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IMC 2024: Sessions

Session 1510: Reading Crisis through Supernatural Encounters, I

Thursday 4 July 2024, 09:00-10:30

Sponsor:Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Organisers:Natalie Hopwood, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Chris Latham, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair:Alaric Hall, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
Paper 1510-aMagical Girls and Spectral Guys in Chivalric Crises of Identity
(Language: English)
Kathleen Burt, Department of English, Middle Georgia State University
Index terms: Folk Studies, Gender Studies and Language and Literature - Middle English
Paper 1510-bUncanny Crises: Bahrām Chо̄bin's Parahuman Encounters
(Language: English)
Sam Lasman, Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge
Index terms: Folk Studies, Language and Literature - Semitic and Social History
Paper 1510-cA Communal Crisis: The So-Called 'Wild Hunt' as Representing Crises in Monastic Communities
(Language: English)
Christopher White, School of Historical & Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland
Index terms: Folk Studies, Language and Literature - Latin, Language and Literature - Old English and Religious Life
Abstract

This first session brings together three papers that explore the depictions of crisis through supernatural encounters within heroic narrative texts, often discussing themes of gender and identity. In the first paper, Kathleen Burt focuses the tales of some of Arthuriana’s most celebrated knights - Gawain, Lanval, and Yvain. In each, she explores how the supernatural trials they face lead to a crisis of identity and the challenging of gender norms. Sam Lasman, in the second papers, takes us to the Middle east, and the supernatural beings faced by Bahrām Chо̄bin in the Shāhnāma of Ferdowsi, exploring how these encounters connect to historical and ontological crises. Lasman also explores issues of gender and identity, comparing the Shāhnāma with European medieval literature. In the third paper, Christoper White analyses two so-called ‘Wild Hunt’ narratives from the twelfth century, examining the crises they represent through the emotional responses of witnesses to these supernatural events. White also challenges the narratives’ categorisation within the ‘Wild Hunt’ sub-genre.