CFP Holy Grail, Batman? Expanding Knowledge of the Grail Legends in Popular Culture (Online) (9/15/2026; ICMS Kalamazoo/Online 5/13-15/2027)

Holy Grail, Batman? Expanding Knowledge of the Grail Legends in Popular Culture (Online)

62nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), Thursday, 13 May, through Saturday, 15 May, 2026


Co-sponsored by Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain, Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture


Co-organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College, and Carl B Sell, University of Pittsburgh

Rationale

The Holy Grail remains a powerful symbol in the post-medieval world; however, while its story continues to feature across popular culture, scholarship tracing its manifestations within mass media remains limited. Previous studies have concentrated predominantly on fiction and film, but the Grail legends extend into many other forms.


Using Richard Barber’s The Holy Grail: Imagination and Belief (2004), James B. Marino’s The Grail Legend in Modern Literature (2004), Juliette Wood’s Eternal Chalice: The Enduring Legend of the Holy Grail (2008) and Holy Grail: History and Legend (2012), and contributions to the collections The Grail: A Casebook (2000), Perceval/Parzival: A Casebook (2002), The Grail, the Quest, and the World of Arthur (2008), and The Holy Grail on Film: Essays on the Cinematic Quest (2015) as starting points, we seek in this session to expand our knowledge of the Grail’s presence in modern media.


Our objective is twofold. Linking past research and present texts, we ask panelists to share information about additional media (such as anime, bandes dessinées, comics, games, genre fiction, manga, memes, picture books, streaming video, and television programming) to help enlarge the corpus of Grail texts. In addition, we hope their presentations will also demonstrate a widening of the chronological and geographical scope of research on modern use of the Grail legends beyond the range of previous scholarship to illustrate the distribution of these stories across time and space, attesting to the prolonged global spread of these stories.


Topics might include representations of the Grail and/or legends about the Grail in any form of modern media, as well as depictions of Grail keepers (such as the Fisher King) and Grail seekers (including Bors, Galahad, Perceval, and Perceval’s sister, in addition to other questors) in similar texts.


We are especially interested in seeing submissions on the following:

• Arvid Nelson’s Rex Mundi
• Big Bang Comics’ Galahad and Kid Galahad
• Colleen Doran’s Chivalry, adapted from the work of Neil Gaiman
• Colleen Doran’s A Distant Soil
• Elaine Lee’s Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny
• Four Knights of the Apocalypse
• Greg Weisman’s Gargoyles
• The History Channel’s Knightfall
• Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese: The Secret Rose
• Image Comics
• Jean-Pierre Pécau’s The Secret History
• Jed MacKay’s Avengers
• Kieron Gillen’s Once and Future
• Lloyd Alexander’s The Black Cauldron and the Disney film adaptation
• Malcolm Guite’s Galahad and the Grail
• Marvel Comics
• Matt Wagner’s Mage series
• Merlin TV series
• Mike Barr’s Camelot 3000
• Mike Mignola’s Hellboy
• P. Craig Russell’s Parsifal
• Preacher comics
• Sailor Moon
• Stargate franchise
• Tainted Grail

We are not currently seeking proposals on the Grail in the DC universe, Fate/stay night, Slaine, and vampire/zombie fiction, as well as representations of Galahad in Golden Age comics. (This list will be expanded as more submissions come in.)

Submission Information

Please post paper submissions into the Confex site using the direct link https://icms.confex.com/icms/2027/prelim.cgi/Session/8804.

Do send any questions to the organizers at medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com. Submissions are due no later than 15 September 2026.


For this event, individuals are invited to make ONE paper proposal to ONE session of papers: either the sponsored or special sessions OR the general sessions. You may propose an unlimited number of contributions to roundtables, but you will not be scheduled to actively participate (as paper presenter, roundtable discussant, poster author, presider, respondent, workshop leader, demonstrator, or performer) in more than six sessions. See the conference’s policies page for more information at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/policies-guidelines.


Please be aware that those accepted to the panel must register for the conference in order to present. Past registration costs can be viewed at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration. The International Congress on Medieval Studies does offer limited funding as travel awards and subsidized registration costs; details are available at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.



For more information about the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain, do check out our website, King Arthur Forever: The Matter of Britain Lives: https://kingarthurforever.blogspot.com/.


For more information about the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, do check out our website, Mass Mediævalisms: The Middle Ages of Popular Culture: https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/.

Apocalyptic Arthuriana - Kalamazoo 2025 Co-Sponsored Session

I am pleased to report the success earlier today of our first co-sponsored session for this year's International Congress on Medieval Studies. 

Please find the session details below.

