Below, please find the Call for Papers for the four session topics sponsored by the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society at Kalamazoo 2008. These are also listed on the Medieval Congress' CFP. However, the info below gives the specific organizers for the different sessions, so you may send abstracts directly to the organizer or to me, and I'll forward them on. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Thanks,
Carolyn
Carolyn Coulson-Grigsby
Secretary/Treasurer, Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society
Assistant Professor of Theatre and Humanities
Centenary College
400 Jefferson St.
Hackettstown, NJ 07840
908-852-1400 ext 2309
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Session One: Drama in the Archives: A Session in Honor of Eckehard Simon
Eckehard Simon is one of the few scholars of medieval drama on the Continent who has worked extensively with archival sources, and this session is devoted to exploring further the ways in which we can find drama in the archives of the Middle Ages. However, as its paraphrase of Natalie Zemon Davis's influential study Fiction in the Archives suggests, papers falling under this rubric might also attempt dramatic readings of these sources. The organizer would welcome creative responses to such questions as: How might we give voice to the seemingly desiccated and silent texts that lie dormant in archives, and make them live again as artifacts of performance? What new sources await our scrutiny as records of performance practice? Are there performative aspects to the very making of archives during the Middle Ages? Can we think about the manufacture, display, transmission, and reception of documents as aspects of drama?
Organizer: Carol Symes, [log in to unmask] Department of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Session Two: Medieval Theories of Theatre
Theatrical theory from the Middle Ages is often defined and anthologized as clerical texts that reflect anti-theatrical prejudices. In reality, texts from the medieval period articulate a broad range of opinions about theatre's role in society. In addition, we can also identify theatrical theory in medieval performance practices. Staging choices, dramatic imagery, character interactions, performance conditions, actor/audience relationships, and records of reception and legislation all provide us with further evidence of the ways in which medieval communities and individuals conceptualized theatre. These practices reveal the same attention to issues of genre, function, intention, value, and decorum commonly associated with pre- and post-medieval theatrical theory. This panel seeks papers that employ a flexible definition of "theatrical theory" in order to demonstrate the variety of ways in which theatre and performance were theorized during the Middle Ages. Work from all medieval periods and geographies are welcome.
Send one-page abstract with contact information to Jill Stevenson at [log in to unmask] by September 5th, 2007
Session Three: Secular Plays Before the Secular Playhouse
Scholarship on medieval drama often focuses on its religious forms, primarily biblical vernacular plays, Latin liturgical drama, saints plays, and overtly Christian morality plays. This session provides a forum for new scholarship on medieval and early Tudor drama which is more secular or "secularized". Topics include, but are not limited to: drama at the Inns of Court, secularized morality plays, early Tudor comedy and tragedy, interludes and mummings, performance spaces, closet drama, and the larger question of 'secular vs. religious'. Papers on drama from both the British Isles and the Continent are invited.
Organizer: Carolyn Coulson-Grigsby, Centenary College, [log in to unmask]
Session Four: The Representation of Healing Miracles and Exorcisms in Early Drama
This session will focus on theater craft and the actor's body, on how healing miracles and exorcisms might have been realized in early drama, relying on various sources from implied stage directions, prop records,and images from the visual arts to the theological discussion of miracle and the genre of saints' lives where this perennial form of public spectacle and Christian witness was paramount. It is hoped that case studies from a variety of geographical areas and time periods will be covered.
Organizer: Martin Walsh, University of Michigan, [log in to unmask]
