(Re)Animating the Middle Ages: Adapting the Medieval in Animated Media
Co-organizers Michael A. Torregrossa, Karen Casey Casebier, and Carl B. Sell
Sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture
Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2024
56th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown (Philadelphia, PA)
On-site event: 6-9 March 2025
Rationale
Our conception of the Middle Ages is usually formed by the versions of the medieval past we experienced as children, and, because they are considered suitable for young viewers, animated depictions of this world often represent our earliest exposure to the events, personages, and stories of this era. Consequently, the animated creations of the Walt Disney Company have played a huge part in shaping our collective image of the Middle Ages, but the corpus of medieval-themed animation is truly vast. It has been expanded greatly by the output of many other content producers across the globe through anime, cartoons, films, games, streaming videos, and theatrical shorts. (See our list of representative texts–at https://tinyurl.com/ReAnimatingtheMiddleAgesCFP–for examples.)
Despite animation’s important role in shaping how we perceive and receive the medieval past, the field of Medieval Animation Studies remains limited, especially compared to the fluorescence of Medieval Film Studies and Medieval Television Studies over the past four decades. In this panel, we seek in particular to build upon the pioneering work of medieval-animation scholar Michael N. Salda and provide additional insights into the ways medieval-themed animation has impacted our contemporary world. Presenters might explore anime, cartoons, films, games, shorts, and videos produced through traditional ink-and-paint, stop-motion, claymation, or computer-generated imagery. Selections should represent and/or engage with some aspect of the medieval, such as artifacts, characters, settings, themes, etc. These might be central to the narrative, tangential, or appearing solely as cameos. (For ideas and support, we have created a list of representative texts and a resource guide devoted to studies of medieval-themed animation. It can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/ReAnimatingtheMiddleAgesCFP.)
Submission Instructions
In this panel, we seek in particular to build upon the pioneering work of medieval-animation scholar Michael N. Salda and provide additional insights into the ways medieval-themed animation has impacted our contemporary world. Presenters might explore anime, cartoons, films, games, shorts, and videos produced through traditional ink-and-paint, stop-motion, claymation, or computer-generated imagery. Selections should represent and/or engage with some aspect of the medieval, such as artifacts, characters, settings, themes, etc., presented as central to the narrative, tangential, or appearing solely as cameos.
For ideas and support, please see our list of representative texts and resource guide devoted to studies of medieval-themed animation at https://tinyurl.com/ReAnimatingtheMiddleAgesCFP.
All proposals must be submitted into the CFPList system at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21105 by 30 September 2024. You will be prompted to create an account with NeMLA (if you do not already have one) and, then, to complete sections on Title, Abstract, and Media Needs.
Notification on the status of your submission will be made by 16 October 2024. If accepted, NeMLA asks you to confirm your participation with the session chairs by accepting their invitations and by registering for the event. The deadline for Registration/Membership is 9 December 2024.
Be advised of the following policies of the Convention: All participants must be members of NeMLA for the year of the conference. Participants may present on up to two sessions of different types (panels/seminars are considered of the same type). Submitters to the CFP site cannot upload the same abstract twice.(See the NeMLA Presenter Policies page, at https://www.nemla.org/convention/policies.html, for further details,)
NeMLA offers limited funding for travel to graduate students and to contingent faculty, adjunct instructors, independent scholars, and two-year college faculty. Details can be found at the NeMLA Travel Awards page at https://www.nemla.org/awards/travel.html.
Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com.
For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at https://MedievalinPopularCulture.blogspot.com/.
