MRDS in conjunction with EDAM and The Medieval Institute offer the following sessions in honor of Clifford Flanigan.
Organizers: Kathleen Ashley, Lawrence Clopper, and Clifford Davidson
Session 35. Thursday, May 4, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1350 Haworth
Presider: Kathleen Ashley (Univ. of Maine)
"Cliffnotes: Performance, Pedagogy, and Medieval Culture," Claire Sponsler (Univ. of Iowa)
"From Cultic to Cultural Practice: The Human Sciences in the Work of C. Clifford Flanigan,"
Robert Clark (Kansas State Univ.)
"Leudast's Passio and the Sacred Violence in Gregory of Tours," Thomas Goodman (Univ.
of Miami)
"Athens, Jerusalem, and Fray Luis de Leon," Ignacio Navarrete (UC-Berkeley)
Session 75. Thursday, May 4, 1:30 p.m.
Room 1355 Haworth
Presider: Stephen Wright (Catholic Univ.)
"Liturgy as Social Performance," Pamela Steingorn (Baruch College-CUNY) and Kathleen Ashley
"The Sanctuarium Birgerianum: A Complex of Divine Services Instituted in 1519 Archbishop
Birger Gunnersen of Lund," Louise Lillie (Univ. of Copenhagen)
"Evil May Day: The History of a Symptom," Sheila Lindenbaum (Indiana Univ.)
Session 115. Thursday, May 4, 3:30 p.m.
Presider: Nils Holger Petersen (Univ. of Copenhagen)
Room 1360 Haworth
"Playing by the Book: Performance of Liturgical Drama at Klosterneuburg," Michael Norton
(Singers Glen, VA) and Amelia Carr (Allegheny College)
"Antiphons and Titles: Ambiguities for the Tenth-Century Quem Quaeritis," Clyde W.
Brockett (Christopher Newport Univ.)
"Sacred Time, Sacred Space," William F. Eifrig (Valparaiso Univ.)
Session 154. Friday, May 5, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1350 Haworth
Presider: Lawrence Clopper (Indiana Univ.)
"Imagining Medieval Performance: A Phenomenological Approach," Jesse D. Hurlbut (Brigham
Young Univ.)
"The Play for Palm Sunday in the Tyrolean Passion," Stephen Wailes (Indiana Univ.)
"Maimed Birth Rites in the Pregnant Abbess," Eric Metzler (Indiana Univ.)
Session 196. Friday, May 5, 1:00 p.m.
Room 1350 Haworth
Presider: Pamela Sheingorn (Baruch-CUNY)
"Actualizing the 'Self' through Ritual Enactment," Milla Riggio (Trinity College)
"The Beauvais Daniel," Richard K. Emmerson (Western Washington Univ.)
"Liturgical Drama and Civic Duty," Thomas P. Campbell (Wabash Univ.)
OTHER MRDS-SPONSORED SESSION:
Session 395. Other Medieval Dramas: Cornish, Welsh, Breton
Saturday, May 6
3:30 p.m.
1335 Haworth
Organizer: David N. Klausner, Univ. of Toronto
Presider: John C. Coldewey, Univ. of Washington
"Reassessing the Date and Provenance of the Cornish Ordenalia," Gloria J. Betcher
(State Univ. of Iowa)
"Was the Welsh Passion Play Ever Performed?" David Klausner.
MRDS BUSINESS MEETING (Note Change From Program): Because of the party honoring Otto Gründler on Friday afternoon at 5:00, MRDS will hold its business meeting on Saturday evening. But note the following change from the published program:
Saturday, May 5, at approx. 5:30 p.m. in the FETZER CENTER (Rm. 1005) immediately following Martin Walsh's play. Attend the play (Fetzer 1005 at 5:00 p.m.), then attend the meeting. Please do come. It's very important!
MRDS Council Meeting: Saturday, breakfast. 8:00 a.m. Meet at the Fox End of the cafeteria. Please attend!
PLS Retrospective
Session 231. Friday, May 5, 3:30 p.m.
Room 1220 Haworth
Presider: Terry Wade (Univ. of Toronto)
"New Wine in Old Bottles? A Reformation 'Saint's' Play of Mary Magdalene," Sue Oakes (Ohio
State Univ.)
"Staging the Digby 'Conversion of St. Paul'," Kim Yates (Univ. of Toronto)
"The Audience for 'A Yorkshire Tragedy' (1608): Social Context in the Theatre across Four
Centuries," Annie Crawley (Univ. of Toronto)
"'Director Go to Hell': PLS and the Historical Reconstruction of Medieval Drama,"
Garrett Epp (Univ. of Alberta-Edmonton)
Of Special Interest: This session deviates from the usual format: instead, we've asked
each of our four speakers to prepare a short "position" paper as an impetus to a wider
discussion of performance theory, as Poculi Ludique Societas, at least, practices it.
While each of the speakers is an "old-PLS-hand," and has directed, managed, and agonized over
many PLS productions, we're anticipating a variety of views on the subject. We hope we won't
be just preaching to the converted; rather, we'd like to generate some real debate about the
value of what we're doing, or trying to do, over our 25 year history. Old PLS "hands" are
cordially invited.
Additional Early Drama, Art, & Music (EDAM) Session:
Session 294. Saturday, May 6, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1355 Haworth
Presider: Clifford Davidson (Western Michigan Univ.)
"The Cheval Fol of Lyon and Other Asses," Sandra Billington (Univ. of Glasgow)
"The King His Own Fool: Roberd of Cysville," Martin W. Walsh (Univ. of Michigan)
"Forgotten Fools: Alexander Barclay's Ship," Robert C. Evans (Auburn Univ.-Montgomery)
Society for Confraternity Studies
Session 147. Friday, May 5, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1280 Haworth
Presider: Konrad Eisenbichler (Univ. of Toronto)
"Art, Ritual and the Confraternity of the Vera Cruz at the Monastery of San Miguel, Huejopzing,
Mexico," Susan Webster (Univ. of St. Thomas)
"Confraternities in Milan in the Visconti and Sforza Period: Typology and Conditions of
Sources," Marina Gazzini (Milan, Italy)
Shakespeare at Kalamazoo: Business Meeting and special sessions
Business Meeting: 7:00 p.m., 1035 Fetzer. Meeting followed by a presentation of Early Modern England and Post Modern Portland: "My Own Private Idaho and Shakespeare" by Naomi Liebler (Montclair State Univ.)
Session 153. Friday, May 5, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1345 Haworth
Presider: Carole Levin (SUNY-New Paltz)
"A Velázquez Portrait Trapped in a Rembrandt: The BBC Othello," Ruth E.
Sternglantz (NYU)
"Dignum et justum est: Medieval Religiosity in the Films of Henry V," Stephen M.
Buhler (Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Session 289. Saturday, May 6, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1330 Haworth
Presider: David Bevington (Univ. of Chicago)
"Silence and Genre: The Final Silence of Comedy," Louise Nichols (Université de
Québec à Chicoutini)
"'Gracious Silence' in Shakespeare," John Vetz (Univ. of Texas-Austin)
"The Sweet Wind that Makes No Noise: Silent Music in Some Scenes from Shakespeare," Elise
Bickford Jorgens (Western Michigan Univ.)
Musicology and More—The Ingrid Brainard Connections. MRDS urges members to recognize the contribution MRDS member Ingrid Brainard (Boston Conservatory of Music) is making to this year's Congress by organizing the following five sessions and leading the dance workshop organized by Barbara Palmer. Go Ingrid!
Musicology 1: Song, Sacred and Secular
Session 72. Thurs., May 4, 1:30 p.m.
Room 1340 Haworth
Presider: Jan Herlinger (LSU)
"Change of Mode as Rhetoric in Gregorian Chant," William P. Mahrt (Stanford)
"The Mode-One Introits of Paris lat. 1240: Northern French or Aquitanian?," Hilde M.
Binford-Walsh (Herndon, Virginia)
"Mode, Modulation, and Transposition in Medieval Songs," Hans Tischler (Indiana Univ.)
Musicology II: Danced Drama—Dramatic Dances
Session 114. Thursday, May 4, 3:30 p.m.
Room 1355 Haworth
"Balli Fioriti: Ornamented Versions of Quattrocento Dance Hits in a Newly Discovered
Source," Barbara Sparti (Rome, Italy)
"Dances in Two Sixteenth-Century Milanese Intermedii," G. Yvonne Kendall (Univ. of Houston)
"Danced Battles and Moresche: Agonistic Choreographies in Italian Spectacles," Jennifer
Nevile (Turramurra, Australia)
"The Return of Moctezuma: A Reading of Oaxaca's danza de la pluma," Max Harris
(Wisconsin Humanities Council)
Musicology III: Medieval Women and Music
Session 156. Friday, May 5, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1350 Haworth
Presider: Barbara H. Jaye (Monmouth College)
"The Troper of the Kaufungen Convent: Observations on Kassel 4 o theol. 15," Lori Kruckenberg
(Univ. of Iowa)
"Medieval Women, Musical Manuscripts, and Literacy," Cynthia J. Cyrus (Univ. of Chicago)
Musicology IV: Issues of Transmission and the Historical Perspective
Session 194. Friday, May 5, 1:30 p.m.
"Foliation and Musical Structure in French Mass Settings of the Fourteenth Century," Kevin N.
Moll (Stanford)
"Fourteenth-Century Music Theory in Nineteenth-Century Music History," Jan Herlinger
(Louisiana State Univ.)
Musicology V: Aspects of Fifteenth-Century Music
Session 240. Friday, May 5, 3:30 p.m.
