Category: Announcements

Reading Chaucer outside the Anglophone World: Receptions, Translations, and Traditions

by Candace Barrington

Plans for the next installment of “In Sondry Ages and Sondry Londes” are now in place. Organized by Sophia Yashih Liu (National Taiwan University), Yu-Ching (Louis) Wu (National Central University), and Jonathan Fruoco (University Paris Nanterre [CREA]), the conference will be held at National Taiwan University in Tapei and will honor Dr. Francis K. H. So, whose Mandarin Chinese translation of The Canterbury Tales was published in 2025.

I’ll be there, and I hope to see many of you there, too.

In Sondry Ages and Sondry Londes]
Reading Chaucer outside the Anglophone World:
Receptions, Translations, and Traditions
Date: March 12–13, 2027
Venue: National Taiwan University, Taiwan
**

The recent Mandarin Chinese translation of The Canterbury Tales (Linking Publishing, 2025) by Dr. Francis K. H. So offers a timely opportunity to reflect on the growing presence, vitality, and diversity of Chaucerian studies outside the Anglophone world. This significant contribution not only opens new avenues for engaging with Geoffrey Chaucer’s language and narrative art, but also foregrounds the crucial role of translation, pedagogy, and local scholarly traditions in shaping how Chaucer is read, interpreted, and taught across different linguistic and cultural contexts.

Aligned with the New Chaucer Society’s (NCS) ongoing initiative “In Sondry Ages and Sondry Londes” (curated by Dr. Jonathan Fruoco), this international conference seeks to advance a more globally grounded Chaucerian studies, one that situates the significance of Chaucer beyond the Anglophone world by foregrounding translation, adaptations, multilingual readerships, pedagogical practices, and cross-cultural intellectual exchange. By bringing together scholars working across diverse linguistic regions and by creating a venue for established scholars, early-career researchers, and graduate students, the conference aims to foster sustained conversations about Chaucer’s afterlives and to strengthen transnational scholarly networks shaped by translation, adaptation, and comparative inquiry.

The keynote speakers are Dr. Candace Barrington, Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University and President of the New Chaucer Society, whose work focuses on Chaucer and medieval English literature, especially global reception, translation, and adaptation, and Dr. Francis K. H. So, Professor Emeritus at National Sun Yat-sen University, whose scholarship centers on Chaucer, medieval and Renaissance English literature, East–West comparative studies, and the translation and global circulation of premodern texts.

We invite proposals that explore any aspect of Chaucer’s works, their translations and adaptations, as well as their critical or creative receptions outside the Anglophone world, or in comparative and transregional contexts. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

  • Translation, Adaptation, and Literary Mediation
    • New approaches to, or challenges in, translating Chaucer into non-Anglophone languages
    • Histories of major translations and translators, and the role of translation in shaping local understandings of Chaucer
    • Considerations of the role publishers (both university and commercial presses) supporting and promoting editions of Chaucer outside the Anglophone sphere
    • Theoretical reflections on translation, vernacularity, and Middle English in multilingual or cross-cultural contexts
    • Chaucer-inspired works in contemporary literature, media, or visual culture
  • Reception, Pedagogy, and Intellectual Histories
    • Histories of Chaucerian scholarship in non-Anglophone academic traditions
    • Pedagogical practices and challenges in teaching Chaucer in multilingual or non-Anglophone classrooms
    • Chaucer in textbook cultures, anthologies, curricula, and the formation of literary canons, particularly the “World Literature” category Chaucer in Global and Comparative Perspectives
  • Cross-cultural approaches to medieval narrative, performance, humor, or religiosity
    • Comparative medievalisms across linguistic, national, or cultural traditions
    • Reading Chaucer alongside non-Western or premodern texts (for example, The Tale of Genji, The Cloud Dream of the Nine, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms), with attention to narrative framing, irony, or social satire
    • Intersections between Chaucer and local philosophical or aesthetic traditions
  • Texts, Traditions, and Critical Methods
    • Critical innovations on Chaucer’s oeuvre (The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, the dream visions, Chaucer’s translations of Latin and French texts, and shorter poems), through lenses such as gender, race, affect, ecology, embodiment, or disability
    • Manuscript studies, material culture, digital humanities, or archival research, particularly Middle English manuscripts housed in Asia and the global South.
    • Chaucer, colonialism, and postcolonial reception histories in non-Anglophone contexts

