Calls may be for conference panel participation, journal articles, book chapters, or book series. Please send your calls for submissions to Leah Haught (lhaught@westga.edu).
For more information on ISSM’s annual conference, please visit our conference page.
Medievalism Book Series
A Boydell & Brewer series that aims to provide a forum for monographs and collections devoted to the burgeoning and highly dynamic multi-disciplinary field of medievalism studies: that is, work investigating the influence and appearance of “the medieval” in the society and culture of later ages.
To learn more about submitting a manuscript, visit the series information page. If you would like more information about the books already published in the series, see the online catalogue.
CFP: ISSM Sponsored Kalamazoo 2024 Sessions
The 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies will be held in Hybrid Format on May 9-11, 2024.
All ISSM sponsored sessions will be remote and submissions are due by 9/15/23.
YOUNG ADULT MEDIEVALISMS (#4924): PAPER PANEL
This virtual/remote session considers the function of the Medieval in Young Adult Literature and Media. Whether retellings of Arthurian or other medieval stories, stories set in the Real or Fantasy Middle Ages, or stories working in Medieval narrative modes, the universe of YA media seems deeply engaged with the past. This is particularly interesting since the idea of “adolescence” certainly post-dates the Middle Ages. Papers will consider any aspect of the Medieval in YA Media focusing on how the medieval is defined or created and used within the narrative. What it the purpose of setting a YA story in the medieval past? What happens when Medieval characters are reconstituted as contemporary (or futuristic) young adults? How do medieval genres work to tell stories that speak to the present moment? And what is the relationship of the past and the present in these stories? Email Angela Weisl (angela.weisl@shu.edu) with questions; abstracts must be submitted through the ICMS website for consideration.
MEDIEVALISM AND CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE (#4925): PAPER PANEL
The romance genre emerges in the Middle Ages but has shown no intention of going anywhere. How do contemporary forms of romance (whether novels, films, television shows, etc.) engage with medieval tropes and narrative elements? While there are certain obvious elements that have changed, what remains the same? And what about the genre allows it to maintain the same status it had in the Middle Ages as the most popular (secular) genre? Papers for this virtual/remote session may look at any contemporary examples from any media. Email Angela Weisl (angela.weisl@shu.edu) with questions; abstracts must be submitted through the ICMS website for consideration.
POLITICAL MEDIEVALISM: A GLOBAL VIEW (#4923): PAPER SESSION
In 2017, with white supremacists sporting shields and standards containing medieval-like heraldry, Charlottesville shocked the mainstream world. Not long after, in 2019, Christchurch in New Zealand followed a similar pattern, when Christian terrorist Brenton Tarrant attacked two mosques and murdered 51 people, using (amongst other weapons) an assault rifle riddled with inscriptions alluding to medieval themes, characters, and events. Despite not being a new phenomenon (let us not forget that painting of Adolf Hitler as a medieval knight) twenty-first century political (neo)medievalism seems to be finally showing its more brutal impulses; once confined to the ends of the internet and other restricted underworlds, it is now crawling its way into the public scene and even gaining relevance in places and countries where it was previously unknown. Email Luiz Guerra (anchietaguerra@gmail.com) with questions
INCLUSIVE MEDIEVALISMS IN FILM AND TELEVISION (# 4296): ROUNDTABLE
Medievalisms in Film and Television show no sign of slowing down, every season brings new examples. Whether purely fantasy or based in some kind of historical reality, these instantiations suggest an ongoing preoccupation with the medieval past. But to what end? More specifically, how do diverse casting choices (or the lack thereof) impact popular conceptions of the “premodern” past? This virtual roundtable will investigate different visions of medieval society put forth recently on film and tv in an attempt to determine how they might reflect the use and abuse of the Middle Ages in contemporary discourses on diversity and inclusion. Considerations of fan reactions to casting choices are welcome alongside analyses of the impact of these choices on the world building and messaging of the show or film in question. Email Leah Haught (lhaught@westga.edu) with questions; abstracts must be submitted through the ICMS website for consideration.
