IMC 2013: Sessions
Session 227: Money, Economy, and Exchange in Middle English Literature
Monday 1 July 2013, 14.15-15.45
| Organiser: | Anne McTaggart, Department of English, University of Western Ontario |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Andrew Galloway, Department of English, Cornell University |
| Paper 227-a | Bargain Hunting: Conflicting Economies in Early Robin Hood Tales (Language: English) Index terms: Economics - General, Folk Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English |
| Paper 227-b | Monetary and Sexual Economies as Female Agency in Piers Plowman (Language: English) Index terms: Economics - Trade, Language and Literature - Middle English, Women's Studies |
| Paper 227-c | Debtors and Creditors in the Ricardian Poets (Language: English) Index terms: Economics - General, Language and Literature - Middle English, Social History |
| Abstract | The late medieval period in England was, like our own, a time of radical economic change and crisis; it was also a time in which many English writers responded to the process of monetization with urgent calls for social justice. As we in the 21st century seem poised on the brink, either of long-term economic decline or an economic paradigm shift - no one seems quite sure - what can we learn from late medieval responses to and critiques of the money economy? The papers in this session consider the economic tensions that shaped life and literature in 14th- and 15th-century England by exploring competing economic models, questions about gender and economic agency, and the problem of debt. |