In situ‘s The Canterbury Tales: A Promenade Performance (2015)
by Candace Barrington
Many of our posts alert readers to the latest information about the ongoing global reception of Chaucer’s work. Sometimes, though, we use these posts to record information that we don’t have time to follow up on but don’t want to fall through the cracks. This is one of them.
In situ, a theatrical company based in Cambridge UK, produces and performs site-specific works in non-theatrical spaces. (I confess to being an avid fan of such productions, although I’ve never seen an In situ production.)
Shakespeare Gardens at The Huntington, one of the featured venues for NCS 2024 Congress.
by Candace Barrington
We are excited to share news that the Program Committee for the 2024 Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society has posted its Call for Papers. In the Call for Papers you’ll find detailed descriptions of the the session formats being offered at the Congress.
Hybrid
Paper
Lightening Talk
Position Paper
Poster Expo
You’ll also find descriptions of the 65 sessions clustered around 10 Threads.
Ethics of Reading Chaucer, Then and Now
Logistical Chaucer
Surveillance
Viability: Access, Values, New Directions
Code(x)
Ecologies and Consumption
Materialities and Performance
The Quadrivium
Translation and Experimentation
Open Topics
Notice that submitting your proposal is a two-step process.
Complete the online Abstract Submission Form
Email your abstract to the session organizers
Complete submissions are due 22 September 2023.
The 2024 Congress will be held 15-18 July 2023 at The Westin, Pasadena, California. General information about costs can be found in the Call for Papers document. More detailed information will be forthcoming.
We believe the Call for Papers provides an exciting banquet of options. Among the many delights, several seem well suited for our global colleagues:
17. Tech Talks: Access and Accessibility in Medieval Classrooms
20. Rare Books for the Rest of Us
24. Re-evaluating the Manuscripts of Multilingual Medieval Wales
38. Teaching the Performative Middle Ages
48. Translation, Experimentation, and Pedagogy
52. Forms of Translatio studii et imperii
57. Pacific Medieval Studies
62. Teaching Chaucer at Hispanic-Serving Institutions
We were very pleased to hear from Laurence Warner that the Medieval Symposium at last week’s International Association of University Professors of English (IAUPE) conference in Rome included a presentation by Professor Ewa Kujawska-Lis on “Canterbury Tales in Polish.” Of course, we contacted Ewa right away. She kindly provided précis of her paper for us to share with the Global Chaucers community. We look forward to learning more from her as she expands our knowledge of Chaucer’s long and deep presence in Polish translations and scholarship.
In Poland, Chaucer’s artistry was first noticed by two outstanding literary figures (poets, writers, and journalists): Ignacy Krasicki (1735-1801) and Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). Well acquainted with European literature, they offered appreciative comments on the English poet almost a century before any Polish translation was available. Readers needed to wait until 1907 to get the feel of Chaucer themselves. This is when Jan Kasprowicz (1860-1926), a poet, playwright, critic, and translator, included fragments of TheGeneral Prologue and a large section of The Friar’s Tale in his anthology Poeci angielscy (English Poets). The translation, consisting of about 20 pages, served as an introduction of Chaucer to the Polish literary system and was based on the edition of The Canterbury Tales by Thomas Tyrwhitt (1775-78) and a German translation by Wilhelm Hertzberg (1866).
Half a century later, in 1956 Przemyslaw Mroczkowski published his monumental study Opowieści kanterberyjskie na tle epoki (The Canterbury Tales against the backdrop of the epoch), originally written in 1951, which was a milestone in introducing Chaucer to Polish scholars in the vein of what would be in the future termed cultural poetics. Subsequently, in 1988, he also translated The Knight’s Tale.
This served as a complement to the first more extensive translation of The Canterbury Tales into Polish that was created by Helena Pręczkowska and published in 1963 (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy Im. Ossolińskich, 1963; reprinted in 1978 and 1987) (image at left). This volume included The General Prologue and eleven Tales selected by Witold Chwalewik, based on his rather arbitrary decision as to which stories should be translated.
Finally, the complete translation of The Canterbury Tales was published in 2022 as the second volume of a non-commercial series Bibliotheca Translata by the publishing house Biblioteka Śląska (image at top). The translation was done by Jarek Zawadzki, a translator of literature from English and Chinese, based on Walter W. Skeat’s edition of 1894, with illustrations by Maciej Sieńczyk, a graphic artist, illustrator, comic book creator.
[CAPTION: obligatory photograph of Hiroshima Castle as it looks today with blooming cherry blossoms in the foreground.]
We’re very happy to help spread the word about these two upcoming conferences in Hiroshima, Japan; thanks to Global Chaucers blog contributor Jonathan Fruoco for sending along this information!
