IMC 2022: Sessions
Session 414: Gatekeeping the Middle Ages: Accessing, Controlling, and Disseminating the Medieval Past in a Modern World - A Round Table Discussion
Monday 4 July 2022, 19.00-20.00
| Sponsor: | Graduate Student Committee, Medieval Academy of America |
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| Organiser: | Logan Quigley, Department of English, University of Notre Dame, Indiana |
| Moderator/Chair: | Mary Alcaro, Department of English, Rutgers University, New Jersey |
| Abstract | Who controls the Middle Ages? The past few years have emphasised the importance of this broad question. As white supremacists and political nationalists summon and twist medieval symbols for their own purposes, and as governments across the world grapple with pressing questions about community identity and social responsibility, we have learned to pay close attention to what it means to control and shape access to the medieval past. These questions are fundamentally about borders and boundaries: boundaries between who has institutional power and who is shut out from it; boundaries between what is 'medieval' and what isn't; and boundaries between the medieval 'them' and the modern 'us', just to name a few. To open the discussion, participants will give short presentations on 'Taking Up Space as a Graduate Student Parent', 'Medieval Anachronisms, Modern Medievalisms, and Questioning Temporal Boundaries in the Classroom', and 'Bringing the Middle Ages to Composition Students: Special Collections and Manuscripts in the Classroom'. Participants include Arielle McKee (Gardner-Webb University, North Carolina), Logan Quigley (University of Notre Dame, Indiana), Taylor A. Sims (University of Michigan), and Gregory Tolliver (Indiana University, Bloomington). |