To me, methought, who waited with a crowd,
There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore
King Arthur, like a modern gentleman
Of stateliest port; and all the people cried,
"Arthur is come again: he cannot die."

"Morte d'Arthur" (1842)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Thursday, April 18, 2024

CFP Tradition and Innovation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Conference (4/20/2024; Nancy, France/hybrid 11/21-22/2024)

CFP: Tradition and Innovation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight


Source: https://medievalisms.org/cfp-tradition-and-innovation-in-sir-gawain-and-the-green-knight/


We are pleased to announce a call for papers for an upcoming conference on “Tradition and Innovation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” to be held in Nancy (France) on 21-22 November 2024. This conference will be held in hybrid mode.

Conference Theme: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has captivated readers for centuries with its complex narrative, moral dilemmas, and poetic excellence. The conference seeks to explore the dynamic interplay between tradition and innovation within the text, examining how the poem, but also the works derived from it and the scholarship devoted to it, draw upon established traditions while introducing novel elements.

The first axis of our inquiry focuses on the poem itself. While it is steeped in the traditions of Arthurian romance and Middle English poetry, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight departs from them and frustrates expectations in significant ways, both in terms of its content and its form. This exploration aims to shed light on the creative ways in which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight navigates established literary norms, both adhering to tradition and introducing innovative elements within its narrative structure and thematic content.

The second axis of our inquiry focuses on the many works inspired by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This includes rewritings, translations, and visual interpretations that grapple with the tension between fidelity to the original and the impulse to reimagine the narrative within contemporary contexts. From modern language adaptations to artistic representations, we seek to understand how the poem’s essence endures through the transformative lens of subsequent generations.

We invite proposals for individual papers (20 minutes). Please submit abstracts (250-300 words) along with a brief bio to Colette.Stevanovitch@univ-lorraine.fr by 20 April. Include your name, institutional affiliation, contact information, and any audiovisual requirements.

Monday, April 8, 2024

Visualizing Arthur April 2024 Events and Flier

Forwarded on behalf of Barbara Tepa Lupack:

Download the flier here

Download the postcard here.


◄ For Immediate Release ►





Visualizing Camelot


An Exhibition from the Collection of Drs. Alan Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack


At the University of Rochester


Visualizing Camelot, a University of Rochester River Campus Libraries exhibition from the collection of Drs. Alan Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack, explores the ongoing appeal of the Arthurian legends in England and America. The exhibition—which opened on March 7, 2024, with remarks from the Lupacks, a reception, and a tour of the exhibition—reveals the diverse ways that the stories of Camelot have been imagined and visualized, both in high culture (paintings, drawings, illustrated books) and in popular culture (film, toys, games, comic books, cartoons, dishware, product names, business logos, etc.). The exhibition, which includes more than 350 items (many of them unique), runs from the first to the fourth floor of Rush Rhees (from the Friedlander Lobby to Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation and to the Robbins Library). Visualizing Camelot is free and open to all, and a wide array of programming relating to the exhibition is planned throughout 2024.

Among the opening week’s events was a presentation by Dr. Kevin Whetter, Acadia University, on “Why Are There So Few Illustrations in Mediaeval English Arthurian Manuscripts? The Non-Visual Camelot.” 

Upcoming spring events include a five-film Arthurian Film Series hosted by the Eastman Museum’s Dryden Theatre in collaboration with the exhibition. That series will include A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949), on April 6; Knights of the Round Table (1953), on April; 11; The Sword in the Stone (1963), on April 19; Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), on April 25; and Excalibur (1983), on May 5. For more information on the series, please go to Dryden Theatre | George Eastman Museum


Upcoming next month is a presentation by Dr. Kevin J. Harty, La Salle University, on April 19. Dr. Harty’s topic is “James Bond, A Grifter, A Video Avatar, and a Shark Walk into King Arthur’s Court: The Ever-Expanding Canon of Cinema Arthuriana.” The presentation will also be livestreamed. If interested, please register at the following link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Lr0nRKZLfJZQl3ynshHWUWiHu1I3o6vG07-fkbaKOgY/edit

(or contact Dr. Anna Siebach-Larsen at annasiebachlarsen@rochester.edu.)

