The International Association for Robin Hood
Studies is sponsoring three sessions at the 2019 International Congress
on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo (ICMS 2019), 9-12 May 2019. The session themes
are: "Rhetoric of Resistance," "Social Bandits," and
"Animal Crime." See below for details about each session.
CFP: ICMS 2019
"Rhetoric of Resistance"
Though banished from society for real or alleged
crimes, the deeds of outlaws are celebrated in popular narratives and ballads.
Marginalized figures, they exist on the fringes of civilization in an
adversarial relationship with the representatives of the law. In this session,
we will address the political status of the Green Wood as a rhetorical concept
of "safe harbor," a refuge for the displaced, the ostracized, and the
dispossessed. We welcome papers on medieval narratives and ballads of such
celebrated outlaws as Robin Hood, Hereward, Eustace the Monk, and Fouke Fitz
Waryn, among others, and aim to address the ethical, political, and ecological
issues raised by the rhetoric of this body of medieval literature. Collectively,
the session and its participants will consider how outlaw rhetoric comments
upon the justice system and its representatives, thereby formulating a medieval
rhetoric of resistance.
This is a paper session (15-20 minute papers)
for the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo. Please
send abstracts (150-250 words) and a completed PIF form (see links below) to
Lydia Kertz at lydia[dot]kertz@gmail.com with a subject line "Rhetoric of
Resistance" by September 15th, 2018.
CFP: ICMS 2019 “Social
Bandits”
The idea of the social bandit, aka the good
thief or the noble robber, reaches back millennia and is found around the
globe. The social bandit, whether an individual or a group, historical or
fictional, is seen by a segment of a society as protecting and assisting them.
Even an historical social bandit may develop into myth or legend, and the
legend lives and changes long after the originator is dead. The legend of a fictional social bandit
likewise shifts over time; as Brian Alderson states that while many years ago
he wrote that “’Every generation gets the Robin Hood that it deserves,’” he now
believes that, “Every generation surely creates for itself the Robin Hood that
it needs” (Forward to Kevin Carpenter’s 1995 Robin Hood: The Many Faces of that
Celebrated English Outlaw, p. 9). This could be said not only of Robin
Hood but of all fictional and even historical social bandits who are perceived
as robbing the rich to help the poor in some way or other.
This session seeks 15- to 20-minute papers on
any aspect of the social bandit, with special consideration given to papers
focusing on the medieval and early modern periods. It is also worth
remembering that one person’s social bandit is another’s common criminal; consider
the viewpoint of the Sheriff of Nottingham, for example, or other antagonists,
as well as that of people kindly disposed towards the outlaw.
Please send a short proposal and completed PIF
form (see links below) to Sherron Lux at sherron_lux@yahoo.com BY noon (Central
Time) on Wednesday 12 September 2018.
CFP: ICMS 2019 “Animal
Crime”
Outlaws and outlawry are commonly associated
with the human; yet, throughout the medieval period, animals were both the
subject of crime, as when they were stolen, maimed, or killed, and its
perpetrator; for example, the sow and piglets put on trial for murder for
killing a 5-year old boy in Savigny, France in 1457. Documented legal trials
from a variety of cultures featuring pigs, goats, horses, dogs and cows suggest
that medieval understandings of the moral agency, ethics, and politics of
outlaws and outlawry was decidedly not simply a human affair, but extended to
our animal counterparts. Papers might consider the historically-documented or
literary or textual (re)imagining of a trial or set of trials featuring an
animal or animals; how animals interact with outlaw humans; the moral agency of
animals on trial; the ethics of putting animals on trial; the ethics of
outlawing animals; how animals can be constructed as outlaws philosophically,
legally, or by other means, how and where animals appear in laws, the treatment
of animal outlaws, animal exiles, and similar.
Send abstracts and a completed PIF form (see
links below) to Dr. Melissa Ridley Elmes at MElmes@lindenwood.edu by 15
September, 2018.
2019 Medieval Congress
Participant Information Form (PIF):
or see https://www.wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions
for a form in Microsoft Word
