(Im)materiality in English and Welsh Medieval Culture
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Daniel Helbert
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of British Columbia
Presider Name
Daniel Helbert
Paper Title 1
Wonders Taken for Signs: The Objects of Gerald's Itinerarium
Presenter 1 Name
Michael Faletra
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Reed College
Paper Title 2
Creating Historical Material: Monastic and Secular Patronage in Fourteenth-Century Wales
Presenter 2 Name
Owain Wyn Jones
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Bangor Univ.
Paper Title 3
Dancing on the Book: Materializing and Dematerializing in Anglo-Latin and Middle Welsh Texts
Presenter 3 Name
Siân Echard
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of British Columbia
Start Date
17-5-2015 8:30 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 1045
Description
The recent trend in medieval literary studies to emphasize inanimate objects and materiality as a means of contextualizing or de-emphasizing human and humanist activities has encouraged two, perhaps unintended, consequences: 1) The segregation of 'Humanist' philosophical interpretations of the world and its contents/inhabitants (metaphysics, Marxism, psychoanalysis, etc.) from 'non-human' oriented epistemologies (Eco-Criticism, Object Oriented Ontology, etc.); and 2) the lack of distinguishment between human-inanimate object relationships within a culturally homogenous setting and human-inanimate object relationships within a culturally mixed setting.
This session on materiality and immateriality in Welsh and English culture hopes to reconstitute the severed links between human ideologies and non-human epistemologies with the medieval English and Welsh literary and cultural interactions as a focal point. How do we constitute and define identity in a colonial or mixed setting in relation to materiality (dirt, rocks, manuscripts, etc.) and/or immateriality (philosophy, ideology, hegemony, etc.)? Does non-human ontology contribute to colonial and post-colonial ethnic-nationalisms? Does the stigma of Matthew Arnold's Romantic (and flawed) depiction of "Nature Worshiping Celts" deter scholars from engaging in an eco-critical analysis of cross-cultural literature?
Daniel Helbert
(Im)materiality in English and Welsh Medieval Culture
Fetzer 1045
The recent trend in medieval literary studies to emphasize inanimate objects and materiality as a means of contextualizing or de-emphasizing human and humanist activities has encouraged two, perhaps unintended, consequences: 1) The segregation of 'Humanist' philosophical interpretations of the world and its contents/inhabitants (metaphysics, Marxism, psychoanalysis, etc.) from 'non-human' oriented epistemologies (Eco-Criticism, Object Oriented Ontology, etc.); and 2) the lack of distinguishment between human-inanimate object relationships within a culturally homogenous setting and human-inanimate object relationships within a culturally mixed setting.
This session on materiality and immateriality in Welsh and English culture hopes to reconstitute the severed links between human ideologies and non-human epistemologies with the medieval English and Welsh literary and cultural interactions as a focal point. How do we constitute and define identity in a colonial or mixed setting in relation to materiality (dirt, rocks, manuscripts, etc.) and/or immateriality (philosophy, ideology, hegemony, etc.)? Does non-human ontology contribute to colonial and post-colonial ethnic-nationalisms? Does the stigma of Matthew Arnold's Romantic (and flawed) depiction of "Nature Worshiping Celts" deter scholars from engaging in an eco-critical analysis of cross-cultural literature?
Daniel Helbert