Ye Nexte Generacioun: Young Scholars Look to the Next Fifty Years (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Kaitlin Heller
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Toronto
Presider Name
Kaitlin Heller
Paper Title 1
Back to the Future?: Medieval Literature and Fanfiction
Presenter 1 Name
Anna Wilson
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Toronto
Paper Title 2
Creating Overlapping Communities of Practice: Digital Editing, Teaching, and Scholarship in the Hoccleve Archive
Presenter 2 Name
Robin Wharton, Elon Lang
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Georgia State Univ., Univ. of Texas-Austin
Paper Title 3
The Geographical and Conceptual Expansion of the Medieval World
Presenter 3 Name
Natalie Dawn Levin
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Indiana Univ.-Bloomington
Paper Title 4
Women in Norman Sicily and Southern Italy: Recovering Encounters and Exchanges across Religious Boundaries
Presenter 4 Name
Jennifer Jordan
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Stony Brook Univ.
Paper Title 5
After Nations
Presenter 5 Name
Paul A. Broyles
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Univ. of Virginia
Start Date
16-5-2015 10:00 AM
Session Location
Schneider 1245
Description
In honor of the 50th Congress, this roundtable proposes to take a “state of the field” snapshot from the point of view of those who hope to see the next fifty. Scholars now starting their careers face a host of disciplinary, institutional, and technological changes. Even as fields such as queer theory and gender theory are now taking their place in the canon, they are complicated and challenged by new fields, including disability studies, temporality theory, affect theory, ecocriticism, and fan studies. Hiring practices in North America and Europe have shifted in the wake of the recession, resulting in a much-reduced job pool for those seeking tenure-track careers and a much-increased field of sessional workers. The rise of digital technologies and social media, combined with the tremendous vogue of the Digital Humanities, have both increased the possible tools available to medievalists and raised urgent questions about what to do with them.
In this moment of transition, we ask: how have our goals and questions changed? What new technologies will we use? How will we carry forward the disciplinary inheritance of the past and negotiate with the practical demands of academia today? In this roundtable, young scholars will discuss a current project of theirs as a working demonstration of their perspective on the “state of the field.” Each of our five panelists will present a paper of 8-10 minutes in length, leaving 40 minutes for group discussion. Our goal is not only to share expertise and discuss the challenges we face, but to begin fostering the communities we hope to build as our careers advance.
Kaitlin Heller
University of Toronto
Ye Nexte Generacioun: Young Scholars Look to the Next Fifty Years (A Roundtable)
Schneider 1245
In honor of the 50th Congress, this roundtable proposes to take a “state of the field” snapshot from the point of view of those who hope to see the next fifty. Scholars now starting their careers face a host of disciplinary, institutional, and technological changes. Even as fields such as queer theory and gender theory are now taking their place in the canon, they are complicated and challenged by new fields, including disability studies, temporality theory, affect theory, ecocriticism, and fan studies. Hiring practices in North America and Europe have shifted in the wake of the recession, resulting in a much-reduced job pool for those seeking tenure-track careers and a much-increased field of sessional workers. The rise of digital technologies and social media, combined with the tremendous vogue of the Digital Humanities, have both increased the possible tools available to medievalists and raised urgent questions about what to do with them.
In this moment of transition, we ask: how have our goals and questions changed? What new technologies will we use? How will we carry forward the disciplinary inheritance of the past and negotiate with the practical demands of academia today? In this roundtable, young scholars will discuss a current project of theirs as a working demonstration of their perspective on the “state of the field.” Each of our five panelists will present a paper of 8-10 minutes in length, leaving 40 minutes for group discussion. Our goal is not only to share expertise and discuss the challenges we face, but to begin fostering the communities we hope to build as our careers advance.
Kaitlin Heller
University of Toronto