The John Gower Society is still seeking submissions for two panels, and for one roundtable (co-sponsored with the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS)), at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS) 2019, Kalamazoo, MI.
1) Gower Reads the Classics
2) Revisiting John Gower’s Poetic: Papers in Honor of RF Yeager
3) Practical Approaches to Teaching Gower: A Roundtable
Panel details are provided below. Proposals must be received by 15 September (see guidelines in the ICMS CFP https://www.wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call).
Submit proposals to:
Brian Gastle, Western Carolina University
Dept of English, 305 Coulter Hall, Cullowhee NC 28723
Phone: (828) 227-3922; Fax: (828) 227-7266
Email: bgastle@wcu.edu [Preferred method of submission]
1) Gower Reads the Classics
John Gower’s debts to the Latin classics have been long acknowledged. His intimate familiarity with Ovid’s works has been many times demonstrated. Less well examined are his borrowings from other ancient sources, either in their original form, or received by him through medieval filters: the example of the Ovide Moralisé comes to mind. Gower’s use of the Latin Classics, as Andrew Galloway notes in the recent Routledge Research Companion to John Gower, exemplifies his “participation in a pan-European contemporary fascination with using Antiquity.” This session intends to bring such streams of classical influence into sharper focus by returning attention to Gower’s classical reading: what did he know, where did he find it, how, subsequently, did he turn what he read to use in his work?
2) Revisiting John Gower’s Poetic: Papers in Honor of RF Yeager
Gower studies owes an immense debt to both the scholarship and the leadership of RF Yeager. Having authored, edited, or co-edited over eighteen books and collections, and over three dozen articles and essays, he has mentored countless junior scholars and fostered and shepherded the study of Gower over the past forty years. As President of the International John Gower Society, he has grown membership in the society from the handful that begun the Society over thirty-five years ago to almost 200 members today, and he has organized each of the five Gower Society Congresses which draws scholars from around the world. Simply put, his influence on Gower studies is second to none. Given his 2018 retirement from the University of West Florida, and his transition to Emeritus faculty, the John Gower Society would like to honor Bob Yeager with a session of papers presented in his honor and that reflect his significant influence on the field.
3) Practical Approaches to Teaching Gower: A Roundtable
This roundtable, co-sponsored by the John Gower Society and the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages (TEAMS), seeks short presentations (5-6 minutes) which focus on practical pedagogical issues and strategies involved in teaching John Gower’s works in classes of all levels (from k-12 to graduate). The panel is particularly interested in practical approaches and welcomes lesson plans, assignment descriptions, examples of student projects, and teaching resources. TEAMS Middle English Text Series (METS) publishes and hosts online Gower’s works (in ME and in translation of the shorter Anglo-French and Latin texts), and it is an apt time for such a panel given that more selections of Gower’s works are appearing in anthologies (in both Modern and Middle English), and the MLA recently published its MLA Approaches to Teaching the Poetry of John Gower. This panel seeks to provide a venue for sharing approaches to, and materials for, teaching Gower in a variety of classroom settings using these newly established and emerging print and online resources.
The John Gower Society is an open and inclusive organization that seeks to foster collegial, productive, and engaged scholarship and teaching related to Gower and his works; it welcomes submissions from all scholars, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, cultural identity, dis/ability, sexual or affectional orientation, or gender identification.
“Fro this day forth I thenke change / And speke of thing is noght so strange, / Which every kinde hath upon honde, / And wherupon the world mot stonde, / And hath don sithen it began, / And schal whil ther is any man; / And that is love, of which I mene.”
