IMEMS Seminar Series: Michaelmas Term 2023
21 November 2023 - 8 December 2023
4:30PM - 7:00PM
7 Owengate, Durham, DH1 3HB (and online - registration essential)
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Free
This interdisciplinary forum covers a wide range of medieval and early modern topics. It is designed to bring together members, including students, from across our departments, as well as from outside Durham University.
IMEMS
Events in this series are listed in full below.
Unless otherwise stated, all events will take place on Wednesdays, 4.30pm (UK time) at 7 Owengate, DH1 3HB.
We encourage in-person attendance where possible (no need to book, unless otherwise stated). The option of online attendance is there for greater accessibility (please register using the link under the relevant seminar(s)).
15th of November, 6:30 - 8:00 pm
Location: Learning Resource Centre, St John's College • Durham University (3 South Bailey Durham DH1 3RJ)
"Storytelling, the non-human and new animism at World Heritage Sites"
Join us and Dr Jane Lovell from Canterbury ChristChurch University on the eve of Lumiere to explore new ways to bring historical sites to life!
Jane is a Reader in Tourism at Christ Church Business School. She was instrumental in establishing Durham’s first Lumiere and researches the authenticity and impact of light shows and new forms of animating world heritage sites. The best way to arrive is on foot to see final testing on light installations on Palace Green, the Cathedral College and Prebends Bridge.
Two links for the lecture on Wednesday:
1. Eventbrite link for people attending in person, tickets are free but limited in number - Storytelling, the non-human and new animism at World Heritage Sites Tickets, Wed 15 Nov 2023 at 18:30 | Eventbrite
2. Zoom link for people joining remotely . Register in advance for this meeting:
https://durhamuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAqduGqrTgjHNMAfJSgs89wcjPpEXNWz5rm
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Reception afterwards at 7 Owengate – IMEMS colleagues are warmly invited to both!
21st of November, 4:30 pm
"Beowulf and the Fall of the Angels"
Speaker: Francis Leneghan (Oxford)
6th of December, 4:30 pm
"Complaint and Resignation: Affects of Medieval Italy's Women Poets"
Speaker: Kate Travers (Oxford)
Abstract:
In the manuscripts of vernacular poetry produced in Italy, we find representations of women poets using both Occitan and Italian. These texts, where we find them, interrupt the gender dynamics of the medieval poetry compilation, which is dominated by male poets and their much-discussed gaze towards a female beloved. Reading these texts attributed to women alongside the affect theory of Lauren Berlant, specifically their formulation of the "female complaint", offers one way of conceptualizing what happens to the gender dynamics of the medieval poetry anthology when the voice of a woman poet emerges within it. The rhetoric of complaint and resignation found in Occitan trobairitz cansos and the sonnets of the Compiuta Donzella allows their poetry to be read in ways that express discomfort with the role of women, both within the discursive structures of medieval poetry and the social structures of medieval Italy, without offering resistance to it. This talk invites us to investigate the implications of complaint and resignation, considering not only how medieval readers would have engaged with these texts but also the critical apparatus we as scholars tend to use to read this poetry.