Apocalyptic Arthuriana (A Roundtable) (Virtual)

60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI)

Session 144: Thursday, 8 May, from 7:00-8:30 PM EDT

Principal Sponsoring Organization:

Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain

Co-Sponsoring Organization(s):

International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)

Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College; Joseph M. Sullivan, Univ. of Oklahoma

Presider: Karen Casey Casebier - Univ. of Tennessee–Chattanooga

Morte Darthur: Conflicted Loyalties, Promised Reconciliation

Hannah Montgomery, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Abstract:

Many scholars have commented on the importance of fellowship and unity in Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur, and it is the failure of this central ideal that leads to Arthur’s death. Malory depicts the fall of Camelot as specifically a civil war. While there is still an element of divine retribution for the moral failings of Arthur and his knights, the immediate and primary cause is discord within the Round Table fellowship. These cracks within the Round Table are not the result of simple disloyalty or betrayal, but rather of irreconcilable conflicts of loyalty coming to a head and forcing Arthur’s most faithful knights to choose between a multitude of important relationships, whether to be loyal to their lord, their brother in arms, their lady, or their family.

In part because Morte Darthur ends in conflict, without resolution, there have long been debates about its genre. While Whetter has argued that Morte Darthur is best understood not as a romance but as a tragic-romance, I argue that it is actually an incomplete romance. The promised return of Arthur suggests the completion of the genre’s narrative pattern of separation and return, rise, fall, and rise again, a narrative structure that I argue is linked to a generic relationship arc of separation and reunion or reconciliation. In delaying, yet promising, the return, Arthurian legend forces us to linger in the moment of conflict, drawing attention to the causes of the fall, but leaves hope that, although reconciliation is not currently possible, it is yet to come.

Hannah Montgomery is a PhD candidate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at UNC Chapel Hill. Her dissertation project analyzes the role of friendship and loyalty in Middle English romance, considering their connections to ideas of identity and ethics, and arguing for the centrality of interpersonal relationships to the plot, structure, and themes of the genre. She is currently working on a chapter examining romances’ simultaneous idealization and problematization of knightly brotherhood. Her other research and teaching interests include fantasy and medievalism.

Cthulhu Returns to Camelot: New Works of Lovecraft-Inspired Arthurian Fiction

Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College

Abstract:

In the Matter of Britain, there are multiple ways for Camelot to fall, but some of the more interesting occur in texts that mash up the Arthurian legends with the Cthulhu Mythos of H P. Lovecraft. This presentation represents the latest update in my ongoing attempt to catalog representation of Lovecraft-inspired Arthuriana and will focus on the recent anthology series Shadows Over Avalon (2022-2023) published by 18th Wall Productions.

Michael A. Torregrossa (he/him/his) is a graduate of the Medieval Studies program at the University of Connecticut (Storrs) and works as an adjunct instructor of writing and literature courses in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts. His research focuses on popular culture’s adaptation, appropriation, and transformation of literary classics, like the Arthurian legends and the works of writer H. P. Lovecraft. In addition to these pursuits, Michael is the founder of The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain (2000-) and The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture (2004-). He also serves as editor for these organizations' various blogs and as moderator of their discussion lists and leads the development of their conference activities. Besides this work, Michael is active in the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (a.k.a. NEPCA) and organizes sessions for their annual conference in the fall. Since 2019, Michael has been NEPCA’s Monsters and the Monstrous Area Chair, but he previously served as its Fantastic (Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror) Area Chair, a position he held from 2009-2018. 

Rebuilding Camelot: Life After Arthur's Death in Grossman's The Bright Sword

Leah Haught, Univ West Georgia

Abstract:

Can Camelot survive Arthur's death? Versions of this question have, of course, haunted Arthuriana since the Middle Ages. In these remarks, I will briefly explore how Grossman's recent reimagining of Arthur's death as survived only by the Round Table's "oddballs" is in conversation with medieval narratives that end with Arthur's death, including the Alliterative Morte and Malory. Grossman's original character, Collum, is determined to uphold the legacy of the recently killed king who he long idolized, but he quickly realizes that he isn't entirely sure what that legacy is or should be. Along with the other survivors of Camlann, Collum tries make his way in an Arthurless world, which appears at times impossible, at times hopeful, and, more often than not, inevitable.

Leah Haught is an Associate Professor of English at the University of West Georgia. Her research interests include the Arthurian legend, cultural understandings of gender and sexuality, the history of monsters, and the functions of nostalgia within medievalism. Her work frequently explores the intersections between past and present idealisms and has been published in Arthuriana, Parergon, JEGP, Year’s Work in Medievalism, and Studies in Medievalism as well a variety of edited collections. Forthcoming publications include a chapter in The Cambridge History of Arthurian Literature and Culture and a co-edited volume for METS.

