The special events of the 53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 10-13, 2018) at Western Michigan University include two plenary lectures, the inaugural annual lecture on the reception of the classics, and a dance.
Plenary lectures
Sara Ritchey
“Salvation is Medicine”: The Medieval Production and Gendered Erasures of Therapeutic Knowledge
Sara Ritchey
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Friday, May 11, 8:30 a.m.
Bernhard Ballroom
Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America
William Chester Jordan
Saint Louis’s Other Converts
William Chester Jordan
Princeton University
Saturday, May 12, 8:30 a.m.
Bernhard Ballroom
Sponsored by Cornell University Press
Lecture on the Reception of the Classics in the Middle Ages
Marjorie Curry Woods
(photo: Annette Hornischer)
The Classics and After: What’s Still To Be Revealed?
Marjorie Curry Woods
University of Texas–Austin
Thursday, May 10, 7:30 p.m.
Fetzer 1005
Endowed in memory of Archibald Cason Edwards, Senior, and Sarah Stanley Gordon Edwards
The exponential growth of digital resources for manuscript research, recent and on-going large-scale statistical studies of manuscript production and survival, and forthcoming articles on major authors in the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum series will provide more and more resources to medievalists working on the Classical Tradition in all its forms. Scholars will be able to examine in greater detail the manuscript evidence directly related to issues of special concern in modern academic disciplines, such as the significance of Latin texts and commentaries for contemporary vernacular writings; the gender and/or geographical origin of author, scribe, illuminator, or audience; the effect on manuscript production of external political and societal pressures, and the hierarchy of studies within modern as well as medieval academic life. Such approaches, however, can illuminate only a very small part of the overall picture of the knowledge and use of the classics during the Middle Ages: the great mass of extant medieval manuscripts of classical texts and commentaries, especially those produced for teaching purposes, are not accessed through such lenses. Very few medieval commentaries on classical texts have been edited in full, let alone translated.
Screenings
Michael Wood
Michael Wood’s BBC Trilogy: King Alfred and the Anglo-Saxons
Sponsored by the Richard Rawlinson Center for Anglo-Saxon Studies and Manuscript Research
The Lady of the Mercians
Wednesday, May 9
5:30 p.m.
Bernhard East Ballroom
(take the Western Heights shuttle from Congress registration)
Alfred of Wessex
Thursday, May 10
5:30 p.m.
Fetzer 1005
The Lady of the Mercians
Friday, May 11
5:30 p.m.
Fetzer 1005
Aethelstan: The First King of England
Saturday, May 12
5:30 p.m.
Fetzer 1010
PLUS: Don’t miss the session “Commemorating Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians (d. 918),” featuring papers by Stacy S. Klein and Michael Wood (the Richard Rawlinson Center Congress speaker) on Thursday, May 10, 10:00 a.m., in Sangren 1910.
Saturday night dance
The Saturday Night Dance takes place in the East Ballroom of the Bernhard Center from 10 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. You should be ready to prove that you are 21 before you approach the cash bar. You must have a photo ID with you. You may not bring your own drinks to the dance. All other beverages and snacks are free. The Dance is a social occasion for registered attendees of the Congress only. Please bring your registration badge to the Bernhard Center: it is your ticket of entry.
Worship services
Daily Vespers
Thursday-Saturday: 5:15 p.m., Fetzer 1040
Roman Catholic
Daily Mass
Thursday-Saturday: 7 a.m., Fetzer 1040
Sunday Mass
Saturday: 7 p.m., Fetzer 1040
Sunday: 7 a.m., Fetzer 1040
Anglican (Episcopal)-Lutheran
Sunday Eucharist
Sunday: 7 a.m., Fetzer 1045