The 2023 Hiroshima International Conference, 7 August 2023; co-organized by Yoshiyuki Nakao and Jonathan Fruoco: “In sondry ages and sondry londes: Global Chaucer in the XXIst Century,” with invited lectures by Stephanie Trigg and Anthony Bale. Click on images below to see enlarged versions of the program.
From Jonathan Fruoco:
We may have been living in the XXIst century for two decades but the challenges of keeping medieval literature relevant for another hundred years have yet to be addressed. In this conference, we thus offer to consider what academics can do to continue transmitting a universal linguistic and literary inheritance that has survived since the Middle Ages.
The fact that this conference will be held in Japan is proof enough of the universality of the cultural relevance of medieval literature in a culturally diverse environment. Yet, in large parts of the world, medieval studies have started to disappear from universities, showing in a way our failure to keep our inheritance alive. Such is, for instance, the case in France where the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, the most French of English poets, have almost disappeared from memories.
During this conference, we accordingly invite colleagues from Asia to reflect on how we may encourage a new generation of readers and scholars to support medieval studies in a non-Anglophone environment. The translation and re-translation of the works of medieval poets might, for instance, be a way to reintroduce poets to a new audience — see for instance the recent translation of the Canterbury Tales in Japanese by a team of scholars, or the work accomplished by non-Anglophone translators throughout the world. This would lead us to question the difficulties (linguistic, but not only) of translating/adapting Middle English in different languages, and of finding audiences.
The 63rd Summer Seminar of the English Research Association in Hiroshima, 8 August 2023; Jonathan Fruoco and Anthony Bale are among the invited speakers.
Welcome to Patience Agbabi’s talk about her new series for mid-grade readers, The Leap Cycle. The series features Elle, a young black British African girl, who is neurodivergent and a time-traveler.
This talk is sponsored by CCSU’s
Department of English
School of Education and Professional Studies
Department of Literacy, Elementary, and Early Childhood Education
Marilyn Nelson has won the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, an annual prize recognizing “outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.” Part of Nelson’s legacy is The Cachoeira Tales, her 2005 adaptation of The Canterbury Tales recounting a family pilgrimage to places made holy by the (entire) Black experience in the western hemisphere. In many ways, her reimagining of the medieval pilgrimage helped ignite interest in Chaucer’s work by twenty-first century poets, especially women of the African diaspora.
For a useful primer on this wave of appropriations, see Kathleen Forni’s Chaucer’s Afterlife: Adaptations in Recent Popular Culture (McFarland 2013).
Vindolanda: destination for one of three NCS excursions and excellent reminder of the many peoples involved in the Roman colonial project.
The 2022 NCS Congress featured an inspiring number of sessions with a global or multi-cultural perspective. And a good number of presenters were from non-Anglophone backgrounds, though many were unable to attend in person because of visa, funding, and pandemic restrictions.
Because there’s still a chance for you to view the Congress sessions and uploaded presentations–here’s a quick list of the papers/sessions dealing with Chaucer’s reception, global and otherwise, that I attended.
Papers
Jacqueline Burek, “Translating Troilus: The Welsh Troelus a Chresyd“
Louise D’Arcens, “The Kangaroo Kelmscott: Chaucer’s Sydney Afterlife and Australian Deep Time”
Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė, “Reimagining the Dream Poet: Edward Burne-Jones’s Dantean Chaucer”
Usha Vishnuvajjala, “Feminist Medievalisms and Chaucer in Jane Austen Fanfiction”
Wajid Ayed, “Chaucer in Tunisia: 50 years”
Raúl Ariza-Barile “From Southwark to the Citee of Mexico: Producing the First Ever Mexican Translation of The Canterbury Tales”
Lian Zhang, “Translation as Remembering: Canterbury Tales in Chinese”
Yoshiyuki Nakao, “How to Translate Chaucer’s Multiple Subjectivities into Japanese: Ambiguities in His Speech Representation”
Amy Goodwin, “Chaucer in the New York Times”
Jonathan Hsy, “Racial Displacements: Chaucerian Poets of Color and Critical Refugee Studies”
Jamie Taylor, “Indigenous Studies and a Global Middle Ages”
Candace Barrington, “Comparative Translation: Possibilities and Limitations”
Jonathan Fruoco, “Is there an Embargo on Chaucer in France?”
Marion Turner, “The Wife of Bath’s European Lives”
Plenary Sessions
“Where Medieval Studies Joins Up,” a plenary conversation chaired by Jonathan Hsy featuring
Anthony Vahni Capildeo
Wallace Cleaves
Ananya Jahanara Kabir
The Refugee Tales, with Patience Agbabi
The Polyglot Miller’s Tale Reading
If you were a registered participant at the Congress, you can view the sessions and individual papers.
