Lectures, Conferences, and Other Events

SPRING 2008

January

February

Friday, February 1

3:30PM

Dinner:

Home of Bob Hasenfratz

Lectures:

"The Vercelli Book: Prose and Who Knows"-Samantha Zacher (Cornell University)

"The Vercelli Book: Verse and Worse?"-Andy Orchard (University of Toronto)

University of Connecticut

CLAS 163

Storrs, CT

Tuesday, February 19

4-5:30PM

University of Connecticut Humanities Institute Dissertation Fellow Talk

Andrew Pfrenger

University of Connecticut

CLAS Suite 300-312

Storrs, CT

Wednesday, February 20

4PM

Lecture: "Mind the Gap! ‘Medieval,’ ‘Renaissance,’ or ‘Early Modern’ Drama?"

Barbara Palmer (University of Mary Washington, retired)

Conventional theatre history since at least the early nineteenth century stranded English “medieval” drama on one side of a vast divide from English “Renaissance” drama—Shakespeare, on his spotlighted pedestal, flanked, more or less begrudgingly, by his competitors. Alone on that medieval side of the great divide, illuminated by a dim religious candle, knelt “The Wakefield Master,” explained away as a solitary, eccentric, dramatic genius. This lecture will attempt to bridge the gap, arguing an English cultural and dramatic continuity rather than division. 

Dr. Barbara D. Palmer is Professor of English (retired) at the University of Mary Washington and a Scholar in Residence of Mary Baldwin College’s MLitt/MFA in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance. Palmer’s publications have spanned English medieval and Renaissance drama, art history, and iconography. Her book, The Early Art of the West Riding of Yorkshire (Medieval Institute Publications, 1990), was followed by numerous articles in Comparative Drama, Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, and The EDAM Review on English medieval drama, including her exposure of the forged “Wakefield cycle” records. Her recent article “Early Modern Mobility: Players, Payments, and Patrons” (Shakespeare Quarterly 56) won the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society’s 2006 Martin Stevens Award for Best New Essay in Early Drama Studies. She presently is the editor of the Records of Early English Drama (REED) West Riding, Yorkshire and Derbyshire collections; the secretary of the REED Executive Board; and the president of REED-USA, Inc., the U.S. fundraising branch which hopes to bring the REED project to published completion.

University of Connecticut

CLAS 217 (Stern)

Storrs, CT

March

Saturday, March 1

25th Annual New England Medieval Studies Consortium Graduate Student Conference: "Form and Transformation in the Middle Ages"

Brown University

Providence, RI

Thursday, March 20

4PM

Lecture: "Reading a Medieval Book of Remedies: Images, Information, and Communication Design"

Jean Givens (University of Connecticut)

University of Connecticut

Benton Museum

Storrs, CT

Wednesday, March 26

4-5:30PM

University of Connecticut Humanities Institute Dissertation Fellow Talk: "The Pilgrimage of Tears in Piers Plowman"

Kate O'Sullivan

University of Connecticut

CLAS Suite 300-312

Storrs, CT

Friday, March 28

9AM: Registration

10AM-2:30PM: Papers

10th Annual Medieval Studies/Early College Experience Secondary Schools Outreach

Topic: Landscape and Environment in Medieval Europe

University of Connecticut

Storrs, CT

Friday, March 28

4PM

Lecture: "Shame Culture, Sexuality, and the Naked Body in the Middle Ages: Was Norbert Elias Correct?"

Albrecht Classen (University of Arizona)

What does sexuality mean in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time? How does it   manifest itself, and what did the discourse focus on both within the Church and outside? Where were the demarcation lines between sexuality, obscenity, and pornography? Can we even use such terms f or the premodern period? This talk will examine a wide spectrum of literary and   art-historical documents reflecting upon and dealing with sexuality in order to explore the mental history behind the manifestations of physical aspects commonly identified as sexuality. The talk will also examine how we would have to evaluate global hypotheses regarding shame, embarrassment, and the naked body developed by sociologists and anthropologists, evaluated from a medieval perspective.

Dr. Albrecht Classen is a University Distinguished Professor of German Studies at the University of Arizona. He has published more than 40 scholarly books and close to 400 articles on medieval and early modern literature, focusing on comparative aspects, women’s issues, women’s literature, history of mentality, history of literary reception, communication, anthropological and sociological aspects in literary documents. His last books deal with the Medieval Chastity Belt (2007) and The Power of a Woman’s Voice (2007). Recently he edited a scholarly anthology on History of Childhood (2005) and on History of Old Age (2007). Presently he is preparing a new volume on the History of Sexuality, and he is editing a new Handbook of Medieval Studies (3 vols.). He is the co-editor of Mediaevistik and the editor of Tristania. Professor Classen has received numerous teaching and research awards and grants, most recently the 2007 Excellence in International Education Award (UA) and the Outstanding Scholarly Achievement award from the Southeastern Medieval Association. In 2004, the German government bestowed upon him the Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz am Band), the highest civilian award given by the German government.

University of Connecticut

CLAS 217 (Stern)

Storrs, CT

Western Michigan University

Kalamazoo, MI