Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France Conference

Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France Conference,

6-7 June 2013, University College London

CALL FOR PAPERS

• In what social and cultural milieus were francophone texts composed and disseminated outside France during the Middle Ages?
• Is there a transnational medieval francophone literary culture, and how does it vary?
• Does the focus and form of medieval francophone literary texts change as they migrate?
• Do sites of medieval production and transmission outside France influence literary traditions within France?
• Does literary French imply a cultural identity during the Middle Ages? If so, is this necessarily associated with France?
• Should medieval cultural identities be reconceived as mobile, produced by movement as much as by place?
• What is the cultural freight of non-standard and hybrid forms of French during the Middle Ages?
• How do non-standard forms influence our understanding of what ‘Medieval French’ is?
• What are the implications for literary history?

Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France is a major AHRC-funded research project, based at KCL, UCL and Cambridge University, which aims to investigate how francophone literary texts travelled across Europe and beyond. Celebrating UCL’s particular strengths in northern and eastern European cultures, the June 2013 conference is intended to highlight the northern transmission of French-language texts, while also making wider connections. The plenary speakers will be Prof. Keith Busby (University of Wisconsin) and Dr Frank Brandsma (Utrecht University). We will be happy to consider papers that discuss the project’s key texts and manuscripts, but hope also to see the project’s questions addressed much more widely.

Please email proposals, of approx. 250 words, to Dr Dirk Schoenaers (d.schoenaers@ucl.ac.uk) by 1 December, 2012. Papers should be approximately 20 minutes long, and may be delivered in English or French.

We plan to publish a volume of papers from this and the second project conference, which will be held at King’s College, Cambridge, 10-12 April 2014.

Members of the Research Team:
Prof. Simon Gaunt, KCL
Paul Vetch, KCL
David Murray, KCL
Dr Jane Gilbert, UCL
Dr Dirk Schoenaers, UCL
Prof. William Burgwinkle, University of Cambridge
Dr Nicola Morato, University of Cambridge