CfP: IPpS @ ICMS 2023

The International Pearl-poet Society is thrilled to be sponsoring and co-sponsoring a total of six sessions at the 2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. The coming year’s ICMS will be a hybrid conference. In the interest of making our sessions as accessible as possible, we have chosen to make them fully virtual/online–this should help mitigate potential problems of logistics, timing, and costs.

Thanks to our valiant VP, Lisa Horton, for organising the sessions and preparing the CfP. Thanks also to our co-sponsoring organisations, the Medieval Association of the Midwest (MAM) and Tolkien at Kalamazoo.

All proposals are due 15 September 2022. Please see the instructions for submission below.

The sessions are as follows:

  1. “Check Your Privilege”: Microaggressions, Misogyny, and Mansplaining in the Pearl-Poet
    Recently, scholars who do not fit the white cishet male paradigm have been attacked on social media, at conferences, and in print. Because microaggressions, misogyny, and mansplaining all predate the modern era and occur regularly in medieval texts, it is important that we see how our past has create the dilemma that we’re in, but also how examination and dissemination of these texts can also push the conversation about this hate speech within the Ivory Tower and beyond. Papers in this session will examine the works of the Pearl-Poet for privilege and to examine the privilege of our own scholarship.
  2. Climate Change I: Social, Ecological, Political, and Spiritual Shifts in the Late Medieval World
    Climate change is progressing at an alarming rate, but doesn’t just have to do with the weather. As politics and culture become more polarized around the world, we are witnessing extreme changes to social, political, and spiritual shifts, as well as ecological. In this panel, the IPPS will explore how these same monumental shifts hit the late medieval world, as reflected in the art and culture that remains extant today. This panel will also examine how these shifts in late medieval thought can be both a warning and a hope to modern readers.

    (Please also see “Climate Change II: Social, Ecological, Political, and Spiritual Shifts in J. R. R. Tolkien and Medieval Poets,” co-organized by Tolkien at Kalamazoo and the Pearl-Poet Society.)

  3. Conspicuous Consumption: Feasting, Fighting, and Tomfoolery (with MAM)
    When lay audiences imagine the Middle Ages, they imagine gratuitous violence, overindulgent feasting, and a monolithic Church relentlessly punishing the weak. Nonetheless, there is something to be said for the excess and conspicuous consumption that often turns up in medieval literature. In this panel, we will look at how indulgence and gluttony are portrayed in medieval literary works: how the feasting, fighting, and tomfoolery indicate the values of a medieval audience, and why authors like the Pearl-Poet condemned such excess. This panel will also consider the dichotomy of church versus court, and class issues between the nobility and everyone else.
  4. The Game and the Poet: Metaconnections in the Cotton Nero A.x and St. Erkenwald
    A rich body of scholarship has emerged exploring the connections between games, medieval chivalry, theology, and the romance narrative. Our session will continue the study of games in Sir Gawain, and will extend the study of games to the other poems in the Cotton Nero A.x manuscript, and St. Erkenewald, as well as (re)imaginings of these narratives in metatexts like films and RPGs. With this metatextual approach, the session will explore play not only as represented within the texts’ narratives, but also in the creative acts of production and interpretation undertaken by both authors and readers over time.
  5. (Roundtable) “And they were Zoommates”: Teaching, Translating, and Technology—A Pearl-Poet Roundtable
    The International Pearl-Poet Society invites proposals for a pedagogy roundtable on presenting the works of the Poet in classroom settings. Papers might: consider some of the many translations and adaptations of the poems for non-specialist audiences (versions for younger readers, comics and graphic novels, films, and video games); engage how digitization and online tools generate interest in the material culture of books in the Middle Ages and today; or consider the poems’ strikingly relevant themes in this moment of growing public anxieties about classroom content–how can teaching these poems address concerns about politics, social justice, racial and ethnic difference?

All proposals must be made through the official ICMS portal. Here are some directions that should help with the process. To propose a paper for a session before the deadline on Thursday, September 15, please go to https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call

On this page you can click on “P” under Sponsored Sessions to be taken to the list of Pearl-Poet Society sessions. At “Pearl-Poet Society,” you’ll be reminded of the subject matter for each session.

British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x; f. 125/129v.

a-Romen we will go

There will be several multilingual jokes coming from this news, many (all) of them Elvish, I’m afraid. (I apologise for nothing.)

In short: as of Lammas, I will be a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the Grenfell campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland in Corner Brook!

Grenfell Campus - Home
(I can’t find the photographer’s name on the Uni site, alas)

I’m very excited to arrive (we’re aiming for the Feast of St Bartholomew) and to officially meet my new colleagues in-person for the first time. I will be the Department’s first medievalist, so I’m quite excited to further studies of the pre-modern world at Grenfell and to add to studies of the Middle Ages in the wider MUN community. (Thanks go out to my friend, John Geck, at the St John’s campus for help with the move. I look forward to working with John and with Bill Schipper, who was at PIMS as a visiting fellow whilst I was a Mellon fellow in 2018-2019.) It’s going to be quite the opportunity to be teaching at the university closest to the only (known, acknowledged) Viking settlement in North America. (More on that below, perhaps–and certainly more in the future.)

This coming term, I will be teaching “Intro to English I”, the department’s (and university’s) introduction to literary and critical reading and writing, as well as “Literary Survey I (Beginnings to 1700)” [which should obviously be re-named British Literary Survey, given the subject matter; but, remember, they were a Dominion until 1949]. I’m excited for both classes, even if I’m feeling under-prepared at this moment as I grapple with the manifold stresses of moving and home-purchase and so on.