CFP More than The Green Knight: Exploring the Ongoing Tradition of Adapting and Appropriating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (hybrid) (9/15/2024; ICMS Kalamazoo 5/8-10/2025)

Call for Papers

More than The Green Knight: Exploring the Ongoing Tradition of Adapting and Appropriating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (hybrid)

Sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture; International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB); International Pearl-Poet Society

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Joseph M. Sullivan, and Amber Dunai


60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)

Hybrid event: Thursday, 8 May, through Saturday, 10 May, 2025

Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2024

Session Information

Released in 2021, David Lowery’s film The Green Knight thrust the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight into the spotlight like never before and attracted the attention of viewers and critics across the globe. Scholars of medieval literature and film have also been inspired by the film’s release, and there is now a flourishing field of The Green Knight Studies as displayed in articles, books, conferences, essays, special issues, and themed sessions. However, all of this attention on Lowery’s work creates a limited understanding of the full post-medieval afterlife of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.


We propose this session as a counter to the flurry of attention on Lowery’s work. The Green Knight is merely one example of a much wider array of adaptations of the story that began in the sixteenth century with The Greene Knight and continues to this day with comics, drama, fiction, film, games, illustration, music, opera, picture books, radio broadcasts, and television programming. Beyond these, aspects of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight have been appropriated by many creative artists and integrated into their own creations in various media. Collectively, these adaptations and appropriations make up a rich textual tradition for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that now extends over five centuries and deserves more notice.


Our intent in this session is twofold:

• First, to uncover what we lose by focusing on Lowery’s film outside of the larger context of adaptation and appropriations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
• Second, to highlight what can be added to the larger fields of Arthurian Studies and Pearl-Poet Studies by widening our view of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to include further or other adaptations and appropriations of the text in our research and teaching.

Submissions should address at least one (if not both) of the following questions:

• What other adaptations and appropriations do we miss by focusing on Lowery’s film?
• What do we gain (for the disciple, our students, and/or ourselves) when we look beyond it?

Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com.

Submissions will also be considered as part of an essay collection on the theme.

Submission Information

The process for proposing contributions to sessions of papers, roundtables and poster sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies uses an online submission system powered by Confex. Be advised that submissions cannot be accepted through email. Rather, access the direct link in Confex to our session at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6431. You can also view the full Call for Papers list at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call.


Within Confex, proposals to sessions of papers, poster sessions and roundtables require the author's name, affiliation and contact information; an abstract (300 words) for consideration by session organizer(s); and a short description (50 words) that may be made public. Proposals to sessions of papers and poster sessions also require a title for the submission (contributions to roundtables are untitled).


Proposers of papers or contributions to roundtables for hybrid sessions should indicate in their abstracts whether they intend to present in person or virtually.


If you need help with your submissions, the Congress offers some resources at the Participating in the Congress page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/participating-congress. Click to open the section labeled “Propose a Paper” and scroll down for the Quick Guide handouts.



Be advised of the following policies for participating in the Congress:


You are invited to propose one paper (as a sole author or as a co-author) for one session of papers. You may propose a paper for a sponsored or special session or for the general sessions, but not both. You may propose an unlimited number of contributions to roundtables and poster sessions, but you will not be scheduled to actively participate (as paper presenter, roundtable discussant, poster author, presider, respondent, workshop leader, demonstrator or performer) in more than three sessions.


Further details on the Congress’s Policies can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/policies-guidelines.



A reminder: Presenters accepted to the Congress must register for the full event. The registration fee is the same for on-site and virtual participants. For planning, the cost for the previous year’s event is posted at the Congress’s Registration page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration.


If necessary, the Medieval Institute and Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University offer limited funding to presenters. These include both subsidized registration grants and travel awards. Please see the Awards page at the Congress site for details at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.

CFP Apocalyptic Arthuriana (A Roundtable) (virtual) (9/15/2024; ICMS Kalamazoo 5/8-10/2025)

Apocalyptic Arthuriana (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)

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa and Joseph M. Sullivan


60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)

Hybrid event: Thursday, 8 May, through Saturday, 10 May, 2025

Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2024

Session Information

The Arthurian story is one of rise, fall, and promised return.


In this panel, we’d like to focus, in part, on the end of Camelot to explore the events and interactions that caused its downfall in texts both medieval and post-medieval.


Related to this, we are also interested in tales from across the ages that move Arthurian elements across space and time, where, as once and future devices and figures, the relics and members of Arthur’s court are pitted against new threats endangering the realm and/or the world at large.


Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com.

