Upcoming Event: Sarah Kay @ Medieval Club

Vernacular Verse Encyclopedism in Medieval France: System and System-Failure
Sarah Kay
Princeton University

The age of the vernacular verse encyclopaedia in France is both remarkably productive, and remarkably short-lived, since it lasts from c. 1230 to c. 1290 at the outside. The rapid demise of the verse encyclopaedia may be due to the rise of prose, with its greater connotation of factuality, and in particular to the success of Brunetto Latini's prose Tresor of the 1260s. However, the energy that went into writing verse encyclopaedias seems to have been diverted into the production of what are often called 'encyclopaedic texts': works that contain passages of the kinds of material found in encyclopaedias but whose overall frame clearly belongs in another genre. The Romance of the Rose would be a good example, since it contains passages on disciplines such as optics and theology within the framework of a narrative dit. This talk reflects on this fall from the systematic character of verse encyclopaedias into the partiality of encyclopaedic verse, and includes discussion of works by Christine de Pizan, Froissart, and Chartier.

Sarah Kay is Professor of French at Princeton University. She is the author of Raoul de Cambrai. Edited with an Introduction, Translation and Notes (1992). Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry (1990), The Chanson de geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (1995), The Romance of the Rose. Grant and Cutler Critical Guides no. 110 (1995), Courtly Contradictions. The Emergence of the Literary Object in the Twelfth Century (2001), Zizek: A Critical Introduction (2003), A Short History of French Literature, co-written with Malcolm Bowie and Terence Cave (2003), and The Place of Thought. The Complexity of One in French Didactic Literature (2007).

Friday, April 3, 2009, 7:30 PM
CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Ave. @ 34th St.) Room 4406
Reception, with wine and cheese, follows.

Upcoming Conference: Glossing is Glorious, April 9-10

Click here for full schedule.

Click below for flyer.

Upcoming Event: Matthew Goldie on the Antipodes

The Antipodes: Maps and Travel Literature about Another World

Matthew Goldie
Rider University

The antipodes—the places where people stand on the other “side” of the globe from Europe—are usually thought of in comical, satirical terms; the land and its inhabitants are upside-down, offering an inverted mirror for Europeans to see themselves. However, in the earlier Middle Ages, the antipodes engendered debates about the very existence of people and land in other places on the earth. Later, in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, when theologians and others acknowledged the existence of the antipodes, the lands and their inhabitants troubled ways of thinking about the world. This presentation will briefly describe the earlier debates about the antipodes before exploring how the antipodes challenged the medieval geographical theories of Roger Bacon and others, the representation of the world on mappaemundi such as Lambert of St. Omer’s Liber floridus, and the discussions of circumnavigation in Caxton’s and Mandeville’s texts. Rather than reflecting Others for Europe’s conceptions of itself, the antipodes and antipodeans challenged epistemologies about the earth.

Matthew Goldie is Associate Professor of English at Rider University. He is the author of Middle English Literature: An Historical Sourcebook (Blackwell, 2003 & 2006), articles on Thomas Hoccleve and late-medieval drama, and a forthcoming book on the antipodes.


Friday, March 6, 2009, 7:30 PM
CUNY Graduate Center (365 Fifth Ave. @ 34th St.) Room C197
Reception, with wine and cheese, follows in Room 5109.

***PLEASE NOTE CHANGE IN ROOMS***

Upcoming Event:: Choirs of Angels at the Met

Choirs of Angels: Painting in Italian Choir Books, 1300-1500

Friday, February 6, 2009
6:30 PM
at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(meet in the Medieval Sculpture Hall)

Barbara Boehm, Curator in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, will lead a tour of this special exhibition.

NYU English Medieval Forum Events, Spring 2009

We are pleased to announce the list of the Spring semester events for the NYU English Department Medieval Forum. Unless otherwise noted, the Medieval Forum meets on Thursday evenings at 6:30pm.

Please note that our talks will be held in various locations around NYU this semester. (Visitors from outside NYU should bring photo ID to sign into NYU buildings).

All are welcome!

If you have questions, contact Liza Blake, elizabeth[dot]blake[at]nyu[dot]edu.

NYU English Medieval Forum
Fall 2008 Events

February 5
"The Weight of the Past"
Jeffrey Cohen
(George Washington University)
19 University Place, Room 222
Reception at 6pm; lecture at 6:30pm
Co-sponsored with the Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium

February 19
"Wondering through the World: Ibn Battuta, the Muslim World, and the 'aja'ib narrative"
Christine Chism
(Rutgers University)
To be held at Columbia University at 6 pm (details TBA)
Co-sponsored with Columbia University

March 10 NEW DATE! Tuesday!
"Cures and Closures: Surgery, Intersex, and the Demands of Difference"
Leah DeVun
(Texas A&M University)
IHPK Conference Room, 285 Mercer Street, 10th Floor
Co-sponsored with CELCE

April 2
"Mythic Capital: Medievalism, Heritage Culture and the Order of the Garter, 1348-2008"
Stephanie Trigg
(University of Melbourne)
19 University Place, Room 222
Co-sponsored with the Medieval and Renaissance Center (MARC)

April 23
"The Politics of the Subjunctive"
Paul Strohm
(Columbia University)
Department of Classics, 100 Washington Square East, Silver Center 503