Session

510

Title

Byzantine Bodies, I: The Byzantine Body and Performativity

Date/Time

Tuesday 5 July 2022: 09.00-10.30

Sponsor

Cardiff Centre for Late Antique Religion & Culture, Cardiff University

Organiser

Larisa Vilimonovic, Department of History, University of Belgrade

Moderator/Chair

Shaun Tougher, School of History, Archaeology & Religion, Cardiff University

Paper 510-a

Bodily Performance in Ritual Contexts: Healing the Sick in Byzantine Hagiography
(Language: English)
Stavroula Constantinou, Centre for Medieval Arts & Rituals, University of Cyprus, Nicosia
Index Terms: Byzantine Studies; Gender Studies; Hagiography

Paper 510-b

The Scribal Act as a Gendering Act in the Byzantine Lives of ‘Cross-Dressing’ Saints
(Language: English)
Julie Van Pelt, Vakgroep Letterkunde, Afdeling Grieks, Universiteit Gent
Index Terms: Byzantine Studies; Gender Studies; Hagiography

Paper 510-c

Byzantine Femininities between Discipline and Punishment: Anthropology of the Female Body in Byzantium
(Language: English)
Larisa Vilimonovic, Department of History, University of Belgrade
Index Terms: Byzantine Studies; Gender Studies; Women’s Studies

Abstract

This is the first session in a series of panels on Byzantine Bodies. The session aims to map how concrete collective or individual subjects form their identities through various discursive processes (those that constitute religion, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender). It will focus on the performative aspects of gender in Byzantium, on gender fluidity, and on readings beyond binaries. The session also maps Byzantine masculinities and femininities and their relationships to normative power structures.

Session

716

Title

Breaking Down Disciplinary Borders: Connecting Historical and Archaeological Research, III – Medieval Dental Calculus, A Treasure Trove of Information

Date/Time

Tuesday 5 July 2022: 14.15-15.45

Organiser

Claire Burridge, Department of History, University of Sheffield

Moderator/Chair

Alison I. Beach, School of History, University of St Andrews

Paper 716-a

Dental Calculus as a Window on Medieval Urban Religion: An Interdisciplinary Study of Leicester’s Augustinian Friary
(Language: English)
Anita Radini, Department of Archaeology, University of York
Index Terms: Archaeology – General; Religious Life

Paper 716-b

Health and Healing Remedies in Medieval Leprosaria: The Contribution of Dental Calculus Analysis
(Language: English)
Elena Fiorin, Dipartimento di Scienze odontostomatologiche e maxillo facciali, Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’
Index Terms: Archaeology – General; Medicine

Paper 716-c

Dental Calculus as a Proxy for Oral Health in Medieval Danes
(Language: English)
Liam Lanigan, GLOBE Institute, Københavns Universitet
Index Terms: Archaeology – General; Medicine

Abstract

Analyses of dental calculus (mineralised dental plaque) are revolutionising the ways we can study past populations. The proposed session showcases new research involving the latest analytical methods, from light microscopy to palaeoproteomic and genomic techniques. Each paper addresses a different topic in the field, highlighting the ways in which dental calculus analysis can contribute to our understanding of oral health, medical practices, and monastic lifeways. Taken collectively, the papers demonstrate that this substance provides an unrivalled and, until recently, largely untapped resource for exploring the health and lived experiences of medieval individuals, and especially those unrecorded by the texts.

Session

806

Title

Borders and Bodies in Early Medieval Riddles and Beyond

Date/Time

Tuesday 5 July 2022: 16.30-18.00

Organiser

IMC Programming Committee

Moderator/Chair

Jennifer Neville, Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London

Paper 806-a

Liminal Voices of Disabled Subjectivity in the Exeter Book Riddles
(Language: English)
Margaret McCurry, Department of English, New York University
Index Terms: Hagiography; Language and Literature – Old English; Literacy and Orality

Paper 806-b

‘[He] sægde him to sorge þæt hy sige-lease / þone grenan wong ofgiefan sceoldan’: The Porous Borders of Affect, Race, and Sovereignty in Guthlac A / B and Exeter Riddle 10
(Language: English)
Adam Darisse, Department of English, New York University
Index Terms: Hagiography; Language and Literature – Old English; Mentalities; Sermons and Preaching

