Candace
Barrington, Brantley L. Bryant, Richard H. Godden, Daniel T. Kline, and Myra Seaman
Contact email:
opencanterburytales@gmail.com
The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury
Tales seeks writers for short essay chapters of 3,000 words and longer
reference chapters of 4,000 words. Please submit a short statement of interest
by January 31st, 2016 to opencanterburytales@gmail.com. Rough drafts
will be due in Mid-April 2016 for a crowd-sourced review. Since the turn around
time is relatively short, we especially seek writers who are already working on
projects related to the needed chapters or who have researched those topics
before. The OA Companion is also seeking scholars interested in contributing to
this project as reviewers, proofreaders, and web-design specialists.
This is, we
hope, a radically innovative enterprise and a new way of making a scholarly resource.
The goal of the *OA Companion* is to put together a high-quality companion
volume supporting first-time readers of the Canterbury
Tales, and to provide it in an open-access downloadable format that's free
to all. When completed, the *OA Companion* will be made available online under
a creative commons license. The *OA Companion* is intended for a global
audience of English readers from a wide variety of institutions (or
extra-institutional locations), and it features editorial principles and set
chapter formats that blend scholarly precision with pedagogical adaptability.
It's a project that aims to go forward in a new way, directly from scholars to
the public. We are not working through a traditional press or university
structure. To be up front, this means that there will be no official university
press to mention in one's CV, but it also means that work for this project
might potentially connect with many, many new readers of Chaucer. The *OA
Companion* project is improvisatory and exploratory. To bring something like
this to fruition, the current team needs as much labor, expertise, and goodwill
as the medievalist community is able to spare.
We invite
scholars with an interest in Chaucer and the late Middle Ages to write for the project,
joining a team of more than sixteen other scholars and critics who have already
agreed to contribute material. The Open Access companion is moving forward, and
we are issuing this CFP to find contributors for the remaining necessary essay
and reference chapters. We also hope to connect with scholars interested in
helping with the logistical and pragmatic aspects of the project.
If you are
interested in learning more about the project, please see the “Information for
Contributors” document, included later in this post.
1. Essay Chapters
The OA Companion
needs writers for the following essay chapters. Each essay chapter pairs one
section of The Canterbury Tales with
a topic of wide general interest. Each chapter must follow a set three-part
"tool/text/transformation"
format detailed in the “Information for Contributors” document. First, the
chapter should offer a reader a tool for
interpreting the text (a critical concept, important piece of historical
context, and so forth), then the chapter should engage in an open-ended
analysis of the text, and finally,
at the end, it should briefly offer some questions, project ideas, or other
prompts to allow the readers to further engage with this text and topic (to
effect a transformation). Writers of
essay chapters will be asked to keep in mind the project's editorial principles
and the overall goal of accessibility to a broad audience of first-time readers
of the Tales.
The following
text & topic combinations are available:
--Text: The
General Prologue and Topic: Cultural Crossings, Conflicts, and Collaborations
--Text: The
Summoner’s Tale and Topic: Protest, Complaint, and Uprising
--Text: The
Merchant’s Tale and Topic: Environment, Landscape, and Nature
--Text: The
Pardoner’s Tale and Topic: The Body and Its Politics
--Text: The
Shipman’s Tale and Topic: Interpretation, Deciphering, Coding, and Confusion
--Text: The Tale
of Sir Thopas and Topic: Imagining the World in Maps and Stories
--Text: The Tale
of Melibee and Topic: Local Government: Power, Lordship, and Resources
--Text: The
Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale and Topic: Invention, Discovery, Problem-Solving, and
Innovation
--Text: The
Manciple’s Tale and Topic: Creating Gender and Sexual Identities
--Text: The
Parson’s Tale and Topic: Religious Devotion and Spiritual Feeling
--Text: The
Retraction and Topic: Comment, Argument, Debate, and Polemic
Reference Chapters
The OA companion
also needs writers for the following reference chapters. These chapters should clearly
and engagingly present key aspects of these large topics to readers who are new
to medieval English literature. Writers of reference chapters will be asked to
keep in mind the project's editorial principles and the overall goal of
accessibility to a broad audience of first-time readers of the Tales.
