CFP: IARHS Sponsored Sessions for Leeds IMC 2021

CFP: IARHS Sponsored Sessions for Leeds IMC 2021

5-8th July, University of Leeds, UK

Session deadline 30 September 2020 (please send to Lesley Coote by September 20th to be considered for a session). Email address for submissions is: L.A.Coote@associate.hull.ac.uk, or coote081@gmail.com

Conference Theme: CLIMATES

The following topics have been selected from a list supplied by the IMC Leeds organising committee, and the full list is available on the Conference website. The two strands provide different emphases to cover the interests of IARHS members, and could form the basis for a series of session proposals. Each year the Leeds IMC board sanctions anything up to 5 sessions from research groups, and so it should be possible to present more than one ‘strand’ with success.

The suggestions in the brackets below each topic in Strand I represent a clarification of how these topics might be applied; they are inspirational guides only. Strand II needs very little additional clarification.

Any period may be covered, and any form of outlawry or rebellion.
(The full CFP can be viewed on the Leeds IMC website: www.imc.leeds.ac.uk)
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Outlaws, Rebels and Climates
Strand I: Climates of Rebellion and Revolt

Natural and other landscapes/settings as dynamic spaces (relationship of subject matter to natural and unnatural settings, their use and manipulation in literature, history and culture)

Agriculture, pastoralism, modification of landscapes, exploitation of resources, inequality, colonialism (‘issues’ and social/political considerations, relationship of subject matter/histories to social and natural change and transformation)

Environmental determinism, medieval histories of modern inequalities (‘isms’, post/colonial issues, ‘read back’ into the past, past origins of, or comparisons between then and now)

Societal organisation, hierarchy, law-making, governance (law, social organisation, class issues, legal and societal manifestations thereof)

Applying paradigms of adaption, resilience, and collapse (relation of subject matter to social and other transformations, its own transformations)

‘Climates’ of opinion, thought, feeling (medieval and later, and how they impact the subject matter)

‘Climates’ and interregional connectivities, interdependencies and disconnections (transmission of material, ideas, images and forms)

Fluctuations in migration, mobility, trade, exchange, and transmission (transmission and mobility, geographical or temporal, relation of the subject matter to economic issues)

Preservation of material remains amid growing climate and societal instability (issues surrounding material remains, their preservation and re/presentation, or not)

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Strand II: Medievalist Outlaw Fantasies and the Elements

Medieval concepts of ‘climes’ and ‘climate’

Cosmologies, world views, natural or supernatural causation

Medieval enquiry into weather, seasons, monsoon patterns

Astronomical and astrological observations and predictions

Agriculture, pastoralism, modification of landscapes, exploitation of resources, inequality, colonialism (includes prognostications, witchcraft/elemental magic, medicinal implications and use of elements)

Environmental determinism, medieval histories of modern inequalities

Seas, oceans, rivers, monsoon, floods as dynamic spaces

IARHS CFP: Leeds International Medieval Congress 2018

Remembering Robin Hood:

Memory, Representation, and Adaptation in the Post-Medieval Outlaw Tradition

IARHS Sponsored Session

International Medieval Congress

University of Leeds

Convenor:

Stephen Basdeo

Stephen.basdeo@outlook.com

“The [Robin Hood] legend endured through adaptation. In each generation it acquired new twists from shifts in composition, outlook, and interests of the audience, or changes in the level of literacy, or developments in the means of communication”

James C. Holt, Robin Hood (1982)

Following on from a well-attended and very well-received panel at the IMC 2017, the International Association for Robin Hood Studies seeks to build upon this success by sponsoring a panel on the theme of memory in the outlaw tradition.

Of all medieval legends, Robin Hood is the one whose ‘afterlife’ in the modern period has proved to be the most successful in terms of longevity. Throughout history, he has been represented in plays, songs, books, and films, and memorialised in landmarks. The proposed panel will explore the various ways that certain aspects of the medieval Robin Hood tradition have been remembered by people and/or adapted by writers, artists, and filmmakers in the post-medieval period.