Grenfell is a small campus of about 1400 students (smaller than my high school!), but is, by all accounts a very lively community. It is the heart of Memorial University’s Fine Arts programmes, and so the English department has close links with our students and colleagues in Theatre. (I guess I’ll be diving deeper into Passion Plays! And I’m definitely teaching the Second Shepherd’s Play in Survey now.) As a town, Corner Brook is traditionally closely tied to natural resources, principally forestry (we’ll be living in a house built for the fancier mill workers about a century ago) and the fisheries (shout-out to my buddy Dave Barry!), so Grenfell also has strong departments in NR management but also Sustainability, and our Associate VP Research–who was a delight in the interview–is all about soil sustainability as well as food security. (Hello, Dr Cheema!) There is a Nursing programme that is growing, too. In addition, I understand that about 300 students have First Nations ancestry, so there is a strong interest in Reconciliation on campus. In sum: I am very excited, and I think the Department of English (and pre-modern studies) has a lot to contribute. As at the beginning of each new academic undertaking, I will be re-reading The Educated Imagination.

Our journey out East will not be exactly easy, but we’ve a lot of support from many people. My department and faculty have been great, not least my chair, Adam Beardsworth, and our dean, Ken Jacobsen, but also my new colleagues, Shoshanna Ganz, for being so very welcoming and helpful, and Stephanie McKenzie (to whom I owe an email), who has offered home help and whom I will always thank for giving me a nod and thumbs up when I accidentally swore whilst answering a question during the interview. Thanks also go to the Scott Murphy at MUN who has the ungracious job of wrangling academics in a move, never mind the COVIDs, and likewise to Eileen Greenslade at HHMovers–darlings both.

We will also be helped in our journey by a new addition to the family: Pallando.

May be an image of car and road

As wise readers will know, Pallando was one of the two Ithryn Luin (the Blue Wizards) who accompanied Saruman, Gandalf, and Radagast to Middle-earth c. TA 1000. (The other’s name was Alatar. Maybe the next vehicle?) The name means “One who travels far and wide.” HOWEVER, Pallando’s other name was Rómestámo, which means “East Helper,” so how could I not, right? Plus we will need the 8.7″ clearance and AWD to contend with the Corner Brook winters.

Despite the terrible (and terrifying) excitement to get to Corner Brook and to start up at Grenfell, I am going to miss Leiden University, most especially the students with whom I had the pleasure of working with this past year. It was a difficult period for all concerned, but I do believe we made the best of it. I truly enjoyed all my classes and think they did too. We managed to build little digital communities in our meetings each week, to get to know each other across spatial and temporal divides (in one class, I was in Sask [GMT – 6] and one student was in Saudi [GMT + 3]–and that was before silly DST started). Some days it was negative 49 Celsius where I was whilst it was plus 12 for most of the class in Leiden; other days much of the Netherlands was under a once-in-a-generation snowstorm shutdown (minus 12…) and Saskatchewan was enjoying an unseasonable plus one. We often shared these little differences as a way of breaking the, er, ice and just commenting on the strangeness of our situations, but it often served to put us all at ease. As one of my Philology 6 students suggested, we started simply greeting each other with “Good Timezone!” (Pronounce as you see fit; I do something like Teamocil.)

The future is going to be strange–and I’m not even thinking about the incessant fires, civil unrest, water shortages, right-wing-driven violence, etc. I just mean personally. I bought a house today…. Guess I’m an adult now. (St Praexed’s Day, for reference. There better be no onion stone in that foundation, not like at Gandolf’s place!) Many changes, many of them coming very fast. I’m very lucky to have a wonderful person to be facing them with–and one who doesn’t mind the pinball machines.

IPpS @ ICMS 2021

The ever-labouring team at Western Michigan University have announced the schedule for the 2021 International Congress on Medieval Studies, and Kalamazoo is back with a bang! The International Pearl-poet Society is thrilled to be sponsoring and co-sponsoring a number of great sessions this time around. As ever, they are full of insightful and thoughtful contributions from scholars at all levels of the vocation. The Society’s deepest thanks go out to our tireless VP, Ashley Bartelt (Northern Illinois University), for her excellent work in gathering these contributions, organising the panels, and grappling with the manifold COVID-related issues that reared their awful heads throughout this past year. Thank you, Ashley!

The IPpS sessions are listed below. You can also download a PDF of the same here: .

The full ICMS programme is available here.

Thank you, all, as ever, for your support of the Society and for your interest in this best of poets. Very much looking forward to gathering in-person when we can do so again!

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International Pearl-poet Society Sessions at ICMS 2021

Session 83: Monday, 10 May, 1700 EDT

Ain’t Misbehaving: Medieval English Women Who Do Good Work by Nefarious Means

Co-sponsored with the Medieval Association of the Midwest (MAM)

Presider: Alison Langdon, Western Kentucky Univ.

“The Brides of Christ: The Lethal Chastity of Consecrated Nuns”

Amy Cawood, Pittsburg State Univ.

“Good Women, Bad Men: The Cost of Saving Souls”

Mickey M. Sweeney, Dominican Univ.

“I Aim to Misbehave: Morgan LeFey, Feminist Outreach, and Agency in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Kara L. Maloney, Canisius College

“Malory’s Dame Brusen: Good or Evil?”

