Plymouth State University

Medieval & Renaissance Forum
“Time, Temporality, History”
Friday and Saturday, April 16-17, 2010
Plymouth State University

Welcome!

Welcome to the 31st Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum here at Plymouth State University. This year we’ll be exploring topics that range from the Apocalypse, brothels and Chaucer to Robin Hood, time travel and Ywain. Our particular emphasis is on “Time, Temporality, and History.” You’ll find many papers that explore how people conceived of, constructed, interacted with, measured, or produced “time” in medieval and Early Modern cultures. Papers also address how we currently construct or deconstruct history and how studying temporality illuminates other subjects.

We are particularly pleased to have Carolyn Dinshaw, of New York University, as our keynote speaker this year. Her talk “How Soon is Now? Problems of the Present, Medieval and Modern,” is free and open to the public and will be held at 1 p.m. in the Multi-Purpose Room of the Hartman Union Building (HUB).

Be sure to visit the undergraduate posters from Regis College on display in Rounds 103. We hope to expand this aspect of the Forum into an undergraduate poster session and contest next year, so stay in touch for details on how to involve your students in this exciting opportunity.

On Friday we’ll have a few special guests visiting our campus for a mini Medieval and Renaissance Fair to be held in tandem with the Forum on the Alumni Green in front of the HUB. Stop by and join the Plymouth Middle School seventh graders as they learn about smithing, Celtic art, glass etching, textiles, and falconry. We have new vendors this year in Rounds 103 and Rounds 107 and on Saturday be sure to visit with additional medieval-themed vendors over at the HUB.

I’d like to thank the Forum Advisory Board, especially Meriem Pagès, for her help organizing this event. Raffaele Florio, Carl Grindley, Elizabeth Patton and Jerome Denno have offered advice and support in a hundred small ways over the past year. And I’d like to thank all of you for sharing your latest and greatest research and for helping us to celebrate the arrival of Spring to the great north!

–Karolyn Kinane, Director

Displays and Vendors

• Rounds 103 and 107
• Undergraduate Poster Displays
• Basilia Books
• Marantha Creations
• Creations by Callie
• CDs and Art by Art & Joanne Ketchen
• Glass Etching and Chain Mail by PSU’s Medieval Society

Need to check your email? Visit the Lamson Library & Learning Commons for access to computers. While there, view our outstanding display of Medieval materials.

Visit the Plymouth State Bookstore, located in the Hartman Union Building, featuring many Medieval and Renaissance titles.

Friday, April 16th

8:30 a.m. Registration and coffee, Rounds Hall

Registration available until 9:00, then during sessions throughout the day

• Coffee, refreshments, and vendors are located in Rounds 103 and 107

9:00 a.m. – Opening Ceremony

Convene in front of Rounds Hall

Process from Rounds Hall to the Hartman Union Building (HUB) Fireplace Lounge

• Welcome poem, by Phil O’Mara, Emeritus, Bridgewater State College
• Opening remarks, Karolyn Kinane, Forum Director and Assistant Professor of English
• Welcome from Sara Jayne Steen, President of Plymouth State University
• Reading from Chaucer’s Introduction to the Man of Law’s Tale, by Dick Chisholm, Emeritus, Plymouth State University
• Join us all in singing Gaudemaus Igitur, with Mike DiTommaso on trumpet

9:30-10:50 Session 1

Undergraduate Panel I. Malory’s Le Morte D’ Arthur Rounds 203

Moderator: Peter Schwartz, Elmira College

• Sexual Morality in the Grail Quest, David Taberner, Worcester State College
• Dynadan and Breuse Saunz Pite: Chivalric Foils, Raymond See, Elmira College
• Guinevere: The Power of Sex and Status, Rachel Plass, Elmira College
• Poison Brewing in Camelot, Lawrence Willard, Elmira College

(9:30-10:50 Session 1 cont.)

