West[Michigan]ward, Ho! 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies

by EILEEN JOY

The schedule for the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies [10-12 May 2012, Western Michigan University] is now published, and that means this is the time of year to start thinking about which chain-mail dress you want to pack, which medievalists you want to either hug or slap this coming May, and how you are going to sneak your way into Elizabeth Teviotdale's bedroom, thereby ensuring better time slots at next year's Kalamazoo -- that is, if you're a great lover and you're her type [gosh, I really hope Liz Teviotdale has a good sense of humor; I think she does, actually].

All kidding aside, I thought I would highlight here some sessions that In The Middle-ers, BABEL, postmedieval, and GW-MEMSI will be involved in, and PLEASE feel free to tell us in the comments section which sessions you think we should take note of [and yes, isn't it refreshing to use those dangling participles, now that we're allowed to?]. I know there are a LOT more sessions I am not listing here that promise to be REALLY interesting, like Session 124 on "Thing Theory and Object-Oriented Studies in Medieval Contexts" and Session 437 on "Cosmopolitanism in the Middle Ages," and I could go on and on, but I won't. 

Session 12: Literature, Theory, and the Future of Medieval Studies: Middle English and Its Others
Thursday, May 10 @10:00 am
Sponsor: Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

A roundtable discussion with Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington Univ.;
Theresa M. Coletti, Univ. of Maryland; Donna Beth Ellard, Rice Univ.; Eileen A.
Joy, Southern Illinois Univ. Edwardsville; Karla Mallette, Univ. of Michigan–Ann
Arbor; Deborah McGrady, Univ. of Virginia; and Zrinka Stahuljak, Univ. of
California–Los Angeles. 

Session 70: Fuck Me: On Never Letting Go (A Roundtable)
Thursday, May 10 @1:30 pm
Sponsor: BABEL Working Group

"Tearsong," Anna Klosowska, Miami Univ.
"Why I Can't Let Go of Mysticism," Christopher Roman, Kent State Univ.-Tuscawaras
"61 Reasons I Can't Leave This Ashmole," Myra Seaman, College of Charleston
"Sticking Together," Lara Farina, West Virginia Univ.
"Hymns of Invitation," Cary Howie, Cornell Univ.
"Rickrolled by Beowulf," Marcus Hensel, Univ. of Oregon
"Cathexis: The Litel Clurgeon's Closure Comes as a Cost," Miriamne Krummel, Univ. of Dayton 

Session 117: Fuck This: On Finally Letting Go (A Roundtable)
Thursday, May 10 @3:30 pm
Sponsor: BABEL Working Group

"Splitting Hairs, Spitting Feathers," Elaine Treharne, Florida State Univ.
"Fuck Romance," Cord Whitaker, Univ. of New Hampshire
"Fuck Activism/Forget Feminism," Martha Easton, Seton Hall Univ.; Maggie M. Williams, William Paterson Univ.
"Letting Go of the Dead Hand," Carolyn Anderson, Univ. of Wyoming
"Fuck Readers,"  M.W. Bychowski, George Washington Univ.
"Historicism and Its Discontents," Erik Wade, Rutgers Univ.
"Fuck Orientalism," Erin Maglaque, Univ. of Oxford
"Fuck Point of View," Valerie Vogrin, Southern Illinois Univ. Edwardsville 

Session 154: Burn After Reading: Miniature Manifestos for a Post/medieval Studies (A Roundtable)
Thursday, May 10 @7:30 pm

"Intentionally Good, Really Bad," Heather Bamford, Texas State Univ.–San Marcos
"Kill the Shakespeareans," Will Stockton, Clemson Univ.
"Waging Guerrilla Warfare against the Nineteenth Century," Matthew Gabriele, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ.
"Net Worth," Bettina Bildhauer, Univ. of St Andrews
"The Gothic Fly," Shayne Aaron Legassie, Univ. of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
"This Is Your Brain on Medieval Studies," Joshua R. Eyler, George Mason Univ.
"The Material Collective," Asa Simon Mittman, California State Univ.–Chico; Nancy Thompson, St. Olaf College
"Blast This: Manifestos, Credos, and Statements of (Mis)belief," Ruth Evans, St. Louis Univ.
"De catervis ceteris," Chris Piuma, Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Toronto
"History and Commitment," Guy Halsall, Univ. of York
"Burn(ed) before Writing," David Hadbawnik, Univ. at Buffalo
"Second Program of the Ornamentalists," Daniel C. Remein, New York Univ.
"Radical Ridicule," Noah D. Guynn, Univ. of California–Davis 

Session 215: Ecologies (A Roundtable)
Friday, May 11 @10:00 am
Sponsor: Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute (MEMSI), George Washington University

"Fluid," James Smith, Univ. of Western Australia
"Trees," Alfred Siewers, Bucknell Univ.
"Human," Alan Montroso, Independent Scholar
"Post/apocalyptic," Eileen Joy, Southern Illinois Univ. Edwardsville
"Hewn," Anne F. Harris, DePauw Univ.
"Recreation," Lowell Duckert, George Washington Univ.
"Green," Carolyn Dinshaw, New York Univ.
"Matter," Valerie Allen, John Jay College of Justice, CUNY 

Session 218: Insular Perspectives I: Anglo-Saxon Elements in Medieval Literature
Friday, May 11 @10:00 am
Sponsor: The Chaucer Review

"The Blind Briton and the Book: Unsettling English History in the Man of Law’s Tale," Paul A. Broyles, III, Univ. of Virginia
"Becoming English in the Man of Law’s Tale," Mary Kate Hurley, Columbia Univ.
"Anglo-Saxon Saints in the South English Legendary," Andrew M. Pfrenger, Kent State Univ.–Salem
"English Saints’ Lives, Bury Saint Edmund’s Abbey, and Lydgate the Monk," Timothy R. Jordan, Zane State College 

Session 402: Activism and the Academy
Saturday, May 12 @1:30 pm
Sponsor: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship

A roundtable discussion with Eileen Gardiner, Medieval Academy of America; Dorothy Kim, Vassar College; Asa Simon Mittman, California State Univ.-Chico; and Sara Ritchey, Lousiana State Univ.-Lafayette 

Session 460: Medieval(ist) Alterities: Cultural and Temporal Alterities in Transdisciplinary Perspective
Saturday, May 12 @3:30 pm
Co-Organizers: Beatrice Michaelis, Justus-Liebig-Univ. Giessen and Wolfram R. Keller, Humboldt Univ.-Berlin
Presider: Eileen Joy, Southern Illinois Univ. Edwardsville

A panel discussion with Andrew James Johnston, Freie Univ. Berlin; Sharon
Kinoshita, Univ. of California–Santa Cruz; Ursula Peters, Univ. zu Köln; and Kristin
Skottki, Univ. Rostock. 

Session 467: The Canon in the Classroom
Saturday, May 12 @3:30 pm
Sponsor: Medieval Academy Graduate Student Committee

A roundtable discussion with David Wallace, Univ. of Pennsylvania; Fiona Somerset,
Duke Univ.; Ian Cornelius, Yale Univ.: Ann Marie Rasmussen, Duke Univ.; and
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington Univ.

For those interested in the entire Congress program, go HERE.