15th Biennial Conference Schedule

 

International Association for Robin Hood Studies

15th Biennial Conference

Jagiellonian University

 

Hosts and organizers: 

Anna Czarnowus (University of Silesia) 

Michal Czerenkiewicz (Jagiellonian University) 

Dates: 

26 -27 June 2025

Venue: 

Jagiellonian University, Polish Department, Golebia 18, Cracow 

UTC/GMT +2

 

Robin Hood and Other Social Bandits in Folk and Popular Culture

26.06.2025

 

10:00 Conference opening:

Professor Tomasz Bilczewski, Deputy Dean of the Polish Department, Jagiellonian University

Professor Władysław Witalisz, Dean of the English Department, Jagiellonian University

Professor Adam Dziadek, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Silesia

 

11:15 Coffee break

 

11:30-13:00 LIVE

Chair: Dominika Ruszkiewicz

 

Joanna Szwed (University of Warsaw), The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game: Hunting Games and Death in Robin Hood Narratives

Andrzej Wicher (University of Lodz), Avatars of Robin Hood in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien

Łukasz Neubauer (University of Szczecin), The Hooded Man as a Figure of Christ: A Close Look at the Final Episode of the Second Season of the HTV Robin Of Sherwood Series (1985)

 

13:00-14:30 Lunch break

 

14:30- 16:00 LIVE+ONLINE

Chair: Joanna Szwed

 

Berry Wilson (Independent scholar), The English Resistance Leader, Eadric Silvaticus: From Local Hero to Folk Hero LIVE

Iris Freitas Rodriguez (Federal University of Pelotas), The Grimms’ Revisions in Fairy Tales and Their Meritocratic Discourse ONLINE

Rachel Byrd (University of Houston), Becoming Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne: Adaption in the Robin Hood Ballad Tradition ONLINE

Michael Torregrossa (Bristol Community College), A Connecticut Yankee in Sherwood Forest? Exploring Time-Travel Adventures to/from the Age of Robin Hood

 

16:00 Coffee break

 

16:15-17:45 ONLINE+LIVE

Chair: Gayle Fallon

 

Sherron Lux (Independent scholar), Malleable Maid Marian ONLINE

Alex Kaufman (Ball State University), “Winterwood Bandit Neomedievalisms in Peter Tinniswood’s The Stirk Of Stirk (1974)” ONLINE

Kristin Noone (Irvine Valley College), “When Has A Dead Person Ever Lied To You?”: The Dark Comic Medievalism of Peter David’s Robyne of Sherwood LIVE

 

17:45 Break

 

18:00-19:30 LIVE+ONLINE

Chair: Łukasz Neubauer

 

Lorraine Stock (University of Houston), Free State Of Jones (2016) as Robin Hood Cinema: Medievalism and The American Civil War LIVE

Gayle Fallon (Rocky Mountain College),  “Gamelyn Spreyeth Holy Watere”: The Tale of Gamelyn and Medieval Sanctuary Law ONLINE

Jason Hogue (Texas A&M University-Kingsville), Greenwood Opening Variants in Robin Hood Ballads (Medieval To Early Modern) ONLINE

 

19:30 Dinner

27.06.2025

 

8:00-9:30 ONLINE

Chair: Anna Czarnowus

 

Stephen Basdeo (Elizabeth School of London), Joseph Frank (1773–1838): Editor of Joseph Ritson’s Robin Hood: A Collection of All the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads (1795)

William Hoff (University of Melbourne), Robin Meets His Match: A New Reading of Sporting Challenge in Medieval and Early Modern Performance

Gillian Polack (Deakin University), Eustace the Monk Aka Mr Busket – The Life and Legend of a Scoundrel

 

9:30 Coffee break

 

9:45-11:15 LIVE+ONLINE

Chair: Joanna Szwed

 

Ewa Drab (University of Silesia), The Contemporary Reconfiguration of the Legend in Lavie Tidhar's Fantasy Reading of Robin Hood LIVE

Andrzej F. Hojarski (Jagiellonian University), Mimesis, Friendship, and Steinbeck’s Paisanos LIVE

Anna Czarnowus (University of Silesia)  and Joanna Mleczko (University of Silesia), Haiduks as Social Bandits LIVE

 

11:15 visit at the Early Printed Books Section of the Jagiellonian Library (ONLINE+LIVE)

 

