IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 1018: Medieval Ecocriticisms, I: Borders of Reality, Medieval Ecologies, and Ecosystems

Wednesday 8 July 2020, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:	Medieval Ecocriticisms
Organiser:	Michael Bintley, School of Humanities, Canterbury Christ Church University
Moderator/Chair:	Heide Estes, Department of English, Monmouth University, New York
Paper 1018-a	'Hwilce fixas gefehst þu?': Salmon and Pike in Early Medieval English Literature and Ecology (Language: English) Todd Preston, Department of English, Lycoming College, Pennsylvania Index terms: Daily Life, Language and Literature - Old English
Paper 1018-b	'To the cuckoo's leah': Birds and Place in Old English Place-Names and Charters (Language: English) Michael J. Warren, Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London Index terms: Language and Literature - Old English, Onomastics
Paper 1018-c	Medieval Cli-Fi and the Asynchrony of Natural Disaster (Language: English) Kellie Robertson, Department of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Middle English, Science
Abstract	The papers in this panel address the borders between 'real' and 'imagined' environments in medieval texts, a central concern of ecocritical study of the relationship between texts and the physical worlds they represent. They consider, variously: how extra-literary discourses enrich our readings of fictional representation; how meteorological events like storms are portrayed in writing; how literary sources can function as scientific data; and how functional language describing physical environments can reveal highly imaginative conceptualisations of place. In common, all three papers seek to reveal and explore aspects of ecological reality as they appear in diverse cultural responses in the Middle Ages.