Subtheme:
Dialectics of Resistance and Refuge

Organizers: Shoshana Adler (Vanderbilt University) and Mariah Min (Brown University)

In response to the conference theme this thread invites panels and papers that take up the problems of contradiction in medieval modes of resistance and refuge. Moments of revolt paradoxically reinforce and clarify the strictures of existing power, and models of refuge inevitably encode restrictions into sanctuary. What notably dialectical forms can resistance/refuge take, when they imagine themselves to be ongoing formations? We are interested in work oriented toward that dialectic, addressing questions around the failures of rebellion, the restrictions of refuge, and the ever-deferred promises of revolution. Abstracts might consider these questions from a range of frameworks, including:

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• Paradoxical spaces that combine threat and sanctuary, rebellion and conformity, as in the Green Chapel of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or the rigidity of the anchoritic cell 

• Fluidity, permeability, and porousness, including troubled borders, strange alliances, startling vulnerabilities, and annihilating self-critique

• The necropolitical possibilities of the post-plague years, and the new forms of art, labor and life made possible by mass death

• The opportunities of forced or compelled confession, and the deferrals and refusals of various forms of admission and naming 

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We are excited to consider any proposals that engage with these or other dialectical configurations of resistance and refuge.