On Saturday May 24, the annual conference of the Canadian Society of Medievalists / la Société canadienne des médiévistes begins at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario (in the Niagara region) and runs to Monday, May 26. This is a multidisciplinary conference with participants this year coming from across Canada as well as from the US, the UK, and France. Compared to Kalamazoo or Leeds, this is a very small conference, but it provides a wonderful opportunity to get to know many medievalists and to let them become familiar with your work. It also provides representation for Canadian medievalists in dealing with national and international granting agencies and other groups. The CSM/SCM meeting is always part of the much larger Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences — a unique annual event in which over 70 scholarly associations meet throughout a week or so at a different university every year, giving all participants an opportunity to attend not only their own associations’ sessions but also other associations’ panels and the general events sponsored by the Congress. For more about the Congress, check out their website, which includes the programs of all the participating associations. To join CSM/SCM, go to the society website — the fees are extremely reasonable and include a subscription to the journal Florilegium. I’m sorry I won’t be able to attend this year’s meeting, but I highly recommend it!

2014 Program  (please use the on-site CSM/SCM program for final details)

Saturday May 24 / Le samedi le 24 mai

0930  Welcome/Mots de bienvenue–International Centre 113
0935-1030  Plenary Session/Séance plénière–International Centre 113
Elizabeth Edwards (King’s College, Halifax):  Mourning becomes the Duchess: Chaucer, Text, Tomb

1100-1230 concurrent sessions/séances parallèles
A. Saints–International Centre 113
Chair/présidente: Rosemary Hale (Brock University)
1. Diane Auslander (Lehman College, City University of New York): From Darerca to Modwenna: Rewriting female asceticism in the lives of an Irish saint
2. Svitlana Kobets (University of Toronto): Holy Foolishness and its Hellenistic Models: Serapion the Holy Fool or Serapion the Cynic?
3. Donna Trembinski (St Francis Xavier University): Illness and Authority: The Case of Francis of Assisi
B. Theological perspectives–International Centre 114
Chair/président: David Watt (University of Manitoba)
1. Fortunato Trione (University of Guelph): Amor che nella mente mi ragiona (Love, that speaks to me within my mind): Dante between monastic and scholastic theology
2. Marc B. Cels (Athabasca University): Spiritual homicide in the preachers’ mental calendar of the late Middle Ages

1400-1530  concurrent sessions/séances parallèles
A. Responding to Chaucer–International Centre 113
Chair/président:  David Watt (University of Manitoba)
1. James Weldon (Wilfrid Laurier University): Shields vs. Arrows: Defence and Offence in the Naples Clerk’s Tale
2.  Lynn Arner (Brock University): Chaucer and Film Culture in Pre-WWII America
B. Études médiévales et nouvelles technologies I--International Centre 114
Chair/président: John Osborne (Carleton University)
1. Jean-Luc Bonnaud (Université de Moncton): L’Europe angevine. Conception et élaboration d’une base de données sur les officiers
2. Robert Marcoux (Université Laval): L’art médiéval est-il quantifiable? L’exemple des tombeaux de la collection Gaignières
3. Loula Abd-elrazak (University of Waterloo): Entre ruptures et continuités. La base de données des manuscrits des miracles de Nostre-Dame de Gautier de Coinci

1545-1715  Études médiévales et nouvelles technologies II–International Centre 114
Chair/président:  John Osborne (Carleton University)
1. Chris Nighman (Wilfrid Laurier University): New Directions for Online Critical Editions of Medieval Latin Texts
2. Anna Thirion (Centre d’études médiévales, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier): De la numérisation à la reconstitution 3D : L’ancienne tribune abbatiale de Cuxa (seconde moitié du XIIe siècle, Pyrénées-Orientales, France)
3. Debra Lacoste (University of Waterloo): Old, New, and Newer Chant Databases: The CANTUS Database and CANTUS Index

Sunday May 25 / Le dimanche le 25 mai

0930-1100  concurrent sessions/séances parallèles
A. Readership–International Centre 113
Chair/présidente:  Rosemary Hale (Brock University)
1. David Watt (University of Manitoba): The “Romayn deedis” in Thomas Hoccleve’s Series
2. Krista Murchison (University of Ottawa): “Regarde de plus haut”: Exemplary Religious Figures and the Late Medieval Readers of the Ancrene Wisse
3. Brandon Alakas (Royal Military College): Scrupulosity and Heresy: William Bonde’s Warnings to Devout Female Readers in the Directory of Conscience (1527)
B. Outlaws and Borderlands--International Centre 114
Chair/président:  Marc B. Cels (Athabasca University)
1. Megan Arnott (Western Michigan University): The Outlaw Sagas: Power and Danger in the Liminal Spaces
2. Renee Ward (Wilfrid Laurier University): Reading Second Skins: The “capull hyde” in Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
3. Rasa Mazeika (University of Toronto): A “middle ground” on the borders of Christendom? Permeable boundaries between Christian and pagan enemies in the Baltic Crusades

1130-1230  plenary session/séance plénière–International Centre 113
Malcolm Thurlby (York University): Interpreting the Romanesque fabric of Durham cathedral, 1093-1133

