| The Lollard Society invites proposals for the two sessions it will co-sponsor at the 2020 International Medieval Conference in Kalamazoo, MI. Abstracts should be sent to Michael Van Dussen at michael[dot]vandussen[at]mcgill[dot]ca no later than Sept. 15 “Centers, Peripheries, and Networks of Reform in the Fifteenth Century” [co-sponsored with the Jean Gerson Society] This session analyzes reformist ideas and voices as they took shape in the fifteenth century, with an emphasis on the transnational contours of these movements. Calls for reform by the Wycliffites and Hussites spread side by side with those in more familiar mendicant, monastic, or university contexts. This session considers how reform movements or programs were inflected by these networks that traversed political and institutional boundaries. Papers may address the place of universities, the reception of specific intellectuals, patronage networks in the development of reform programs, or variable regional dynamics in reform movements, particularly as they responded to fifteenth-century exigencies. A transnational approach to fifteenth-century reform may be enriched by a variety of current trends in the academy, including but not limited to: network theory (in charting the relationships between reform actors in differing locales), affect theory (in construing modes of reform not reducible to theoretical articulations), or new materialism (in considering the role of objects, e.g. manuscripts, in constituting reform movements). While we do not have any particular theoretical agenda for the session, we are committed to a session drawn from a variety of disciplines and methodological orientations. “Langland and the Fifteenth Century” [co-sponsored with the International Piers Plowman Society] Panels at major international conferences over the last five years have sought to bring Langland into deeper conversation with his English contemporaries, like Chaucer, as well as his French contemporaries across the Channel. Other sessions, meanwhile, have continued to advocate for the centrality of the fifteenth century to Middle English studies. This session combines both of these impulses, seeking papers on links between Langland and fifteenth-century authors in areas including, but not limited to, vernacular theology, affective piety, literature of counsel, pilgrimage narrative, and estates satire. The session aims to pull Langland into a broader late medieval literary landscape to encourage comparative treatment of his unique poem. It aims to de-center the dominant focus on Chaucer’s influence on fifteenth-century poets by substituting another major fourteenth-century figure in his place. Finally, it hopes to continue developing work on late medieval vernacular theology by exploring its intersections with literary material. |