Paul Megna’s paper for the Middle English Forum at MLA 2022 invoked a Public Books piece by Irina Dumitrescu in order to prompt contemporary medievalists to ponder the events of 1/6/2021. How might 1/6/2021 cause us to reconsider the scholarly lenses through which we have typically interpreted the events of Rising of 1381 and their literary ma…[Read more]

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]

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]

Dear colleagues,

The Bibliography & Scholarly Editing Forum is seeking self-nominations for a new member of the forum’s executive committee, to serve a five-year term starting in January 2023.

The executive committee organizes at least one MLA conference session each year and nominates a representative to the MLA Delegate Assembly. If you’re int…[Read more]

The executive committee of the Arthurian Forum would like to solicit nominations (including self-nominations) for a new member of the executive committee who will serve from Feb. 1, 2022-Jan. 31, 2027. The new member must be an MLA member (if they aren’t currently, the appointee can join or renew and then be eligible); they cannot already be s…[Read more]

In collaboration with the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, the New Chaucer Society will support one or two one month (30 day) research visits by an early career scholar who is a member of the New Chaucer Society to the Special Collections of the Bodleian Library in the University of Oxford. Details here:…[Read more]

The Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) seeks a new Editor or co-Editors of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA).

The Editor is responsible for the editorial direction of the journal, which serves to fulfill the mission of the BSA to foster the study of the material text.PBSA is the Society’s distinguished quarte…[Read more]

The Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) seeks a new Editor or co-Editors of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA).

The Editor is responsible for the editorial direction of the journal, which serves to fulfill the mission of the BSA to foster the study of the material text.PBSA is the Society’s distinguished quarte…[Read more]

The Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) seeks a new Editor or co-Editors of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA).

The Editor is responsible for the editorial direction of the journal, which serves to fulfill the mission of the BSA to foster the study of the material text.PBSA is the Society’s distinguished quarte…[Read more]

The Old English Forum announces these calls for papers for MLA 2022, 6–9 January in Washington, DC.

Session (1) Broken but Wondrous: Finding Hope in Old English Literature
Old English literature is rarely associated with hope – indeed, much of its poetry is littered with the ruins of lost peoples, frozen and desolate landscapes, meditations on…[Read more]

Care in the Age of Chaucer

Premodern care across political, ethical, religious, medical, environmental discourses. Gender, conduct, and responsibility. Consolation and therapy. Justice and reparation. (Un)caring acts and affects. Pastoral, non-Foucauldian, Lordean paradigms. Self and community. Please submit 250-word abstracts to Wan-Chuan Kao…[Read more]

What kinds of atmospheres does Chaucer’s work engage with or create? How can we understand the social, political, ecological, juridical, poetic, sensory, or media atmospheres within which his poetry circulates? To what extent is Chaucerian poetry part of our contemporary atmosphere? How can we engage with premodern and/or modern theories of a…[Read more]

Sequestered away from our institutions, colleagues, and students, and yet continuing to seek connections with them, many medievalists have no doubt registered the uncanny resemblance between the newly remote experiences of our work and the already pervasive perceptions of that work as remote, both within and without academe. On the one hand, we…[Read more]