The conference will be held in person on March 12–13, 2027, at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Please submit a proposal (250 words in English) along with a brief bio of 100 words to readingchaucer@gmail.com by June 30, 2026. In addition to individual paper proposals, the conference welcomes panel proposals consisting of three to four papers organized around a shared theme. Panel submissions should include a panel abstract (300 words) outlining the panel’s coherence and relevance to the conference theme, along with individual paper abstracts (250 words each) and a brief 100-word bio for each participant.

We particularly welcome submissions from graduate students and early-career scholars, and we hope this gathering will reinforce and expand long-term networks of Chaucerian research beyond the Anglophone world. There is no registration fee for the conference. For updated information, please visit the conference website: https://readingchaucer.com/.

This event is co-sponsored by the New Chaucer Society (NCS), the Taiwan Association of Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies (TACMRS), University Paris Nanterre (CREA), and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), Taiwan.

Conference Organizers:
Sophia Yashih Liu, National Taiwan University
Yu-Ching (Louis) Wu, National Central University
Jonathan Fruoco, University Paris Nanterre (CREA)

Have you developed a great idea after the initial proposal deadline for the 2026 NCS Congress? If so, here’s your second chance!

by Candace Barrington

The 2026 NCS Congress Program Committee warmly invites additional proposals for the Congress’s Research Expo. The Research Expo will host research with strong visual or digital elements presented in a display or poster format. Presenters will discuss their display and the underpinning research during a single launch session.

This session is open to a range of formats and topics that may offer updates on work-in-progress, preliminary conclusions, experimental modes of presenting research data, and shorter summaries of material. Topics particularly suited to posters might include, but are certainly not limited to: 

  • Research on manuscripts or other aspects of material culture
  • Image-heavy work that deploys visual analysis
  • Updates on large-scale funded projects or other grant funded work-in-progress
  • Data-driven work that is communicated in graphical forms
  • Experimental digital methods
  • Incorporate a hands-on or other interactive element

Posters will be displayed in a hall where receptions will be held and a time will be reserved for researchers to talk about their work. A prize will be offered to one poster. 

Note: The printing of posters can be done in Freiburg (and at no cost) before the conference (more information will be provided to those whose posters are accepted).

To submit a proposal: Proposals should be titled and no longer than 200 words. Please include your name, affiliation, and your email address along with your abstract. Please email your proposal directly to the Research Expo organisers Mary Flannery, R. D. Perry, and J. R. Mattison at ncs2026freiburg@gmail.com no later than 31 December 2025.

Death of a beloved translator, John Boje

by Candace Barrington

One of the great joys of the Global Chaucers project has been the opportunity to correspond (and sometimes meet) many translators and scholars from around the world. Each one has taught me much about translation, Chaucer, and the joys of literature. Perhaps none taught me more than John Boje of Pretoria, South Africa.

He and I began corresponding in November 2013. I had learned (from someone on some platform) about his ‘n Keur uit die Pelgrimsverhale van Geoffrey Chaucer [A Selection of the Pilgrims’ Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer]. I emailed him, asking if he’d be willing to answer some questions. I tapped “send,” and before I had a chance to make a cup of tea, I heard back from him with an enthusiastic “Yes!” And so began our collaboration and our friendship.

Earlier that year, he had completed his translation of all the tales (including, he was proud to report, The Parson’s Tale and The Tale of Melibee), so all the tribulations and victories of translation were fresh in his mind. I would send one-line questions, and he’d respond with pages filled with exuberant answers and multiple examples. He described complications and shared insights that I didn’t have the experience to imagine. He gleefully (and mischievously) explained how he exploited the common Dutch ancestry of both Middle English and Afrikaans words. He showed me how Afrikaans, a language associated with an oppressive regime, could be slyly used (in ways that Chaucerians can appreciate) to subvert the dominant discourse.

Because he eventually wrote “‘Save oure tonges difference’: Reflections on Translating Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales into Afrikaans,” his doctoral dissertation whose erudition is belied by the “reflections,” I have at hand a compendium of his thoughts about particular techniques or specific dilemmas.

