceremonial presentation of Gwen to the Max will be happening at next year's 32nd International Conference on Medievalism at the University of Salzburg, July 16-18, during a venue she herself organized as our director of conferences. However, we did not want to wait until then to share with everyone the exciting 22 contributions to our area of specialty, expertly edited by Jane Toswell, Ed Risden, Jesse Swan, Shiloh Carroll, and Renée Ward. I am grateful to them, and to all contributors, and I hope that our DragonGwen will enjoy this tribute as a heartfelt Gramercy for the real difference she has made in our professional and private lives. 

And now please CLICK HERE to access:

Gwen to the Max. A Festschrift for Gwendolyn Morgan. The Year's Work in Medievalism 31 (2016). Edited by M. J. Toswell, E. L. Risden  Jesse G. Swan, Shiloh Carroll, and Renée Ward.  

With collegial regards and thanks for your support throughout the year,

Richard Utz, President

Medievalism: A Manifesto forthcoming soon

As the publication date for Medievalism: A Manifesto approaches (December 16), ARC Humanities Press published a short Q&A Richard Utz produced some weeks ago. HERE is the LINK to the Q&A.

KellyAnn Fitzpatrick reviews Cybulskie: The Five-Minute Medievalist

Please find KellyAnn Fitzpatrick's review of Danièle Cybulskie, The Five-Minute Medievalist. Printed by author, 2016, for Medievally Speaking. Dr. Fitzpatrick is a Brittain postdoctoral fellow in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech.

CFP: 32nd Intl. Conference on Medievalism

Medievalism at Kzoo 2017

Kalamazoo 2017 Call for Papers: 

International Society for the Study of Medievalism

52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11-14, 2017.

1. Paper Session: Medievalism and Immigration

This session is inspired by the energetic discussion that followed the 2016 ISSM panel on Medievalism and Anti-Semitism, in which the speakers and the audience made connections between the medievalism employed in twentieth-century anti-Semitic nationalisms and the medievalist propaganda behind the wave of far-right nationalism that has arisen in response to immigration throughout the last two centuries. We seek a broad range of submissions that address the way medievalism has been used in reactions to and actions against immigration and the national, ethnic, or religious ‘Other,’ from early historical examples of medievalism in nationalist movements to the rhetoric and propaganda employed by today’s anti-immigration movements.

2. Round Table: Performing Medievalisms

Medievalism has long played a key role in great (and not so great) art, music, and literature. What is perhaps unique about medievalism as a muse is that it tends to be inspired by a radical attachment to the past. We seek contributions to this round table that examine how emotional and aesthetic sentiments inform medievalist performances, from early Robin Hood ballads and Arthurian jousts sponsored by Henry VIII, to Wagner's Ring Cycle, to the cosplayers and LARPers (Live Action Role Players) who meticulously craft their own 'medieval' weapons and clothing in the twenty-first century. We are especially interested in contributions that draw on the rich critical work being done on affect theory and the history of emotions, but we hope that our round table participants will include scholars and performers alike. We welcome short (10 minute) contributions to this discussion. 

ISSM is also pleased to be sponsoring a third paper session that will feature the contributors to the forthcoming collection, The United States of Medievalism, which examines how different cities and regions in the United States offer opportunities to experience the 'modern Middle Age.’ This session is organized by Susan Aronstein and Tison Pugh. We hope to see you there!

Please follow the Medieval Institute’s rules governing participation and submission of abstracts. Abstracts of no more than 300 words together with the Participant Information Form should be sent before September 15, 2016 to Amy S. Kaufman at amy.kaufman@mtsu.edu. 

LMC's Valerie Johnson reviews: The Middle Ages Unlocked

Please find Valerie Johnson's recent review of Gillian Polack and Katrin Kania, The Middle Ages Unlocked: A Guide to Life in Medieval England, 1050-1300. Forword by Elizabeth Chadwick. Stroud, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2015, for Medievally Speaking. Kara McShane curated this review for us.

GT Medieval Faculty at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

New Medievalism as Global Conversation: Russia, Europe and the US. 
Friday, November 18
Post-Soviet Russia is often described as a “feudal society,” or as “Medieval society.” Medieval terms proliferate in the political discourse and public debates, and medieval metaphors overwhelm fiction and films. This is certainly not unique for Russia. In Europe and the United States ‘medievalism’ has become, since late 1970s, an important way of conceptualizing social changes.
The goal of this interdisciplinary round table is to introduce to the scholars in the field of Slavic studies the concept of New Medievalism and the debates animated by the question of the applicability of the medieval metaphors and analogies to the understanding of our times. What does the popularity of medieval allusions say about current Russian, European, and American politics? How do they affect the current political and cultural atmosphere? Is there a dialogue or a cultural exchange of “medieval practices”? And is the concept of medievalism pertinent for the analysis of contemporary society?

