Medieval Ecocriticisms: Why the Middle Ages Matter (A Roundtable)

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Medieval Ecocriticisms

Organizer Name

Heide Estes

Organizer Affiliation

Monmouth Univ.

Presider Name

Heide Estes

Paper Title 1

"A pade pikes on the polle": Interpreting the Toads of The Awntyrs off Arthur

Presenter 1 Name

Kristin Bovaird-Abbo

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of Northern Colorado

Paper Title 2

Plowing the Medieval Roots of our Ecocritical Crisis

Presenter 2 Name

Daniel Helbert

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Univ. of British Columbia

Paper Title 3

Economy and Ecology in the Pre-modern Web of Life

Presenter 3 Name

William M. Rhodes

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Virginia

Paper Title 4

(Other)worlding: Nature and Dominion in Arthurian Romance

Presenter 4 Name

Julie Gafney

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Graduate Center, CUNY

Paper Title 5

Reproducing the Bans: Medieval Texts and Modern Angst about Ritual Slaughter

Presenter 5 Name

Mo Pareles

Presenter 5 Affiliation

New York Univ.

Paper Title 6

Everyday Ecologies

Presenter 6 Name

Myra J. Seaman

Presenter 6 Affiliation

College of Charleston

Paper Title 7

Were the Middle Ages Ecophobic?

Presenter 7 Name

David Sprunger

Presenter 7 Affiliation

Concordia College

Start Date

12-5-2016 10:00 AM

Session Location

Bernhard 106

Description

In their Introduction to Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice, Celia Chazelle, Simon Doubleday, Felice Lifshitz, and Amy G. Remensnyder make the case that an understanding of medieval ideas about power and justice helps to illuminate contemporary political and social issues concerned with power: who has it, who doesn’t, how it operates in contemporary nations and cultures. The essays in the volume address gender and sexuality, dis/ability and deviance, race, class, ethnicity and prisons. The editors acknowledge that an important topic not included in the volume is environmental history. They note that the contraction of economies in the early Middle Ages and the attendant reduction in the volumes of garbage produced in comparison to the late Roman era and suggest that this is a possible model for the reduction of consumption today.

This round-table seeks short presentations that respond to Chazelle et al.’s call for future work on medieval environmental issues by considering what medieval texts and artifacts can teach us about how individuals and polities of the period conceived of their relationships and responsibilities to the non-human. Papers might address agriculture, wilderness, water, animal studies, urbanization, light and darkness, the relationships of gender, race, religion, and dis/ability to environmental questions and formulations, from the perspective of how such medieval formulations matter to the modern world. Papers are sought from a wide variety of disciplines, including but not limited to archaeology, art history, history, and literary studies.
Heide Estes

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May 12th, 10:00 AM

Medieval Ecocriticisms: Why the Middle Ages Matter (A Roundtable)

Bernhard 106

In their Introduction to Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice, Celia Chazelle, Simon Doubleday, Felice Lifshitz, and Amy G. Remensnyder make the case that an understanding of medieval ideas about power and justice helps to illuminate contemporary political and social issues concerned with power: who has it, who doesn’t, how it operates in contemporary nations and cultures. The essays in the volume address gender and sexuality, dis/ability and deviance, race, class, ethnicity and prisons. The editors acknowledge that an important topic not included in the volume is environmental history. They note that the contraction of economies in the early Middle Ages and the attendant reduction in the volumes of garbage produced in comparison to the late Roman era and suggest that this is a possible model for the reduction of consumption today.

This round-table seeks short presentations that respond to Chazelle et al.’s call for future work on medieval environmental issues by considering what medieval texts and artifacts can teach us about how individuals and polities of the period conceived of their relationships and responsibilities to the non-human. Papers might address agriculture, wilderness, water, animal studies, urbanization, light and darkness, the relationships of gender, race, religion, and dis/ability to environmental questions and formulations, from the perspective of how such medieval formulations matter to the modern world. Papers are sought from a wide variety of disciplines, including but not limited to archaeology, art history, history, and literary studies.
Heide Estes