Subtheme:
Marx Again

Organizer: Taylor Cowdery (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and R.D. Perry (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)

This thread invites papers and panel proposals that engage, whether directly or more loosely, with  the thought and legacy of Karl Marx. Since the New Left, Marxian thought has been a staple of  Anglo-American literary criticism but, apart from some prominent engagements, its influence  within medieval studies has been less pronounced than in other subfields. In light of Marx’s well known interest in the history of the European Middle Ages, and in a moment of austerity politics in  the contemporary academy as well as cronyism in the wider polity, we feel that now is perhaps an  especially good time for medievalists to think anew with Marx. 

Proposals might address the following sorts of questions: 

• How might Marxian and Marxist ideas about embodiment—including social reproduction  theory, interpellation, and double consciousness—be adapted for contemporary debates  about embodiment? What are the resonances, and the dissonances, between Marxist theory  and theories of trans embodiment, feminine or masculine embodiment, and racialized  embodiment today? 

• Marx was famously skeptical of representations; perhaps for this reason, the prevailing  critical move of Marxist theory has historically been demystification. But are there other  ways of thinking with Marx that do not prize critical distance, or objectivity, or an  aggressive and/or polemical relation to the text?  

• How do Marxian critiques of bondage, debt, and the expropriation of the value created by labor translate to medieval practices of labor, employment, and slavery? Can Marxist  critiques of racial capitalism and debt capitalism be extended to the Middle Ages, and even  to the literature and culture of that period? 

• Solidarity is a central if undertheorized value in Marxist thought. What avenues for  solidarity might be opened through the study of medieval culture? And how might Marxism  help medievalists to see what different cultures, literatures, and identity positions have in  common? 

We are especially excited about proposals that bring Marxism together with theories and  methodologies whose concerns may seem to differ from the focus on class and economic oppression  that is traditionally associated with Marxism. We would also be enthusiastic about proposals that  think through the historical place of Marxism in medieval studies. Where has Marxism been in our  field? And where is it today? 

As Mao once said, let a thousand flowers bloom.