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
Thursday 10:00
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Dress and Textiles for an Unlikely Saint: Edward the Confessor
Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Univ. of Manchester
The Matter of Alchemy: Deciphering Medieval Practices
Organizer: Jennifer M. Rampling, Princeton Univ.
Presider: Peter M. Jones, King’s College, Univ. of Cambridge
Reading the Books of the Sages: Byzantine Hermeneutics of Ancient Alchemical Recipes Matteo Martelli, Univ. di Bologna
This year's book haul isn't as extensive as the usual. Just like for papers, the topics coming out of publishers run in cycles, and I guess we're just at a low cycle for the topics I'm currently interested in. Due to the weird interface issues I'm having with the website, I'm not going to try to post cover images this time. So here's what I bought:
Ferguson, Gary. 2016. Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome: Sexuality, Identity, and Community in Early Modern Europe. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. ISBN 9778-1-5017-0237-2
Last year there were a number of fascinating sessions on magic and occultism in the Islamicate medieval world. I’m still gathering up deep background on this topic for future fiction projects, and this one really caught my eye.
Occult Blockbusters of the Islamicate World II: Arabic and Persian
Sponsor: Research Group on Manuscript Evidence; Societas Magica
Organizer: Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Univ. of South Carolina
Presider: Liana Saif, Univ. of Oxford
Towards a Medieval Transgender Studies
Sponsor: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS)
Organizer: M. W. Bychowski, Case Western Reserve Univ.
Presider: Micah Goodrich, Univ. of Connecticut
That Detestable, Unmentionable, and Ignominious Vice: Trans Women and Sex Work in Cross-Cultural and Cross-Temporal Perspectives Alina Boyden, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison
Dress and Textiles III: New Analyses of Old Evidence
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Organizer: Robin Netherton, DISTAFF
Presider: Robin Netherton
Scarlet Blue: Elite versus Peasantish Clothing in Nordic Ballads Sandra B. Straubhaar, Univ. of Texas–Austin
