2022 Congress Activities
Sponsored and Co-Sponsored by the RGME

at the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Online
Monday, May 9 – Saturday, May 14, 2022

Posted on 22 November 2021, with updates

Following the close of the 2022 Congress Preparations: Call for Papers, then the selection of proposals and arrangement of sequence of papers within the sessions, for the submission of their programs to the Congress Committee, we announce the Programs for our Sessions at the 2022 ICMS online in May 2021. As in previous years, we plan to hold a Business Meeting at the Congress.

All activities are to take place online, like 2021. See our 2021 Congress Report.

When appropriate, we can report the assignment of the scheduling of Sessions within the Congress Program overall.  Meanwhile, we publish the Abstracts of the Papers and Responses, as the authors might be willing. Note that the Abstracts for Congress Sessions are Indexed on our website by Author (in progress for 2022) and by Year (2022 included).

Now that [4 February 2022] the Congress Program has become available (see its website), we can post the assigned days and times for our activities, along with the assigned Numbers for the Sessions.  All our activities are scheduled for Wednesday and Friday, 11 and 13 May 2022.  Times are in Eastern Daylight Time.

Wednesday 11 May 2022

• Session 173 (1 pm).  Medieval Writing Materials:   Processes, Products, and Case-Studies
• Open Business Meeting (3 pm).  All are welcome.
• Session 193 (7 pm).  Alter(n)ative Alphabets in the Iberian Middle Ages (co-sponsored with IMANA)|
  

Friday 13 May 2022

• Session 310 (1 pm).  The Iconography of Medieval Magic (co-sponsored with the Societas Magica)
  
• Session 324 (3 pm).  Pressing Politics:
       Interactions between Authors and Printers in the 15th and 16th Centuries

In due course, sometime in March, registration for the online Congress will commence.  After the close of the Congress, recorded content will be available to registrants from Monday, May 16, through Saturday, May 28.

Watch this space for updates.

2022 Sessions Sponsored and Co-Sponsored

For the 2022 Congress we plan four Sessions.

Two are co-sponsored. One is co-sponsored with the Societas Magica, in Year 18 of our organizations’ co-sponsorship of Sessions at the Congress. One is co-sponsored with the Ibero-Medieval Association of North America (IMANA), in Year 1 of a new tradition. (See our Co-Sponsored Sessions.)

One Session resumes a series of Sessions sponsored by the RGME at the Congress over several years: “Medieval Writing Materials”.

1–2. Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

1. Medieval Writing Materials:
Processes, Products, and Case-Studies

SESSION 173:  Wednesday 11 May 2022 at 1:00–2:30 pm EDT

Contact: Mildred Budny
[email protected]

Organized by Mildred Budny

Seeking to explore new and cumulative research on medieval writing materials and their impact, we propose to examine multiple modes for producing books, documents, and texts in other forms, such as wax, wood, metal, or stone. Case-studies might consider, for example,

• the transmission of paper across geographical regions and cultures
  — whether as material structures (watermarks sometimes included) or as products (books, correspondence, and more)
• the deployment of multi-media in assembling various products (bindings, reused fragments, seals, etc.)
• the roles of the technology and praxis of manuscripts in shaping the initial production of incunables, on both paper and vellum.

Presider

Derek Shank

Presenters

1.1. Elena Shadrina

[Note:  At short notice, Elena was unable to attend or present her paper; it could be represented by her Abstract.]

“The Case of the Missing Papyri: Document Survival and the Transition to Parchment in Medieval Venice”

• Abstract of Paper

1.2. Eleanor Congdon

[Note:  Without notice, Eleanor did not attend nor present.  The Abstract serves as an indication of her intention.]

“Venetian Merchants’ Preference for Italian Paper While Working Abroad during the Fifteenth Century”

• Abstract of Paper

1.3. David Sorenson

“Turkish Imitations of Italian Paper in the Later Fifteenth Century”

• Abstract of Paper

Respondent

1.4. Linde M. Brocato

“Traces: Roles of the Technology and Praxis of Manuscripts
for Producing Incunables, on Paper and Vellum”

• Abstract of Response

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P. S.  Of interest:
Our Page on “Watermarks and the History of Paper” and three downloadable Booklets by David W. Sorenson

• Watermarks and the History of Paper (2020)
• David W. Sorenson, Guide to “Photographing Watermarks for Beginners” (2021)
• David W. Sorenson, Paper-Moulds and Paper Traditions: Draft for Comment (2020)
• David W. Sorenson, “India” Paper for the 2020 Spring Symposium: Draft for Feedback (2020)

This paper is David’s draft for the presentation intended for our 2020 Spring Symposium, which had to be cancelled. An illustrated Abstract of the Paper is included in the published Program Booklet.

