Making Time/Making Space: Temporality in Medieval and Renaissance Drama

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society (MRDS)

Organizer Name

Jill Stevenson

Organizer Affiliation

Marymount Manhattan College

Presider Name

Jill Stevenson

Paper Title 1

"Why, how long shall he live?": Making Time for Murder in Arden of Faversham

Presenter 1 Name

Dori Coblentz

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Emory Univ.

Paper Title 2

Reading as Performance and Reading the Performance of Labyrinthe royal de l'Hercule gaulois triumphant: Representing the Representé

Presenter 2 Name

Daniel Ruppel

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Brown Univ.

Paper Title 3

Redundancy, Metaphor, and Memory: Experience of Space and Time in Medieval Christian Theater

Presenter 3 Name

Christopher Swift

Presenter 3 Affiliation

New York City College of Technology, CUNY

Paper Title 4

A Violent Spatializing of Time: Colonizing Utopian Imaginaries in Seventeenth-Century Barbados

Presenter 4 Name

Scott Venters

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Univ. of Washington-Seattle

Start Date

14-5-2016 3:30 PM

Session Location

Fetzer 2016

Description

This session will examine how early drama produced time (or experiences of time) often through the strategic use of space. Recent work on temporality challenges us to think about time as multiple, overlapping, simultaneous constructions. Theoretical work specifically related to theatre reminds us that performances do not merely represent time, but that they actually produce time(s), allowing spectators and actors to inhabit temporal spaces and to make meaning from those theatrical experiences. In the Middle Ages & Renaissance, not only did dramatic performances accomplish this, but so did other kinds of cultural performances, such as interactions with manuscripts, engagements with art objects, and devotional meditation. This panel examines how early performance made time(s) and to consider the cultural and social goals of these temporal constructions.

Frank M. Napolitano