CALL FOR PAPERS FOR SESSION

TACTILITY AND THE EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLISH TEXT

INTERNATIONAL MEDIEVAL CONGRESS, LEEDS, 7-10 JULY 2025

DUE BY 23 AUGUST 2024

Amy Clark and I are looking to organise a session (or more!) at Leeds 2025 on tactility and the early medieval English text. Feel free to get in touch with any questions, and please pass on to anyone who might be interested!

Papers might centre on tactile encounters with the text itself, such as through forms of readerly intervention in manuscripts, in ink or with drypoint. But we also invite papers which connect early medieval literature with other kinds of material culture. John Leyerle and other scholars have influentially thought with metalwork when exploring the interlace structure and ‘ring-patterned’ verse of Beowulf, but can we see new things in Old English and Anglo-Latin texts by considering parallels across a more diverse range of visual art forms and material culture, from stone sculpture to embroidery to the tools of daily life?

Leeds 2024 will have the special thematic focus of ‘Worlds of Learning’ (https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2025/) so papers touching on themes of communities of practice, and cross-cultural networks will be particularly appreciated. Please send an abstract of up to 200 words and a short bio to Amy W. Clark, Wake Forest University (clarka@wfu.edu) and Hattie Soper, University of Bristol (harriet.soper@bristol.ac.uk) by the 23rd August.