Guiding Questions

• How do notions of loss, catastrophe, and/or calamity figure into Arthurian narratives (past or present)?
• What are the affordances of the Arthurian corpus in theorizing about calamity in a range of contexts (medieval to present)?
• Who causes the fall of Camelot? Why? How?
• Who survives the fall of Camelot? Why? How?
• Which devices and figures are revived? When? Where? Why?
• What/Who do these revived devices and figures face in new eras and places?

Submission Information

The process for proposing contributions to sessions of papers, roundtables and poster sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies uses an online submission system powered by Confex. Be advised that submissions cannot be accepted through email. Rather, access the direct link in Confex to our session at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/round/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6421. You can also view the full Call for Papers list at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call.


Within Confex, proposals to sessions of papers, poster sessions and roundtables require the author's name, affiliation and contact information; an abstract (300 words) for consideration by session organizer(s); and a short description (50 words) that may be made public. Proposals to sessions of papers and poster sessions also require a title for the submission (contributions to roundtables are untitled).


Proposers of papers or contributions to roundtables for hybrid sessions should indicate in their abstracts whether they intend to present in person or virtually.


If you need help with your submissions, the Congress offers some resources at the Particpating in the Congress page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/participating-congress. Click to open the section labeled “Propose a Paper” and scroll down for the Quick Guide handouts.



Be advised of the following policies for participating in the Congress:


You are invited to propose one paper (as a sole author or as a co-author) for one session of papers. You may propose a paper for a sponsored or special session or for the general sessions, but not both. You may propose an unlimited number of contributions to roundtables and poster sessions, but you will not be scheduled to actively participate (as paper presenter, roundtable discussant, poster author, presider, respondent, workshop leader, demonstrator or performer) in more than three sessions.


Further details on the Congress’s Policies can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/policies-guidelines.



A reminder: Presenters accepted to the Congress must register for the full event. The registration fee is the same for on-site and virtual participants. For planning, the cost for the previous year’s event is posted at the Congress’s Registration page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration.


If necessary, the Medieval Institute and Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University offer limited funding to presenters. These include both subsidized registration grants and travel awards. Please see the Awards page at the Congress site for details at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.



For more information about the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain, please see our website at https://kingarthurforever.blogspot.com/. For more information on the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB), please see our website at https://www.international-arthurian-society-nab.org/, and do consider becoming a member of the society.

Notice Re-Creating Camelots at Kalamazoo 2024

Re-Creating Camelot? Community-Building in Arthurian Studies (A Roundtable) (Virtual)

59th International Congress on Medieval Studies (you must register to attend)

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI)

Virtual Session

Session 474: Saturday, 11 May 2024, from 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM


Co-Sponsored by Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain and

International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)


Co-Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College, and Joseph M. Sullivan, Univ. of Oklahoma


Presider: Carl B. Sell, Univ. of Pittsburgh 


(This session will be recorded.)

Paper 1:

“There Are One or Two Changes I'd Like You to Consider”: The Elusive Attempts to Revise Lerner and Lowe’s Camelot in Contemporary America

Jarrod DePrado, Sacred Heart University 


Pronouns: He/Him/His

Jarrod DePrado is an instructor at Sacred Heart University in the Departments of Languages & Literature and Catholic Studies. He received his graduate degree from Boston University in English and American Literature. His area of specialization is transhistorical drama—bridging Shakespeare, 20th- & 21st-Century American Drama, and musical theatre—with a focus on adaptation studies and American politics. He will begin his PhD in English at the University of Connecticut in the Fall.

Paper 2:

Tournament of "Diversity": Inclusion, Expulsion and Panic

Tirumular (Drew) Narayanan, University of Wisconsin-Madison


Pronouns: He/Him/His


Drew Narayanan is a PhD Candidate in Art History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His dissertation project focuses on the “Sultan of Babylon” as historical and fantastical racialized construction in 14th and 15th century Latin Christian manuscripts. He has also won a prize for his peer-reviewed article titled “Sir Palamedes the Indelibly ‘Saracen’ Knight: Heraldry, Monstrosity, and Race in Fifteenth-Century Arthurian Romance Manuscripts.”



Paper 3:

“(Re)creating Camelot:  Scholars, Networks, and the Academy”

Richard Utz, Georgia Institute of Technology


Pronouns: he, him, hine, hisse, hes, him-seluen

Richard Utz is Professor of Medievalism Studies and Interim Dean in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech. His contributions to the Roundtable topic include "The Chameleon Principle: Reflections on the Status of Arthurian Studies in the Academy," Arthuriana (2007) and Medievalism: A Manifesto (2017).

