Welcome to the 51st Sewanee Medieval Colloquium:

For our conference this year, we invite panelists to consider modes and methods of response in times of crisis. The medieval period, as now, saw people or groups resisting structures of power, be they legal, social, or religious. Likewise, there were times in which resistance prompted rebellions both large and small. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the medieval period also saw the development of complex structures of refuge, in which concepts of sanctuary and protection emerged within cultural systems.

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The conference will address these two modes of response. Is rebellion more active than sanctuary-seeking? Or sanctuary-creating? Should monastic cloistering be seen as retreat or resistance? How might arguments around mendicant behavior engage with discourses of unruly rebellion? How do people under political threat navigate systems of resistance, and how could those same systems be leveraged by people in power to their own ends? Papers might consider how documentary culture chronicled popular uprisings, how military action leveraged moral discourses, or how national identities structured narratives of power and protection. We invite considerations of how gendered bodies become sites of resistance, how public crisis can initiate acts of renewal, how grief and consolation function as personal crisis, how forms of complaint can become a form of refuge for a variety of voices, and more. Finally, we hope papers will consider the current state of Medieval Studies within an increasingly beleaguered university system. Is this the time for collective resistance, retreat, or renewal?

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