Presider: Meg Hulley (Beloit College)
"The Chant Background for the Choralis Constantinus, Book I," Theodore Karp
(Northwestern)
"Johannes Martini, Ercole I d'Este, and the Papacy: Religion and Politics in Late
Fifteenth-Century Ferrara," Murray Steib (Roosevelt Univ.)
"Pitch as a Determining Factor in the Makeup of Fifteenth-Century Instrumental Ensembles,"
Standley Howell (Univ. of Chicago)
AND Session 296, see below!
Drama and Dance: Two sessions organized by ex-MRDS Secretary and co-founding Mother Barbara Palmer (Mary Washington Univ.)
Session 296. Saturday, May 6, 1:30 p.m.
Valley I Dining Room
Early English Drama and Dance I: Performance Workshop
Organizer: Barbara D. Palmer
Presider: Ingrid Brainard (Boston Conservatory of Music)
A participatory workshop of Early English Dances.
Session 347. Saturday, May 6, 1:30 p.m.
Room 1350 Haworth
Early English Drama and Dance II: The Texts
Presider: Barbara D. Palmer
"'Et Tripident': Music and Dance in the Digby 'Killing of the Children'," Shirley E. Carnahan
(Univ. of Colorado-Boulder)
"From Morris Troupes to the Furry Dance: The Uses of Dance in Parish Entertainments," James
D. Stokes (Univ. of Wisconsin-Stevens Point)
"Videotape and Discussion: Le Gratie D'Amore," Charles Garth (Director, Historical Dance
Foundation); Respondent: Mary Baine Campbell (Brandeis Univ.)
Sessions of interest for various reasons, listed in order of occurrence:
Session 174. Friday, May 5, 1:30 p.m.
Room 1030 Fetzer
Graduate Student Roundtable. Is There a Place for Cultural Studies in Medieval Studies:
An Interdisciplinary Discussion
Presider: Gerard P. NeCastro (Univ. of Wisconson-Madison)
Participants include: Brad Berkland (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison), Kevin McManamy (Univ. of
Wisconson-Madison), Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand (Penn State), and Kathy Suchenski (Univ.
of Wisconsin-Madison)
Session 229. Friday, May 5, 3:30 p.m.
Room 1130 Haworth
Presider: Rupert T. Pickens (Univ. of Kentucky)
"The Perils of Indeterminability: Lyric and Gender, Facts and Fantasies," Matilda Tomaryn
Bruckner (Boston College)
"Men and Women Singing in Drag? Chanson de femme and the Trobaritz," E. Jane
Burns (UNC-Chapel Hill)
"Gender and Compilation Patterns in Troubadour Lyric: The Example of Manuscript N,"
Michael-Andre Bossy (Brown Univ.) and Nancy A. Jones (Bunting Institute)
"Directive Speech and Gender: Telling Him What to Say," Amelia E. Van Vleck (Univ. of
Texas-Austin)
Session 260. Saturday, May 6, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1010 Fetzer
Presider: Paula Gerson (International Center for Medieval Art)
"The Woman with the Skull at Santiago and the Threat of Female Sexuality on the Pilgrimage
Road," Daniel Smartt (Media, PA)
"Woman/Siren: Melusine as Sign or Symbol?," Mary Weitzel Gibbons (New York, New York)
"The Wound of Christ as Vaginal Image: A Psychoanalytical Approach," Martha Easton (Institute
of Fine Arts—NYC)
Session 263. Saturday, May 6, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1060 Fetzer
Presider: Richard Emmerson (Western Washington Univ.)
"St. Erkenwald and its Early Readers: Evidence From the Margins of the Manuscript
Text," Paul F. Reichardt (Northern Kentucky Univ.)
"The Case of the Female Founding: Gender and Genre in Lai le Freine," Elizabeth Archibald
(Univ. of Victoria)
"The Conciliatory Letters in Sir Degrevant," Sheryl L. Forste-Grupp (Harvard)
Session 272. Saturday, May 6, 10:00 a.m.
"Dress of the Saints," Robin Netherton
"A Close Look at the Costume of One Mary Magdalene," Verna Rutz (Costume and Culture)
Session 342. Saturday, May 6, 1:30 p.m.
Room 1330 Haworth
Presider: Gerald NeCastro
"Laughter in the Service of Hegemony: Power and Torture in the Digby Mary Magdalene,"
Mary Sokolowski (Binghamton Univ.)
"Laughing at Jews? Represented and Misrepresented Ritual in Croxton," Leanne Groeneveld
(Univ. of Alberta)
"'Late Medieval' and 'Early Modern' Bodies in Pain: Torture and Bloodshed from the Cycles to
Shakespeare," Michael O'Connell (UC-Santa Barbara)
Respondent: Milla Riggio (Trinity College)
Session 362. Saturday, May 6, 3:30 p.m.
Room 107
Presider: Robert Clark (Kansas State Univ.)
"Designing Religious Women: From the Life of Christina of Markyate to the Ancrene
Wisse," Margaret Hostetler (Univ. of Washington)
"Griselda's Audience: The Politics of Conduct," Lynn Staley (Colgate Univ.)
"Legal and Literary Definitions of Friendship in Medieval Spain," Nydia Rivera-Gloeckner
(Rider Univ.)
Session 372. Saturday, May 6, 3:30 p.m.
Room 2018 Fetzer
Presider: Colleen Page (Univ. of Minnesota)
"Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and the Social Imperative of Medieval Learning,"
David Metzger (Old Dominion Univ.)
"The Social Aspect of Figura," Michael Vander Weele (Trinity Christian College)
"'Not Such a Vassal Beneath the Vault of Heaven," Scott Troyan (Madison, WI)
"'Con la pluma y no con la obra': The Rhetoric of Violence in Carteles de Desafío,"
Stephen Raulston (Univ. of Texas-Austin)
Session 441, P. 130. Sunday, May 7, 10:00 a.m.
Room 1330 Haworth
Presider: David Bevington (Univ. of Chicago)
"The Composition of Visitatio Sepulchri Offices: Towards a New Understanding of
'Liturgy'," Nils Holger Petersen (Univ. of Copenhagen)
"Doctor Faustus and the Morality Play," by Howard B. Norland (Univ. of
Nebraska-Lincoln)
"Liturgy and Ritual in the N-Town Passion Play I," Victor Scherb (Univ. of Texas)
"Royal Firework Theatre: The Fort Holding, Part II," Philip Butterworth (Bretton Hall)
NOTE: We have tried to flag all sessions we spotted with MRDS affiliations. No doubt, we missed some. If your session was among them, we apologize. In the future, if you're involved in a session and want us to run it in the newsletter, you can insure that by alerting the secretary yourself. What a welcome mat The Medieval Institute puts out for drama, art, and music. Thanks from all of us.
And don't forget the PERFORMANCES!
I. Directed by new MRDS council member Martin Walsh—Saturday, May 6, 5:00 p.m.
(before MRDS meeting)
Performance of Kynge Robert of Cysille, 1005 Fetzer
Harlotry Players, Univ. of Michigan
An adaptation of a fifteenth-century romance combining recitation, dumb-show and substantial
portions of dialogue.
II. Beowulf Thursday, May 4, 8:30 p.m.
Dalton Recital Hall
Benjamin Bagby, co-director of Sequentia, re-tells the story of Beowulf in Song and
speech, accompanying himself on a six-string lyre, a replica of the 7th-century instrument
excavated in Germany
III. Sequentia Friday, May 5, 8:30 p.m.
Dalton Recital Hall
Ensemble for Medieval Music
Love Terror: Barbara Thornton (voice), Benjamin Bagby (voice, medieval harp), Elizabeth
Gaver (medieval fiddle).
A program of courtly, sacred, and rapturous love songs from the 9th through the 13th
centuries
We have two very special sessions organized for this upcoming MLA Convention. Please note below!
Session 1. Teaching Early Drama With Modern Technology: The Message and the Media
Organizers: Sally-Beth MacLean (REED, Univ. of Toronto); Geoffrey Rockwell (Faculty of
Humanities, McMaster Univ.)
"The Shakespeare Multimedia Project: Using Hypermedia to Teach Early Modern Drama," Leslie
Harris (Susquehanna Univ.)
"The Democratization of Specialized Scholarly Resources: Putting the Tools of the Advanced
Scholar in the Hands of the Beginner," David Z. Saltz (SUNY-StonyBrook)
"Macbeth: What can a Publisher Add?," Christina Merlo (Multimedia Evangelist, Voyager
Company)
"Navigating through Data," Andrew Gurr (Univ. of Reading)
Session 2. Staging the Medieval Body: Modern Perspectives
Presider: Jody Enders (UC-Santa Barbara)
"Passionate Repulsion: Hrotswitha's Paphnutius," Anthony Kubiak (Harvard)
"When a Body Meets a Body: Fergus and Mary in the York Cycle," Ruth Evans (Univ. of Wales,
Cardiff)
"Staged In-corporations and Urban Corporeality: Space, Community and Dramatic Activity in the
Early Modern Town," Patricia Badir (Univ. of British Columbia)
Respondent: Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht (Stanford)
Below are reprinted the minutes from our business meeting held last year at Kalamazoo. These are to be approved in Kalamazoo. Please read carefully.
—MRDS Minutes—
Meeting of MRDS
May 6, 1994
Stinson Lounge 5:00 p.m.
Alexandra Johnston, presiding
The minutes were approved as written.
Milla Riggio presented a treasurer's report, indicating that we have a healthy balance as of now, but that our annual expenses are slightly outdistancing our income, particularly since 85 out of 240 members are now in arrears in dues.
Financial considerations: Sandy recommended that we increase dues to $12.00 U.S. and $10.00 for graduate students and others on temporary or no academic appointments. A motion was made and approved.
