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IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 1622: Nature, Artifice, and Materialities: A Round Table Discussion

Thursday 4 July 2019, 11.15-12.45

Sponsor:International Medieval Society, Paris - Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris
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

From plants and gardens to relics, textiles, and seals, medieval understandings of the relationship between nature and artifice encourage us to interrogate the way in which people created, adapted, and transformed the world around them. Whether mundane or luxurious, medieval material objects so often stage the ambiguity of human endeavour, with recent scholarship in this field focusing on notions of agency and alternative ecologies, artfulness and duplicity, power and patronage, or beauty and aesthetics. This round table thus aims to provide a multi-disciplinary forum where scholars with different theoretical and methodological approaches (literary representation and ecomaterialism, material culture, history of medicine, sigillography) will explore new avenues for further study. It also continues to foster a collaboration between the French research network Questes and the IMS.

Participants include Laura Chuhan Campbell (Durham University), Marguerite Keane (Drew University, New Jersey), Emmanuel Roumier (Archives Départementales de la Côte d'Or, Dijon), and Theresa Lorraine Tyers (Swansea University).