I am fortunate that I learned of his decline in time to send him a note expressing my gratitude. I wanted him to know that our initial email conversations became the foundation of my scholarly practice. His clear and enthusiastic answers to my ambitious questions convinced me that I would be able to make a long-term project out of my germ of an idea.

I must add one more note: John’s generosity of spirit extended far beyond the gracious help he offered me. As his friends and family testify, he provides an unbeatable example of how to work towards a world where “justice can rise up / And hope and history rhyme” (Seamus Heaney, “The Cure of Troy”).

Chaucer in the Age of Medievalism: In sondry ages and sundry londes

by Candace Barrington

Colloquium organizers–Justine Breton and Jonathan Fruoco–have announced the full program for the upcoming Chaucer in the Age of Medievalism to be held at the University of Lorraine in Nancy, France, 13-14 November 2025.

Any attending the conference will not need to register or pay a fee. There will not be an online option.

Next month’s event is part of Jonathan Fruoco’s “In Sondry Ages and Sundry Londes” conference cycle sponsored by the New Chaucer Society. These events explore Chaucer’s presence and reception in non-Anglophone countries. Prior conferences took place in Grenoble, France (2018) and Hiroshima, Japan (2023). Jonathan is looking for someone to help organize the next conference outside of the Anglosphere in 2027. Contact him at jonathan dot fruoco at gmail dot com if you’re interested.

2026 New Chaucer Society Congress at University of Freiburg: Call for paper proposals now available

by Candace Barrington

The program committee co-chairs for the 2026 NCS Congress, Mary Flannery and Ryan Perry, have released the call for paper proposals. You will find both the full cfp and the guidelines for submission at the New Chaucer Society website.

Please keep in mind the two-step submission process. Both steps are due 27 April 2025.

Global Chaucerians will find a wealth of sessions to consider. Many explicitly invite a global perspective, including (but certainly not limited to)

  • 5. Medieval Ecologies out of Place
  • 6. Queer Medieval Ecologies
  • 7. Perspectives on Premodern Ecologies
  • 8. Middle English Multilingualism Beyond French and Latin
  • 9. Multilingual Approaches to Pilgrimage and Crusade Narratives
  • 10. Languages Beyond Borders: Multilingual Contact Zones
  • 11. Multilingualism on the Road
  • 12. Perspectives on Global Medieval Travel Writing
  • 13. Multilingual Middle English
  • 14. Medievalists Moving Together: Social Movements and New Solidarities
  • 15. Involuntary Mobility: Displacement, Migration, Language, Refuge
  • 26. Global Medievalisms
  • 27. Medievalism and Contemporary Retellings
  • 30. Reconstructing the Middle Ages: Architectural Medievalism
  • 31. Understanding the Coloniser/Re-Imagining the Medieval
  • 34. Medieval Intersectionality
  • 43. Global Perspectives on the Study of Chaucer
  • 71. Translanguaging
  • 73. New Medieval Literatures Presents: Chaucer and the Unexpected…
  • 75. Comparative Work in Medieval English and German

Others seem ripe for a global perspective:

  • 17. The Social Lives of Medieval Devotional Texts
  • 22. Living Libraries, Living Laboratories: Medieval Books and Archives and/as Classrooms
  • 25. Analog Medievalisms
  • 28. Ageless Medievalisms
  • 29. Institutions
  • 32. Transcending Precarity Through Solidarity
  • 38. Generosity: Now
  • 44. Translation Urbis / Cities in Translation
  • 53. Lyric Threats
  • 78. Research Expo
  • 79. Open Paper Thread

And, of course, all the other sessions welcome your proposals!

So, please enjoy reading the vibrant call for proposals.

If you have specific questions about the submission process or general questions about the congress, please contact me. I’m happy to point you to someone with the answers.

We’re excited to learn how the sessions and their descriptions stimulate new ideas. Most of all, we’re thrilled that we’ll be able to see many of you in Freiburg.

2026 New Chaucer Society Congress: Call for Sessions

Germany’s Black Forest is Calling

by Candace Barrington

The Program Committee for the 24th Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society–to be held in Freiburg, Germany, 27-30 July 2026–has released its Call for Sessions.

