The
e-Newsletter of the Texas Medieval Association (TEMA) - Spring/Summer 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:
Report on TEMA at Kalamazoo 2004
TEMA at Kalamazoo 2005 - Session Proposals
A Preview of TEMA 2004 at the University of Dallas
Past issues of Mirabilia: Winter 2003-04 | Summer 2003 | Winter 2002-03
Welcome to the latest issue of Mirabilia. It is a bit shorter than I would like, due to a dearth of news items submitted by our members, but I thank those of you who responded to the prompting e-mail a couple of weeks ago. Everyone else, please, let us know what's going on with you — toot your own horn — I'm going to!
Report on TEMA at Kalamazoo 2004
The 39th International Congress on Medieval Studies was hosted as always by Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, on Thursday through Sunday, May 6-9, 2004. It was well attended as usual, although discussion among participants and on the medieval message boards afterwards confirmed a general impression that it was maybe a bit smaller than in years past. Actually, I have not myself attended in several years until this year, but the conference seemed smaller than the last time I was there. Tight budgets for travel expenses continue to impact our profession. Nonetheless, many excellent papers were presented, including a total of twenty at the seven well-attended sessions sponsored by TEMA between Thursday morning and Sunday morning. That's up from seventeen TEMA-sponsored papers in six sessions last year. I myself unfortunately only arrived at the conference a few minutes after the TEMA business meeting's adjournment Friday evening, but Don Kagay reports that 25 persons attended. By the time the wine ran out he had received nine proposals for TEMA-sponsored sessions at next year's Congress (see below).
There were two plenary lectures, Friday and Saturday mornings. I did not arrive in time for the first, "Making History: Actions and Agents within the Liturgical Framework of Time," by Margot Fassler of Yale University, but it sounds fascinating and I heard good reports of it. The second, by Eamon Duffy of Magdalen College, University of Cambridge, "Margin and Center: The Book of Hours and the Late Medieval Culture of Prayer," was simply amazing, the best plenary lecture this junior historian has ever heard at any conference — well worth the effort required after a long day of travel and a late night with colleagues to get up and attend. Duffy focused on the marginalia in Books of Hours' memoranda of every kind, most typically reminders to pray for various intentions, some written in by famous figures asking courtiers' prayers in a practice Duffy likened to a modern autograph book. He also related an amusing story of how the British Library contacted him after he requested photographs of pertinent pages carrying such marginalia, concerned that "There must be some mistake — all of the pages you're requesting have been defaced!"
The conference also offered the usual opportunities to renew acquaintances, make new friends and professional contacts, and eat and drink a great deal with colleagues during a few days away from home and the usual academic responsibilities.
TEMA at Kalamazoo 2005 — Session Proposals
Don Kagay faxed the following nine proposed sessions and organizers to the Medieval Institute on May 14. The usual caveat applies — not all of them will be accepted, but there is no way to know which ones will make the cut until the Medieval Institute sends out its Call for Papers, usually in late June.
1. "The Great War and Medieval Memory" — Bruce Brasington, West Texas A&M University
2. "Humor, Comedy, and Laughter in the Libro de Buen Amor" — Paul Larson, Baylor University
3. "Peter Lombard and the Sentences Controversy" — Philipp Rosemann, University of Dallas
4. "Episcopal Reform in Thought and Action" — Sally Vaughn, University of Houston
5. "Miracles
and Magic in Politics and Propaganda" — Sally Vaughn, University of
Houston
6. "Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Women: The Powerful and the Criminal"
— Sally Vaughn, University of Houston
7. "The Wider Influence of Saint Anselm" — Sally Vaughn, University of Houston
8. "Studies in Medieval Language and Literature in Honor of James Sledd" — David Porter, Southern University
9. "The Pastoral Response to the Madness of Women in Late Medieval England" — Mary Beth Davis, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
A Preview of TEMA 2004 at the University of Dallas
Looking forward,
the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the Texas Medieval Association is
coming up fast now. You may well have received a couple of mailings regarding
this year's meeting already, but in case you haven't - or if you've misplaced
them - here's the pertinent information.
The dates for the sessions are Friday, September 17, and Saturday, September
18, although current TEMA President Philipp Rosemann reports that there
will be a welcoming reception at the official conference hotel, the Hotel Lawrence,
on Thursday evening, September 16. As always, papers on any aspect of medieval
culture are welcomed — literary, historical, musical, philosophical, art-historical,
or religious. Session and paper abstracts should be submitted by Sunday,
August 15, to Philipp Rosemann <rosemann@udallas.edu>,
Philosophy Department, University of Dallas, Irving, TX 75062-4736, or to Don
Kagay <dkagay@asurams.edu>, 2812-A
Westgate, Albany, GA 31721. Once more, we would like particularly to invite
graduate students to consider attending and giving a paper.
This year's plenary speaker will by Professor Steven J. Livesey of the University
of Oklahoma, who will speak on "Accessus ad Lombardum: The Secular
and the Sacred in Medieval Commentaries on the Sentences." Philipp Rosemann
will devote his presidential address to Peter Lombard as well. More details
on the conference as well as information on lodging and transportation are available
in a letter from Philipp Rosemann and the Texas
Medieval Conference section of the TEMA website.
Don Kagay was
promoted to full professor at Albany State University in Georgia this year —
congratulations on that! But he further reports that, "almost as a way
of deflating my enthusiasm, [I] was elected as President of the Faculty Senate"
— condolences on that? In the area of publishing, he has just submitted
the first volume of essays on the Hundred Years War to E. J. Brill, which should
appear in print by September. His co-editor on that volume is L. J. Andrew Villalon.
John Clements, Director of ARMA (The Association of Renaissance Martial Arts),
reports the posting of two new articles of interest on the ARMA
website. One concerns the True
Weights of Medieval Swords; the other deals with the Medieval
Pell Training Device.
Jennifer Thibodeaux, Ph.D., reports completing her doctorate in Medieval History
at the University of Kansas under the direction of Steven A. Epstein. Her dissertation
title was "'Man of the Church or Man of the Village': The Conflict of Masculinities
among Priests in the Thirteenth-Century Diocese of Rouen." She has furthermore
secured a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Medieval History at
the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, beginning in the fall. Congratulations
on both counts!
LIT Verlag has just published Bruce
Brasington's Ways of Mercy, an edition and analysis of the Prologue
to Bishop Ivo of Chartres' Decretum and Panormia. He has heard
nothing on movie rights, but his classic rock radio show has been picked up
for a sixth year.
Finally, your editor would like to report that my own article, "Athelstan
of England: Christian King and Hero," should be published very shortly
by The
Heroic Age, an on-line journal of early-medieval northwestern Europe.
This is an expanded version of the paper I gave at TEMA 2000, Baylor University,
dealing with the fame of the tenth-century king who is most famous from the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle poem The Battle of Brunanburh. (See? I did toot
my own horn!)
That's it! Thanks again to those who contributed items to this issue. And thanks again to our webmaster, Ed Duncan, for all he does, including posting and distributing this newsletter. See you in Dallas! — Kent.