Past Events

Past 2023-2024 Events:

THURSDAY, MARCH 7: Professor Nina Rowe (Art History, Fordham University)

6:15 pm, Elvehjem L 150: Public Lecture: Moses through an Urban Lens: Jewish Neighbors, African Visitors, and the Life of a Biblical Patriarch in Late Medieval Regensburg

Moses gives a magical ring to his wife, the Ethiopian princess Tharbis. Earlier in the same story, Moses is welcomed and protected at the Egyptian royal court, despite full knowledge of – and preoccupation with – his Jewish lineage. These tales from Moses’s life are presented in word and image in illuminated World Chronicle (Weltchronik) manuscripts made for high-ranking burghers in the Bavarian city of Regensburg, circa 1400. In the late Middle Ages, Regensburg was a prosperous trade hub, with a thriving Jewish community and a port center that hosted traders from far-flung centers. In this setting, there was apparent enthusiasm for stories that celebrated a biblical hero’s Jewishness and love for an African princess. Such interests do not square with standard conceptions of the European Middle Ages as a period that was unrelentingly hostile to those outside the white, Christian fold. My investigation of illuminated Weltchroniken, therefore, complicates modern understandings of the medieval era and gives voice to facets of late medieval daily life otherwise often silenced in the discourse of art history.

FRIDAY, MARCH 8: Workshop with Professor Nina Rowe 

12:15 pm, Hagen Room (Elvehjem 150): Workshop for graduate students and faculty: Echoes of Social Life in Illuminated Manuscripts of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Please contact Professor Tom Dale (tedale@wisc.edu) for the reading.

Standard narratives of Western European medieval art history tend to focus on images and structures connected to the church or the court. As a result, clerics and nobles are centered and the daily experiences of city dwellers often are ignored. This workshop explores objects and methods that can help us fill out the picture. We will examine images and texts in Middle High German illuminated manuscripts and consider how they register interests and practices also depicted in monumental sculptures and paintings, as well as in the new medium of engraving, targeted to patently lay and urban audiences.

These events are sponsored by the Department of Art History.

FRIDAY, MARCH 8: Professor Bernardo Hinojosa (English, St. Norbert College)

2 pm, Hagen Room (Elvehjem 150): Workshop for graduate students and faculty. Please contact Professor Lisa Cooper (lhcooper@wisc.edu) for the reading.

5 pm, Elvehjem L150: Public lecture: Roger Bacon’s Rainbow: Experiment, Fictionality, and Modernity in the Middle Ages

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What was an “experiment” in the Middle Ages? The question itself ensures raised eyebrows and accusations of anachronism. After all, it is an accepted premise in the history of science that the emergence of the controlled experiment – in which, to cite Francis Bacon, nature is “forced from its own condition by art and human agency” – signals and produces an epistemic shift between medieval and modern ways of understanding the material world and its operations. In my talk, I trace the development of a precursor to the modern experiment, which scholastic philosophers, namely Robert Grosseteste (c.1168-1253) and Roger Bacon (c.1219-c.1292), called experimentum. By combining techniques from classical rhetoric and Aristotelian natural philosophy, this mental procedure replicates physical phenomena as imaginative rehearsals of causal sequences, thus rendering these phenomena available for perception and investigation. As a collaboration of literary and empiricist thinking, the scholastic experimentum brings into relief how the modern controlled experiment, like its medieval ancestor, is a kind of fiction: an artificial procedure that replicates the material world and its processes in a different context and at a different scale.

Bernardo S. Hinojosa is an assistant professor of English at St. Norbert College. Before joining St. Norbert, he received a PhD in English and Medieval Studies from UC Berkeley. He is currently writing a book, Fictions of Experiment in Medieval England, on the development of experimentalist thinking and its relationship to literary mimesis in medieval natural philosophy and Middle English poetry, prose, and drama. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in New Medieval Literatures and theJournal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, among other venues.

Co-sponsored by the Departments of English and History, the Holtz Center for Science and Technology, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, and the Anonymous Fund

 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 25: Webinar with Professor Wan-Chuan Kao (English, Washington & Lee)

4-5:30 pm CST, ON ZOOM: 6 interdisciplinary scholars respond to Professor Kao’s new book, White Before Whiteness in the Late Middle Ages (Manchester UP, 2024), followed by a moderated q&a.

Register at whiteb4whiteness@gmail.com by January 24, 2024. (Participants will receive limited-time e-access to the Introduction and a discount code towards the purchase of the book).

