“The Middle Ages” are created and maintained by those who imagine them today, lending urgency to the project of narrating a global medieval that resists the field’s racist and nationalist myths. Given a need for new imaginaries:
- What prospects of medievalism arise when medieval sources are freed from their nineteenth-century creation myths?
- How do medieval depictions of cross-cultural encounter provoke new imaginaries?
- How might medievalists ethically incorporate premodern Indigenous and Pacific Rim cultural artifacts to imagine beyond, rather than replicate, settler-colonial and imperialist mode(l)s?
- What can medieval sources offer, imaginatively encountered in the public sphere or classroom, to new audiences?
We invite 15- to 20-minute papers employing a broad range of methodologies for the discursive goal of critically reimagining a global medieval studies. We use “global medieval” not only as geopolitical designation but also to indicate inclusive praxis that involves telling the Middle Ages (and considering how they’ve been told) and amplifying marginalized voices, sources, and medievalisms. Such praxis may include professional reflection and critical theorizing about the roles and responsibilities in reimagining and recreating “the medieval” and the challenges and opportunities of counter-narrating.
In keeping with MAP's organizational focus as an academic society whose membership, affiliated institutions, and mission statement embraces our position on the Pacific Rim, we aim to foreground the voices of medievalists of colour and Indigenous medievalists, and of scholars who work at the intersection of Indigenous and Pacific Rim cultures and medieval studies.
Please email abstracts of approximately 300 words with the Participant Information Form (available at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions) to Miranda Wilcox (miranda_wilcox@byu.edu) by September 15th, 2019.