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Yesterday was the first day of the vIMC. I attended three sessions, of variable actual interest. There were some tech snafus, and everybody's first words were 'can you hear me?', but by and large, things were made to work.
Writing Identity in Liminal Spaces, I: Crafting Religious Identities
The first talk had two excellent speakers, one (Emma Knowles) dealing with the concept of the wilderness (weste/westen) in Old English scriptural texts, specifically dealing with Hagar. She talked about the tension between the wilderness as the place in which one finds the divine, in early texts, and the wilderness as the place of exile from God, in later texts and church approaches, and it was fascinating.
The second speaker was Robert Cutrer, who was looking at Yngvars saga víðförla, and pointing out that it's essentially Icelandic propanganda, resetting Iceland and Sweden as barbarous places on the edge of the world to central, Christian places, by way of recasting the south and east as a land of monsters and hostile magic. Both papers worked together very well.
Borders in Tolkien's Medievalism, I
There's always Tolkien in medieval conferences. It's more medievalism than medieval, but that'll do. Andrzej Wicher talked about categories of fey in Tolkien and Lewis, and their relation to something called The Model, which is apparently some sort of framework for where entities fit in the world. Andoni Cossio spoke about the connections between the myth/legend of Sir Orfeo and Mirkwood in Tolkien. I wasn't so interested in the concepts here, but there were some absolutely great bits of information floating through, with interesting bits and pieces of refererences.
Fantasies of the Medieval
This drifted off into lit crit for the most part, which is fine in its own context, but not what I was looking for. Before that, though, there was mention by Judy Kendall of a novel called The Wake, which is written in an invented pseudo-medieval form of English in order not to have 11th century characters speaking in 21st century words. That's something I'll have to look into.
Writing Identity in Liminal Spaces, I: Crafting Religious Identities
The first talk had two excellent speakers, one (Emma Knowles) dealing with the concept of the wilderness (weste/westen) in Old English scriptural texts, specifically dealing with Hagar. She talked about the tension between the wilderness as the place in which one finds the divine, in early texts, and the wilderness as the place of exile from God, in later texts and church approaches, and it was fascinating.
The second speaker was Robert Cutrer, who was looking at Yngvars saga víðförla, and pointing out that it's essentially Icelandic propanganda, resetting Iceland and Sweden as barbarous places on the edge of the world to central, Christian places, by way of recasting the south and east as a land of monsters and hostile magic. Both papers worked together very well.
Borders in Tolkien's Medievalism, I
There's always Tolkien in medieval conferences. It's more medievalism than medieval, but that'll do. Andrzej Wicher talked about categories of fey in Tolkien and Lewis, and their relation to something called The Model, which is apparently some sort of framework for where entities fit in the world. Andoni Cossio spoke about the connections between the myth/legend of Sir Orfeo and Mirkwood in Tolkien. I wasn't so interested in the concepts here, but there were some absolutely great bits of information floating through, with interesting bits and pieces of refererences.
Fantasies of the Medieval
This drifted off into lit crit for the most part, which is fine in its own context, but not what I was looking for. Before that, though, there was mention by Judy Kendall of a novel called The Wake, which is written in an invented pseudo-medieval form of English in order not to have 11th century characters speaking in 21st century words. That's something I'll have to look into.
