One of the great epistemological strengths of medievalism studies has been its openness to the many variants of cultural reception, including multiple linguistic, ideological, geographical, and disciplinary perspectives. For this year’s conference at the Georgia Institute of Technology, we specifically invite sessions and individual papers that will investigate the manifold transformations that happen when recreations, reinventions, and redefinitions of the “medieval” move from one cultural space and time to another.
The conference ("Medievalisms on the Move") will feature two plenary speakers. Sylvie Kandé’s research on the migration of medievalisms from Europe and Africa to the Americas, and Kathleen Verduin’s investigation of the North American Dante reception present excellent examples of the kind of work we invite. We also imagine contributions that would show how medievalisms move between different discourses, genres, technological modes, historical periods, geographies, religions, art forms, social levels, research paradigms, etc. In addition to these contributions to the general theme of the conference, we invite any and all papers on the reception of medieval culture in postmedieval times.
Inquiries, one page proposals for entire sessions (deadline: April 15, 2014), and one page proposals for individual papers (deadline: June 1, 2014) should be sent to the conference organizers at medievalisms@lmc.gatech.edu . The conference will be held from October 24-25, 2014, in Atlanta, GA at the Georgia Institute of Technology.