Today was the first day of the SEMA conference in St. Louis. So far the atmosphere has been pleasant and friendly, especially to those medievalists who enjoy modern critical theory.

I was able to see two sessions:
Faces, Nudity, Angel Bodies, Friendship and The Literary Construction of Religious Bodies: The Human, the Divine, and the Profane.

Among the papers from these two sessions, one particular point seems to stick out in my mind. Rabia Gregory's paper, "Naked Mystic, Naked God" and Brittany Whitstone's paper, "Revelation, Consecration, and Embodiment: Touching the Invisible World in AElfric's Easter Sermon," both made the point that the body and the spirit/soul are not so cleanly divided in the medieval period as we would perhaps sometimes like to suggest. In particular, Whitstone notes the need to tame the flesh, not reject it. This idea resounds nicely with Michael Edward Moore's paper, "Meditations on the Face in the Middle Ages," which dealt beautifully with the idea that the face of man is a reflection of the face of God.

Books I found out about today that I must read (links are to Amazon):
Alterity and Transcendence by Emmanuel Levinas
Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200-1565 by Walter Simons

I also discovered another reason to read the OE Andreas: it contains cannibalism.

Tomorrow afternoon I will be presenting my paper after which I will be able to attend the first plenary, which is to be given by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen.

Perhaps the most delightful thing so far has been my discovery of a paper title associated with a roundtable that makes reference to lolcats. I'm hoping to attend that session, but there are some other sessions looking equally interesting.

More to come...

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