Call for Papers – New Perspectives on Women in Medieval Romance Literature (Leeds IMC 2018)

New Perspectives on Women in Medieval Romance Literature:

From ecocriticism to the global Middle Ages, queer theory to the medical humanities, contemporary fields of scholarly interest provide a plethora of ways through which to reinterpret women in medieval romance literature. With this series of panel sessions proposed for Leeds International Medieval Congress, we seek to examine women in romance afresh, considering the new themes and issues brought into view by contemporary methodologies.

The panel title is deliberately broad and we are open to a variety of approaches. Themes you may wish to consider include, but are not limited to: 

• Non-white and/or non-Christian women’s roles in romance
• Ecocritical and ecofeminist approaches to women in romance
• Queer approaches to women in romance
• Virginity, sex, and sexuality 
• Same-sex desire 
• Women and healing 
• Women and trauma
• Sexual violence and rape in romance literature
• Women’s political roles in medieval romance
• Women and disability 
• Motherhood and family relations 
• Remembering and/or forgetting women in romance literature
• Women’s memories in romance literature
• Minor and/or non-aristocratic women in romance
• Groups of women in medieval romance 
• Women as patrons and readers of romance
• The material culture and objects of women in romance 
• Women in early modern romance
• Medieval romance and medievalis

We particularly welcome papers given by scholars from under-represented backgrounds, as well as papers by PhD students and early career researchers. Papers taking a feminist approach, and those which interrogate questions of race and diversity, are particularly sought.

Papers should be 15-20 minutes long. Please send abstracts of 100 words, along with a short biography, to hannah.e.piercy@durham.ac.uk by Friday 8th September 2017. Any queries are also welcome, please send these to the same address.

We look forward to hearing from you!