Katharine Mudd, Northern Illinois Univ

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Thursday, 13 May, 1300 EDT

International Pearl-poet Society Business Meeting

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Session 329: Friday, 14 May, 0900 EDT

The Pearl-poet: Modern Connections, Adaptations, and Evolutions

Sponsor: Pearl-poet Society

Presider: Lisa M. Horton, Univ. of Minnesota–Duluth

“Young Brightblade and the Green Knight: An Appropriation of the Pearl-Poet in Modern Fantasy Fiction”

Carl B. Sell, Lock Haven Univ.

“Women’s Presence and Power in Children’s Versions of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Amber Dunai, Texas A&M Univ.–Central Texas

“The Forest Haven Episode: How Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’s Hautdesert Shaped Lord of the Rings’ Caras

Galadhon”

Andoni Cossio, Univ. of the Basque Country

“The Mysterious Affair at Camelot: Whodunit Narrativity and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Celine Vezina, Yale Univ.

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Session 350: Friday, 14 May, 1300 EDT

“In aventure þer mervayles meven”: The Mystical Tradition in the Pearl-Poet and Analogues

Sponsor: Pearl-poet Society

Presider: Mickey M. Sweeney, Dominican Univ.

“The Pearl-Poet in the Platonic Mystical Tradition”

Matthew W. Brumit, Univ. of Mary

“‘Hit is to dere a date’: Mystical Language and Its Limit in Pearl

André Roman Babyn, Univ. of Toronto

Sin and Redemption in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Gregory W. Bronson, Cumberland Univ.

Respondent: Ann Brodeur, Univ. of Mary

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Session 381: Friday, 14 May, 1700 EDT

Form and Structure in the Cotton Nero A.x Manuscript (A Roundtable)

Sponsor: Pearl-poet Society

Presider: Kimberly Jack, Athens State Univ.

A roundtable discussion with David O’Neil, Univ. of Southern Indiana; Caleb Molstad, Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities; Jennifer K. Robertson, Texas Tech Univ.; and William M. Storm, Eastern Univ.

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Session 407: Saturday, 15 May, 1100 EDT

Acceptance and Resistance: Emotional Tension in the Pearl-Poet

Sponsor: Pearl-poet Society

Presider: Amber Dunai, Texas A&M Univ.–Central Texas

“‘In a stonen statue þat salt sauor habbes’: Anger and the Lithic Body of Lot’s Wife in Cleanness

Christopher Queen, Univ. of California–Riverside

“Virtue and Activity in Patience

Joseph Turner, Univ. of Louisville

“Suffering Sele: Jonah and the Worm”

Jo Nixon, Univ. of Chicago

“Chivalric Performance and Hollow Faith: Gawain’s Three Confessions in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Marsalene E. Robbins, Ohio State Univ.

============

Session 440: Saturday, 15 May, 1500 EDT

The Final Frontier: Embodied Space in the Works of the Pearl-Poet

Sponsor: Pearl-poet Society

Organizer: Ashley E. Bartelt, Northern Illinois Univ.

Presider: Matthew Boyd Goldie, Rider Univ.

“Dancing in Place: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Arthurian Dance Spaces”

Clint E. Morrison Jr., Ohio State Univ.

2020 Karrer Travel Award Winner

“Penance, Labor, and the Land in Cleanness and Pearl

Rafael Jaime, Univ. of California–Los Angeles

“Turning Space into Place: The Transformation of an Impersonal Garden into an Embodied Erber”

William M. Storm, Eastern Univ.

“Communion Ecclesiology and Simultaneous Selfhood in Pearl

Katie Jo LaRiviere, Mount Angel Seminary

Een beetje nieuws…

As a fan of the nova festa, I reckoned the (Sarum) feast of the Visitation was an appropriate time to post some significant career news. (I wasn’t going to wait until the Transfiguration.)

This autumn I will be joining the Centre for the Arts in Society and the Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University where I will be teaching medieval English language and literature. I am, of course, beyond excited. My courses—all classed under ‘Philology’!—will cover Old and Middle English, medieval literature of England and beyond, and the history of the English language. The position, which is slated for three years, was created to cover for fellow Canadian Krista Murchison, who will be pursuing her fantastic project, ‘Righting and Rewriting History: Recovering and Analyzing Manuscript Archives Destroyed During World War II.’ I will be teaching alongside Thijs Porck, who until now I have only known through Twitter, journal-related correspondence, and Tolkien matters.

Leiden is home to Neophilologus, where I published my very first article. Rolf Bremmer, who has since retired but I know is still very much present and active, is also one of the great attendees at the Wednesday night at Waldo’s tradition at Kalamazoo.

I’m so thrilled with this appointment and welcome the adventure and the opportunity. Many, many thanks go to out to so many folks, but especially Michael Van Dussen, Kevin Whetter, Jamie Fumo, and Ann Hutchison.

Leiden, squeezed between Amsterdam and The Hague, has it all

Pearl-poet Society at ICMS … 2021

UPDATE: With the cancellation of the 2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Pearl-poet Society has taken the ICMS organisers’ invitation to re-submit this year’s panels for the 2021 Congress; all participants who were to present this year are automatically accepted for May 2021. We ask, however, that participants contact our VP, Ashley Bartelt, so that we know if we have any openings to fill during the summer proposal season.

