Jonathan Hsy and I are always pleased when we receive an email from a colleague who shares information about new (at least, new to us) translations or adaptations. And we are always pleased when we receive a note from a colleague who has found our pedagogical resources useful. This week, we were doubly pleased to hear from Dr. Marta Kapera of the Institute of English Studies at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland.
In addition to providing an updated/corrected list of Polish translations of Chaucer’s Tales and Troilus Criseyde that date back to 1907, Dr Kapera also reports that she has recently taught a course called “Polish Chaucers”!
We’ve updated our list to reflect the new information Dr Kapera has shared.
This year’s graduate manuscripts workshop focused on how to approach teaching with manuscripts while centering access and equity. Participants were asked to consider how they can facilitate student engagement with medieval material culture no matter where they end up teaching. The facilitators, each of whom taught hour-long interactive sessions, demonstrated a wide range of pedagogical techniques and considerations designed to address a diverse audience in terms of background and experience. Vanessa Wilkie led an introductory session on the institutional history of the Huntington, giving participants the chance to explore the exhibition space. The topics of each session were as follows: letting a manuscript and its materiality guide your inquiry (Ma), working with indigenous communities to preserve and protect sacred knowledge and materials (D’Arcens), teaching with digital manuscripts and correcting the editorial record (Whearty), and using a single manuscript to open up the study of medieval books more generally (Brantley). Each session concluded with a synthesis of the pedagogical approach by the organizers, Andrews and Hurley, and the culminating event of the day was a reception and hour-long discussion of how to activate medieval material culture in a range of classrooms.
Facilitators were Jessica Brantley, Louise D’Arcens, Ruen-chuan Ma, Bridget Whearty, Vanessa Wilkie.
Organizers were Tarren Andrews and Gina M. Hurley.
Additional indispensable support was provided by Matthew Fisher, Alice Fulmer, Kate Ramsey and Vanessa Wilkie.
Sponsorship for this session was generously provided by the Huntington Library, University of California, Los Angeles (Alex Stern, Dean of the Humanities and the Department of English), University of California, Riverside (Archive, Museum, Manuscript, and Print Studies) and Yale University (the Center for Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration, the Institute of Sacred Music, and the program in Medieval Studies).
A 16th-century portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer, Add MS 5141, f. 1r
The British Library has digitized its entire collection of pre-1600 manuscripts containing Chaucer’s works. The following is taken from the library’s online announcement.
The British Library holds the world’s largest surviving collection of Chaucer manuscripts, and this year we have reached a major milestone. Thanks to generous funding provided by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Peck Stacpoole Foundation, and the American Trust for the British Library, we have completed the digitisation of all of our pre-1600 manuscripts containing Chaucer’s works, over 60 collection items in total. We have digitised not only complete copies of Chaucer’s poems, but also unique survivals, including fragmentary texts found in Middle English anthologies or inscribed in printed editions and incunabula.
You can download the full list of pre-1600 manuscripts containing Chaucer’s works here, together with accompanying links to the digitised versions on our Universal Viewer. There you can view the manuscripts in full, study them in detail, and download the images for your own use. Thanks to the IIIF-compatible viewer, you can also view these manuscripts side-by-side in digital form, allowing close comparison between the volumes, their texts, and scribal hands:
A while back, we asked Mary Flannery (University of Bern) to explore Chaucer’s appearance in Switzerland’s high-school curricula. As she explained in an email, Chaucer “is most often mentioned by name and much more rarely taught before university–my students very often have heard of (or even studied) Chrétien de Troyes in high school, but have often never heard of Chaucer. But I must say that putting this report together has given me a much clearer picture of how unfamiliar Chaucer is to nearly all of my undergraduate students.”
When she asked the English bookstore in Lausanne about the most recent edition of The Canterbury Tales used for teaching high-school students, they kindly contacted Camille Marshall. From her, they learned that Gymnase de la Cité had used Pearson’s simplified edition, English Readers Level 3: The Canterbury Tales (ISBN 9781405862325).
To our colleagues teaching Chaucer in non-Anglophone contexts: what level of familiarity do your students have when they take your university or college courses? Which editions do your secondary schools use?
For more on Mary Flannery’s thoughts about teaching Chaucer in a non-Anglophone context, see her contribution, “Chaucer the Stranger,” to the New Chaucer Society blog.
It’s difficult to paint a coherent picture of the extent to which Chaucer is taught at the high school level because the Swiss education system varies from canton to canton. Each canton has its own school requirements, particularly when it comes to language-‐focused curricula. Several cantons also have both Swiss high schools (e. g. gymnases in Vaud, but colleges in Geneva) and schools that adhere to international baccalaureate curriculum requirements but offer different programmes of instruction in English. Taking Vaud (the canton in which UNIL is situated) as my example, whereas schools may specify in their plans d’études that students studying French will be introduced to literature originating in periods from the Middle Ages to the present day, they tend to leave the specifics of their English courses to the discretion of individual teachers, who may be more or less inclined to introduce their students to medieval English literature. If they happen to offer any teaching on Chaucer, it is always via modern English abridged versions of his works. As a consequence, it is nearly always the case that a Swiss student intending to major in English at university will encounter Chaucer—and Middle English—for the first time in his or her undergraduate studies.