Co-sponsored by Washington & Lee University Library.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26: Dr. Mike Horswell (Fellow, Royal Historical Society)

8:00 am CST, public lecture, ON ZOOM: New Crusaders: Mobilizing the Crusades in the Modern Era

Zoom Link

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Long after the crusades ceased to be practical crusading rhetoric continues to cast a shadow. Invocations of the crusades conjure images of holy warfare and civilizational clashes; from so-called Islamic State’s claim that the West perpetuates a centuries-old crusade against Muslims to memes of President Donald Trump as a crusading knight on horseback, the crusades are still perceived to resonate. The use of crusading for mobilization has a long history from the medieval to the modern eras. This lecture will survey uses of the crusades from the nineteenth century to the present – primarily in the West – as they form part of nation-building projects, war mobilization and social campaigning. It will show how the crusades and the military orders, born in the crusades, have been flexibly deployed to bolster Western national identity, and to rally opposition to imperial interventions in the Near East.

Dr. Mike Horswell works on the perceptions and uses of the crusades in the modern era; he has a PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He published his first book – The Rise and Fall of British Crusader Medievalism, c.1825-1945 – with Routledge in 2018 and is the series editor of the Engaging the Crusades series (9 vols., 2018-24). His published work includes journal articles and chapters on C20th neo-military orders, the crusades in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia, the memory of Richard and Saladin, and crusading in C19th juvenile literature.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, and the Anonymous Fund.

FRIDAY, MARCH 1st: Professor Laura Michele Diener (History, Marshall University)

2:00 PM CST, public lecture ON ZOOM: “Sigrid and the Sagas: Norway’s Golden Past in the Writings of Sigrid Undset”

Zoom link

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The Norwegian-Danish writer Sigrid Undset (1882–1949) found her greatest success with her multi-volume medieval novels for which she won the Nobel Prize in 1928. Early in her career she wrote Fortællingen om Viga-Ljot og Vigdis, an homage to the saga tradition. During the 1920’s, she produced seven books with astonishing rapidity—the trilogy Kristen Lavransdatter and the tetralogy Olav Audunssøn, both meticulously researched multi-generational epics. Undset continued to explore the Middle Ages through a series of essays and translations of hagiographies. For her as for many of her peers, art was a political action. Undset came of age during a key period of self-discovery for Norway, as artists and intellectuals strove to reclaim their history, language, and literature after centuries of Danish rule. She believed the key to cultural independence for Norway lay in an appeal to the medieval golden age, where she also found a spirit of religiosity and communality that possessed the antidote for the cold impersonality of modernity. Her own portrayal of medieval Norway responded to alternative visions proposed by fellow Norwegian artists such as Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun. In this paper, I focus on Undset’s medieval writings, fiction and nonfiction, and how they occurred within a larger program of political activism in Norway.

Laura Michele Diener (Ph.D., Ohio State), teaches medieval and ancient history at Marshall University. She received her PhD in history from The Ohio State University and has studied at Vassar College, Newnham College, Cambridge, and most recently, the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She teaches course on ancient peoples including the Vikings, Romans, Ancient Egyptians, and Celts and has written about medieval spirituality, medieval embroidery, and medieval hair; her current project is a biography of the Norwegian Nobel-prize-winning writer Sigrid Undset titled A World Perilous and Beautiful.

Co-sponsored by the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+, the Department of History, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, and the Anonymous Fund

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1: Professor Robert Houghton (School of History and Archaeology, University of Winchester)

12:00 pm CST, ON ZOOM: Public lecture (showing in Helen C. White 7191): Historical Accuracy in Medievalist Games: Impossible and Undesirable?

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Meeting ID: 979 2256 0008

‘Historical Accuracy’ is a major selling point for a vast number of medievalist games. A plethora of games from Kingdom Come: Deliverance to Crusader Kings via Assassin’s Creed explicitly or implicitly emphasise their historical research credentials in their advertising materials and demands for historical fidelity are frequently voiced in the online spaces surrounding these games. Even games with fantasy settings such as Dragon Age, The Witcher and Baldur’s Gate are prone to these claims and demands.

But while these claims to accuracy and historical authority are commonplace, there are substantial limitations to the ability of these games to live up to these claims. The nature of the medium limits their capacity to produce a scholarly account in the manner of an academic article or even an audio-visual documentary. The record of the period denies access to substantial details. The role of the player in constructing history within a game must be necessity influence the veracity of this account. In many respects, absolute historical accuracy is not only impossible, but also undesirable within medievalist games.

This paper considers the motivation behind claims to historical accuracy in medievalist games. It then goes on to argue that these claims can never be fully realised and that the goal of absolute accuracy is antithetical to the demands of gameplay. Finally, it will contend that medievalist games can nevertheless represent an important and innovative approach to the history and study of the Middle Ages.

Robert Houghton is a lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Winchester. His research focuses on the social and political history of Italy in the central medieval period and the representation of the Middle Ages in modern games. He has edited a number of volumes addressing these subjects including most recently Playing the Middle Ages: Pitfalls and Potential in Modern Games. His monograph The Middle Ages in Computer Games is planned for release in 2024.

