Tuesday 21st May – Friday 24th May 2013
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary field of academic study on the issues of gender in its social and cultural contexts. Since its emergence from feminism, gender studies have become one of the most deliberated disciplines. The following project aims at an
interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and perspectives on the issues of femininity and masculinity in the 21st century. It invites ground-breaking research on a plethora of topics connected with gender, to propose an interdisciplinary view of the frontiers and to stake out new territories in the study of femininity and masculinity.
Papers, presentations, performances, workshops and pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:
1. Representations of Femininity and Masculinity
~ Femininity and masculinity in history and the history of gender
~ The representation of gender in culture, art, film, literature
~ The representation of gender in popular culture and media
~ Gender in the relation to politics, law and social studies
2. Gender Borders and Transgressions
~ Performativity of gender
~Female masculinities / male femininities
~ Androgyny
~ Transgender issues
~ The body and its transgressions
3. New Directions in Femininity and Masculinity Studies
~ New perspectives in masculinity and boyhood studies
~ Men in feminism
~ Third wave feminism, womanism
~ Postfeminism, post-feminism and postfemininity
~ Lesbian feminism
~ Eco-feminism
~ Cyberfeminism
~ Individual feminism
~ Feminist disability studies
4. Global and Regional Perspectives on Gender
~ Gender and race
~ Gender and nationality
~ Gender and (post)colonialism
~ Case studies of gender issues in local/regional/national perspectives
~ Global masculinity/ femininity
5. Gender in Relationships
~ Motherhood/fatherhood
~ Gender and family
~ Matriarchy/ patriarchy
~ Sororophobia and matrophobia
~ Misogyny and misandry
~ Female genealogy
~ Gender and maturity
6. Gender in Experience
~ Gender in visual and performance arts
~ Gender in advertisement
~ Gender mainstreaming
~ Gender in psychotherapy
~ Gender equality education
~ Gender in religion
~ Gender and NGOs
Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013.
300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: FM3 Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Organising Chairs:
Barbara Braid
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the At the Interface programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected
papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
CFP: 11th Global Conference: Violence
Thursday 9th May – Saturday 11th May 2013
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
This conference is one of a continuing series that aims to bring together people from a wide range of disciplines to focus on Violence. Our intention is to contribute to the body of thought which seeks to understand the nature and causes of this endemic feature of society. Such a complex phenomenon has many faces, a multitude of contexts (real or imagined), and many possible explanations in relation to causation and to the role Violence has played and still plays in societies all over the world and at every stage of development. Perpetrators may be states, political or religious factions within states, military groups, state or private institutions, communities, gangs, families or individuals. The range of possible victims is equally diverse and possible explanations range across historical, cultural, political, ethical, literary, functional, psychological, criminological, sociological, biological and economic sources. We therefore invite contributions from any and all of these disciplinary areas.
Our inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach seeks to do justice to the richness of this theme at a conference where fruitful dialogue between and across disciplines is highly valued.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Violence 11 Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Diana Medlicott
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Prague, Czech Republic
Call for Presentations:
This conference is one of a continuing series that aims to bring together people from a wide range of disciplines to focus on Violence. Our intention is to contribute to the body of thought which seeks to understand the nature and causes of this endemic feature of society. Such a complex phenomenon has many faces, a multitude of contexts (real or imagined), and many possible explanations in relation to causation and to the role Violence has played and still plays in societies all over the world and at every stage of development. Perpetrators may be states, political or religious factions within states, military groups, state or private institutions, communities, gangs, families or individuals. The range of possible victims is equally diverse and possible explanations range across historical, cultural, political, ethical, literary, functional, psychological, criminological, sociological, biological and economic sources. We therefore invite contributions from any and all of these disciplinary areas.
Our inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approach seeks to do justice to the richness of this theme at a conference where fruitful dialogue between and across disciplines is highly valued.
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 30th November 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th February 2013. 300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 keywords.
E-mails should be entitled: Violence 11 Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.
Joint Organising Chairs:
Diana Medlicott
Rob Fisher
The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).
For further details of the conference, please click here.
Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.
