The Medieval Academy Blog

Medieval Classics (Re)Illustrated: A Medieval Comics Project Team-up (Hybrid)

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), Thursday, 14 May, through Saturday, 16 May, 2026

Co-sponsored by Medieval Comics Project, International Arthurian Society/North American Branch, International Society for the Study of Medievalism

Co-organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College, and Siân Echard, University of British Columbia

There is a rich tradition of illustrating medieval literary texts that stretches from the Middle Ages to the present, and the comics medium has been an important contributor to this continuum. Medieval literature has long been popular with comics creators as the source for stories and characters, which have been adapted, appropriated, and/or transformed within a variety of comics published for readers of all ages across the globe. Despite the wealth of the corpus, there has been limited attention paid by medievalists to this work, with the notable exception of scholars in Beowulf Studies and Dante Studies.

In this co-sponsored session, we seek, primarily, to unite the disciplines of Comics Studies and Medieval(ism) Studies at large to explore the history of comics adaptations, appropriations, and transformations of medieval literature for their value to our teaching and research. In addition, we hope panelists will also address how these comics can shed insight into a creator’s personal connections to the medieval past and/or their readers’ reception of the content either at their contemporary moment or as relics of our recent past.

Possible topics for exploration might include specific texts like Book of Kells, Cantar de mio Cid, Canterbury Tales, History of the Kings of Britain, Lais of Marie de France, Le Morte Darthur, Nibelungenlied, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Song of Roland, Volsung Saga, and Yvain as well as the Arthurian and Robin Hood traditions. The work of cartoonist Jodie Troutman on Lit Brick also warrants some attention. Further insights into adaptations of Beowulf or Dante’s Commedia (which have been the subject of much prior study) would also be welcome. (Do check out expanding resource, the Medieval Comics Project Bibliographies at https://tinyurl.com/MedievalComicsProjectBiblios, for information on prior studies of medievalist comics.)

Please post paper submissions into the Confex site using the direct link https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi/Session/7242.

Do send any questions to the organizers at comics.get.medieval@gmail.com. Submissions are due no later than 15 September 2025.

Please be aware that those accepted to the panel must register for the conference in order to present. Past registration costs can be viewed at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration. The International Congress on Medieval Studies does offer limited funding as travel awards and subsidized registration costs; details are available at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.

For more information about the Medieval Comics Project, do check out our website at https://medieval-comics-project.blogspot.com/ and consider signing up for our listserv, The Medieval Comics Project Discussion List, at https://groups.io/g/medieval-comixlist.

For more information about the International Arthurian Society/North American Branch, do check out our website at https://www.international-arthurian-society-nab.org/ and consider becoming a member of our organization.

For more information about the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, do check out our website at https://medievalisms.org/ and consider signing up for our listserv (details at https://medievalisms.org/issm-listserv/).

CALL FOR PAPERS 

61st International Congress on Medieval Studies
Kalamazoo, Michigan ‧ May 14-16, 2026

Abstract submissions due September 15, 2025 to the ICMS Confex site:

https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi

“The Glo(cal) Middle Ages on Turtle Island” (hybrid panel)

The Global Middle Ages tends to re-emphasize the ‘Old World’ myths by expanding the focus out of Europe into Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. This panel considers how our localities (e.g., Indigenous North America) should be centered in this conversation. Given that ICMS takes place at Western Michigan University on the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Ojibwe, Odawa and Bodewadmi Nations, what role should the Land play in how we teach the Middle Ages on these Lands? Within this turn outward to the globalized Middle Ages, how do we return to the local? How does our geographic positioning impact our understanding of the Middle Ages and medievalism? What role does Indigenous North America have in our understanding of the Middle Ages or the impacts of medievalism?

“Settler Medievalism: Ideology and Practice” (hybrid panel)

The (re)imagining of the medieval has a long-standing political impulse across both White nationalism and settler-colonial ideology–often facilitating an overlap of these value systems. Helen Young and Stephanie Downes note that politics embedded in popular medievalism radicalizes audiences who “would not engage in political manifestos” (2). However, this settler medievalism appears across political manifestos and popular medievalism: Thomas Jefferson famously evoked the early Middle Ages to justify a homogenous White America. Both George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler cosplayed as a medieval knight or crusader in propaganda images. This panel considers the overlap between settler (and/or White nationalist) ideology and medievalism. How has medievalism been evoked? How has it been twisted into a political tool?

Sessions organized by Sarah LaVoy-Brunette (sfl39@cornell.edu) and Brenna Duperron (brenna.duperron@unbc.ca)

Abstract submissions due September 15, 2025 to the ICMS Confex site:

https://icms.confex.com/icms/2026/prelim.cgi

Call for Papers: “New Perspectives on the Viking Diaspora”
CfP: Leeds International Medieval Congress 2026 (6-9 July)
New Perspectives on the Viking Diaspora 

We are currently in a vibrant moment of interdisciplinary scholarship on the “Vikings” and the global network they established. Scandinavian settlement across much of Northern Europe and beyond is increasingly being understood as a “Viking Diaspora” of communities linked through shared elements of history, culture, and language. What was life like for Vikings outside of Scandinavia and how did they impact the many peoples and polities they interacted with, peacefully or otherwise?

This call seeks papers which offer a window into the current state of research on aspects of the Viking Diaspora in any relevant geographic region (e.g. Iceland and the North Atlantic, the British Isles, the Frankish Realm [esp. Normandy and Frisia], the Baltic, the Rus). We welcome proposals from those working in any discipline, including historical, literary, archaeological, and linguistic studies, as well as emerging evidence from STEM fields and beyond.

This series of sessions will be framed as a workshop in which works-in-progress and research updates are especially sought, we particularly encourage early career researchers to apply and share their work, including aspects of postgraduate studies. Talks will be 15-20 minutes at the IMC in Leeds, with the possibility of hybrid participation. The conference awards some bursaries to assist with costs.

Please submit a title for your paper and an abstract of no more than 200 words by 18 August to: jas309@cam.ac.uk and aeyeh19@nottingham.ac.uk
 
Organised by: Jake Stattel, Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, University of Cambridge; Emma Horne, Centre for the Study of the Viking Age, University of Nottingham