Handling overseas dues: Canadian members should submit money to REED, which will send one check to the MRDS. Shirley Carnahan suggested that we offer a reciprocal service for the REED newsletter. This suggestion was accepted. Please send your REED newsletter subscription money to Milla Riggio.
S.I.T.M. report: Sandy reported briefly on the history of the society and of the bi-ennial meeting, to be held in Toronto in July, 1995, to coincide with Carabana. She described the excursions of the festival: see insert for a fuller report. There will be spectacular excursions plus around nine productions, from LeMoyne, Michigan, South Africa, Toronto, among others. Sandy encouraged participation from those attending, even if they are not presenting papers.
Nominations for MRDS council—Vice President: Milla Riggio; secretary: Jesse Hurlbut; council: Mimi Dixon, Ralph Blasting, Martin Walsh, Barbara Jaye. Open nominations from the floor. David Klausner moved that the nominations close; the motion was seconded and passed.
Future sessions: Sandy announced the sessions for MLA 1994. For 1995 in Kalamazoo and MLA: Larry Clopper proposed a series of memorial sessions from Clifford Flanigan for Kalamazoo (made in consultation with others, including Kathleen Ashley). Five sessions: 2 from the pool, 2 special sessions, 1 from EDAM, under the general rubric of "Ritual, Performance, and Culture." Session in honor of C. Flanigan. This will give students, etc., a chance to honor Clifford. The topic title links the three areas in which Cliff was preeminent and in which he prefigured so many intellectual developments. His premature death in October, 1993 left his work unfinished. David Klausner moved that we offer these sessions; Shirley Carnahan seconded. The motion passed. With one session left to designate for Kalamazoo 1995, the following topics were proposed: Cornish and Welsh and Bretonic drama (David Klausner), continuity in medieval drama, sixteenth century drama and schooling (Kent Cartwright). David Bevington moved that we offer Cornish and Welsh and Bretonic drama for next year at Kalamazoo. Motion carried.
For MLA, 1995, the following topics were proposed: Electronic approaches to teaching medieval drama; Staging the body. Garrett Epp moved the first session; it was seconded and approved. The second session was moved by Jesse Hurlbut and approved. Sally-Beth MacLean and Jody Enders agreed to organize the sessions.
New suggestions for topics for later Kalamazoo and MLA meetings: spectatorship, particularly gendered spectatorship, or the question of gender in the Corpus Christi plays or morality plays with reference to spectatorship; May games and the politics of the parish (Jim Stokes). New world theatre (Max Harris). Is there life after Bakhtin? Translation series (Ralph Blasting). The German Low Country connection (John Cartwright). Drama and confraternities (Konrad Eisenbichler). May games and dance (Ingrid Brainard). Connections between law and drama (Elza Tiner). David Bevington suggested that we sponsor a workshop on dance.
David Bevington moved that we have one meeting per year, at Kalamazoo—to emend the bylaws to that effect. Motion passed, but must be confirmed at our next meeting.
We discussed the role of the council, which is at present almost an entirely honorific function. It was suggested that council members be at the MLA to move things along. They may also serve as ambassadors in other organizations—SAA, Shakespeare at Kalamazoo.
The Translation series: eleven projects representing six different languages. The first volume is now at press. Two other manuscripts are complete and undergoing editorial revision. Anneke Prinz and Steve Wright have translations in process. Other potential contributors include Ralph Blasting; Richard Emmerson is now co-translating a French antichrist play. The Murie fragmentary Easter play, which is very brief, might be included in an anthology. Others: Kathleen Falvey, Martin Walsh, Frederick Jonassen, and Janet Ritch.
REED project—Alexandra Johnston provided a report on the REED project, which seems at least for now to have achieved a level of highly desirable solvency. But continued support will always be necessary. The P.L.S. has a revitalized board and a bank account now in the black. One touring show, the Interlude of Johan Johan. Renovating wagons and cleaning out the shed. Now in a position to entertain suggestions for other plays and other wish lists. One other point of business. Production committee would like to propose a session devoted to performance. One play per year, a permanent session.
Respectfully submitted,
Milla Riggio
Business Meeting, Sat. May 6
Following Martin Walsh's 5:00 p.m. Performance
Fetzer Center Rm. 1005
A reminder that our "new" rules require you to bring to the meeting in Kalamazoo written topics with possible organizers designated so that you can provide them to be discussed at the meeting. The MRDS council will present possible topics at the meeting. Others can be added from the floor, but if you have topics to suggest, PLEASE contact Larry Clopper or Milla Riggio with those topics ahead of the meeting, if possible, or circulate them on PERFORM! Without our MLA business meeting, we don't have the usual headstart on topics. Reminder: we will be choosing topics (probably 3) for Kalamazoo next year and 2 topics for MLA presentations in 1996, assuming we renew our status as an Allied Organization (see below for information on that question. See also p. 7.
Email address for topics:
Clopper@Ucs.Indiana.Edu
Milla.Riggio@Mail.Trincoll.Edu
Last fall, we received a letter from the MLA telling us that our status as an Allied Organization was up for renewal. Since that time, Larry Clopper and Milla Riggio, with some help from David Bevington and Barbara Palmer, have put together the following document, buttressed by newsletters, calls for papers, and other additional items. Since most of us have joined MRDS since its inception in a hotel room shared by Alan Dessen and Stanley Kahrl in 1980, we thought you might be interested in the brief history we prepared for the MLA, as well as what we said on your behalf. We do not know yet whether our status will be renewed or the organization will be suspended, but we do expect renewal. The new and ever-more-restrictive MLA rules, however, now formally limit us to two events (including academic sessions, business meetings, officially listed parties) per convention. We've chosen to offer two academic sessions at MLA, transferred our annual business meeting to the far more amiable climate of Kalamazoo, and will continue to hold our party informally. As long as Larry is President, members can be assured of a party worth attending! So watch for that announcement in the fall newsletter. Below is the information we were asked to supply, without the supporting materials we forwarded to the MLA. This document went in to the MLA on March 31 of this year. Here's hoping!
1. A brief history of the organization since it became an allied organization and a self-evaluation, including a description of its programs at the MLA convention, and any other relevant information: The Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society (MRDS) was formed in 1980, having its genesis at the Modern Language Association Convention in that year. Meeting in the hotel room of Stanley Kahrl and Alan Dessen, a group of medieval and Renaissance drama teachers and scholars agreed to form a society which would enable them to oversee the presentation of sessions on medieval and Renaissance drama at the Modern Language Association meetings, where such drama was seldom represented. Spearheaded by a group including Professors David Bevington, Alan Dessen, Barbara Palmer, and John Wasson, with strong support from such scholars as Martin Stevens, the MRDS gained accreditation from the MLA as an allied Organization in 1981. Since that time, it has fulfilled its primary goal of organizing sessions at MLA meetings. These sessions have showcased the most recent theoretical, experiential, scholarly, and critical approaches to drama, focusing particularly on comparative forms of drama (ranging from England to Germany to modern Persia, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad), on theoretical approaches to drama, on cultural anthropology, on modern remnants of medieval performance arts and so forth. (Please see section 3 below for details of recent MLA sessions.)
In addition to organizing sessions for the MLA, where it holds its annual meeting, the MRDS has also been instrumental in organizing medieval and Renaissance drama sessions annually at the Medieval Congresses hosted by The Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo the first week of May each year. In addition, in its desire to make texts of medieval drama available for undergraduate and graduate classes, the MRDS has also overseen the creation of a translation series. This series, edited by Martin Stevens of the CUNY Graduate Center and Stephen Wright of Catholic University and published by the Binghamton State University of New York press, focuses on translations of medieval texts not hitherto available in English. The MRDS provides fees for readers of manuscripts. It also monitors the editorial process for the series, which is now making available its first texts, with another half-dozen or so well underway. This series should provide inexpensive texts which will allow for a much broader interactive base for teaching medieval and Renaissance drama throughout the English-speaking academic world.
The MRDS also serves through its bi-annual newsletter as a clearing house for information on conferences, publications, productions, and so forth relating to medieval and Renaissance drama. We have enclosed a set of these newsletters dating from 1988, when Milla Riggio assumed the role of secretary/treasurer of the organization and began editing the newsletter. In terms of self-evaluation, at the risk of sounding too self-serving, we believe that the MRDS provides a unique service to American, English, Canadian, continental European, South African, Australian, New Zealand, and Japanese scholars and teachers: as an organization we bridge the divide between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We encourage cultural approaches to drama; we work to insure comparative dramatic focus, both in Western culture and between the cultures of various backgrounds. We actively encourage the participation of graduate students. We work to bring directors, actors and theatrical presenters together with scholars and critics. We have increased our membership from its initial dozen or so participants to well over 200. We consistently prune our membership lists, keeping them current and aiming to recruit among recent graduate students, who are also encouraged to be presenters in our sessions. Our aims are modest, but we perhaps immodestly believe we have achieved those aims. We struggle to understand why we have to fight so hard to defend the small square of territory we have carved out for ourselves, but we do believe that this territory is valuable ground. Please see the rest of the file for confirmation of our activities.
2. Evidence of ongoing activity, e.g., publications and official communications to members: Enclosed is a sample of correspondence to MRDS members relating calls for papers, renewal of memberships, etc., and a complete set of our bi-annual newsletters dating back to 1988.
3. Evidence that the organization has involved a diverse portion of its membership in its activities, including convention programs:
Recent Participation in the Modern Language Association Meetings
Selection of Topics and Organizers: Topics are selected at the general business meeting of the Society. The meeting is open to all members. Topics may be generated by discussion in the business meeting or proposed by individuals. If a topic proposed by an individual is endorsed, the proposer is normally made the organizer of the session. Topics generated by discussion are assigned to a member willing to organize the session.
