Call for Papers sponsored by The International Joan of Arc Society/Société Internationale de l’étude de Jeanne d’Arc
International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS 2020)
May 7 to 10, 2020
Western Michigan University
If Joan of Arc’s story has circulated well beyond its hexagonal borders of origin, it remains strangely entangled with euro-nationalism and white supremacy as indicated by the backlash over the 2018 choice of Mathilde Edey Gamassou, a biracial teenager of Polish and Beninois parentage to play the Maid in Orléans’ Fêtes de Jeanne d’Arc. This panel seeks presentations that consider Joan of Arc as multicultural or transnational perspective, with particular interest in non-Western interpretations of Joan.
To what effect has Joan of Arc been transplanted to other (especially non-Western) cultural contexts? Why is Joan often the lens for understanding women leaders, such as Lalla Fatma N’Soumer dubbed an “Algerian Joan of Arc” by media outlets. Under what circumstances is Joan evoked to comment on transnational politics? Given that Joan of Arc’s story circulates through the world in “haphazard, unpredictable trajectories,” to what extent can we understand it as “global” as McDonald and Suleiman define it? When does Joan act as a “positioning system” via which interconnected users “situate and navigate themselves” in an ever-shifting transnational landscape?
Please submit a 250-word proposal for a 15-minute presentation. Proposals should have an abstract format written in Word doc and be accompanied by a brief academic bio (or a CV), including email address, current affiliation, and title/name. Please submit all relevant documents by September 10, 2019 to Scott Manning (scottmanning13@gmail.com) and Tara Beth Smithson (tbsmithson@manchester.edu).
Preliminary inquiries and expressions of interest are welcome.
Organizers
Tara Beth Smithson, Manchester University (tbsmithson@manchester.edu)
Scott Manning, Independent Scholar (scottmanning13@gmail.com)
This is one of two panels sponsored by the International Joan of Arc Society for Kalamazoo 2020. Please see our CFP for Performing Joan: Interpreting the Maid on Screen, on Stage, and in the Streets