Notice Creating Camelots at Kalamazoo 2024

Creating Camelot(s): The Idea of Community in Arthurian Texts (Virtual)

59th International Congress on Medieval Studies (you must register to attend)

Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI)

Virtual Session

Session 425: Saturday, 11 May 2024, from 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM


Co-Sponsored by Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain and

International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)


Co-Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College, and Joseph M. Sullivan, Univ. of Oklahoma


Presider: Karen Casey Casebier, Univ. of Tennessee–Chattanooga 

(This session will be recorded.)


Paper 1:

Kissing King Arthur: The Threat of Discord in Chrétien's Erec et Enide and Hartmann's Erec

Jennifer Schmitt Carnell, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library 

Dr. Jennifer Carnell (she/her) earned her doctorate last year at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. She then began working for the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library near St. Cloud, Minnesota, where she is updating their catalog of microfilms of Western medieval manuscripts housed in German libraries. Jenn’s dissertation is a close reading of the role of communal expressions of joy in medieval German literature, and today’s presentation has been developed from one of the chapters.

Paper 2:

Worship and Noyse: Chivalric Identity and the Formation of Emotional Communities in Malory's Morte Darthur

Victoria E Dikeman, Ohio State Univ. 

Victoria Dikeman (she/her) is a PhD candidate at The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on Arthurian literature. Currently, she is completing her dissertation on reputation and gossip in Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur.

Paper 3:

The Broadway 2023 Camelot Revival: A Hollow Retelling of the Legend?

Hope E Koonin, Independent Scholar 

Hope Koonin is an independent scholar. She graduated in 2023 from UC Davis with a Bachelor of Arts in English. She is interested in the study and history of fantasy literature.

CFP Merlin (A Roundtable) (in person) (9/15/2023; ICMS May 2024)

Sharing on behalf of the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch:

Merlin (A Roundtable) (in person)

Sponsoring Organization: International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)

Organizer: Molly A. Martin

The IAS-NAB is sponsoring a roundtable on Merlin at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo next year. We are hoping to have a nice mix of short (5-10 min) papers that look at Merlin in different time periods, different language traditions, different media, etc. If you have thoughts about Merlin and plan to be in Kalamazoo (it is an in-person session), do consider submitting.



Submissions are through the official system (see the CFP here) and are due on September 15.



Let me know if you have any questions (martinma@uindy.edu).



Thanks,

Molly Martin

CFP Re-Creating Camelot? Community-Building in Arthurian Studies (A Roundtable) (virtual) (9/15/2023; ICMS 5/9-11/2024)

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.

CFP History, Romance, Fantasy, and Others: The Blending of Genres in Arthuriana (9/15/2023; ICMS 5/9-11/2024)

ICMS CFP: History, Romance, Fantasy, and Others: The Blending of Genres in Arthuriana

Posted on August 5, 2023 by lhaught

Source: https://medievalisms.org/icms-cfp-history-romance-fantasy-and-others-the-blending-of-genres-in-arthuriana/.

History, Romance, Fantasy, and Others: The Blending of Genres in Arthuriana

Contact Person: Rachael Warmington; rachael.warmington@shu.edu

Delivery Mode: Traditional in-person

Principal Sponsoring Organization: International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)

The blending of genres in medieval Arthuriana signifies a crucial evolution in storytelling. These blended narratives resonate with contemporary audiences, fostering renewed interest in Arthuriana. As cultural norms shift, this intermingling of genres enables nuanced discussions of identity, ethics, and social roles. Additionally, these blended genres make possible reimaginations of the narratives that offer relevant and profound explorations of the human condition which foster a dialogue between the past and present. The diversity and hybridity of Arthuriana, particularly in chronicles, romances, and fantasies, align with contemporary literary tastes, enabling greater accessibility, relevance, and inclusivity.

Deadline for New Submissions: Friday, September 15, 2023; abstracts must be submitted through the ICMS website for consideration.

Sponsored Session Kalamazoo 2023

Pleased to announce the schedule for our sponsored session this year at Kalamazoo. The full program and registration information can be found on the conference website at this link. 




58th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Saturday, May 13

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. EDT

345 Virtual

Accessing Avalon Today: Best Practices for Connecting Contemporary Readers to Arthurian Texts Online (A Roundtable)

Sponsor: Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain

Presider: Carl B. Sell, Univ. of Pittsburgh

Organizer: Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College



A roundtable discussion with Megan B. Abrahamson, Central New Mexico Community College; Tirumular (Drew) Narayanan, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison; and Anna Czarnowus, Univ. of Silesia

Last Call CFP: Revisiting a Racialized Camelot: Lesser Known "Knights of Color" and Addressing Lacunas in Our Approaches (A Round Table) (proposals by 9/15/2022)

Call for Papers ICMS 2023

Revisiting a Racialized Camelot: Lesser Known "Knights of Color" and Addressing Lacunas in Our Approaches (A Round Table).

