What kinds of atmospheres does Chaucer’s work engage with or create? How can we understand the social, political, ecological, juridical, poetic, sensory, or media atmospheres within which his poetry circulates? To what extent is Chaucerian poetry part of our contemporary atmosphere? How can we engage with premodern and/or modern theories of ambience, natural media, environmental justice, or nonhuman ontologies as structures for reading Chaucer? To what extent can an atmospheric model of reading offer a new critical paradigm for Chaucer studies; or, to what extent can Chaucerian atmospherics create new modes of reading post-Chaucerian texts? Please submit abstracts of 250 words (or fewer) to inelson@amherst.edu by March 20, 2021.
