2007 Congress

January 1, 2014 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Conference Announcement, ICMS, International Congress on Medieval Studies

42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies

10‒13 May 2007

[First published on our first website on *10 Jan 2007, with updates here
Updates include photographs supplied by Larissa Tracy, whom we thank.
]

At the 2007 Congress, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence sponsored one Session, and co-sponsored one Session with the Societas Magica, in the second consecutive year of this co-sponsorship.

For this Congress, moreover, the Research Group began the tradition of publishing the Abstracts for its Sponsored Sessions on its official website, which appeared online in this year.  And so began the possibility of posting online announcements and updates for the programs of our Sessions and other Events at the Congresses from this year onward. The series appears in the list of our Congress Activities and our blog about the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

[Updates:  By 2015, with our updated website, it has become possible to access the Abstracts of Papers for our Sessions, listed both By Author and By Year.  In reporting the program, we cite the published Abstracts as they have appeared on both our first website and our current website.

In 2017, while sorting through her photographic files, our Associate Larissa Tracy generously supplied the images from the 2007 Congress, now added here, with her permission.]

I.  Session sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)“Medieval Monstrosities and their Ill Repute”

This session of papers, plus a response, addressed the curious duality manifest at present between descriptions and depictions of monstrous creatures in the Middle Ages, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, some prevalent assumptions nowadays of supposedly “medieval” practices and behavior, also deemed monstrous, albeit in somewhat different and generally untutored terms.  In distinguishing between these realities and fantasies, both then and now, our papers focused upon specific cases of monstrous beings represented in medieval sources, in a variety of media. We also considered the definitions, interpretations, and characteristics of monstrosity (or “barbarity”) during the medieval period as such.

Organizer:  Jennifer A. T. Smith (Department of English, University of California at Los Angeles)

Presider:  Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Presenters:

  • Larissa Tracy (Longwood University, Farmville, Virginia)
    ” ‘Rending the Flesh’:  Modern Misconceptions about Medieval Torture”
    Abstract of Paper
  • Jeff Massey (Molloy College, Rockville Center, New York)
    ” ‘There, Wolf . . . There, Castle’:  Comedy, Romance, and the Self-Deconstructing Monster”
    Abstract of Paper
  • Tom Tyler (Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom)
    “Monstrous Mixture:  The Archaeology of Teratology”
    Abstract of Paper

Respondent:

  • Asa Simon Mittman (Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona)
    “A Response, via Walter Benjamin”
    Abstract of Response

The experience of this session — “with its excellent turnout, the stimulating questions from the audience, and the lively discussion about medieval lycanthropy”, in the words of its 2008 organizer — led directly to one of our sessions, on the “Medieval Werewolf”, for the 2008 Congress.

Asa Mittman, Mildred Budny, and Hans Sauer at the 2007 Congress. Photography by Larissa Tracy.

Asa Mittman, Mildred Budny, and Hans Sauer at the 2007 Congress. Photography by Larissa Tracy.

Larissa Tracy at the 2007 Congress. Photography by Larissa Tracy.

Larissa Tracy at the 2007 Congress. Photograph supplied by Larissa Tracy.

*****

II.  Session sponsored by the
Societas Magica and
the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Societas Magica logo“Magic and the Holy Book”

Organizer:  Claire Fanger (Independent Scholar)

Presider:  Claire Fanger

Presenters:

  • David Porreca (University of Waterloo, Ontario)
    “Biblical Authority in the Malleus maleficiarum:  Sacred Text in Support of a Radical Agenda”
  • Kathryn LeFevers Evans (Independent Scholar, Ojai, California)
    De magica naturali and Quintuplex psalterium by Jacques LeFèvre d’Étaples:  Kabbalah as Biblical Magic”
  • Edgar Francis IV (College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Maine)
    “Qur’anic Symbols and Influence in the Corpus of Ahmad Ibn ‘Ali Al-Buni (d. 622 A.H. / 1225 C.E.)”

*****

The full 2007 Congress program is archived as 42nd International Congress on Medieval Studies.

The Societas Magica sessions are listed as Sessions Sponsored by the Societas Magica at the Forty-Second International Congress on Medieval Studies May 10–13, 2007.

The full set of Research Group Activities at the Congress is listed in our Congress Archive.

*****

Duck Family at the 2007 Congress. Photography © Mildred Budny.

Duck Family at the 2007 Congress. Photography © Mildred Budny.