CFP: IARHS Sponsorded Session, "Time and the Outlaw," Leeds IMC 2026

 

IARHS Sponsored-Session Proposal: 'Time and the Outlaw'

Leeds International Medieval Congress 2026

6^th-9^th July 2026, University of Leeds, UK

Call for Papers

 

The theme of Leeds International Medieval Congress will be ‘Temporalities’

On the official ‘Call for Papers’ webpage, this is described as follows:

‘Diverse notions of the passage of time affected medieval people’s political decisions, economic exchanges, and production of objects and artefacts. Medieval people manipulated time to reflect their gender roles, narrative strategies, views on human ageing, shifts in ethnic or social groups, or changes in public and private spaces.

Modern concepts of medieval time are bound up with our own understanding and (ab)use of medieval temporalities. Whether we construct images of a ‘Dark Age’, or imagine a romantic time of chivalry and knighthood, these projections into the past reflect our own temporal outlooks and how today we organise ‘medieval time’ in a variety of ways that address modern diverse political or cultural agendas, which lie at the heart of our debate on medievalism.’

 

IARHS session proposal is ‘Time and the Outlaw’

 

Outlaw stories are like time travelers: they exist in their own time and seemingly outside time.    Some of their elements remain fixed and unchanging whilst others are a product of negotiation between the tellers and their audiences, according to the needs of their present situations and ideological perspectives.  They exist in a variety of media and in many different genres.

This session, therefore, examines outlaws and their stories through time: what they have been, what they are now, and what they may become.   How have they been presented and how has that presentation changed, how might they be presented in the future – and why?  Are outlaw stories simply ephemeral wish fulfillment, or do they really matter?  What was their function in the past, what is it now, and what might it be in the future? 

Outlaw heroes are not necessarily ‘different’ from other people – they frequently begin their stories living unremarkable lives in an everyday world – but their qualities are super-charged by their natural empathy and ability reacting to adverse circumstances created by (‘evil’) others.  Their subsequent actions become the subject of myth, legend and popular culture.  They speak truth to and about power in every age. 

Medieval commentators regarded stories (such as those of Robin Hood) as either mindless diversions that did neither harm nor good, or as carriers of important socio-cultural messages that could be either supportive or subversive of hegemonic practices and beliefs.  The outlaw’s relevance in and through time, to whom and why, is still a major subject of academic study and of interest to wider audiences.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on this topic.  Some suitable Congress suggestions are: Medieval perceptions of time, temporality, and their modern interpretations; People in time; Time as an agent of change; Temporality in political, economic, and socio-cultural relations; Time, memory, and commemoration; Time, nature, and the environment; Medieval temporalities in film, media, digital technology, and Artificial Intelligence; Artistic representations of time and temporality; Medieval temporalities in literature, music, performing arts, and folklore; Medievalism and medieval temporalities; The future of the Middle Ages. 

This is a limited list, but proposals on any aspect of time and outlaws/outlaw stories, in any or many media, medieval, post-medieval, modern or future are welcomed.

The session/s will be hybrid, so distance need not be a limitation.

To submit before the Congress deadline, proposals need to be made by midnight on Friday 26^th September.  There will be a waiting list in operation after that weekend. 

Please send your proposal to the session organiser, Dr Lesley Coote, at coote081@gmail.com

Proposals need to be accompanied by a working title, speaker name and designation, and a contact address. 

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)

 

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

IARHS Sponsored Sessions for the 59th ICMS, Kalamazoo, MI, May 9-11. 2024

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies is sponsoring the following two sessions at the 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies, at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA, from May 9-11, 2024.

Session 45 (Virtual), Thursday, May 10, 10:00 AM CST
"Ecomedieval Robin Hood"
Sponsor: International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS)
Presider: Anna Czarnowus, Uniw. Śląski w Katowicach
Organizer: Anna Czarnowus

“Under the grene wode tree”: Eco-Anxiety, Outlaws, and Ecotonal Landscapes in the Lytell Gest of Robyn Hode
Catherine Brassell, Univ. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign

“An imperishable masterpiece”: Outlawry, Self-Reliance, Scientific Knowledge, and Reverential Awe in B. B.’s (Denys Watkins-Pitchford’s) Brendon Chase (1944)
Alexander L. Kaufman, Ball State Univ.

Paradise Gained: Nature and Religious Affirmation in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Julie Loveland Swanstrom, Augustana Univ.

“The outlaw’s friend”: Domesticating the Greenwood in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood
Christian Sheridan, Bridgewater College

Session 379 (Virtual), Saturday, May 11, 10:00 AM CST
"Outlaw Environments"
Sponsor: International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS)
Presider: Alexander L. Kaufman, Ball State Univ.
Organizer: Anna Czarnowus, Uniw. Śląski w Katowicach
 

Constructing Outlaw Environments: Space, Time, and Belonging in the Outlaw Imaginary
William J. F. Hoff, Univ. of Melbourne 

The Natural and the Courtly in A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode
Anna Czarnowus 

Robin Hood in Greenwood... Camped
Sherron Lux, International Association for Robin Hood Studies

Resistance Narratives: Comparative Study on Social Banditry, Robin Hood, and Brazilian Literature
Vitor Nunes da Silva, Univ. Federal de Sergipe

CFP: IARHS Sponsored Session for Leeds International Medieval Congress 2024 1st-4th July: Outlaws and Crises, Outlaws in Crisis

 

Proposed IARHS session for Leeds International Medieval Congress 2024 1st-4th July

 

Conference Theme: Crisis

 

Proposed session/s for IARHS: Outlaws and Crises, Outlaws in Crisis

 

This session explores the relationship between outlaws, bandits and the crises they encounter or initiate – their reasons, their activities and their results, in medieval and later times, and in ‘modern’ (and earlier) representations of the medieval which respond to and/or create crises of their own.

