CFP: Outlaw Bodies, 12th Biennial Conference

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS) invites abstract submissions for its Twelfth Biennial Conference, to be held at the University of Montevallo (Montevallo, AL) from 14-17 May 2019. The theme of the conference is “Outlaw Bodies.”

The term “outlaw” is applied to a broad range of entities, in ever expanding contexts. Functionally, an outlaw has become anything that is outside a norm, whether real, perceived, or desired – but the designation of outlaw can have lasting and tangible consequences. The Outlaw Bodies conference, on behalf of the IARHS, invites papers, panel proposals, round table topics, and seminars that discuss those consequences. The IARHS also welcomes and invites papers treating topics and presenting research on outlawry, the Robin Hood tradition, and social banditry. 

The conference seeks to center a discussion of the Robin Hood tradition and outlawry through a focus on bodies and tangibility: human, ecological, legal, and social. Human bodies can be branded, marked, and punished for outlawry. Ecological bodies such as swamps, forests, and wastelands are often figured as outlaws and have traditionally been seen as both sheltering and generating outlaws. Legal bodies, whether codes of law or institutions of law, generate punitive force against outlaw bodies. Social bodies defined, celebrated, or suppressed by social constructs including gender and sexuality. Robin Hood Studies and medievalism have begun to move toward the center of academic conventions, giving up their outlaw status. The November 2018 release of Robin Hood (dir. Otto Bathurst), with an additional half dozen treatments of the tradition apparently in development, demonstrates the truism that Robin Hood is an outsider hero, a figure of apparent rebellion and counter culture that is a reliable blockbuster film subject, as well as offering consumers a rich collection of television, novels, poetry, political iconography, and other ephemera. The new film’s outlaw bodies (whether human, ecological, legal, or social) offer new opportunities to explore the consequences of embodiment within the movie and for the Robin Hood tradition more broadly. We therefore explicitly invite papers that explore issues of race, gender, sexuality, power structures, and ableism.

Please send proposals of no more than 300 words to Dr. Valerie Johnson (vjohnso6@montevallo.edu) by 2 November 2018.

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CFP: Round Table: Paul Kingsnorth’s The Wake: Medievalism, Ecology, and Identity

Round Table: Paul Kingsnorth’s The Wake: Medievalism, Ecology, and Identity

Paul Kingsnorth’s Booker-Prize-longlisted novel The Wake (2014) is set in England in the years immediately after the Norman Conquest. Written in a constructed ‘shadow tongue’ (shorn of post-Conquest vocabulary) that evokes Anglo-Saxon English, it tells the story of a rebel band in East Anglia under the leadership of the fictional Buccmaster that parallels the historical rising led by Hereward the Wake. Kingsnorth is also well known as a writer and activist on globalization and  environmental issues.

The Wake presents fruitful but also problematic areas for discussion among scholars and activists - one reviewer has stated that “Anglo-Saxon scholars either love or hate” the work (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/30/top-10-modern-medieval-tales-georg-rr-martin-umberto-eco). Questions to be addressed by an inter-disciplinary panel might include:

• Does Kingsnorth’s use of a ‘shadow tongue’ overcome or strengthen the sense of the alienation between the Anglo-Saxon subject matter and his modern audience?
• Is Kingsnorth’s evocation of Anglo-Saxon England a progressive statement of solidarity with indigenous peoples in the face of globalization, or a reactionary reinvention of a ‘Merrie England’ purified of modern and foreign influences?
• How far does Kingsnorth’s Buccmaster stand in the tradition of medieval and medievalist outlaws such as Robin Hood?
• What does The Wake reveal about the relationship between medievalism, ecology, and (anti-) globalization?

I am looking for participants in a round table on Paul Kingsnorth's novel The Wake  for the International Conference on Medievalism, which will take place in Bamberg, Germany from 18-20 July, 2016. The theme may appear a little off-topic, but I hope you agree there is some considerable overlap with outlawry and the greenwood. 

Please reply to me on this email address, or my institutional email of michaelevans@delta.edu. I am looking for an inter-disciplinary panel, with participation from historians, linguists, literary scholars, creative writers of medievalism, and folklorists (and others!). Do not feel limited to my suggested questions - if you have read, or intend to read, Kingsnorth's The Wake, you may have other ideas that I have not covered below. I do not require a detailed proposal at this point, just a little about your area of scholarship / activity and some sense of what you would like to talk about.


Participation is, of course, dependent on my proposal for the round table being accepted by the conference organizers. I will let potential participants know as soon as I have confirmation or acceptance / rejection (so don't go booking flights to Germany just yet!).


