We issue the call for papers for an upcoming English medieval studies volume in Anglo-Germanic Literary Studies (Estudios Literarios Anglo-Germánicos, Universidad de Jaén). We are especially seeking contributions from graduate students and early-career researchers; established researchers are also fully welcome to contribute.

Call for Papers

“Out of Bounds: Peripheral Texts of the English Middle Ages”

For over a century now, both the study and the teaching of medieval English have often orbited certain canonical landmarks: Beowulf and Chaucer, Ælfric and the Pearl poet (cf. Baker 2012; Simpson/David 2012; Treharne 2004). Yet, canonical works and authors make up only a tiny fraction of the corpus of Old and Middle English writing: outside of the invisible boundaries that a canon by necessity establishes, there lies a vast, largely uncharted textual landscape. A few representatives of these ‘peripheral’ or non-canonical texts in Old English might be the list-like Old English Menologium (Karasawa 2021) and Secgan be (Liebermann 1889; Foys et al. 2019), or linguistically and chronologically transitional works like The Old English Apollonius (Treharne 2004), The Grave (Bucholz 1890; Foys et al. 2019), or Durham (Bjork 2014; Foys et al. 2019). In Middle English, one might denote as rather peripheral the early romance King Horn (Drake/Salisbury/Herzman 1997) or Caxton’s life of Charlemagne (Herrtage 1867). Furthermore, a significant portion of medieval English vernacular writing lies outside the aesthetics traditionally concomitant even to ‘literature’ itself. Non-literary texts—lists, inventories, charters, liturgy, legal writings, didactic texts, letters, marginalia, glosses, and more—have only recently attracted scholarly notice. While these recent studies have advocated for the merits of the list as a literary form (von Contzen 2023) and explored short texts as varied as coin inscriptions, blessings, and manuscript marginalia (Lenker/Kornexl 2019), little has been done to ask how and why such works are rejected for canonization or dismissed on aesthetic grounds.

In light of continuing discussion on the problems of maintaining a traditional canon in studying and teaching medieval English (Heng 2024), crossing over into the peripheral or non-canonical texts of the English Middle Ages may provide an additional means of bringing in new perspectives and readings. Interrogating how and why these peripheral texts are adjudicated non-canonical may further allow a fuller understanding of the writings of the English Middle Ages as a complex, nuanced, and interrelated whole.

For a new volume in the series Anglo-Germanic Literary Studies (Estudios Literarios Anglo-Germánicos, Universidad de Jaén) we are seeking contributions on peripheral or non-canonical medieval English texts, engaging with the following questions and topics:

• What are the characteristics regarding form and content of writings which fall well outside the literary canon or which have not traditionally been regarded to be of high literary or aesthetic quality? What can we gain from engaging with such texts?
• How might readings of peripheral texts (including those within a particular genre or group of texts, or of a particular date or dialect) shed light on contemporary medieval aesthetics, or on the current scholarly consensus, and how do they deepen or subvert our perspectives on canonical literature?
• Can we trace developments and/or continuities in the history of English Medieval Studies which (have) influence(d) the building of the canon edifice, and how can we ourselves defy them?

We particularly encourage submissions from post-graduate students and early-career researchers. Abstracts of 250 words are to be submitted to medieval-english@rub.de by 30 July 2025, with notice of acceptance following shortly thereafter. Accepted articles to the volume should not exceed 20 pages (max. 5,000 words, bibliography excluded). The deadline for full article submissions will be 2 February 2026. All chapters submitted for the volume will be subject to double-blind peer review.

Contact

Antony R. Henk, PhD Assistant in English Medieval Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
&
Kerstin Majewski, Junior Professor of English Medieval Studies, Ruhr University Bochum

E-mail: medieval-english@rub.de