The Medieval Academy Blog

Researching, Teaching, and Learning the Middle Ages through Popular Culture: Medievalism and All That

The World Languages and Cultures Department of Elon University and the Modern Language Department of Université Grenoble Alpes are pleased to invite submissions – in English or in Italian – for a conference on “Researching, Teaching, and Learning the Middle Ages through Popular Culture: Medievalism and All That.” The conference will take place at the Accademia Europea di Firenze (Via Camillo Cavour, 37) on Thursday 17 and Friday 18 January 2019.

In addition to presentations selected through this call for papers, we are pleased to confirm keynote lectures by:

• Tommaso di Carpegna Falconieri (Università degli Studi di Urbino)
• Matteo Sanfilippo (Università della Tuscia)

Call for Papers

(Link to the PDF: https://goo.gl/3aRWui. Link to the Word Document: https://goo.gl/DWLnVi.)

At least since the beginning of the Nineteenth century, the “dream of the Middle Ages” (Umberto Eco) has captivated Western culture in many ways. Throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, literary medievalism has known a growing popularity, and new media and forms of entertainment have been progressively involved in various forms of recollection – whether celebrating or deprecating, or simply reinterpreting – of the Middle Ages. For example: the popular novel and genre narrative; radio and television; but also political discourse and different forms of nationalist discourse.

These various appropriations have brought about a complex array of medieval revivals that are often influenced by technological developments and interactive media. Thus, nowadays we find de facto teaching, learning, and representation of the Middle Ages in: videogames; Facebook groups; “Twitter literature”; television series; advertisements; fan fiction spin-offs and crossovers; metal music; board games and so on.

This conference seeks to explore these particular forms of contemporary medievalism; to identify the images and narratives of the medieval period that appear in popular culture; to analyze and critique them and the mediums through which they are transmitted; and to consider how pop culture, interactive media, and technology can be utilized to renew and invigorate research, teaching and learning about Medieval Studies in secondary education and in higher education. Some of the questions the symposium will try to answer are:

• What place and role do these new medieval mass cultural products have in the medieval canon?
• How can these productions help scholars, teachers, and students to understand and contextualize the Middle Ages in our modern world?
• How can they be leveraged to popularize, teach, and learn about the medieval period?
• Is this contemporary kind of medievalism (sometimes referred to as “neomedievalism”) different from historical revivals in other periods?

We enthusiastically look forward to exploring these and other questions with you at the conference. And, thus, we invite proposals – in English or Italian – that explore the following topics:

• Popular representations of medieval literature, history, and culture in a variety of mediums (cinema and television; video games; advertisements; comics; fan fiction; pop and rock music, etc.).
• Innovative approaches related to medieval literature and culture to increase interest and enrollments in courses and programs.
• Innovative approaches related to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) regarding the products of “medieval mass culture”: engaged learning; digital literacy vis-à-vis consumption and production through various mediums; collaborative teaching; students as partners in the teaching and learning process; etc.
• The limits and risks of this approach to Medieval Studies.

Please submit – in English or Italian – abstracts of 350 to 500 words including a select bibliography and a one-page CV to Dr. Brandon Essary (bessary@elon.edu) and Dr. Filippo Fonio (filippo.fonio@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr) by Monday 30 July 2018.

Presenters will be informed of acceptance to the conference no later than Monday 1 October 2018.

***There will be a nominal registration fee for each conference presenter of approximately €50 ($60).***

Statement of Aims

Contributors are sought for an edited collection, under contract with publishers Taylor and Francis, that illuminates the many worlds of the Medieval Mediterranean, from 470 to 1350. In addition to narrative essays contributors will provide primary source materials, written and/or visual, illustrative of their argument and meant to engage students more deeply into the topic. In total, the editor seeks three contributors for each of eleven chapters. Final essays will vary between 2000 and 3000 words, depending on the type of primary source. In making the final selection, the editor seeks to balance primary texts (or selections of texts) and images. Chapters with general (yet flexible) essay themes are as follows:

The Mediterranean and its Environmental History: natural history, geography, geology, plants and animals, biodiversity

The Mediterranean of Antiquity: first inhabitants, Phoenicians and their contemporaries, the Roman Mediterranean

Daily Life in the Medieval Mediterranean: Women, men, marriage, and families, sexuality and gender, the culinary world

A Space of Conflict: warfare (religious and secular), slavery, imperialism, race, and identity

Corsairs and Pirates: this chapter is wide open

A Space of Convergence and Cooperation: the importance of hospitality, narratives of travel – religious, secular, mercantile, etc., emerging ideas of the “Other”

A Profitable Mediterranean: commerce and trade, the world of the merchant, the demand and proliferation of goods

Religion in the Medieval Mediterranean: faith before the emergence of monotheism, the religious descendants of Abraham, religious influences from the Silk Road, faith at the intersections of discord and concord

Cultural and Cultural Exchanges in the Medieval Mediterranean: poetry and stories, art, architecture, and music, technology, the lessons of archaeology

Meeting in the Middle: the meeting of East and West in the emporiums of Arabia, the spread of language and communication, Silk Road/Mediterranean connections

Toward a Renaissance Mediterranean: plague, illness, and death, a changing Mediterranean world, legacies of the Medieval Mediterranean

Please send 300 to 500-word abstracts that address a specific chapter, along with initial thoughts on appropriate primary sources to Jeanette M. Fregulia at jfregulia@carroll.edu by September 7, 2018. Authors will be notified of a decision by September 17, 2018, and final essays are due by December 31, 2018. Must be previously unpublished material.