Monday, 6 August 2012
Conference Review: Society for Renaissance Studies Biennial Conference
University of Manchester
9-11 July 2012
Compiled by Dr. Hannah Priest
In July 2012, the University of Manchester hosted the biennial Society for Renaissance Studies conference. Keynote addresses were given by Bette Talvacchia, Roger Chartier and Alan Stewart; papers were given by scholars from around the globe, working in numerous disciplines; and delegates enjoyed tours of local places of interest: The John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Chetham’s Library and the People’s History Museum. Wine receptions were held at the Whitworth Art Gallery and the Manchester Museum, sponsored by the Society for Renaissance Studies and Manchester University Press respectively. A full programme for the conference can be found here.
The conference was organized by Dr. Jerome de Groot, and a group of undergraduate and postgraduate students in English and American Studies helped out in a variety of roles. Some of these students have contributed some comments on their experiences of the conference:
Rosie Rees-Bann (MA student): On the Chetham’s Library Tour we were introduced to the history of the library and its beginnings as a charitable venture by Humphrey Chetham. We were then taken to the reading room and introduced to a sample of the collections. This included Ben Jonson’s copy of Plato, a polyglot Bible and Henry VIII’s copy of Prosper of Aquitaine. We were then shown the Chetham’s small printing press and given a demonstration of how it works. The tour was extremely enjoyable and I think it reflects the wealth of resources that Manchester has to offer.
I particularly enjoyed the panel on Middleton that took place on the first day. There was a good discussion at the end of the papers that was very stimulating. I also found the workshop on education very interesting. The focus of the workshop was trying to work out ways of strengthening the links between schools and universities. Having a panel like this alongside others with a more literary focus demonstrates the breath of research that was being discussed at the conference.
Annie Dickinson (BA student): As I am currently studying for an undergraduate degree I had not until the 2012 SRS conference had the opportunity to attend an academic conference, and I found it very exciting to have the opportunity to hear first-hand the newest research on the Renaissance period. I specialise in English literature, and from a literature perspective there were many enjoyable papers, a highlight being the panel on Early Modern Friendship. Amritesh Singh’s paper, ‘“Twinned lambs that did frisk i’th’sun”: Marriage, Adultery, and Queer Friendships’ was particularly interesting, and raised ideas that I believe will be useful with regard to work on Early Modern identity and selfhood that I plan to undertake in the final year of my degree. However what really grabbed my attention was the array of subjects on offer; I was able to attend sessions on areas as diverse as cartography, art history, and translation. Alan Stewart’s final plenary on ‘The Strange Friendship of Edward and Gaveston’ I think summed up the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, demonstrating the interconnectedness of history, politics and literature.
Katie Nicholas (BA student): During the SRS conference 2012 I attended several sessions including a discussion of Thomas Nashe and heard a paper on ‘The Genius of Shakespeare’ which was particularly relevant having just finished a course about the language of Shakespeare and the adaptation of his works. This was my first experience of an academic conference and I really enjoyed it, meeting new people and hearing papers from all over the world from leaders in their fields. A personal highlight was a tour of the John Rylands University Library on Deansgate. I loved the possibility to look at several books from their vast collection in such beautiful surroundings. Of particular interest were several books from the Crawford Collection as they were sourced from the Earl of Crawford’s library in my hometown, Wigan. The conference was well organised and has encouraged me to visit future conferences both for academic and social reasons. It gave me the opportunity to make new friends with other girls from my course whom I look forward to catching up with as I enter my 3rd and final year at the University of Manchester.
Mike Collier (MA student): All the sessions were well attended and the level of engagement in the sessions was excellent, generating much debate both with members of the panel as well as among the audience themselves. The keynote speakers were also excellent, both entertaining as well as informative.
Michele Collier (MA student): My conference experience ended on a high note. In a seminar that I had expected to be less than full, as it was the last of the conference and trains were beckoning, I found myself looking after a room that was filled to bursting, with latecomers accommodated on the floor and in the doorway. Given that Peter Mack was presenting I perhaps should have expected that this would be the case, and in what were shortened versions of the original papers (it had only been realised that morning that the length of time available for the session was one hour instead of the usual hour and a half) he entertained hugely with his paper on the emotions in Cavalcanti’s La Retorica, as did Emmanuelle Lacore-Martin in her discussion of the anatomy of emotion in Rabelais.
It was however the final paper that was a brilliant end to the day and the conference, and which was entitled ‘Playing on Emotions in Early Modern Public Executions’. Presented with wit and style by Una McIlvenny, the paper was interspersed by Una’s delivering, in a lovely Irish lilt, her rendition of each ballad to its original tune, prior to giving her insights on the use and reception of each of the works.