Co-sponsored by the Anonymous Fund, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, the Holtz Center for Science and Technology, and the Department of History.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1: An Afternoon of Medieval Games (open to all)

1:30 pm-5:30 pm, 7191 Helen C. White Hall. Please contact Chris Herde (cherde@wisc.edu) for more information.

Co-sponsored by the Anonymous Fund, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, and the Departments of English and History.

 

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17: Professor Chris Jones (English, University of Utah)

2:00 pm, Hagen Room (Elvehjem 150): Workshop for graduate students and faculty: “Carter Revard and Old English Riddles: an indigenous poet remaking ‘Anglo-Saxon’”

There is no pre-circulated reading for this workshop. Please contact Professor Jordan Zweck (jlzweck@wisc.edu) with any questions.

5:00 pm, Elvehjem L140: Public lecture: Anglo-Saxons, Brexit, the New English Nationalism and White Supremacy

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Anglo-Saxonism (the reception of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ culture in the postmedieval period) and its various attendant ideologies is well understood by scholars in its manifestations from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries. What is less well understood, or even acknowledged, is that ‘Anglo-Saxon’ tropes are currently inhabiting contemporary English nationalism in the twenty-first century with potentially far-reaching cultural and political consequences. Twin parallel discourses of Anglo-Saxonism have emerged and gained currency in the UK in recent decades: one a putatively historical neutral language of political sovereignty and ethnic distinctiveness mobilized by the right-wing British political elite as part of an argument for leaving the EU as ‘natural’; the other the rise in the use of neo-Old English (often grammatically incorrect) by self-taught online groups of radical and exclusionary English nationalists and hate-inspired communities of the alt-right. Jones’s recent research collects and deconstructs examples of the new Anglo-Saxonism from both these sources, demonstrating the often dangerous political work that is still being done by age-old tropes.

Co-sponsored by the Anonymous Fund, the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund, and the Departments of English and History.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3: Professor Paolo Squatriti (History, University of Michigan)

2:00 pm, Hagen Room (Elvehjem 150): Workshop for graduate students and faculty. We will discuss Squatriti’s article, “Patrons, Landscape, and Potlatch: Early Medieval Linear Earthworks in Britain and Bulgaria”

Please contact Professor Richard Keyser (rkeyser@wisc.edu) for the reading.

5 pm, Elvehjem L150: public lecture:Wheat as an Invasive Species? The Eucharist and Ecology in Early Medieval Europe”

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The “cerealization” of Europe was pretty much complete by the eleventh century. In the process, a vast reduction in the biodiversity of agrarian landscapes and ecosystems and a simplification of foodways took place, as Europeans came to rely on a handful of staple crops for most of their sustenance. Among these, soft or bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) was particularly popular. This paper investigates why early medieval Europeans were willing to undertake this massive change in their environments and economies. It proposes that there are several reasons why wheat, an exotic plant in most of Europe in 500, by 1000 had outcompeted its rivals, many of them natives with a long history of cultivation in the region. The triumph of Triticum did not occur simply because Christian culture and Christian ritual preferred this cereal to all others.

Co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies (CES), the Center for Culture, History, and the Environment (CHE), the Holtz Center for Science and Technology, the Department of History, the Anonymous Fund, and the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29: Professor Christopher Cannon (English and Classics, Johns Hopkins University)

2 pm, Hagen Room (Elvehjem 150): Workshop for graduate students and faculty.
Please contact Professor Lisa H. Cooper (lhcooper@wisc.edu) for the reading.

5:00 pm, Elvehjem L150: Public lecture: “Chaucer and the Chaumpaigne Affair”

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Scholars have known that Chaucer was connected to a case of “raptus” since the nineteenth century, but, even though many documents have been discovered related to the case in recent years, we’re no closer to knowing what happened, if by “what happened” we care most about the perspective of the woman who made the accusation, Cecily Chaumpaigne. In fact, solutions—which lately come thick and fast—remain obfuscations of a sort, uniformly motivated by the need to rescue the “father of English literature” from calumny. This talk will explore the facts of the case and recent attempts to reframe it, as well as Chaucer’s surprising perspicacity about what is at stake in a rape charge for a woman. This is one reason, in fact, to read some poems of Chaucer’s particularly closely right now, but it also makes it possible to see why we might still read all of his work in the 21st century. We can never really know what Chaucer, the person, did, but, when we read him, it is still possible to be inspired by the humanity of his vision and the originality of his insight.

Co-sponsored by the Anonymous Fund and the Department of English

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6: IRH/Medieval Studies Mashup: Professors  Chelsea Silva (Solmsen Fellow) and Nancy Wicker (Solmsen Fellow)

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2:00-3:30 pm, University Club Room 212: Research Presentations

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Research in the Humanities.

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