 

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2. Pressing Politics:
Interactions between Authors and Printers
in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

SESSION 324:  Friday 13 May 2022 at 3:00–4:30 pm EDT

Contact: Mildred Budny
[email protected]

Organized by David Porreca and Linde M. Brocato

The symbiotic relationship between authors and printers was as fraught in the early days of printing as it is today. Indeed, the level of care that authors invested in their works was not always matched by diligence on the part of those charged with the physical layout of the text and is mechanical reproduction. Yet for every example of such tensions and the errors at their source (e.g., Marsilio Ficino), there is another of extremely productive collaboration on both sides (e.g., Desiderius Erasmus and Aldus Manutius). This session proposes to examine the full range of these interactions, including layout and illustrations.

Presider

Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Presenters

2.1. Linde M. Brocato (University of Miami)

“When Politics Press Publishing: Hernán Núñez and Vernacular Publishing (1499–1555)”

• Abstract of Paper

2.2. Michael Allman Conrad (University of Zurich)

“Juan Joffre’s Libro del juego delas suertes”:
The strange appearance of a popular divinatory game in the age of the Spanish Inquisition”

• Abstract of Paper
  [N. B. Here stands the author’s change in wording, from “occurrence” to “appearance”, from the title as it will appear in the published Congress Program.]

Respondent

2.3. David Porreca (University of Waterloo)

“Marsilio Ficino, Printers, and Human Error: The Origins of Good Standards”

• Abstract of Response

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3. Co-Sponsored with the Societas Magica

3. The Iconography of Medieval Magic:
Texts and Images
[Co-sponsored with Societas Magica]

SESSION 310:  Friday 13 May 2022 at 1:00–2:30 pm EDT

Contact: Vajra Regan
[email protected]

Organized by Vajra Regan

Medieval magical texts describe innumerable images, many of which occur in medieval art. Illustrations in media, from engraved gems and manuscript illuminations to monumental sculpture, testify to the wide diffusion of magical motifs. For example, Michael Camille has shown that the images in a book of ritual magic (the Ars Notaria) appear in a fourteenth-century cassone panel, while archaeologists have confirmed that the jasper ring of Archbishop Hubert Walter (died 1205) depicts the figure of Chnoubis.

This session will gather papers from diverse disciplines, so as better to understand the relationship between images and texts in the rich transmission of magical iconography in the Middle Ages.

Presider

Presenters

3.2. Grzegorz First
(The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków)

“Medieval versus Ancient Demons:
Images of Fantastic Creatures in Medieval and Ancient Art
— Correlation, Continuity, or Change”

• Abstract of Paper

3.3. Thérèse Saint Paul (Murray State University)

“Magic, Death and the Feminine in The Lay of the Mantle”

• Abstract of Paper

3.4. Jacquelyn Tuerk-Stonberg (Kean University)

“Magic and Byzantine Art”

• Abstract of Paper

Respondent

3.5. Phillip A. Bernhardt–House (Skagit Valley College, Whidby Island Campus)

“Speaking Swords, Screaming Stones, and Snaking Symbols: . . . ? [Some Sibilant, Summarising Subtitle]”

• Abstract of Response

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4. Co-Sponsored with the Ibero-Medieval Association of North America (IMANA)

Alter(n)ative Alphabets in the Iberian Middle Ages
[Co-sponsored with IMANA]

SESSION 193:  Wednesday 11 May 2022 at 7:00–8:30 pm EDT

Contact:  Donald W. Wood
[email protected]

Organized by Donald W. Wood (Oklahoma State University)

This panel encourages the study of marginalized or non-canonical linguistic and textual objects. This aim aligns with the missions of both IMANA and the RGME to increase cross-disciplinary analysis of Iberian cultural production, representing a multiplicity of voices, material evidence, innovative methodologies, and diverse cross-disciplinary perspectives. The texts examined can engage with minority or niche hybrid-linguistic structures pertaining to Medieval Iberia’s minority religious and cultural entities, congruent with our concerted and collective desire to weave a richer tapestry of racial, cultural, religious, and ethnic inclusion.

