Young Medievalist Germanists in North America at the GSA Conference
From Hortulus
YMAGINA (Young Medievalist Germanists in North America, http://www.ymagina.org) is pleased to announce a call for papers for the following sessions at the 2009 GSA conference in Washington, D.C.:
1. Bending Boundaries in Medieval German Culture Papers on all aspects of boundaries (social, gender, legal, political, spatial, topical, topological) and their transgressions, subversions, and (re-)affirmations in medieval culture; characterizations of boundary benders, their failures and successes; witnessing boundary bending and individual, legal, or social responses to it; (in)visibility of boundary bendings.
2. Constructing Medieval German Readers Papers that explore how medieval and early-modern texts construct their audience. Possible topics include the split (or lack thereof) between the reader and the patron; authorial strategies and narrative techniques that shape or define the intended reader; 'gentle readers' vs. hostile readers; awareness of or expectations regarding readers' responses; medial shifts and the construction of readers (e.g. oral/written; manuscript/print).
3. Obscenity in Premodern German Culture Papers that explore the phenomenon of premodern obscenity: its purpose, rhetoric, functions, strategies, intended audience, continuities and discontinuities with its modern counterpart, as well as specific kinds of obscenity (legal obscenity, courting obscenity,courtly euphemism, apotropaic actions, carnival, scatology, etc.)
We seek 15- to 20-minutes papers, in English or German. Please send an abstract (max. 250 words) and a brief CV that includes institutional affiliation by Friday, February 6th, 2009, to BOTH of the following organizers (E-MAIL submissions only, please):
Dr. Olga Trokhimenko Foreign Languages and Literatures Univ. of North Carolina Wilmington https://mail.uncw.edu/owa/?ae=PreFormAction&t=IPM.Contact&a=Mail# Wilmington, NC 28403, USA trokhimenkoo@uncw.edu
Dr. Markus Stock Germanic Languages and Literatures Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA markus.stock@utoronto.ca
