Subtheme:
The Event

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

What goes into the making of an event? What transforms detail into evidence? How does a singular moment, its edges uncertain, become the grounds on which scholarship builds an argument larger than the moment itself? What is the relationship between a narratological detail, a historical occurrence, a person—and the conclusions that are drawn from them? How does a case study become a case study?

In response to the conference theme of “Jubilee,” we are interested in what it means for details to be made meaningful; how particularities are partaken of, en route to productive abstraction. The methodology of the humanities frequently depends upon extrapolating out of singularity. The operations of the case study problematize what Lauren Berlant once described as “the becoming general of singular things.” Medieval studies has perhaps a heightened relation to the difficulties of the detail due to the pressures of historical distance. The relative size of the archive and the appeal of arguments that remain compelling across the longue durée compounds the importance of making meaning out of the available examples. Even when we do not say this is the earliest example, still the temporal remove often haunts us: an example, this far back. 

We invite paper and panel proposals that consider these questions from a range of angles, including reflections on dates that serve as conceptual shorthand [1066, 1215, 1381]; the visibility of previously marginal figures like Eleanor Rykener or texts like King of Tars; polemics about method; attention to the generic operations of medieval allegory, hagiography, and exempla; and explorations of the epistemology of particular case studies. The vicissitudes of our discipline elevate certain texts, topics, and frameworks to prominence: we also welcome embedded historicizations and reflections on various turns within the field.