Call for Papers
International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University
May 8-11, 2014
The Medieval Monster as Mirror: Translation, Hybridity, and Cultural Identity
Scholars in several areas of Medieval Studies have made important contributions to the growing field of “monster theory.” For example, Michael Camille discussed the role of the hybrid figures who populate the margins of many medieval manuscripts as visual mirrors of anxiety about identity in the cultures that produced them; and Jeffrey Jerome Cohen has argued that monsters in medieval European literature embody a paradox of otherness and intimacy that allows authors and readers to test definitions of cultural identity. Recently, Deanne Williams has read a monstrous character in Gower’s Confessio amantis as a figure for the hybridity of the translated text. This session invites papers that examine additional examples of monster figures in medieval texts using translated material, in order to explore the relationship between representations of corporeal hybridity and translation as a self-conscious negotiation of anxieties about cultural identity and otherness.
Please send proposals for papers of 15-20 minutes to Ben Garceau (bgarceau@indiana.edu) by September 15, 2013.
Session organizers: Ben Garceau and Margot Valles
Session sponsored by the Medieval Studies Institute, Indiana University
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