SAVE THE DATE! 

Medieval + Monsters Conference 2025

Dates: October 17 & 18, 2025

Call for Papers: Due March 15, 2025

Hosted @ Dominican University & the Newberry Library

Sponsoring the conference: 

The Medieval Association of the Midwest (MAM)

Mid-America Medieval Association (MAMA)

Illinois Medieval Association (IMA) 

& the Newberry Library

Individual abstracts of 250 words should be submitted to:

 Monsterconference2025@gmail.com       

by March 15, 2025.  

Proposed panels are also accepted.   Questions: Mickey Sweeney

Abstracts focused on medieval, or medievalism monstrous themes are welcome; this topic is broadly conceived to encourage colleagues from all relevant disciplines, such as art historians, linguists, literature, theologians, historians, history of science, and forms of medievalism etc., to apply. We also have an active group of graduate students who are interested in developing online sessions, as well as in-person workshops in teaching the medieval through medievalism, gaming, etc. Please note on your abstract if you are interested in an in-person session or an online session and if you are proposing a graduate session or traditional paper/session. 

Sessions will be at Dominican University (River Forest, Il), the Newberry Library (Chicago, Il), and online. The Newberry will host a workshop and a tour of the library.  More to follow. 

Registration Information:  

Cost to register for the conference: --$100.00 for faculty & working professionals (includes                                    membership to MAM for 2025)

                               -- $50.00 retired/independent scholar (includes 2025 MAM                                  Membership) 

                               (Payment options coming)      

Graduate Student Travel Grants & Fees:

CARA Graduate Student Travel Grants are available for up to $300 each. Please give a brief description of the costs for travel for consideration. We will support as many graduate students as we can, so distributed as needed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Registration fees for graduate students are waived . 

Travel information: 

Dominican University & the Newberry Library are within reach of both O'Hare International Airport and Midway airport.  There are hotels available in downtown Chicago and in River Forest/Oak Park near Dominican University (closer to O'Hare airport for traveling convenience).  Ubers are possible from O'Hare or Midway to Dominican; the "L" is recommended for the more economy-minded from O'Hare to downtown Chicago. More information to follow. 

For questions, please contact:

Mickey Sweeney 

Professor of English
Honors; Director of the Medieval & Renaissance Minor
President of the Medieval Association of the Midwest

Dominican University

Strength in Collaboration: Learn a bit more about our publications and partnerships:

This conference is all about the strength in collaboration and partnerships. Enarratio, MAM's journal & Essys in Medieval Studies, will be sharing the submissions for our mutual publications. Be sure to see our 2024 collections now available online. 

NEWBERRY LLIBRARY - Center for Renaissance Studies

We are delighted to partner with the Center for Renaissance Studies and the Newberry, which is a public research library located in Chicago that houses a strong collection of medieval manuscripts, printed books, and other objects.  We are looking forward to a session, a workshop, and a tour of the libraries Medieval and Renaissance collections. 

We are also grateful for the CARA grant that will support graduate attendance at this conference. 

The Monsters Conference is sponsored by CARA,  Dominican University,  The Newberry Library.

PLANS for 2024

MAM KALAMAZOO 2025 CALL for Papers:

 DUE: Sunday Sept. 15     Submit to ICMS (link here)

The Natural World in Medieval Thought

• In the fifteenth-century encyclopedia Sidrak and Bokkus, a translation into English from the popular thirteenth-century French Livre de la fontaine de toutes sciences, questions are asked as to why God created stinging, biting animals and why Noah allowed on board the ark poisonous snakes and scorpions. Clearly then, medieval people thought about the natural world and how it related to them in terms that were not always positive or economic. This session centers on how global medieval people perceived the natural world. Papers can vary, and include animal studies, art/architecture, comparative source studies, ecocriticism, environmental studies, history, literature, and philosophy.
  

The Medieval End/Medieval Ends/End of the Medieval?

• Medieval literature overflows with representations of “the end”—apocalypses, visions of the afterlife, descriptions of wars and natural disasters. But today we also face changes in the field of medieval studies itself: waning enrollments, erasure from curricular requirements, and loss of faculty in programs world-wide. Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of medieval studies? This session invites papers from all disciplines that address any aspect of “the end” in medieval art and culture or in medieval studies more broadly. Papers might consider eschatological theology, ecological or environmental ends, millenarianism, social change, medievalism, or the future of academia.
  

Medieval Monsters and Monstrosity

• Medieval literature plays host to a broad spectrum of monstrous figures ranging from the more familiar dragons, monsters, dwarves, and trolls to the rather obscure. Early twentieth-century scholars often interpreted these figures, with varying degrees of conviction, as the ostracized “other” in Old Norse-Icelandic, Old English, and Middle English literature. Since 1996, however, a growing body of work argues that such interpretations form the beginning of the discourse on teratology rather than its end. The aim of this session, then, is further to explore the narrative, cultural, religious, philosophical, and political functions that monstrous figures serve in medieval literature.

Deconstructing Queer Vikings

• Queer- and gender-theoretical approaches to Viking Age literary and cultural production have undoubtedly born fruit in recent years, with publications on these topics increasing exponentially each decade since 1994. This production has provided scholars with a vocabulary and framework to explore Old Norse literature and culture in ways that were not previously possible, yet some would argue that the benefits come with the risk of imposing over-theorized and anachronistic assessments of Old Norse culture and literature. This session therefore aims to explore the boundaries, limitations, and possibilities of theoretical approaches to queer and gendered cultural phenomena in the medieval North.
  

Mysticism and the Twenty-First Century (A Roundtable)

• Mysticism can be viewed as a path toward spirituality in which one seeks a direct and personal experience with a divine presence. Enhanced by ontological phenomenology, the removal of intermediaries fosters methods of inclusion in which marginalized individuals are generally excluded from traditional venues of theological practice. This session will explore the mystic global Middle Ages and discuss their impact on contemporary audiences. For this roundtable discussion, we invite speakers to prepare a six to ten-minute presentation and approach the topic from various angles, including new research, non-traditional venues for practice or exposure, museum exhibitions, and the visual arts.
  

The Future of the Medieval Past: AI and the Digital Humanities (Virtual)

•  A glance at the Chronicle will convince any sceptic that AI & the Digital Humanities are necessary for medievalists to secure the rare unicorn of a job & to be best prepared for the classroom. Students & businesses incorporate AI into their work practices and yet many faculty have not intentionally engaged with what they make possible. We need to educate students on how to work with AI and be ethical in their use of it. This round table seeks faculty/graduate students who incorporate AI & DH into their classroom practices to share the best of what they do.   

Co

Co-Hosted with Pearl-Poet Society: Navigating Archival Research as a Graduate Student: A Roundtable:CFP for the session (Navigating Archival Research as a Graduate Student: A Roundtabl

We invite proposals from first-year graduate students to post-graduate researchers on conducting archival research during graduate school. We seek to hear from graduate students on how you navigate archival research, from planning and locating appropriate archival resources to best practices when consulting primary materials to how to find and apply for fellowships and grants. We are particularly interested in hearing archival success stories that display the affordances of archival research for graduate study.

MAMA 47 2024 cfp.pdf

MAMA, MAM, MMHC 2024:

MAMA