How does twenty-first century genre-literature engage with the history and literature of the Middle Ages? This session invites submissions which explore genre medievalisms from any angle. How do contemporary social and cultural trends and concerns intersect with the medieval in genre fiction? Are shifts within a genre or across genres discernible? How do genre conventions shape the use of medieval material and vice versa? Do modern works reflect medieval history or literature? How do authors approach the Middle Ages and medieval material? What roles do audiences and/or publishers play? How important the idea the a work reflects historical reality, and to whom does it matter? What is the role of research? These are just some of the questions papers might consider.
Papers addressing works first published in the twenty-first century, including ongoing series which may have begun earlier, are sought. They may address individual works or series, the corpus of any author or broad trends in any popular genre including, but not limited to: fantasy, science fiction, crime, westerns, children and young adult fiction, horror, historical fiction and cross-genre works.
The session is sponsored by the Tales After Tolkien Society www.talesaftertolkien.org which supports all scholarly work on medievalism in genre literature. All submissions should be directed to Dr Helen Young via Helen.young@sydney.edu.au by 15th September 2013. They should conform to conference policies and be accompanied by a Participant Information Form, available here.