CFP: Voices and Voicelessness

Voices and Voicelessness
International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan
13-16 May 2010

In light of recent scholarly interest in the plurality of ways in
which speech was understood throughout the late medieval period -- as
one of the five chief senses, a force for good and evil, a form of
touching, an outward expression of an inner state -- the session
"Voices and Voicelessness" proposes to examine the uses of speech,
both salvific and illicit or idle, in late medieval literature. The
organizers of the sessions are specifically interested in papers
considering a wide range of speech acts, both orthodox/salvific
(confession, prayer) and non-orthodox/illicit (gossip, slander,
backbiting) as a form of action in Middle English romances and
penitential texts, as well as papers that consider the roles of
speechlessness and silence as both active choices and enforced
states. In addition, the organizers will welcome papers which will
purport to explore the relationship between different forms of
speech and late medieval narrative experimentations.


*Submission Details:* Submit one-page abstracts and contact
information to Olga Burakov at burakov@fordham.edu or to Rachel
Moss at rem117@york.ac.uk no
later than September 15, 2009.