This panel will explore uses of niche or alternative alphabets in the Iberian Middle Ages, conceived broadly as the period spanning the 8^th through 17^th centuries. Within this framework, the term ‘Iberian’ may also extend to Iberian-controlled territories outside of the Iberian Peninsula. Papers may address Judeo-Spanish, Haketia, Judeo-Arabic, Mozarabic, Aljamiado, or other linguistic blendings that have yet to be explored in scholarly fashion. Possible themes may include the implications of an alphabetic choice for the resulting textual object — manuscripts, glosses, inscriptions, epigraphs, and other forms of written expression — or examples of alterity beyond the text to achieve a particular end.

Presider

Donald W. Wood

Presenters

4.1. Adam Mahler (Harvard University)

“Tracing Shem Tov:  Los proverbios moreles, Excisionary Poetics, and the Ajamiado Text”
(updated title)

• Abstract of Paper

4.2. Veronica Menaldi (University of Mississippi)

Talismanic Protection through Magical Multi-lingual Use in Morisco Spells”

• Abstract of Paper

4.3. Daniela Corina Chiru (Independent Scholar)

“Aribisms in Bilingual Morisco Manuscripts:  Reflections of an Islamic Hiero-Sprachbund”

• Abstract of Paper

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2022 Congress Open Business Meeting

Wednesday 11 May 2022 at 3:00–4:30 pm EDT

We plan to hold our customary Annual Business Meeting at the Congress. The requested time, which has been granted in the Congress Program, seeks to accord with the different time-zones of attendees.  All are welcome.  It is expected that the Meeting would span about 1 1/2 hours, with a pause partway through, and participants who wish would welcome to stay afterward, within the booked time-allotment for the Zoom Room, to converse, compare notes, and consider suggestions.

The Agenda and Report for the Meeting are available for download as handouts in 1 or 2 pages.

• 2022 RGME Congress Business Meeting Report (1-page)
  https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/download/16738
• 2022 RGME Congress Meeting Agenda (1-page)
  https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/download/16741
• 2022 RGME Tasks / To-Do List (2-page pdf)
  https://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/download/16768

Background

The Agenda and companion Report for our 2021 Business Meeting are available:

• 2021 Congress Business Meeting Agenda
• 2021 Congress Business Meeting Report

The Second Annual Pre-Congress Business Meeting, held online on 30 April 2022, to prepare for the Congress and to gather people familiar with Research Group activities at the Congress as well as elsewhere, has similar information, demonstrating progress with responses to challenges of cancelled, postponed, and rescheduled events, as well as to opportunities of online activities.

• 2022 Pre-Congress Business Meeting Report
• 2022 Pre-Congress Business Meeting Agenda

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Coda
“Medieval Writing Materials”: A Series Resumed in 2022

A look back at the series, as shown in their Posters, of our Congress Sessions on “Medieval Writing Materials” (2012–2014) — now resumed for 2022.  The review includes Sessions related to the subject in 2016 and 2020>2021 (cancelled or postponed from one year to the next)

2012

Medieval Writing Materials:  Manufacture, Use & Trade

2013

Medieval Writing Materials:  Texts, Transmission, and the Manifestation of Authority

2014

Medieval Writing Materials:  Surfaces, Fixtures & Enclosures

2016 [Related to the Series]

Parchment or Paper?  Choosing the Writing Medium in the Era Before Printing

2020 [Related to the Series]

Planned but Postponed to 2021 (See Next)

2021 [Related to the Series]

Seal the Real (1–2): Documentary Records, Seals & Authentications

Coming soon, with the Series Resumed: 2022 (See above)

Medieval Writing Materials:  Processes, Products, and Case-Studies

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We invite you to attend our activities at the 2022 Congress online. Registration for the Congress is available on its website: Registration. Registrants are able to attend the online sessions live, and to view those sessions that are recorded during a fortnight soon afterward:

• May 9–14—Live sessions take place on the meeting site.
• May 16–28—Library of recorded sessions available to registrants.

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Other activities planned for 2022 include more Episodes in our online series at which The Research Group Speaks.  The series began in 2021, before events might resume in person or partly in person.

We also prepare the 2022 Autumn Symposium, as part of our theme of “Structured Knowledge” for 2022.  It forms a pair with our 2022 Spring Symposium on “Structures of Knowledge”.

See:  2022 Autumn Symposium on “Supports for Knowledge”.

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Already we begin to prepare for the 2023 Congress and other activities for 2023.

For suggestions and questions, please Contact Us, place your Comments here, or visit our FaceBook Page.

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