MLA Commons | LLC Old English | Activity https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/ Activity feed for the group, LLC Old English. Sun, 05 Apr 2026 04:36:49 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 7b0660bb35f2fc30297271a787bcf503 Jennifer A. Lorden started the topic Inviting Nominations for the Old English Forum Executive Committee! in the forum LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/inviting-nominations-for-the-old-english-forum-executive-committee/ Mon, 12 Jan 2026 21:26:02 -0500 The Old English Forum Executive Committee invites nominations (self-nominations encouraged!) for a new member to be appointed to the Committee. The new member will serve a five-year term on the Old English Forum Executive Committee, from Jan. 2027-Jan. 2032. The Forum Committee organizes annual sponsored panels at MLA, participates in Forum and…[Read more]

]]> 0 382174c132c03ef8cbfa117edb1e0d5e Jennifer A. Lorden started the topic CFPs for Old English Panels at MLA 2026 in Toronto in the forum LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/cfps-for-old-english-panels-at-mla-2026-in-toronto/ Wed, 29 Jan 2025 14:59:52 -0500 The Old English Forum will be sponsoring the following two panels at the MLA Convention in Toronto meeting from January 8-11, 2026. We’re accepting 250-word proposals until March 15, 2025 for 15-20 minute papers. Please share widely!! And don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions.

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Language Play in Old English Literature

This ses…[Read more]

]]> 0 bc0c197e691bfc2ce70a9794bf46a550 Nicole Guenther Discenza started the topic Old English Forum CFP for MLA 2022 in the discussion LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/old-english-forum-cfp-for-mla-2022/ Tue, 02 Mar 2021 16:21:20 -0500 The Old English Forum announces these calls for papers for MLA 2022, 6–9 January in Washington, DC.

Session (1) Broken but Wondrous: Finding Hope in Old English Literature
Old English literature is rarely associated with hope – indeed, much of its poetry is littered with the ruins of lost peoples, frozen and desolate landscapes, meditations on…[Read more]

]]> 0 851b74e9b95bfb7b5161f7a949c60160 Nicole Guenther Discenza started the topic Women & Language CFP (on behalf of Leland G. Spencer) in the discussion LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/women-language-cfp-on-behalf-of-leland-g-spencer/ Tue, 26 May 2020 15:15:01 -0400 Shared on behalf of Leland G. Spencer, PhD, editor of Women and Language:

Women & Language, an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal publishes original scholarly articles and creative work covering all aspects of communication, language, and gender. Contributions to Women & Language may be empirical, rhetorical-critical,…[Read more]

]]> 0 289a9d732d760b675870cf851416c1da Nicole Guenther Discenza started the topic Calls for Papers: Old English for MLA 2021 in the discussion LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/calls-for-papers-old-english-for-mla-2012/ Sat, 14 Mar 2020 19:06:42 -0400 Isidore of Seville and the Persistence of Classical Antiquity in Iberia and the British Isles during the Middle Ages--Collaborative session with LLC Old English and LLC Medieval IberianMLA official CFP page: https://mla.confex.com/mla/2021/webprogrampreliminary/Paper12918.html Papers on the dissemination of Isidore ́s works across Western Europe d…[Read more]

]]> 0 249e5d312bf77a0b8f9b996b5e70bf57 Nicole Guenther Discenza started the topic Open letter on ISAS from the MLA Old English Forum Executive Committee in the discussion LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/open-letter-on-isas-from-the-mla-old-english-forum-executive-committee/ Sun, 15 Sep 2019 21:27:11 -0400 From the MLA Old English Forum Executive Committee:

We write to express our support for the changes currently being pursued by the membership of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists.

First: We wish to recognize the work of Dr. Mary Rambaran-Olm, who served as second vice-president of ISAS from 2017 to the present, whose resignation from…[Read more]

]]> 0 a5015ad3e4822c25705999347ab9a410 Eric Weiskott deposited The Shapes of Early English Poetry: Style, Form, History in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1634833/ Mon, 11 Mar 2019 16:33:06 -0400 This volume contributes to the study of early English poetics. In these essays, several related approaches and fields of study radiate outward from poetics, including stylistics, literary history, word studies, gender studies, metrics, and textual criticism. By combining and redirecting these traditional scholarly methods, as well as exploring…[Read more]

]]> 0 31503c8d06a3cf64c50b3e54a26345f0 Jay Paul Gates started the topic Cfp Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium in the discussion LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/cfp-anglo-saxon-studies-colloquium/ Tue, 05 Mar 2019 16:06:29 -0500 The Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium

Call for PapersCrosscurrents: Recontextualizing Early Medieval Studies

Columbia University September 13-14, 2019 

“Cross-Currents” aims to provide a different context for the conceptualization of medieval literature by putting the field, broadly conceived, into direct contact with scholarship in Afri…[Read more]

]]> 0 e52e1f2f690259b7567edf513680d28c Nicole Guenther Discenza started the topic Call for Papers for Women & Language (posted on behalf of Leland G. Spencer, PhD in the discussion LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/call-for-papers-for-women-language-posted-on-behalf-of-leland-g-spencer-phd/ Wed, 21 Nov 2018 19:32:43 -0500 Call for Papers from Editor: Leland G. Spencer, PhD | Miami University:

Women & Language, an international, interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal publishes original scholarly articles and creative work covering all aspects of communication, language, and gender. Contributions to Women & Language may be empirical, rhetorical-critical, in…[Read more]

]]> 0 86cdf3d9b38609e8db02dad1b0c1828f Elaine Treharne deposited ‘The shock of the old: Early English and its modern re-tellings’ in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1621674/ Sat, 20 Oct 2018 16:25:21 -0400 Describes translation practice in relation to Old English Poetry.

]]> 0 54dfa65b88855229bd5c7f6e95d2d1e3 Melissa Ridley Elmes deposited Violence, Time, and Memory in Beowulf: The Feast Hall as Cultural Reliquary in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1614337/ Wed, 01 Aug 2018 03:51:30 -0400 A reading of Beowulf that theorizes Heorot as a cultural reliquary, in so doing troubling the more standard readings of this poem as a series of episodes and digressions, in favor of focusing more on the as-yet inadequately examined queer temporalities of human experiences in the world that are embedded within the feast hall and the poem that contains it.

]]> 0 a1b37b91de1a669a04c24c2b61cea4cb Melissa Ridley Elmes deposited "Mewn Dau Gae" Response: "In Two Fields: A Reconciliation" in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1595539/ Mon, 08 Jan 2018 05:41:46 -0500 I was the invited respondent for this panel of papers jointly-sponsored by the CLCS Celtic and Old English MLA Forums. These are the remarks which I prepared in response to the papers in order to help draw them together into a frame to generate discussion, and which were read for me in abstentia.

]]> 0 a5cc1fc4100d748e3343e6f900f98364 Joe Stadolnik deposited Thorkelin y el Beowulf / Thorkelin and Beowulf in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1581611/ Sat, 16 Sep 2017 01:00:01 -0400 An edition and translation of an unpublished essay by Jorge Luis Borges on the modern rediscovery of the Beowulf manuscript. Essay held at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas.

]]> 0 6f136a510b431d3981ecefbffcf15ec4 Heide Estes deposited Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes: Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1580962/ Sat, 09 Sep 2017 01:01:55 -0400 Literary scholars have traditionally understood landscapes, whether natural or manmade, as metaphors for humanity instead of concrete settings for people’s actions. This book accepts the natural world as such by investigating how Anglo-Saxons interacted with and conceived of their lived environments. Examining Old English poems such as Beowulf and…[Read more]

]]> 0 cdac30054197c3d54c17731736f93361 Mary Dockray-Miller posted an update in the group LLC Old English: Overview of conversations about race and inclusion in the […] https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1578450/ Thu, 10 Aug 2017 20:54:07 -0400 Overview of conversations about race and inclusion in the discipline, with links to lots of thought-provoking blogs:

The past couple of months in medieval studies: a reading list pulled from my phone

]]> 0 df8f73a63dcbe6616707313fd581bbd0 Eric Weiskott deposited Quantity in the Alliterative Tradition in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1573811/ Sun, 11 Jun 2017 20:20:26 -0400 Quantity matters in the meter of Beowulf and other early English poems. It matters in the form of a metrical principle known as resolution. Metrical resolution served alliterative poets as a way of counting; it can serve modern scholars as evidence for the cultural meanings of verse craft. This paper therefore has two sections: How it Works and…[Read more]

]]> 0 4635a06107e8fd3cec60a8319d7dc875 Mary Dockray-Miller deposited The eadgiþ Erasure: A Gloss on the Old English Andreas in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1571082/ Sat, 20 May 2017 01:02:34 -0400 A half-erased woman’s name is partially legible at the bottom of folio 41 verso of the Anglo-Saxon manuscript we now call the Vercelli Book. Edith – eadgiþ – provides mystery as highly unusual marginalia, an individual name added to and then erased from the manuscript. I argue here that the erased name eadgiþ is direct reference to St. Edith o…[Read more]