(original post below)

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With the team at Western Michigan University posting the sneak preview of the schedule for the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies, the International Pearl-poet Society is pleased to announce our line-up of six sponsored sessions for the 2020 gathering, including a co-sponsored session with the Medieval Association of the Midwest.

Always insightful, lively, and collegial, the Society’s sessions this year explore a wide range of topics, from the materiality of the Cotton Nero A.x manuscript to gender issues, the mystical tradition, and modern adoptions adaptations of Sir Gawain across several genres.

All our sessions are organised by the brilliant Ashley E. Bartelt (Northern Illinois University). A PDF of the info posted below is available here.

The Pearl-poet Society is looking forward to yet another exciting and thought-provoking year at Kalamazoo!

sirgawayne-tl

(Cotton Nero A.x, ff. 94v-95r)

Friday @ 3.30 PM (Session 270)

Bernhard 209

Form and Structure in MS Cotton Nero A.x. (A Roundtable)

Presider: Kimberly Jack, Athens State Univ.

‘More New Light on the Gawain-Manuscript: Multispectral Imaging and British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x.’

Murray McGillivray, Univ. of Calgary

‘Manicules and More: Scribal Ordinatio in British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x.’

Kenna L. Olsen, Mount Royal Univ.

‘“Wer I as hastif as Þou”: Protrepsis and Audience Identification in Patience

Caleb Molstad, Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities

 

Saturday @ 10.00 AM (Session 332)

Bernhard 210

Ain’t Misbehaving: Medieval English Women Doing Good Works by Nefarious Means

co-sponsored with Medieval Association of the Midwest (MAM)

co-organised with Mickey Sweeney

Presider: Alison Langdon, Western Kentucky Univ.

‘The Midwife in Lay Le Freine: The Misuse of Power for the Preservation of Souls’

Kimberly Tate Anderson, Wittenberg Univ.

‘Good Women, Bad Men: The Cost of Saving Souls’

Mickey Sweeney, Dominican Univ.

‘Malory’s Dame Brusen: Good or Evil?’

Katharine Mudd, Northern Illinois Univ.

 

Saturday @ 12.00 PM

Fetzer 1060

 International Pearl-poet Society Business Meeting

 

Saturday @ 1.30 PM (Session 408_

Schneider 1235

The Final Frontier: Embodied Space in the Works of the Pearl-poet

Presider: Matthew Boyd Goldie, Rider Univ.

‘What Happens on the Frontier . . . : Morgan LeFey, Feminist Outreach, and Agency in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Kara Larson Maloney, Canisius College

‘Dancing in Place: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Arthurian Dance Spaces’

Clint Morrison Jr., Ohio State Univ. (Karrer Travel Award Winner)

‘Penance, Labor, and the Land in Cleanness and Pearl

Rafael Jaime, Univ. of California–Los Angeles

 

Saturday @ 3.30PM (Session 459)

Schneider 1235

The Pearl-poet: Modern Connections, Adaptations, and Evolutions

Presider: Lisa M. Horton, Univ. of Minnesota–Duluth

‘Young Brightblade and the Green Knight: An Appropriation of the Pearl-Poet in Modern Fantasy Fiction’

Carl B. Sell, Oklahoma Panhandle State Univ.

‘Women’s Presence and Power in Children’s Versions of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Amber Dunai, Texas A&M Univ.–Central Texas

‘The Mysterious Affair at Camelot: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Whodunit Narrativity’

Celine Vezina, Yale Univ.

 

Sunday @ 8.30 AM (Session 485)

Bernhard 208

Acceptance and Resistance: Emotional Tension in the Pearl-poet

Presider: Amber Dunai, Texas A&M Univ.–Central Texas

‘“In a Stonen Statue Þat Salt Sauor Habbes”: Anger and the Lithic Body of Lot’s Wife in Cleanness

Christopher David Queen, Univ. of California–Riverside

‘Virtue and Activity in Patience

Joseph Turner, Univ. of Louisville

‘“Suffering Sele”: Jonah and the Worm’

Jo Nixon, Univ. of Chicago

‘Chivalric Performance and Hollow Faith: Gawain’s Three Confessions in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Elise Robbins, Purdue Univ.

 

Sunday @ 10.00 AM (Session 508)

Bernhard 208

“In aventure þer mervayles meven”: The Mystical Tradition in the Pearl-Poet and Analogues

Presider: Kristin Bovaird-Abbo, Univ. of Northern Colorado

‘The Pearl-Poet in the Platonic Mystical Tradition’

Matthew W. Brumit, Univ. of Mary

‘Teaching the Ineffable: Mysticism and Instruction in the Pearl-Poems’

Rachel A. Shunk, Univ. of Dallas

‘“Hit is to dere a date”: Mystical Language and Its Limits in Pearl

André Babyn, Univ. of Toronto

Respondent: Ann F. Brodeur, Univ. of Mary

 

 

CfP: Int’l Pearl-poet Societ @ ICMS 2020

The International Pearl-poet Society once again has a strong presence at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, with five sponsored sessions at the 2020 gathering at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. We’re also proud to once again be co-sponsoring a session with the Medieval Association of the Midwest (MAM).

Thanks to our new VP, Ashley Bartelt (Northern Illinois University), for the snazzy poster! (Full text below, too).

