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.

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.