What a World! (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
BABEL Working Group
Organizer Name
Eileen A. Joy
Organizer Affiliation
BABEL Working Group
Presider Name
Leila K. Norako
Presider Affiliation
Notre Dame de Namur Univ.
Paper Title 1
An English Hero, a Barbarian Kingdom: The Colonialist Impulse in Chivalric and Ruritanian Romances
Presenter 1 Name
Andrea Lankin
Presenter 1 Affiliation
St. Joseph's Univ.
Paper Title 2
The Once and Future Herod: Vernacular Typology and the Worlds of English Cycle Drama
Presenter 2 Name
Chris Taylor
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Texas-Austin
Paper Title 3
England Is the World and the World Is England
Presenter 3 Name
Asa Simon Mittman
Presenter 3 Affiliation
California State Univ.-Chico
Paper Title 4
England by Any Other Name: Nominal Topographies in The Tale of Albin
Presenter 4 Name
Kristi J. Castleberry
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Univ. of Rochester
Paper Title 5
A World without War: Chaucer and the Politics of Unconditional Friendship
Presenter 5 Name
Paul Megna
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Univ. of California-Santa Barbara
Paper Title 6
Imagining Medieval Futures
Presenter 6 Name
Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Presenter 6 Affiliation
Univ. of Toronto
Paper Title 7
Engineering Beowulf: Multi-media and Multi-modal Medievalism
Presenter 7 Name
Valerie B. Johnson
Presenter 7 Affiliation
Georgia Institute of Technology
Start Date
10-5-2014 3:30 PM
Session Location
Fetzer 1005
Description
“Oh what a world, what a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?!” So screams the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy splashes water on her in the film The Wizard of Oz. The entire film reflects upon matters of perspective and thwarted/exceeded expectations, of not quite believing your eyes or trusting what you see, of creating contexts for experiences you never could have anticipated. The witch melts, in the end, because of her failure to imagine a world in which both she Dorothy could exist. While the gist of this line accords with the final words the Witch speaks in the book version, the phrase “What a World!” (original to the film) encourages meta-commentary. We are called, as viewers and as readers, to wonder along with the witch how this world — and such a vivid one at that — could have been engendered. In this sense, the phrase “What a World!” becomes as much a invitation to engage critically as it becomes a statement of wonder.
The issues inherent in fictionalized worlds, so beautifully encapsulated in this scene from The Wizard of Oz film, have much to offer studies of medieval literature. This session invites papers that consider all aspects of engendered worlds, but is especially invested in exploring how contemporary notions of “worldbuilding” — so often associated with high fantasy and science fiction — as well as Heiddeger’s “worlding” (in all its various theoretical manifestations and adaptations) can be appropriated to discuss the creation of fictive worlds in medieval literature. The session seeks to explore worlds built through varying states of incredulity, wonder, a desire to control and contextualize, or from nostalgia and/or a desire to escape (however briefly) one’s own circumstances — from the translocated Holy Land of the mystery cycle plays, to the worlds encountered through chronicles, histories, and travel narratives, to the landscapes and cultures of Arthurian romance. How might the concept of “worldbuilding” invite fresh considerations and interrogations of medieval literature? How does it simultaneously reflect the desires authors have to create something new even as they (or their texts) admit the impossibilities of such projects? To what extent do engendered worlds allow and invite contemplation upon the many ways in which humans, as readers and receivers of texts, ineffably participate in this process of creation? Papers presented on this panel will lead to a special issue of postmedieval, to be edited by Leila K. Norako (Notre Dame de Namur University), and published in 2017.
Eileen A. Joy
What a World! (A Roundtable)
Fetzer 1005
“Oh what a world, what a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?!” So screams the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy splashes water on her in the film The Wizard of Oz. The entire film reflects upon matters of perspective and thwarted/exceeded expectations, of not quite believing your eyes or trusting what you see, of creating contexts for experiences you never could have anticipated. The witch melts, in the end, because of her failure to imagine a world in which both she Dorothy could exist. While the gist of this line accords with the final words the Witch speaks in the book version, the phrase “What a World!” (original to the film) encourages meta-commentary. We are called, as viewers and as readers, to wonder along with the witch how this world — and such a vivid one at that — could have been engendered. In this sense, the phrase “What a World!” becomes as much a invitation to engage critically as it becomes a statement of wonder.
The issues inherent in fictionalized worlds, so beautifully encapsulated in this scene from The Wizard of Oz film, have much to offer studies of medieval literature. This session invites papers that consider all aspects of engendered worlds, but is especially invested in exploring how contemporary notions of “worldbuilding” — so often associated with high fantasy and science fiction — as well as Heiddeger’s “worlding” (in all its various theoretical manifestations and adaptations) can be appropriated to discuss the creation of fictive worlds in medieval literature. The session seeks to explore worlds built through varying states of incredulity, wonder, a desire to control and contextualize, or from nostalgia and/or a desire to escape (however briefly) one’s own circumstances — from the translocated Holy Land of the mystery cycle plays, to the worlds encountered through chronicles, histories, and travel narratives, to the landscapes and cultures of Arthurian romance. How might the concept of “worldbuilding” invite fresh considerations and interrogations of medieval literature? How does it simultaneously reflect the desires authors have to create something new even as they (or their texts) admit the impossibilities of such projects? To what extent do engendered worlds allow and invite contemplation upon the many ways in which humans, as readers and receivers of texts, ineffably participate in this process of creation? Papers presented on this panel will lead to a special issue of postmedieval, to be edited by Leila K. Norako (Notre Dame de Namur University), and published in 2017.
Eileen A. Joy