Paper 806-c

Defining the Boundaries of Animate and Inanimate in the Riddles of Tatwine
(Language: English)
Alexandra Zhirnova, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge
Index Terms: Language and Literature – Latin; Language and Literature – Old English; Rhetoric

Paper 806-d

Cynewulf’s Questioning of the Borders of Script and Orality in The Fates of the Apostles
(Language: English)
Jacob Wayne Runner, Institute of Liberal Arts & Science, Kanazawa University
Index Terms: Language and Literature – Old English; Literacy and Orality; Manuscripts and Palaeography

Abstract

Paper -a:
With their repeated imperatives to ‘saga hwæt ic hatte’ (‘say what I am called’), the first-person riddles of the Old English Exeter Book demand a dialogical relation between reader and speaker, subject and object, self and other. This task is complicated, however, by the fact that the speakers of the Exeter Book riddles are, in fact, not subjects, but objects that portray themselves in a variety of straitened circumstances – as impoverished foundlings, as being impaired physically and mentally, as dejected outcasts on the brink of death – in short, as disabled. This paper employs the theoretical lens of disability studies to examine the themes of marginalisation, expiration, and objectification that are voiced by the first-person speakers of the Exeter Book riddles and posits liminality as a conceptual space for readers to consider disabled subjectivity.

Paper -b:
Guthlac A/B and Exeter Riddle 10 are concerned with the porous borders of celestial/terrestrial spaces, Anglo-Saxon/indigenous identities, and affect/action. Ælfric’s ‘Sermo de Memoria Sanctorum’, which articulates the Eight Principal Vices and Virtues and links affect to claims of bodily and spatial sovereignty, offers a theological framework that complicates previous analyses of the way Anglo-Saxon’s perceived these borders. This paper investigates these texts – at the border between the genres of hagiography, poetry, riddle, and homily – and how theology was employed to erect and police the borders of bodies, spaces, and identities in Anglo-Saxon England. 

Paper -c:
This paper examines the works of Tatwine, an 8th-century Anglo-Latin grammarian and poet, whose collection of 40 Enigmata employs the paradoxical qualities of the riddle for a semantic investigation of the linguistic boundaries between animate and inanimate things. By comparing the riddles to his and others’ grammatical works, this paper aims to show Tatwine’s use of poetic devices to replace the harsh boundary between corporalia and incorporalia of antique grammarians with a continuum in which they can co-exist, reflecting a more general change in contemporary English thought.

Paper -d:
The four Old English poems that contain the runic Cyn(e)wulf ‘signature’ have continuously provoked debate as to the characters’ intratextual function and interpretation. Although a case has been made for alternative words indicated by initialisms (Niles 2006), the prevailing view is that they are logogrammatic and instantiate traditional runic names (e.g. Birkett 2017; Page 1999; Symons 2016). This paper presents a semiotic assessment of a single Cynewulf poem (‘The Fates of the Apostles’) and argues that the text’s inclusion of runes amongst the bookhand alphabet characters achieves a purposeful destabilization of the associative borders between the different scripts and between ‘oral’ and ‘transcribed’.

Session

1005

Title

Social Experiences of Disability

Date/Time

Wednesday 6 July 2022: 09.00-10.30

Organiser

Ninon Dubourg, Départment d’Histoire, Université de Liège

Adelheid Russenberger, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London

Moderator/Chair

Ninon Dubourg, Départment d’Histoire, Université de Liège

Paper 1005-a

Dante’s City: Unjust Exile and Disabled Life beyond the Border
(Language: English)
Catherine Bloomer, Department of Italian / Institute for Comparative Literature & Society, Columbia University
Index Terms: Language and Literature – Italian; Medicine

Paper 1005-b

The Borders of Disability and Ability, Ill Health and Health in Medieval Poland
(Language: English)
Magdalena Matczak, Department of Archaeology, Classics & Egyptology, University of Liverpool
Index Terms: Medicine; Social History

Paper 1005-c

Ill Health as a Space of Communication between Man and God in Ancient Rus’
(Language: English)
Natalia Pelezneva,
Index Terms: Hagiography; Medicine; Mentalities

Abstract

Disablility and impairment were experienced in, and created by, an individual’s social context. These three papers consider how Disability was constructed and used in three diverse contexts – Dante’s Florence, medieval Poland, and the medieval Rus’. Despite the geographical range, all three papers demonstrate how the experience of Disability was informed as much by an individual’s social position as much as the nature of their impairment.