Range of Topics: The Society attempts to balance medieval and Renaissance topics and to give play to continental materials. As recent programs indicate, the society has welcomed New World material and has also encouraged more theoretical approaches to its areas of interest.
Participation and Participants: Calls for papers are listed in the MLA and MRDS Newsletters. They also appear on the ListServers PERFORM and REEDL.
Out of a total of 48 presenters listed below, 17 were graduate students at the time they offered their papers.
Positions as Organizers and Presiders are passed around. In several cases a presenter later became an organizer. There is only one instance of a person functioning more than once as Organizer or Presider, Lawrence M. Clopper, and this was partly the result of his being an officer of the society, Vice-President in 1989 and President in 1994, when he took responsibility for organizing the topics selected in the business meeting.
LIST OF PROGRAMS IN RECENT YEARS
29 December 1988
I. English Drama in the 1520s
Presiding: John Coldewey, Univ. of Washington
Panel Discussion followed by question/answer period:
"University and Inns of Court Drama," Alan H. Nelson, UC-Berkeley, and John R. Elliott,
Syracuse Univ.
"Tudor Interludes and Court Entertainment," William R. Streitberger, Univ. of Washington
"Cycle Revisions," Lawrence M. Clopper, Indiana Univ.
"The Morality Play," Robert A. Potter, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara
"Civic Dramatic Spectacle," Gordon L. Kipling, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
"Parish Drama," John Wasson, Washington State Univ.
II. Recent Research on German Drama
Presiding: Eckehard Simon, Harvard Univ.
"The Manuscripts of German Plays: Notes on Rolf Bergmann's Katalog der deutschsprachigen
geistlichen Spiele (1986)," Ralph J. Blasting, Univ. of Toronto
"Records of Early German Drama: Notes on Bernd Neumann's Geistliches Schauspiel im
Zeugnis der Zeit (1987)," John Tailby, Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Leeds
29 December 1989
I. Cultural Crosscurrents in Medieval and Renaissance Drama
Presiding: Lawrence M. Clopper
"Ghosts of Stages Past: The Hermaneutics of Horror in Giraldo Cinthio's Orbecche,
Hetruscus Perfidus, and Shakespeare's Hamlet," Elizabeth Richmond, Columbia
Univ.
"Traders and Playmakers: English Guildsmen and the Low Countries," Alexandra F. Johnston,
Univ. of Toronto
"From Erudite Comedy to Religious Drama in 16th-century Florence: the Case of Giovan Maria
Cecchi (1518-1587)," Konrad Eisenbichler, Victoria College, Univ. of Toronto
II. Comic Continuities in Medieval and Renaissance Drama: The Figure of the Fool
Presiding: Shearle Furnish, East Texas State Univ.
"Just Fooling: Forms of Play and the Critique of Power in Early Modern Performance," Kathleen
Ashley, Univ. of Southern Maine
"Typology and Comic Structure in the Wakefield Plays," James Paxson, SUNY, Stony Brook
"The King and the Fool: One and Zero," Rose Zimbardo, SUNY, Stony Brook
29 December 1990
I. Moving Subjects: The Semiotics of Processional Performance
Presiding" Kathleen Ashley, Univ. of Southern Maine
"Moving Subjects and Ritual Space: The Function of Liturgical Processions," C. Clifford
Flanigan, Indiana Univ.
"Annual Processions and the Changing Ideology of the Merchant Class," John Cartwright,
Univ. of Cape Town, South Africa
"Something Nasty in the Wilderness: Queen Elizabeth on Progress," Michael Leslie, Sheffield
Univ.
II. New Historicism and Medieval and Renaissance Drama
Presiding: David M. Bevington, Univ. of Chicago
"Biblical Plays and Historical Reading," Theresa M. Coletti, Univ. of Maryland, College
Park
"Distinguishing Devils and Vices from Clowns," John D. Cox, Hope Coll.
"The Historical Subject in Medieval Drama," Peter W. Travis, Dartmouth College
27 December 1991
I. East Anglian Drama
NB: This session was intended to celebrate the publication of the Early English Text Society
of the N-Town Plays.
Presiding: Lawrence M. Clopper
"N-Town: Unity and Diversity in a Tricky Text," Stephen Spector, SUNY, Stony Brook
"Fleshing the Word: The N-Town 'Woman Taken in Adultery' and the Medieval Ministry Play,"
Gail McMurray Gibson, Davidson College
"Mankind and the Monastic Agenda," John Bowers, Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas
II. Feminist Approaches to Medieval and Renaissance Drama
Presiding: Pamela Sheingorn, Baruch College, CUNY
"Other Places and the Place of the Other in Medieval English Drama," Sylvia Tomasch,
Carleton College
"Acting Mary: The Emotional Realism of the Virgin in the N-Town Passion Play," Alexandra F.
Johnston, Univ. of Toronto
"Gender and Shakespeare," Suzanne Gossett, Loyola Univ., Chicago
29 December 1992
I. Drama and Resistance
Presiding: Sheila Lindenbaum, Indiana Univ.
"Resistance, Religion and the Aesthetic: Power and Drama in the Towneley 'Magnus Herodes,'
Cambises and Richard III," Robert Knapp, Reed College
"Exorcism by Fasting in A Woman Killed with Kindness: A Paradigm of Puritan Resistance?"
Nancy Gutierrez, Arizona State Univ.
"Somerset Parish Drama and Resistance to Institutions," James Stokes, Univ. of Wisconsin,
Stevens Point
II. Audience Reception of Early Drama
Presiding: Suzanne Westfall, Lafayette College
"Early Tudor Plays and Their Audiences," Paul W. White, Baylor Univ.
"The Construction of Christian Subjectivity in the Towneley Plays," Maris G. Fiondella,
Fordham Univ.
"John Heywood's The Four PP and the Humanism of Acting," Kent Cartwright, Univ. of
Maryland, College Park
"Oranges and Other Goodies: Missiles of Audience Reaction in Valencia, Madridien (and London)
Playhouses," Joyce Harper, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
29 December 1993
I. Collisions and Continuities: Rituals and Processions in the Caribbean—A Christian
and a Muslim Example
Presiding and responding, Robert Potter, UC-Santa Barbara
The session included Video and Slide Presentations
"La Fiesta de los Santos Inocentes: A Puerto Rican Vestige of the Feast of Fools?,"
Frederick B. Jonassen, Univ. of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez
"Burying the Sacred: Hosay in Trinidad," Milla C. Riggio, Trinity College
"Preserving and Transmitting Culture: Steps Toward a Theory," Michael Bristol, McGill
Univ.
II. Theorizing Medieval Drama
Presiding: Theresa Coletti, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
"Excess, Ecstasy, and the Permable Self in the Digby Play of Mary Magdalene," Laura
Severt King, Yale Univ.
"Reading Miracles: A Folklore Approach to the Miracle de Théophile, Leslie
Abend Callahan, CUNY Graduate Center
"The Erection of Subjectivity: Homosexual Aggression and the Paradox of Identity in the Chester
Innocents Play," Laura Wilber Williams, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
27 December 1994
I. Editing and Translating Medieval Texts: Memorial Session in Honor of A.C. Cawley
Presiding: Lawrence M. Clopper, Indiana Univ.
NB: This session was also intended to acknowledge the Early English Text Society publication
of the Towneley Plays, ed. by Cawley and Stevens.
"Editing the Medieval Drama," Martin Stevens, Graduate Center, CUNY
"'Fy on the, Harlot, with Thi Glosynge': When Glosses Become Texts in Middle English Drama,"
Gerard NeCastro, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison
"The Betrayer's Art: Translating Medieval Drama for Modern Readers," Stephen K. Wright,
Catholic Univ. of America
II. Robin Hood and Performance
Presiding: Lois Potter, Univ. of Delaware, Newark
"The Economy of Misrule: George a Greene and Edward I," Edwin Davenport, Univ.
of Michigan, Ann Arbor
"Munday's Unruly Earl," Jeffrey Singman, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
"Cross-dressing in Early Dramatic Treatments of the Robin Hood Material," Michael Shapiro,
Univ. of Illinois, Urbana
"Sweet Moll and Malinche: Maid Marian goes to Mexico," Max Harris, Wisconsin Humanities
Committee
"Robin Hood in the Movies," Katherine Morsberger, California State Polytechnic Univ. and
Robert Morsberger, Univ. of California, Riverside
4. A statement of the organization's purpose, and the date the organization was founded: Founded in 1980, the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society had a three-fold purpose: to organize two sessions at each MLA Convention meeting so as to insure that the best and most recent approaches to medieval and Renaissance drama were always visibly presented at the annual convention; to support long-range projects of interest to those teaching and researching medieval and Renaissance drama; and to support Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, a journal edited by David Bergeron at the University of Kansas. See number 1 for a description of how these aims have been carried out and expanded since 1980.
5. A copy of the organization's constitution or bylaws showing the date of adoption:
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE DRAMA SOCIETY
There shall be a non-profit educational society called the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society. Its purposes shall be to effect annual meetings of scholars and other persons interested in medieval and Renaissance drama, to sponsor long-range projects of interest to such persons, and to publish material of interest to the Society including Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama and its Medieval Supplement.
In the present document, "Society" shall mean and refer to the Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society, its successors and assigns. "Member" shall mean and refer to those persons who are dues-paying participants in the work of the Society and who are thus entitled to vote. Membership shall be open to all Medieval and Renaissance Drama scholars and to other persons to whom the study of Medieval and Renaissance Drama is personally important. A member shall forfeit membership if that person is in default of dues six months after being billed or two months after a second notice of dues has been mailed to him/her.
