Beowulfs Beyond
Beowulf: Transformations of
Beowulf in Popular Culture (Panel)
Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture and the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association
Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Richard Fahey, Carl Sell, and Benjamin Hoover
Call for Papers - Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2023
55th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association
Sheraton Boston Hotel (Boston, MA)
On-site event: 7-10 March 2024
Beowulfs Beyond
Beowulf: Transformations of
Beowulf in Popular Culture (Panel)
The Old English epic
Beowulf remains an important touchstone for connecting us to the medieval past, yet it also has continued relevance today through its various transformations in cultural texts (especially works of popular culture). Our hope with this session is to expand our knowledge of these works and assess their potential for research and teaching.
Please visit our website
Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story (available at
https://beowulf-transformed.blogspot.com/) for resources and ideas.
The full call for papers (with complete session and submission information) can be accessed at
https://tinyurl.com/Beowulf-Transformed-NeMLA-2024.
Session Information
Over a millennium old, the story of
Beowulf is disseminated primarily through its editions and translations and its transformations. These three types of Beowulfiana represent a massive corpus of over 1000 works according to the
Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database; though, as medievalists, we tend to focus on the first two categories rather than the last concentrating on scholastic pursuits rather than entertainments. Consequently, many are often surprised by the variety and vitality of this corpus and its vast potential for research and teaching.
New versions of the
Beowulf story feature in all forms of modern mediævalisms, yet (as is true with most medieval texts) research continues to focus primarily on depictions of
Beowulf on screen (about 100 examples according to the
Internet Movie Database). We hope in this session to expand our view of
Beowulf’s reception by creators and look more deeply at the text’s wider use.
We are particularly interested in explorations of the adaptation and/or appropriation of the text, its characters, and its themes in works of fiction (at least 250 examples according to the
Internet Speculative Fiction Database and much more recorded by the
Beowulf’s Afterlives Bibliographic Database) and comics (at least 380 examples according to the
Grand Comics Database), as well as their representations in new and neglected works on screen (including film, television, entertainment consoles, and the Internet). Additional versions of the Beowulf can be found in works of creative, performative, and visual arts that also need more attention.
We hope to make our conversation productive. Therefore, we request that submissions highlight the ways the new text transforms the old (for example as interpretations or appropriations of the poem or as an intertext for another work) as well as its value in furthering the
Beowulf tradition rather than focusing solely on any perceived defects.
Please see our website
Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story (at
https://beowulf-transformed.blogspot.com/) for a growing list of ideas, resources and support.
All proposals will also be considered for a themed issue of the open-access journal
The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe.
Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at
popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com. .
Submission Information
All proposals must be submitted into the CFPList system at
https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20596 by 30 September 2023. You will be prompted to create an account with NeMLA (if you do not already have one) and, then, to complete sections on Title, Abstract, and Media Needs.
Notification on the fate of your submission will be made prior to 16 October 2023. If favorable, please confirm your participation with chairs by accepting their invitations and by registering for the event. The deadline for Registration/Membership is 9 December 2023.
Be advised of the following policies of the Convention: All participants must be members of NeMLA for the year of the conference. Participants may present on up to two sessions of different types (panels/seminars are considered of the same type). Submitters to the CFP site cannot upload the same abstract twice.(See the NeMLA Presenter Policies page, at
https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/policies.html, for further details,)
Thank you for your interest in our session.
Again, please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at
popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com. .
For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at
https://MedievalinPopularCulture.blogspot.com/.
For more information on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, please visit our website at
https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.
