Medieval Ecocriticisms: Why the Middle Ages Matter (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Medieval Ecocriticisms
Organizer Name
Heide Estes
Organizer Affiliation
Monmouth Univ.
Presider Name
Heide Estes
Paper Title 1
"A pade pikes on the polle": Interpreting the Toads of The Awntyrs off Arthur
Presenter 1 Name
Kristin Bovaird-Abbo
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Northern Colorado
Paper Title 2
Plowing the Medieval Roots of our Ecocritical Crisis
Presenter 2 Name
Daniel Helbert
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of British Columbia
Paper Title 3
Economy and Ecology in the Pre-modern Web of Life
Presenter 3 Name
William M. Rhodes
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of Virginia
Paper Title 4
(Other)worlding: Nature and Dominion in Arthurian Romance
Presenter 4 Name
Julie Gafney
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Graduate Center, CUNY
Paper Title 5
Reproducing the Bans: Medieval Texts and Modern Angst about Ritual Slaughter
Presenter 5 Name
Mo Pareles
Presenter 5 Affiliation
New York Univ.
Paper Title 6
Everyday Ecologies
Presenter 6 Name
Myra J. Seaman
Presenter 6 Affiliation
College of Charleston
Paper Title 7
Were the Middle Ages Ecophobic?
Presenter 7 Name
David Sprunger
Presenter 7 Affiliation
Concordia College
Start Date
12-5-2016 10:00 AM
Session Location
Bernhard 106
Description
In their Introduction to Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice, Celia Chazelle, Simon Doubleday, Felice Lifshitz, and Amy G. Remensnyder make the case that an understanding of medieval ideas about power and justice helps to illuminate contemporary political and social issues concerned with power: who has it, who doesn’t, how it operates in contemporary nations and cultures. The essays in the volume address gender and sexuality, dis/ability and deviance, race, class, ethnicity and prisons. The editors acknowledge that an important topic not included in the volume is environmental history. They note that the contraction of economies in the early Middle Ages and the attendant reduction in the volumes of garbage produced in comparison to the late Roman era and suggest that this is a possible model for the reduction of consumption today.
This round-table seeks short presentations that respond to Chazelle et al.’s call for future work on medieval environmental issues by considering what medieval texts and artifacts can teach us about how individuals and polities of the period conceived of their relationships and responsibilities to the non-human. Papers might address agriculture, wilderness, water, animal studies, urbanization, light and darkness, the relationships of gender, race, religion, and dis/ability to environmental questions and formulations, from the perspective of how such medieval formulations matter to the modern world. Papers are sought from a wide variety of disciplines, including but not limited to archaeology, art history, history, and literary studies.
Heide Estes
Medieval Ecocriticisms: Why the Middle Ages Matter (A Roundtable)
Bernhard 106
In their Introduction to Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice, Celia Chazelle, Simon Doubleday, Felice Lifshitz, and Amy G. Remensnyder make the case that an understanding of medieval ideas about power and justice helps to illuminate contemporary political and social issues concerned with power: who has it, who doesn’t, how it operates in contemporary nations and cultures. The essays in the volume address gender and sexuality, dis/ability and deviance, race, class, ethnicity and prisons. The editors acknowledge that an important topic not included in the volume is environmental history. They note that the contraction of economies in the early Middle Ages and the attendant reduction in the volumes of garbage produced in comparison to the late Roman era and suggest that this is a possible model for the reduction of consumption today.
This round-table seeks short presentations that respond to Chazelle et al.’s call for future work on medieval environmental issues by considering what medieval texts and artifacts can teach us about how individuals and polities of the period conceived of their relationships and responsibilities to the non-human. Papers might address agriculture, wilderness, water, animal studies, urbanization, light and darkness, the relationships of gender, race, religion, and dis/ability to environmental questions and formulations, from the perspective of how such medieval formulations matter to the modern world. Papers are sought from a wide variety of disciplines, including but not limited to archaeology, art history, history, and literary studies.
Heide Estes