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The Anglo-Saxon Studies Colloquium aims to
foster intellectual exchange among faculty and graduate students whose
interests embrace the language, literature, and culture of early
medieval England. Currently based in Columbia, New York University, the University of Rhode Island,
and Rutgers, the Colloquium seeks to expand the resources available to
Anglo-Saxonists from these universities and other institutions in the
area, and also to create a welcoming intellectual community for anyone
who is interested in Anglo-Saxon studies.
To join our email list, please send a
message to: ASSC@columbia.edu
Core Faculty Committee: Patricia Dailey,
Columbia University, Kathleen Davis, University of Rhode Island, Stacy Klein,
Rutgers University, Haruko Momma, New York University
Sponsored by: The Department of English and
Comparative Literature, Columbia University; The Office of the Dean for
the Humanities, FAS, New York University; The Department of English,
Princeton University; The Medieval Studies Program, Princeton
University; The Department of English, Rutgers University; University of Rhode Island.
CURRENT COURSES OF INTEREST in
Consortium Universities (Fall 2008 - Spring 2009)
PAST COURSES OF INTEREST in
Consortium Universities
ASSC Graduate Student Bios
COLLOQUIUM
EVENTS
The following events have been scheduled for the 2007-2008 academic
year. Further details will be added in due course. To learn about past events with ASSC, from Fall 2004 to Spring 2008 click here.
Fall 2008
Nov 6
Thursday |
Mark Amodio (Vassar)
"Embodied texts, entexted bodies: performance and performative poetics in and of Beowulf"
Reception at 6.00 pm
Lecture at 6.30 pm
13 University Place, Room 222
New York University
Co-sponsored with the NYU English Medieval Forum
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Dec 2
Tuesday |
Scott Gwara (University of South Carolina)
"Appreciating the Heroic Catastrophe: Why Beowulf's Dragon Fight Resembles The Battle of Maldon and What It Means for Germanic Heroic Literature"
Developing a case made in his new book, Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf, Dr. Scott Gwara (University of South Carolina) proposes unobserved narrative homologies between Beowulf's dragon fight and Byrhtnoð's rout at Maldon. Gwara suggests that the trope of "Men Dying for Their Lord" motivates aspects of Beowulf's dragon fight. A new definition of "Men Willing to Die to Avenge Their Lords" highlights potentially reckless engagement by exploring the limits of vengeable action. In these terms Gwara finds that oferhygd (overconfidence) functions in Beowulf as ofermod does in Maldon. Appreciating Maldon as a reflex of Beowulf's dragon fight means evaluating how reckless heroism confronts the responsibilities of leadership in portrayals of ambivalent heroic action. Supporting reference will be made to continental Latin, Germanic, and other Anglo-Saxon sources.
5:30 pm
523 Butler Library
Columbia University
co-sponsored by the Medieval Seminar Series
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Spring 2009
Feb 5
Thursday
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Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (George Washington University)
"The Weight of the Past"
Reception at 6.00 pm
Lecture at 6.30 pm
13 University Place, Room 222
at New York University
Co-sponsored with the NYU English Medieval Forum
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Feb 20
Friday
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Fifth Annual Graduate Student Conference
at the University of Connecticut
Schedule
9:45-10:30 Breakfast
UConn Student Union room 304 C
10:30-12:00 Session 1: Material Spaces, Places of Value
Jeremy DeAngelo (University of Connecticut):
"Things of Real Value: The Dragon, the Hoard, and Society"
Joseph Ackley (New York University):
"Once Feminine, Now Masculine: Treasured Spaces in the Encomium Emmae Reginae"
Michael Bintley (University College London):
"Buildings, Burrows, and Barrows: Wood and Stone in the Landscapes of Beowulf"
Respondent: Andrew Pfrenger (University of Connecticut)
12:00-1:00 Poetry Reading: Lytton Smith
UConn Co-op
1:00-2:00 Lunch
UConn Student Union room 304 B
2:15-3:45 Session 2: Travellers in the Landscape
Lytton Smith (Columbia University):
"'Þu mid rihte rædan scealdest' ("you ought, by right, to read"): The Interpretation of Travelers in Beowulf"
Christopher Riedel (Boston College):
"Manipulating Miracles: Instructing Pilgrims with St Swithun"
Respondent: Jordan Zweck (Yale University)
4:00-5:30 Session 3: Spaces of Individuality and Collectivity
Daniel Remein (New York University):
"Where Wisps of Being Mingle: Theorizing The Space of the Wræclast in Christ and Satan"
Mary Kate Hurley (Columbia University):
"Beowulf's Collectivities"
Mo Pareles (New York University):
"The Devil Inside: Mapping Self-Mutilation and Exorcism in the Old English Gospel of Mark"
Respondent: Britt Rothauser (University of Connecticut)
6:30 Dinner at the house of Robert Hasenfratz
Click here for Conference Registration form
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April 21-22
Monday and Tuesday |
Stephen Harris (University of Massachussets)
"Did the Anglo-Saxons Understand Beauty?"
Seamus Heaney obliquely observed of North Germanic poetry its tendency to "trust the feel of what nubbed treasure/ your hands have known." With few exceptions, the poetic vocabulary of Old English shies from explicit abstraction. There is no mention of the True or the Good, let alone of physical beauty--descriptions of people and landscapes are exceedingly rare, for example. As a consequence, post-Enlightenment critics trying to recover an Anglo-Saxon Weltanschauung are faced with methodological difficulties that become increasingly pronounced as we come to search for literary reflexes of identity, ethnicity, gender, and so forth. What form did their abstract world take? How was it manifested in material form? How did their poetry relate to ideas of the Beautiful—if it did at all? And if we are to answer such questions, what would our answers look like? In this talk, I discuss Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and Anglo-Saxon ideas of the Beautiful and how one might go about looking for Beauty in Old English poetry.
6.00 PM Lecture
April 20
302 Murray Hall
at Rutgers University
Workshops at Columbia University
April 21
Workshop One: "Beautiful Materialities"
401 Hamilton Hall
1 pm to 2.30 pm
Workshop Two: "Community"
501 International Affairs Building (CIPA)
4.10 pm to 5.30 pm
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COLLOQUIUM
EVENTS ARCHIVE
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