Best wishes,


Mike Evans
Delta College

CFP: Medievalisms in Popular Culture

CFP: Medievalism in Popular Culture

PCA/ACA 2016 National Conference

March 21^st - 25^th, 2016 – Seattle, Washington

The Medievalism in Popular Culture Area (now the combined areas of Arthurian and Other Medievalism) accepts papers on all topics that explore either popular culture during the Middle Ages or transcribe some aspect of the Middle Ages into the popular culture of later periods.  These representations can occur in any genre, including film, television, novels, graphic novels, gaming, advertising, art, etc.   For this year’s conference, I would like to encourage submissions on some of the following topics:

The Arthurian World

·         Children’s Books/Shows/Games

·         Medievalism and Science Fiction

·         Medievalism in Game of Thrones - including representations of masculinity, weapons, and vows (we had quite a few papers on female characters at the 2015 sessions)

·         Robin Hood

·         Medievalism and Teaching

·         Board Games/Online Gaming and/or Cosplay

·         Medievalism in Novels/Short Stories/Poems

If your topic idea does not fit into any of these categories, please feel free to submit your proposal as well.  I would like to encourage as much participation as possible, and depending on submissions, I may rearrange the topic groupings.

All papers will be included in sessions with four presenters each, so plan to present on your topic for no more than 15 minutes, inclusive of any audio or visual materials. 

Panel submissions are also welcome on any topic of medievalism. If you would like to propose a panel, please submit your complete panel to me directly at cfrancis@bloomu.edu. Individual papers must be submitted to the PCA online system (see below).

Submission requirements:

Please submit a title and a 250 word abstract to http://ncp.pcaaca.org.  All submissions must be directed to the online database.  Be sure to indicate whatever audio/visual needs you may have.  Traditionally, all rooms at the PCA/ACA conference provide a projection screen with sound capability.  Presenters are required to bring their own laptops and any special connectors.

Deadline for submission: October 1^st, 2015 (one month earlier than previous years)

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Christina Francis, Associate Professor of English, Bloomsburg University, at cfrancis@bloomu.edu.

Outlaws in Context: A Photo Post of the 2015 IARHS Conference in Doncaster

From 30 June to 2 July 2015, the International Association for Robin Hood Studies held the group's 10th Biennial Meeting. Many of our fellow outlaws could not attend, and we want to be able to connect to Robin Hood scholars around the globe! So we've curated a collection of photographs, all taken by a variety of scholars during, and after, the conference. All the photographs are copyright 2015 by their owners, who are listed in the captions. Please do not hotlink or distribute these photos; these photos may not be used for commercial purposes without express written consent of the copyright owners. This is a large post, so all photos are beneath the jump!

CFP: SEMA 2015

SEMA 2015 (October 22-24, Little Rock, Arkansas): 

International Association for Robin Hood Studies, sponsored session:

Greenwood Fashion: Clothing, Textiles, Skins, and Furs in the Ongoing Robin Hood Legend

The Robin Hood ballads and other Robin Hood tellings, from the past through the present, often emphasize clothing and accessories, as well as related textiles, skins, and furs.  For example, in the medieval Gest of Robyn Hode, Little John becomes the “draper” for the impoverished knight, even giving him well over the “thre yerdes” of “scarlet and grene” which Robin suggests (ll. 277-296) – which also raises the question of what, exactly, the terms “scarlet” and “green” mean in the context of the Gest and the ballads.  Clothing continues to figure in the tale of the poor knight, and also in the Third Fytte when Little John tricks the Sheriff into being captured by Robin Hood (ll. 769-784).   In the Seventh Fytte, the king and his party disguise themselves as monks in an attempt to trap Robin Hood (ll.1465-1500), a disguise beloved later by filmmakers and other storytellers, just as Marian’s disguising herself as a page in the ballad of “Robin Hood and Maid Marian,” circa 1600, continues in some form in various novels, plays, and films.  Then there is the “capull-hyde,/Topp, and tayle, and mayne” in which the bloodthirsty Guy of Gisborne is clothed in the ballad “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne” (ll.29-30).  Clothing continues to be a matter of some importance in the Robin Hood legends, sometimes even serving as psychological markers as, for instance, the bright jeweled flowers on shining black which Olivia de Haviland’s Lady Marian wears when we – and Robin – first see her in the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, when Marian is sure of herself and her place in society, and confident in that society, as opposed to the somber dark burgundy she wears at Robin’s trial for treason.    

For this session, we welcome 20-minute papers from any discipline, including interdisciplinary papers, which examine some aspect(s) of clothing, textiles, skins, and furs in the ongoing Robin Hood legend.  

Please send a 300 word abstract and brief bio / CV to Sherron Lux at sherron.lux@sjcd.edu AND Melissa Ridley Elmes at maelmes@uncg.edu BY June 28, 2015. 

