Early Middle English Soceity CFP

The Early Middle English Society (emesoc.org) is sponsoring two panels at
the 44th International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 7-10 May
2009.

Please send abstracts and any questions to Dorothy Kim (dokim@vassar.edu).
Abstracts are due 25 September 2008.

Early Middle English Society I: Editing Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud
Misc. 108
Roundtable

This manuscript contains the earliest version of the South English
Legendary and several early romance texts (Havelok the Dane and King
Horn). The roundtable will bring together a group of scholars to discuss
various issues that have surfaced in editing Laud MS 108 as a whole book
for a scholarly and a student audience. Some of the topics that may be
discussed includes general editorial practices in relation to a
single-manuscript edition; the possibilities of an electronic edition;
resources available in mounting this project; and the issues surrounding
accessibility to both scholars and beginning students.

* * *

Early Middle English Society II: Speaking Across Disciplines in British
Library MS Harley 978
Paper session

British Library, MS Harley 978 is a thirteenth-century manuscript that
famously contains some of the earliest editions of Marie de France’s Lais
and Fables, the summer canon, the cuckoo song, and an array of Latin
verse. The divisions in modern academia have tended to result in
commentary that has carved up this manuscript along disciplinary lines:
musicology, medieval French poetry, Middle English poetry, and Latin.
Given that the manuscript requires such diverse skills in interpreting its
contents, milieu, and reading practices, how can scholars speak across
disciplines in order to gain a more comprehensive approach to this
manuscript? This session is interested in papers that address any of the
works in MS Harley 978, and / or that consider these disciplinary
divisions and how we might begin to bridge them.
Early