(Un)Expected Animals in (Un)Expected Places in the Middle Ages & Early Modern Period

Chao Auditorium, Ekstrom Library
University of Louisville

The Medieval and Renaissance Research Group will host the Third International Meeting of the Medieval Animal Data-Network. This conference will bring together a group of multi-disciplinary international scholars to present papers on the manifold ways humans have related to and depended on animals.

Schedule of Events

MAY 6, 2014

9:00-9:30 Registration, Morning Coffee, & Opening Remarks

9:30-11:00 Session 1
Of Animals, Monsters, Idolatry, and Hybridity
“Golden Calves and Sacred Snakes: Signs of Idolatry
in Christian Egypt”
Jennifer Westerfeld, University of Louisville

“Enigmatic Animals: Human-Animal Hybrids
on the Irish High Crosses”
Hayley Humphrey, National University of Ireland

“Monsters and Propaganda in the German Reformation Woodcuts”
Zhou Shiting, School of History, Renmin University, China

11:00-11:30 Coffee Break

11:30-1:00 Session 2
Of Wolves and Dogs in Textual Sources
“Hunting the Wolf’s Head: The Outlaw as an Animal in Land, Law, and Literature in Medieval England”
Melissa Sartore, West Virginia University Institute of Technology

“The Nose Knows: Encountering the Canine in Bisclavret”
Alison Langdon, Western Kentucky University

“The Wolf as ‘Moral Mirror’ in Medieval Hispanic Sources”
Xochiquetzalli Cruz Martínez, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at UNAM

1:00-2:30 Lunch break

2:30-4:00 Session 3
Of Birds and Insects in Material Culture, Literature, & Art
“In the Wings of an Eagle: Bone Flutes in Medieval Hungary”
Alice Choyke, Medieval Studies Department, Central European University

“Birds and Bees and Blandin de Cornoalha”
Wendy Pfeffer, University of Louisville

“More than Marginal: Insects in the Hours of Mary of Burgundy”
Eileen Yanoviak, University of Louisville

4:00-5:00 Reception & Viewing of Special Exhibit, “Animals in the University of Louisville Rare Book Collection”

7:00-9:00 Speaker Dinner

May 7, 2014

10:00-10:30 Morning Coffee

10:30-12:30 Session 4
Of Animals, Wonder, Madness, and Knowledge

“The Role of Animals in the Cause and Cure of Medieval Madness”
Anne Koenig, University of South Florida

“Animal Imagery in Fourteenth-Century Curial Sermons”
Blake Beattie, University of Louisville

“Creating and Modifying in Unexpected Ways? The Visual Image of Animals in the Hortus Sanitatis”
Gerhard Jaritz, Central European University

“Sea Monsters and the Wonders of the Arctic Ocean: Natural History in the Carta Marina”
Genevieve Carlton, University of Louisville

12:30-1:00 Closing Remarks

1:00-2:30 Lunch (for panelists)

This event is sponsored by the University of Louisville Medieval and Renaissance Research Group, with financial support from the University of Louisville Liberal Studies Project, the Department of History, the Hite Art Institute, and the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities. All talks are free and open to the public, but pre-registration is appreciated.

To register, visit http://louisville.edu/medieval

To contact the members of the organizing committee (Genevieve Carlton, Mónica Walker, and Jennifer Westerfeld), email medrenlouisvillegmail.com