Possible papers might include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Robin Hood in landmarks (e.g. in sculpture, Robin Hood’s grave, Little John’s grave, Robin Hood’s well, etc.)

• Robin Hood in post-medieval popular culture (e.g. 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th-century medievalism: books, films, comics, etc.)

• Community and contested memories of Robin Hood (e.g. local and nationalist appropriations of Robin Hood)

• Folk memory and folk song.

In order to be considered for inclusion, please submit a 250 word abstract to stephen.basdeo@outlook.com by 15 September 2017.

The following should be included with your abstract:

• Correspondence address and email address (this is important, as it will need to be submitted to the IMC)

• Affiliation.

• A brief biography (please indicate if you are a postgraduate student, as this will need to be included on the IMC submission)

 
If possible, please submit the abstract, your contact details, and biography as one word document.

CFP: IARHS and Leeds 2016

CFP: IARHS and the IMC, Leeds, 4-7 July 2016

The IARHS is proposing two sessions for next year's Leeds, whose conference theme is "Food, Feast, and Famine."

Leeds will only consider fully formed sessions. Please send 300-word abstracts for either proposed session by 15 September 2015 to Lesley A. Coote (L.A.Coote@hull.ac.uk) AND Kristin Bovaird-Abbo (Kristin.BovairdAbbo@unco.edu).

"Food and Feast in Medieval Outlaw Texts"
The romances of medieval England are full of scenes of feasting and eating. Food, its preparation, and its consumption are present as central points of human interaction, community, and fellowship, providing opportunities to examine and analyze agricultural and mercantile practices as well as trade, economics, and the social standing of its producers and consumers; and feast scenes perform a wide variety of functions, serving as a cultural repository of manners and behaviors, a catalyst for the adventure, a “cute-meet” for the lovers, a moment of regrouping and redirecting the narrative, a testing ground for the chivalric and courteous skills of the attendees, an occasion on which some important revelation is made, and a culminating moment of narrative resolution, for instance. But what about in medieval outlaw tales? How important are food and feasting in the tales of Robin Hood, Gamelyn, Hereward the Wake, Eustache the Monk, and Fouke le Fitz Waryn, for example? This session will consider the presence and function of food and feast in medieval outlaw tales, with an eye to considering whether and how instances of food preparation and eating in these tales can be said to display, to develop, or to subvert the conventional ideas of community and fellowship most commonly associated with foods and feasts in secular medieval literature.

"Ecocritical Outlaws"
At an ICMS session in 2015, a panel posed the question "What Can Medieval Studies Bring to Ecocriticism?" Although the responses were diverse, none touched on the specific subgenre of outlaw literature, and this absence is reflected in much of the published ecocriticism scholarship. This panel seeks to initiate conversations about ecocritical issues in various outlaw tales, including but not limited to Robin Hood, Gamelyn, Fouke Fitz Waryn, and Án Bow-Bender. Given the liminal spaces which these tales occupy, as well as their frequent movements from greenwood into urban spaces, these tales are rich for ecological study. What do these stories reveal about medieval forest practices or perspectives towards animals (and their relationships and/or kinships to humans)? To what extent do these tales critique medieval ecological beliefs or offer alternative perspectives (that is, do they reveal a plurality of attitudes towards nature co-existing during the medieval period)? Given that Rebecca Douglass, in “Ecocriticism and Middle English Literature,” argues that “[E]cocriticism is . . . informed by a desire to understand past and present connections between literature and human attitudes regarding the earth,” what does the study of medieval outlaw tales offer to ecocritical studies? This panel welcomes a variety of approaches, including ecofeminist perspectives, cultural ecology, deep ecology, animal studies, ecolinguistics, and other innovative approaches.

Welcome!

Welcome to Robin Hood Scholars, the new web presence for the International Association for Robin Hood Studies. Follow us on Twitter @IARHS - you can track our forthcoming Doncaster conference (30 June - 2 July) with #IARHS2015. We've got a panel at the Leeds International Medieval Congress (6-9 July) as well: Session 1044, "Robin Hood: Making an Old Legend 'New'."