In support of the above, I can offer some very informal/unscientific data drawn from my two mandatory second-‐year Chaucer courses, which are offered as two choices among several courses covering medieval English literature (all second-‐year students must take at least one of these courses in order to fulfill the requirements of the English degree). When I asked my 50 second-‐year students whether they had ever heard of or read Chaucer before coming to UNIL, only four students raised their hands. The first had come across Chaucer’s name during a one-‐month stay in Canterbury; the second had come across a reference to Chaucer in a local newspaper. The third and fourth had heard either Chaucer’s name or The Canterbury Tales mentioned in passing during a high school class, but that was the extent of their acquaintance with the author.
Our many thanks to the individuals and organizations making these resources easily available to readers, students, teachers and scholars throughout the world.
The Guardian reported on 12 November 2019 that Zadie Smith (author of White Teeth among other notable novels set in contemporary London) is adapting The Wife of Bath’s Tale (but I suspect they mean her Prologue) for the borough of Brent’s 2020 program marking it as a “borough of culture.” Titled The Wife of Willesden, this first play by Smith will be a monologue performed at Kiln Theatre. The article reported that, per Smith, the piece will “raise questions about the place of women in society and aim to capture the voice of Brent.”
By adapting the Wife as a vehicle for a distinctively localized and contemporary voice, Smith is not alone. Jean “Binta” Breeze’s “The Wife of Bath in Brixton Market” and Patience Agbabi’s “The Wife of Bafa” have adapted the Wife’s monologue for voices associated with the African Diaspora. (See Jonathan Hsy’s posting where he describes how he incorporates their work into his classroom teaching.) In Brazil, Francisco Botelho has adapted his Brazilian-Portuguese translation of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue into a one-woman dramatic monologue.
We’ll keep an eye on updated information on Smith’s Chaucerian play. And for those wanting to see a performance, we will post dates and ticket information as soon as they appear.
We have news of a job posting that will interest Global Chaucerians. The English Department at Yale University seeks to appoint an outstanding scholar at the rank of assistant professor specializing in medieval literature. Scholarship may focus on any area of Medieval Studies, with particular attention to work that expands the reach and engagement of the field.
They are primarily interested in scholars who specialize in later Middle English, though applications from scholars of early Middle English are also welcome. They seek applicants with research interests that might include (though are not confined to) the following areas: the theory and history of sexuality; ecocriticism and environmental studies; the global Middle Ages; digital humanities and media studies; contemporary and historical approaches to literary criticism and theory; Latin intellectual culture; Piers Plowman; manuscript studies; and/or topics addressing diversity in race/ethnicity, gender, and other categories of identity.
The following story by Kendall Teare appeared on the Yale News website, 29 August 2019.
This year at Yale, two new literature classes will push the boundaries — cultural, linguistic, and geographic — of what we talk about when we talk about medieval literature. The aims of the classes are complementary but distinct: One will push against the strict definition of “English literature” in the Middle Ages, while the other will challenge the notion of borders between both the societies and the literary genres of the medieval world.
The first, “Multicultural Middle Ages,” a fall-term lecture course taught by Ardis Butterfield, the Marie Borroff Professor of English and professor of French and of music, is described in the Yale course catalog as an “introduction to medieval English literature and culture in its European and Mediterranean context, before it became monolingual, canonical, or author-bound.” The second, “Medieval World Literature, Genres and Geographies,” a spring-term seminar taught by Samuel Hodgkin, assistant professor of comparative literature specializing in Persian and Turkic literatures, is a “comparative survey of classic texts from around the medieval world.”
When I asked Lian Zhang how Chaucer is taught in Chinese universities, she reminded me that it is rare to find The Canterbury Tales taught in a class devoted only to the works of Chaucer. Instead, she told me, “most Chinese students and scholars have become interested in reading Chaucer, largely because he has been taken by Chinese readers as a canonized author in English literary history. We remember these facts when we read his works: he was the father of English literature, a great English writer second only to Shakespeare, and the one who was the first to be buried in the Poet’s corner of Westminster Abbey. So, first, his importance in literary history has been well recognized by Chinese students. Second, his works create many striking figures, and his stories are exotic and interesting. The journey of the pilgrimage [consists of events and stories. In a way, this reads like the chapter novel which has become popular in China since the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). I think the verse or [other] poetic features come last in attracting Chinese readers, because the way of rhyming or scheming is so different from the rhyming in classical Chinese poetry, that only English majors would take notice of the features or study these carefully.”
