Premodern Futurities: Speculative Objects and Prognostication in the Medieval World
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Carly B. Boxer, Jack Dragu, Luke Fidler
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Chicago, Univ. of Chicago, Univ. of Chicago
Presider Name
Carly B. Boxer, Jack Dragu, Luke Fidler
Paper Title 1
Historical Fiction or Prose Fantasy? Arthurian Fantasies of Tomorrow
Presenter 1 Name
Joseph Derosier
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Northwestern Univ.
Paper Title 2
Timekeeping in the Cloister: Teleologies of Sculpture and Water Clocks
Presenter 2 Name
Matthew J. Westerby
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison
Paper Title 3
Material Temporalities of Earth and Stone
Presenter 3 Name
Laura Veneskey
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Wake Forest Univ.
Paper Title 5
The Shape of Reform
Presenter 5 Name
Katherine C. Little
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Univ. of Colorado-Boulder
Paper Title 6
Respondent
Presenter 6 Name
Roland Betancourt
Presenter 6 Affiliation
Institute for Advanced Study/Univ. of California-Irvine
Paper Title 7
Respondent
Presenter 7 Name
Anne F. Harris
Presenter 7 Affiliation
DePauw Univ.
Start Date
14-5-2017 10:30 AM
Session Location
Bernhard 209
Description
Interpreting the medieval arts entails setting in motion forms of anachronism; within the arts we see complex negotiations of temporality, which themselves pose significant challenges to our understanding of historical objects. Scholars have been both resistant to and complicit in these forms, a challenge of historicism having been, to a greater or lesser extent, to unlearn certain histories in order to “restore” the contingency of a specific historical moment. For, indeed, medieval people theorized futures of their own. They refined procedures of prognostication and speculation, and, significantly, crafted aesthetic objects that imagined divergent futurities. In light of recent scholarship that has theorized modernity with and against the postmedieval notion of “the medieval” -- whether by treating it as a resource to speculate upon own present historical moment or for troubling modern historical teleologies -- this session will address both medieval theorizations of possible futures and the ways that medievalists might draw on those futures as we frame new directions for medieval studies.
Jack H. Dragu
Premodern Futurities: Speculative Objects and Prognostication in the Medieval World
Bernhard 209
Interpreting the medieval arts entails setting in motion forms of anachronism; within the arts we see complex negotiations of temporality, which themselves pose significant challenges to our understanding of historical objects. Scholars have been both resistant to and complicit in these forms, a challenge of historicism having been, to a greater or lesser extent, to unlearn certain histories in order to “restore” the contingency of a specific historical moment. For, indeed, medieval people theorized futures of their own. They refined procedures of prognostication and speculation, and, significantly, crafted aesthetic objects that imagined divergent futurities. In light of recent scholarship that has theorized modernity with and against the postmedieval notion of “the medieval” -- whether by treating it as a resource to speculate upon own present historical moment or for troubling modern historical teleologies -- this session will address both medieval theorizations of possible futures and the ways that medievalists might draw on those futures as we frame new directions for medieval studies.
Jack H. Dragu