For more information about English and American Studies at the University of Manchester, please click here.
9-11 July 2012
Compiled by Dr. Hannah Priest
In July 2012, the University of Manchester hosted the biennial Society for Renaissance Studies conference. Keynote addresses were given by Bette Talvacchia, Roger Chartier and Alan Stewart; papers were given by scholars from around the globe, working in numerous disciplines; and delegates enjoyed tours of local places of interest: The John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Chetham’s Library and the People’s History Museum. Wine receptions were held at the Whitworth Art Gallery and the Manchester Museum, sponsored by the Society for Renaissance Studies and Manchester University Press respectively. A full programme for the conference can be found here.
The conference was organized by Dr. Jerome de Groot, and a group of undergraduate and postgraduate students in English and American Studies helped out in a variety of roles. Some of these students have contributed some comments on their experiences of the conference:
Rosie Rees-Bann (MA student): On the Chetham’s Library Tour we were introduced to the history of the library and its beginnings as a charitable venture by Humphrey Chetham. We were then taken to the reading room and introduced to a sample of the collections. This included Ben Jonson’s copy of Plato, a polyglot Bible and Henry VIII’s copy of Prosper of Aquitaine. We were then shown the Chetham’s small printing press and given a demonstration of how it works. The tour was extremely enjoyable and I think it reflects the wealth of resources that Manchester has to offer.
I particularly enjoyed the panel on Middleton that took place on the first day. There was a good discussion at the end of the papers that was very stimulating. I also found the workshop on education very interesting. The focus of the workshop was trying to work out ways of strengthening the links between schools and universities. Having a panel like this alongside others with a more literary focus demonstrates the breath of research that was being discussed at the conference.
Annie Dickinson (BA student): As I am currently studying for an undergraduate degree I had not until the 2012 SRS conference had the opportunity to attend an academic conference, and I found it very exciting to have the opportunity to hear first-hand the newest research on the Renaissance period. I specialise in English literature, and from a literature perspective there were many enjoyable papers, a highlight being the panel on Early Modern Friendship. Amritesh Singh’s paper, ‘“Twinned lambs that did frisk i’th’sun”: Marriage, Adultery, and Queer Friendships’ was particularly interesting, and raised ideas that I believe will be useful with regard to work on Early Modern identity and selfhood that I plan to undertake in the final year of my degree. However what really grabbed my attention was the array of subjects on offer; I was able to attend sessions on areas as diverse as cartography, art history, and translation. Alan Stewart’s final plenary on ‘The Strange Friendship of Edward and Gaveston’ I think summed up the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, demonstrating the interconnectedness of history, politics and literature.
Katie Nicholas (BA student): During the SRS conference 2012 I attended several sessions including a discussion of Thomas Nashe and heard a paper on ‘The Genius of Shakespeare’ which was particularly relevant having just finished a course about the language of Shakespeare and the adaptation of his works. This was my first experience of an academic conference and I really enjoyed it, meeting new people and hearing papers from all over the world from leaders in their fields. A personal highlight was a tour of the John Rylands University Library on Deansgate. I loved the possibility to look at several books from their vast collection in such beautiful surroundings. Of particular interest were several books from the Crawford Collection as they were sourced from the Earl of Crawford’s library in my hometown, Wigan. The conference was well organised and has encouraged me to visit future conferences both for academic and social reasons. It gave me the opportunity to make new friends with other girls from my course whom I look forward to catching up with as I enter my 3rd and final year at the University of Manchester.
Mike Collier (MA student): All the sessions were well attended and the level of engagement in the sessions was excellent, generating much debate both with members of the panel as well as among the audience themselves. The keynote speakers were also excellent, both entertaining as well as informative.
Michele Collier (MA student): My conference experience ended on a high note. In a seminar that I had expected to be less than full, as it was the last of the conference and trains were beckoning, I found myself looking after a room that was filled to bursting, with latecomers accommodated on the floor and in the doorway. Given that Peter Mack was presenting I perhaps should have expected that this would be the case, and in what were shortened versions of the original papers (it had only been realised that morning that the length of time available for the session was one hour instead of the usual hour and a half) he entertained hugely with his paper on the emotions in Cavalcanti’s La Retorica, as did Emmanuelle Lacore-Martin in her discussion of the anatomy of emotion in Rabelais.
