The vision and achievement of Boydell and Brewer’s medievalist founders (Richard Barber and Derek Brewer) are well recognised: medieval studies in the UK and the USA over the last thirty and more years would have been inconceivably impoverished without the commitment of their firm to publishing in the field.

The face of that firm for so many medievalists is Caroline Palmer, a tireless, energetic and visionary commissioning editor and editorial director who has encouraged and supported high- quality work in medieval studies in all areas and on both sides of the Atlantic.

This York Colloquium honours Caroline Palmer’s strong commitment to the interdisciplinarity of medieval studies, long exemplified in vigorous publishing on literature and history at Boydell and Brewer and more recently in Caroline’s advocacy of material culture as an important strand of interdisciplinary medievalist publishing.

It is specially appropriate that the colloquium takes place in York, at the start of the celebration of its fiftieth year of interdisciplinary medieval studies and where Caroline Palmer has tirelessly encouraged the work of York Medieval Press, a Boydell and Brewer subsidiary established over forty years ago with the specific aim of interdisciplinary medieval studies publishing.

In honouring a distinguished commissioning editor of medieval studies, the colloquium constitutes a timely reminder of the interdependence of scholars and publishers and the importance of their mutually informed response to the rapidly changing conditions and media of work in the humanities.

We would like to express our grateful thanks to the organizers, Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne (Fordham University), Professor Chris Baswell (Columbia University and Barnard College) and Professor Elizabeth Archibald (University of Durham), and also to Boydell and Brewer and to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of York, Professor Mark Ormrod, for their financial support for this event.

To register for this colloquium, please use our on-line payment system.

PROGRAMME

10.45-11am Welcome (Craig Taylor, Director of the CMS, and Peter Biller, General Editor of YMP)

11am-1pm Literatures and Histories (Chair: Elizabeth Archibald, University of Durham)

Sarah Kay (New York University): “Interdisciplinary French”

Mark Ormrod (University of York): “Understanding Migration in Later Medieval England: History and Interdisciplinarity”

Jane Taylor (University of Durham) : “State-of-the-art Publishing in 1591: The Resourceful Benoît Rigaud and his L ancelot”

Robert Rouse (University of British Columbia): “Reading in Place: Geo-critical Approaches”

2.30- 4.00pm Material Cultures (Chair: Tim Ayers, University of York)

Julian Luxford (University of St Andrews): “Three Faces Have I”

Linne Mooney (University of York): “Some Manuscripts of Major Middle English Texts Copied in York”

Kate Giles (University of York): “Digital Publishing and Internet Archaeology: The Case of Stratford-on-Avon”

4.30pm-5.00pm Colloquium Closing

Sarah Rees Jones (University of York): “Medieval Studies and Public Understanding” Derek Pearsall (Emeritus, Harvard and University of York): “Caroline Palmer”

5.15-6.45pm Wine Reception sponsored by Boydell and Brewer

To register for this colloquium, please use our on-line payment system.