Symposium

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From the traveling tales of the Canterbury pilgrims to Mohammad's night journey, to itinerant jongleurs, to Lancelot's descent into madness and Dante's descent into Hell, physical and spiritual wandering was an important motif in the Middle Ages.

We interpret the idea of wandering broadly to encompass voyage, crusade, pilgrimage, religious instruction, translation, travel narratives (including travel to the "other world"), quests for wisdom and wanderings into foolishness, diaspora and migration, expulsion, and scientific exploration, development and discovery.  Our  explorations of wandering will be complemented by the Early Music Institute's April Fool's weekend concert featuring "the wise and the foolish." With this collaboration in mind, we welcome papers from any and every discipline, on topics that address any facet of wandering in the Middle Ages.

IU Medieval Studies Institute is please to announce that Professor Bernard McGinn, Divinity School, University of Chicago, will present the keynote on Saturday, April 2nd.  The tentative title for his presentation is "Paul and Dante: Mystical Pilgrims to the Infinite."

Friday, April 1

1:00-2:15     Woodburn 101  

Panel 1                                                              Moderated by: Victor Pereira
Title: Mapping the Self: Wandering and Representation

Richard Barrett, Indiana University, Department of History
"Stational Liturgy and the Fermentum in Late Antique Rome"

Michael Pifer, University of Michigan, Department of Comparative Literature    
" The Threshold of Dignity: Performing the Human in Medieval
              Armenian and Persian Wandering"


2:30- 4:00        Woodburn 101

Panel 2                                                                     Moderated by: Richard Barrett
Title:   Reports from the Field: Wandering and Encounters with the Phenomenal World

Erik Inglis, Oberlin College, Department of Art
     "The Worthless Stories of Pilgrims': The Art Historical Imagination of
Medieval Travelers"

Jon Arnold, University of Tulsa, Department of History
"Why Not Stay Home? Sidonius and Ennodius on the Inconveniences of
          Travel"

Audrey Becker, Marygrove College, Department of English
 "Dangerous Migration in The Mabinogi"


5:00-5:45         Beck Chapel      "Via lata gradior"    Early Music Institute Concert

7:00-10:00       Woodburn House                            Dinner and Readers Circle



Saturday, April 2

9:00-10:30  Woodburn 101

Panel 3                                                     Moderated by: Kerilyn Harkaway-Kreiger
Title:  Diegetic Topographies: Wandering and Encounters with the Phenomenal World

Tamara Carrell, Indiana University, Department of English
     " Le Chevalier au Lion and Monastic Exile in the Middle Ages"

Nathan Mertes, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of English
"Green Screen: Illegible Signification in Sir Gawain and the Green
     Knight"

Stephanie Opfer, University of Toledo, Department of English
 "Piers Plowman in Wonderland"            

11:00-12:00    Woodburn 101                                   

Dr. McGinn Keynote  "Paul and Dante: Pilgrims to the Infinite"

12:15-1:15         Lunch                                               IMU, Federal Room

1:30-3:00  Woodburn 101  

Panel 4                                                          Moderated by: Diane Fruchtman
Title:  Reception: Intertextual Wandering

Donka Markus, University of Michigan, Department of Classical Studies
           " The Counter-Virgilian Narrative in St. Brendan's Navigatio"

Frederika Schmadel, Indiana University, Department of Folklore
      " A Medieval Oedipus: Gregorius, the Good Sinner'

Katherine Weikert, University of Winchester, Department of Archeology
 "Two Women of Wessex: Parallel Lives in the Twelfth Century"

3:15-4:25    Woodburn 101

Panel 5    Title: Crossing Boundaries: Wandering and the Rhetoric of Encountering the Other                                                               Moderated by: Emily Houlick-Ritchey

Yanay Israeli , University of Michigan, Department of History
" Rethinking Conversion: 'Faith,' Exchange and Baptism in the
  Chronicles of the First Crusade"

Michelle Kustarz, Wayne State University, Department of English
     " Crossing Over: Purgatory Narratives and Mandeville's Travel
          through the Vale Perilous"
    
4:40-5:40   Woodburn 101

Panel 6                  Title: Journeys into Digital Medieval Studies

Dot Porter, Indiana University
Digital Medievalist, Digital Librarian, Indiana University

Grant Simpson , Indiana University, Department of English

6:00  Closing Dinner - Ballantine Hall, 004