CFP: "Medieval Responses to the Sounds of Animals" 

Children today enjoy learning the sounds made by different animals, which are often captured by onomatopoetic words. Medieval scholars similarly seem to have been fascinated by the sounds of animals, which they apparently took delight in capturing and impersonating in Latin and the vernaculars and also in music. Further, some medieval thinkers expressed curiosity about whether animal sounds, like their bodily movements, signified emotions and desires, intentionally or not, and constituted a language that could be directed at humans and even the Creator, not just at other animals. Building upon recent work by Alison Langdon and Elizabeth Leach, this session seeks to explore the representation and interpretation of animal sounds within various fields of medieval culture, such as music, literature, religious life, and philosophy, and possibly also art.

A session sponsored by the Marco Institute, University of Tennessee. Please send abstracts to Mary Dzon (mdzon@utk.edu) by Sept. 1.