• Society and
Politics in England, c. 1340-1400
• Late Medieval
England in a Global Context
• Introduction
to Medieval Studies / What Does it Mean to Read a Text from Medieval England?
General Assistance
Interested in
helping but don't have a chapter to contribute? We invite any and all
interested parties to join this project. We welcome you to help in any way that
you can. We especially need scholars with experience in online publication and
web design to contribute their expertise as we sort out the logistics of the
final product. Please be in touch at any time at opencanterburytales@gmail.com
Mission Statement and Project Guidelines are appended below.
An Open Access Companion to The Canterbury Tales
Information for Contributors
The
OACCT Editorial Collective:
Candace
Barrington, Brantley L. Bryant, Richard H. Godden,
Daniel
T. Kline, Myra Seaman
Contact:
opencanterburytales@gmail.com
This document serves as a mission statement for this project and contains
guidelines for current or potential writers.
Contents at a
glance:
• The Goals of the Open
Access Companion to The Canterbury
Tales
• What the Open Access
Companion Looks Like
• Editorial Principles
• Essay Chapter Format
• Essay Chapter Topics List
• Reference Chapter Topics List
The Goals of
the Open Access Companion to The Canterbury Tales
1) The Open Access Companion
to the Canterbury Tales supports readers encountering The Canterbury Tales for the first time. The intended audience
includes solitary readers as well as readers in a class or reading group. The OA Companion is addressed to readers in
a wide variety of geographical and institutional contexts. While the OA Companion is intended for an audience
with little familiarity with medieval British literature or literary theory, it
assumes its readers are interested in academic inquiry, deep reading, creative
adaptation, historical exploration, and active scholarly engagement. Instructors,
students, and other readers can easily use and share the OA Companion at no cost.
2) The OA Companion project
takes the concept of open access broadly,
thoroughly, and seriously as a central goal:
-The OA Companion is
free of charge.
-The OA Companion is written
with a global audience (reading in English) in mind.
-The OA Companion assumes
little or no prior knowledge in theory, medieval history, or literary history.
-The OA Companion is intended
for students at a wide variety of institutions as well as those reading outside
of formal academic contexts.
-The OA Companion is
made available in an accessible format compatible with the widest variety of
devices, screen sizes, readers, software, hardware, and printing/reproduction
resources possible.
-The OA Companion is
created with the goal of opening access to the Tales themselves, creating original and dynamic connections between
past and present.
3) The OA Companion connects
the most important and exciting current scholarship (in theoretical approaches,
historical work, interpretation, manuscript studies, and other specializations)
with a new generation of students and readers.
4) The OA Companion provokes
cross-temporal, comparative, and emerging interpretations of the tales,
encouraging new analyses that show how medieval texts like The Canterbury Tales can speak urgently to the interests, concerns,
desires, nightmares, fears, and fantasies of our shared world.
5) The OA Companion further
energizes the study of premodern literature by making a high-quality companion
volume available to a wide audience at no cost.
6) On a larger scale, The OA
Companion project explores how working outside of traditional publishing
frameworks can open up different ways of reaching an audience and shaping a
book, methods governed by the needs of the field and readers – not the needs of
the market.
What
the Open Access Companion Looks Like:
Certain logistical aspects of this project will remain in
development as the contributors are writing. The project will develop in response
to the input of all involved and the circumstances and opportunities that arise
during its creation. The three most open-ended aspects of the project are the
specifics of: 1) the website used to house the OA Companion (hosting, format, maintenance), 2) the file formats
and distribution methods used for the OA
Companion, and 3) the legal licenses used for the materials in the OA companion. Other variables include the
possible role of review or crowdsourcing by focus groups of students and
instructors and also the potential for supplementary/interactive elements on
the website.
