Medieval roots shown in today's world

Tuesday, 6 February 2007

The Medieval and Early Modern eras will be the focus of a four-day international conference at the University of Adelaide this week.

More than 100 researchers from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the UK and the United States will be in Adelaide for the biennial conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

Dr Lawrence Warner, University of Adelaide conference co-convenor, said: "Medieval and Early Modern Studies are especially pertinent today. From the role of Shakespeare as touchstone for English curricula, to Parliamentary rituals, to the Gothic architecture of many Australian churches and universities, and to the historical roots of today's Middle Eastern politics, the Middle Ages and Early Modern era are a very real presence in our world."

Topics covered at the conference range from the language of early Irish saints through to the medieval origins of the work of Australian poet Les Murray.

Keynote speakers include:
Professor David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania, renowned medievalist scholar, author and broadcaster (including the BBC production 'God's First Englishman'); winner of the Modern Language Association's James Russell Lowell Prize.

Professor John Ganim, University of California-Riverside, author of Medievalism and Orientalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Chaucerian Theatricality (Princeton UP, 1990), and Style and Consciousness in Middle English Literature (Princeton UP, 1983); President of the New Chaucer Society.

Professor Jaynie Anderson, University of Melbourne, author of Tiepolo's Cleopatra (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Judith (Éditions du Regard, 1997); Giorgione: The Painter of Poetic Brevity (Flammarion, 1997).

Dr Vanessa Harding, Birkbeck College London, author of A Short History of Early Modern London (Cambridge UP, 2005); The Dead and the Living in London and Paris, 1500-1670 (Cambridge UP, 2002).

The conference will be held in the University of Adelaide's Napier Building, 7-10 February.

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