Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Violence and Emotion in Medieval England

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Marjorie Housley, Micah Goodrich

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of Notre Dame, Univ. of Connecticut

Presider Name

Marjorie Housley

Paper Title 1

Blood that Makes Swords "Weep"?: Potential Desires of the Ealdsweord Eotenisc in Beowulf

Presenter 1 Name

Sonja Mayrhofer

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of Iowa

Paper Title 2

"An Avenger Yet Lived": Grief, Anger, and Violence in Beowulf

Presenter 2 Name

Hilary E. Fox

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Wayne State Univ.

Paper Title 3

In Hir Bed Al Naked": Nakedness as Male Grief in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess

Presenter 3 Name

Elizabeth Liendo

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Pennsylvania State Univ.

Start Date

15-5-2016 8:30 AM

Session Location

Fetzer 2040

Description

Scholars have been long been interested in violence and emotion, but much of this work has tended to consider the fusion of violence and emotion as controlled, controllable, and consistent. Indeed, relatively little scholarship has investigated the various intersections of violence and emotion. While scholarship on cognition has often examined the role of rage in constructing the "hydraulic" or "pneumatic" model of the mind in Anglo-Saxon England, few scholars have looked at emotional reactions to violence in the writings of early medieval England. This panel will forward this conversation by exploring approaches to the study of violence and/or emotion in early England: what happens when violence and emotion are at odds? Can violence be an emotionless act? Can emotion be controlled in the same ways that violence is? How can we approach emotional reactions to violent spectacle? Or can an emotional reaction be a violent spectacle?

Marjorie, Housley, Micah Goodrich