2020 Flyer

International Pearl-poet Society Sessions for ICMS 2020

Abstracts (max. 300 words) and a completed PIF are DUE 01 SEPTEMBER 2019

Send to:

Ashley E. Bartelt abartelt1@niu.edu

  • Form and Structure in the Cotton Nero A.x. Manuscript (Roundtable)

Beyond tightly structured narratives and precise poetics, Cotton Nero A.x. contains diverse material from 12 illustrations and marginalia to ornate initials. Recent scientific and technological advancements from pigment analyses to multispectral imaging have begun to reframe our understanding of these paleographic details. Building on analyses from scholars like Murray McGillivray and Christina Duffy (2017) and Piotr Spyra (2014), this session invites participants to reconsider the connection between the intricate paleographic and narrative forms of this dynamic manuscript.

  • “In aventure þer mervayles meven”: The Mystical Tradition in the Pearl-poet and Analogues

In Pearl, struggles to comprehend and accept the ineffable, torn by his overwhelming grief and attachment to the material world. This tension recurs throughout the Pearl-poet’s works and has fascinated scholars from Nicholas Watson (1995) to Cecilia A. Hatt (2015) as they explore the poet’s relationship to, and understanding of, the Church. Renewed critical attention to movements like the medieval mystics calls for a reexamination of the poet’s other religious influences, so this session will explore the intersection of the mystical tradition and the works of the Pearl-poet and analogues.

  • The Pearl-poet: Modern Connections, Adaptations, and Evolutions

As one of the more prominent poets from the fourteenth century, the Pearl-poet continues to captivate audiences with his nuanced and timeless narratives, inspiring centuries of writers and artists. This session will explore the resonances and continued relevance of this prominent poet’s work in modern renderings, films, stage productions, and other media.

  • Acceptance and Resistance: Emotional Tension in the Pearl-poet

From a distraught Dreamer and a wrathful, anthropomorphized God to a petulant prophet, the Pearl-poet’s characters are often complex figures struggling not just in morally complex situations but also with tumultuous emotions. Some find peace with their experiences while others remain besieged by or succumb to their inner demons. This session will delve into how the poet’s complex characters resolve or resist their deep emotional turmoil.

  • The Final Frontier: Embodied Space in the Works of the Pearl-poet

The Wilderness of Wirral, a green woodbine, a bejeweled stream, the Green Chapel. Well-known for intricate spatial descriptions, the Pearl-poet often uses these locations as the focal points of significant human experiences, forging an intimate connection between mental and physical environment. This session will explore the spaces and places in the Pearl-poet’s works and what they reveal about the characters who inhabit them.

  • Aint’s Misbehaving: Medieval English Women Who Do Good Work by Nefarious Means

This panel is co-sponsored with the Medieval Association of the Midwest (MAM), and proposals should be submitted to their contact, Alison Langdon. For more information, including the official CFP, see the MAM website https://mmaotm.wildapricot.org

Old English Elegies – Creative Responses in Class

This semester I tried something new. For the past several years, I have taught “Reading the Middle Ages: the Heroic and the Chivalric” at Brock University’s Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. In past classes, the assignments have consisted of a midterm test, a term paper, and a final exam. (While this is a literature-focused class, it’s not an English class per se; similarly, it’s a course that attracts students from many disciplines, so there’s a wide range of skills, interests, and time commitments.) I wanted to offer them more chances to write, especially early in the semester, and to get more feedback going into the term paper, so I opted for a short assignment on the Old English elegies due just before our reading week break at the end of Week 6 (mid-February).

In class, we had studied the usual Big Three of the Old English elegies—The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin—so I uploaded the six other elegies (Deor, The Husband’s Message, The Wife’s Lament, The Riming Poem, Resignation, and Wulf and Eadwacer) to our course website and asked the students to offer a response to one or two of these elegies. Responses could take the form of a more-traditional, literature-course approach, offering a critical, close reading. Others might investigate a historical aspect of Anglo-Saxon culture raised in the elegies, such as the scops’ use of harps: I imagined the possibility of a student, probably a History major (I have lots of these), investigating the design of Germanic harps. A third approach could be a transhistorical or cross-cultural analysis. (Indeed, one student produced a very interesting comparison of The Wife’s Lament and “Where I Live” by Woodkid.) All these options would take the form of a three- or four-page short essay.

But then I tried something even more radical (for me), too.

Inspired by several colleagues’ successes in various courses at their schools, I gave students the option to pursue a creative response to the Anglo-Saxon elegies. In this case, respondents were welcome to select their medium of choice (language, paint, pencil, video, RPG, song, stone, etc.). Creative responses had to be accompanied by a written component (minimum 1.5 pages) detailing the relationship of the artistic work to the elegy.

I thought perhaps a couple of students would be intrigued by this possibility, and some might even (erringly) see it as easy marks. I wasn’t really expecting to get 10 submissions—one quarter of the class enrollment—and the many different and fascinating ways that these students engaged with the poems.

I got a short story about the Husband (of ~ Message fame) and the contest he holds among his thegns to find the largest piece of driftwood on which to carve the runes he sends over the waves. Another student wrote an alliterating elegy of their own, The Lord’s Woe, which responds to and occasionally inverts, many of the poetic devices found in The Wife’s Lament. This clever piece includes some great, and very Anglo-Saxon, turns of phrase, including “Tis true that twilight turns triumph to tragedy” and the coined kenning “the violent swan mountains”.

The majority of the artistic responses were visual but these took many forms indeed. Illustrating the stages of the lamenting lord’s life in The Rhyming Poem, Murray Wilcox presented a miniature illumination bringing together many examples of Germanic symbolism.

