The Early Middle English Society (emesoc.org) is sponsoring two panels at the 44th International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 7-10 May 2009.
Please send abstracts and any questions to Dorothy Kim.
Abstracts are due 25 September 2008.
Early Middle English Society I: Editing Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud Misc. 108
Roundtable
This manuscript contains the earliest version of the South English Legendary and several early romance texts (Havelok the Dane and King Horn). The roundtable will bring together a group of scholars to discuss various issues that have surfaced in editing Laud MS 108 as a whole book for a scholarly and a student audience. Some of the topics that may be discussed includes general editorial practices in relation to a single-manuscript edition; the possibilities of an electronic edition; resources available in mounting this project; and the issues surrounding accessibility to both scholars and beginning students.
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Early Middle English Society II: Speaking Across Disciplines in British Library MS Harley 978
Paper session
British Library, MS Harley 978 is a thirteenth-century manuscript that famously contains some of the earliest editions of Marie de France’s Lais and Fables, the summer canon, the cuckoo song, and an array of Latin verse. The divisions in modern academia have tended to result in commentary that has carved up this manuscript along disciplinary lines: musicology, medieval French poetry, Middle English poetry, and Latin. Given that the manuscript requires such diverse skills in interpreting its contents, milieu, and reading practices, how can scholars speak across disciplines in order to gain a more comprehensive approach to this manuscript? This session is interested in papers that address any of the works in MS Harley 978, and / or that consider these disciplinary divisions and how we might begin to bridge them.