2015 Congress Events With Programs

January 6, 2015 in Business Meeting, Conference Announcement, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Reception

Events Sponsored and Co-Sponsored
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 2015 International Congress on Medieval Studies
14–17 May

[Published on 6 January 2015, with updates
WebEditor’s Note:
Following the conclusion of the Call for Papers and the selection of our events for the 2015 Congress, this Post announces the Programs of our Sessions and our other Activities there.  The next Post about our 2015 Congress activities updates this Announcement with details of dates, times, and room assignments for our  2015 Congress Schedules.  Further posts provide updates with the Abstracts of Papers and then report the 2015 Congress Events with Programs, along with a few revisions to the Program and with Posters for the Sessions as well as a Program Booklet for one of them.]

For the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Research Group has 2 sponsored and 3 co-sponsored Sessions.  As before, we co-sponsor Sessions with the Societas Magica (since 2006) and with the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida (since 2014).  Our Business Meeting (open to all) will take place at Friday lunchtime.  Like last year, we sponsor a Reception — now with both the Societas Magica and the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University.  Here we announce the events, before the assignment of their dates and rooms.

The photographs of corbel heads from Le Pont Neuf in Paris are reproduced here by permission, for which we thank Ilya V. Svedlov.

I. Sponsored Sessions

Corbel head with handlebar moustache on Le Pont Neuf, Paris, with photography by Ilya V. Svedlov

Photography by Ilya V. Svedlov

1. Making It or Faking It:  The Strange Truths of ‘False Witnesses’ to Medieval Forms

Organizers:  Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence) and Sarah M. Anderson (Princeton University)

Presider:  Sarah M. Anderson

Presenters:

1.  David Benétéau (Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Seton Hall University),
‘Pseudo-Aristotle’s Secret of Secrets

2.  David Sorenson (Allen G. Berman, Numismatist)
‘Semi-Official Counterfeiting:  “False” Coinage Produced within the French Mints, 1380‒1422, and What It Tells Us’

3.  Mildred Budny
‘The Truth Will Out:  Verity or Verisimilitude in Pre-Photographic Reproductions’

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2. Predicting the Past:  Dream Symbology in the Middle Ages

Organizer:  Valerio Cappozzo (Department of Modern Languages, University of Mississippi)

[This session resumes a theme explored in the session on ‘Dream Books’, co-sponsored with the Societas Magica, at the 2012 Congress.]

Presider:  Claire Fanger (Department of Religion, Rice University)

Presenters:

1.  Boyda Johnstone (Department of English, Fordham University)
‘Possessed by Dreams:  Dream Interpretation Manuals in Late Medieval England’

2.  László Sándor Chardonnens (Department of English Language and Culture, Radboud University Nijmegen)
‘Seeing is Believing:  Dream Symbols and their Perception in Medieval Alphabetical Dream Books’

3.  Valerio Cappozzo
‘A Dictionary for Dream Interpretation:  The Somniale Danielis in Its Manuscript Sources’

5 Corbel Heads All in a Row

Photography by Ilya V. Svedlov

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Four Corbel Heads from Le Pont Neuf, Paris

Photography by Ilya V. Svedlov

II. Co-Sponsored Sessions

3. The ‘Good’, the ‘Bad’, and the ‘Ugly’ Ruler:  Ideal Kingship in the Middle Ages

Session co-sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and
The Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida

Organizers:  Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence) and Florin Curta (Department of History, University of Florida)

Presider:  Vlada Stankovic (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia, and School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)

Presenters:
1.  Gerald Schwedler (Department of History, Universität Zürich, Switzerland)
Speech is Silver, Silence is Golden:
Usurpers’ Deeds and Historians’ Verdicts in Merovingian and Carolingian Chronicles’

2.  Grischa Vercamer (Department of History and Cultural Studies, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)
One Man’s Villain is Another Man’s Hero:
Concepts Employed by Medieval Historians to Construct the Images of Central European Princes as Good or Bad’