Murray Image © Murray Wilcox

Several students created responses to the scop’s song Deor, each capturing the message of the refrain, Þæs ofereode,   þisses swa mæg (That passed over, so may this), in a different medium.

Owen Barton fashioned a clay ring with the translated inscription This Shall Pass and placed it in a small wooden gift box; this creation represented a final gift to the one-time scop from the lord of the Heodenings.

deor-ring-box-e1552954561388.jpg     © Owen Barton

 

 

Briana Bullett made a Deor sun-catcher out of stained glass. As she writes, the hourglass, like the skull and the rose, represents the transience of this world, but an hourglass can be flipped over and so a new cycle can begin anew. The choice of a sun-catcher was likewise part of her reading of the poem and response, for the passage of the sun also marks the passage of time that Deor comments on in the elegy.

Deor stained glass © Briana Bullett

Kalina Oullette also explored cycles and transience in her Deor-inspired drawing. She incorporates the symbol of the ouroboros to form the border of a clock-like circle; placing the Wyrd rune at the centre of her circle, she extended six rays from it to divide her ‘clock’ into portions representing each of the six stanzas of Deor.

Deor Ourobouros

© Kalina Oullette

Claire Dafoe crafted a painting in pieces to reflect the “friendless exile” of The Wife’s Lament.  For example, the juxtaposition of regular and jagged edges contrast the separation between the man-made world from which the Wife has been outcast and the wild forest she now inhabits. Similarly, the Wife, now a shadow of her former self, is set among the landscape of her exile but is not of it.

WL 1

© Claire Dafoe

Sydney Engel tackled the long-standing question of whether Resignation A and Resignation B form one poem in two parts or are two separate poems in a novel fashion: through cookies. She read both pieces and subsequently created a set of cookies responding to each (part of the?) poem; she then interpreted her cookie-based response as a means of inquiring how the two poetic pieces relate. The conclusion of her analysis of these cookie-based datasets was that, whether or not we are dealing with a poem in two parts or two separate poems (and we cannot know, due to the missing folios), “it is at least clear that there are two distinct speakers in Resignation.” (I would be a bad medievalist if I didn’t doff my cap to her title: “A Batch Made in Heaven.”)

Engel 1Engel 2 © Syndey Engel

Raneem Blaibel focused on the theme of darkness in Wulf and Eadwacer. She used charcoal, which, she writes, allowed her to best capture the gloomy and sombre tone of the elegy. The line that Raneem inscribes at the bottom of her piece drew her attention to the pathetic fallacy that becomes a centrepoint of her artwork, whereby she aims to capture the “mourning mind” of the speaker.

Wulf 1

© Raneem Blaibel

These creative pieces were not the only wonders that crossed my desk this February by any means. There were many excellent essays on the elegies too, including Wulf and Eadwacer as a reflection on poisoned love between just two individuals; The Husband’s Message as a “counter-elegy”; and the transformative effect of hope in Deor. What stands out most for me about the creative responses—besides the obvious beauty of the works and the inspiration they exemplify and offer—is the lesson they provide about how there are many ways to think about, and through, these complex and rewarding poems. As an instructor, this was a very productive and rewarding assignment, and I hope to have to the opportunity to do it (and similar projects) again.

 

 

 

Pearl-Poet Society @ ICMS 2019

The International Pearl-poet Society is thrilled to have a strong presence at the 2019 Congress at Kalamazoo: five sessions, plus a co-sponsored session with the International Piers Plowman Society (shout out to Noelle Phillips and Michael Johnston).

Below are listed our sessions for the coming ICMS. We’ve got a strong block of relatively back-to-back sessions (a slight break after our BUSINESS MEETING AT 12.00 on SATURDAY), from early Friday through Saturday. Many exciting topics to be covered, indeed! I’m very much looking forward to seeing familiar faces and meeting new members–it only takes a friendly nod, maybe a handshake, to join. The pentangle tattoo comes later.

Acknowledging that the website will not respect my careful positioning of tabs etc, if you care about theses things, please refer to the PDF here.

The Pearl-poet Society is looking forward to another great year at Kalamzoo. So many great discussions await!

 

Friday @ 10.00 (Session 188)

188 SCHNEIDER 1235

Is There a Class in This Text? Teaching the Pearl-Poet (A Roundtable)

Sponsor: Pearl-Poet Society

Organizer: B. S. W. Barootes, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Presider: B. S. W. Barootes

 

“The Pearl-Poet and Non-Conformist Religious Ideas in the First Year Seminar”

Felisa Baynes-Ross, Yale Univ.

“Playing the Manuscript: Teaching the Games of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,”

Julie Nelson Couch, Texas Tech Univ.; Kimberly K. Bell, Sam Houston State Univ.

“An Intertextual Approach to Courtliness and the Divine in Pearl,”

Amber Dunai, Texas A&M Univ.-Central Texas

“Defamiliarizing the Pearl-Poet: Rejecting Translation and Broadening the Course,”

Stephen D. Powell, Univ. of Guelph

“Teaching Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the Context of Rhetorical and Linguistic Traditions

of the Middle Ages,” Scott D. Troyan, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison

 

 

Friday @ 1.30 (Session 247)

SCHNEIDER 1235

Gender and Engendering in the Works of the Pearl-Poet

Sponsor: Pearl-Poet Society

Organizer: B. S. W. Barootes, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Presider: Kimberly Jack, Athens State Univ.