The Call includes guidelines for submitting panel proposals to eight thread options:

  • Comparative Environmentalisms
  • Multilingualism and Mobility
  • The Social Lives of Medieval Books
  • Ubiquitous Medievalism
  • Precarity
  • Tales in Translation
  • Thinking with/through Ethics/Aesthetics
  • Open Topics

You will find complete descriptions of the threads as well as the submission process here.

The deadline for submitting a session proposal is 17 January 2025.

The ensuing Call for Papers will appear soon thereafter.

Kuddos to the program committee members Alastair Bennett, Gina M. Hurley, Koichi Kano, Julia R. Mattison, and Eva von Contzen (ex officio), led by committee co-chairs Mary Flannery and Ryan D. Perry.

Chaucer in Iran

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CFP: Chaucer in the Age of Medievalism: In sondry ages and sundry londes

13-14 November 2025. University of Lorraine, Nancy

Following the Chaucer: Here and Now exhibition (2023-2024) at the Bodleian Library, this conference–sponsored by the Modernités Médiévales association and the New Chaucer Society–aims to continue the reflection on the medievalist dimension of Geoffrey Chaucer’s work and its persistent influence in contemporary culture.

Far from being confined to his era, Geoffrey Chaucer’s work continues to resonate through the ages, inspiring a multitude of post-medieval representations. The poet himself remains a regularly invoked figure, sometimes even without direct connection to his texts, suggesting an autonomous legacy of Chaucer both as a man and an artist. Whether through the prism of cinema, music, theater, television, poetry, or other artistic forms, the poet remains an endless source of inspiration and reinterpretation. This conference invites us to question how adaptations and reinterpretations of Chaucer and/or his work by artists from diverse cultural backgrounds enrich our understanding of his legacy. His various incarnations over the centuries raise fascinating issues regarding intercultural dialogue, the politics of memory, and the evolution of popular culture.

Proposals may particularly focus on one of the following axes, without necessarily being limited to them.

Axis 1: Medievalist Echoes of Chaucer’s Work
A first axis of study will examine how Chaucer’s work is reinterpreted and adapted in contemporary culture through various artistic forms. What specific Chaucerian motifs and themes resonate in the modern context, and what are the reasons for this resonance? This exploration will study how artists adapt his work while preserving medieval elements and question the stakes of selecting and modernizing these elements. The influence of William Morris on the reception and representation of Chaucer will receive special attention. By publishing The Canterbury Tales in his Kelmscott Chaucer and bringing to life a romantic vision of the Middle Ages through works such as The Earthly Paradise, Morris profoundly
shaped the perception of Chaucer from the 19th century onwards. It will be relevant to examine how Morris, like others, reshaped Chaucer’s image to serve his own aesthetic and ideological ideals, in order to deepen the repercussions of this reinterpretation on the contemporary reception of Chaucer’s work.
We also invite study of the theatrical and poetic performances of Chaucer’s work and their contribution to renewing our understanding of the original text. The performance by poet Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze of “The Wife of Bath at Brixton Market” (2009) offers an interesting example of interaction between Chaucer and an engaged audience. How do adaptations of Chaucer in public or alternative spaces broaden the accessibility and scope of his work? Similarly, it would be pertinent to reflect on how contemporary projects such as Patience Agbabi’s Refugee Tales (2016) use Chaucer’s heritage to address issues of memory, identity, and inclusion. These initiatives contribute to reevaluating and revitalizing the importance of Chaucer’s work in the contemporary cultural landscape.