Around the world and throughout history outlaws and bandits have found themselves in situations of crisis. These might be political: in his fifteenth-century reference to Robin Hood and Little John, Walter Bower states that they were outlawed as a result of taking the side of Simon de Montfort in the 1260s Barons’ War against Henry III. They might also be social (as in the case of Hobsbawm’s ‘social bandits’, who fight back on behalf of those who lack power themselves), or personal (being victimized by powerful authority figures, or as a result of criminal activity gone wrong – theft that turns to murder, for example). Some (such as Ned Kelly and Zorro – and indeed Robin Hood) have developed popular narratives of fighting back against colonizing powers, whilst others from Dick Turpin through Billy the Kid, Jesse James through Prohibition gangs and Peaky Blinders to London’s Kray Brothers have given rise to (undeserved) ‘good outlaw’ legends in the style of Robin Hood and earlier ‘social bandits’.

 

As outlaws and bandits, these men and women faced crises of their own… from broken, fragile or treacherous relationships, as a result of attacks from without, and from parlous situations created by themselves or others. Outlaws regularly created crises themselves for a variety of reasons – to carry out rescues, to make restitution, to ‘equalize’ and to help the powerless, or to ensure survival for themselves and others. 

 

Which leads to another important question:

Is outlawry and banditry itself in crisis? Robin Hood and other outlaws have been adopted by commercial interests to advertise products (from flour to finance to chocolate bars), and by political interests to conduct (sometimes violent) campaigns against lawful authority or the forces of order. From terrorists to hackers, the term ‘outlaw’ is frequently applied to anyone who stands in opposition to a hegemonic and/or authoritarian power, a power often named and fashioned by themselves. In recent times this tactic of self-identification has been adopted by would-be popular despots in their quest for power. Has the terminology/ideology of outlawry and banditry been emptied out, to be filled and refilled in response to a never-ending multiplicity of requirements – or can it still have value? Can it perhaps be retrieved from the past to serve the present and future in effective ways? Does it/can it still have validity? If so, how, and how should we see the outlaw or bandit, in the historiographical past or in the present day? 

 

This excerpt from the Leeds IMC general call for papers may also be of interest to anyone considering our session topics:

 

‘‘Crisis’ has long been used when writing about the Middle Ages – incorporating climate and environmental issues such as epidemics, famines, and floods, political issues such as the breakdowns of dynasties and popular revolts, and socio-cultural issues such as religious apocalypticism and the questioning of faith…Medievalists are also interested in how individuals and communities coped with crisis. Indeed, medieval societies had their own perception and understanding of risk and found ways to adapt. An important component of this was the construction of crisis narratives, sometimes informed by religious beliefs – stories that changed across time, place, and audience. Temporality is also fundamental to medievalists’ understanding of crisis, offering important counter-perspectives to views of linear progress and modernization paradigms often seen in crisis historiography. While substantial crises could serve as short-term ruptures and turning points, crises also provoked more incremental changes within economies, institutions, and cultures over time. Some things stayed the same despite crises and, thus, continuity remains important’. 

 

Ideas for themes:

The creation of crisis narratives and stories / Explicitly gendered approaches to crises / Global and national pressures/hazards played out at local or micro levels / Early modern and modern representations of medieval crisis / Material culture and conceptualizing crisis – objects and rituals / Hazards, shocks, disasters, and their redistributive impact / Textual representations of crisis and its impact on human agents – trauma, emotion, physical, and mental responses / Medieval crises represented in visual culture, music culture, and the arts / Crises occurring or conceptualized across borders / Settlements: adaptation and continuity under stress / Human-animal connections and their place within crisis contexts / Hazards, the managed environment, and the body politic

Please send your proposals, with a short (200 word max.) abstract, by September 25th, 2023 to Dr Lesley Coote (l.a.coote@associate.hull.ac.uk), along with a short abstract, a working title for your paper, your preferred designation and email address. 

 

Papers should be no more than 20 minutes’ duration. As the conference will be hybrid, please indicate whether you would like to attend virtually or in person.

CFP: The 14th Biennial Conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies: “Robots, Androids, and Outlaws: How Machines and Bandits Disrupt Social Order," Oct. 18-21, 2023

 

Announcing The 14th Biennial Conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies: “Robots, Androids, and Outlaws: How Machines and Bandits Disrupt Social Order.”

 

The International Association for Robin Hood Studies Conference will be held at Missouri Valley College, USA, on October 18-21, 2023. It will be a hybrid conference. This conference brings together scholars to present current research on the famous outlaw as he appears in both medieval and post-medieval media. 

 

This conference will focus on (but not exclusively) discussions of Robin Hood and machine culture, with special emphasis on AI as a Robin Hood-like disrupter, banditry from robots and machines, and Robin as a subverter of social norms and expectations. We anticipate that this theme will allow us to address both traditional Robin Hood subjects and current changes happening in academic culture. 

 

Everyone interested are invited to submit paper proposals on this topic or any other topic related to Robin Hood. Please send a 500-word abstract to Dr. Thomas Rowland at rowlandt@moval.edu.

For those who would like to submit a session proposal, please submit an abstract description of the session topic and preferably three to four presenters. Please include with your proposal your name, paper title, and affiliation (if any). 

 

All proposals will be due by September 1, 2023.