IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 320: Dress, Textiles, and Status

Monday 11 July 2011, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:	DISTAFF: Discussion, Interpretation & Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics & Fashions
Organiser:	Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Department of English & American Studies, University of Manchester
Moderator/Chair:	Elizabeth Coatsworth, now retired
Paper 320-a	The Queen's Gesture: A Rare Depiction of Tristan and Isolde on a Medieval Luxury Object (Language: English) Paula Carns, Spanish, Italian & Portuguese Languages & Literatures, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Index terms: Art History - Sculpture, Language and Literature - French or Occitan
Paper 320-b	Fine Fabrics and Coarse Clothes: Chrétien de Troyes's Subtle Weaving of Romance (Language: English) Monica L. Wright, Department of Modern Languages, University of Louisiana, Lafayette Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Social History
Paper 320-c	Wearable Items as Gifts and Prizes in Froissart's Meliador (Language: English) Elysse T. Meredith, School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures, University of Edinburgh Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Social History
Abstract	This 4-paper session will include two papers on French Romance: one examining Chrétien's costume characterizations, both rich and poor, which underpin the thematic and structural complexities of his works; the other discussing Meliador's expansion of an idealised literary portrayal of a common courtly exchange of gifts and prizes by integrating economic and social dimensions. The other papers re-examine a scene on a French Gothic ivory, using costume and gesture to re-interpret the figures as Isolde and Tristan; and consider the wide geo-cultural chronologies of bliaut-type garments, drawing on extant Spanish 12-13th-century royal examples.