Societas Magica Call for Papers

This is a reminder of the Sessions Sponsored and Co-sponsored by the
Societas Magica at the Forty-Sixth International Congress on Medieval
Studies May 13–16, 2010.

Proposals for all sessions are gratefully received as early as possible,
but in any event must be in NO LATER than 15 September 2011.

Five sessions will be sponsored or co-sponsored by the Societas Magica:

I. Magic, Judgment, and Punishment
We have had sessions on trials and accusations before, but it has been
some time since the Societas has sponsored a session examining the
intersection between magic and the law during the Middle Ages.

II. Magic, Mystagogues, and Charlatans
This session proposes to examine public practitioners of magic and their
engagement with medieval society. These practitioners range from
Mystagogues who, firmly convinced of their magical or mystical
abilities, sought followers and clients, to Charlatans who intentionally
sought to deceive.

III. Conjuring Fairies
Our third session, "Conjuring Fairies", aims to bring together
folklorists, literary scholars and scholars of magic to examine how the
descriptions of fairies and fairy magic in literary accounts match the
material contained in surviving grimoires.

IV. Magic and Religion: Applied Methodologies
Here we look for papers that will apply current methodologies in actual
historical case studies to test the illuminating power of theory on real
situations.

For the above four sessions, please send your proposal for a paper with
an abstract (on one page), and a completed Participant Information
Form, to David Porreca (University of Waterloo) dporreca@uwaterloo.ca

V. Medieval Dream Books (Co-sponsored by the Research Group on
Manuscript Evidence )

The compelling nature of dreams, both mysterious and fantastical, which
persistently combined with the notion of a revelatory potential between
these envisioned events and conscious life, ensured a widespread
interest during the medieval period (as at other times) in any means of
understanding or "reading" dream phenomena. The session seeks to examine
the characteristics, approaches, and transmission of such knowledge,
emphasizing the interaction between the texts and their material
contexts of manuscripts and early printed books.

For the above session on dream books, please send your proposal for a
paper with an abstract (on one page), and a completed Participant
Information Form, to László Sándor Chardonnens (Radboud University
Nijmegen) s.chardonnens@let.ru.nl

The Participant Information Form is available at
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html

For further information on the Congress see their website at Western
Michigan University www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress