Method and the Middle English Text (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Interdisciplinary Graduate Medieval Colloquium, Univ. of Virginia
Organizer Name
Zachary E. Stone
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Virginia
Presider Name
Zachary E. Stone
Paper Title 1
Discussant
Presenter 1 Name
Emily Steiner
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Pennsylvania
Paper Title 2
Discussant
Presenter 2 Name
Kellie Robertson
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Maryland
Paper Title 3
Discussant
Presenter 3 Name
Daniel Davies
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of Pennsylvania
Paper Title 4
Discussant
Presenter 4 Name
Michelle Ripplinger
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Univ. of California-Berkeley
Paper Title 5
Discussant
Presenter 5 Name
Evan Cheney
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Univ. of Virginia
Start Date
12-5-2016 1:30 PM
Session Location
Valley I Hadley 102
Description
From D. W. Robertson and E. T. Donaldson through the work of Lee Patterson and Carolyn Dinshaw as part of a wider debate about historicism and psychoanalysis, Middle English studies is a field that has long been characterized by methodological debate. The present moment is no different. On the one hand there are those who work extensively with older methodologies such as philology, codicology, paleography, biography, and forms of historicism, materialist and other. On the other hand, there are those who emphasize newer methodologies such as ecocriticism, object-oriented ontology, new materialism, affect studies, new formalism, disability studies, queer theory, digital humanities, etc. Recent publications and interventions by scholars like Andrew Cole and D. Vance Smith, for the older methodologies, and Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Eileen Joy, for the new methodologies, have clearly stated the goals and methods of the respective parties. Missing from these discussions, however, is a sense of how these different methods and intellectual investments can operate together as a scholarly praxis. How, for instance, can one combine an interest in codicology with an interest in ecocriticism, biographical readings with affect studies, materialist historicism with the new materialisms, philology with new formalism? The goal of this roundtable is not to correct or affirm any specific view or theoretical model. Rather, we wish to experiment with what might result from a scholarly disposition of both/and rather than either/or. We are interested in what makes Middle English texts so profoundly hospitable to such an array of methodological approaches. This discussion will extend conversations begun at a conference on the same topic hosted by the University of Virginia 8-9 April 2016.
Method and the Middle English Text (A Roundtable)
Valley I Hadley 102
From D. W. Robertson and E. T. Donaldson through the work of Lee Patterson and Carolyn Dinshaw as part of a wider debate about historicism and psychoanalysis, Middle English studies is a field that has long been characterized by methodological debate. The present moment is no different. On the one hand there are those who work extensively with older methodologies such as philology, codicology, paleography, biography, and forms of historicism, materialist and other. On the other hand, there are those who emphasize newer methodologies such as ecocriticism, object-oriented ontology, new materialism, affect studies, new formalism, disability studies, queer theory, digital humanities, etc. Recent publications and interventions by scholars like Andrew Cole and D. Vance Smith, for the older methodologies, and Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Eileen Joy, for the new methodologies, have clearly stated the goals and methods of the respective parties. Missing from these discussions, however, is a sense of how these different methods and intellectual investments can operate together as a scholarly praxis. How, for instance, can one combine an interest in codicology with an interest in ecocriticism, biographical readings with affect studies, materialist historicism with the new materialisms, philology with new formalism? The goal of this roundtable is not to correct or affirm any specific view or theoretical model. Rather, we wish to experiment with what might result from a scholarly disposition of both/and rather than either/or. We are interested in what makes Middle English texts so profoundly hospitable to such an array of methodological approaches. This discussion will extend conversations begun at a conference on the same topic hosted by the University of Virginia 8-9 April 2016.