A digital exhibit Visualizing Camelot and an exhibition catalogue will follow by the end of April. A host of other activities and events are scheduled for summer and fall, 2024.

We hope that you will join us, in person or on-line, to tour Visiting Camelot and to participate in some of the exhibition events.


About the Lupacks

Dr. Alan Lupack, a noted Arthurian scholar and former director of the Robbins Library, is author or editor of numerous Arthurian studies, including Arthur, The Greatest King; Arthurian Drama; Modern Arthurian Literature; New Directions in Arthurian Studies; and The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend.

Dr. Barbara Tepa Lupack, the former academic dean at SUNY and New York State Public Scholar (2015-2018), is author or editor of more than 25 books, including The Girl’s King Arthur; King Arthur’s Crown; Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children; and the recently published The Othering of Women in Silent Film.

The Lupacks have lectured and published widely on Arthurian topics. Together, they created The Camelot Project, a popular and award-winning database of texts, images, and information about the Arthurian legends, and coauthored studies such as Arthurian Literature by Women, Illustrating Camelot, and the award-winning King Arthur in America.

For More Information About the Exhibition: please contact Anna Siebach-Larsen, Director of the Robbins Library, at annasiebachlarsen@rochester.edu.



Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Out Now - Roman de Brut in Oxford Worlds Classics Edition


Roman de Brut

Wace
Translated by Glyn S. Burgess and with an Introduction and Notes by Jean Blacker

Full details from the publisher's website at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/roman-de-brut-9780192871268.

Paperback

Published: 11 April 2024

320 Pages

7.7 x 5.1 inches

ISBN: 9780192871268

Oxford World's Classics


A new translation of Wace's Roman de Brut, a poem which served as a gateway to the larger traditions of Arthurian literature and historical writing in the French and English vernaculars

Provides an easily accessible English prose translation of the first complete Old French adaptation (1155) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1130-40), in which Arthur appears for the first time as king of the Britons

Accompanied by extensive critical apparatus, including a summary of the text, a glossary, a list of manuscripts, and an index of personal and geographical names


Description


'Whoever wishes to hear about, and to know about, kings and heirs, about who first ruled England and which kings it had, Master Wace, who is telling the truth about this, has translated this.'

Wace's Roman de Brut (1155) can be seen as the gateway to the history of the Britons for both French and English speakers of the time, and thus to Arthurian history, as the first complete Old French adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin History of the Kings of Britain (late 1130s), in which Arthur appears for the first time as king of the Britons. The Roman de Brut was a foundational work, an inspiration for a series of anonymous verse Bruts of the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries and for the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut -- the most widely read French vernacular text on this material in medieval England -- as well as a forerunner of the Middle English Brut tradition, including Layamon's Brut (c. 1200). Wace's poem thus inaugurates and shapes Brut traditions, including Arthurian tales, in verse and in prose, in historiography and in literature, including Wace's innovation of King Arthur's Round Table.

This volume contains an English prose translation of Wace's Roman de Brut, accompanied by an introduction and notes, a select bibliography, a summary of the text, a list of manuscripts, and indexes of personal and geographical names.


Author Information

Glyn S. Burgess is Emeritus Professor of French at the University of Liverpool. He has translated the three twelfth-century romances of antiquity and the Roman de Rou of Wace (2002). In 1990 he was made a Chevalier des Palmes Académiques and he is an honorary President of the International Courtly Literature Society. His most recent books are Twenty-Four Lays from the French Middle Ages (2016; with Leslie C. Brook), The Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure (2017; with Douglas Kelly), and The Roman de Thèbes and the Roman d'Eneas (2021; with Douglas Kelly).

