Monsters and Medievalism
Sponsored by The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture for the Medieval & Renaissance Area of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association
29th Annual Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association
Lord Baltimore Hotel, Baltimore, Maryland
8-10 November 2018
Proposals due by 30 June 2018
Monsters remain fascinating subjects, and intense discussion in recent years has focused on their representation in medieval texts, including stories as well as the art of the period. However, scholars have largely neglected the post-medieval afterlife of these horrors in later works. Monstrous entities manufactured to exist within re-creations of the Middle Ages in contemporary media share a similar fate in the academy. In short, medievalists appear to like monsters, but they do not always seem willing to explore their depictions in modern texts. Despite this neglect, the monsters found in medievalisms have merit in our classrooms and research, and we need to promote their exploits as well as those of the creatures existing within medieval artifacts.
In furtherance of the goals of The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, we seek in this panel to unite Medieval Studies, Medievalism Studies, Monster Studies, and Popular Culture Studies to highlight connections between medieval monstrosities and their post-medieval incarnations and successors. We hope to explore both continuity and change in addressing how terrors rooted in the medieval have been portrayed and how their inheritors have been developed.
Possible topics might include:
Demons
Dracula
Dragons
Elves/Fairies/Tuatha Dé Danann
Fomorians
Gargoyles
Giants
Golems
The Green Knight
The Grendelkin
Incubi/Sucubi
Loathly Ladies
Melusine
Merlin
Revenants
Shrek
Werewolves
Wild Men / Wild Women
Witches
Presentations will be limited to 10-15 minutes depending on final panel size.
Interested individuals should, no later than 30 June 2018, notify the organizers of their topic via email directed to MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com using “Monsters and Medievalism” as their subject heading. They will also need create an account with the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association at https://mapaca.net/conference AND submit into the system both an abstract of no more than 300 words and an academic biographical narrative of no more than 75 words.
Again, please send inquiries and copies of your submissions to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com using “Monsters and Medievalism” as the subject heading.
In planning your proposal, please be aware of the policies of the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture Association (available at https://mapaca.net/help/conference/submitting-abstracts-conference).
Further details on The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture can be found at its website: https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.
