Blogging Kalamazoo Session 540: Experiencing Textiles in Medieval Culture and German Literature
Sunday 10:30
Sponsor: Society for Medieval Germanic Studies (SMGS)
Mit kunkeln und mit schaeren: Tools for Reading Textiles in Medieval German Texts
Hannah Hunter-Parker, Princeton Univ.
Sunday 8:30
[I picked this session because it ties in with some material I’ve been looking at on Jeanne d’Arc and gender identity, and because she was on my mind from the trail materials I mentioned in my own paper on cross-dressing.]
Sponsor: International Joan of Arc Society/Société Internationale de l’étude de Jeanne d’Arc
The Redhead and the Widow: Gender Models and Modifications in Joan of Arc’s Two Trials
Tara B. Smithson, Manchester Univ.
These are the books I’m carrying home with me. I’ll blog the ones I had shipped as they arrive. First, books picked up for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project:
Dipiero, Thomas and Pat Gill (eds). 1997. Illicit Sex: Identity Politics in Early Modern Culture. The University of Georgia Press, Athens. ISBN 0-8203-1884-1
[This is the time of day when blogging becomes extra important to keep me focused. Not that the papers aren’t fascinating! But I’m starting to get people overload.]
The Lady as Lord: The Exercise of Lordship by the Wives, Widows, and Heiresses of Territorial Lords of All Ranks and the Problems It Presented, ca. 1070–ca. 1500
Saturday 3:30
Sponsor: Seigneurie: The International Society for the Study of the Nobility, Lordship, and Knighthood
Saturday 1:30
[Note: The presenters requested that the session not be blogged. The first paper concerned the mythic “bifurcated” hermaphodite figure and its geographic localization. The second suggested the need for an awareness of the biological sourcing of ivory as a medieval art medium. The third concerned the nature of the identity/body relationship in a specific werewolf romance.
Hermaphrodites and the Boundaries of Sex in the High Middle Ages
Leah DeVun, Rutgers Univ.
Saturday 10:00
Sponsor: AVISTA: The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art; EXARC
Working with Craftsmen: The “It Depends” Dilemma
Christina Petty, Univ. of Manchester
Saturday 8:30 (Plenary Session)
Bonnie Wheeler, Southern Methodist Univ.
[This is going to be very stream of consciousness.]
Begins with an overview of her experiences with the medieval congress and recognizing how it has changed and continued to work on inclusivity. The need for change and open minds. Kalamazoo as a community and enjoyable experience. Moving on to the paper topic...
[I apologize for not catching some of the key names and texts referenced. Often in specialized sessions, there’s an assumption that the audience shares a fairly elaborate body of background knowledge and I, alas, am often deficient. No blogging of the earlier Friday sessions because I was busy book shopping at all the academic press booths. Will blog about books later.]
Friday 13:30
Sponsor: Research Group on Manuscript Evidence; Societas Magica
Scriptural Dreaming: Revisiting the Exstacy Defense
Thursday 3:30
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Motivations for French and Mediterranean Royal Sumptuary Laws: Translations of the Lives of the Caesars
Sarah-Grace Heller, Ohio State Univ.
Thursday 1:30
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
No notes on this session as I was presenting.
Swaddled Child or Shrouded Body? Textile Evidence from an Anglo-Saxon Boxwood Carving
Sarah M. Anderson, Princeton Univ.
Material Transformations and Sartorial Ambiguity: Dress in Chrétien de Troyes’s Conte du Graal
Monica L. Wright, Univ. of Louisiana–Lafayette