Go to ncs2020.net
Click on Attendee Hub and log in just as you did during the Congress
Select “All Sessions” on Schedule pull-down menu (upper)
Search for the speaker’s name, then follow the links to replay either the session or watch the uploaded presentation.
These links will remain available until mid-October.
In a happy reprise of the spontaneous (but very jolly) Polyglot Reading of The Miller’s Tale at the 2014 NCS Congress in Reykjavik, 14 Global Chaucerians gathered to read the tale in 9 languages (in addition to Middle English).
1.3109-3135, Middle English, Candace Barrington and Jonathan Hsy
1.3136-3166, Welsh, Jacqueline Burek
1.3167-3220, Spanish, Amanda Gerber
1.3221-3287, Lithuanian, Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė
1.3288-3338, 19c French, Juliette Vuille
1.3339-3398, German, Lucy Fleming
1.3399-3467, Arabic, Wajih Ayed
1.3468-3525, Italian, Sarah McNamer
1.3526-3588, Hebrew, Noa Nikolsky
1.3589-3656, German, Lucy Fleming
1.3657-3726, French, Jonathan Fruoco
1.3727-3785, Korean, Mariah Min
1.3786-3854, Italian, David Wallace
Some special highlights include
the premier of Jonathan Fruoco’s new French prose translation of the tale,
the first ever translation into Welsh thanks to the intrepid Jacqueline Burek,
the introduction of Korean slang and dialect into Mariah Min’s reading,
Lithuanian (need we say more?),
a sequenced chorus of Alisoun’s “Tehee” (3740), and
a recording, now streaming and available through mid-October to those who registered for the congress (either in person on online).
And, of course, lots of laughter.
In addition to thanking our fabulous readers (both new ones and repeat participants) for their full-hearted participation, we owe our deep gratitude to
Mary Flannery for initially inviting us to resume the reading at the soon-to-be postponed 2020 Congress,
Julie Orlemanski and Phil Smith for juggling schedules to ensured the reading happened in 2022,
Patience Agbabi and other members of our audience for supporting us with their presence and laughter,
Annette Kern-Stachler, Lian Zhang, Raúl Ariza-Barile kept away by the complications of pandemic-era travel, and
Durham University’s excellent tech staff who smoothly orchestrated the recording and transmission of the event.
If you were a registered participant at the Congress, you can view the streaming broadcast of the reading.
Go to ncs2020.net
Click on Attendee Hub and log in just as you did during the Congress
Select “All Sessions” on Schedule pull-down menu (upper)
Search “polyglot,” then click on “Polyglot Miller’s Tale Reading”
Click on “replay”
After lots of preliminaries, the actual reading begins at 17 minutes and ends at. 59.30
Plans are already brewing for 2024. Let us know if you’re interested in participating at globalchaucers at gmail dot com.
The English Department at Saint Louis University has a full-time, tenure-track medieval literature position. It carries a 2/2 load at the rank of assistant professor. They are particularly interested in candidates with research interests in gender and sexuality or the global Middle Ages. This is a great opportunity!
Dr. Ruth Evans will chair the appointing committee.
Please note the search’s has an accelerated timetable: review of applications begins September 15, 2022 and will continue until the position is filled. First round of interviews via Zoom is planned for early November. They hope to appoint the new hire during the fall 2022 term.
It’s that time again! We’re rounding up participants for the “Polyglot Miller’s Tale Reading” at the 2022 NCS Congress in Durham, UK.
After some shuffling to accommodate more participants, we’re happy to announce that the reading is now scheduled for Wednesday, 13 July, 7:30p to 8:30p.
Currently, we have volunteers to read in French, Italian, German, Polish, Arabic, Hebrew, Dutch, and (be still my heart!) Lithuanian. We’d still love to add more languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Malayalam, Frisian, Romanian, Norwegian, Serbian, Icelandic, Spanish, Turkish, Afrikaans, Portuguese, Finnish, Estonian, Greek, Russian, Ewe, Farsi, Czech, Taiwainese, and any other language into which the tale has been translated. (For help finding a translation, contact us or refer to our list of translations; if you know of others, please let us know.)
Depending on the total number of volunteers, participants will be asked to read around 50-60 lines apiece.
If you’d like to be part of the fun, please email us (GlobalChaucers at gmail dot com) with this info:
which language(s) you’d like to read in;
if you possess a copy of The Miller’s Tale in that language (if you don’t, we likely can send a copy to you); and
if you consent to being recorded (both audio/video).
In mid-May, we will send your line assignments (and a copy of your lines, if requested).
We appreciate your patience as we pull together what promises to be a lively event.