14:00-15:30 lunch break

 

15:30-17:00 ONLINE

Chair: Dominika Ruszkiewicz

 

Whitney Snow (Midwestern State University), America’s Moll: How Virginia Hill Attracted Support from the Public While Being Pursued by The U.S. Government

Ann M. Martinez (Kent State University at Stark), Outlawed: When the Once Privileged Fight the System

Kunnan Muhammed Swalih (Institut Mohammed 6 Pour La Formation Des Imames des Mourchidines Et Mourchidates), Kayamkulam Kochunni: Myth, Legend, and Social Justice in South Indian Folklore

 

17:00 Coffee break

 

17:15- 18:45 ONLINE

Chair: Lorraine K. Stock

Arvind Thomas (University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Los Angeles), Money Talks: Bonds of Narrative in A Gest Of Robyn Hode

Valerie Johnson (University of Montevallo), Neurodivergent Representation in Kelly Ann Jacobson’s Robin and Her Misfits (2023)  

Ananda Majumdar (University of Alberta), The Robin Hood Principle: Redistributive Justice and Its Modern Relevance

18:45-19:45 IARHS business meeting ONLINE

19:45 Closing of the conference

 

 

 

 

The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies, Vol. 6, Published

 

Volume 6 of The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies has been published and is available online.

This is a special issue, guest edited by Gayle Fallon: "The Ludic Outlaw: Medievalisms, Games, Sport, and Play." It features essays by Megan Woosley, Kevin Moberly and Brent Moberly, and Kersti Francis.

Here's the link to the special issue:

https://openjournals.bsu.edu/biarhs/issue/view/390

Call for Support for the Middle English Texts Series

 

            On April 3, the Department of Government Efficiency summarily cancelled almost all grant support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  This cancellation had an immediate and destabilizing effect on the Middle English Text Series (METS), which was nearing the mid-point of a three-year NEH grant that had provided essential funding for the compensation of METS Managing Editor and the remainder of our editorial and research staff.  In the days since, we have been scrambling to assemble new internal sources of funding that will allow METS to bring to completion editions currently under way (online and print) and to support further editions in the series.  While we are hopeful that we will soon have a short-term plan in place to see these editions through to publication, that plan cannot succeed without your support.

            METS issued its first volume in 1989, and published its hundredth volume in 2023. In November 2024 METS launched its completely renovated website and digital edition (www.metseditions.org):  this offers a new reader interface, intuitive access to the texts, glosses, notes, and introductions, along with TEI encoding of all new editions, improved metadata, and enhanced transparency and accessibility.  MIP has kept all volumes continuously in print, and the METS website (available through the University of Rochester Libraries) has attracted over a half million hits per year from more than one hundred thirty-five countries and language groups.  The Series currently has some sixteen volumes in progress, and plans to publish two of these in print and online this year. The Series is also working on updating all its backlist editions for the new website, including adding TEI markup to each edition.

            The abrupt loss of NEH support threatens all of this.  While we have been working over the last several years to transition METS to a more sustainable funding model, we are not there yet. The emergency measures are just that: temporary.  Without new sources of funding, METS will be unable to sustain its staff or operations beyond the near future.,

            We are calling on the medievalist community: editors, scholars, instructors, and everyone who has relied on METS for teaching, research, or simply the joy of engaging with medieval texts to help ensure the survival of this vital resource.  METS has long stood as a shared foundation for the field.  Now, its future depends on those who believe in the value of collaborative, open-access scholarship and of engagement and understanding of history.

            To that end, we have established the Russell Peck Memorial Fund through the University of Rochester.  All contributions to this fund will go directly toward supporting METS’ editorial staff and ensuring the continued production of high-quality, freely available editions.   If you have ever assigned a METS volume in a syllabus, cited one in your research, or found inspiration in a medieval text thanks to METS, we ask you to consider giving back.  Every donation – no matter the size – helps sustain the work that makes our field accessible to the world. These donations are tax deductible for US taxpayers.

            Donations can be made via our website: https://metseditions.org/donate. This link will take you to the University of Rochester's giving portal.

            If you prefer to donate via check, please send to: University of Rochester, Office of Gift and Donor Records, 300 East River Road, BOX 270032, Rochester, NY 14627, with a note indicating that you wish the gift to go to the Russell Peck Memorial Fund. You can also support this initiative through gifts of stocks and securities; Qualified Charitable Distributions; or cryptocurrency. If you are interested in any of these options, please contact Pam Jackson at pamela.jackson@rochester.edu or 585.281.9061.