The executive powers of the Society shall be vested in a Council consisting of a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary-Treasurer, and six other members elected by paid-up members of the Society. The President, Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer shall be elected every two years for two-year terms; the other members of the Council shall be elected two each year in rotation for three-year terms. All officers shall be eligible for re-election, except that the President should serve not more than two two-year terms in succession. A vacancy on the Council, whether for one of the three executive offices or for the Council at-large, shall be filled by the remaining members of the Council. The officer thus appointed to a vacancy shall serve for the remainder of the term of office being filled. In the event that a Council member at-large is elected or appointed to one of the three executive offices, the vacancy on the Council shall be filled in the manner already described. Term of office shall normally be from the conclusion of the annual meeting [following the election until the conclusion of the annual meeting] three years following, or as appropriate to the length of term to which the officer has been elected or appointed.
Annual meetings of the Society shall normally be held during the meetings of the Modern
Language Association of America. Notice of meetings shall be mailed to members by the
Secretary-Treasurer at least 30 days prior to the time of meeting, unless members are duly
notified by an announcement in the official program of the Modern Language Association.
To be Amended 1995 to read: Annual meetings of the society shall normally be held during
the Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo. Notice of meetings will be included in the MRDS newsletter
each year.
Nominations for election to the three executive offices and to the Council at-large shall be made by a Nominating Committee. Nominations shall also be made by petition of twenty members of the Society in writing to the Secretary-Treasurer. Such petitions must be received 3 months prior to the annual meeting. The Nominating Committee shall consist of a chairman, who may but need not be a member of the Council, and one or more members of the Society. The Nominating Committee shall be appointed by the President of the Society prior to each annual meeting, to serve from the conclusion of that annual meeting until the conclusion of the following annual meeting. Such appointment shall be announced at each annual meeting. The Nominating Committee shall make at least two nominations for each vacancy on the Council, taking carefully into account the various constituencies making up the Society. Election shall be by signed ballot. The candidate receiving the largest number of votes will be appointed to the vacant position.
The Council shall have the power to nominate the annual meeting candidates for honorary membership. The number of honorary members shall at no time exceed six.
The Council will normally meet each year in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Society and of the Modern Language Association. Special meetings of the Council may be called by the President or by any two Council members, after no less than ten days' notice to each Council member. A majority of the number of Council members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. Every action or decision taken by a majority of the council members present at a duly held meeting or, in lieu of a majority, by an arbitrary quorum of five, shall be regarded as the action of the entire Council. The Council shall have the right to take any action in the absence of a meeting of the Council which they could take at a meeting of the Council by obtaining the written approval of a majority of the total number of Council members. Any action so approved shall have the same effect as though taken at a meeting of the Council. The Council shall, at its discretion, poll the membership of the Society as a whole to assist it in making various decisions, either by mail or at the Society's annual MLA meeting.
The Council shall be empowered to conduct the affairs of the Society. Specifically, it shall have the power:
The President or a duly elected representative shall preside at all meetings of the Council and of the Society. The President shall appoint the Nominating Committee and other pertinent committees, and shall supervise the affairs of the Society during the year.
The Vice-President shall serve as presiding officer in the absence of the President, and shall assist in the affairs of the Society.
The Secretary-Treasurer shall keep records of actions taken by the Council and by the Society, including all voting matters, and shall present minutes for approval at the next annual meeting of the Council. The Secretary-Treasurer shall also serve as Treasurer, receiving and depositing in appropriate bank accounts all monies of the Society, keeping proper books of account, and presenting annually to the Council an annual statement of income and expenditures. The Secretary-Treasurer shall keep an up-to-date membership list of the Society, with addresses, and shall conduct mail ballots when necessary, and shall give notice when dues are payable and overdue.
Amendments to this Constitution may be proposed by the Council or by written petition signed by at least twenty members in good standing. Such proposed amendments shall be moved and seconded at an annual general meeting and voted upon by the membership at the next annual general meeting.
March, 1980
AMENDED MRDS Annual Meeting, December 1985: Vice-President automatically to move into the presidency.
6. Current membership numbers and sample membership application: We currently have a paid-up membership of 246 persons, including members in the United States, Canada, England, France, Japan, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Our current membership includes graduate students and adjunct teachers as well as tenured and tenure-track professors and independent scholars and artists. Enclosed for your benefit is a list of member labels. Since we do not have a formal application for membership, we are enclosing the notice for nomination to membership that accompanies each MRDS newsletter. The process of applying is very informal. Any person who wishes to join is permitted to do so; every person nominated is contacted. In order to join the society, a prospective member need only write the current Secretary/Treasurer explaining the desire to join, identifying him/herself and stating the reason of the person's interest in the Society, and enclosing at least one year's dues. This system works very well.
7. A description of the dues structure: The dues of the MRDS were initially $6.00 per year, which included the subvention to support RORD. In the past 13 years, the dues structure for tenured and tenure-track academic personnel has doubled to enable us to support the translation series initiated by the Society (see no. 1), to provide a larger subvention for RORD (currently $5.00 per member) to offset increasing publication costs, to support travel costs for members who present papers and must travel with minimal support from long distances (Holland or South Africa or Japan, for instance), to provide other support costs for presentations, to support the bi-annual newsletter, solicitations for papers, and other incidental costs. Our current dues are, thus, $12.00 annually for tenured and tenure-track professors; $10.00 for graduate students, adjunct professors, and independent scholars and artists.
New address—
Department of English
UNC-Chapel Hill
Office: 1100 Willow Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-929-5614/ 919-967-4265
Fax: 919-967-4265
After almost twenty years in Santa Barbara under the leadership of Professor Homer Swander, the organizational center of ACTER (A Center for Theatre, Education, and Research) has moved to Chapel Hill. The new Director is Alan Dessen; the new General Manager is Cynthia Dessen. After a lengthy battle, we have won permission to continue using educational visas for our troupe, so that ACTER's future is secure provided we can continue to interest schools in our residencies. We had a very successful Fall 1994 tour of Macbeth and we are booking now for the 1995-96 season: Romeo and Juliet in the Fall, Macbeth in the Spring. The price for a week long residency of 3 performances plus two one person shows and up to 33 classroom visits by 5 British actors in $16,750. If you would like to learn more about ACTER or are interested in a residency, our mailing address is: ACTER, Department of English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520; or more directly: ACTER, 1100 Willow Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. Our telephone numbers are: (919) 967-4265 or 929-5614; fax: (919) 967-4265; e-mail: csdessen@email.unc.edu.
Occupacion and Ydelnes (ca. 1440's)
Over the past 25 years Poculi Ludique Societas has acquired a respected position world-wide in the production of medieval and Renaissance drama but it seems we're not quite so well known at home—especially among the undergraduates at the University of Toronto. In an effort to remedy this situation—and perhaps convert a couple more impressionable students into believers of medieval drama, PLS went on the road and toured the 3-man production of Occupacion and Ydelnes around the University of Toronto campus, in the last couple of weeks before the end of the spring term. It was a 'car boot' tour: everything was crammed into the back of Terry's car—costumes, posters, and our set—one stool. Our intent was to stage a sort of 'guerilla theater'—don't tell the students anything about what they are going to see, just do it. In all, we performed the play in seven different spaces—none of which were designed with theater in mind. The most successful, but equally chaotic, was the evening at a local pub, Pawnbroker's Daughter. Chosen for its 'ye olde english' atmosphere, the place was packed by the time we arrived, and the actors could barely find enough space to set down the stool.
Since the play is recorded in a Winchester manuscript and because of its decidedly academic slant, we speculated that Occupacion and Ydelnes might have been played at Winchester College, the first private school in England (predating Eton). With that in mind, we approached individual colleges at the University of Toronto—hoping perhaps that we could provide the entertainment for one of their high-table dinners. The most formal, Trinity College, accepted. While Trinity wasn't Winchester, its dining hall was not unlike it, in size and appearance. (Apparently Strachan Hall was modelled on the hall at King's College, Cambridge.) Certainly, it proved a wonderful backdrop for the last performance of the Toronto run. And they graciously invited the cast to dinner afterwards.
Much thanks goes to Doug Hayes, a first-year doctoral student at the University of Toronto, Department of English, for taking on its direction. Thanks too, to the cast, Michael Chorney, an architecture student at the University of Waterloo (Doctrine), Tony DiMito, a professional actor (Occupacion) and Joanne Rochester (Ydelnes), a doctoral candidate in the English department, designer Kimberley Whitchurch, and master's student Camille Hopkins for tirelessly putting up posters around campus. The text was edited, and the entire project was initiated, by Gerard NeCastro, doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
While we had intended to bring Occupacion and Ydelnes to Kalamazoo in May, and wanted very much to do so, the lack of financial support from various sources prevented us from doing so. Instead, cast willing, we'd like to remount Occupacion and Ydelnes for the SITM Conference in early August. Video-taping plans are also in the works. Hope to see you then.
Terry Wade
Producer
The Spring 1994 special issue of Comparative Drama, containing Milla Riggio's Ta`ziyeh in Exile: Transformations in a Persian Tradition and Max Harris' The Arrival of the Europeans: Folk Dramatizations of Conquest and Conversion in New Mexico as well as articles on Japanese Noh drama, Javanese shadow puppet theater, African traditional drama, South Indian Kathakali dance-drama, and Peking opera has been reissued as a paperback book entitled Early and Traditional Drama: Africa, Asia, and the New World (ISBN 1-879288-43-5) for non-subscribers by Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008. The price is $12.00.
