Last spring we launched a Speculum reading group as one way to keep abreast of new directions in Medieval Studies (broadly speaking), beyond what we already do via the Wednesday lunchtime workshops and other campus events. Our plan is to meet, a few weeks after the publication of each issue of the journal, for discussion, which is generally focused on three articles selected from the recent issue.
Our next gathering will be on Friday, November 17 from 12-1:30pm, in Lane History Corner Rm 302. Lunch will be served, so please RSVP to Mae Lyons-Penner (maelp [at] stanford.edu (maelp[at]stanford[dot]edu)) if you plan to attend and to alert us to any dietary restrictions.
For the next meeting, we plan to discuss the following articles (all from the October 2017 issue):
1) George Dameron: “Feeding the Medieval Italian City-State: Grain, War, and Political Legitimacy in Tuscany, c. 1150–c. 1350” (discussion leader: Rowan Dorin)
2) Dyan Elliott: “Violence against the Dead: The Negative Translation and damnatio memoriae in the Middle Ages” (discussion leader: Lauren Judd)
3) Sara Ritchey: “Saints’ Lives as Efficacious Texts: Cistercian Monks, Religious Women, and Curative Reading, c. 1250–1330” (discussion leader: Björn Buschbeck)