Jean Blacker is Emeritus Professor of French, Kenyon College. Her more recent publications include Wace, The Hagiographical Works: The Conception Nostre Dame and the Lives of St Margaret and St Nicholas (2013), with Glyn S. Burgess, and Amy V. Ogden, Court and Cloister: Essays in the Short Narrative in Honor of Glyn S. Burgess (2018), with Jane H. M. Taylor. Her work focuses on the protean uses of King Arthur in Anglo-Norman, Continental French, and Latin historiography of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, focusing on the interconnections between foundation myths, competing claims of identity, and cultural imperialism in the legendary history of Britain.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

JIAS 2023

The latest volume of the Journal of the International Arthurian Society. Access is available for purchase from the publisher. 


Journal of the International Arthurian Society

Volume 11 Issue 1

September 2023


Publicly Available September 7, 2023

Titelseiten

Page range: i-iv
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Open Access September 7, 2023

‘Que nus contes de ce n’amende’: Chrétien de Troyes and the assertion of copyright

Keith Busby, Leah Tether
Page range: 1-18
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Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Acheflour and Blauncheflour: Mothers and Wives in Sir Percyvell of Galles and Sir Tristrem

Aude Martin
Page range: 45-59
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Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Petrine Failings and Broken Pentangles: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’s Chivalric Felix Culpa

Arielle McKee
Page range: 60-82
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Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Eric fighting in Guatemala. Adaptation and proximation of medieval Arthurian literature in Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Erec y Enide

Carlos Sanz Mingo
Page range: 83-104
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Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Von den nahtweiden. Mythologische Subtexte in der Crône Heinrichs von dem Türlin

Christoph Schanze
Page range: 105-128
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Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

The Transmedial Knights of the Round Table: Character-Based Worldbuilding in the Manuscripts of Chrétien de Troyes

Caitlin G. Watt
Page range: 129-151
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Obituary

Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Mary Dewey (1947–2023)

Linda Gowans, Alison Rawles
Page range: 152-153

Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Gilles Eckard (1949–2022)

Alain Corbellari
Page range: 154-155

Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Amanda Hopkins (1962–2022)

Emma Campbell
Page range: 156-157

Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Freda Humble (1922–2022)

Sue Bennett, Linda Gowans
Page range: 158-158

Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Ian Lovecy (1947–2022)

P. J. C. Field
Page range: 159-160

Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Roger Simpson (1938–2022)

Alan Lupack, Barbara Tepa Lupack, Kevin J. Harty
Page range: 161-162


Notices

Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

XXVIIth International Arthurian Congress, Aix-en-Provence, France, 11–18 July 2024

Page range: 163-163

Requires Authentication September 7, 2023

Biennial JIAS Essay Prize Competition 2024–25

Page range: 164-164


Arthuriana Winter 2023

Recently released. Subscribe at the Arthuriana website, or (if you're lucky to have access) read this issue at Project MUSE. 


Arthuriana 33.4 

Table of Contents 

Guenevere’s Raptus-Sanctus Triumphs in Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur 

D. Thomas Hanks, Jr. 

Abstract:

Generally speaking, scholars of Malory's Morte Darthur have given Guenevere bad press. Terms like 'shrew' and 'virago' have been often applied, while her agency has been largely ignored or minimized. Recently, however, scholars have begun to reconsider her characterization and even her agency. Analysis of her response to Meleagant's attempted raptus, however, has been minimal; likewise minimal has been discussion of her response to Lancelot both with respect to Meleagant and to Lancelot's late and apparently marital desire. Both men become wholly subject to Guenevere's subtle but masterful agency. [DTH, Jr,]


Dramatic Spectacle in LaƷamon: The Brut’s Direct Speeches, Aestheticized Violence, and Gendered Historical Reenactments 

Johanna Alden

Abstract:

This article explores the phenomena of dramatized direct speech and public performative spectacle within LaƷamon's Brut. In examining the text's largely historically unexplored dramatic dimensions, the piece also engages with the way that speech and performance are politicized and gendered in the Brut.


