Call for Papers: International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 12-15, 2016

Call for Papers: International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 12-15, 2016

Sponsored by Anglo-Saxon Hagiography Society (ASHS)
Organizers: Johanna Kramer (University of Missouri) and Robin Norris (Carleton University)

Deadline: 15 September 2015

Following up on the success of our sponsored sessions at the Congress over the last three years, we are organizing another session dedicated to anonymous Anglo-Saxon hagiographical prose, both Old English and Anglo-Latin. While there is a long tradition of studying vernacular saints’ lives in Anglo-Saxon Studies, a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention has been given to verse hagiographies and to those by Ælfric of Eynsham, the most famous named author of Old English prose saints’ lives. Even though 40% of the extant vernacular prose corpus is non-Ælfrician, there remains a considerable gap in scholarship when it comes to anonymous Old English prose; similarly, Anglo-Latin saints’ lives present a wide field that demands attention.

Recent publications on anonymous lives, such as the essay collections: Anonymous Interpolations in Ælfric’s Lives of Saints (ed. Norris, 2011) andHagiography in Anglo-Saxon England: Adopting and Adapting Saints' Lives into Old English Prose (c. 950-1150) (ed. Lazzari, Lendinara, Di Sciacca, 2014) as well as ongoing text editing projects, for example for the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library Series (Old English Poems of Christ and His Saints, ed. Clayton, 2013; and Anonymous Old English Saints' Lives, ed. Kramer, Magennis, Norris, in progress) indicate increasing interest in hagiography. Such active scholarly engagement with hagiography also shows that we can gain valuable insight into later Anglo-Saxon religious culture and its concerns by approaching these texts as independent literary products in their own right. At the same time, such study can then also usefully reflect back on the Ælfrician hagiographical corpus alongside which some anonymous vernacular lives were produced and collected. While we hope to organize a series of sessions over the years that explore a range of aspects in relation to anonymous saints’ lives (such as literary themes, narrative strategies, sources, transmission, manuscript evidence, linguistic issues, rhetoric/style, early versus late anonymous accounts of English saints, etc.).

For this year, we are again organizing a session with an open topic to continue what we hope will become a sustained conversation about and exploration of the vernacular and Latin anonymous hagiography of Anglo-Saxon England.

Submit abstract to:
Johanna Kramer and Robin Norris
kramerji@missouri.edu and Robin.Norris@carleton.ca

Also send a completed Participation Information Form(http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF).