Mobility and Exchange in Medieval and Early Modern English Afterlives – Call For Papers

Mobility and Exchange in Medieval and Early Modern English Afterlives
Edited by Marina Gerzic and Aidan Norrie

The editors invite proposals for chapters of 6000-8000 words (including notes) for an edited collection entitled Mobility and Exchange in Medieval and Early Modern English Afterlives, planned to be published as part of Routledge’s Focus series. The advent of a multicultural and globalised world has triggered a widespread and increasing fascination with all aspects and processes related to mobility and exchange in the humanities and social sciences. Like many disciplines in the humanities, medieval and early modern studies is often challenged about its relevance in the contemporary world. One way to respond to these concerns is to engage not only with the historic medieval and early modern past, but also with the various medievalisms and early modernisms in contemporary popular culture.

Recent scholarship has demonstrated the way that the past is constantly being reused and repurposed for the present, but often the focus is on how ‘accurately’ these cinematic and televisual productions depict the events they are re-telling. This reductive engagement with popular culture does not acknowledge the fact that modern depictions of the past often say more about the time in which they were produced than about the event they are depicting.

We invite proposals for chapters that engage with ideas of mobility and exchange in medieval and early modern afterlives in television and cinema, children’s and young adult literature, comic books and graphic novels, computer gaming, new media and fandom, and other popular contemporary appropriations and re-imaginings. We are keen to include chapters that cover the entire chronological period outlined in the title, and are primarily interested in depictions of the historical past.

Topics could include, but are not limited to:

Cross-Cultural and/or Inter-Cultural Mobilities and Exchange; Transnational Mobilities: Migration, Diaspora, Exile, and Homecomings; Uses of Media and Digital Technology; Exchange/Mobility and the Body; Mobility and Place: Situatedness, Belonging, and Home; Gender-, Race- and Class-Inflected Mobilities and Exchange; Issues of Translation and Adaptation: Semiotic Mobility and Exchange; Exchange/Mobility and Performance; or Resistance to Exchange/Mobility.

Please send a c.250 word abstract with a 100 word author biography to both Marina Gerzic (mgerzic@gmail.com) and Aidan Norrie (aidannorrie@gmail.com) by 1 June, 2017. Authors will be informed of the acceptance of their paper by 15 July, 2017, and completed chapters of 6000-8000 words (including notes) will be due to the editors by 1 February, 2018.