 

“Nurturing Fathers and Supportive Authorities: Reconsidering Paternal Affection in the Pearl-Poet’s

Works” Ashley E. Bartelt, Northern Illinois Univ.

“Untying and Re-Tying the ‘Endles Knot’: Retroactively Reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

as a Woman’s Narrative” Jonathan Juilfs, Redeemer Univ. College

“‘He Said, She Said,’” He Said: Gendered Dialogue in Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Florence Newman, Towson Univ.

“The Emotional Intelligence of Pearl: Purging the Jeweler of Gendered Irrationality”

William M. Storm, Eastern Univ.

 

 

Friday @ 3.30 (Session 322)

VALLEY 2 GARNEAU LOUNGE

Fifty Shades of Green: Hagiography and Demonology in the Pearl-Poet Corpus

Sponsor: Pearl-Poet Society

Organizer: B. S. W. Barootes, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Presider: Ashley E. Bartelt, Northern Illinois Univ.

 

“Confessing to Fairies” Richard Firth Green, Ohio State Univ.

“Romance in Saint Erkenwald: Blending the Pagan Past and Christian Present”

Jenna Schoen, Columbia Univ

 

 

Saturday @ 10.00 (Session 361)

SCHNEIDER 1160

Visual Rhetoric in the Works of the Pearl-Poet I: New Frontiers

Sponsor: Pearl-Poet Society

Organizer: B. S. W. Barootes, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Presider: Denise A. Stodola, Kettering Univ.

 

“The Green Knight without the Green: Re-Investigating the Multispectral Illustrations of MS Cotton Nero A.x art. 3”

Matthew R. Higgins, Georgia State Univ.

“Visible Thoughts: The Spontaneous Gesture and Imaging Identity in Pearl

Misho Ishikawa, Univ. of California–Los Angeles

“Peripheral Vision: Choreographing Description through Dance in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Clint Morrison Jr., Ohio State Univ.

“Crashing by Dasein: Neurorhetoric Supplying the Vision for “Being There” at the Green Chapel”
Scott Troyan (University of Wisconsin—Madison)

 

 

Saturday @ 3.30 (Session 487)

VALLEY 2 HARVEY 204

Visual Rhetoric in the Works of the Pearl-Poet II: Looking Closer

Sponsor: Pearl-Poet Society

Organizer: B. S. W. Barootes, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Presider: Julie Nelson Couch, Texas Tech Univ.

 

“Spaces for Seeing: Sight as a Function of Moral Space in the Works of the Pearl-Poet”

Andrew Roos Bell, Univ. of Connecticut

“Inside the Whale and Outside the Ark: Reconsidering Enclosure in Patience and Cleanness”

David K. Coley, Simon Fraser Univ.

“Visual Rhetoric and Argumentation in Pearl” Denise A. Stodola, Kettering Univ.

“Of schyr goulez: Red as Complement to Green in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Witt Womack, Univ. of Leeds

 

Co-sponsored with the International Piers Plowman Society

 

Thursday @ 3.30 (Session 134)

SCHNEIDER 1325

The Places and Spaces of Alliterative Verse

Sponsor: International Piers Plowman Society; Pearl-Poet Society

Organizer: Michael Johnston, Purdue Univ.

Presider: Ashley E. Bartelt, Northern Illinois Univ.

 

Piers Plowman and the Field of Vision”

Richard Bergen, Univ. of British Columbia

“Mountainous Couplings in Piers Plowman and Other Writings”

Matthew Boyd Goldie, Rider Univ.

“Continuity and Bifurcation: A Metrical Study of Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

David O’Neil, Univ. of Southern Indiana

Et in Acadia ego

As those who’ve traipsed over to the About page may already know, this year I hold a Harrison McCain Foundation Visiting Professor Fellowship at Acadia University (Wolfville, Nova Scotia). The fellowship was established by the foundation set up in honour of the late Harrison McCain—yes, of Superfries® fame!—to foster academic and pedagogical collaboration between Acadia professors and colleagues at other institutions. As an Acadia alumnus (MA ’07), I am particularly excited to return to my former home at the Department of English & Theatre Studies to work with Professor K.S. Whetter and his students.

Our project, “Teaching Boethius via Chaucer: Exploring the Chivalric Ethos through The Knight’s Tale,” focuses on Chaucer’s attitude to Boethius as well as approaches to teaching Chaucer and Boethius in an undergraduate classroom. We use the imprisonment of the two Theban knights, Palamon and Arcite, Arcite’s mortal wound, and the concluding speeches by Theseus and Egeus as sites for interrogating how Chaucer interwove Boethian philosophical themes into chivalric romance. Chaucer, who famously translated Boethius’ Latin De consolatio philosophiae into his native Middle English, introduced these weighty topics into the Knight’s Tale, producing a much more philosophical and tragic narrative than was usual for medieval romance—romance being the literary genre most commonly associated with chivalry. Chaucer, however, takes the usual action-adventure tropes of romance and significantly modifies the genre by incorporating substantial Boethian themes into the knighthood-adventure-love formula typical of romance. This Boethian framework of the Knight’s Tale is well accepted by scholars, but more needs to be done with it, especially the ways in which Chaucer—as is his wont—mixes contradictory emotions and tropes, creating a tale which is simultaneously a tragic and philosophic love story and also a story with a happy ending. What has not thus far been acknowledged is the extent to which these contradictions themselves endorse and ignore Boethian philosophy.

