Calendar of Events

The New England Medieval Conference 2005

Medieval Conflicts, Modern Concerns

October 22 & 23, 2005, Saturday & Sunday

Worcester, Massachusetts
Clark University, College of the Holy Cross, Higgins Armory Museum

Download a 2005 brochure | Download a registration form

Schedule

Saturday, October 22
Higgins Armory Museum
8:00am Registration with coffee & pastries
8:30am Welcome by Kent dur Russell, Executive Director, Higgins Armory Museum
8:50am Opening Remarks: SunHee Kim Gertz, Clark University
9:00am Session I: Boundaries
Anisa Mehdi, President, Whetstone Productions
What If We Had the WWW in the Middle Ages?

Sohail Hashmi, Mount Holyoke College
Just War, Holy War, and Jihad: Early Encounters and Mutual Influences
10:15 a.m. Coffee break
10:30 a.m. Session II: Politics and Identity
Sara Lipton, State University of New York at Stony Brook
An Enemy We Cannot See: Identifying the Jew in Medieval Christian Art

Virginia Mason Vaughan, Clark University
Medieval Dukes and Modern Problems: Prospero Strikes Back
Clark University
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:30 p.m. Session III: Performance: A Woman Taken in Adultery
Director: Raymond Munro, Clark University
Higgins Armory Museum
3:30 p.m. Session IV: Christianity and Identity
Sylvia Tomasch, Hunter College
Borders and Bodies: Performing the Christian/Imitating the Jew

Winthrop Wetherbee, Cornell University
Boccaccio and Non-Christian Culture
4:45 p.m. Coffee break
5:00 p.m. Session V: Opening Up Corpora
James Simpson, Harvard University
Reading and Rejection: English Reformation, Bible Reading

Alain Touwaide, Historian of Sciences, Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
Medieval Byzantine Medical and Herbal Practices
6:30 p.m. Cocktail Reception
7:30 p.m. Banquet
Sunday, October 23
Higgins Armory Museum
9:00 a.m. Session VI: Round Table Discussion with Conference Speakers
10:00 a.m. Behind-the-Scenes Tour, Executive Director Kent dur Russell
"One of my greatest pleasures during a recent visit to Worcester and to Clark University was to be taken on a guided tour of the Higgins Armory by its lively and well-informed Director, Kent dur Russell. I can't tell you how exciting it was to be shown the armor, the larger-than-life-size horses and mounted knights, the weapons of every imaginable sort of destructiveness and ingenious mayhem, by a Director whose life is devoted to this astonishing collection. I recommend this to one and all." -- David Bevington, Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities, University of Chicago

Housing

A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hampton Inn, 110 Summer Street, Worcester, MA, at a rate of $95 plus tax for single or double rooms; a hot buffet breakfast is included.

Contact the Hampton Inn directly to make reservations at (508) 757-0300 or toll free at (800) 426-7866. Mention the New England Medieval Conference to receive the discount, which must be booked by September 21, 2005. More information about the hotel and its amenities is available at www.hamptoninn.com.

Directions

Detailed directions to the Higgins Armory Museum from throughout New England can be found on the directions page.

The New England Medieval Conference 2005 Steering Committee

  • President: Fred Paxton, Connecticut College
  • Vice President: SunHee Kim Gertz, Clark University
  • Laurel Ginter Broughton, University of Vermont
  • Elizabeth Bryan, Brown University
  • Gavin T. Colvert, Assumption College
  • Arlyn Diamond, University of Massachusetts
  • Mary Dockray-Miller, Lesley University
  • Daniel Donahue, Harvard University
  • Robert Eisenstein, Mt. Holyoke College
  • Eric J. Goldberg, Williams College
  • Ibrahim Kalin, College of the Holy Cross
  • Steven P. Marrone, Tufts University
  • Ex-officio: Richard Emmerson, The Medieval Academy of America

Local Organizing Committee

  • Gavin T. Colvert, Assumption College
  • SunHee Kim Gertz, Clark University
  • Kent dur Russell, Higgins Armory Museum
  • Sarah Stanbury, College of the Holy Cross
  • Tara Young, Higgins Armory Museum