Voice, Song, and Silence in Medieval England (A Roundtable)

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

Taylor Cowdery, Spencer Strub

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Univ. of California-Berkeley

Presider Name

Spencer Strub

Paper Title 1

Verging on Voice: Late Medieval Manuscripts and the Aural Horizon

Presenter 1 Name

Andrew Albin

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Fordham Univ.

Paper Title 2

The Inner Touch: Medieval Music, Synaesthesis, and Interoception

Presenter 2 Name

Tekla Bude

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Oregon State Univ.

Paper Title 3

Quantum Silence and Transvestite Metaphysics

Presenter 3 Name

M. W. Bychowski

Presenter 3 Affiliation

George Washington Univ.

Paper Title 4

Rhetorical Virtue

Presenter 4 Name

Anna Kelner

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Harvard Univ.

Paper Title 5

Speaking in Person

Presenter 5 Name

Fiona Somerset

Presenter 5 Affiliation

Univ. of Connecticut

Paper Title 6

The Voice of the Sluggard: Impersonated Interiorities in Pastoral Literature

Presenter 6 Name

Claire M. Waters

Presenter 6 Affiliation

Univ. of California-Davis

Start Date

14-5-2017 8:30 AM

Session Location

Bernhard 209

Description

This panel continues a conversation begun at the 2016 ICMS in a roundtable on "Rhetoric and Voice across the Fifteenth Century." That roundtable, also run by the co-organizers of this proposed session, explored the medieval intersections of two ideas, "voice" and "rhetoric," in response to David Lawton's pioneering work on voice in fifteenth-century devotional and literary writing. This session will extend the parameters of that conversation by reading the idea of voice against two more topics, "silence" and "song." By examining the intertwined history of voice, song, and silence across the Middle Ages, the session thus seeks to answer Lawton's call for "a continuous history of voice in English and other European literature." Working within that longer history, this roundtable understands "voice" not as a fixed category, but as a mobile one – for there are many voices in medieval England, voices whose meanings, textual and meta-textual, depend upon their contexts. One goal of this roundtable is to illuminate that heterogeneity in its full richness. We welcome papers that think about voice both within and beyond the page. How do spoken and written voices complement and differ from each other? To what extent was the history of English literature shaped by the quotidian regulation of speech in monastic rules, penitential and pastoral guidelines, and legal codes? And how does voice change when it is sung rather than spoken, whether in liturgy, lyric, or "popular song"? We would also invite papers on the absence of voice. How can we understand practices of silence, for instance, both religious or secular? What sorts of "voice" can those who are voiceless be said to possess?

Spencer A. Strub

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May 14th, 8:30 AM

Voice, Song, and Silence in Medieval England (A Roundtable)

Bernhard 209

This panel continues a conversation begun at the 2016 ICMS in a roundtable on "Rhetoric and Voice across the Fifteenth Century." That roundtable, also run by the co-organizers of this proposed session, explored the medieval intersections of two ideas, "voice" and "rhetoric," in response to David Lawton's pioneering work on voice in fifteenth-century devotional and literary writing. This session will extend the parameters of that conversation by reading the idea of voice against two more topics, "silence" and "song." By examining the intertwined history of voice, song, and silence across the Middle Ages, the session thus seeks to answer Lawton's call for "a continuous history of voice in English and other European literature." Working within that longer history, this roundtable understands "voice" not as a fixed category, but as a mobile one – for there are many voices in medieval England, voices whose meanings, textual and meta-textual, depend upon their contexts. One goal of this roundtable is to illuminate that heterogeneity in its full richness. We welcome papers that think about voice both within and beyond the page. How do spoken and written voices complement and differ from each other? To what extent was the history of English literature shaped by the quotidian regulation of speech in monastic rules, penitential and pastoral guidelines, and legal codes? And how does voice change when it is sung rather than spoken, whether in liturgy, lyric, or "popular song"? We would also invite papers on the absence of voice. How can we understand practices of silence, for instance, both religious or secular? What sorts of "voice" can those who are voiceless be said to possess?

Spencer A. Strub