Sponsored by: International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB)

Co-Sponsoring Organization(s): Monsters: The Experimental Association for the Research of Cryptozoology through Scholarly Theory and Practical Application (MEARCSTAPA)

Keywords: Arthur, Arthurian, Camelot, knights, race and racialized, monstrosity.



This session contributes to ongoing discussions about "Race in the Middle Ages," focusing on minor "Knights of Color" in Arthuriana and how their characterizations might nuance scholarly perspectives of the racial dynamics at Camelot. We emphasize that the expected categories for determining race such as skin color, physiognomy, costume and, at times, religion remain insufficient and inconsistent when dealing critically with premodern race. Thus, the modifier of "Color" here should be understood to cover a variety of polities and geographical locations and not just epidermal difference. While a great deal has been written about Palamedes, Morien, and Feirefiz, we seek to forefront lesser-known, non-Latin Christian knights, including those with “monstrous” origins, present in Arthurian narratives. Additionally, given that the majority of medieval critical race frameworks come out of literary studies, this session seeks to create a crucial opportunity for other fields such as art history, performance studies, and philology, as well as more "global” approaches, to provide new lenses for understanding a racialized Camelot.

This session is especially interested in: the borders between race & monstrosity in Arthuriana, methodological lacunas in approaches to Camelot material, Arthurian enemies, the relationship between "Knights of Color" in Arthuriana and such knights in different traditions that appear in the same manuscripts, philological studies about the "garbled" names of “Knights of Color,” their linguistic origins, the presence of Arthurian narratives in non-Latin Christian contexts, teaching experiences around “Race in Arthuriana” and the roles “Knights of Color” play in medievalism when imagining a post-racial Camelot without having a post-racial present.

Please send an abstract (300 words maximum) to the ICMS Confex site https://icms.confex.com/icms/2023/cfp.cgi & Drew Narayanan at tnarayanan@wisc.edu by September 15th. The session will consist of 6 ten-minute papers followed by questions. The session will be In-Person at the International Conference on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo 2023.

CFP Accessing Avalon Today: Best Practices for Connecting Contemporary Readers to Arthurian Texts Online (9/15/2022; Kalamazoom 2023)

Call for Papers for Virtual Session of the 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies to be in a hybrid format Thursday, 11 May, through Saturday, 13 May 2023

Accessing Avalon Today: Best Practices for Connecting Contemporary Readers to Arthurian Texts Online

Sponsored by the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain

Contact: Michael A Torregrossa

Modality: Virtual

The Matter of Britain is a living tradition with new texts produced each year in a variety of media and genres. The vastness, vitality, and adaptability of the corpus, from medieval to modern, allow for an incredibly rich potential for scholarship and teaching. However, the availability and cost of many items greatly restrict what can actually be accessed by us and our students. In this session, we’d like to start a conversation related to the digital humanities about Arthurian works that are open-access materials or open-educational resources and how they can best be used in the classroom and research.

Please submit paper proposal into the Congress’s Confex system accessible at the Call for Papers page for the event (at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call). Scroll down to select “Make a Proposal,” and, once on that page, select our session under the list of “Sponsored and Special Sessions of Papers”.

Submission must be made no later than 15 September 2022.

More information about the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain can be found at our blog at https://kingarthurforever.blogspot.com/.

CFP Sponsored Sessions Kalamazoom 2023 (deadline for proposals 9/15/2022)

 Sorry for being so late sharing this.

Please submit a proposal into Confex (from this link) , if you're interested in presenting. 

Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain

Accessing Avalon Today: Best Practices for Connecting Contemporary Readers to Arthurian Texts Online

Contact: Michael A Torregrossa
Modality: Virtual
The Matter of Britain is a living tradition with new texts produced each year in a variety of media and genres. The vastness, vitality, and adaptability of the corpus, from medieval to modern, allow for an incredibly rich potential for scholarship and teaching. However, the availability and cost of many items greatly restrict what can actually be accessed by ourselves and our students. In this session, we’d like to start a conversation related to the digital humanities about Arthurian works that are open-access materials or open-educational resources and how they can best be used in the classroom and research.

Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

Medieval Women from the Middle Ages to Modern Mass Medievalisms

Contact: Michael A. Torregrossa
Modality: Virtual
Popular culture offers both positive and negative representations of medieval women in medievalist and medievalesque works from Arthuriana and depictions of Joan of Arc and Hildegard von Bingen to Disney’s Princesses, films like The Lord of the Rings, Snow White and the Huntress and The Duel, and streaming series like House of the Dragon and Rings of Power. There has been an increasing focus on these figures in both the popular press and academic discourse; however, much work remains to be done to more fully assess how these texts adapt, adopt, and/or appropriate medieval characters and tropes.

