KZOO 2014 CFPs

Calls For Papers:
International Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo
May 8-11, 2014

MONSTERS I: Monstrous Gender
Recent trends in monster scholarship are developing a strong focus on the imbrications of monstrosity and gender. We are looking for papers that address the intersection of gender and monstrosity in interesting, unusual, provocative and meaningful ways. We especially encourage papers that seek to move beyond the more traditional uses of monster and gender theories in medieval studies to consider how these categories of thinking can intersect, challenge, problematize, corroborate, support, and inform one another. Interdisciplinary approaches including but not limited to the consideration of monstrous gender in literature, language, history, art history, architecture, philosophy, religion, politics, and/or cultural studies are highly welcome. Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form (available here: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/) to session organizers Melissa Ridley Elmes (maelmes@uncg.edu) or Asa Simon Mittman (asmittman@mail.csuchico.edu) by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. Abstracts will be posted to the MEARCSTAPA blog, and all abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.

MONSTERS II: Parallel Worlds: Monstrous Voyages, Monstrous Visitors
Refraction, reflection, intrusion, illusion, overlay, visitation, wandering, straying: parallel worlds double and haunt medieval landscapes, providing voyage destinations and otherworldly visitors. Medieval worlds are not unitary or univocal, as refugees seek Torelore and the Pays de Cocagne; as chroniclers record or imagine far-off Carthage and Jerusalem; as the secular world finds itself invaded by hellish demons or heavenly angels; as saints and mystics simultaneously inhabit this world and the next. What can other worlds, or other temporalities, tell us about how medieval cultures understood the quotidian or secular world? How does the ingress of or egress to various worlds beyond establish or erode the definition of the here-and-now? Are all such intrusions monstrous? Does monstrosity necessitate intrusion from beyond? We invite papers from all disciplines and national traditions, on topics that might include the double presence of life and death, profane and sacred, self and other, animal and human, native and foreigner, male and female, straight and queer, past, future, and present. Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form (available here: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/) to session organizers Stefanie Goyette (stefaniegoyette@gmail.com) or Asa Simon Mittman (asmittman@mail.csuchico.edu) by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. Abstracts will be posted to the MEARCSTAPA blog, and all abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.

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SEMA 2013 Murder Roundtable Submissions

Dwayne C. Coleman, University of Central Arkansas
Murder, Manslaughter, and Responsibility: Killing in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur

In “The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney,” Malory relates of Sir Gareth’s future alienation from his elder brother Sir Gawain because Gawain, as he explains, “was evir vengeable, and where he hated he wolde be avenged with murther” (Malory 360). Malory is obviously referencing the murders of Sir Pellinor and Sir Lamorak that Gawain and his other brothers will commit later in “The Book of Sir Tristram.” He portrays these murders as being among the more destructive events in the history of the Round Table, and although Gawain tries to use the justification of blood feud, the killings are a clear breach of Arthurian chivalry as formulated in the Pentacost oath sworn at the ordination of the Round Table. More complex is Sir Lancelot’s later killing of Sir Mellyagaunt after denying his plea for mercy. The killing comes as part of trial by combat, and the duplicitous Mellyagaunt garners little sympathy. However, Lancelot’s determination to “be revenged” upon him pushes the boundaries of justice and creates an undercurrent of moral ambiguity (Malory 1138). No one ever questions the righteousness of Lancelot’s action just as Gawain is never really made to answer for Lamorak’s death, and these acts are taken as symptoms of the larger conflicts within the order. Both Gawain and Lancelot later seek to atone for moral failures, but these killings are not among them. The incidents demonstrate the challenge that Malory faces in establishing what is murder and what is a righteous killing.

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Euan Drew Griffiths, UNC – Chapel Hill
Arthur’s Executioner: murder and legality in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The fourteenth-century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, presents a fascinating contrast between life and death, right and wrong. Sir Gawain, acting according to the rules of chivalry and courtliness answers a challenge on behalf of his king to behead the Green Knight. The consequences of Gawain’s actions, however, bind him to a greater web of legal and moral choices that convey him towards his own, seemingly unavoidable, execution. In the course of his road to death, the Green Knight presents Gawain with a series of “mind games” that challenge Gawain’s adherence to his former legal structure, the Old Testament, and he is introduced to a new moral and legal framework, the New Testament. Ultimately, Gawain must account for his actions, particularly his rash decision to kill the Green Knight, and he offers his own head in return. The poem rejects Gawain’s approach, and instead celebrates mercy and restraint in response to penalty and unabashed violence. Instead of death, Gawain receives the slightest of cuts to his neck and a green girdle, symbols of his mistakes to take with him back to Arthur’s court. Thus, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight confronts medieval chivalry and its legal framework through Gawain’s quest to the Green Chapel. The poem not only critiques the genre of Chivalric Romance, but also poses demanding questions regarding individual responsibility and violence as a punishment for sin.

