Medieval studies is in a moment in which it is re-examining the long-held categories that have traditionally defined its boundaries. As this reconceptualization of the field progresses, Trans Studies offers a number of scholarly methodologies and insights that are changing the way medievalists consider their field and, more specifically, Trans…[Read more]

This session seeks to build upon the growing appreciation for the complex and multifarious discursive engagements between late medieval English literary texts and Islamicate or Persianate culture, society, language, or literature. Recognizing that such engagements include much more than direct literary representations of the individual Islamicate…[Read more]

Race, Gender, and Consent in the Global Early Modern

Guaranteed roundtable on race, gender, and consent in the prose, poetry, and drama of the 16th and 17th centuries. How do the intersections of these terms illuminate cultural formations, social privileges, and legal rights? Comparative and transnational perspectives especially welcome. Brief CV…[Read more]

CHEAP’ NATURE, ‘CHEAP’ LABOR, AND THE EARLY MODERN CAPITALOCENE
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Examining early modern/colonial literary, ethical, ecological reflections on the European capitalist violent expansion in search of ‘cheap’ nature and labor inaugurating the capitalocene era and emerging notions of nature and the human. One page abstracts…[Read more]

The Chaucer Forum warmly invites submissions for our MLA 2023 (San Francisco, January 5-8) sessions:

Chaucer’s Ornamentalism and Gimmickry

This roundtable session brings Anne Anlin Cheng’s concept of ornamentalism and Sianne Ngai’s work on the gimmick into conversation with Chaucer’s work. For instance, in The Squire’s Tale, Canacee’s…[Read more]

Guaranteed Session: Infinite Variety? Antony and Cleopatra, Then and Now 

This is a call for papers on Antony and Cleopatra. we are open to a diverse array of critical interests, including but not limited to: premodern critical race studies, histories of empire and racial capitalism, early modern trans and sexuality studies, disability studies,…[Read more]

How are various new media forms (e.g. apps, memes, gaming avatars, Webcast rites) creating performative representations of religion?  200-word proposals by March 15.  Manisha Basu, U of Illinois, Urbana (mbasu@illinois.edu ) Adrienne Brown, U of Chicago (adrienneb@uchicago.edu ).

More information: How have visual digital forms supplemented r…[Read more]

How do cleric-sleuths or other religious detective figures (e.g., Cadfael, Granchester, Father Brown, etc.)  navigate/challenge religion alongside police or state-sponsored will-to-knowledge? 200-word proposal to mbasu@illinois.edu by March 10.

More information: From G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Father Brown’ to Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael, from Harry…[Read more]

Memorialization, “entering the canon,” and the influence of politics, race, class, or gender. Who decides on the people, texts, places, dates, etc. selected to be commemorated, studied, and/or enshrined? Theorists such as Lonergan, Bourdieu, Girard, and Agamben have explored “sacralization” as a process of making holy or sacred that can inv…[Read more]

“New Rules” (Guaranteed roundtable sponsored by CLCS Renaissance and Early Modern)

Proposed new guidelines for conducting research, sharing work, and supporting the profession as we address the realities of systemic social inequity, climate change, the expansion of the adjunct labor force, and drastic shifts in institutional support for the…[Read more]

New Directions in Feminist and Queer Readings of Medieval French Literature: a Session in Honor of Simon Gaunt

Simon Gaunt’s research interests were remarkably varied: from Romance philology to psychoanalysis, postcolonial studies, and beyond. This panel honors one important part of his legacy: his groundbreaking feminist and queer readings of m…[Read more]

The omnipresence of religious rhetoric in medieval French culture is among the most salient and often among the most alienating cultural juggernauts faced by students and scholars alike. Yet, sacred biography–hagiographical, Marian, and Christological–has not fully found its place in the discipline of medieval French studies. As a corpus at onc…[Read more]