It was however the final paper that was a brilliant end to the day and the conference, and which was entitled ‘Playing on Emotions in Early Modern Public Executions’. Presented with wit and style by Una McIlvenny, the paper was interspersed by Una’s delivering, in a lovely Irish lilt, her rendition of each ballad to its original tune, prior to giving her insights on the use and reception of each of the works.
For more information about English and American Studies at the University of Manchester, please click here.
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Conference Review: Religious Men in the Middle Ages
University of Huddersfield, 6-8 July 2012
by Dr. Hannah Priest
At the beginning of July, I attended the Religious Men in the Middle Ages conference at the University of Huddersfield. This conference was an interdisciplinary exploration of the intersection of masculinities and religious identities, across the entirety of the Middle Ages.
The conference began with the first of three plenary sessions: Professor Michael L. Satlow (Brown University) speaking on ‘Antique and Early Medieval Rabbinic Thought on Constructions of Masculinity and Religiosity with Particular Reference to Torah Study’. Satlow explored the representations of religious masculinity in Rabbinic thought, particularly as relates to hegemonic discourses of masculinity and desire. Using ancient and early medieval examples, he argued that the evident shift from the metaphor of Torah study as the ‘salve’ or ‘cure’ for desire to the martial imagery of ‘conquest’ and ‘domination’ of desire created a discourse of masculinity that, though it differed from hegemonic discourse, did not oppose it. Satlow’s engaging and informative address set the tone for the conference to come – the definitions of ‘religious’, ‘men’ and ‘Middle Ages’ were to be broad, but also understood with close attention to specifics and contexts.
My own paper – ‘Intersections of Christological Devotion and Romance Masculinity’ – was in the first of the parallel sessions that followed the coffee break. The panel I was in was entitled ‘Christocentric Piety’, and also included Matthew Hoskin (University of Edinburgh) – speaking on ‘The Close Proximity of Christ to the Male Monk in John of Ephesus’ Lives of Eastern Saints’ – and Carolyn Muir (University of Hong Kong) – ‘Bride/Bridegroom Revisited: Further Thoughts on Men and Mystic Marriage’. Both Hoskin and Muir gave fascinating papers, and I was glad to be first in the session so I could devote my full attention to my co-presenters. Hoskin’s paper struck a good balance of depth and accessibility, which was good for those of us less familiar with the Eastern traditions. Muir spoke on various presentations of John the Evangelist as ‘bride of Christ’, and was illustrated with both visual and textual examples. That our panel spanned literary, historical and art historical perspectives, with some good discussions and parallels drawn, indicates the interdisciplinary nature of the conference as a whole.
Highlights of the first day also included, for me, papers by Lisa Kranzer (University of Birmingham) and Sarah Bastow (University of Huddersfield) discussing self-perception, writing and exile during the Reformation. It is still somewhat unusual to get papers on Reformation writings at a self-styled ‘medieval’ conference, but Kranzer and Bastow’s contributions allowed for a consideration of periodization and cultural shift, while also highlighting the continuity of certain (gendered) constructions of identity.
So, the first day began with a discussion of ancient Rabbinic thought, and ended with papers on Elizabethan Protestant reform.
The second day was equally diverse. I attended papers on male devotional practice, demonstrations of personal faith by warriors, pastoral responsibilities of laymen in the late Middle Ages, seventh-century Eastern traditions of the monk as mourner, male tears in the fourteenth century, Jewish bans on polygamy, Henry of Huntingdon, Hereward the Wake, and the Buddha Gautama. All the papers were of a very high standard, it is difficult to choose ‘highlights’ from a consistently strong programme. However, I was very taken by James MacGregor (Georgetown University)’s ‘Dude Prays Like a Lady? Varieties of Male Devotion to Saint George in Late Medieval England’ and Hannah Hunt’s ‘The Monk as Mourner: Eastern Christian Self-Identity in the Seventh Century’ – the former, because it spoke clearly to my own work on chivalric and martial masculinity in late medieval literature; the latter, because it was so far removed from my own research that it served as an engaging and enlightening introduction to something almost entirely new to me.
