Monsters

MONSTERS I: Haunting the Middle Ages
Organizer: Asa Simon Mittman, California State University-Chico; Sarah
Alison Miller, Duquesne University

This panel proposes to explore those monstrous figures that haunt the
borders between the living and the dead: ghosts, revenants, animated
corpses and skeletons. What do these figures reveal about the porous
boundaries between life and death, soul and body? What do they communicate
about the relationship between haunting, trauma and memory? How is
haunting associated with space, whether that space be a geographical
location, a physical structure, a fantasized realm, or human
consciousness? How were these figures depicted in art and material
culture? How might monster studies be considered a haunted domain? How
might the Middle Ages be considered a haunted age?

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Asa Simon Mittman
(asmittman@csuchico.edu) or Sarah Alison Miller (millers2578@duq.edu).
Also, please include a completed Participant Information Form:
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF). 
Deadline for submissions to this session: September 15. Any papers not
included in this session will be forwarded to the Congress Committee for
possible inclusion in the General Sessions. Note, paper proposals will
appear on the Mearcstapa blog: http://medievalmonsters.blogspot.com/

MONSTERS II: Down to the skin: Images of Flaying in the Middle Ages
Organizers: Larissa Tracy, Longwood University and Asa Simon Mittman,
California State University-Chico

Presider: Larissa Tracy

>From images of Saint Bartholomew holding his skin in his arms, to scenes
of demons flaying the damned within the mouth of hell, to grisly execution
in Havelok the Dane, to laws that prescribed it as a punishment for
treason, this session explores the gruesome, even monstrous, practice of
skin removal—flaying—in the Middle Ages. This session proposes to examine
the widely diverse examples of this grisly practice, and explore the
layered responses to skin-removal in art, history, literature, manuscript
studies and law. How common was this punishment in practice? How does art
reflect spiritual response? How is flaying, in any form, used to further
political or religious goals? The papers in this session will literally
get beneath the skin of medieval sensibilities regarding punishment and
sacrifice in a nuanced discussion of medieval flaying.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Asa Simon Mittman
(asmittman@csuchico.edu) or Larissa (Kat) Tracy (kattracy@comcast.net).
Also, please include a completed Participant Information Form:
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF).
Deadline for submissions to this session: September 15. Any papers not
included in this session will be forwarded to the Congress Committee for
possible inclusion in the General Sessions. Note, paper proposals will
appear on the Mearcstapa blog: http://medievalmonsters.blogspot.com/
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