#Kzoo2015: some suggested sessions

 by J J Cohen

This week begins the annual pilgrimage of medievalists and their friends to Kalamazoo, Michigan for the FIFTIETH International Congress on Medieval Studies. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you there ... and on behalf of the BABEL Steering Committee want to bring to your attention two events you are most welcome to attend: the BABEL Party Friday at Bells and the BABEL/Material Collective Bar&Business Meeting Thursday (see below).

Here are also some suggestions for sessions to attend. The list is to be read alongside the Material Collective's collation of awesomeness (50 Kalamazoos). Please add your own suggestions to the comments!

THURSDAY 10 AM Fetzer 1005
Carolyn Dinshaw’s Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics, 1990–2015 
Sponsor: BABEL Working Group
Presider: Bruce Holsinger
Hermeneutics as Autobiography Steven F. Kruger, Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Glosynge Is a Glorious Thynge Emma Maggie Solberg, Bowdoin College
The Tex(t)ual Body Myra Seaman, College of Charleston
Materna Lingua Nicholas Watson, Harvard Univ.
Chaucer’s Deadly Text Lynn Shutters, Colorado State Univ.
Documents and Doctrine: A Case for Chaucer’s Discerning Women Elizabeth Robertson, Univ. of Glasgow
Response: Carolyn Dinshaw, New York Univ

THURSDAY 3:30 PM Sangren 1710
Critical Imperative: The Future of Feminism 
Sponsor: Exemplaria: Medieval / Early Modern / Theory
Organizer: Patricia Clare Ingham, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington
Presider: Tison Pugh, Univ. of Central Florida
Feminism beyond Skepticism Ruth Evans, St. Louis Univ.
New Materialism and the Future of Feminism: The Case of Le Menagier de Paris Glenn Burger, Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Not Your Mother’s Historical Continuity: Feminism, Historicism, and the Case of Christine de Pizan Lynn Shutters, Colorado State Univ.

THURSDAY 5:15 p.m. Fetzer 1035
BABEL Working Group and the Material Collective 
Reception with open bar
Please bring your ideas for next year's BABEL + postmedieval sessions!
NOTE FROM EILEEN: we will also be giving away copies of Cohen & Co.'s INHUMAN NATURE and Kathleen Kennedy's MEDIEVAL HACKERS at this reception!

FRIDAY 10:00 AM Bernhard 158
Quantum Medievalisms (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies
Organizer: Eileen Joy, BABEL Working Group
Presider: Angela R. Bennett Segler, New York Univ.
Schroedinger’s Woman Tara Mendola, New York Univ.
The Piers Plowman Uncertainty Principle James Eric Ensley, North Carolina State Univ.
Bedetimematter Christopher Roman, Kent State Univ.–Tuscarawas
Quantum Memory and Medieval Poetics of Forgetting Jenny Boyar, Univ. of Rochester
Quantum Queerness Karma Lochrie, Indiana Univ.–Bloomington

AND ALSO FRIDAY 10:00 AM Schneider 2355
False Friends: “Translation,” “Adaptation,” or “Creative Interpretation” of the Medieval Text? 
Sponsor: eth press
Organizer: Chris Piuma, Univ. of Toronto, and David Hadbawnik, Univ. at Buffalo
Presider: David Hadbawnik
The Nonce Taxonomies of Translation and Mary Jo Bang’s Inferno Lisa Ampleman, Univ. of Cincinnati
The Well of Anachronism: Experimental Translation, Medievalism, and Gender in Contemporary Poetics Shannon Maguire, Wilfrid Laurier Univ.
Return to Sender: Re-Flemishing Chaucer’s Flemish Tales in Verhalen voor Canterbury Jonathan Hsy, George Washington Univ.
“The harlot is talkative and wandering”: Conduct Literature, Medbh McGuckian, and the Postcolonial Subject Katharine W. Jager, Univ. of Houston-Downtown

AND ALSO ALSO FRIDAY 10:00 AM Bernhard 106
The Secret Life of Medieval Plants
Organizer: Rob Wakeman, Univ. of Maryland, and Danielle Allor, Rutgers Univ.
Presider: Rob Wakeman
Human-Plant Assemblages in Cornish Ordinalia Plays, Robert W. Barrett, Jr., Univ. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign
What Makes the Cut: Selection and Omission in the Tree Catalog, Danielle Allor
The Secret Life of Dead Plants, Haylie Swenson, George Washington Univ.
“Ripeness is all”: Plants, Oedipal Myths, and King Lear, Vin Nardizzi, Univ. of British Columbia

FRIDAY 1:30 Fetzer 2030
Feeling Medieval: Teaching Emotion in the Middle Ages 
Sponsor: TEAMS (The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages)
Organizer: Thomas A. Goodmann, Univ. of Miami Presider: Thomas A. Goodmann
A Is for Affeccioun: Strategies for the History of Emotions in the Classroom Rebecca F. McNamara, Univ. of Sydney
“The folk gan laughen at his fantasye”: Contexts for Understanding Emotion in Several Medieval Genres Anne Scott, Northern Arizona Univ.
“Parzival’s Fear and Werther’s Loathing”: Teaching Emotions in Medieval and Modern German Literature to High School Students: An Experiment Ricarda Wagner, Univ. Heidelberg
Teaching Feeling: Asceticism, Critique, and Affective Piety Paul Megna, Univ. of California–Santa Barbara
Object Emotion: Inter- and Extra-disciplinary Graduate Teaching Stephanie Downes, Univ. of Melbourne