The Spring 1995 issue of Comparative Drama, 29, No. 1, will be another special issue focusing on Drama and the Emblem and related matters. Included will be the following articles:
Articles of interest in Comparative Drama, 29, No. 2 (Summer 1995) will include:
Very recently published: The Iconography of Heaven, edited by Clifford Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1994). The focus of this Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series book is on many aspects of special interest to the drama scholar; it is designed as a companion to The Iconography of Hell, edited by Clifford Davidson and Thomas Seiler (Medieval Institute Publications, 1992). The price is $15 for the paperback edition (casebound, $30).
Articles of interest in The Early Drama, Art, and Music Review, 17, No. 1 (Fall 1994):
Articles of interest in The Early Drama, Art, and Music Review, 17, No. 2 (Spring 1995):
Submissions are invited for Vol. 18, Nos. 1 & 2; send manuscripts to: The Editor; The Early Drama, Art, and Music Review, Medieval Institute, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008. Subscriptions to the Review are also invited (Individuals—$8; Institutions—$10.)
Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies (SUNY, Binghamton) is about to begin publication of a series of annotated, highly selective bibliographies of Shakespeare studies—designed for use by scholars, teachers, and students. The general editor is Richard L. Nochimson (Yeshiva Univ.). The first volume will be published in 1995, and the remaining eleven volumes (all in the Pegasus Bibliographies series) are scheduled to appear over the next four years. The volumes and their editors are as follows:
The Performance of Middle English Culture: Essays on History, Semiotics,
Performativity in Chaucer and the Drama
Edited by Lawrence M. Clopper, James J. Paxson, and Sylvia Tomasch
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A New History of English Drama
Edited by John D. Cox and David Scott Kastan
Editorial Board: Carolyn Asp (Marquette Univ.), Mimi Dixon (Wittenberg Univ.), Frances Dolan (Miami Univ. of Ohio), Gordon Kipling (UC-Los Angeles), Claire McEachern (UC-Los Angeles), Eric Rasmussen (Univ. of Tulsa), James Shapiro (Columbia Univ.), Peter Travis (Dartmouth College), Steven Urkowitz (CUNY).
This editorial board is composed of former students of David Bevington, who have planned
this innovative volume as a tribute to David.
Forthcoming: Columbia University Press
CONTENTS
Foreword, Stephen J. Greenblatt
Introduction, John D. Cox and David Scott Kastan
"Periodizing with Time and Place," Margreta de Grazia
I. Essays on Early English Drama and Physical Space
"Churches," John M. Wasson
"Households, Including Courtly Households," Suzanne Westfall
"Schools and Universities," Alan Nelson
"Streets and Markets," Martin Stevens
"Theaters," John Orrell
"Libraries," Heidi A. Brayman
II. Essays on Early English Drama and Social Space
"Theatre and Religious Culture," Paul White
"Theatre and Civic Culture," Gordon Kipling
"Theatre and Domestic Culture," Diana Henderson
"Theatre and Court Culture," Graham Parry
"Theatre and Literary Culture," Barbara Mowat
"Theatre and Popular Culture," Michael Bristol
III. Essays on Early English Drama and Conditions of Performance and Publication
"Touring," Peter Greenfield
"Props and Costumes," Jean MacIntyre and Garrett Epp
"Censorship," Richard Dutton
"Audience," Ann Cook
The primary aim of this book is to provide a ready reference work of substantial essays on matters of import in early English drama. Readers can use this volume the way they use any reference work: by reading the particular section of sections for an introduction to a particular topic, including bibliographical references. In this aim, The New History of English Drama is like other reference works that take the form of collections of historical essays. Like other such works, The New History is designed to introduce the reader to the field, to summarize what is known about it, and to suggest possible new lines of inquiry and research. To the latter end, each essay concludes with a list of works cited, which is also a list of the most important primary and secondary sources pertaining to the topic treated in that particular essay.
This book is distinguished from all others like it, however, by a second, but no less important aim: to present the history of early English drama from a perspective that has been made possible by theoretical shifts in the last twenty years. The second aim makes this book very different from anything else that is currently available. No essays about particular authors appear here, for example, even about Shakespeare, who has become the de facto reason that other drama before him and immediately after him has been studied and performed. Shakespeare is certainly important in these pages, but in this volume he is not treated as the implicit goal toward which early drama is seen to move.
In other respects, too, this book avoids tendentious chronology and teleology: "early" is a descriptive adjective that deliberately removes the difficulties raised by traditional terms like "medieval" and "renaissance." "Early" has long been in use in just the sense we intend it here by the Records of Early English Drama, which covers the beginnings of English drama to 1642. Specific terms for periods have long since taken on ideological freight that the New History unloads, both for itself and, we hope, for subsequent scholarship. As Lee Patterson has recently argued, the "middle ages" are too often taken as a cultural benchmark for what followed, a distinctive but putatively Univocal background against which subsequent events can be defined as unfolding significantly. In drama, this procedure is particularly problematic, because "medieval" religious drama like the mystery plays persisted into the 1580s, and examples of secular "renaissance" drama like Fulgens and Lucrece appear in the late fifteenth century.
Continuing the MRDS aim of building bridges across the continental divide that once separated Shakespearean drama from medieval drama, MRDS members made a strong showing at this year's Shakespeare Association of America meeting in Chicago.
The newly elected president of the SAA, to assume office next year in the only repeat presidency in SAA history, is David Bevington, a founder of the MRDS. David was also the on-site host for this year's Association meeting in Chicago, by all reports a smashing success, including an engrossing rehearsal of scenes from Antony and Cleopatra, staged for the SAA by the Chicago Shakespeare Repertory Company, which has grown from a rooftop group into Chicago's third largest non-profit theater company. David led a stimulating discussion after the rehearsal. Congratulations all around, David.
MRDS members Steven Buhler (Univ. of Nebraska) and Kurt Daw (Kennesaw State College) led staging workshops; Jean R. Brink (Arizona State Univ.), Douglas Bruster (Univ. of Chicago), John D. Cox (Hope College), Jean E. Howard (Columbia Univ.), Barbara Palmer (Mary Washington College), and Milla Riggio (Trinity College) led seminars. Alan Nelson (Berkeley Univ.) made a special presentation, Alexandra F. Johnston (Univ. of Toronto) was a charter member of the Riggio seminar; other known MRDS participants included Alan Dessen (Univ. of North Carolina), Naomi Liebler (Montclair State University), Sally-Beth MacLean (REED), and Michael Shea (Southern Connecticut). Milla Riggio organized a Directors' Forum with Mark Lamos (Artistic Director of the Hartford Stage Company) and Joanne Akalaitis (freelance director). And there were doubtless more MRDS participants than have been here recognized.
Lisa Hopkins (Sheffield Hallam Univ.) was a co-winner of the 1994 Hoffman Prize for Distinguished Publication on Christopher Marlowe.
The Winner of the University of Delaware Press Shakespeare Contest was Frederick Kiefer
for Writing on the Renaissance Stage: Written Words, Printed Pages, Metaphoric
Books.
The runners-up were:
Irene Dash, Women's World in Shakespeare's Plays
Lawrence J. Ross, On Measure for Measure: An Essay in Criticism of Shakespeare's
Drama
David N. Beauregard, "Virtue's Own Feature": Shakespearan Mimesis and Aristotelian-Thomistic
Moral Philosophy
All of these books will be published by the University of Delaware Press.
Late in the afternoon of December 9, 1994, the day the CUNY Graduate Center hosted a series of events in honor of Martin Stevens' career, the auditorium lights went out. A dozen students rose from their seats and, flashlights in hand, began combing the audience, calling, "Martin, Martin, where are you, Martin?" Eventually, we discovered Martin seated in the front row, led him on stage, and, with a fanfare of plastic kazoos, enthroned him. Thus began the Martinmas.
I write this description as a student who helped stage the Martinmas; the scene exemplifies the spirit of warm collaboration with which we, students and faculty, medievalists and non-medievalists, worked to produce the day's festivities. It is this spirit of collaboration and community which Martin Stevens has long fostered in our department, and we hope to carry it on in his honor.
The day's festivities included a talk by David Bevington entitled, "Theatre as Cosmos in Medieval Drama and in Shakespeare." Then Prof. Catherine McKenna (Queens College and Graduate Center) presided over a series of panelists who shared their reminiscences of Martin: Prof. Earl Rovit (Emeritus, City College) spoke of being a colleague of Martin's at Louisville; Prof. Joseph Wittreich (Queens College and Graduate Center) was an undergraduate student in Martin's first English course (at Louisville); Prof. Larry Clopper (Indiana) was Martin's first Ph.D. student and spoke about the way Martin's help in preparing him for his comprehensive exam led to his working with Martin on his dissertation; Prof. Pamela Sheingorn (Baruch College) and Graduate Center) spoke of her team-teaching with Martin and of his deanship at Baruch; Prof. William McClelland (Baruch College) spoke of Martin's guidance in the use of contemporary theory in the study of medieval literature; Prof. Jim Paxson (Iona) spoke of Martin's influence on his work and of attending an NEH seminar run by Martin; and Prof. Milla Riggio (Trinity College) spoke of working with Martin on their forthcoming special edition of Mediaevalia and on a new electronic text project.
After Sylvia Tomasch presented the festschrift volume to Martin, the carnival began. Catherine McKenna (in Welsh costume topped with majestically towering, peaked hat) lauded Martin in honorific, pseudo-Old Welsh verse, which student Matthew Goldie, as one of a pair of Fools, translated for the audience. Tom Hartford, a student who comedically mimed the King's Dresser, crowned Martin with a flourish. Prof. Gordon Whatley (Queens College and Graduate Center), as a somber, cowled Aelfrich, read portions of the OE Life of St Martin (including an exorcism, mimed by students Mia Schilling, Robert Upchurch, and Tom Hartford, of an Americanist demon who is forced to exit the possessed's body not through the mouth but through the "post-modernist forthgang"). Prof. Steven Kruger (Queens College and Graduate Center) as a fierce and noble Hrothgar (complete with cape and bicycle helmet) thanked Beowulf for his heroic deeds; Fool #2 (Prof. David Greetham, Graduate Center) ingeniously established through textual variants that "Beowulf" must be restored to its original meaning, "Martin."
