Thursday, June 25, 2015

CFP: SEMA 2015

SEMA 2015 (October 22-24, Little Rock, Arkansas): 

International Association for Robin Hood Studies, sponsored session:

Greenwood Fashion: Clothing, Textiles, Skins, and Furs in the Ongoing Robin Hood Legend


The Robin Hood ballads and other Robin Hood tellings, from the past through the present, often emphasize clothing and accessories, as well as related textiles, skins, and furs.  For example, in the medieval Gest of Robyn Hode, Little John becomes the “draper” for the impoverished knight, even giving him well over the “thre yerdes” of “scarlet and grene” which Robin suggests (ll. 277-296) – which also raises the question of what, exactly, the terms “scarlet” and “green” mean in the context of the Gest and the ballads.  Clothing continues to figure in the tale of the poor knight, and also in the Third Fytte when Little John tricks the Sheriff into being captured by Robin Hood (ll. 769-784).   In the Seventh Fytte, the king and his party disguise themselves as monks in an attempt to trap Robin Hood (ll.1465-1500), a disguise beloved later by filmmakers and other storytellers, just as Marian’s disguising herself as a page in the ballad of “Robin Hood and Maid Marian,” circa 1600, continues in some form in various novels, plays, and films.  Then there is the “capull-hyde,/Topp, and tayle, and mayne” in which the bloodthirsty Guy of Gisborne is clothed in the ballad “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne” (ll.29-30).  Clothing continues to be a matter of some importance in the Robin Hood legends, sometimes even serving as psychological markers as, for instance, the bright jeweled flowers on shining black which Olivia de Haviland’s Lady Marian wears when we – and Robin – first see her in the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, when Marian is sure of herself and her place in society, and confident in that society, as opposed to the somber dark burgundy she wears at Robin’s trial for treason.    

For this session, we welcome 20-minute papers from any discipline, including interdisciplinary papers, which examine some aspect(s) of clothing, textiles, skins, and furs in the ongoing Robin Hood legend.  

Please send a 300 word abstract and brief bio / CV to Sherron Lux at sherron.lux@sjcd.edu AND Melissa Ridley Elmes at maelmes@uncg.edu BY June 28, 2015. 
 

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Listserv Issues: Some Notes

IARHS members who were subscribed to the old Rochester list should now have received invitations to join the new listserv; please check your email. This new listserv is part of a Google Group, and to view the full membership options you will need a Google account. You may use an already existing Google account, or create a new one. If you do not wish to create a Google account, then an administrator must add you directly to the new listerv. The administrator (Valerie Johnson) has sent an announcement to the old listerv with her contact information. Please email her directly at the address she specified.

If, however, you were not on the old list but wish to join the new list (or if you have not received mail from the old list) and do not wish to create a Google account, we have devised a work around: please comment on this post with your name and the email address you wish to add to the listserv. When we add you to the new list, we will delete your comment to protect your privacy.

ETA: Google account holders who are not already members of the list may contact the list administrator by viewing the Group page.

IARHS 2015, Doncaster: Outlaws in Contex


Outlaws in Context

(IARHS 2015)

Programme of Events


Day One (Tuesday 30th June)

15.00 onwards: Registration
[You may register later, after the walk, if you wish.  Registration is available each day]

15.30 
Campus walk with 16.00 tea

17.00
Welcome to Doncaster
Lesley Coote/Michelle Denby

Session One: Contemporary Outlaws

Mikee Delony –  Jamie Frasier: A Scottish Robin Hood in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander Novels
Michael Eaton – Notes from Sherwood

19.30
Bar meal

Day Two (Wednesday 1st July) 

8.00-9.00 
Breakfast

9.30-10.45 
Session Two: Robin Hood in Medieval Texts
Presider:   Lesley Coote
Kristin Bovaird-Abbo – Harts, Hounds, Humans: Hunting in A Lytell Geste of Robin Hode
Alexander Kaufman – Rhetorical and Ideological Contexts of the Prefatory Letter of the Gesta Herewardi
Valerie Johnson -- What’s in a Name? Naming, and the Early Outlaw Tradition

10.45   
Coffee

11.15-12.30
Session Three: Laws and Outlaws
Presider:  Mikee Delony
Antha Coton-Spreckelmeyer– From Lawbreaker to Lawmaker:  Robin Hood in the Context of English Land Law
Lorraine Stock – The Impact of Joseph Ritson’s 1795 Robin Hood upon Later Constructions of the Outlaw’s Legend
David Crook – The Novelist, the Artisan, and the Banker: The Emergence of the Robin Hood Legend at Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, c.1818-1849

12.30 
Lunch

13.45   
Trip to Kirklees (with ‘high tea’ provided at the priory)
Bus arrives 13.30, for 13.45 departure
[You will need ‘sensible shoes’ at Kirklees, as the walking is somewhat rough.  If it has rained, or is raining, there will be mud.  A gradient is involved in the walk; a ‘round trip’ of the site takes about an hour.  The weather can be changeable, so bring waterproofs]