SCIENCE FICTION MEDIEVALISMS (#4922): PAPER PANEL
After the success of last year’s four sessions on Science Fiction Medievalisms, this virtual/remote session seeks to continue the conversation. How is the Medieval used in a genre that is supposedly about the future? How do medieval elements interact with the technological, scientific, and cyber elements of the genre? Why do “past” stories continue to be told in the imagined future, and what does this suggest about our present? Email Chrissie DeClerck-Szilagyi (christinaszilagyi@delta.edu) or Angela Weisl (angela.weisl@shu.edu) with questions; abstracts must be submitted through the ICMS website for consideration.
If you have friends or colleagues who you think would be interested in these sessions, please encourage them to submit!
CFP: 2023 International Conference for the Study of Medievalism
Posted on October 19, 2022 by postmedievalist
October 26-28, 2023
The UNICORN Castle
Submission Deadline: September 15, 2023
The 2023 conference will be hosted by The UNICORN Castle, a haunted museum, currently in the process of evolving into an online virtual environment. Most scholarly presentations will be conducted via Zoom technology; some of the entertainment and scholarly presentations (by request) will be conducted in a 3D environment created with Mozilla Hub.
Theme: The Medieval in Cyberspace
From Beowulf on Steorarume to contemporary novels (in e-text form), films, and video games: the medieval has been represented in digital form on the World Wide Web since the late 1990s. This conference invites proposals for papers, paper sessions, round tables, panels, and workshops that celebrate, rebuke, categorize, visualize, analyze, and/or prophesize all items that contain elements of the medieval to be found on the Internet. However, we invite papers and presentations on all topics of medievalism, not limited to this year’s conference theme. We particularly welcome proposals from presenters in (or addressing topics related to) regions outside North America, Western Europe, and the Anglophone world.
Topic Suggestions:
Medieval Studies Online
Medieval Pedagogy Online
Medievalism and Online Politics
Medievalism and Propaganda
Medievalism and Religion Online
Digital Facsimiles of the Medieval
The Business Philosophy of Medievalism
The Video Game Industry and Medievalism
The Film Industry and Medievalism
Fan Fiction and Medievalism
Art and Medievalism
Global Medievalism Online
Cyberpunk Medievalism
Medievalism and Racism Online
Medievalism and Misogyny Online
Medievalism and Ablism Online
Medievalism and Homophobia/Transphobia Online
Lost Provinces, or Lost and Found Medievalisms Online
Send proposals (abstracts of 250-300 words each) by August 15, 2023 to Carol L. Robinson at clrobins@kent.edu.
*This conference will be 100% online.
Posted in Annual Conference, Call for Conference Submissions, Conference Work, Uncategorized | Leave a comment
CFP: Studies in Medievalism XXXIII—EN(GENDER)ING MEDIEVALISM
Posted on September 3, 2022 by postmedievalist
Deadline extended!
From Sir Walter Scott’s chivalrous knights and damsels in distress, through George R. R. Martin’s bestial lords and serpentine queens, medievalism is often quite sexist. Sometimes these biases are defended as originating in the Middle Ages themselves, or at least being true to what is known about them. But do these prejudices actually represent medieval practices and/or perceptions? To what degree is that knowable and does it matter? What about inevitable (albeit perhaps small) differences in those approaches, in their application, and among the contexts in which they are deployed? How, if at all, might medievalism have initiated or at least shaped broader perceptions of gender? How have perceptions about gender shaped medievalism? What role, if any, has been played by ambiguities in the definitions of gender and of medievalism, particularly as the latter relates to the Middle Ages? Studies in Medievalism, a peer-reviewed print and on-line publication, is seeking not only feature articles of 6,000-12,000 words (including notes) on any postmedieval responses to the Middle Ages, but also 3,000-word essays that respond to one or more of these questions. Applicants are encouraged to give particular examples, but submissions, which should be sent to Karl Fugelso at kfugelso@towson.edu in English and Word by 1 August 2023, should also address the implications of those examples for the discipline as a whole. (Note that priority will be given to papers in the order they are received and submissions that have not been translated into fluent English will not be considered.)
