Re-Creating Camelot? Community-Building in Arthurian Studies (A Roundtable) (virtual)
Sponsored by Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain and International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)
Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa and Joseph M. Sullivan
Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2023
59th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
Hybrid event: Thursday, 9 May, through Saturday, 11 May, 2024
See the shared Google Doc for the full call with a list of suggested resources on the topic: https://tinyurl.com/Re-Creating-Camelot-ICMS-2024.
Panel Objective
Re-Creating Camelot? Community-Building in Arthurian Studies (A Roundtable) (virtual)
Building off our sponsored session idea on Creating Camelot(s): The Idea of Community in Arthurian Texts, we’d like, also, this year at Kalamazoo to highlight in a roundtable format the ways that Arthurian enthusiasts and scholars have come together over the ages outside of fiction and strived to establish aspects of Camelot as reality in our/their world.
Questions to guide our conversations include:
- How have the Arthurian legends influenced and inspired the formation of groups seeking to continue the work of the fellowship of the Round Table and/or help us to promote the Matter of Britain?
- How—both in positive and negative ways—has the Matter of Britain been adapted, appropriated, compressed, expanded, and/or transformed by these new communities?
- Ultimately, how have these communities succeeded in reviving the legends? In what ways could they do/have done better?
Presentations could focus on historic events and/or groups as well as current academic activities, organizations, and publications.
Some possible examples:
- Brands/companies (King Arthur Flour)
- Classroom activities
- Collection development (Bangor, Newberry Library, Rochester)
- Fandoms (Merlin tv series)
- Fanfiction communities (Merlin tv series)
- Gaming/roleplaying communities
- Labor organizations
- Online communities (ArthurNet)
- Organizations (International Arthurian Society, IAS regional branches, MLA’s Arthurian Discussion Group, PCA’s Arthurian Legends Area)
- Outreach pursuits (conferences, symposia)
- Propaganda (medieval and/or post-medieval)
- Scholarly endeavors (Arthurian Literature, Arthuriana, Avalon to Camelot, book series, The Camelot Project, collections, special editions, special issues, sub-fields of Arthurian Studies)
- Wiki/Wikia building
- Youth groups
Please see the shared Google Doc for the full call with a list of suggested resources for examples of previous scholarship on our theme: https://tinyurl.com/Re-Creating-Camelot-ICMS-2024.
Submission Information
All proposals must be submitted into the Confex system at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call by 15 September 2023. You will be prompted to complete sections on Title and Presentation Information, People, Abstract, and Short Description.
Be advised of the following policies of the Congress: “You are invited to make one paper proposal to one session of papers. This may be to one of the Sponsored or Special Sessions of Papers, which are organized by colleagues around the world, OR to the General Sessions of Papers, which are organized by the Program Committee in Kalamazoo. You may propose an unlimited number of roundtable contributions. However, you will not be scheduled as an active participant (as a paper presenter, roundtable discussant, presider, respondent, workshop leader, or performer) in more than three sessions.”
Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at KingArthurForever2000@gmail.com.
For more information on the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain, please visit our website at https://KingArthurForever.blogspot.com/.
For more information on the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB), please visit our website at https://www.international-arthurian-society-nab.org/ and consider becoming a member of our organization.
