CfPs for Two Virtual Sessions on Disability and Tolkien, and Disability and Queer Identities in Medieval Literature
International Congress on Medieval Studies Deadline September 15, 2023
Announcing two Calls for Papers for virtual sessions for the 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (May 9–May 11, 2024). The deadline for submitting proposals is September 15, 2023.
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If you have questions about either session, please contact the lead organizer Kit Richards at klr272@student.bham.ac.uk
One session is on Disability in Tolkien's works and the other is on disability and queer identities in medieval literature. In addition to presenters, the organizer is looking for someone who is planning on attending Kalamazoo either virtually or in-person who would be willing to preside over the Disability and Tolkien session.
Disability and Tolkien's Medievalisms
The Call for Papers for the 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (May 9–May 11, 2024) is now open. Proposals of papers are due Sept. 15, 2023. This session is co-sponsored by Tolkien at Kalamazoo and The Society for the Study of Disability in the Middle Ages and will be delivered as a virtual session.
In recent years, Tolkien scholarship has benefitted from increasing examinations of the relationship between Tolkien’s texts and audiences, and marginalised identities. However, disability in Tolkien’s works is often overlooked as a topic for academic discussion. This panel seeks to correct this lacuna by welcoming papers that deal with any aspect of disability and impairment in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Papers may focus on the ways in which Tolkien adopts, adapts, or critiques common motifs around bodies from medieval material, how his work is situated in twentieth-century debates around disability, or how his medievalism can create new perspectives on modern attitudes towards impairment. We encourage papers that are intersectional and examine the complex interplay between disability, race, gender, and sexuality. This panel also encourages interdisciplinary approaches, inviting academics from a variety of fields to shine new light on this topic.
All proposals must be made through the Congress’s Confex system: Call for Papers (confex.com) Please carefully follow the instructions on the Congress’s Call for Papers.
Keywords: Tolkien; Disability; Impairment; Medicine; Health; Illness; Injury; Bodies; Neurodiversity; Mental Health; Fantasy; Medievalism
Queer Crips: Exploring the Intersectionality of Queerness and Disability in the Medieval Period
The Call for Papers for the 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (May 9–May 11, 2024) is now open. Proposals of papers are due Sept. 15, 2023. This session is sponsored by The Society for Queer Medieval Studies and will be delivered as a virtual session.
Queer-crip(pled) theory examines what it means to live out-of-joint with normative value systems, from familial expectations to workplace performance; it confronts the systems of heteronormativity, reproductivity, and labor that pathologize queer and disabled life; it creates scholarship that reads emergent and thus-far invisible identities in medieval narratives and histories, as well as recovers the terms “queer” and “crip” from the historical medicalization of disability and queerness. This session seeks papers that queer-crip medieval materials and medievalisms, that offer queer-crip methodologies for premodern scholarship, and/or explore the activist potential of such work. Submissions from all disciplines are welcome.
All proposals must be made through the Congress’s Confex system: Call for Papers (confex.com) Please carefully follow the instructions on the Congress’s Call for Papers.
If you have any questions about either Call for Papers, please contact the lead organizer Kit Richards at klr272@student.bham.ac.uk
The Call for Papers for additional sessions sponsored by Tolkien at Kalamazoo can be found here.