Posted in Call for Submissions in Publishing, Studies in Medievalism | Leave a comment
CFP: ICMS/Kalamazoo 2023 Sessions Sponsored by the ISSM
Posted on August 29, 2022 by postmedievalist
The Conference will be held in Hybrid Format on May 11-13, 2023
All three sessions will be remote.
SCIENCE FICTION MEDIEVALISMS—PAPER PANEL
While Science Fiction would seem to occupy the greatest distance from the Middle Ages, it remains deeply informed by Medievalism. Often presented through the episodic structure of medieval romance, Science Fiction, despite a focus on the future, often reaches back to the past for its imagery, its narratives, and its ideologies. We seek papers that consider this particular relationship between the medieval past and the projected future, whether in form, narrative, characters, worlds, or ideologies. Approx. 250 word Abstracts by 9/10 to Angela Weisl (angela.weisl@shu.edu)
REPRODUCTIVE BODIES AND MEDIEVALISM—PAPER PANEL
Aware of ever-looming legislative battles which aim to govern reproductive bodies, this session will explore the how reproductivity is re-imagined in medievalist texts. Considering medievalist depictions of conception, abortion, pregnancy, and birth, presenters may consider such questions as: How are ideas of the medieval deployed to support political battles over reproductive bodies? How do White nationalist extremists use the medieval to portray reproductive bodies (especially as traditionally coded in terms of binary sex and gender) as part of their imaginary heritage? How do feminists and queer activists use medieval materials to re-imagine reproductive bodies? Approx. 250 word Abstracts by 9/10 to Emily Morgan Harless (emily.harless@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk)
MEDIEVALISM AND MENTAL HEALTH–ROUNDTABLE
In the Middle Ages, mental illness was blamed upon demonic possession. However, legal thought found that mentally ill criminals should not be held accountable for their actions. Constantinus Africanus’s writings argue that mental illnesses were caused by either internal or environmental factors, such as black bile affecting the heart or a blow to the head affecting the brain. How are current “justifications” for crimes, such as mass killings, rooted in medieval ideas of mental illness? One might consider the historical relationships between religion, medicine, and law as they have developed in the Middle Ages, as well as since then. Abstracts by 9/10 to Carol Robinson (clrobins@kent.edu).
If you have friends or colleagues who you think would be interested in these sessions, please encourage them to submit!
Posted in Conference Work, ISSM at Kalamazoo | Leave a comment
CFP: Outlaw Networks (Leeds 2023)
Posted on August 17, 2022 by postmedievalist
This is for a hybrid session at the International Medieval Conference in Leeds (3 to 6 July, 2023).
Outlaw Networks
Although they sometimes work alone, outlaws in history and literature always belong to a series of networks. They exist alongside, within or outside communities, and have groups of supporters, opponents and comrades. Outlaw stories depend for their dissemination on networks and groups, and the stories themselves exist within groups of related narratives. This session examines some of these networks, and the individuals and groups who inhabit them. Possible topics for this session may include the following:
familial networks, bonds, relations
gendered networks
guild and mercantile networks
ecclesiastical and royal administrative networks
networks of texts, authors, editors, and printers
environmental networks
social “networking” of characters and authors
If you have anything you would like to present on any of these themes, either medieval or neo-medieval, please contact me, Lesley, by close of play on Friday 23rd September, with a working title and a short (but interesting!) abstract of around 100-200 words. That will give me a few days to organise and fill in the forms.
My emails are l.a.coote@associate.hull.ac.uk & coote081@gmail.com
Lesley Coote BA PhD FHEA
Fellow of the Department of English, Creative Writing and American Studies
University of Hull
HULL. HU6 7RX
UK
Series Chair: “Medieval Identities in Socio-Cultural Spaces”
http://www.brepols.net/Pages/BrowseBySeries.aspx?TreeSeries=MISCS
Series Co-editor: “Outlaws in Literature, History, and Culture”
https://www.routledge.com/series/ASHSER-4012
