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IMC 2014: Sessions

Session 724: Medievalisms of Empire

Tuesday 8 July 2014, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:Centre for Late Antique & Medieval Studies, King's College London
Organiser:James Smith, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Studies (CMEMS), University of Western Australia
Moderator/Chair:Kathryn Maude, Department of English, King's College London
Paper 724-aPhilology and Fantasies of Race and Empire
(Language: English)
Helen Young, Department of English, University of Sydney
Index terms: Language and Literature - Other, Medievalism and Antiquarianism, Mentalities
Paper 724-bLe morte d'Alexandre and the Consequences for Empire
(Language: English)
Katharine R. Handel, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Literacy and Orality, Medievalism and Antiquarianism, Monasticism
Paper 724-cRobert E. Howard and the Pseudo-Medieval, Pseudo-History of Empire
(Language: English)
James Smith, Centre for Medieval & Early Modern Studies (CMEMS), University of Western Australia
Index terms: Language and Literature - Other, Medievalism and Antiquarianism, Mentalities
Abstract

The core goal of this session is the exploration of modes by which empire is shaped and destabilised through medievalism, and the extent to which salient legacies of empire in the form of political entities, cultures, traditions, and languages seek to shape the future through evocation of the medieval past. The three papers focus on medievalisms clustering around the creation, fashioning, and reinforcement of empire together with the recuperation of identities that follows the decline or dissolution of empire. Further, they consider the afterlife of these constructs within the refashioning of the imagined middle ages created through the memory of empire.