CFP MEARCSTAPA at Kalamazoo 2020 (proposals by 9/15/19)

MEARCSTAPA is still seeking presenters for the following panels. Proposals are due 9/15/19.



MEARCSTAPA KZOO 2020 CFPs



Xenophobia and Border Walls: Monstrous Foreigners and Polities

Kalamazoo 2020

Co-sponsors: MEARCSTAPA and Société Rencesvals, American-Canadian Branch

Organizers: Asa Simon Mittman and Ana Grinberg



Who is that knight, threatening “our” town walls? Why are they roaming outside, besieging “our” castle? What shall we do with all these [Jewish], [Muslim], [Saracen], [Genoese], [pilgrim] people coming to this area, “robbing us of our jobs” and taking up our lands? As Jeffrey Cohen writes, “all the familiar stereotypes about foreigners,medieval and modern, find their place here: they make too much noise, they smell bad, they eat repulsive foods, their excess is disgusting” (emphasis added). Our current political environment makes these ideas more pressing, as xenophobia runs rampant and walls are (re)built.



Medieval and early modern representations of foreigners as a threat are not that different from our own. With this in mind, MEARCSTAPA and Société Rencesvals invite papers delving into pre- and early modern representations of contacts between cultures, races, religions, and even species from diverse disciplines and methodological approaches. Of particular interest are constructions of monstrosity in chivalric epic and romances.



Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form to session organizers Ana Grinberg (grinberg@auburn.edu) or Asa Simon Mittman (asmittman@csuchico.edu) by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. All abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.



Keywords: Foreigners, othering, stereotypes, xenophobia, political climate



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Taking Shape: Sculpting Monsters

Kalamazoo 2020

Sponsor: MEARCSTAPA

Organizers: Mary Leech and Asa Simon Mittman



For centuries, the actions of monsters were more important that what the monsters looked like. Some monsters were given more specific descriptions than others, yet monstrosity was often based on Otherness, such as deformity, threatening animals, gender, or foreigners. As time goes on, many monsters take on more precise shapes based on the exaggerated physical conceptions of difference. By exploring how monsters take on specific shapes, this panel will analyze the ways in which specific fears (and desires) can create specific physical features.



The panel will be most effective with a range of methodologies and fields. While literary descriptions are often the base of how monsters are perceived, folkloric traditions that predate writing influence literary traditions. Works of history contain aspects of monstrosity, either literally or in how certain groups are described. Artistic renderings of monsters can also highlight the variety of interpretations of monstrosity. How and why monsters are formed, both as a concept and as a physical threat, has relevance across fields and eras. The panel should appeal to many areas of scholarship, particularly those that explore how gender, sexuality, and physical disabilities are presented as fearsome and monstrous.



Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form to session organizers Mary Leech (leechme@uc.edu) or Asa Simon Mittman (asmittman@csuchico.edu) by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. All abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.



Keywords: Monster, gender, disability, Other, folklore



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Adorable Monsters in Medieval Culture (Roundtable)

Kalamazoo 2020

Sponsor: MEARCSTAPA

Organizers: Mary Leech, Tina Boyer and Asa Simon Mittman



Medieval Monstrosity is usually conceived as something that is physically dangerous or repulsive, often both. What happens when the monster is not physically dangerous, or is attractive? For example, when the loathly lady becomes beautiful, is she no longer dangerous? Is the threat she represented gone? Manuscript marginalia has many images of rabbits, dogs, goats, and adorable hybrid monsters engaging in violent behavior. What do images of domestic animals and otherwise delightful creatures possibly have to say about monstrosity in humans? By exploring monstrosity with attractive exteriors, this discussion will seek to analyze the hidden nature of monstrosity.



The panel will be most effective with a range of methodologies and fields. While literary descriptions are often the base of how monsters are perceived, folkloric traditions that predate writing influence literary traditions. Works of history contain aspects of monstrosity, either literally or in how certain groups are described. Artistic renderings of monsters can also highlight the variety of interpretations of monstrosity. Ideally, this panel will have participants from several different fields. The wider the range of participants, the more interesting the discussion will be for potential audience members.



Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words together with a completed Participant Information Form to session organizers Tina Boyer (boyertm@wfu.edu), Mary Leech (leechme@uc.edu), or Asa Simon Mittman (asmittman@csuchico.edu) by September 15. Please include your name, title, and affiliation on the abstract itself. All abstracts not accepted for the session will be forwarded to Congress administrators for consideration in general sessions, as per Congress regulations.



Keywords: cuteness, monsters, animals, gender, manuscript.

CFP Transforming Bodies in Early Modern Drama (7/16/2018; RSA Toronto 3/17-19/2019)

RSA 2019: Transforming Bodies in Early Modern Drama (July 16th, 2018)
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/06/17/rsa-2019-transforming-bodies-in-early-modern-drama-july-16th-2018

deadline for submissions: July 16, 2018

full name / name of organization: Christina M. Squitieri / New York University

contact email: cms531@nyu.edu




Renaissance Society of America (RSA) 2019: 17–19 March 2019, Toronto, Canada

Transforming Bodies in Early Modern Drama

**This is a guaranteed session**

How are bodies–of people, plants, or animals–transformed on the early modern stage?

What are the agents of transformation, and is there something about drama in particular that allows for bodily transformation?

How is transformation represented (or not represented) dramatically?

What constitutes a "body" on stage, and is a body still the same if parts of it transform?

What does the transformation of the body tell us about corporeal unity, identity, transformation, or the instability of the body or identity?

How can bodily transformation intersect with theoretic frameworks such as materialism, historicism, ecocriticism, animal studies, or the post-human?

Topics may include (but are not limited to) the way violence (physical, sexual, verbal), ritual, disguise, death, love, the natural world, disease, wounds, language, power, fear, etc have a transforming effect on the early modern human and non-human bodies that populate early modern drama, through any theoretical lens.

Please send 150-word abstracts and brief CV to Christina M. Squitieri (cms531@nyu.edu) and Penelope Meyers Usher (pfm250@nyu.edu) by Monday, July 16th, 2018. This panel will be sponsored by the Early Modern and Renaissance Society at New York University.

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CFP New series from MIP: Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons: Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity (open)

My thanks to Barbara Tepa Lupack for the head's up on this:

New series from MIP: Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons: Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity – Call For Proposals

https://anzamems.org/?p=8083

(official site at https://arc-humanities.org/series/mip/monsters-prodigies-and-demons/)

New scholarly book series from Medieval Institute Publications:

Monsters, Prodigies, and Demons: Medieval and Early Modern Constructions of Alterity
This series is dedicated to the study of monstrosity and alterity in the medieval and early modern world, and to the investigation of cultural constructions of otherness, abnormality and difference from a wide range of perspectives. Submissions are welcome from scholars working within established disciplines, including—but not limited to—philosophy, critical theory, cultural history, history of science, history of art and architecture, literary studies, disability studies, and gender studies. Since much work in the field is necessarily pluri-disciplinary in its methods and scope, the editors are particularly interested in proposals that cross disciplinary boundaries. The series publishes English-language, single-author volumes and collections of original essays. Topics might include hybridity and hermaphroditism; giants, dwarves, and wild-men; cannibalism and the New World; cultures of display and the carnivalesque; “monstrous” encounters in literature and travel; jurisprudence, law, and criminality; teratology and the “New Science”; the aesthetics of the grotesque; automata and self-moving machines; or witchcraft, demonology, and other occult themes.

Geographical Scope: Unrestricted
Chronological Scope: Late Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern
Further Information: For questions or to submit a proposal, please contact the acquisitions editor, Erika Gaffney (Erika.Gaffney@arc-humanities.org) or visit our website: www.mip-archumanitiespress.org.

For more information, please download the Monsters, Prodigies, & Demons series flyer

This entry was posted in cfp on 10 July 2017.