I spent a little under two weeks at Acadia in mid-October and joined Prof. Whetter’s English 2163: Arthurian Literature course for a series of sessions on Chrétien de Troyes’ Knight of the Cart (Lancelot). The students had already read Yvain and so were familiar with some of Chrétien’s tropes and concerns. My first day with them consisted of a lecture on Boethius and a brief overview of the Consolation of Philosophy, including its major points such as the transience of this world, the pursuit of higher truths, and, most important for our reading that week, Fortune’s Wheel. The students had received a short excerpt of the Consolation (Book I, poem 1 to prose 4)—sort of a teaser for the whole text. I was delighted with the students’ engagement with Boethius, particularly when two of them told me after class that they felt they absolutely must read the whole thing now! (We agreed that they probably shouldn’t start until after the semester was over.) In the next three sessions Prof. Whetter and I took a team-teaching approach to discussing Chrétien’s Lancelot, and the class offered many thoughtful comments about and insights into the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, the complexities of chivalric identity and codes, and the Boethian echoes in the text. I’m looking forward to incorporating much of this discussion in my “Reading the Middle Ages: the Heroic and the Chivalric” course next semester at Brock’s Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Visiting Nova Scotia is always a treat, but visiting during the autumn is especially lovely. Last year when I stopped by Wolfville after the excellent Atlantic Medieval Association conference, the leaves hadn’t yet started to change. This year, only a few weeks later, I was met with splendour. Wolfville is a very lovely town—great shops, cafes, restaurants, and very friendly peoples at every turn. I can’t wait until next semester when I return for another bout of teaching (Tolkien this time) and then next summer when I spend several weeks with Prof. Whetter working on the written component of our project.

Morning Fireworks

International Pearl-poet Society ICMS 2019 Sessions

This promises to be an excellent year for the Society at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University. We have five very exciting panels scheduled for Kalamazoo next May. Please do keep in mind that the IPpS Business Meeting is held at 12.00 PM on the Saturday (May 11). We will elect a new Vice-President and plan our proposed sessions for the 55th ICMS in 2020.

 

Is there a class in this text? Teaching the Gawain-poet (Roundtable)

Chair: B.S.W. Barootes (Pontifical Institute of Mediæval Studies)

 

“The Pearl-poet and Non-Conformist Religious Ideas in the First Year Seminar”

Felisa Baynes-Ross (Yale University)

 

“Playing the Manuscript: Teaching the Games of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Julie Nelson Couch (Texas Tech University) & Kimberly Bell (Sam Houston State University)

 

“An Intertextual Approach to Courtliness and the Divine in Pearl

Amber Dunai (Texas A&M University—Central Texas)

 

“Defamiliarizing the Pearl-poet: Rejecting Translation and Broadening the Course”

Stephen D. Powell (University of Guelph)

 

“Teaching Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the Context of Rhetorical and Linguistic Traditions of the Middle Ages”

Scott Troyan (University of Wisconsin—Madison)

 

Gender and Engendering in the Works of the Pearl-poet

Chair: Kimberly Jack (Athens State University)

 

“Nurturing Fathers and Supportive Authorities: Reconsidering Paternal Affection in the Pearl-poet’s Works”

Ashley E. Bartelt (Northern Illinois University)

 

“Untying and Re-tying the ‘Endles Knot’: Retroactively Reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a Woman’s Narrative”

Jonathan Juilfs (Redeemer University College)

 

“‘He Said, She Said,’ He Said: Gendered Dialogue in Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

Florence Newman (Towson University)

 

“The Emotional Intelligence of Pearl: Purging the Jeweler of his Gendered Irrationality?”

William M. Storm (Eastern University)

 

Visual Rhetoric in the Works of the Pearl-poet I: New Frontiers

Chair: Denise A. Stodola (Kettering University)

 

“The Green Knight Without the Green: Re-Investigating the Multispectral Illustrations of MS Cotton Nero A.x art. 3”

Matthew R. Higgins (Georgia State University)

 

“Visible Thoughts: The Spontaneous Gesture and Imaging Identity in the Pearl-Poems”

Misho Ishikawa (UCLA)

 

“Peripheral Vision: Choreographing Description through Dance in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Clint Morrison, Jr. (Ohio State University)

 

“Crashing by Dasein: Neurorhetoric Supplying the Vision for “Being There” at the Green Chapel”

Scott Troyan (University of Wisconsin—Madison)

 

Visual Rhetoric II: Looking Closer

Chair: Julie Nelson Couch (Texas Tech University)

 

“Spaces for Seeing: Sight as a Function of Moral Space in the Works of the Pearl-Poet”

Andrew Bell (University of Connecticut)

 

“Inside the Whale and Outside the Ark: Reconsidering Enclosure in Patience and Cleanness

David K. Coley (Simon Fraser University)

 

“Visual Rhetoric and Argumentation in Pearl

Denise A. Stodola (Kettering University)

 

Of schyr goulez: Red as Complement to Green in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Witt Womack (Independent scholar; University of Leeds)

 

Fifty Shades of Green: Hagiography and Demonology in the Pearl-poet Corpus

Chair: Ashley E. Bartelt (Northern Illinois University)

 

“Confessing to Fairies”

Richard Firth Green (Ohio State University)

 

“Romance in St. Erkenwald: Blending the Pagan Past and Christian Present”

Jenna Schoen (Columbia University)

Cleanness Cotton Nero A.x fol 56

London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero A.x (art. 3), fol. 56r