Medieval Art Rounds 303

Moderator: Naomi Kline, Plymouth State University

• A Chest and a Woman’s Body, Valerie Clark, Ohio Wesleyan University
• Textile Timelines: Historical Models of Kingship in the Nine Heroes Tapestries, Margaret Lally, University of Virginia
• Painting Time and Reviving the Past: Constructing and Reconstructing History with Constantine and Silvester Together Again and Again…, Barbara Beall-Fofana, Assumption College

Time in Medieval and Early Modern Drama Rounds 304

Moderator: Lisa LeBlanc, Anna Maria College

• * Temporal Conventions in Medieval Drama, Diane Murphy, Unity College
• * Rise and Fade: Soothsaying and Sacred Time in Cymbeline, Kreg Segall, Regis College
• * The Treatment of Time in Two Elizabethan Plays about King John, Charles Forker, Indiana University

11:05-12:25 Session 2

Undergraduate Panel II. Malory’s Le Morte D’ Arthur Rounds 203

Moderator: Peter Schwartz, Elmira College

• * Fellowship over Fatherhood: The Sublimation of Family for Chivalry, Bridget Sharry, Elmira College
• * Orkney Blood Revenge and Gawain’s Role in the Demise of the Round Table, Raven See, Elmira College
• * Arthur’s Fall: No One to Blame but Himself, Rebekah Douglass, Elmira College
• * Arthur’s Gradual Withdrawal from Britain and his Failure as King, Leslie Swayze, Elmira College

(11:05-12:25 Session 2 cont.)

Representing Islam Rounds 204

Moderator: Whitney Howarth, Plymouth State University

• Muslims and Other Heathens in Medieval Vernacular Culture, Robert G. Sullivan, University of Massachusetts – Amherst
• Re-constructing the Moor: Christian Visions of Islamic Spain, Wilson Garcia, Plymouth State University
• Robbing the Saracen to Create the Englishman: Islam and Muslims in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves , Meriem Pagès, Keene State College

Religious Writing in Fourteenth-Century England Rounds 303

Moderator: Josephine Bloomfield, Ohio University

• * Signs of the Times: Treatments of Temporality in 14th-Century English Revelatory Writing, Elissa Hansen, University of Minnesota
• * “Take þou þe book and swalow it”: Wyclif’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation and the Language of Conversion in British Library Harley 1203, Meredith Clermont-Ferrand, Eastern Connecticut University
• * Enclosing Saints: Chaucer and Hagiography, Rebecca Perederin, University of Virginia

Early Modern English Literature Rounds 304

Moderator: Bonnie Epstein, Plymouth State University

• * Fourth Acts in Shakespeare’s History Plays: Theatrical Promise Fulfilled, Roberta Staples, Sacred Heart University
• * Crowds and Power: Some Shakespearean Images of Mob, Rabble and Crowd, Philip O’Mara, Independent Scholar
• * Elizabeth Cary and the Classical Tradition, Elizabeth Patton, The Johns Hopkins University

12:00 p.m. Medieval Society Human Chess Match

Alumni Green in front of the Hartman Union Building

(Rain location Fireplace Lounge)

12:45 p.m. – Lunch (tickets required)

Hartman Union Building Multi-Purpose Room

Browse the mini Medieval and Renaissance Fair, featuring Ararat Forge, Costumes by Anjuli, and workshops by PSU’s Medieval Society, Art Education students, and Professor Terry Downs.

1:10 p.m. Falconry Demo

by Nancy Cowan of the NH School of Falconry

Enjoy your lunch outside!

3:30 p.m. Longbow Archery Demonstration

2:25-3:45 Session 3

Malory’s Morte D’Arthur Rounds 203

Moderator: Forrest Helvie, The Forman School

• Taking a Wrong Turn?: Malory’s Perplexing Tale of Alisaundre the Orphan, Gary LaPointe, Elmira College
• Between the Licit and the Illicit: Malory’s Inconstancy in Matters of the Body and Heart, James Slocombe, Bishop’s University/Champlain College
• Secular Penance in Malory’s Tale of Sir Tristram, Peter Schwartz, Elmira College

Early Modern England: Literature and Politics Rounds 204

Moderator: David Beronä, Plymouth State University

• Radicalized Concepts of Time in the Radical Reformation: Past, Present, and Future in the Writings of Melchior Hoffman, Sebastian Franck, and Menno Simons, Donald Hochstetler, Worcester State College
• Experiments in Every Kind: The Place of The History of King Richard III in the Literary Biography of Thomas More, William Marx, Michigan State University
• “From Foule to Fayre”: Robert Southwell’s Race Against Time in Elizabethan England, Gary M. Bouchard, Saint Anselm College