No matter what the precise details of these underlying structures
and the process of distribution, however, the end result of the project will match the following core principles:
--The project is expressly non-commercial. Its goal is to provide
the broadest access possible to high-quality, thought-provoking, and useful accompanying
material for reading, teaching, and group or individual study of the Canterbury Tales.
--The main goal of the project is to produce a virtual
"volume" of interrelated and loosely-connected chapters that inform,
interest, teach, and provoke. Some chapters will be essay chapters that discuss one
tale in relation to one topic,
while other chapters will be reference
chapters that introduce readers to broad contexts. This volume will exist
virtually as a collection of distributable texts (the essay and reference chapters),
which can be downloaded, read, printed, and distributed in a variety of methods
depending on the needs of users. The volume will be modular, allowing users to
download it in part, in whole, or in user-arranged segments to fit different
needs, interests, and pedagogies. The volume will be made available on one central,
curated website.
--The core of the OA
Companion’s virtual volume is a series of approximately 26 essay chapters and a smaller number
(5-7, depending) of reference chapters:
Each 3,000 word essay chapter will examine a broad topical focus in relation to one
major “text” within the Tales (26
possible: General Prologue, Knight, Miller, Reeve, Cook, Man of Law, Wife of
Bath, Friar, Summoner, Clerk, Merchant, Squire, Franklin, Physician, Pardoner,
Shipman, Prioress, Thopas, Melibee, Monk, Nun’s Priest, Second Nun, Canon’s
Yeoman, Manciple, Parson, Retraction). The essay chapters will have
as their titles a key word or phrase that relates to broadly shared interests
or concerns (for example, "Language Politics and Translation: The Second Nun's Tale"). The essay
chapters are designed to be read modularly, in any sequence. Each chapter has a
set, three-part format (see Essay Chapter
Format below). The editorial collective will loosely coordinate the short
chapters and their topics to avoid unproductive overlap, although the precise
contours of each chapter will be left up to the writer. A list of Essay Chapter Topics is provided below.
Each 3,000-4,000 word reference chapter will provide broad contextual information for
first-time readers. See the list of Reference
Chapter Topics below.
--All core materials (essay chapters and reference chapters) will
be designed for online or offline reading. Materials will be easily
downloadable. All essay and reference chapters may contain unobtrusive hyperlinks (available to add depth but not necessary
for comprehension of the main text), so that chapters can be circulated in
copies/print or read offline.
--The publication format will allow for modular arrangement. Material will be able to be read or downloaded
in one continuous volume, individually, or in user-designed groupings.
Beyond the
First Season
-- The project's first and most important goal is to create the
volume described above, containing at least one essay chapter for each Canterbury Tale and a few key reference
chapters. The resulting selection will depend on the decisions of the writers
and contributors who are willing to join the project. While the initial volume
will be an achievement and a useful resource in itself, there are also additional
and exciting possibilities for continued future expansion.
--More material could be added. After the initial virtual volume
is created (one essay chapter for each tale plus several reference chapters),
new “seasons” of material could be released, both in the form of additional
essay or reference chapters and also in the form of different genres of text
(short provocative readings, brief discussions of key concepts, fictional or
poetic responses, and so forth). The editorial collective will agree upon a set
schedule for opt-in additions or revisions that will be announced in advance,
so that the site will not be constantly or confusingly in flux. For example,
the next set of additions might be scheduled for three years after the online
publication of the initial volume.
--In addition to the volume itself, a hosting website could
include additional, specifically on-line resources. The nature and function of
these resources will depend on the individuals willing to join the project and
add their expertise and assistance. Possible additional resources could
include:
-Curated link lists
-Videos or podcasts (pedagogical,
performative, etc.)