1400-1530  concurrent sessions/séances parallèles
 A. Gender–International Centre 113
Chair/président:  David Watt (University of Manitoba)
1. David J. Hay (University of Lethbridge): Women and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance of Military Thought
2. Rob Phillipson (University of Regina): New Medieval Historiography and the Boundaries of Gender: Re-examining the ‘Amoral’ Behaviour of Queen Isabella
3. Rebecca Caissie (Acadia University): Sir Perceval of Galles: Two Courts, the Circle of Equality and the Adventure of Self Shared by a Mother and Son “here”
B. The Early Middle Ages and its legacy/Le haut Moyen Age et son heritage–International Centre 114
Chair/présidente: Candice Bogdanski (York University)
1. Olivier Reguin (UQÀM): Planifier l’idéal monastique: métrologie du plan de Saint-Gall
2.  Ronnie Lvovski (York University): The Carolingian Connection: Asturias in the Broader European Context
3. Ainoa Castro Correa (PIMS, Toronto): The Visigothic script within the cultural context of Galicia in the 12th century

1545-1645  concurrent sessions/séances parallèles
A. Romance–International Centre 113
Chair/présidente: Siobhain Bly Calkin (Carleton University)
1. Drew Maxwell (University of Edinburgh): “Now may ye se a remembraunce that I love you, for ye shall never se thys shylde but ye shall thynke one me”: The use of mnemonic devices within Middle English Arthurian Romance texts
2. Joanne Findon (Trent University): Desire and the Otherworld in Sir Degaré
B. Beowulf–International Centre 114
Chair/président:  John Osborne (Carleton University)
1. Brett Roscoe (The King’s University College, Edmonton): Gazing at Monstrous Wisdom in Beowulf
2. Hana Videen (King’s College, University of London): Borders without Boundaries in Translation: What it means to be stained in Beowulf

1700   President’s Reception/Réception du président
1930  Banquet   (Syndicate restaurant) reservation required/sur réservation seulement
Monday May 26 / Le lundi le 26 mai

9:00-10:30 concurrent sessions/séances parallèles
A. The Long Eighth Century I: papers in commemoration of the 1200th anniversary of the death of Charlemagne [a joint double session sponsored by the Canadian Historical Association and the Canadian Society of Medievalists]–Glenridge Building 162
Chair/président:  John Osborne (Carleton University)
1. Eduardo Fabbro (University of Toronto): The Lombard kingdom that was: Charlemagne and the re-invention of the Lombard tradition
2. Nicholas Everett (University of Toronto): Paulinus of Aquileia, Charlemagne, and Carolingian reform in Italy.
3. John Osborne (Carleton University): Hair as a signifier of identity in eighth-century Italy
B. Supernatural Agency: Relics and Magic–Glenridge Building 201
Chair/présidente:  Candice Bogdanski (York University)
1. Siobhain Bly Calkin (Carleton University): What Makes a Relic a Relic? The Lance of Antioch and The Challenges of Narrating Thingly Agency
2. David Porreca (University of Waterloo): Lapides rari et pretiosi: The Use of Gems in the Spells of the Picatrix
3. Kathryn Walton (York University): The Pearly Gates of Cotton Nero A.x: Magical Borders and Christian Boundaries in Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

1045-1215  concurrent sessions/séances parallèles
A. The Long Eighth Century II--Glenridge Building 162
Chair/président:  John Osborne (Carleton University)
1. Christopher Landon (University of Toronto): Charlemagne and the Saxons: Imperial Self-Representation in the Late Eighth Century
2. Laura Carlson (Queen’s University): Imperial Rhetoric: Intellectual & Spiritual Warfare in the Carolingian Empire
3. Meredith Bacola (independent scholar): The Arrows of Psalmody: the social relevance of the ‘miles Christi’ around the time of Charlemagne
B. La littérature française–Glenridge Building 201
Chair/president:  Siobhain Bly Calkin (Carleton University)
1. Kristin Bourassa (University of York): Writing to Power: littérature engagée and the Crisis of Kingship under Charles VI of France (r. 1380-1422)
2. Vanina Kopp (PIMS, Toronto): Debates Without Boundaries. The Performance of Poetic Competitions at the French Court in the Late Middle Ages
3. Émilie Pilon-David (Western University): «Il me fault mettre en memoire»: l’acte d’écriture dans les farces françaises des XVe et XVIe siècles

1230  ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING/ASSEMBLÉ GÉNÉRALE ANNUELLE–Glenridge Building 162 [lunch provided by the CSM/Le déjeuner sera offert par la SCM]

1430  visit to/visite à Brock University Special Collections
Five years ago, Brock’s medieval and renaissance collection was nonexistent. Through some kind donations and a few cases of serendipity, we now have eight items in our collection including a letter from a Scottish king, three music manuscripts, a Bible leaf from 1150, and our famous Clopton Charter.  Come see our collection and hear how this all developed.  //  Il y a cinq ans, Brock n`avait aucune collection prémoderne.  Mais, grâce à des donations généreuses et à la chance, nous avons maintenant huit manuscrits, parmi lesquels une lettre écrite par un roi écossais, trois manuscrits de musique, une feuille d`une Bible datée vers l`an 1150, et la fameuse ‘Charte de Clopton’.  Vous êtes invités à venir voir notre collection et apprendre son histoire.