Back around 18.30

19.30 
Dinner

20.30
Screening – Lindsay Anderson and Robin Hood  (Michael Eaton MBE)

Day Three (Thursday 2nd July)

8.00-9.00
Breakfast

9.30-10.45
Session Four: History, Society and Story
Presider: Lesley Coote
David Hepworth – An Exploration of Cambridge University Manuscript Oo.6.115: A Tale of Norfolk Family Ties
Alice Blackwood - Robin Hood Ales and Parish Politics: the Administrative Context
Helen Phillips – Nut Brown Maidens

10.45 
Coffee

11.15-12.30
Session Five: Genre, Rhetoric and Resistance
Presider: Thomas Rowland
Mark Truesdale – King and Commoner Genre: “Þe best archer of ilkon, / I durst mete hym with a stone”
Sabina Rahman – Robin Hood and Surveillance: Ballad to Film
Jonathan Bishop – Godliness to Anonymous: Anti-Establishment Rhetoric in Robin Hood Ballads and Contemporary Media Texts

12.30 
Lunch

13.15-14.15
Session Six: Highway Men
Presider:  Alexander Kaufman
Gillian Spraggs – “A Second Robin Hood”: John Nevison, the Yorkshire Highwayman
Stephen Basdeo – Robin Hood the Brute: The Outlaw in Eighteenth-Century Criminal Biography

14.15 
Free time with tea from 15.30/ St James’s Church, High Melton open to view, by kind permission of the churchwardens
[The church is very small and insignificant-looking from the outside, but the stained glass dates from the late fourteenth to the nineteenth century, and is very well worth seeing, in addition to the other features listed in the guide pamphlet.  Tea is flexibly timed.]

16.15-17.40
Session Seven: Robin Hood and Contemporary Media Texts
Presider: Mikee Delony
Laura Blunk – “Are You Now or Have You Even Been an Outlaw in Sherwood?: Ring Lardner, Jr. and Ian McClellan Hunter’s Robin Hood
Jason Hogue – Behind Zorro’s Mask: The Mythic Afterlife of Joaquin Murieta, California’s Robin Hood
Thomas Rowland – Robin Hood of the West: Transforming the Greenwood Outlaw into an American Icon: 1938-1960

19.00
Reception 

19.30 
Dinner, news, farewells
End of conference
[If you are staying in the Hall, Friday breakfast will be 8.00-9.00, checkout is by 10am]

CFP: 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies



Call for Papers: 51 International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 12-15, 2016
Sponsored Session: International Association for Robin Hood Studies
Session Title: “Ecocritical Outlaws”
 
At an ICMS session in 2015, a panel posed the question "What Can Medieval Studies Bring to Ecocriticism?" Although the responses were diverse, none touched on the specific subgenre of outlaw literature, and this absence is reflected in much of the published ecocriticism scholarship. This panel seeks to initiate conversations about ecocritical issues in various outlaw tales, including but not limited to Robin Hood, Gamelyn, Fouke Fitz Waryn, and Án Bow-Bender. Given the liminal spaces which these tales occupy, as well as their frequent movements from greenwood into urban spaces, these tales are rich for ecological study. What do these stories reveal about medieval forest practices or perspectives towards animals (and their relationships and/or kinships to humans)? To what extent do these tales critique medieval ecological beliefs or offer alternative perspectives (that is, do they reveal a plurality of attitudes towards nature co-existing during the medieval period)? Given that Rebecca Douglass, in “Ecocriticism and Middle English Literature,” argues that “[E]cocriticism is . . . informed by a desire to understand past and present connections between literature and human attitudes regarding the earth,” what does the study of medieval outlaw tales offer to ecocritical studies? This panel welcomes a variety of approaches, including ecofeminist perspectives, cultural ecology, deep ecology, animal studies, ecolinguistics, and other innovative approaches.
Please send 250-word abstracts and CVs by September 15, 2015 to Kristin Bovaird-Abbo (kristin.bovairdabbo@unco.edu), Valerie B. Johnson (valerie.johnson@lmc.gatech.edu) and Alexander L. Kaufman (akaufman@aum.edu).
Please also submit a PIF, found here: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF
For further information about the International Association for Robin Hood Studies, please visit http://robinhoodscholars.blogspot.com/


Welcome!

Welcome to Robin Hood Scholars, the new web presence for the International Association for Robin Hood Studies. Follow us on Twitter @IARHS - you can track our forthcoming Doncaster conference (30 June - 2 July) with #IARHS2015. We've got a panel at the Leeds International Medieval Congress (6-9 July) as well: Session 1044, "Robin Hood: Making an Old Legend 'New'."