The second plenary of the conference, in the late morning session of the 7th July, was Professor James Clark (University of Bristol), speaking on ‘The Attractions of the Monastic Life for English Men Between the Black Death and the Reformation’. Drawing on Steve Rigby’s argument that there was a 30% increase in the number of men living in monastic houses in 1500 as compared to 1400, Clark explored the numerous reasons ‘why men became monks’. He argued that the number of dispensations sought at this time to ordain young men below the canonical age suggests that there was a ‘ready supply of young men’ seeking to swell the numbers of older monastic houses; this, Clark asserted, may well mean that the ‘last’ monks of medieval England were also, in many ways, the youngest generation of monks for some time. The main body of Clark’s lecture, however, was concerned with the reasons for this shift, and he explored the idea of monastic ‘career progression’ in depth, as well as the potential for establishing social capital exploited by merchant families entering their sons into monastic houses. Clark’s argument was compelling, and went a long way to dispelling some of the myths of the decay and decrepitude of the decades leading to the dissolution of the monasteries.
The final half-day of the conference offered parallel sessions, followed by the third plenary. The session I attended first had papers from Emma Wells (University of Durham), Marita von Weissenberg (Yale University) and Andrew Fleming (University of Oxford), who spoke on the experience of royal pilgrimage in the late Middle Ages, married male saints (also in the later Middle Ages) and Thomas of Cantilupe respectively. The papers worked well together, and led to some interesting discussions in the question sessions afterwards.
To end the conference, there was a plenary session with Dr. Jennifer Thibodeaux (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater) speaking on ‘The Discourse of Clerical Masculinity: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Writings of Norman Clerics’. Thibodeaux’s paper focussed on the Anglo-Norman pro-clerical marriage tracts that appeared after the First and Second Lateran Councils’ voiding and banning of clerical marriage. With close readings of particular tracts, Thibodeaux argued that the writers drew on certain Pauline writings on marriage to suggest that disorder would necessarily follow a ban on clerical marriage. She went on to illustrate some of the ways in which these tract writers negated the reformed new model of masculinity (based in celibacy) by relying on a ‘householder model’ of the male as husband and father. While, as Thibodeaux pointed out, these tracts were localized both geographically and temporally, this final plenary offered a thought-provoking interrogation of a ‘battle’ for religious masculinity that is often overlooked.
In conclusion, I would offer a warm congratulations to the conference organizers (Dr. Pat Cullum and Dr. Katherine J. Lewis) for putting together such a full and stimulating programme. I know they are in the process of putting together an edited collection based on the conference, and I will look forward to seeing this.
by Dr. Hannah Priest
At the beginning of July, I attended the Religious Men in the Middle Ages conference at the University of Huddersfield. This conference was an interdisciplinary exploration of the intersection of masculinities and religious identities, across the entirety of the Middle Ages.
The conference began with the first of three plenary sessions: Professor Michael L. Satlow (Brown University) speaking on ‘Antique and Early Medieval Rabbinic Thought on Constructions of Masculinity and Religiosity with Particular Reference to Torah Study’. Satlow explored the representations of religious masculinity in Rabbinic thought, particularly as relates to hegemonic discourses of masculinity and desire. Using ancient and early medieval examples, he argued that the evident shift from the metaphor of Torah study as the ‘salve’ or ‘cure’ for desire to the martial imagery of ‘conquest’ and ‘domination’ of desire created a discourse of masculinity that, though it differed from hegemonic discourse, did not oppose it. Satlow’s engaging and informative address set the tone for the conference to come – the definitions of ‘religious’, ‘men’ and ‘Middle Ages’ were to be broad, but also understood with close attention to specifics and contexts.
My own paper – ‘Intersections of Christological Devotion and Romance Masculinity’ – was in the first of the parallel sessions that followed the coffee break. The panel I was in was entitled ‘Christocentric Piety’, and also included Matthew Hoskin (University of Edinburgh) – speaking on ‘The Close Proximity of Christ to the Male Monk in John of Ephesus’ Lives of Eastern Saints’ – and Carolyn Muir (University of Hong Kong) – ‘Bride/Bridegroom Revisited: Further Thoughts on Men and Mystic Marriage’. Both Hoskin and Muir gave fascinating papers, and I was glad to be first in the session so I could devote my full attention to my co-presenters. Hoskin’s paper struck a good balance of depth and accessibility, which was good for those of us less familiar with the Eastern traditions. Muir spoke on various presentations of John the Evangelist as ‘bride of Christ’, and was illustrated with both visual and textual examples. That our panel spanned literary, historical and art historical perspectives, with some good discussions and parallels drawn, indicates the interdisciplinary nature of the conference as a whole.
