THINK ROMANCE!
Re-conceptualizing a Medieval Genre
32nd Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies
March 31 – April 1, 2012
Fordham University, at the Lincoln Center Campus, New York City
Romances were the most popular, most influential, most wide-ranging form of fiction in the high and late Middle Ages. While this popularity has ensured a great deal of modern critical attention, particularly to individual romances, it has not necessarily meant that the place of romance in the Middle Ages has been understood adequately. That is, as scholars outside of the field of literary studies – historians, art historians, musicologists – have begun to look at romances, those inside continue to treat this genre largely in terms of its literary merit. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to re-conceptualize romance more broadly, not only as a topic of interest for scholars of particular medieval vernacular texts, but as a kind of tool, a bearer of a set of assumptions, a cultural category available to medieval authors, artists, composers, and patrons.
The conference program is comprised of fifty-five speakers from North America and Europe, including four plenary speakers:
- Sharon Kinoshita, University of California, Santa Cruz – Romance in/and the Medieval Mediterranean
- Emma Dillon, University of Pennsylvania – Sumptuous Songs: Musical Materialities and the Old French Romance Tradition
- James Simpson, Harvard University – Unthinking Thought: Romance’s Wisdom
- Marina Brownlee, Princeton University – Sequels, Prequels, and Contingency
For a full program and to register, please see the conference website: http://www.fordham.edu/mvst/conference12/Romance/program.html
The Deadline For Early Registration is March 22, 2012
Online registration is now available; a paper registration form is also available online. Please send the paper registration form and check to: Center for Medieval Studies, FMH 405, Fordham University, Bronx, NY 10458