Subverting Authority and Breaking the Law Rounds 303

Moderator: Stephanie Halter, Plymouth State University

• “Concerning those who fornicate irrationally”: Homosexuality, Bestiality and Incest in the Penitentials, Christine McCann, Seton Hall University
• No Sanctuary Here: Westminster Abbey and the Case of Robert Hawley and John Shakell, Paulette Barton, University of Maine – Orono
• Drunken Brawls in Brothels: Cheap Wine, Court Records, and other Disreputable Aspects of the Economic History of Constance and its Region, Josh Burson, Yale University/Plymouth State University

Travel, Place and Movement Rounds 304

Moderator: Mona Logarbo, University of Michigan

• Time, Distance and Boundaries: Travelling in England, 800-1100, Jennifer MacDonald, Acadia University
• East Anglia’s Road to Damascus: The Movement of Good and Evil in the Conversion of St. Paul, Andrea Harbin, SUNY Cortland
• ‘Do stunt der kuninc Rothere’: Mastering Geography in the M.H.G. ‘Spielmannsepik’ “König Rother”, Rachael Salyer, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

4:00-5:20 Session 4

Moderns Read Medievals Rounds 203

Moderator: Meriem Pagès, Keene State College

• In Defense of Guinevere: Our Distorted Modern Reading, Brittany Wilson, Keene State College
• Time Travel to the Middle Ages in Contemporary Film, Carl Grindley, Eugenio María de Hostos Community College/CUNY
• The Medieval Muslim Hero in Film, Ann Brant, Keene State College

Philosophy of History Rounds 204

Moderator: Raffaele Florio, Regis College

• Historical Method and the Weight of Tradition: Gilson’s Critique of Neoplatonism, Brian Garcia, University of Dallas
• Ockham’s Time and the Times of Modernity, Alison Bjerke, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Flexible Time: Early Medieval Temporal Theory, Clair McPherson, New York University/Fordham College

Truth in Early Modern English Literature Rounds 303

Moderator: Donna Prescott, Duanesburg High School

• “By God’s Grace”: A Comparative Analysis of Straparola’s The Pig Prince and England’s King Henry VIII, Janine Fela, College of New Jersey
• Renaissance Reality or Fictional Dream? Cross-dressing Women in Plays by Shakespeare, Lyly, Middleton, and Dekker, Melissa Bourque, Fitchburg State College
• Thwarting Social Ideology by Fusing Fact and Fiction: An Analysis of Francis Beaumont’s The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Kristin Bennett, College of New Jersey

4:00-5:40 Time in Medieval Literature Rounds 304

Moderator: Kathy Tardif, Plymouth State University

• Preparation and Planning: The Relationship Between Time and Success in Silence, Melanie Bussiere, Roselle Park High School/Union County College
• Resisting Time: The Legacy of “The Battle of Maldon,” Leah Lederman, University of Toledo
• Images Of Time Re-Wound In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Claire-Marie Hart, North Shore Community College
• An Outlaw in the High Places: Time and Space at the Borderlands of the Volsunga Saga, Angela Weisl, Seton Hall University

5:30-6:30 President’s Reception

Join us at the home of President Sara Jayne Steen and Joe Bourque, located directly behind the Hartman Union Building (HUB) and across from the Frost House

6:45 Dinner (tickets required)

Hartman Union Building Multi-Purpose Room

8:00 p.m. Marat/Sade

Plymouth State University’s Silver Center. Tickets: $12

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. The infamous Marquis de Sade has been imprisoned in the asylum of Charenton for endangering public morals. As a form of therapy, the hospital’s patients are allowed to take part in plays, and de Sade sets out to dramatize the death of the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, who was murdered in his bath. With its cast of sociopaths, schizophrenics, and narcoleptics, Marat/Sade is a wild celebration of insanity and a terrifying reenactment of historic events. Mature Audiences Only.

Saturday April 17th

9:00- 10:20 Session 5:

Pedagogy Roundtable: Skills, Content, and Medieval and Renaissance Literature Rounds 203

Moderator and Respondent: Ann McClellan, Plymouth State University

• Arthurian Legends in General Education, Karolyn Kinane, Plymouth State University
• “I can’t read that!” Using Manuscripts in the Chaucer Classroom, Meredith Clermont-Ferrand, Eastern Connecticut University
• “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Early Modern Literature and General Education, Robert Kellerman, University of Maine, Augusta
• Stripping Duessa / Dressing Up Eve: Gender and Allegory in the Early Modern Classroom, Thomas Festa, SUNY New Paltz

