Our Sessions at the International Medieval Congress, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2009

We announce the successful completion of our Sponsored and Co-Sponsored Sessions at the 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies held at Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo, Michigan, in May 2008.  We thank our contributors and our audiences.  We record the Abstracts for the Sponsored Sessions on our Sponsored Conference Sessions page.

We also announce our Sessions and Co-Sponsored Sessions for the 44th Congress, to be held from 7 to 10 May 2009.  We continue our tradition of co-sponsoring sessions with the Societas Magica, and now we co-sponsor a session with MEARCSTAPA, a new organization founded at this year's Congress, following our Sponsored Sessions and engaging a number of its contributors.  We invite you to watch this space for further developments and join our proceedings next May.

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Sponsored Session

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence will sponsor one Session of its own:

• "Margins of Error:  On the Self-Correcting Medieval Manuscript"

In keeping with the Group’s mission to “apply an integrated, holistic approach to manuscripts and texts in other forms”, our Session calls for papers closely examining the materials in the margins of manuscripts, especially those that not only comment upon the texts which they surround, but which may offer alternative or even “corrective” readings to a manuscript’s central text.  

That is, while some marginal images exist to support a text (by providing mnemonic aid, or by illustrating a scene in a “central” story), others seem to exist at a disjoint to their neighboring text (as with the rude grylles and shitten monkeys that pepper so many holy works) and so may offer counterpoint or even contradiction to an otherwise uncontested central text.  We thus look for papers discussing such potentially “self-correcting” marginalia in medieval manuscripts: the images that, while often subordinate to the text, still find a rebelliously self-reflexive voice.

The Session is organized by

Jeff Massey, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature
The Royal English Department
1000 Hempstead Avenue
Molloy College
Rockville Centre, NY 11571-5002
jmassey@molloy.edu

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Co-Sponsored Sessions with the Societas Magica

The Societas Magica will sponsor three sessions:

• I.  "Purity and Transgression"

• II.  "Use, Ownership, and Collection of Medieval Magic Manuscripts"
  Co-sponsored with the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

• III.  "New Methodologies and Paradigms in the Study of Magic (A Roundtable)"

These Sessions are organized by

Amelia Carr
Allegheny College
Box 111
520 North Main Street
Meadville, Pennsylvanla 16335
acarr@allegheny.edu

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Co-Sponsored Sessions with MEARCSTAPA (Monsters:  The Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory and Practical Application)

MEARCSTAPA will sponsor two Sessions:

• I.  Monster Culture (Seven Theses)

• II.  Monstrous Production and Reproduction
  Co-Sponsored with the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

These Sessions are organized by

Phillip A. Bernhardt-House
11325 19th Avenue SE #B-105
Evertt, Washington 98208
phillip.bernhardt.house@gmail.com

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Information about the International Medieval Congress, the Societas Magica, and MEARCSTAPA appears on their websites:

http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/
http://brindedcow/umd.edu/socmag/
and http://medievalmonsters.blogspot.com

We invite you to watch our site and theirs for preparations for future events.  For example, this year the Societas Magica has held its own first full conference, at Waterloo University in June 2008.

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Sessions in Previous Congresses

Information about our sessions in previous Congresses appears on our pages on

Sponsored Conference Sessions and Co-sponsored Conference Sessions.

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