]]> 0 530afe172298861a3975848aa4cc0fee Mary Dockray-Miller deposited Beowulf's Tears of Fatherhood in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1571074/ Sat, 20 May 2017 01:00:16 -0400 The figure of Hrothgar, aging king of the Danes, forces an analysis of the relationships among age, maleness, and masculinity in Beowulf. Masculine characters, while enacting the poem’s complex reciprocities and social transactions in the hall and on the battlefield, accrue status and power through assertions of control and dominance, through…[Read more]

]]> 0 875049fa76ed24f6f522200520181116 Mary Dockray-Miller deposited The Feminized Cross of the Dream of the Rood in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1570917/ Fri, 19 May 2017 01:17:53 -0400 The performances of Christ in the text of The Dream of the Rood construct a masculinity for Christ that is majestic, martial, and specifically heterosexual and that relies on a fragile opposition with a femininity defined as dominated Other in the figure of the Cross. His particularly constructed masculinity, explored rather than merely assumed or…[Read more]

]]> 0 dce340ee531ab82a79fe6155944ed338 Mary Dockray-Miller deposited Female Devotion and the Vercelli Book in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1570914/ Fri, 19 May 2017 01:16:19 -0400 0 ba9e0657137ec606df7ad39890a72a70 Mary Dockray-Miller deposited Mary Bateson (1865-1906): Scholar and Suffragist in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1570904/ Fri, 19 May 2017 01:04:42 -0400 An entry in the Women Medievalists and the Academy collection, this brief biography presents Cambridge historian Mary Bateson, scholar and suffragist, who lived on the cusp of the opportunity for academic professionalization for women. Her life illustrates an inspiring blend of serious scholarship, accessible publication, and devoted political…[Read more]

]]> 0 a08d56c0c85b76ed024a756b1d2e2ba3 Mary Dockray-Miller deposited The Masculine Queen of Beowulf in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1570902/ Fri, 19 May 2017 01:03:25 -0400 Traditional equation of women with the feminine and men with the masculine is disrupted when Beowulf is read within the rubric of gender performance as determined by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter. Performativity enables a new way of interpreting the characters of Beowulf; specifically, in the world of the poem masculinity…[Read more]

]]> 0 de2c127987799332b32039bb7c51337c Mary Dockray-Miller deposited The Maternal Performance of the Virgin Mary in the Old English Advent in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1570899/ Fri, 19 May 2017 01:01:51 -0400 Throughout the Christian era, literary and artistic representations of the Virgin Mary have been manipulated by a variety of ideologies, religious or political, to define the appropriate positioning and agency of the feminine in a culture. The culture of Anglo-Saxon England, like most others, almost always presented Mary in positive terms,…[Read more]

]]> 0 4e97ff375b032dd3d5fb55394795ff22 Mary Dockray-Miller deposited Female Community in the Old English Judith in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1570896/ Fri, 19 May 2017 01:00:17 -0400 Like most female characters in Old English poetry, Judith from the Old English poem of the same name has been subject to much scrutiny in recent years. She has been read as a figure of Mother Church, or as a Germanic warrior, or as a warning against rape. Yet Judith’s relationship with her maid, the focus of my analysis of Judith, has been elided;…[Read more]

]]> 0 49ad6b92540f20b11c554cc59ae03417 Mary Dockray-Miller deposited Old English Literature and Feminist Theory: A State of the Field in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/1570800/ Thu, 18 May 2017 01:20:21 -0400 Feminist and gender scholars working in Anglo-Saxon studies in the past ten years have been asking new and important questions of a variety of Old English and Anglo-Latin texts. Most crucially, this interdisciplinary new work redefines the historiographical paradigms of Anglo-Saxon cultural production and reception so that women must now be…[Read more]

]]> 0 ed7bd05cd0d36ca0c377f29df9d0e47d Pamela Kirkpatrick replied to the topic CFP for MLA 2018 in New York: Medieval and Renaissance Terms of Endearment. in the discussion Old English Language and Literature https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/cfp-for-mla-2018-in-new-york-medieval-and-renaissance-terms-of-endearment-2/#post-1013869 Thu, 16 Mar 2017 01:46:10 -0400 I apologize for that post! I’m not sure why it shows the code? Here’s the text:

CFP for MLA 2018 in New York: Medieval and Renaissance Terms of Endearment.

