Announcements

The latest news from the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Department:

Public Lecture: Monday, March 31, 5:30 PM, Law School, Classroom C:
Professor Issam Eido will hold a public conversation on "Scholars of Islamic Law and the Syrian Civil War." Professor Eido holds a doctorate from the University of Damascus, Syria, and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. He is a scholar of medieval Islamic law and prophetic traditions. He will discuss the role of Islamic legal scholars (ulama) before and after the civil war.

MRST Luncheon: Wednesday, March 19, 12:20-1:15, Women's Resource Room, Elrod Commons 216: Professor Wan-Chuan Kao of our English Department will make a presentation on "Premodern Tomboyism," in which he will examine medieval tomboyism in the cult of Sainte Foy and Le Romance de Silence. We will meet together with members of the Program in Women's and Gender Studies. The luncheon will be catered (but free!)  Further details closer to the event.

Guest, Professor Holly Crocker:

• Public Lecture: Wednesday, February 26, 7:00 PM, Northen Auditorium in Leyburn Library: Professor Crocker will speak on "Grace, Agency, and Networks of Virtue: Chaucer's Custance and Late Medieval Saints' Lives." In it she will investigate the power of grace as a potential that enables premodern women's ethical action. Professor Crocker teaches English at the University of South Carolina and is the author of Chaucer's Visions of Manhood (2007) and a forthcoming volume on Women's Ethical Action from Chaucer to Shakespeare.
• MRST Luncheon: Thursday, February 27, Guest12:20-1:15, Chavis Room, Elrod Commons 206: Professor Crocker will talk informally about the development of her interests and the direction in which she sees her field heading.   Pick up a sandwich, side item and beverage in Café 77 beforehand, charge them to the MRST Program, and come join us in the Chavis Room (southwest corner of the second floor)!

MRST luncheon: Wednesday, October 9, 12:20-1:15, Outing Club Room, Elrod Commons. Joel Blecher, our new Islamist in the Religion Department, will make a presentation on "The Ethics of Reading in Islamic Culture." Go by Café 77 beforehand, pick up a sandwich, side item and drink, charge ‘em to MRST and bring them along to the Outing Club room.

Tuesday, October 8, 9:00-10:00 AM, Payne 201: "From Literacy to Noise." Papers by: Katie Compton, "Swa may [he] reckon and reke: Conscience's Indecorous Literacy."; and John Melillo, "Anatomies of Noise: Ur-Sonatas, Audiopoems, Sonifications and More."

Graduate School Roundtable: Interested in graduate school? Katie Compton, Wan-Chuan Kao and John Melillo will hold a roundtable discussion on Monday, October 7, 12:20-1:15 in the Mason Taylor New Room in Payne Hall. Katie is a W&L alumna who majored in medieval English literature and went on to study at Cornell. John majored in English at W&L and now teaches modern and contemporary literature at the University of Arizona. Wan-Chuan is a recent graduate of the CUNY Graduate Center who has just joined W&L's English Department to teach medieval literature.