The e-Newsletter of the Texas Medieval Association (TEMA) - Winter 2003-2004
Published by TEMA through the Department of Social Sciences at Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, Louisiana 71497

Edited by Kent G. Hare khare@nsula.edu


In this Issue:

From the Editor

Report on TEMA 2003

From the President: A Preview of TEMA 2004

Items of Interest

Scholars in the Making

Afterword

Past issues of Mirabilia: Winter 2002-03 Summer 2003


From the Editor

My sincere thanks to those who responded to my pleas for news to fill out this third issue of the revived Mirabilia and make it something more than just minutes of our conferences and my own ruminations, which were soon going to be reduced to such as the following: "Q: Why were the Middle Ages called the 'Dark Ages'? A: Because there were so many knights." Thanks also once again to our webmaster, Ed Duncan, for all the work he does on the website and getting this newsletter posted and distributed - and making sure that the news items submitted actually make it to me. Everyone, please remember that news can be personal as well as professional - anything you wish to announce - and you can send it directly to me at the e-mail address in the header. - Kent


Report on TEMA 2003

Texas medievalists who were unable to attend this year's conference, the thirteenth annual gathering, missed another great little conference. Baylor University provided us with very nice and spacious accommodations in their Cashion Business Center, for which we thank primarily this year's organizer and outgoing president, Paul Larson. From the opening informal reception that Paul hosted at the conference hotel, the Waco Hilton, to the various smaller informal gatherings on Saturday evening once the conference had ended, we once again had opportunities to renew acquaintances and friendships among our ranks.

The conference did seem smaller than usual. There were about sixty-nine papers in twenty-four sessions held on Friday and Saturday. Quite a bit of (I believe) well-founded speculation attributed the lower numbers to budget cuts impacting on travel. I know that this issue directly affected a TEMA stalwart, Ed Duncan of Towson University. Both he and Theresa Vann of St. John's University have sent their woeful apologies and promised by e-mail that they will be with us next year. As usual, however, presenters made their way to Texas from as far away as Minnesota, North Carolina, and California. The papers that were presented were, moreover, the typical mix of the usually entertaining, sometimes amusing, and always insightful offerings - ranging from history and literature (both medieval and modern), through religion and philosophy, to practical issues of pedagogy in today's higher educational environment.

There were two plenary sessions. The first, on Friday evening, was offered by Bonnie Wheeler of Southern Methodist University, entitled "Slander in Malory." Bonnie's perceptive discussion of slander and verbal violence tied into Malory's portrayal of Lancelot included Tom Hanks' reading of passages in his inimitable style. The Saturday Tex-Mex buffet luncheon and business meeting (on which see below), and a brief set of presidential remarks by Paul Larson, "Dueling Signs: The Roman and the Greek from the Libro de buen amor," were followed by the second plenary session. Jeremy Adams (also of SMU) discussed his experience putting together a seminar in "Discovering Rodrigo Diaz: A Teacher's Quest," in which the issue of translations, especially of poetry, was enlivened by a series of various readers presenting the original language and various modern English versions.

In the business meeting, Don Kagay reported that TEMA has accomplished a great achievement - enough financial success and funds sufficient to need a tax identification number for the first time! He likewise appealed for TEMA members to send the newsletter editor (yours truly) any news they might have that might be of interest, including the names and topics of graduate students who are being directed by TEMA members. He announced that TEMA will once more sponsor six sessions for Kalamazoo (see the previous issue of Mirabilia), but that two of those sessions still needed filled - the subjects were murder and madness, I believe, and it was my impression that his request elicited enough offerings to fill the sessions. Upcoming meetings of TEMA had to be adjusted slightly. The sequence now is: 2004 at the University of Dallas, under the presidency of Philipp Rosemann; 2005 at the University of Houston, under the presidency of Sally Vaughn (TEMA's fifteenth conference, by the way); 2006 will be back at Baylor, under the presidency of Tom Hanks or his designate, since Tom wasn't present to accept his appointment; and 2007 will be at Texas A&M, under the presidency of Cary Nederman. The changes to 2006 and 2007 were voted by acclamation.

Incoming president Philipp Rosemann announced a new book series, "Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations." Two volumes have already been published: Manegold of Lautenbach's Liber contra Wolfelmum, and Ranulph Higden's Ars componendi sermons. He suggested we ask for these and future volumes for our various university libraries, and requested suggestions for future volumes. See the University of Dallas website for more information.

Sally Vaughn made a pitch for TEMA-sponsored sessions at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds every summer. The deadline for the upcoming meeting, July 2004, was 30 September 2003, but she suggested we think about sponsoring such sessions in the future.

Finally, just prior to his plenary address, Jeremy Adams was presented, on behalf of TEMA, with a plaque recognizing his seventieth birthday by "his sometime gardener" Don Kagay.