ANNOUNCEMENTS


Launch of ‘The So What’: public-facing, digital publication focusing on the ‘whys’ and ‘so whats’ of medieval studies and pedagogy 


Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship


Arthuriana Shop



REVIEWS 


Heather Blurton and Dwight F. Reynolds, eds., Bestsellers and Masterpieces: The Changing Medieval Canon 

Katherine Oswald 


Andrew Breeze, The Historical Arthur and the Gawain Poet: Studies on Arthurian and Other Traditions

Richard Firth Green 


Tara Hernandez and Damon Lindelof, creators, Mrs. Davis, (eight-part miniseries)

Susan Aronstein and Laurie Finke 


Carolyne Larrington, The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think

Tim William Machan 


Tim William Machan, English Begins at Jamestown

Kevin J. Harty


John Matthews, The Great Book of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table:  A New Morte D’Arthur 

Alan Lupack 


Charlie Samuelson, Courtly and Queer: Deconstruction, Desire, and Medieval French Literature 

Megan Moore 


Eva Von Contzen and James Simpson, eds., Enlistment: Lists in Medieval and Early Modern Literature

Michael Van Dussen  


Arthuriana Fall 2023

Recently released. Subscribe at the Arthuriana website, or (if you're lucky to have access) read this issue at Project MUSE. 


Arthuriana 33.3 (Fall 2023)

Table of Contents 


Special Issue: Who Gets to Be Legendary? 

Guest edited by Margaret Sheble


Introduction: Why Can’t Mermaids Be Ethnically Diverse? Legends and Legend-Making in Arthurian Studies 

Richard Sévère 


White Merlin: A Modern Misconception about the Legendary Merlin

Tzu-Yu Liu 

Abstract:

Different from the predominantly white Merlins on both big and small screens today, Merlins in medieval legends are never described as having white skin. In fact, in various texts Merlin is specifically depicted as a dark-skinned character capable of making legendary accomplishments. The few Merlins of color onscreen have informed our understanding of Merlin as a legendary character in various ways, and more diverse representations of Merlin onscreen could help to dispel the misconception that the legendary Merlin is by default white. (TL)


‘Why is he Indian?’: Missed Opportunities for Discussing Race in David Lowery’s The Green Knight (2021)

Tirumular (Drew) Narayanan 

Abstract:

This article explores the depiction of Gawain in The Green Knight (2021). Despite having cast Dev Patel in the starring role, the film avoids any substantive discussion of race in Camelot. By trading in optical diversity alone, it deploys BIPOC bodies without ever telling their stories. (TDN)


Towards Narrative Plenitude: Asian Representation in Young Adult Arthurian Fantasy 

Pamela M. Yee 

Abstract:

This article examines how two authors of Asian descent tackle the problem of 'narrative scarcity' for marginalized writers in their Young Adult Arthurian texts: Williams' 'The Quay Stone' posits the relationship between colonizer/colonized as akin to domestic abuse, while Chupeco's A Hundred Names for Magic series integrates Eastern and Western myths. (PY)


Who is Asking?: Afro-Arthurian Legend-Making in N.K. Jemisin’s Far Sector 

D’Arcee Charington Neal 

Abstract:

Whether an Arthurian knight, a Green Lantern, or a Legendborn, one cannot have a legacy without first becoming a legend. In N.K. Jemisin's graphic novel Far Sector (2020) Sojourner 'Jo' Muellein's story as both community activist and guardian echoes, reinvents, and reimagines Arthurian romances through the lens of Afrofuturism; further, this fantastical remix challenges white supremacist modes of oppressive comic tradition by foregrounding racial and gendered identities. Making a legend is not about whom society has agreed to be the answer. Instead, such ideals lie with whoever asks the question. (DCN)


REVIEWS 


Victoria Coldham-Fussell, Miriam Edlich-Muth, and Renée Ward, eds., The Arthurian World

Dan Nastali 


Louise D’Arcens and Andrew Lynch, eds., International Medievalism and Popular Culture 

Kevin J. Harty 


Patrick Del Luca, Chevalerie et royauté dans le roman d’Erec de Hartmann van Aue 

Ann Mccullough 


Megan Moore, The Erotics of Grief: Emotions and the Construction of Privilege in the Medieval Mediterranean 

Charles-Louis Morand-Métiver