40th Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Medieval Studies Annual Conference for 2020 will take place online March 20-21, 2021 in pre-recorded videos, zoom webinars, two plenary talks, and a final roundtable. Information on how the conference will work is on the Conference Program page.
Co-sponsored with the Centre for Medieval Literature, University of Southern Denmark and University of York; the Orthodox Christian Studies Center, Fordham University; the Center for Jewish Studies, Fordham University; and the Program in Comparative Literature, Fordham University.
Date: March 20-21, 2021, virtually
This conference addresses the multilingual contact zones and social, cultural and literary contexts of exchange in which French featured between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries. A second language of several empires, a tongue of invaders, and an idiom spread by merchants, sailors, artisans, and pilgrims, French was a medium of both border-construction and border-crossing. The program includes papers on the dynamic relations between French and other languages including Arabic, Castilian, Dutch, English, German, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, Italian, Latin, Norse, Occitan, and Welsh. Such relations often exceed traditional explanatory frameworks of cultural prestige and the nation.
Plenary Lecturers: Wolfgang Haubrichs (Universität des Saarlandes) and Teresa Shawcross (Princeton University)
Round Table Panelists: Thelma Fenster (Fordham University), Karla Mallette (University of Michigan), Anne-Hélène Miller (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), Sara Poor (Princeton University), Jocelyn Wogan-Browne (Fordham University)
Other Participants Include: Mark Chinca, Jane Gilbert, Sarah Kay, Maryanne Kowaleski, Laura Morreale, Lars Boje Mortensen, Thomas O’Donnell, Brian Reilly, and Elizabeth M. Tyler.