Session

1105

Title

Disability in Literature

Date/Time

Wednesday 6 July 2022: 11.15-12.45

Organiser

Ninon Dubourg, Départment d’Histoire, Université de Liège

Adelheid Russenberger, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London

Moderator/Chair

Wendy J. Turner, Department of History, Anthropology & Philosophy, Augusta University, Georgia

Paper 1105-a

Disabled Old Women against Romance: The Depictions of ‘La Vieille’, Frontier of Love in Le roman de la Rose
(Language: English)
Ninon Dubourg, Départment d’Histoire, Université de Liège
Index Terms: Gender Studies; Mentalities; Social History

Paper 1105-b

Eastern Infirmity and Unholy Suffering: Genealogy and Faith as Disability / The Borders of Ability and Disability
(Language: English)
Jeffrey McCambridge, Department of English, College of Arts & Sciences, Ohio University
Index Terms: Islamic and Arabic Studies; Medicine; Mentalities

Paper 1105-c

It’s All Fun and Games: Laughing at Newly Impaired and Newly Normative Bodies in Medieval France
(Language: English)
Heather Curtis, School of History, University of St Andrews
Index Terms: Language and Literature – French or Occitan; Mentalities

Abstract

These three papers examine the different ways in which imaginary accounts of Disability and impairment provided a means of expressing contemporary concerns, and how this literary use of Disability creates an insight into medieval cultural norms and thought. The papers’ literary sources range from French comedy and romance to Christian descriptions of Islam, and provide an opportunity to explore how and when Disability intersected with other social categories of gender, race, and religion.

Session

1142

Title

#DisMed 5: Disability and Accessibility in Higher Education – A Round Table Discussion

Date/Time

Wednesday 6 July 2022: 11.15-12.45

Sponsor

Medievalists with Disabilities

Organiser

Alexandra R. A. Lee, Department of Liberal Studies, New York University, London

Moderator/Chair

Jack Ford, Department of History, University College London

Abstract

Founded in 2017, Medievalists with Disabilities marks its fifth year at the IMC with another round table discussion. This round table discussion offers a chance for disabled medievalists and their allies to share and offer solutions for issues, as well as sharing best practice. We will be discussing accessibility in academia, with topics ranging from allyship and physical access to autism and memory, and the importance of community.

Participants include Hope Doherty (Durham University), Alexandra Lee (University College London), and Amy Louise Morgan (University of Surrey).

Session

1205

Title

Cripping Normative Time: Being and Becoming Disabled in Medieval Europe

Date/Time

Wednesday 6 July 2022: 14.15-15.45

Organiser

Ninon Dubourg, Départment d’Histoire, Université de Liège

Adelheid Russenberger, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London

Moderator/Chair

Adelheid Russenberger, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London

Paper 1205-a

Constructing Melancholic Time in Thomas Hoccleve’s Series
(Language: English)
Emily A. Price, Department of English, City University of New York
Index Terms: Language and Literature – Middle English; Medicine; Mentalities

Paper 1205-b

Boundaries between Age, Health, Ability, and Work: Aging in Medieval England
(Language: English)
Wendy J. Turner, Department of History, Anthropology & Philosophy, Augusta University, Georgia
Index Terms: Daily Life; Medicine

Paper 1205-c

Drawing the Borders of Crip Time in Women’s Monastic Life, c. 1200-1300
(Language: English)
Amelia Kennedy, Institut für Geschichte, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz
Index Terms: Gender Studies; Medicine; Religious Life

Abstract

Disability disrupts and challenges normative notions of time and personal development, just as the progress of time leads to impairment. These papers explore how time itself and social expectations of an individual’s life-time in medieval Europe could disable individuals; and consider how a Disabled individual’s own experience of time could challenge the artificial boundaries of normative time.