This session seeks papers that utilize landscape studies, space and place theory, and ecocritical approaches on medieval texts and places in an effort to illuminate new understandings on the literature, history, ecology, geography, archeology, and architecture of medieval Britain. Proposed topics may come from any geographic area and time period, and this session hopes to cross (and perhaps complicate or dismantle) temporal, generic, and disciplinary boundaries through scholarly interaction and discussion. Papers may address (but are not limited to) the following questions:
•How are landscapes depicted in medieval British literature, and what do these descriptions reveal about society’s cultural beliefs?
•How does medieval culture create landscape? How do medieval ecology and the towns, forests, mountains, hills, heaths, fens, and coasts of Britain create or shape human culture?
•What roles do landscapes and buildings play in historical chronicles?
•What dynamics exist between the many spaces of medieval Britain, and how can we complicate traditional dichotomies such as sacred/ profane, center/ periphery, wild/ culture, and land/ water?
•How do landscapes impact medieval architecture, and what can buildings tell us about medieval British culture?
•How does medieval culture create landscape? How do medieval ecology and the towns, forests, mountains, hills, heaths, fens, and coasts of Britain create or shape human culture?
•What roles do landscapes and buildings play in historical chronicles?
•What dynamics exist between the many spaces of medieval Britain, and how can we complicate traditional dichotomies such as sacred/ profane, center/ periphery, wild/ culture, and land/ water?
•How do landscapes impact medieval architecture, and what can buildings tell us about medieval British culture?
This session is sponsored by the Saint Louis University Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to Justin T. Noetzel at noetzelj@slu.edu by September 15, 2011. Any papers not included in this session will be forwarded to the Congress Committee for possible inclusion in the General Sessions.