FRIDAY 3:30 Schneider 1140
Lost (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute (MEMSI), George Washington Univ.
Presider: Jeffrey J. Cohen
Lost Speech Randy P. Schiff, Univ. at Buffalo
Lost Time Christopher Roman, Kent State Univ.–Tuscarawas
Lost in Love Lowell Duckert, West Virginia Univ.
Lost English Dual Number Pronouns Daniel Remein, Univ. of Massachusetts–Boston
Lost at Sea / Adrift Eileen Joy, BABEL Working Group
Lost Causes Jonathan Hsy, George Washington Univ.
Lost in Thought Anne F. Harris, DePauw Univ.

FRIDAY 5:30 Bernhard East Ballroom
Medieval Originality: Looking Back, Looking Forward (A Panel Discussion)
Sponsor: Material Collective; Medieval Institute, Western Michigan Univ.
Organizer: Maggie M. Williams, William Paterson Univ./Material Collective
Presider: Maggie M. Williams
A panel discussion with Eileen C. Sweeney, Boston College/Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy; Pamela King, Univ. of Glasgow/Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society (MRDS); Martha Bayless, Univ. of Oregon/Platinum Latin; Robert F. Berkhofer, III, Western Michigan Univ./Haskins Society; James Borders, Univ. of Michigan–Ann Arbor/Musicology at Kalamazoo; and, as respondent, Elizabeth C. Teviotdale, Western Michigan Univ.

FRIDAY 9 PM onwards (some of us might still be there Monday morning)
BABEL Annual Party at Bells Eccentric Cafe 355 E Kalamazoo Ave (an easy walk from the Radisson, where the shuttle bus lets off).
Make sure you ask a member of the BABEL Steering Committee for a wristband so that you can enjoy the fermented beverages in radical conviviality. Also, if you don't know anyone who is a member of BABEL, that is all the more reason to come. All are welcome, but especially YOU.

SATURDAY 1:30 Fetzer 2016
Unsettled Marks: To #;()@?”:—*!… and Beyond! (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: Grammar Rabble
Organizer: Richard H. Godden, Tulane Univ., and Shyama Rajendran, George Washington Univ. Presider: Shyama Rajendran
☧ Chrismon “Can Be Set Down as a Sign Wherever the Writer Likes” Damian Fleming, Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ.–Fort Wayne
Students, Period Kisha G. Tracy, Fitchburg State Univ.
In Search of Lost Punctuation: The Medieval Uses and the Modern Absence of the Paraph Sarah Noonan, Lindenwood Univ.
You’ve Been Punc’t Cameron Hunt McNabb, Southeastern Univ.
Tiro and the Druids Bruce Holsinger, Univ. of Virginia
Poetry / Chris Piuma, Univ. of Toronto, and David Hadbawnik, Univ. at Buffalo

SATURDAY 3:30 Fetzer 1035
Medieval Ecocriticisms: What Can Medieval Studies Bring to Ecocriticism? (A Roundtable)
Sponsor: Medieval Ecocriticisms
Organizer: Heide Estes, Univ. of Cambridge
Presider: Jeffrey Cohen
Medieval Reliquaries as Functionally Differentiated Environments Rachel S. Anderson, Grand Valley State Univ.
Ecocriticism and Medieval Eschatology Justin Brent, Presbyterian College
Ecolinguistics: Deep Time and Medieval Language Contact Jonathan Hsy, George Washington Univ.
Medieval Gardens Allyson McNitt, Univ. of Oklahoma
Animals and Gods without Us in Medieval Religious Literature Mo Pareles, Northwestern Univ.
The Early Middle English Alliterative Tradition: Husbandry, Class, Economics, and Ecocriticism Matthew Pullen, South Dakota State Univ.
Patience, ISIS, and the Ecological Scars of Perpetual War Rob Wakeman, Univ. of Maryland

SUNDAY
If you make it all the way until Sunday ... well, just stay the night with the rest of us. Seriously. Enjoy a quiet transition into the ending of the semester. Starting later in the afternoon all who are still in Kalamazoo are most welcome to rendezvous, one last time, at Bells for food and drink and conviviality. AND here is a suggestion for your Sunday morning pre-brunch treat (yes! you can eat brunch with us afterwards!):
Sunday 10:30 AM Ecotastrophes (A Roundtable) Fetzer 1010
Sponsor: Oecologies: Inhabiting Premodern Worlds
Organizer: Robert Allen Rouse, Univ. of British Columbia
Presider: Robert Allen Rouse
Plague, English, and Other Natural Disasters David K. Coley, Simon Fraser Univ.
Cultivating Catastrophe in Medieval Anglo-Welsh Literature Daniel Helbert, Univ. of British Columbia
Neighboring Wastelands, Catastrophic Hospitality, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Richard H. Godden, Tulane Univ.
The Shape of Catastrophe
Jeffrey J. Cohen, George Washington Univ., and Lowell Duckert, West Virginia Univ.
Dark Skies and Black Gardens: Jessie Redmon Fauset’s Harlem Lady in the Medieval World Cord J. Whitaker, Wellesley College

(this post has been edited, with some of the comments moved into the main body to offer a more complete Kzoo list)