Michael

--

Michael A. Torregrossa (he/his/him), M.A.

*Founder, The Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture:https://medievalinpopularculture.blogspot.com/

*Founder, The Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain: https://kingarthurforever.blogspot.com/

Kalamazoo 2023 News

I am pleased to report that the proposal for our sponsored session at new year's International Congress on Medieval Studies was approved. This is great news since many of our past attempts to propose a session have been refused.
 

The theme of our session (proposed as hybrid) will be "Accessing Avalon Today: Best Practices for Connecting Contemporary Readers to Arthurian Texts Online." A full call for papers will follow later in the summer.

Michael A. Torregrossa

Founder, Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain

CFP Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Brut (9/15/21; ICMS 2022)

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Brut-ICMS 2022

deadline for submissions: 

September 15, 2021

full name / name of organization: 

International Lawman's Brut Society

contact email: 

kjt9t@uvawise.edu

Source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/07/12/interdisciplinary-approaches-to-the-brut-icms-2022

This session calls for papers that explore ways to incorporate the Brut—Layamon’s Brut and its analogues—into interdisciplinary studies, seeking to situate the Brut in a broader academic and pedagogical context.  How can the Brut, a text that has traditionally defied categorization, provide a way to introduce the interdisciplinary nature of medieval studies?  How might different disciplinary approaches broaden the appeal of a medieval historical poem to twenty-first century students and readers?  The session encourages proposals on teaching the Brut as part of an interdisciplinary curriculum.  We welcome studies that combine traditional academic disciplines, such as history, literature, and art, but we also look for papers that approach the Brut from new perspectives, including, for instance, media and popular culture studies.  

Please submit proposals (250-300 word) to the ICMS submissions website (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2022am/cfp.cgi) by September 15.

Please direct any questions to:

Kenneth Tiller

Professor of English

University of Virginia-Wise

kjt9t@uvawise.edu

cfp Language, Space, and Place in the Brut (9/15/21; ICMS 2022)

Language, Space, and Place in the Brut-ICMS 2022

deadline for submissions: 

September 15, 2021

full name / name of organization: 

International Lawman's Brut Society

contact email: 

kjt9t@uvawise.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/07/12/language-space-and-place-in-the-brut-icms-2022

Scholarship on the Brut has begun to reexamine the role of space and place in the text’s presentation and readers’ reception of insular history.  The Brut texts provide fertile grounds for such discussions, as much of the legendary history documented in the Brut involves reshaping and redefining insular territory, including descriptions of the island and its wonders, the construction of cities and castles, the renaming of places and cities by rulers and conquerors, among others.  This session seeks proposals that further the critical conversation about territorial and textual space and its relation to language in the Brut and in its analogues.  We are particularly interested in proposals that examine ways the Brut texts engage medieval concepts of space and place: how is space defined, perceived, and navigated in the Brut?  How does Layamon’s own sense of place or space inform his identity?  Possible topics include: local space in the Brut, boundaries and territorial limits, text as space, Layamon in his West-Midlands context. 

Please submit proposals (250-300 word) to the ICMS submissions website (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2022am/cfp.cgi) by September 15.

Please direct any questions to:

Kenneth Tiller

Professor of English

University of Virginia-Wise

kjt9t@uvawise.edu

Rejected Again by Kalamazoo

I am sorry to report that our proposed sponsored session on "Fair Unknowns: [Re]Claiming Popular Representations of the Matter of Britain" was rejected for inclusion in the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies.

The rationale for our dismissal was as follows:

Your proposal was rejected because its content was duplicated by other Arthuriana proposals that were more strongly conceptualized. The Committee believes that the subject of the Matter of Britain proposed by the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain can be addressed by papers submitted to those other sessions. 

 

The response is, in part, a valid critique. While there are a number of Arthurian-related sessions that were accepted, the majority appear limited in scope, both in terms of their temporal context and media focus--aspects we were concerned with widening. As our blog title denotes, King Arthur seems to be forever. The Arthurian tradition spans the past, present, and future. Focusing on the Arthuriana of now (as seems the plan of many of the accepted sessions) may fill Zoom rooms, but it doesn't help to explore (and hopefully start to fill) the gaps in our knowledge, as was our intent. Therefore, please be on the lookout for a related call, where we hope to continue our work elsewhere.

