Medieval Graduate Student Conference This Weekend

Please mark your calendars for the upcoming annual Medieval Studies Program Graduate Student Conference, which will take place this year on Friday, May 17 (HSSB 4080) and Saturday, May 18 (McCune Conference Room). This year’s theme is, “Says Who? Contested Spaces, Voices, and Texts.” Panels will include speakers both from UCSB and several students visiting from other campuses.
Professor Steven Justice (English, UC Berkeley) will give a keynote presentation titled, “‘Most Impudent’: Augustine, After Augustine, and Way After Augustine.”
The conference is also pleased to host a performance by the Rude Mechanicals Medieval and Renaissance Players from Shepherd University: Four Medieval French Farces, from Professor Jody Enders’ “Farce of the Fart” and Other Ribaldries (Univ. of Pennsylvania 2011). This will take place on Friday, May 17 at 5pm in Theater and Dance West 1701. After the performance, there will be a talk-back with the actors and director, joined by Professor Enders. All welcome and open to the public; please encourage your students to attend!
For a full conference schedule and location of events, please see the conference program: http://ucsbmedievalstudiesgrad.wordpress.com/program.
Full conference information is available on the conference website: http://ucsbmedievalstudiesgrad.wordpress.com.

2nd Annual Medieval Literatures Lecture

Please join us for the 2nd Annual Medieval Literatures Lecture!

Thursday, May 2. 4:00 – 5:00 in SH 2617

Professor Bruce Holsinger, University of Virginia

“Literary Friendship & Historical Fiction: Scenes From Medieval London”

Prof. Holsinger is Professor of English and Medieval Studies at UVA, but he is also the author of the forthcoming novel A Burnable Book (Harper Collins 2014) set in London in 1385 and featuring John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer.

Come hear Prof Holsinger talk about his experience of writing and
publishing historical fiction and read selections from his novel.

Medieval Talk This Thursday, 4/25

THURSDAY, April 25th at noon in HSSB 4041
Nicole Archambeau, Dept of History & Religious Studies, UCSB
“Identifying Health Care Providers in the Later Middle Ages”

What did people in the 14th century do when they were sick? The answer
was often far more complex than traditional research in the history of
medicine shows. By sifting through the narratives of people coping
with their own and loved-ones’ health care, we find that people used
all available methods and even created new ones when needed. We also
see that medieval concepts of health care extended beyond the
boundaries of the physical body to include the passions or what
contemporaries called “accidents of the soul.” Healers and sufferers
saw that sadness, fear, and anxiety could damage physical health and
were health problems in their own right.