Conference

Graduate Conference in Medieval Studies at Princeton
University

Coming Together: Taverns, Leisure, and Public
Gathering in the Middle Ages

5 April 2008

Call for Papers

The Program in Medieval Studies at Princeton
University invites graduate students to submit paper
proposals for its annual graduate conference: "Coming
Together: Taverns, Leisure and Public Gathering in the
Middle Ages." We are pleased to announce this year's
keynote speaker, Margot Fassler, Robert Tangeman
Professor of Music History and Liturgy at Yale
University.

Opening with an address by Professor Fassler on the
Gamblers' Mass and liturgical parody in the Carmina
Burana collection, the conference invites students to
re-think the concepts of work and play and to study
the different ways in which public gatherings were
woven into the social fabric of the Middle Ages. In
keeping with the Program's aim to promote
interdisciplinary exchange among medievalists, we
encourage proposals from a variety of chronologies,
geographies, and disciplines. Topics could include,
but are of course not limited to:

•taverns and inns
•harvest boons
•social and performative aspects of folklore or
courtly poetry
•compositional play in literary, musical, or visual
art
•hunting
•liturgical drama
•holy days
•eating and feasting
•tournaments
•games and sports
•rustic mirth

In order to encourage participation of speakers from
outside the northeastern United States, we are
offering a limited number of modest subsidies to help
offset the cost of travel to Princeton. Please note
that financial assistance is not available for every
participant; a committee will assign subsidies to
students who have the farthest distance to travel.
Every speaker will have the option of staying with a
resident graduate student as an alternative to paying
for a hotel room.

Papers should take no more than twenty minutes to
deliver. Please submit a 250-word abstract of your
project by 7 January 2008 to Jamie Kreiner
(jkreiner@princeton.edu) or Chris Kurpiewski
(ckurpiew@princeton.edu).