- Kent Hare (with help from Don Kagay on events before my own arrival on Saturday morning).


From the President: A Preview of TEMA 2004

As you know, our fourteenth annual conference will be hosted by the University of Dallas. Thanks to Dr. Sally Vaughn we already have a (potential) plenary speaker lined up: Dr. Michael H. Gelting, of the Danish National Archives. Dr. Gelting is a historian of the high Middle Ages with a specialization in France and Denmark. Please note that Dr. Gelting's presence at the TEMA conference will be dependent on his ability to obtain a Fulbright Scholarship.

We will no doubt invite a second plenary speaker, but no decision has yet been taken in that regard. (Suggestions are welcome.)

Since the University of Dallas is located in a suburb, Irving, which is not exactly a teeming metropolis, it might be preferable to arrange accommodation in downtown Dallas. There is a historic and recently renovated hotel right opposite the main train station. It's called the Hotel Lawrence. A train runs frequently from the main station to South Irving, where a bus could pick TEMA people up in the mornings and take them to UD, with a similar arrangement in the evenings. The opening reception too could be held at the Hotel Lawrence.

The sessions themselves will of course be held at UD, but it is too early to say where exactly. I am currently discussing this matter with our "events coordinator."

Dallas and UD are easy to reach: we are only a few minutes from DFW International Airport. Thus, we are hoping that many TEMA members will make the trip to Dallas next September.

As for more precise details, the exact date of the meeting, and a call for papers, watch the next issue of Mirabilia!

- Philipp W. Rosemann


Items of Interest

Anyone interested in working on some unexplored 14th- and 15th-century German and Italian manuscripts on knightly fighting arts, or having suggestions on who might be interested, please contact John Clements at ARMAdirector@aol.com. John has given two demonstrations/presentations of the western martial arts tradition at TEMA (2001 and 2002), and it's pretty amazing - not much like anything you see in the movies.

Cary Nederman of Texas A&M announces the appearance of two books and a number of articles. The books are: Rhetoric and Renewal in the Latin West 1100-1540: Essays in Honour of John O. Ward, which Cary co-edited with Constant J. Mews and Rodney M. Thomson; and Political Thought in Early Fourteenth-Century England: Treatises by Walter de Milemete, William of Pagula, and William of Ockham, edited and translated by himself.

As a follow-up to his announcement at the business meeting, Philipp Rosemann sends word that the third volume in the Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations series is now published. It is a Latin edition and English translation, by James McEvoy, of two influential commentaries on the Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (namely, the commentaries by Robert Grosseteste and Thomas Gallus). The fourth volume, also on a Dionysian text, is currently in press, and twenty more are under contract. Proposals for future volumes are welcome. For further information, see http://www.udallas.edu/dmtt.

Jane Chance and Jessica Weinstein of Rice University have just received confirmation that their article entitled "National Identity and Conversion Through Medieval Romance: The Case of Hrafn Gunnlaugsson's Film 'I Skugga Hrafnsins'" will be published in the upcoming Scandinavian Studies. This is a longer version of the paper they presented at TEMA 2002, University of St. Thomas.

Finally, in case anyone thinks our Secretary-Treasurer lazes about with nothing to do between conferences, here's what Don Kagay of Albany State University in Georgia has been up to: He has just published a collection of essays for Brill with Andy Villalon of the University of Cincinnati entitled Crusaders, Condottieri and Canon: Medieval Warfare in Societies around the Mediterranean. He has also published articles this year in the Journal of Medieval Military History, Mediterranean Studies, The Journal of the Georgia Association of Historians, and the Anuario de Estudios Medievales, and had reviews in De re militari, the Sixteenth Century Studies Journal, and the Catholic Historical Review, and the American Historical Review. He's been appointed to the Governor's Committee on History in Georgia and to the executive committee of the Georgia Association of Historians. On top of this, Don has led two searches at ASU which were finally successful "after about a year of hell." Wow!


Scholars in the Making

Let's all wish Beth Allison Barr the best of luck in defending her dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, entitled "Gendered Lessons: The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England," under the direction of Judith M. Bennett. Beth is currently lecturing in the history department at her undergraduate alma mater, Baylor University. Her defense is set for December.

In response to Don Kagay's idea of names and topics of medievalist graduate students, Mirabilia has received the following: Cary Nederman of Texas A&M announces that his most senior doctoral student in Political Science, Phillip Gray, is at work on a dissertation on "Just War Theory: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives."

Sally Vaughn of University of Houston has a regular passel of graduate students. In no particular order, they include:


Afterword

Thanks again to all those who contributed items to this issue of Mirabilia. I am still looking for good medieval jokes, though, in case submissions slack off ("good" as opposed to the one in the "From the Editor" section!). The next issue will probably come after Kalamazoo next May - which it looks like I'll be able to report on directly for once. So, hope to see y'all in K'zoo. - Kent