Seeking proposals to a non-guaranteed session about kinship terminology or terms of endearment used for friends and foes. For example, in The Song of Roland, characters use sarcasm to…[Read more]

]]> 0 48d2e3f21b9a926ea1440c97f09b9e1a Pamela Kirkpatrick started the topic CFP for MLA 2018 in New York: Medieval and Renaissance Terms of Endearment. in the discussion Old English Language and Literature https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/cfp-for-mla-2018-in-new-york-medieval-and-renaissance-terms-of-endearment-2/ Wed, 15 Mar 2017 18:49:07 -0400 <span style=”font-family: ‘Georgia’,serif; color: #333333;”>Seeking proposals to a non-guaranteed session about kinship terminology or terms of endearment used for friends and foes. For example, in <span style=”font-family: ‘Georgia’,serif;”>The Song of Roland</span>, characters use sarcasm to describe enemies as friends, and interestingly,…[Read more]

]]> 0 d69a7240d7bc0743e4c212a0c9f1779a Carol Zuses started the topic Call for Membership Suggestions for 2017 Delegate Election in the discussion Old English Language and Literature https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/call-for-membership-suggestions-for-2017-delegate-election/ Thu, 03 Nov 2016 15:19:24 -0400 The term of this forum’s current Delegate Assembly representative is due to expire in January 2018, so the election for a new representative will be held in the fall of 2017. The forum’s executive committee will take up the matter of nominations for this election when it meets during the Philadelphia convention in January. Though the exec…[Read more]

]]> 0 b4da1fad23712689f3e78b07262a2c6d David F. Johnson started the topic Candidate Intro in the discussion Old English Language and Literature https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/candidate-intro/ Thu, 20 Oct 2016 16:40:12 -0400 Following Nicole’s lead, I too have been nominated for election to the Executive Board of the Old English Forum of the Modern Language Association. Here’s my statement of interest in this important function:

Having attended several MLA conferences in a row over the past three or four years—after a brief hiatus—I was struck by the energy, vib…[Read more]

]]> 0 1dacd5f24075e468af2a65fae4d75a35 Nicole Guenther Discenza started the topic Candidate introduction in the discussion Old English Language and Literature https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english/forum/topic/candidate-introduction/ Tue, 18 Oct 2016 21:23:13 -0400 I am a candidate for the Old English forum and would like to introduce myself and my goals.

Old English has long had a strong presence at MLA. I want to continue the mix of panels and paper sessions we have had in recent years, with representation including all levels of the profession from graduate students through senior scholars.

I am a…[Read more]

]]> 0 5eaae0a5faa0e910122d0fcced090800 Ian Cornelius deposited The Accentual Paradigm in English metrics: Or, why we don’t talk more about quantity in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/539154/ Wed, 20 Jan 2016 15:21:41 -0500 Read 8 January 2016 in Austin, TX, at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association, session number 218, “Quantity in English Verse: Linguistic and Neuroscience-Based Challenges to the Accentual Paradigm.” This short historiographical paper was the half-time show in our roundtable—an interlude between the session’s more substantive linguis…[Read more]

]]> 0 d0e744de604948961beb24b258507522 Aurangzeb Alamgir Hashmi deposited Eponymous Écriture and the Poetics of Reading a Transnational Epic in the group LLC Old English https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/531982/ Wed, 21 Oct 2015 03:02:11 -0400 The article enacts the essay as the mainstay of scholarly discourse in a knowledgeable community. It deals with (con)textualized readings of poetry (or literature) mainly through the medium of translation as an important intercultural phenomenon involving poetics, episteme, borders.

]]> 0 474abafd255ef1074df2c49b372d4606 Ruth Cecile Wehlau started the topic CFP Darkness, Depression and Descent in Anglo-Saxon England in the discussion Old English Language and Literature https://mla.hcommons.org/groups/old-english-language-and-literature/forum/topic/cfp-darkness-depression-and-descent-in-anglo-saxon-england/ Wed, 30 Sep 2015 17:11:52 -0400 I’d like to bring the following CFP to the attention of any interested Anglo-Saxonists:
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Proposals are sought for Darkness, Descent and Depression in Anglo-Saxon England, a collection of articles that will cover the depiction of emotional or…[Read more]

]]> 0 c9832b4f29c69cd1e7d9449357cb88e2 Elaine Treharne uploaded the file: Old English Division Committee's Letter to MLA President to Old English Language and Literature https://mla.hcommons.org/activity/p/30791/ Sun, 28 Apr 2013 02:12:15 -0400 This three-page letter is the OE Committee’s response to the proposal that Old English, Middle English, and Chaucer might wish to reconfigure themselves into one new Division.

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