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Friday, October 3, 2008

SEMA 2008, Day 2

http://www.siue.edu/babel/SEMA2008CallForPapers.htm

Today was the second day of the SEMA conference.

I went to three sessions today, as well as Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's plenary. Below are some highlights.

Session: Vagina Dialogues: Sexual Dynamics in Medieval Comic Literature.

this session focused specifically on French fabliaux
Nathaniel Dubin's paper provided some interesting information on medieval sexuality and recounted some very interesting moments from various fabliaux, which I must now make a point of reading

Session: Chaucer I

all three of these papers were very interesting, but the one that sticks out is Joseph E. Marshall's, which is titled "Sterile Bodies: Simony, Sodomy, and the Summoner's Compeer"
Marshall's paper discussed the necessity of viewing the Pardoner, a member of Chaucer's band of pilgrims who is often viewed only in physical terms, in both spiritual and physical terms. The really interesting point that the paper makes is that simony and sodomy were considered equally sterile acts--one leading to no growth in the spiritual life, the other resulting in no chance for conceiving life physically.
there is also apparently a trend in French, Spanish, and perhaps in Middle English literature of using the image of a coin or relic bag as a euphemism for testicles

Session: Lyricism, Sin, and Divided Holy/Secular Bodies

this was the session in which I presented my paper, which unfortunately means I missed the BABEL Working Group sponsored session for which Amy Hollywood was the featured respondent
Curtis Jirsa gave a wonderful paper on Piers Plowman and associated medieval lyrics, and he gave me some fine suggestions to incorporate into my own work after the close of the session
Candace Gregory-Abbott gave an intensely interesting paper on a 15th-century English text that even in discussing the spiritual, does so in very physical terms.
Cynthia Ho gave a paper on St. Francis and the avoidance of sexual temptation in the records of his life that are extant.

Plenary: "Bodies in Motion/Mandeville, Defective"

Cohen's plenary was an examination of the text(s) of Mandeville's Travels, and it probed the meaning of travel, return, and cicumnavigation of the world, of identity.

Exhibit: "What a Piece of Work Is a Man--Reading the Body in Medieval Manuscripts"