Will the “Reel” Beowulf Please Stand Up? Representations of the BEOWULF Story on Electronic Multimedia
Sponsored by The Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages
Session to be held at the 43rd International Congress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (Kalmazoo, MI), from 8-11 May 2008
Proposals due by 9/1/07
THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF POPULAR CULTURE AND THE MIDDLE AGES
invites proposals for 15-minute papers on any aspect of the medieval popular culture to be included in a session to be held at the 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, which convenes at Western Michigan University from 8-11 May 2008. In addition, submissions will also be considered for inclusion in an essay collection on the topic of BEOWULF and the Anglo-Saxon world on film.
Presentations included in “Will the “Reel” Beowulf Please Stand Up? Representations of the BEOWULF Story on Electronic Multimedia,” should focus on how a seminal component of Medieval Studies research has been adapted in select modern media. Rediscovered in the nineteenth century, the Old English epic BEOWULF is an important text for understanding our medieval forebears. It has also become significant for its relationship to our post-medieval preoccupation with the medieval. The story of Beowulf and his victories over the Grendel-kin and the firedrake have been told and retold, over the past two hundred years, in every known medium of our modern culture, a fact expertly described by Marijane Osbourn and John William Sutton in their respective bibliographies of Beowulfiana.
Beowulf is especially suited to visual media and has been adapted many times to the electronic multimedia of film, videocassette, and video game, with at least three filmed versions appearing in 2007. It has even been retold in episodes of the popular television series XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS and STAR TREK: VOYAGEr and in versions for young audiences. However, despite the prevalence of film and televisual representations of BEOWULF, there has been little academic interest in this “reel” BEOWULF and no comprehensive discussion of the corpus. Organized to bridge such divides between Medieval Studies and popular culture, the Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages requests two sessions devoted to expanding knowledge about these texts, works (like those discussed in our other sessions) that can be used productively in teaching about the medieval poem and our modern concerns about the story.
) with your proposal.
Michael A. Torregrossa
34 2nd St
Smithfield, RI 02917-3627
Popular.Culture.and.the.Middle.Ages-at-gmail.com
http://PopularCultureandtheMiddleAges.org
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