Conversations across Time Periods Rounds 204

Moderator: Barbara Lopez-Mayhew, Plymouth State University

• * Medieval to Modern Colloquialisms: An Inside Look at our Language’s Origins, Alicia Tague, Keene State College
• * Letters from the Sky, Magical Stones, Horses and Transparent women: How Studying Gautier d’Arras Eracle of the 12th Century Illuminates Earlier Centuries, Nathalie Ettzevoglou, University of Connecticut
• * Judith of Flanders and her Books: Beyond Anglo-Saxon England, Mary Dockray-Miller, Lesley University

Medieval Art and Architecture Rounds 303

Moderator: Meriem Pagès, Keene State College

• Temporal and Eternal: The Decorative Evolution of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome, Stephen Lucey, Keene State College
• Structuring the Gothic Past: The Abbey Church of Saint-Denis in Nineteenth-Century Architectural Scholarship, Sarah Thompson, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Ruling from the Frontier: The Merovingian Palace of Malay, Gregory Halfond, Framingham State College

Religious Turmoil in the Sixteenth Century Rounds 304

Moderator: Carl Grindley, Eugenio María de Hostos Community College/CUNY

• Sex, God, Women, and Men in the Kabbalistic Literature of Sixteenth-Century Safed, Marla Segol, Skidmore College
• Gog and Magog from the North: The Livonian War and the Lutheran Eschatological Discourses in 16th-Century Germany, Ken Kurihara, Fordham University
• Jean Bodin and Sixteenth Century France, Mel Weissman, University of Colorado – Colorado Springs

10:35-11:55 Session 6

Time and Arthuriana Rounds 203

Moderator: Flo Keyes, Castleton State College

• Time and Textuality in Malory’s Morte, Connor Pitetti, The City College of New York
• (Un)Stuck in Time: Modes of Temporality in Gawain and the Green Knight, James Riddle, College of Staten Island CUNY
• Influences of the Late-Medieval on the American Gothic Tradition: Poe’s Perspective on the Maimed King, Forrest Helvie, The Forman School

Chaucer and Philosophy Rounds 204

Moderator: Claire-Marie Hart, North Shore Community College

• Time, the Tenses, and Knowing: God’s Eternal Present and Human Authority in Chaucer, Josephine Bloomfield, Ohio University
• Chaucer and the Medieval Concept of Intentionality, Thomas Napierkowski, University of Colorado – Colorado Springs
• Boethius and the Boys: The Nun’s Priest, Chauntecleer, and Troilus as Philosophers, Brian Campbell, Vanier College

(10:35-11:55 Session 6 cont.)

Medieval German Female Mystics: Mechtild and Hildegard Rounds 303

Moderator: Robert G. Sullivan, University of Massachusetts – Amherst

• Literary and Gender Border Crossings: Mechthild’s Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit, April Huffines, University of Massachusetts – Amherst
• New Light on the Music to Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, Vincent Corrigan, Bowling Green State University
• Sonic Design as Chronotope in Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, Michael Gardiner, New England Conservatory of Music

Medieval and Renaissance Conceptions of Time Rounds 304

Moderator: Angela Weisl, Seton Hall University

• Time, Power and the Public Good as Seen Through the Clock on Paris’s Palais Royal (1370), Michael Sizer, Maryland Institute College of Art
• Time and Timing in the Microcosm: Temporal essence in Late Renaissance Medical Biology, Jole Shackelford, University of Minnesota
• “Producing the Artefact”: Reinforcing Medieval Ideologies, Carl Martin, Fitchburg State College

12:15 Lunch (tickets required)

Hartman Union Building Multi-Purpose Room

1:00-2:00 Keynote talk, free and open to public

Hartman Union Building Multi-Purpose Room

How Soon is Now?
Problems of the Present, Medieval and Modern
Carolyn Dinshaw, New York University

2:15 p.m. Medieval Society Human Chess Match

Alumni Green in front of the Hartman Union Building

(Rain location Fireplace Lounge)

3:00-4:20 Session 7

Women and Medieval Literature Rounds 203

Moderator: Mary Dockray-Miller, Lesley University

• Role Reversal and Gender Bending in the Lais of Marie de France, Rachael Warmington, Seton Hall University
• Questions of Authority and Subversion in The Book of Margery Kempe, Deirdre Riley, Seton Hall University
• Maid Marion: The Need for a Lady, Lisa LeBlanc, Anna Maria College