Organizer

• Dina Khapaeva, Georgia Institute of Technology

Chair

• Jeffrey Peter Brooks, Johns Hopkins U

Roundtable Members

• Mikhail Markovich Krom, European U at St. Petersburg (Russia)
• Ilya Kalinin, New Literary Observer (Russia)
• Richard Utz, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Dina Khapaeva, Georgia Institute of Technology

GT's Khapaeva and Utz to speak at Medievalism Conference

Dina Khapaeva (Modern Languages) and Richard Utz (LMC) will be presenting papers at the 31st International Conference on Medievalism at the University of Bamberg, Germany, July 18-21:

• Dina Khapaeva: Putin’s Viking Guard
• Richard Utz: Men, Empire, Writing: Kipling's Medieval Imagination

Georgia Medievalists Group Fall Meeting, at U of North GA

The fall 2015 meeting of the Georgia Medievalists Group will be held on October 24, in Young Hall 202 on the campus of the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega.                                            


Schedule:

11:00-11:30 Timothy May, University of North Georgia: Chinggis Khan and Climate Change

11:30-12:00 Tom MacMaster, Morehouse College: “Poena divinitus illata est servitutis”: Christian attitudes towards slavery at the end of antiquity

12:00-1:30 Lunch at Shenanigan’s

1:30-2:00 Kevin Kritsch, Kennesaw State University: Ælfric, Kingship and the Tension between Free-Will and Predestination

2:00-2:30 Elizabeth Carson Pastan, Emory University: Embroidering the Bayeux “Tapestry”

2:30-3:00 Glen Kyle and Ken Johnston, Northeast Georgia History Center: Anglo-Saxon and Norman Arms and Armour

3:00-4:00: Viewing of the Bayeux Tapestry

4:00: Drinks and Dinner at Bourbon St. Grill.

A Plea for a Public Medievalism

Richard Utz recently published a short section of his May, 2015, Kalamazoo plenary in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Medievalists, Don't be Snobs

We medievalists have had a pretty good run in academe. We were admitted in the final third of the 19th century after we proved that our subject was complex (read: science-like) enough to warrant professionalized study. European nations’ desire for origins, to use the title phrase in Allen J. Frantzen’s influential book, helped expand the field into the second half of the 20th century. Even in America, although her very existence was predicated on leaving "old" Europe behind, academic work on various medieval heritages thrived to the point where every humanities department boasted at least one medieval specialist.

However, there is now a manifest discrepancy between the large number of students who request that we address their love of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and medieval-themed video and computer games on the one hand, and the decreasing number of medievalists hired to replace retiring colleagues on the other. READ THE FULL TEXT HERE

Utz reviews Oexle, Die Gegenwart des Mittelalters

Otto Gerhard Oexle, Die Gegenwart des Mittelalters, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2015, at Medievally Speaking, reviewed by yours truly:

This delightful cahier of 45 pages, published under the auspices of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, offers a revised version of a paper Otto Gerhard Oexle originally presented at the Academy's Mittelalterzentrum in 2012. To speak about the "Presence" or "Contemporaneity" of the Middle Ages, Oexle addresses three general areas:


1) An immediate presence visible in remains and monuments: Oexle quickly summarizes what we know about the fascination we moderns have with historical objects and buildings, and he likens the immediacy ("Unmittelbarkeit") of the pleasure experienced by lay visitors with that experienced by professional historians…. READ FULL REVIEW HERE

Call for Essays: Volume 30 (2015) of The Year's Work in Medievalism

Dear colleagues,

The editors of The Year's Work in Medievalism, a refereed journal published under the auspices of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, invites essays to be submitted for consideration for publication in its volume 30 (2015). We especially encourage participants at the 29th International Conference (Georgia Tech) and SiM sections at Kalamazoo 2015 to consider sending us revised versions of their conference presentations. However, we will give equal considerations to all other (independent) papers. Please send inquiries and finished papers to E. L. Risden (edward.risden@snc.edu), and see our website for additional information about the journal and its focus and requirements. Please distribute this invitation widely among your colleagues worldwide. For full consideration, please submit your essay by August 10, 2015.

YWiM provides a codisciplinary medium of exchange for scholars  investigating in the postmedieval reception of medieval culture, scholarly and popular. YWiM invites contributions in the field of medievalism studies, not medieval studies. Thus, while an essay on the medieval Joan of Arc would not be appropriate, we welcome contributions investigating Joan's reputation in early modern Italy, the contexts of her canonization in 1920, or her depiction in a motion picture or as a sculpture in contemporary France.

YWiM is a peer reviewed annual academic journal. Contributions, usually between 3,000 and 4,000 words in length, will be accepted on a year-round basis. Articles should be submitted in electronic form as a Microsoft Word file, typed double spaced (including notes and citations), in Garamond font (12 point), and documented in accordance with theChicago Manual of Style. All submissions are subject to double-blind review, and therefore no identifying information should appear anywhere in the article. Contributors may submit illustrations as part of their texts, but are responsible for ensuring copyright for such materials.

Essays submitted for consideration for publication should be sent to E.L. Risden at edward.risden@snc.edu.

To ensure discovery, public enrichment, and education through original scholarship and research, YWiM makes all publications available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States. This means readers/users may use and cite the essays freely as long as they provide appropriate credit, do not use the essays for commercial purposes, and do not alter, transform, or build upon the essays. Authors retain copyright over the work they publish in YWiM.

With collegial regards,

E. L. Risden and Richard Utz, editors

Shiloh Caroll and Renée Ward, associate editors