Begin OSU masthead and toolbar

  1. Help
  2. Campus map
  3. Find people
  4. Webmail



Vagantes 2002

The first annual Vagantes conference was held at Harvard University, March 7-10, 2002 in Dudley House in Lehman Hall. Highlights included tours offered of the Houghton Library, the Fogg Museum and the Sackler Museum.

The following papers were presented:

Friday, March 7

Keynote Address
Doing it the Inter-Disciplinary Way, Medieval Studies in the 21st Century
Prof. Michael McCormick (Harvard University)

First Session Presider - Elly Truitt (History of Science, Harvard)

1. The Role of Commerce among the Mechanical Arts
Shana Worthen (University of Toronto)

2. Jewish Women in Business: Evidence from the Thirteenth-Century Jewish Pleas Rolls
Frances H. Mitilineos (Loyola University)

3. Hidden Errors: Certain Hypocrites, Fools and Sinners of Medieval Images
Ewa Slojka (Harvard University)

Second Session Presider - Henry Bayerle (Comparative Literature, Harvard)

1. Ridden by the Storm: The Risks of Misreading in El libro de los engaños
Christopher Lee (Columbia)

2. Werewolf in Sheep's Clothing: Metaphor, Metamorphosis and Marie de France's Bisclavret
Susan Small (University of Western Ontario)

3. Word, Image and Viewer: The 15th century Dance of Death in the St. Nicholas Church in Tallinn, Estonia
Elina Gertsman (Art History, Boston University)

Third Session Presider - Alicia Walker (History of Art and Architecture, Harvard)

1. Identity and Imagery in the Middle Ages, Paris B.N. Grec 135 and its Relationship to the Identities in the Peloponnese
Justine Andrew (University of California, Los Angeles)

2. Courtly Culture and Country Estates in Tenth-Century Spain
Glaire Anderson (M.I.T.)

3. A Sense of Place: Local Loyalty and Urban Identity in Early Mamluk Syria (1260-1517)
Zayde Antrim (Harvard University)

Fourth Session Presider - John Romano (History, Harvard)

1. Fourteenth-Century Crusade Romances: The Appropriation of Christian Relics and the Construct of Nation
Suzanne Yeager (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto)

2. The Titulus Crucis from the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome: The History of a Relic
Therese Forgacs (Art History, University of Toronto)

3. Fides and Idolatry, Western Concepts of the Images
Beate Frick (University of Trier)

Saturday, March 9

First Session Presider - Justin Lake (Harvard)

1. "You would not marvel if you knew the art of the craftsman": Authorial Repetition and Intercession in The Life of Christina of Markyate
Brenna Mead (Columbia)

2. (Re)enacting the Sacred: The Croxton Play of the Sacrament and Franciscan Spirituality
John Sebastian (Cornell)

3. Alcuin's Versus de Cuculo: Reestablishing Pastoral Echo
Michael McGinn (University of Georgia)

Second Session Presider - Diana Luft (Celtic Studies, Harvard)

1. Evidence of Monastic and Penitential Practice in the Old Irish Glosses of the Codex Paulinus Würzburgensis
Jen Reid (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto)

2. Eþel-weard: The First Scribe of the Beowulf-Manuscript
Damian Fleming (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto)

3. The Fabric of Episcopal Communities Revealed in the Concilia Galliae
Kirsten De Vries (Loyola)

Third Session Presider - Justine Firnhaber-Baker (History, Harvard)

1. Cherchez la femme: Identity-Play in Troubadour/Trobairitz tensos
Francesca Nicholson (Cambridge University)

2. Men who are Friends, and the Women who Deceive them: Cross-Gender Communication in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles
Sandra Bialystok (Oxford University)

Sunday, March 10

Keynote Address

The Place of Jews in Late Medieval English Thought
Prof. Suzanne Conklin Akbari (University of Toronto)

First Session Presiders - Bridget Balint, Annelies Wouters (Classics, Harvard)

1. Monastic Macaroni: Cross-Linguistic Wordplay in Hugh Primas' Iniuriis contumeliisque concitatus
Michael Sullivan (Classics, Harvard University)

2. Vagantes and the Begging-Poetry of the East
Nikos Poulopoulos (Classics, Harvard University)

3. The Aesthetics of Middle Byzantine Secular Art: The Question of Islamic Elements
Alicia Walker (Art History, Harvard University)

Many individuals participated in putting the conference together, including but not limited to:

At Harvard University:

Jennifer Allen
Bridget Balint, the Classics
Henry Bayerle, Comparative Literature
Odilia Bonebakker
Justine Firnhaber-Baker, History
Hugh Fogarty, Celtic Languages and Literature
Patrick Fortmann, Germanic Languages and Literature
John Gagné
Danielle Joyner, History of Art and Architecture (Conference Chair)
Aden Kumler, History of Art and Architecture
Justin Lake, the Classics
Diana Luft, Celtic Languages and Literature
Ziva Mann, English and American Language and Literature
Anne Porter
John Romano, History
Elizabeth Russell
Ewa Slojka, Comparative Literature
Elly Truitt, History of Science
Alicia Walker, History of Art and Architecture
Annelies Wouters, The Classics

At the University of Toronto:

Anthony Adams, Centre for Medieval Studies
Tuija Ainonen, Centre for Medieval Studies
Mairi Cowan, Centre for Medieval Studies
Brent Miles, Centre for Medieval Studies
Edward Moore, Centre for Medieval Studies
Jess Paehlke, Centre for Medieval Studies
Sarah Powrie, Centre for Medieval Studies
Jessie Sherwood, Centre for Medieval Studies
Jenifer Sutherland, Centre for Medieval Studies
Donna Trembinski, History
Shana Worthen, Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
Suzanne Yeager, Centre for Medieval Studies

The organizers would also like to thank the following departments of Harvard University and other organizations for their generous support:

Celtic Languages and Literature
Centre for Medieval Studies (University of Toronto)
The Classics
Comparative Literature
Dudley House
English and American Language and Literature
English Doctoral Colloquium
Fogg Museum
Germanic Languages and Literature
History
History of Art and Architecture
History of Science
Houghton Library
Medieval Academy of America
Medieval Studies Committee
Music
Sackler Museum

Special thanks to:

Dr. Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Dr. James Cuno, Deanna Dalrymple, Dr. Richard K. Emmerson, Dr. Ivan Gaskell, Dr. Jeffrey Hamburger, Dr. David Klausner, Kip Kumler, Dr. Hope Mayo, Dr. Michael McCormick, Melanie Michailidis, Dr. Peter Nisbet, Ezra Robinson, Dr. Eckehard Simon, Susan Spinale, Dr. William Stoneman, Susan Zawalich, Dr. Jan Ziolkowski, Harvard University

Contact information regarding 2002 conference:

Danielle Joyner
c/o Department of the History of Art and Architecture
Harvard University
485 Broadway
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
djoyner@fas.harvard.edu