            This is a time of crisis for our field and for the humanities. It is also an opportunity for us to come together as a field to protect what we’ve built together and to ensure that METS will continue to support future generations of students, readers, and scholars. Thank you for joining us in our mission.

            If you have any questions, please reach out to Anna Siebach-Larsen (annasiebachlarsen@rochester.edu) and Thomas Hahn (thomas.hahn@rochester.edu).

Thank you for your support,

Tom Hahn (General Editor) & Anna Siebach-Larsen (Executive Director)

 

IARHS Sponsored Sessions at the 60th ICMS, Kalamazoo, MI, May 8-10, 2025

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies is sponsoring the following sessions at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies:

Session 186 (Virtual): Care and Caring in the Robin Hood Legend and the Outlaw Tradition
Presider: Lesley Coote, Independent Scholar
Organizer: Anna Czarnowus, Uniw. Śląski w Katowicach

Maid Marian: Boldly Caring for Self and Others
Sherron Lux, International Association for Robin Hood Studies

“What’s your reward for all this?”: Affective Messaging in the Robin Hood Tradition
William J. F. Hoff, Univ. of Melbourne

The Honor of a Noble Outlaw: Banditry and Piracy in Venetian Dalmatia
Marco Rampin, Libera Univ. Maria SS. Assunta

Care and Emotions in “A Lyttel Geste of Robyn Hode”
Anna Czarnowus, Uniw. Śląski w Katowicach

 

Session 444 (Virtual): Expanding Our View of Sherwood: Exploring the Matter of the Greenwood in Comics (A Roundtable)
Sponsors: Medieval Comics Project; International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS)
Presider: Alexander L. Kaufman, Ball State Univ.
Organizers: Carl B. Sell, Univ. of Pittsburgh; Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College
 

A roundtable discussion with Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College;
Carl B. Sell, Univ. of Pittsburgh; Irene García Ruano, Univ. de Valladolid

CFP: ICMS 2025 & IARHS-Sponsored Sessions (2)

 

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS) is sponsoring two sessions for The 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies, which takes place Thursday, May 8, through Saturday, May 10, 2025: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call

The Congress’ deadline for abstract proposals is Sunday, September 15, 2024. All abstract proposals must be made through the Congress’ Confex system to be considered, links below provided. For queries regarding the IARHS-sponsored sessions, please contact the individual session organizer.

 

Care and Caring in the Robin Hood Legend and the Outlaw Tradition (Virtual)

Organizer: Anna Czarnowus (annaczarnowus@op.pl)

Sponsor: IARHS

The Robin Hood legend and the outlaw tradition have been associated mainly with violence and transgression. Various outlaws committed violence and avoided harsh punishment by the legal systems they lived it. They transgressed against accepted social norms. Yet self-care and acts of caring about others have been parts of those legends as well. Hiding yourself in the wilderness was an example of caring about yourself. Outlaws also cared about those whom they treated as their guests, to mention Robin Hood’s hospitable treatment of Sir Richard atte Lee. They cared  about their families, as the legend of Ned Kelly and his life among his relatives shows. Kindness was something that paid, sometimes literally, as when Robin Hood got his money back from the Virgin Mary. The ethics of care has been inseparable from the outlaw legends.

Click here to submit a proposal to this paper session: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6326

Please also email your abstract proposal to the organizer at: annaczarnowus@op.pl.

 

Expanding Our View of Sherwood: Exploring the Matter of the Greenwood in Comics (A Roundtable) (Virtual)

Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa (medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com) and Carl Sell (cscarlsell@gmail.com)

Sponsors: Medieval Comics Project & IARHS

There are thousands of comics based on or inspired by the Matter of the Greenwood, and, although Robin Hood scholars (working since the 1990s) have started to share some information about this corpus, much work still remains to be done to more fully assess the world of Sherwood Forest depicted in their panels. Therefore, in this co-sponsored session, we hope to create a deeper connection between Robin Hood Studies and Comics Studies to highlight items from this rich collective and provide ideas and reflections on how to find, access, and employ Robin-Hood-themed comics in our classrooms and research.

Click here to submit a proposal to this roundtable session: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/round/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=5826