Multi-faceted Margarets: Textual and visual hagiographies of St. Margaret of Antioch
CFP for Kalamazoo (ICMS), 10-13 May 2018
One of the most popular saints in the late Middle Ages, St. Margaret of Antioch is described by one hagiographer—Jacobus de Voragine in his Legenda Aurea—as a pearl without price (thanks to the etymology of the saint’s name). Margaret’s comparison to a gemstone is particularly apt as she offers the opportunity for multi-faceted scholarly approaches to the saint and her stories. This session will explore the varied representations of the early Christian virgin martyr and her cult across the Middle Ages. Artists and writers characterized Margaret in both Latin and vernacular texts and in artistic representations across a wide range of media, from stained glass to manuscript illuminations. Margaret’s lives are the subject of current research by scholars from many disciplines, including Juliana Dresvina’s A Maid with a Dragon: The Cult of St Margaret of Antioch in Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 2017) as well as numerous recent articles. Texts and images conveying St. Margaret’s life express multiple versions of the saint, from her imitation of Christ as a martyr to her ability to defeat the dragon to her role as an intercessor in childbirth. Furthermore, Margaret’s narratives transformed across time and place, sometimes even being conflated with the stories of other saints, such as Marina and Pelagia, further opening up possibilities for comparative hagiographic study. For this session, we invite proposals from scholars working in a variety of medieval languages and artistic media as well as a range of scholarly disciplines, from religion and literature to art history. We hope the session will represent the multi-faceted nature of scholarship on saints’ lives by offering several different approaches to one very popular saint, Margaret of Antioch.
Please submit a 250-word proposal for a 15-20 minute paper by 15 September 2017.
Send any questions and proposals to
Jenny C. Bledsoe, Emory University (jcbleds@emory.edu)
Ashley Laverock, Savannah College of Art and Design (ajlaverock@gmail.com)