CFP: 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11–13, 2023

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 23 SEPTEMBER 2022 FOR PROPOSALS  

Two Sponsored Sessions of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS) 

(1) The Mutable Ideologies of the Robin Hood Tradition (Session of Papers)

Contact: Anna Czarnowus, annaczarnowus@tlen.pl

Modality: Virtual

 

Robin Hood narratives, whether literary or other media (cf. film), have always contained embedded ideologies. From social hierarchies of the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 18th-century nostalgic Anglo-Saxonism (taken up again in Romanticism, Victorianism, and Modernism) to contemporary American designations, the Robin Hood tradition hosts conflicting ideological perspectives. These conflicts ensure the tradition is diverse, and interpretations of the story reproduce that diversity. Exploring the origins and implications of these perspectives is key to scholarly analysis of the trans-temporal and increasingly global Robin Hood tradition.

The Robin Hood tradition has never been objective or ideologically naïve: alongside their undeniable entertainment value, the narratives served to bolster, create, or attack ideological perspectives. Yet diverse interpretations of the story coexist with each other, and apparently mutually exclusive interpretations of the tradition can enhance its popularity. This panel seeks papers that explore these ideological perspectives across media, whether the traditional late medieval / early modern ballads, novels, performances, art, music, and modern film. How are ideologies of the past still relevant within medieval and post-medieval Robin Hood texts? How do post-medieval ideologies contribute to or problematize the tradition?

Please send a 250-word abstract by 23 September 2022 to the email annaczarnowus@tlen.pl and simultaneously submit it to the Confex system for the ICMS: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi. Proposals must be uploaded to the Confex system for consideration.

 

(2) Robin Hood Fantasies: Beyond Realism and Verisimilitude (A Roundtable)

Contact: Alexander L. Kaufman, alkaufman@bsu.edu

Modality: Virtual

For audiences of Robin Hood texts, there is a tendency to describe the tradition as grounded in realism. This roundtable seeks papers that explore how the medieval and post-medieval Robin Hood tradition negotiates the reality of outlawry and the historical contexts associated with the outlaw, alongside tropes that belong to genres such as speculative fiction, fantasy, science fiction, fairy tales, and contemporary romance in literature and media. Have we fully moved toward an un-real Robin Hood, and if so, what are the implications? In focusing on the fantastical, this panel seeks to interrogate the value of fiction as fiction.

The Robin Hood tradition has been connected in some manner with a historical reality, and some scholars continue to seek the “real” that is within literary texts or historical records. This panel further seeks to underscore how the histories that are a part of Robin Hood texts are themselves fictive, literary representations of a history, historical event, or figure. We should begin to consider how Robin Hood literary and media texts belong to the broad genre of fantasy and its numerous sub- and adjacent-genres.

Please send a 250-word abstract by 23 September 2022 to alkaufman@bsu.edu and simultaneously submit it to the Confex system for the ICMS: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi. Proposals must be uploaded to the Confex system for consideration.