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Anne Latowsky, University of South Florida
Who Gets Killed and Why? Homicide in the Fabliaux Tradition

SEMA 2013 Teaching Monstrosity Roundtable Submissions

Clinton Atchley, Henderson State University
Monsters Я Us: Teaching Monsters in a Composition Course

ENG 3313: University Writing is one of several upper-level writing courses that students may choose to fulfill the junior/senior-level writing course requirement in our liberal arts core. This course does not count toward the English major or minor; consequently, the students who take this class come from a wide range of disciplines, backgrounds, and interests, everything from the arts and sciences to business to nursing to aviation. One of the challenges for instructors of this class is to find a middle ground of common interest for these disparate students. As a Medievalist teaching this class, I focus on monsters. I argue in my class that we create our own monsters and that it has always been this way. This is to say that each culture, each time period in history develops its own monsters depending on what it finds transgressive within itself. In a self-reflexive, self-referential way, our ancestors and we today reveal our deepest psychological fears through what we perceive as scary. Beginning with the classical period and working to the present, we explore questions such as how do monsters reflect cultural, racial, ethical values and repressed fears? how have our monsters evolved? and what does it mean to be human? For my base text, I utilize Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s chapter, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” from his text Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Using this as our framework, we research, analyze, and trace the history of monsters from the oral tradition through manuscripts, print, radio, film, and television.

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Debra E. Best, California State University, Dominguez Hills
Teaching Medieval Monsters to both Graduate Students and to a Diverse Undergraduate Population

This presentation will introduce my course “Literary Monsters of Medieval England,” which I have taught since 2001 to a range of students, including undergraduate honors students, a diverse undergraduate population, and graduate students who may or may not have had a course Chaucer. While such a specialized course may not exist in every university‚Äôs curriculum, the questions it raises enhance discussion in any medieval literature course. Its central questions examine how monsters function in defining the self, society, and perceived threats. Is something a monster just because it appears non-human or non-animal? How do monsters elevate the hero? How does depicting foreign and non-Christian peoples as monsters help to justify conquest? How do monsters represent sin? How do they articulate threats to the family? Through these questions, students gain insight into the fears and social concerns dominating medieval culture and modern society. This theme leads students into focused readings of texts ranging from Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to lesser known saint’s lives, romances, chronicles, travel works, and religious instructional manuals. Looking at how this course has changed depending upon its core audience, this presentation will explore how one adapts the study of monsters to fulfill the needs of various student populations. How can monsters increase the appeal of medieval literature to an underprepared and diverse student body? How can monsters increase the depth of knowledge of advanced graduate students? How does one approach a class filled with students with vast differences in skills and interests?

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Bernard Lewis, Murray State University
A Monstrous Panel Indeed!

Monsters have always been the rage. Literature, legend, and myth are rich with fabulous animals, chimera, shape-shifters, green men, changelings, and people who are just not ordinary. Simply put, we have historically given much attention to physical differences and cultural “otherness.” From Nosferatu to Dracula, to Anne Rice’s Interview with Louis Pointe du lac, to Stephanie Meyer’s sparkling daylight walkers, the vampire survives. From Marie de France’s “Bisclavret” to Christopher Marlowe’s Duke Ferdinand (The Duchess of Malfi), to Professor Lupin of Harry Potter fame, the werewolf persists as well. Recent movies and television series have focused on the ancient rivalry of the two species. In classroom discussion, “Bisclavret” invites important questions about monstrosity: Who is more monstrous, the werewolf or the wife? How monstrous does one have to be to be marginalized, to become “other?” And, of course, there is the irresistible question of hereditary maiming. Although we want to fear the “other” and the monstrous, we sometimes choose to glamorize them. This panel might ask what informs our choices? Why do we prefer the wolf over the wife? Why do we sometimes sympathize with the vampire? Beowulf is no ordinary man; he is a killing machine. Then why do we like him? And why is he less monstrous than Grendel? After all, Grendel’s mother does not think her son is monstrous at all. How do we identify and define our monsters? And why do we seem to need them?
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Tina Boyer, Wake Forest University
Teaching German Monsters 

This proposal addresses two different aspects of teaching medieval monstrosity at the undergraduate level. One is to incorporate a course on medieval monsters (specifically German and Norse) as part of a first year seminar to introduce freshmen to the German medieval period via instances of monstrous encounters in English translation. Secondly, teaching medieval monstrosity as a German language course at the junior and senior level. Both courses benefit from using monster theory as the primary approach by giving students access to a time period through a medium they are comfortable discussing. Monsters are popular and seem familiar, but when closely analyzed provide deeper insight into medieval culture and by extension into our own. This proves that monsters can provide a bridge, not only across disciplines and time periods, but also languages and cultures.

I will provide different texts and theories that can be accessed both in English and in German, but will also show syllabus development. What worked and what didn’t. To date, I have taught one of these courses each semester and have developed a deeper understanding of what can be expected in an undergraduate curriculum, but can also be used at the graduate level.

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Melissa Ridley Elmes UNC-Greensboro
Monsters: the Gateway to Academia

Introductory courses in English such as intro to literature, intro to poetry, and intro to narrative tend to be conducted as introductions to the literary canon, comprising authors and works historically considered the ones “students should know”. However, such an approach can lead to outcomes such as students thinking English is boring, students thinking college-level classes are “just like high school AP class”, or students thinking “I don’t understand this”. These courses tend to be overlooked as the ones that could become a gateway for students to learn to think in new and interesting ways about their relationship to literature, culture, and with the university. Structuring them around themes like “heroes and monsters” rather than canonically can accomplish this. In my talk I will review how I structure my intro to narrative course and provide a copy of the course outline to roundtable attendants as an exemplar of how such a course can become an accessible gateway into academia for students, especially those who have struggled in school or who are first-generation university students unsure of their ability. Developing a syllabus around familiar subjects of interest, such as monsters, gives these students an early opportunity to see in very tangible way that the university is not an inaccessible “Dead White Anglo Saxon Guys” club, but rather a space for considering themselves and the world around them in ways they otherwise might not experience.