-Reference lists or glossaries: theoretical
terms, medieval terms, other works (perhaps with quiz or study functions)
-Forums for commentary
and discussion
-Forums for posting creative and adaptational
works
-Potentially, such a site could become a
virtual community or gathering-place and a staging area for future projects…
Editorial
Principles
In order to fulfill the Open
Access Companion’s goals, writers are encouraged to keep the following
principles in mind when preparing materials.
1. Accessibility: Companion
chapters should be written to be as accessible as possible to as broad an
audience of English readers as possible. To that end, companion chapters will:
-Assume minimal prior knowledge of theory,
literary criticism, medieval history, medieval literature, popular culture, or
Chaucer studies. When possible, terms should be contextualized, explained, and
introduced with care.
-Be written in a style that emphasizes
clarity and reader engagement.
-Clearly and intentionally imagine an
audience with a wide and intersecting variety of cis/trans, class, cultural,
disability/ability, ethnic, gender, linguistic, national, racial, religious,
and sexual identities.
2. Critical canonicity: Companion
chapters should consider the issue of authorial canonicity in a critical way.
3. Allow Readers An Active
Role: Companion chapters should aim to provide the audience with resources
for understanding (such as historical contextualizations, theoretical concepts,
and sample interpretations), while provoking an open-ended engagement. To
express this point humorously: any student trying to plagiarize from these
chapters should still need to do a lot of thinking and writing to have a
coherent paper or argument.
4. Outward Focused: Companion
chapters should imagine the connections that can be made between the advanced
study of medieval literature and other pursuits. While containing depth, they
should not aim to transform readers into career Chaucerians. Companion chapters
should enable readers to make active comparisons between the age of Chaucer and
our own. Such comparisons, however, should be made indirectly and with
considerable nuance, avoiding heavy-handed moralizations or pre-packaged
interpretations. Companion chapters should suggest relations to contemporary
issues and problems without “leading the witness” (first, to encourage
independent thinking among a diverse audience; second, because specific
references will become dated very quickly; third, because the goal is the
emergence of unexpected new knowledges and not the replication of dogma).
Companion chapters should aim to help foster and sustain an engaged, searching,
and questioning relationship between readers, the text, and the world.
5. Wear Scholarship
Lightly: Companion chapters should acknowledge critical history and the
achievements of previous scholars, but should not aim to provide a history of
the field. Companion chapters should avoid summaries of previous critical
opinion. Chapters should take care to use the best insights from scholarship
but to create an experience in which
readers feel the possibilities rather
than the professional obligations of
the push and pull of scholarly research.
Essay Chapter
Format:
In order to help address core goals, to provide readers with a
consistent experience, and to foster a distinctive identity for this volume,
every interpretive essay chapter will use a standard three-part format.
Chapters may include a brief introduction of the tale and/or the major issue
under discussion, then will be made up of of three parts: TOOLS, TEXT, & TRANSFORMATION. The “Tools” and “Text” sections
will make up the bulk of the chapter, with the “Transformation” section taking
up a smaller amount of space at the end. [Note that the more directly
informative reference chapters do not need to adopt this format.]
~Tools: Goal: give readers ideas, concepts, or
contexts for their own interpretation. The "tools" section of the chapter
provides readers with some key information about the topic considered in the
chapter. The chapter might also present them with a manageable amount of
historical, theoretical, or scholarly concepts, tools, methods, or techniques.
The goal here is to provide readers with the material for making their own
interpretations and engaging in discussions.
~Text: Goal: Model engagement with the tale and
offer various avenues of examination. This part of the chapter performs a reading
of the given text in relation to the larger topic of the chapter. The readings
or interpretations provided in this section should aim for relative open-endedness,
provocation, and use of multiple perspectives rather than striving to create
definitive, magisterial arguments.
~Transformation: Goal: Provide material for further group or
solo exploration, thinking, discussion, and adaptation of the Tale and the
chapter's ideas. This shorter section will include a list of questions or projects for the reader.