 

IARHS 2015, Doncaster: Outlaws in Contex

Outlaws in Context

(IARHS 2015)

Programme of Events

Day One (Tuesday 30th June)

15.00 onwards: Registration

[You may register later, after the walk, if you wish.  Registration is available each day]

15.30 

Campus walk with 16.00 tea

17.00

Welcome to Doncaster

Lesley Coote/Michelle Denby

Session One: Contemporary Outlaws

Mikee Delony –  Jamie Frasier: A Scottish Robin Hood in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander Novels

Michael Eaton – Notes from Sherwood

19.30

Bar meal

Day Two (Wednesday 1st July) 

8.00-9.00 

Breakfast

9.30-10.45 

Session Two: Robin Hood in Medieval Texts

Presider:   Lesley Coote

Kristin Bovaird-Abbo – Harts, Hounds, Humans: Hunting in A Lytell Geste of Robin Hode

Alexander Kaufman – Rhetorical and Ideological Contexts of the Prefatory Letter of the Gesta Herewardi

Valerie Johnson -- What’s in a Name? Naming, and the Early Outlaw Tradition

10.45   

Coffee

11.15-12.30

Session Three: Laws and Outlaws

Presider:  Mikee Delony

Antha Coton-Spreckelmeyer– From Lawbreaker to Lawmaker:  Robin Hood in the Context of English Land Law

Lorraine Stock – The Impact of Joseph Ritson’s 1795 Robin Hood upon Later Constructions of the Outlaw’s Legend

David Crook – The Novelist, the Artisan, and the Banker: The Emergence of the Robin Hood Legend at Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, c.1818-1849

12.30 

Lunch

13.45   

Trip to Kirklees (with ‘high tea’ provided at the priory)

Bus arrives 13.30, for 13.45 departure

[You will need ‘sensible shoes’ at Kirklees, as the walking is somewhat rough.  If it has rained, or is raining, there will be mud.  A gradient is involved in the walk; a ‘round trip’ of the site takes about an hour.  The weather can be changeable, so bring waterproofs]

Back around 18.30

19.30 

Dinner

20.30

Screening – Lindsay Anderson and Robin Hood  (Michael Eaton MBE)

Day Three (Thursday 2nd July)

8.00-9.00

Breakfast

9.30-10.45

Session Four: History, Society and Story

Presider: Lesley Coote

David Hepworth – An Exploration of Cambridge University Manuscript Oo.6.115: A Tale of Norfolk Family Ties

Alice Blackwood - Robin Hood Ales and Parish Politics: the Administrative Context

Helen Phillips – Nut Brown Maidens

10.45 

Coffee

11.15-12.30

Session Five: Genre, Rhetoric and Resistance

Presider: Thomas Rowland

Mark Truesdale – King and Commoner Genre: “Þe best archer of ilkon, / I durst mete hym with a stone”

Sabina Rahman – Robin Hood and Surveillance: Ballad to Film

Jonathan Bishop – Godliness to Anonymous: Anti-Establishment Rhetoric in Robin Hood Ballads and Contemporary Media Texts

12.30 

Lunch

13.15-14.15

Session Six: Highway Men

Presider:  Alexander Kaufman

Gillian Spraggs – “A Second Robin Hood”: John Nevison, the Yorkshire Highwayman

Stephen Basdeo – Robin Hood the Brute: The Outlaw in Eighteenth-Century Criminal Biography

14.15 

Free time with tea from 15.30/ St James’s Church, High Melton open to view, by kind permission of the churchwardens

[The church is very small and insignificant-looking from the outside, but the stained glass dates from the late fourteenth to the nineteenth century, and is very well worth seeing, in addition to the other features listed in the guide pamphlet.  Tea is flexibly timed.]

16.15-17.40

Session Seven: Robin Hood and Contemporary Media Texts

Presider: Mikee Delony

Laura Blunk – “Are You Now or Have You Even Been an Outlaw in Sherwood?: Ring Lardner, Jr. and Ian McClellan Hunter’s Robin Hood

Jason Hogue – Behind Zorro’s Mask: The Mythic Afterlife of Joaquin Murieta, California’s Robin Hood

Thomas Rowland – Robin Hood of the West: Transforming the Greenwood Outlaw into an American Icon: 1938-1960

19.00

Reception 

19.30 

Dinner, news, farewells

End of conference

[If you are staying in the Hall, Friday breakfast will be 8.00-9.00, checkout is by 10am]

CFP: 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies

Call for Papers: 51 International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 12-15, 2016

Sponsored Session: International Association for Robin Hood Studies

Session Title: “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.

Please send 250-word abstracts and CVs by September 15, 2015 to Kristin Bovaird-Abbo (kristin.bovairdabbo@unco.edu), Valerie B. Johnson (valerie.johnson@lmc.gatech.edu) and Alexander L. Kaufman (akaufman@aum.edu).
Please also submit a PIF, found here: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF

For further information about the International Association for Robin Hood Studies, please visit http://robinhoodscholars.blogspot.com/

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'."