Paper proposals are now being accepted for “Revisiting the Legacy of Boethius in the Middle Ages,” an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Department of English and the Committee on Medieval Studies with support from the Morton Bloomfield Fund and the International Boethius Society. The legacy of Boethius in the Middle Ages has been enjoying a resurgence of interest in recent years, with new editions, translations, and studies that place his profound influence in a new light. The Alfredian Boethius project of Oxford University, to pick just one example, has produced a critical edition of the Old English Boethius (2009), and the spinoff database of the commentary tradition will almost certainly change our understanding of the broader reception of The Consolation of Philosophy across medieval Europe. Other recent work has revisited the legacy of Boethius in the fields of music, philosophy, poetry, and theology, and the Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages (2012) wi ll stimulate future scholarship and teaching.
The conference will feature plenary addresses by Ann Astell (University of Notre Dame), Susan Irvine (University College London), and Eleanor Johnson (Columbia University). The organizers invite abstracts of c. 250 words for twenty-minute presentations on the early reception of Boethius and his influence on readers and writers in medieval England and continental Europe. Possible topics include vernacular translations and transformations; Neoplatonism and the philosophical tradition; adaptations of Boethian prosimetrum; Boethian afterlives in poetry, music, and the visual arts; and new findings from the Latin commentary tradition. Please send abstracts to HarvardBoethius@gmail.com; the submission deadline is 1 October 2013. For more information, please visit the conference website (http://harvardboethius.wordpress.com).
