by EILEEN JOYWhile Jeffrey is somewhere in Paris with his family [envy, jealousy, and splenetic fumes as I languish in the American midwest; well . . . not really, but . . .], and Karl is, perhaps, either lounging on a Bermuda beach, after having embezzled all of the money from the coffers at In The Middle [wait a minute, we don't have any coffers, just coffee], or lying underneath various tables at various bars in New York City, I thought I would take this opportunity to send a "hello" and a "wish we were there" to Mary Kate and all of the Anglo-Saxonists [and sundry others] gathered this coming week [Monday, July 27 through Friday, July 31] at Memorial University in St John's, Newfoundland for the 2009 biannual meeting of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists. The conference program looks fantastic [the theme this time around is the maritime world of the Anglo-Saxons] and quite a few of the members of the BABEL Working Group as well as some of our favorite medievalist bloggers and postmedieval Board members will be in attendance, giving papers, and participating in the workshops. Perhaps if we're very lucky, Mary Kate will blog and/or live-tweet some of the sessions, but in any case, here are what I see as some of the highlights:
Monday, July 27th:
Daniel Donoghue [Harvard University] is giving a paper, "Reading Old English Poems with the Help of Cognitive Science" [9:15 am session]
Lisa Weston [California State University, Fresno] is giving a paper, "Sailing Seas of Ink: The Psychogeography of the Literate Imagination" [4:00 pm session]
Tuesday, July 28th:
Keynote Address: Allen Frantzen [Loyola University, Chicago], "Over, In, and Under Water: Connecting Food and Identity in Anglo-Saxon England" [9:00-10:00 am]
"Lexomics for Anglo-Saxon Literature," with Michael Drout (English), Mike Kahn (Statistics), Mark LeBlanc (Computer Science) and Christina Nelson (Computer Science), Wheaton College, Norton, MA [10:30 am session]
Martin Foys [Drew University] is giving a paper, "Of Yrlande mid scyphere: The Irish Sea Raids of King Harold’s Sons, and the Redoubling of History" [1:30 pm session]
Fabienne Michelet [University of Toronto] is giving a paper, "Sea-crossings and Memory in Old English Poetry" [3:30 pm session]
Wednesday, July 29th:
Robin Norris [Carleton University], "The Exile of Saint Theophistis" [10:30 pm session]
Friday, July 31st:
An entire session on whales [!]: Session 13, "The Anglo-Saxons and the Whale," organized by Haruko Momma [New York University], and featuring papers by Haruko [Hal], Ian David Riddler, Carol Neuman de Vegvar, and Caroline Esser [10:30 am session]
[Mary Kate is chairing Session 14, 2:00 pm, on "Vernacular Prose: After the Editions," featuring papers by Bruce Gilchrist, "Rethinking Alfredian Manuscripts" and Nicholas P. Brooks, "Anglo-Saxon ‘Chronicle’ or ‘Chronicles’? What's in a Name"]
More detailed information about individual sessions and papers can be found on the conference website, hyperlinked above, where abstracts, in addition to the programme, are also provided. And in the meantime, happy sailing!
check out my pre-blogging of a pre-conference workshop on OE and new media, which promises post blogging as well, and perhaps blogging 'in the middle'--but well have to see of course how reliable these promises turn out to be...at http://wraetlic.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteOh, Dan, thank you SO much for this. There was no information on the ISAS conference website about the workshop on new media and Old English studies led by Martin Foys and Daniel O'Donnell and I was secretly hoping you would blog on that. Terrific!
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