Piers Plowman Rounds 204

Moderator: Peter Schwartz, Elmira College

• Kynde Avenger in Langland’s Piers Plowman, Jason Lubinski, University of Toledo
• Lady Meeds in Training? Rose the Regrater and Betoun the Brewster in the B Text, Nicholas Schwartz, University of Toledo
• Piers Plowman in Wonderland: Allegory and Lewis Carroll, Stephanie Opfer, University of Toledo

Shakespeare in Community Colleges Rounds 304

Moderator: Garl Grindley, Eugenio María de Hostos Community College/CUNY

Jaffranna Castillo, Madelin Gutierrez, Samantha Hernandez,

Alexis Lopez, and Amalia Sanchez of Eugenio María de Hostos Community College

3:00-4:40

Historiography Rounds 303

Moderator: Raffaele Florio, Regis College

• “Un flambeau dans l’obscurité”: Claude Dormay and the History of Soissons before the Romans, Edward Boyden, Nassau Community College
• Crafting Irish History: The Creation of Irish Identity through the Synthesis of Irish Monastic Annals and Mythological Sagas, Laura McCloskey, George Mason University
• The Medieval Past and Present: Colonial Discourse and the Infantilization of the Middle Ages, Afrodesia McCannon, New York University
• The Importance of Time: The Controversy over the Dates of Publication of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain, Ronald Greenwald, University of Aberdeen

5:15-9:00 p.m. Medieval and Renaissance Feast, tickets required, costumes encouraged

Samuel Read Hall Residence Hall; Heritage Room

• Featuring Alex the Jester
• 5:15-6:00 Cocktails (cash bar)
• 6:00 Hand-washing ceremony
• Medieval Society Knighting Ceremony

“The Wildly Hilarious Tale of the Shoemaker, his Wife, the Monk and the Doorman.”

Translated and directed by Michelle Volz, Boston College. Starring: Ana Conboy, Boston College, Kevin Spak, Independent actor, David Tuturo, Harvard University, and Michelle Volz

Medieval & Renaissance Forum

The Forum Director, Karolyn Kinane, and Administrative Assistant, Lisa Riley, would like to thank:

• All of our faithful participants, many of whom return year after year for this special celebration, and our new friends attending for the first time.
• Faculty and Staff of Plymouth State University, including
  • Sara Jayne Steen, President
  • Julie Bernier, Provost & Vice President of Academic Affairs
  • Ann Thurston, Business Manager, Academic Affairs
  • Tamara Mahoney, Senior Business Service Assistant
  • Mary Petz, Administrative Assistant, English
  • Elizabeth (Betsy) Cheney, Public Relations Coordinator
  • Kerry Keating, Associate Director of Hartman Union Building
  • Kelli-Ann Kemery, Manager of Physical Plant Administration
  • Joseph Mealey, Department of English
  • Elaine Allard, Lamson Library Liaison
  • Joann Guilmet, Lamson Library Liaison
  • John Ward, Physical Plant
  • Stephen Rheaume, Bookstore Manager
  • John “Dez” Hoonhout, Monarch, Medieval Society
  • John Grandi, Chancellor, Medieval Society
  • Jake Defeo, Treasurer, Medieval Society
  • Alana Barron, Armorer, Medieval Society
  • Courtney LaCroix, Scribe, Medieval Society
  • Paul Rogalus, Department of English
  • Terry Downs, Art Department
  • Rachel Carter, Nick Baudler, Brittanie Bradley, Cate Wegner, Kristen Hoffman, Christopher McGinnis, Katie Crocket, Jocelyn Howard, Julia Walker, Neala Larkin, Julie Nichols, and Samantha Smart
  • Chris Mongeon, General Manager, Sodexo
  • Keith Botelho, Catering Manager, Sodexo

Plymouth State University (PSU) is a regional comprehensive university offering a rich, student-focused learning environment for both undergraduate and graduate students. PSU offers 42 majors and 62 minors in programs that include education, business, humanities, arts, and natural and social sciences. The College of Graduate Studies offers coursework that promotes research, best practices and reflection in locations on- and off-campus as well as online. For non-traditional students, PSU’s Frost School of Continuing and Professional Studies offers working professionals opportunities to pursue an undergraduate degree by attending classes in the evenings, weekends and online. Located in a beautiful New England setting, Plymouth State University has been recognized as one of the “Best in the Northeast” by The Princeton Review.

This is a story about an amaxing student.