Highlights of the first day also included, for me, papers by Lisa Kranzer (University of Birmingham) and Sarah Bastow (University of Huddersfield) discussing self-perception, writing and exile during the Reformation. It is still somewhat unusual to get papers on Reformation writings at a self-styled ‘medieval’ conference, but Kranzer and Bastow’s contributions allowed for a consideration of periodization and cultural shift, while also highlighting the continuity of certain (gendered) constructions of identity.
So, the first day began with a discussion of ancient Rabbinic thought, and ended with papers on Elizabethan Protestant reform.
The second day was equally diverse. I attended papers on male devotional practice, demonstrations of personal faith by warriors, pastoral responsibilities of laymen in the late Middle Ages, seventh-century Eastern traditions of the monk as mourner, male tears in the fourteenth century, Jewish bans on polygamy, Henry of Huntingdon, Hereward the Wake, and the Buddha Gautama. All the papers were of a very high standard, it is difficult to choose ‘highlights’ from a consistently strong programme. However, I was very taken by James MacGregor (Georgetown University)’s ‘Dude Prays Like a Lady? Varieties of Male Devotion to Saint George in Late Medieval England’ and Hannah Hunt’s ‘The Monk as Mourner: Eastern Christian Self-Identity in the Seventh Century’ – the former, because it spoke clearly to my own work on chivalric and martial masculinity in late medieval literature; the latter, because it was so far removed from my own research that it served as an engaging and enlightening introduction to something almost entirely new to me.
The second plenary of the conference, in the late morning session of the 7th July, was Professor James Clark (University of Bristol), speaking on ‘The Attractions of the Monastic Life for English Men Between the Black Death and the Reformation’. Drawing on Steve Rigby’s argument that there was a 30% increase in the number of men living in monastic houses in 1500 as compared to 1400, Clark explored the numerous reasons ‘why men became monks’. He argued that the number of dispensations sought at this time to ordain young men below the canonical age suggests that there was a ‘ready supply of young men’ seeking to swell the numbers of older monastic houses; this, Clark asserted, may well mean that the ‘last’ monks of medieval England were also, in many ways, the youngest generation of monks for some time. The main body of Clark’s lecture, however, was concerned with the reasons for this shift, and he explored the idea of monastic ‘career progression’ in depth, as well as the potential for establishing social capital exploited by merchant families entering their sons into monastic houses. Clark’s argument was compelling, and went a long way to dispelling some of the myths of the decay and decrepitude of the decades leading to the dissolution of the monasteries.
The final half-day of the conference offered parallel sessions, followed by the third plenary. The session I attended first had papers from Emma Wells (University of Durham), Marita von Weissenberg (Yale University) and Andrew Fleming (University of Oxford), who spoke on the experience of royal pilgrimage in the late Middle Ages, married male saints (also in the later Middle Ages) and Thomas of Cantilupe respectively. The papers worked well together, and led to some interesting discussions in the question sessions afterwards.
To end the conference, there was a plenary session with Dr. Jennifer Thibodeaux (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater) speaking on ‘The Discourse of Clerical Masculinity: Masculinity and Sexuality in the Writings of Norman Clerics’. Thibodeaux’s paper focussed on the Anglo-Norman pro-clerical marriage tracts that appeared after the First and Second Lateran Councils’ voiding and banning of clerical marriage. With close readings of particular tracts, Thibodeaux argued that the writers drew on certain Pauline writings on marriage to suggest that disorder would necessarily follow a ban on clerical marriage. She went on to illustrate some of the ways in which these tract writers negated the reformed new model of masculinity (based in celibacy) by relying on a ‘householder model’ of the male as husband and father. While, as Thibodeaux pointed out, these tracts were localized both geographically and temporally, this final plenary offered a thought-provoking interrogation of a ‘battle’ for religious masculinity that is often overlooked.
In conclusion, I would offer a warm congratulations to the conference organizers (Dr. Pat Cullum and Dr. Katherine J. Lewis) for putting together such a full and stimulating programme. I know they are in the process of putting together an edited collection based on the conference, and I will look forward to seeing this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)