One of the fete's highlights was Prof. Scott Westrem's (Lehman College and Graduate Center) discovery of a 144-line middle English manuscript fragment of the Canterbury Tales (Quirkish 40-32, coincidentally Martin's office number at the Graduate Center). The fragment is a "portrait of a pilgrim . . . clearly meant to be included in the "General Prologue" and is forthcoming in Speculative: A Journal of Medieval Follies. The portrait describes Martin's career with great Chaucerian aplomb; among the priceless moments is the rationale that Martin wears a beard so as to save shaving time:
That is in terme of minutes just a fewe,
But tyme ynogh to rede som Derryda,
DeMan, Saussure, and Krysteva.
He moste been a scoler or a masochist,
For he coude rede a poete or a theorist
And get therof both sentence and solas. (836-41)
Near the end of this fragment, the pilgrims cry out, "Part nat from us, Dere Martin, leef nat our compaignye! We nede your wysdom, juggement, revelrye!" (958-60) The students and faculty sitting clustered onstage at Martin's feet joined in, at these lines, and I am certain that members of the audience at that performance also joined in, as will MRDS readers.
Sharon Kraus
International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds, 4-7 July 1994, and the York Plays '94, 10 July 1994
For 30 years now the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, has run an International Congress on Medieval Studies in early May. It has been a forum for medievalists of all ages and at all stages of their careers to meet together, where a paper by an experienced expert might be followed by one given by a research student. This arrangement demands a certain friendliness on all sides, eagerness to learn (perhaps from someone twenty years younger), and generosity on the part of established scholars. Amazingly, that has all remained at Kalamazoo, where the Congress has retained its intimate and friendly atmosphere. In the years since Lyne Muir and I first arrived at Kalamazoo in 1975—among the first Brits to attend, if not the first—only some incidentals have altered: the great increase in numbers—a headache, no doubt, to the organisers—has changed little for most of us, though we are aware of the new venues having to come into operation; and the replacing of scotch and bourbon in the hour before dinner, first by sherry and then by wine, has no doubt made a difference to the stretched finances of the Congress but has not changed the nature of that wonderful hour one iota.
As an international congress it has attracted delegates from all over the world: not just from western Europe, but from Asia and Australasia, too. Overseas numbers have not been large, though, despite an extraordinarily generous attitude towards such visitors, who have so far been offered free board, lodging and entry to concerts if they are giving a paper or chairing a session: North American scholars have therefore always been the great majority. Japan and Australasia are a long way from Kalamazoo, and for many European scholars early May is during term-time, when it is difficult for administrative reasons to get away.
Organising a European equivalent to the Kalamazoo Congress was the brain-child of Simon Forde, Editor of the International Medieval Bibliography and Deputy Director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at Leeds. The First Congress was on a timetable for early July, to make attendance possible for those on a later academic year than the American one. This seemed to work: there was a very good attendance, which included a gratifying number of North American scholars, and the transfer of the whole Kalamazoo idea to a different part of the world was a great success. Forde, of course, had liaised closely with the organisers at Kalamazoo, and the whole affair was carefully worked out and meticulously carried through. By my calculations there were 242 sessions, usually with three papers per session, and a variety of field trips. Readers can work out how many delegates that suggests: a thousand or so, perhaps.
Accommodation was on two adjacent sites, about the same distance apart as Valley III and the Fetzer Centre at Kalamazoo. Bodington Hall is a no-longer-new multiple residence on a large green University site beyond the Leeds Ring Road on the A660. It is big enough to house most delegates, with a large dining room and many smaller rooms of the size needed for this exercise—not just for sessions, but also for book exhibitions, and so on. Bodington's accommodation is now in need of updating, and rightly drew the kind of criticism that has been levelled at Kalamazoo's Valley buildings, which are generally no more salubrious. Still, it's cheap, and most found it not unacceptable. For those who wanted to spend more, Westwood Hall, on the city side of the Ring Road a short walk from Bodington, is a former residence now taken over as a hotel and conference centre by a commercial venture. Its centrepiece is a beautiful early-17th-century mansion, which I knew in its University days when my wife was subwarden. The transformation to hotel has retained the magnificent ceiling in the dining-room, but it all seems impersonal now; gone are the undulating first-floor boards, and I'll bet no one mentions the ghost nowadays. Worst of all, the mansion is dwarfed by the new buildings, tastefully blended with it as they are. But it is a luxurious venue, much enjoyed by those attending sessions there, and a welcome antidote to the rather spartan tattiness of Bodington (which, however, certainly concentrates the mind on the matter at hand!).
There were eight sessions on vernacular spoken drama, one entirely on Latin sung drama (a memorial to the much-lamented Clifford Flanigan), and several on related issues such as oral performance, liturgy, and dance; also papers on drama that found themselves in other sessions, and several sessions on music. Many of the obvious sponsors were at work here, such as Early Drama, Art, and Music, the University of Hull, and the Leeds Academic Committee: but there were others from Europe, such as the University of Amsterdam and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and it is to be hoped that more sponsors will come forward. Altogether, those interested in drama were not, I think, disappointed. And although I was able to attend very little, being heavily involved in the York Plays (see below), my impression was that people had greatly enjoyed the whole Congress and had thought it worthwhile.
There were 12 excursions in all, to such places as York and the many abbeys and priories that are within easy striking distance of Leeds. As members of northern University Medieval Groups know, going round these with a knowledgeable guide is a real eye-opener that should not be missed. Immediately following the Congress was a week-long International Medieval Graduate School designed to help graduate students get their work published. But it covered far more than that suggests, and must have been a highly useful week to any research student, whether bothered by that particular problem or not. This School was held at another University residence, Devonshire Hall, also just off the A660 and within easy walking distance of the Brotherton Library and the main University campus. At £135 this School must been excellent value.
Also following on from the Congress was a package put together by Rachel Semlyen in collaboration with the Congress, the Friends of York Festival and the Director of the York Plays '94: it included visits to several important sites in York, drama-related events and attendance at the Plays, which were performed on Sunday 10 July. This part of my report must be strictly factual, since I was in charge of music for this production, which was planned and directed by Jane Oakshott and presented by the Friends of York Festival as part of the York Early Music Festival. Nine plays were mounted by local groups at five stations in the city streets: most were performed on wagons, although two which were processional anyway (the entry into Jerusalem and the Way to Calvary) decided not to use one. The stations were not original ones, but the sites chosen were generally suitable in terms of size of playing-space, acoustics, and so on.
York plays had been performed in the streets of York before, most notably in productions directed by Meg Twycross in 1988 and 1992: but these were mounted by visiting academic groups, not by local people, and only four or five plays were involved on each occasion. In 1994 the plays performed were:
8 The Building of the Ark (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York)
9 The Flood (The Lords of Misrule)
12 The Annunciation and Visitation (Early Music Singers)
14 The Nativity (Foxwood Community Centre Players)
15 The Shepherds (Howdenshire Live Arts)
25 The Entry into Jerusalem (St Luke's Church Players)
34 The Way into Calvary (Poppleton Players)
38 The Resurrection (Arts York)
45 The Assumption of the Virgin (York Settlement Players)
Plays 14 and 15 were played in tandem, as the texts suggest. As might be expected, this was dramatically satisfying when the playing space was the right shape and size, but the space varied considerably over the five stations, and some appeared more suitable than others.
The performance as part of the York Early Music Festival gave us an excuse to do what would have been preferable anyway—to choose the plays in which music played a large part. The choice of plays was ultimately the individual producers', in fact, but it will be seen that many of those chosen do indeed include several musical cues. They gave an opportunity both for casts to sing (plays 9, 15, and 25) and for local professional singers to be drafted in to perform the "set-piece" items that must have been such an important feature of medieval cycles (plays 12, 15, and 38). Play 45 presented a particular problem, with its 12 angels and the singing of composed part-music that survives in the manuscript. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this music must have demanded the best choristers that (probably) the Minster could provide, especially if the second and more difficult settings (those copied at the end of the play) were to be performed. On this occasion, the Sunday performance ensured that no choristers were available: I had decided to perform the second set of pieces, which as far as I know had not been performed this century, and these demanded excellent singers. In the end I engaged four of the Tallis Scholars (who had given a concert the previous evening), which worked very well from a musical point of view. Incidentally, the performance proved, in my opinion, that those settings are decidedly good pieces and deserve to be heard.
On the day before the plays the Proclamation was read by the Mayor's herald, first on the steps of the Mansion House in St. Helen's Square and then at each of the stations. The first reading was made in the presence of the Lord Mayor of York (who happens to be a professional puppeteer, and was very supportive of the whole venture), and the York Waits accompanied the herald (physically and musically) throughout.
Both the Congress and the Plays were deemed more than successful enough to warrant repeat performances. Negotiations are in hand to mount plays again in the 1996 Early Music Festival. The International Congress is now an annual event, and the next will take place in Leeds, 10-13 July 1995, when it is hoped once more to offer a York-based package of medieval visits and events immediately after the Congress. Watch this space.
Richard Rastall
Reminder
Sex and Gender in the Middle Ages
June 26-July 28, 1995
A summer institute for College and University Faculty sponsored by the Medieval Institute,
University of Notre Dame and supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Director: Edward D. English, Medieval Institute, 715 Hesburgh Library, Univ. of
Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556-5629.