The questions could bring in connections to other tales, invite further
application or questioning of the concepts discussed, or suggest writing projects,
exercises, and explorations. These questions could be used either in a class,
in a reading group, or by an individual reader. The transformation section will
also include a suggested reading section.
Suggested readings will include a variety of works, including related texts,
theoretical works, adaptations, and present-day analogues, as well as key
scholarly references. Contributors who have any difficulties creating this
section can receive ideas and assistance from the Editorial Collective. [For
some models, consider the study questions in Dan Kline's Medieval British Literature Handbook.]
Essay Chapter
Topics List:
Below is the list of chapter titles/topics initially proposed for
OA Companion essay chapters. As of
January 2016, many of these topics are already taken; please see the current CFP
for available tales & topics. The complete list is nevertheless provided
here to show the intended general shape and scope of the project.
This list of topics is designed to avoid excessive overlap (as
much as reasonably possible) with pre-existing companion resources and also to
address the OA Companion’s goal of
speaking to a global, twenty-first century audience. As much as possible,
topics are potentially trans-historical (“touching” both the time of the Tales and our own), outward-directed
(attuned to general interest and not scholarly industry), and yet also
congruent with some recent interests and broad preoccupations in the
humanities. In short, these are designed to be engaging, important, fun, or all
three. Topics that are not addressed in the first "virtual volume" of
essays could provide the topics for further essays in the future.
Animals
Authority:
Familial, Political, Written
Brotherhood,
Sisterhood, Friendship, and Fellowship
Clothes,
Dress, Status, and Identity
Colony,
Empire, and Conquest
Comment,
Argument, Debate, and Polemic
Creating
Gendered and Sexual Identities
Cultural
Crossings, Conflicts, and Collaborations
Dance,
Drama, Performance, Music, and Beauty
Death,
Disease, Illness, and Mortality
Education,
Literacy, Law, and Privilege
Emotion,
Feeling, Intensity, Pleasure
Entertainment
versus Education
Fantasy,
Imagination, Dreams, and Illusions
Feminism
and Women’s Experience
Hatred,
War, and Murder
Imagining
the World: Maps and Stories
Interpretation,
Deciphering, Coding, and Confusion
Invention,
Discovery, Problem-Solving, and Innovation
Jokes,
Jests, Pranks, and Play
Environment,
Landscape, Nature
Language
Politics and Translation
Local
Government: Power, Lordship, and Resources
Love,
Courtship, Marriage, and Extended Family
Objects,
Things, Devices, Gadgets
Pregnancy
and Childbirth
Protest,
Complaint, and Uprising
Race
and Racism
Relating
to the Past, Imagining the Past, Using the Past
Religious
Devotion and Spiritual Feeling
Religious
Identity, Difference, and Debate
Sexuality
and Intimacy
Subsistence:
Farming, Agriculture, Food
The
Body and its Politics
Travel,
Transit, and Journeys
Trends
and Trendiness
Wages,
Work, Wealth, and Economic Inequality
Water:
Ocean, Rain, River, Reservoir
Weather,
Extreme Weather, Elements, Climate
Youth
and Age
Reference
Chapter Topics List:
3,000-4,000 word reference chapters will be designed to introduce
key contexts for understanding the Canterbury
Tales. Although it would be impossible to give a “complete” or
“comprehensive” list, the following would be useful potential topics for
reference chapters. The initial volume will ideally have between five to seven
of these.
~Society and Politics in England c. 1340-1400
~Late Medieval England in a Global Context
~The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer
~Chaucer’s Middle English: An Introduction
and List of Resources
~The Genres of Medieval Literature in the Canterbury Tales
~The Sources of the Canterbury Tales
~Manuscripts and the Production of the Canterbury Tales
~Global reception of the Canterbury Tales c. 2015
~What does “medieval” mean? What does it mean to read a text from
late Medieval England?
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