For more about Chaucer in China, see Lian Zhang’s other Global Chaucers contributions:
Reception at Art Gallery of Ontario; co-sponsored by Medievalists of Color.
I began the second day of the Congress by joining a group of Global Chaucerians for breakfast at a nearby coffee shop. Jonathan and I have found informal gatherings like this are helpful for colleagues attending the NCS Congress for the first time.
For Session 3, I attended my first lightening panel: “Chaucer and Transgender Studies” moderated by Ruth Evans. The six short papers were fascinating and provocative.
Leanne MacDonald (University of Notre Dame) “Challenging Normative Notions of Transidentity in Medieval Studies”
Wan-Chuan Kao (Washington & Lee University) “Trans*domesticity”
Michelle Sauer (University of North Dakota) “Reading the ‘Glitch’: Trans-, Technology, and Gender in Medieval Texts”
Miranda Hajduk (Seton Hall University) “’My Sturdy Hardynesse’: The Wife of Bath’s Antifeminist Satire as Trans Narrative”
Cai Henderson (Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto) “Christine de Pizan’s ‘droite condicion’: Authorial Construction and Resonant Reading in Transgender Text”
Because the presenters were limited to 5-7 minutes, the heart of the panel was the ensuing conversations among themselves and with the audience, as we explored transgender topics, including the ways Chaucer’s characters inhabited multiple, simultaneous identities; the transphobic elements of The Miller’s Tale; transmission glitches revealing resistance to hegemonic norms; and the nature of transgender ethics. The lightening format, a new format for NCS, proved an excellent structure for presenting ideas and generating conversation.
Plenary Roundtable: Race and Inclusion: Facing Chaucer Studies, Past and Future Evans, Barrington, Bale, Kao, Dinshaw, & Sévère
Next up, the program featured a plenary panel on Race and Inclusion: Facing Chaucer Studies, Past and Future. The five speakers were Anthony Bale (Birkbeck, University of London), Candace Barrington (Central Connecticut State University), Carolyn Dinshaw (New York University), Wan-Chuan Kao (Washington and Lee University), and Richard Sévère (Valparaiso University). The invitations to participate on the panel were issued nearly year ago, and the subsequent months proved the program committee’s wisdom in forming the plenary round-table addressing questions of race, whiteness, and inclusion in the field of Chaucer studies.
The program committee requested that our short presentations consider “more broadly the historical past of our field as well as our ethics of engagement in the present, and to look forward to what needs to happen next.” We were also asked to consider the international dimension of our society and “to offer a past-future presentation on whatever facet of Chaucer” we would like to address.
Scholarship in the field of race and Chaucer specifically, which can include Orientalism and antisemitism, etc.
Scholarship about Chaucer and medievalism as it relates to race
Strategies for pedagogy when it comes to racially inclusive classrooms, etc.
Race and mentorship in Chaucer studies
The role of NCS as public face for Chaucer studies in these contexts
Methods for decolonizing Chaucer Studies
While the five of us each approached the task differently, we all ended by focusing on our individual and institutional responsibilities to ensure that, despite our mistakes as scholars and teachers, we make the study of the literary past open to everyone. The panel generated useful conversations that should extend well beyond the limits of the Congress.
OACCT Contributor Picnic.
At lunchtime, many contributors to the Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Talesgathered for a picnic lunch on the lawn outside Victoria College. For the first time since Brantley Bryant broached the idea to a group of scholars in 2015, the large group assembled, with some of us meeting each other for the first time.
Because I am very interested in the sorts of texts we provide students and scholars throughout the world, I attended the two afternoon sessions organized by Elizabeth Scala: Is There a Text for This Class? Editing Chaucer Now I & II. There are many proposed solutions to our current predicament, and I’m eager to see if any address the needs of undergraduate students (like mine) who are eager to engage with early literatures but have no plans for graduate study.
After those two sessions, I met Ruen-Chuan Ma, an early-career medievalist at Utah Valley University. We were introduced through the NCS mentorship program organized by Tom Hahn (Rochester University), Shazia Jagot (University of Surrey), and Sierra Lomuto (Macalester College). As we talked, we walked leisurely to the Art Gallery of Ontario for a reception co-hosted by Medievalist of Color and featuring a display of art objects—Ethiopian religious paintings and European boxwood beads—accompanied by a beautiful, contextualizing pamphlet (written by Meseret Oldjira [Princeton University] and Seeta Chaganti [University of California, Davis]). Attendees were provided “thought questions,” and I’m going to close Day 2’s posting with them.
If you are a senior scholar, what can you do to help grad students and less-established scholars of color feel welcome in a field that has historically alienated people of color? (Note that NCS has a wonderful mentorship program that will serve this end really well.)
If you are a journal or book editor, what do you think about the diversity of the authors your publication or list represents? What can you do to improve that diversity?
For everyone: how can we create networks together that will be truly inclusive?