Tel. 219-631-8304
Fax: 219-631-8644
Email: English.2@nd.edu
Just Past...
Twenty-second Annual ACTA Conference
State University of New York at Stony Brook
April 7-8, 1995
Food and Eating in Medieval Society
Organized by Joel Rosenthal (Department of History, Stony Brook) and Martha Carlin (Department of History, Univ. of Wisconsin), this conference focused on food and eating as depicted in art, literature, theology, and philosophy as well as in history.
Politics and High Culture in the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary Tudor
Saturday, November 18, 1995
at Victoria University
Sponsored by Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Centre for Renaissance and
Reformation Studies, Toronto, and Centre for Research in English Drama, Victoria University,
Toronto
Presiders and Presenters will include:
Alexandra F. Johnston (Victoria Univ.), Edward McGee (U. Waterloo), John Parsons (U. Toronto),
Konrad Eisenbichler (Victoria Univ., Toronto), Dale E. Hoak (College of William & Mary),
Paul White (Purdue Univ.), Dr. David Galbraith (Victoria Univ.), Joanna Woodall (London Univ.),
Kenneth Bartlett (U. Toronto), Robert Hunter Bell (Church of St. Mary Magdalene/U. Toronto),
Daniel Page (Brandeis Univ.), and Robert Tittler (Concordia Univ.)
For more information, contact Sally-Beth MacLean at (416) 585-4504 / Fax: (416) 585-4594.
Hankering to go to France? Check out—
The Camargo Foundation
The Camargo Foundation, an educational trust established under the laws of the State of New York, maintains a center of studies in France for the benefit of scholars, artists, and writers who wish to pursue projects in the humanities and social sciences related to French and francophone cultures. The Foundation offers, at no cost, eleven furnished apartments and a reference library in the city of Cassis, a half-hour from Marseilles and Aix-en-Provence by car.
Applicants may include:
-members of University and college faculties, including professors emeriti, who wish to pursue
special studies while on leave;
-teachers in secondary schools, public or private;
-graduate students whose academic residence and general examination requirements have been
met and for whom a stay in France would be beneficial in completing their dissertation;
-writers, photographers, visual artists and composers with specific projects to complete.
Candidates for Camargo Fellowships are asked to submit an application form, a vita, and a detailed description of their projects, not to exceed 1,000 words. If appropriate, the description should include a paragraph or two designed to locate the project conceptually and/or bibliographically in the context of the most important work available in the field. Research should be at an advanced stage and not require resources unavailable in the Marseilles-Aix-Cassis region. Three letters of recommendation, at least two from outside the applicant's home institution, should be forwarded by individuals familiar with the applicant's professional work. Such letters should be current and written specifically for the Camargo Foundation Fellowship applications.
For information and application form, write:
The Camargo Foundation
Ricardo Bloch
West 1050 First National Bank Building
332 Minnesota Street
Saint Paul, MN 55101-1312
Tel. (612) 290-2237
Application deadline: March 1 for the following year. Think now of 1996-97!
CALLS FOR PAPERS
Novus et Antiquus
The Twenty-Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary CAES Conference
The Committee for the Advancement of Early Studies
Friday and Saturday, October 6-7, 1995
Ball State University
Deadline For All Competitions: May 15, 1995
$1,000 Incentive Award: The Committee for the Advancement of Early Studies in conjunction with the editors of Classical and Modern Literature: A Quarterly announce the 1995 $1,000 Incentive Award, offered by the editors of the Quarterly for outstanding scholarly work in the combined fields of a Classical (Ancient Greek or Latin) and a Modern Literature or Culture. Eligible for this award are scholars who have or will have had the Ph.D. conferred between January 1, 1988 and July 1, 1995. Send to the Convener statements of nomination (name, academic address, field of specialization, short vita) along with supporting materials (paper, list of publications and papers, support letters if desired). The winner of the 1995 award will present the paper at the Conference and then receive the award from the editors of the Quarterly at the Conference Banquet.
NOVUS COMPETITION: The Committee also announces a competition for emerging scholars who do not have their doctorate or who have received it in the past seven years. All suitable papers will be awarded presentation time of twenty to twenty-five minutes, and the outstanding papers will also receive small monetary prizes. Please send five copies of the completed paper plus verification of degree date to the Convener.
ANTIQUUS: Established Scholars. The Committee does not ignore established scholars, either. Please share your years of experience and valuable research with the conference participants. Finished papers should be limited to a twenty to twenty-five minute periods. Please send five copies of a one page abstract to the Convener.
UNDERGRADUATE PRIZES: The competition is for ten- to fifteen-page essays by superior undergraduate students. All suitable papers will be awarded presentation time of twenty to twenty-five minutes and small monetary prizes will be awarded for the best research. Please send five copies of the completed paper. Areas of Classical, Early, Medieval and Renaissance Studies for papers/abstracts include anthropology, architecture, art, economics, education, foreign languages and literature, history, language and literature of England, law, mathematics, music, pedagogy, philosophy, politics, religion, science, social structure, and theology.
Please contact: Bruce W. Hozeski
Convener, CAES Conference of 1995
Department of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306-0460
Tel. (317) 285-8456 or 285-8580
Fax (317) 285-3765
email 00bwhozeski@bsuvc.bsu.edu
Thirty-First International Congress on Medieval Studies
Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2-6, 1996
SHAKESPEARE AT KALAMAZOO has organized programs at the International Congress since 1989. Two sessions will be proposed for the Thirty-First Congress in 1996, both devoted to papers specifically relating Shakespeare to the broader canvas of cultural history.
Session 1. Shakespeare in the Tradition of the Performing Arts
Session 2. Shakespeare and Cultural Continuity
Papers for Session 1 should provide evidence in Shakespeare's plays of medieval ideas of theater and of medieval performance practices and dramaturgical conventions. Papers for Session 2 should focus on the representation in Shakespeare's plays of late medieval and early modern cultural trends. Papers are invited from scholars in the fields of art history, music, folklore, history, philosophy, theater history, the history of science, as well as literature, both English and continental.
The Congress on Medieval Studies provides a unique milieu for an exchange of insights on Shakespeare's place in the continuum of culture. The following rules corresponding to those established by the Board of the Medieval Institute should be strictly adhered to if you intend to submit an abstract:
Send inquiries, abstracts, and papers to Michael Shapiro
208 English Bldg., University of Illinois, 608 South Wright St., Urbana, Il 61801
fax: 217-333-4321/e-mail:
mshapiro@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
Drew-Bear, Annette (Washington & Jefferson College, PA).
Hopkins, Lisa (Sheffield Hallam Univ.)
Keyishian, Harry (Farleigh Dickinson Univ.)
The Shapes of Revenge: Victimization, Vengeance, and Vindictiveness in Shakespeare, Humanities Press, Inc., 1994.
This study of Shakespeare's treatment of revenge differs from earlier work on the topic by its emphasis on the psychology of revenge and, in particular, the relationship of revenge to the experience of victimization. While much critical writing on the theme has assured that dramatic revengers reflect mental imbalance and are condemned for moral and civil offenses, this book treats revenge primarily as a strategy (among other strategies) by which victims of malicious injury strive to restore personal integrity and recover from feelings of powerlessness, violation, and injustice. Discussions of Shakespeare's characters are based on Renaissance theories about the proper and beneficial role of the passions, from Aristotle and Aquinas through to Francis Bacon, Niccolo Machiavelli, Peter di la Primaudaye, Nicholas Coeffeteau, Robert Burton, Thomas Wright, and Edward Reynolds. Works discussed include Titus Andronicus, The Rape of Lucrece, the first historical tetralogy (Henry IV, pts. 1, 2, and 3, and Richard III), the sonnets, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Coriolanus, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest.
Roberts, Jeanne A. (American Univ.)
"Convents, Conventions, and Contraventions: Love's Labours Lost and The Convent of Pleasure," forthcoming in Shakespeare's Sweet Thunder: Essays on the Early Comedies, ed. Michael Collins, The University of Delaware Press, 1995 or 1996.
Simonds, Peggy Muñoz
Strietman, Elsa (Cambridge Univ.) and Robert Potter (Univ. of California)
Een Esbattement van sMenschen Sin en Verganckelijcke Schoonheit: Man's Desire and Fleeting Beauty. Edited, annotated and revised by Elsa Strietman; Translated from the Dutch by Robert Potter and Elsa Strietman with Editorial Assistance by Sabien van Harten. Leeds Mediaeval Studies: Medieval Texts and Translations Series, Middle Dutch I. Published by the Centre for Medieval Studies by International Medieval Publications, University of Leeds, 1994.
Walsh, Martin (Univ. of Michigan)
President
Lawrence Clopper (Indiana Univ.)
Vice-President
Milla C. Riggio (Trinity College)
Secretary
Jesse Hurlbut (Brigham Young Univ.)
Council
Sally-Beth MacLean, Records of Early English Drama (1994-1995)
Eckehard Simon, Harbard Univ. (1994-1995)
Jody Enders, UC-Santa Barbara (1995-1996)
Naomi Liebler, Montclair College (1995-96)
Lois Potter, Univ. of Delaware (1996-97)
Victor Scherb, Univ. of Texas-Tyler (1996-97)
And newly elected:
In a very close election Mimi Dixon (Wittenberg Univ.) and Martin Walsh (Univ. of Michigan)
were elected to three year terms on the MRDS council.
Newsletter Staff:
Milla Riggio, editor
Kim Janczuk, associate editor
Thanks to Margaret Grasso for her assistance with ballots and funds as well as with the
newsletter.