IMC 2018: Sessions
Session 420: Literary Approaches to Witnessing and Memory: A Round Table Discussion
Monday 2 July 2018, 19.00-20.00
| Sponsor: | International Medieval Society, Paris - Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris |
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| Organiser: | Victoria Turner, School of Modern Languages - French, University of St Andrews |
| Moderator/Chair: | Victoria Turner, School of Modern Languages - French, University of St Andrews |
| Abstract | Interest in the study of medieval memory continues to transform the way we think about relationships between writer and witness, witness and reader, narrative and event, and text and testimony in the Middle Ages. Acts of witnessing involve processes of recording, reconstructing, and commemorating information and experiences; may express mourning and trauma; and may reveal cross-generational ties in the shaping of collective memory. This round table unites scholars with different theoretical and methodological approaches (e.g. semiotics, gender, political history) and aims to explore what it meant to witness and be a witness in different genres of medieval writing. As a new collaboration between the French research network 'Questes' and the IMS, it will showcase current approaches to witnessing and memory that cross literary and historical disciplines. Participants include Viviane Griveau-Genest (Université Paris Nanterre), Simon Thomas Parsons (Royal Holloway, University of London), and Marie-Christine Payne (Université Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle). |