Medieval Romance

9th Biennial Conference

University College Dublin,
22nd-23rd February 2004
Newman House, St Stephen's Green, Dublin

The 2004 Medieval Romance conference, the 9th in the series, will be held at Newman House, UCD's historic base in the heart of the city.  The conference's plenary lecture will coincide with a session of the Royal Irish Academy on the 22 April, at which Helen Cooper will speak on 'When Romance Comes True.'

The conference will start at lunchtime on the Thursday and finish with the conference-dinner on Friday evening. The conference is open to all, but there will be a small fee to cover costs. If you're interested in attending and haven't already registered, please contact:

Neil Cartlidge: neil.cartlidge@ucd.ie

School of English, Faculty of Arts Building, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland

Telephone: 00353-1-716-8323 (via the Administrator for the School of English, Mrs Pauline Slattery)

Provisional Programme

Thursday 22nd April

11am-1pm Registration.

1-3pm Session 1
Chair: Neil Cartlidge (University College Dublin)
Nicola McDonald (University of York): 'Popular Romance: Fiction and the Mechanics of Audacity'
Simon Meecham-Jones (University of Cambridge): 'Romance Society and its Discontents'
Matt Stanham (Royal Holloway): 'Identification of Crusade in Middle English Romance'
Robert Rouse (University of Durham): 'The King's Peace: The Legal Context of a Common Romance Motif'

3pm-3.45pm Tea/Coffee

3.45pm-5.15pm Session 2
Chair: Elizabeth Archibald (University of Bristol)
Rosalind Field (Royal Holloway): 'The Curious History of the Matter of England'
Judith Weiss (Robinson College, Cambridge): 'Li curteis Guerer: epic, romance and comedy in the making of Boeve de Haumtone'
John Spence (Pembroke College, Cambridge): 'Fulk Fitz Warin from romance to family chronicle'

6pm Plenary Lecture at the Royal Irish Academy:
Chair: Michael Ryan (President of the Royal Irish Academy)
Helen Cooper (University College, Oxford): 'When Romance Comes True'
Responder: John Scattergood (Trinity College Dublin)
Followed by a Reception.

Friday 23rd April

9am-11am Session 3
Chair: Raluca Radulescu (Trinity College Dublin)
Yu-Chiao Wang (Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge): 'Romances in Mass Production: Caxton's Marketing Strategies for English Romances'
Mildred Leake Day: 'Knight of the Red Cross and Knight of the Crimson Surcoat: The Influence of De ortu Waluuanii on The Faerie Queene, Bk 1
Elizabeth Williams (University of Leeds): 'The History of Oliver of Castille: the Anglo-Irish connection'
Rhiannon Purdie (University of St Andrews): 'The Amorphous Corpus of Scottish Medieval Romance'

11am-11.30am Tea/Coffee

11.30am-1pm Session 4
Chair: TBA
Ad Putter (University of Bristol): 'A newly discovered fragment of Sir Eglamour of Artois: Stemmatological Implications'
Anne Wilson (University of Birmingham): 'The Divided Text: exemplified by the Ipomedon Texts'
Paul Gaffney (University of Virginia): 'Sir Degare and Composite Romance'

1pm-2pm Lunch (not provided)

2pm-4pm Session 5
Chair: Helen Cooney (Trinity College Dublin)
Laura Ashe (Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge): 'The meaning of suffering: anti-symbolism in the death of Tristan'
Ann Higgins (University of Massachusetts): 'Shifting Speakers, Changing Bodies in the Middle English Amis and Amiloun'
Christine Tsai (University of Kent at Canterbury): 'Receiving or Resisting the Exemplar!?
The Transience of Family Bonds in Apollonius of Tyre:Text to Context'
Denise Wang (National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan): 'Making it Strange: The Idea of Romance in Chaucer's Squire's Tale'

4pm-4.30pm Tea/Coffee

4.30pm-6pm Session 6
Chair: TBA
Arlyn Diamond (University of Massachusetts): 'The Alliterative Siege of Jerusalem: Means and Ends'
Elizabeth Berlings (St John's University): 'The Sege of Melayne: A Parody of a Chanson or How the French screwed up and "oure Bretons" rescued them'
Philippa Hardmann (University of Reading) and Marianne Ailes (Wadham College, Oxford): 'How English are the Charlemagne romances?'

6pm-6.15pm Short Break

6.15pm-7.15pm Session 7
Chair: TBA
Ivana Djordjevic (Robinson College, Cambridge): 'Divine Favour and Heroic Agency'
Corinne Saunders (University of Durham): 'White Magic: Illness, Medicine and Healing'

8.30pm for 9pm Conference Dinner at Tappamumma's (Dame Street)