Axis 2: Chaucer Himself, Incarnations, and Appropriation
Beyond the poems that have endured, the figure of Geoffrey Chaucer is sometimes summoned in various works and rewritings, bringing the medieval poet back to life. In Brian Helgeland’s film A Knight’s Tale (2001), which takes its title from one of Chaucer’s works, the poet is one of the main characters. Affected by a gambling problem, debts, and a tendency to put his pen at the service of the highest bidder, this protagonist seems far from the traditional representation of authors. However, his poetic talent and, above all, his oratorical skill increasingly find a place in the plot, contributing to making the character an adjunct to the hero, but also and above all a figure of a rebellious demagogue. What implications does this medievalist and trivial interpretation of Chaucer have on the poet’s posterity and his reception by the general public? While knowledge of the specifics of Chaucer’s life is not necessary to understand or appreciate Helgeland’s work, this biographical input nonetheless enriches readings of the film. What are the stakes, then, of articulating popular reception and scholarly knowledge in the representation of Chaucer’s figure? This same association of the popular and the scholarly is precisely what guides the integration of the poet into Thierry la Fronde in 1965 (season 3, episode 10), recalling the series’ pedagogical and entertaining ambition, mixing fictional characters with easily identifiable historical figures. Each time, Chaucer is clearly named, and often subtle references to his work or biography, apparently aimed at a knowledgeable audience, pepper his staging. It is from this perspective that he also appears as a ghost in 2009 in The Simpsons series (season 20, episode 18), in reference to his burial in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey. What do these uses of the poet’s image in popular culture say about his contemporary reception? Who are these nods aimed at, and what do they bring to the works concerned?

Communication proposals, approximately 2000 characters in length, should be sent by February 3rd, 2025, jointly to Justine Breton (justine.breton@univ-lorraine.fr) and Jonathan Fruoco (jonathan.fruoco@gmail.com).

Scientific Committee
Candace Barrington (Central Connecticut State University)
Justine Breton (SAMA, Université de Lorraine)
Vincent Ferré (CERC, Université Sorbonne-Nouvelle)
Jonathan Fruoco (CREA, Université Paris-Nanterre)
Patrick Moran (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Karin Ueltschi-Courchinoux (CRIMEL, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne)

Middle Ages in the Modern World: 2025 Conference Call for Papers

by Candace Barrington

We’ve heard from conference organizers–Professor Sarah Salih (KCL), Dr Josh Davies (KCL), Dr Rebecca Menmuir (Oxford)–that the much-missed Middle Ages in the Modern World (MAMO) biennial conference is being revived after a covid hiatus. In its 2025 iteration, this multidisciplinary conference on medievalism in the post-Middle Ages will also incorporate the biennial ‘London Chaucer’ conference as a dedicated thematic strand.

MAMO 2025 will be held at King’s College London, Strand Campus, on 24-26 June. 

Here are the details for submitting a proposal.

Proposals for the 5th MAMO conference are invited for papers, panels, linked panels, readings and events about the ways in which the Middle Ages have been received, imagined, invoked, relived, used, abused, and refashioned in the modern and contemporary worlds. Creative and scholarly work from any discipline on any aspect of medievalism is welcome, but we are particularly interested in addressing:

  • Inclusivity and exclusivity; the struggle to claim the medieval; medievalist activis
  • Relationships between the medievalisms of scholarship, creative work, heritage and cultural industries
  • Performance and re-enactment of the medieval
  • Continuities: living and working with medieval buildings and institutions
  • Local, national and global medievalisms; medievalisms of London
  • The history and current state of medievalism studies
  • Chaucer reception in all forms from the manuscripts to the present day

Please send any proposals or queries to themamoconference@gmail.com by 13 January 2025. If you are submitting proposals for single or linked panels, please consider diversity when selecting participants.

Coming to the Folger: The Love Birds

by Candace Barrington

Once again, David Wallace has alerted us to a musical adaptation of a Chaucerian text. This time it’s “The Love Birds” at the Folger Library in Washington DC. Based on Chaucer’s The Parliament of Foules, the performance intersperses Chaucer’s “vision of avian politics … with bracing and intricate music of his times from England and France, perfectly mirrored by the newly-composed music” by Juri Seo, a Korean-born America composer.

Juri Seo’s website features excerpts from the composer’s jazz-inflected, chanson-influenced music for small ensembles.

The performances are appropriately timed for Valentines Day, 14-16 February 2025.

If you are able to attend the Friday performance on 14 February, consider arriving early for the pre-concert discussion with Christopher Kendall and Robert Eisenstein, co-Artistic Directors of the Folger Consort, at 7:00pm. Free entry with concert ticket.

Want to learn more? Or regret that you cannot attend? Register for the online seminar on Wednesday, 12 February, at 6pm. Led by Folger Consort Artistic Director Robert Eisenstein, this virtual seminar provides a sneak peek at the music performed.