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.

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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