Faking It (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Material Collective
Organizer Name
Maggie M. Williams
Organizer Affiliation
William Paterson Univ./Material Collective
Presider Name
Nancy M. Thompson
Presider Affiliation
St. Olaf College/Material Collective
Paper Title 1
Simulation and Sexuality: Medieval "Courtly Love" Ivories and Their Nineteenth-Century Forgeries
Presenter 1 Name
Martha Easton
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Seton Hall Univ.
Paper Title 2
Lying outside the Lines: Alexandre Lenoir's Installations of Medieval Art
Presenter 2 Name
Mary B. Shepard
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Arkansas-Fort Smith
Paper Title 3
Creative Spirit and the Glenmorangie Research Project at National Museums Scotland
Presenter 3 Name
Martin Goldberg, Mhairi Maxwell
Presenter 3 Affiliation
National Museums Scotland, National Museums Scotland
Paper Title 4
"Affection makes -h-i-m- her false, -h-e- she speaks not true": Embracing Fiction's Fakery
Presenter 4 Name
Lois Leveen
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Independent Scholar
Paper Title 5
Parchmenteresy: What Does a Recreated Medieval Material Tell Us? The Work of Jesse Meyer at Pergamena
Presenter 5 Name
Maggie M. Williams
Start Date
9-5-2014 10:00 AM
Session Location
Bernhard 210
Description
It sometimes feels as though medievalists are adrift in a sea of phoniness. Our objects of study–ivories, sculpture, stained-glass windows, texts–often turn out to be lies and forgeries, in part if not in whole. Moreover, each of us has at some time fallen prey to the “impostor syndrome,” the anxiety that we are frauds undeserving of our success, which we dismiss as luck, timing, and unwarranted praise from our peers. In this session, scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore issues of faking, forgery, and deceit in their objects of study as well as in their practice.
The short papers will consider, among other things: medieval forgeries; the ways that medieval objects deceive modern scholars; the fine line between medievalisms and forgery; the appropriation of medieval objects in new contexts; stumbling blocks on the scholarly path to find the authentic object; and our own perceptions of “faking it” as scholars and teachers.
We welcome medievalist approaches from outside the traditional scholarly realm. Experimental archaeologists, re-enactors, artists, authors, alt-academics, and independent scholars of all sorts might examine fakes, forgeries and the ways in which they produce knowledge about the Middle Ages.
Nancy M. Thompson
Faking It (A Roundtable)
Bernhard 210
It sometimes feels as though medievalists are adrift in a sea of phoniness. Our objects of study–ivories, sculpture, stained-glass windows, texts–often turn out to be lies and forgeries, in part if not in whole. Moreover, each of us has at some time fallen prey to the “impostor syndrome,” the anxiety that we are frauds undeserving of our success, which we dismiss as luck, timing, and unwarranted praise from our peers. In this session, scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore issues of faking, forgery, and deceit in their objects of study as well as in their practice.
The short papers will consider, among other things: medieval forgeries; the ways that medieval objects deceive modern scholars; the fine line between medievalisms and forgery; the appropriation of medieval objects in new contexts; stumbling blocks on the scholarly path to find the authentic object; and our own perceptions of “faking it” as scholars and teachers.
We welcome medievalist approaches from outside the traditional scholarly realm. Experimental archaeologists, re-enactors, artists, authors, alt-academics, and independent scholars of all sorts might examine fakes, forgeries and the ways in which they produce knowledge about the Middle Ages.
Nancy M. Thompson