Texts of the Multilingual British Isles: Contact and Contrast
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Lindy Brady
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Mississippi
Presider Name
Lindy Brady
Paper Title 1
James the Greater in Greater Northwest Europe: Ælfric, Postola sögur, and the Leabhar Breac
Presenter 1 Name
Kevin R. Kritsch
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill/Kennesaw State Univ.
Paper Title 2
Landscape as Spiritual State in Guthlac A and Early Irish "Nature" Poetry
Presenter 2 Name
Joey McMullen
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Harvard Univ.
Paper Title 3
Æthelstan’s Fictional Kingship in Robert Mannyng of Brunne's Chronicle and Two Icelandic Sagas
Presenter 3 Name
Max Ashton
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Stanford Univ.
Paper Title 4
Chaucer's Flemish London
Presenter 4 Name
Michael Hanrahan
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Bates College
Start Date
14-5-2016 10:00 AM
Session Location
Valley I Ackley 106
Description
While the languages and literary traditions of the early medieval British Isles are often studied in isolation, recent scholarship has become increasingly aware of the importance of placing individual textual traditions (Anglo-Saxon, British/Welsh, and Irish) within the context of multilingual Britain: as Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum defines it, an island with five languages, “Anglorum, Brettonum, Scottorum, Pictorum, et Latinorum” (that is, English, British or what we would today call Welsh, Irish, Pictish, and Latin). Recent scholarship on the intellectual culture of the early British Isles increasingly recognizes the extent to which medieval peoples shared and transformed texts, ideas, objects, myths, and traditions across languages, cultures, and modern national boundaries. This session speaks to the Congress's longstanding culture of interdisciplinarity and seeks paper from any field -- literary, historical, linguistic, paleographical, art historical -- focused on exploring the textual traditions (broadly defined) of multilingual Britain from the perspective(s) of "Contact" and/or "Contrast." This session seeks papers which take a comparative approach to the idea of "Contact" in considering the rich and mutually influential relationship between the textual and intellectual traditions of the peoples in the British Isles during the early medieval period, both before and after the Norman Conquest. We seek papers that explore the long and simultaneous histories of both intellectual/cultural exchange and military conflict between Anglo-Saxons, Britons, Irish, Picts, Danes, and Normans during the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman periods. From Irish influence on the early Anglo-Saxon church, to the role of Welsh kingdoms in King Alfred's politics, to literary and scribal exchanges across borders throughout the period, this session seeks papers that place the relationships between any of the peoples in the early medieval British Isles in a trans-national, cross-cultural context. Papers might consider issues of ethnicity, identity, colonialism, and nationality; explore relationships of literary and textual exchange and influence; or simply consider moments of historical interaction between peoples. Likewise, at the same time as we consider patterns of textual exchange and influence, this session seeks to provocatively explore multilingual Britain through the simultaneous theme of "Contrast." How do the historical, mythological, literary, poetic, visual, or legal traditions of early medieval peoples in the British Isles differ from one another? How might we productively explore individual textual traditions in the context of early multilingual Britain? In what ways can understanding one people's textual traditions shed light on those of its neighbors? Overall, this session seeks papers which do not place the textual traditions of early medieval Britain in isolation, but seek to understand them through their place in a wider web of intellectual and cultural exchange in the British Isles.
Lindy Brady
Texts of the Multilingual British Isles: Contact and Contrast
Valley I Ackley 106
While the languages and literary traditions of the early medieval British Isles are often studied in isolation, recent scholarship has become increasingly aware of the importance of placing individual textual traditions (Anglo-Saxon, British/Welsh, and Irish) within the context of multilingual Britain: as Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum defines it, an island with five languages, “Anglorum, Brettonum, Scottorum, Pictorum, et Latinorum” (that is, English, British or what we would today call Welsh, Irish, Pictish, and Latin). Recent scholarship on the intellectual culture of the early British Isles increasingly recognizes the extent to which medieval peoples shared and transformed texts, ideas, objects, myths, and traditions across languages, cultures, and modern national boundaries. This session speaks to the Congress's longstanding culture of interdisciplinarity and seeks paper from any field -- literary, historical, linguistic, paleographical, art historical -- focused on exploring the textual traditions (broadly defined) of multilingual Britain from the perspective(s) of "Contact" and/or "Contrast." This session seeks papers which take a comparative approach to the idea of "Contact" in considering the rich and mutually influential relationship between the textual and intellectual traditions of the peoples in the British Isles during the early medieval period, both before and after the Norman Conquest. We seek papers that explore the long and simultaneous histories of both intellectual/cultural exchange and military conflict between Anglo-Saxons, Britons, Irish, Picts, Danes, and Normans during the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman periods. From Irish influence on the early Anglo-Saxon church, to the role of Welsh kingdoms in King Alfred's politics, to literary and scribal exchanges across borders throughout the period, this session seeks papers that place the relationships between any of the peoples in the early medieval British Isles in a trans-national, cross-cultural context. Papers might consider issues of ethnicity, identity, colonialism, and nationality; explore relationships of literary and textual exchange and influence; or simply consider moments of historical interaction between peoples. Likewise, at the same time as we consider patterns of textual exchange and influence, this session seeks to provocatively explore multilingual Britain through the simultaneous theme of "Contrast." How do the historical, mythological, literary, poetic, visual, or legal traditions of early medieval peoples in the British Isles differ from one another? How might we productively explore individual textual traditions in the context of early multilingual Britain? In what ways can understanding one people's textual traditions shed light on those of its neighbors? Overall, this session seeks papers which do not place the textual traditions of early medieval Britain in isolation, but seek to understand them through their place in a wider web of intellectual and cultural exchange in the British Isles.
Lindy Brady