3.  Robert Antonín (Department of History, Ostravská Univerzita, Czech Republic)
Wise as Solomon / Cruel as Rehoboam:
Ancient and Biblical Models for Portraying Good and Bad Rulers in Medieval Central Europe’

4.  Rebecca Huffman (Department of English, University of Michigan)
‘In Search of Rule Models in Saint Erkenwald (circa 1386) and Lydgate’s Saints Edmund and Fremund (1433)’

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4. Magic Sung, Spoken, Inscribed, and Printed

Societas Magica logoSession co-sponsored by the Societas Magica and the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Organizer:  Frank Klaassen (College of Arts and Sciences, University of Saskatchewan)

Presider:  Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Presenters:

1.  Brett Lawrence Wisniewski (Department of Classics, New York University)
Voces Magicae in Greek Magical Papyri:  Performance, Literacy, and Authority’

2.  John Haines (Faculty of Music and Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto)
‘Medieval Astrological Songs’

3.  James Weldon (Department of English and Film Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University)
‘Magical Anxieties:  Problems with Magic in Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS XIII.B.29’

4. Frank Klaassen
‘How Print Changed Magic:  The Case of Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft

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5. Efficacious Words: Spoken and Inscribed

Societas Magica logoSession co-sponsored by the Societas Magica and the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Organizer: Jason E. Roberts (Department of Germanic Studies, University of Texas at Austin)

Presider: Marla Segol (Institute for Jewish Thought and Heritage, State University of New York at Buffalo)

Presenters:

1. Lea T. Olsan (English and Foreign Languages Emerita, University of Louisiana at Monroe)
‘Four Approaches to the Power of Words’

2. Alison Harthill (School of History, Archaeology, and Religion, Cardiff University)
‘Magic, Prayer, and the Power of Words’

3. Collin Brown (Department of Germanic Studies, University of Texas at Austin)
Mid uuorrdun endi mid uuercun: The Introduction of Christian Holy Words into Germanic Folk Prayers and Charms’

4. Jason E. Roberts
‘The Power of God’s Name and the Problem of God’s Favor: A Diachronic Examination of the Tradition(s) of Solomonic Magic’

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NOTE: A third Session is Sponsored by the Societas Magica.

Materiality and Magic

Organizer:  Marla Segol (State University of New York at Buffalo)

Presider:  Frank Klaassen (University of Saskatchewan)

Presenters:

1.  Thomas B. de Mayo (J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College), ‘Inscribed and Spoken Magic in the Icelandic Sagas’

2.  Katherine Hindley (Yale University), ‘ “Let it Be Made Secretly”:  The Efficacy of Unread Words in Medieval England’

3.  Claire Fanger (Rice University), ‘The Matter of Prophecy:  Props, Practices, Representations’

4.  Marla Segol, ‘Body as Amulet in the Shiur Qomah

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Two more Sessions are sponsored by the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida.

The Archaeology of Early Medieval Europe: New Advances in Avar Archaeology (I and II)

Organizer:  Florin Curta (University of Florida)

Presider:  Florin Curta

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III. Business Meeting of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)The Meeting is scheduled for Friday lunchtime, 15 May.  The time and place will be listed in the Congress Program, and some refreshments will be provided.  All are welcome, including newcomers.

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IV. Reception

Co-sponsored by the Societas Magica, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, and the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University

The success of our Anniversary Reception co-sponsored with the Societas Magica last year led us to plan a similar event this year, now also with the Index of Christian Art, our co-sponsor frequently for events. Those events include several events in our 2014 Anniversary Year

Please join us for these activities at the Congress.  Watch this space for details and time and place assigned to these events when the Congress Schedule appears in February.

Information about the Congress as a whole appears on its website.
Updates for our events will also appear on the Research Group’s Facebook Page.  Please visit us there, too.

You could sign up for our new RGME-Newsletter and information about our activities here.

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