Michael A. Torregrossa
Founder, Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain 

CFP English Arthurian Literature Between Malory and Tennyson (9/15/19; Kalamazoo 2020)

Posted on behalf of Chris Berard:

CFP: ENGLISH ARTHURIAN LITERATURE BETWEEN MALORY AND TENNYSON

International Arthurian Society-North American Branch-sponsored session
ICMS “Kalamazoo” 2020

The four centuries between William Caxton’s publication of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (1485) and the completion of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s cycle of twelve narrative Arthurian poems, The Idylls of the King (1885), tend to be regarded as ‘an Arthurian nadir’ for English-language Arthurian literature. This generalization, as Alan Lupack has noted, trivializes a rich assortment of texts in which Arthur plays a leading role, but one that often departs considerably from his Malorian likeness. This panel seeks to foster an exploration of the portrayal of King Arthur within this corpus of ‘lesser’ Arthuriana. Our aim is to promote interest in these oft-forgotten texts, and to explore how these treatments of Arthur more broadly illuminate post-medieval reception of the history and literature of the Middle Ages. We invite you to explore the portrayal of King Arthur in English literary works written between 1485 and 1885—the more eccentric, the better. How was King Arthur applied to the cultural context in which the given text was composed? Did medieval Arthurian narratives serve as source material? We encourage an examination of the harmonization, successful or unsuccessful, of old and new genres and motifs.

Session format: 15-20-minute papers

Please send your 300-word abstract and completed  PIF form to David Johnson, djohnson@fsu.edu, and Christopher Berard, cberard2@providence.edu,  by September 15.

Make Medievalism Matter: Kalamazoo 2020 News

A much belated notice that our sponsored session on professionalism and Medievalism Studies was rejected by the organizers of the 2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies. The session was designed following many conversations at this year's conference with medieval(ism)ists that felt out of place in the field of Medieval Studies and were seeking support and mentoring.

The full proposal follows:

Proposed session #1 title: Can We Be More Than the Middle Ages? The Place of Medievalism Studies within Medieval Studies (Roundtable)

      Proposed session #1 format: Roundtable

      Importance #1: Medievalisms are the lifeblood of our field. They create interest in the Middle Ages and keep its legacies alive despite our distances from the era in time and space, but does our fascination with this material come at a cost, one few are willing to pay? Can medievalists, of all levels, successfully integrate popular representations of the medieval into their research and careers, or must Medievalism Studies remain an outlier, a guilty pleasure rather than an appropriate option to  further the field? Through this roundtable, we seek to explore the answers to these and similar questions.

      Method #1: The academic study of medievalism has been viewed as a legitimate avenue of inquiry for just over forty years, and scholarship on medieval-themed art, comics, drama, fiction, film, games, and television programming has grown considerably over time. However, the phenomenal success of Medievalism Studies can be more a curse than a blessing. Medieval Studies and its more traditional sub-disciplines are not always as welcoming of this material as they appear, and we wonder whether the pursuit of medievalisms is a worthwhile endeavor or something capable of causing stigma or even harm to fall upon the researcher.

      Keywords #1: Medievalism, Inclusion

The official response is that our session "was rejected because its content was duplicated by other medievalism proposals that were more strongly conceptualized. The Committee believes that the subject the Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain proposed can be addressed by papers submitted to other sessions."

We remain convinced that our session proposal was unique and necessary, and, with the aid our sibling  group, the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture,  will seek to place it elsewhere in the hopes of initiating this much needed conversation and produce some answers for those that see themselves as affected.

Please contact us at medievalinpopularculture@gmail.com for suggestions or comments.

Michael Torregrossa
Founder, Alliance for the Promotion of Research on the Matter of Britain
Founder, Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture

CFP: ICMS 2019 - More "Lesser" Arthuriana

This session will continue the conversations of the successful 2018 session on “Lesser” English Arthuriana. One of the findings of this session was that medieval and modern Arthurian texts that are considered “lesser” often highlight women’s voices, and as a result are either lacking in editions and scholarship and rarely taught, or are glossed and translated in ways that obfuscate or even erase their focus on women’s voices. “More ’Lesser’ Arthuriana” will open this line of inquiry to medieval and postmedieval Arthurian texts in all languages to consider how and why such texts come to be considered extra-canonical or “lesser.” How might a renewed discussion of such texts’ place in our research and teaching contribute to a deeper understanding of the aesthetic diversity of the Arthurian canon and the Middle Ages more generally? How might they help us to re-think and re-frame the “canonical” Arthurian texts on which we often focus? This session welcomes papers that focus on teaching these “lesser” texts or on scholarly or editorial interventions. Please send proposals to Dr. Usha Vishnuvajjala at ukv630@gmail.com by Sept 1.