Category Archives: Newsletter

Nr. 38, Fall/Winter 2014/15

Dear Colleagues,

The Society for Medieval Germanic Studies is delighted to be sponsoring four sessions at the 50th Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo May 9-12, 2015. We wish to thank our SMGS Organizers, Marian Polhill (University of Puerto Rico) and Jeffry Turco (Purdue University) for their time and considerable efforts in assembling yet another exciting program for us.

Table of Contents
SMGS Sessions at Kalamazoo 2015
New Books Roundtable
The Sidney M. Johnson/Ulrich Müller Award for 2015
New Books Received for SMGS Review
SMGS Review
News from Colleagues

SMGS Sessions at Kalamazoo 2015
Organizers: Marian Polhill (University of Puerto Rico),
                   Jeffery Turco (Purdue University)

SMGS sponsored sessions, Kalamazoo 2015

  1. Memory, Text and Image in Medieval German Literature

 
Presider: Marian Polhill (University of Puerto Rico)
Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand (Appalachian State University)
Looking for the Join: Memory and the Interfigures of Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein
 
Scott E. Pincikowski (Hood College): Shaping Cultural Memory at the Interface of Text and Image: The Berlin Manuscript (Ms. germ. fol. 282) of Heinrich von Veldeke’s Eneit

  1. Authority and Control in Medieval German Literature

Presider: Adam Oberlin (University of Ghent/Bergen)
Mary Marshall Campbell (University of New Hampshire) “Prophecy and Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Germany”
Christopher Liebtag Miller (University of Toronto) “Order in the Court
The Constitution of Authority and the Character of Courtly Office in Medieval German Epic”
Alexander Sager (University of Georgia-Athens) “The Moralizing Watchman in German Dawnsongs from Otto von Botenlauben to Hugo von Montfort”
III. Words and Verses
 
Presider: Susanne Haftner (Fordham University)

Adam Oberlin (University of Ghent/Bergen) “Early Yiddish and Late Middle High German Phraseology”

Nelson Goering (University of Oxford) “The Atlakviða, ‘Inverted’ Verses, and the Word-foot Theory of Old Germanic Metre”

Ernst Ralf Hintz (Truman State University) “Muspilli: Old High German Justice and Judgment”

New Books Roundtable
Moderator: Jeffry Turco (Purdue University)
Olga Trohhimenko presents her book Constructing Virtue and Vice: Femininity and Laughter in Courtly Society (ca. 1150-1300). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Unipress, 2014.

SMGS looks forward to seeing you at this well-received and enjoyable session at Kalamazoo 2015.

The Sidney M. Johnson/Ulrich Müller Award for 2015
SMGS is delighted to announce The Sidney M. Johnson/Ulrich Müller Award for the best abstract submitted to SMGS from a graduate student or former graduate student within one semester of having received a doctorate. This year we have two recipients of equal merit. Our recipients for 2015 will be Mary Marshall Campbell (University of New Hampshire)) for her abstract “Prophecy and Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Germany” and Adam Oberlin (University of Ghent/Bergen) for his submission “Early Yiddish and Late Middle High German Phraseology.” We are looking forward to their presentations in SMGS Sessions at Kalamazoo 2015.

New Books Received for SMGS Review
 
Olga V. Trokhimenko (University of North Carolina at Wilmington) Constructing Virtue and Vice: Femininity and Laughter in Courtly Society (ca. 1150-1300). In: Transatlantic Studies on Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Culture. Vol. 5. ISBN: 978-3-8471-0119-2. V&R unipress, Göttingen, 2014.

SMGS Reviews
Reviews will resume in our next issue.

SMGS News from Colleagues
 
Katja Altpeter-Jones (Lewis and Clark College), Alison Beringer (Montclair State University) and Claire Taylor Jones (University of Notre Dame) organized well-attended sessions for YMAGINA at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference of the German Studies Association in Kansas City, September 2014.

Helmut Brall-Tuchel (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf) presented a paper entitled “Geistige Heimat. Grundmuster einer bewohnbaren Welt” at the interdisciplinary conference Heimat in Literatur, Sprache und Kunst – Annäherung an einen problematischen Begriff held at the former Kreuzherrenkloster Hohenbusch near Erkelenz, July 11, 2014.

Stephen Mark Carey (University of Minnesota-Morris) continues to serve the medievalist community as Editor of the SMGS Yearbook.
See: http://digitalcommons.morris.edu/smgs/

Albrecht Classen (University of Arizona) has recently edited a new book entitled: Mental Health, Spirituality, and Religion in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age In: Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 15 (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2014), VI, 738 pp., 32 ill.
Articles include: “The Mirror Image in Neidhart’s Poetry: Destabilization of the Social Structure by Means of Sexual Competition,” Studi medievali 55.1 (2014) 165-88.; “Irony in Medieval and Early Modern German Literature (NIbelungenlied, Mauritius von Craûn, Johannes von Tepl’s Ackermann): The Encounter of the Menschlich-Allzumenschlich in a Medieval Context,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 113.2 (2014) 184-205; “Vom Mære zum Prosa-Schwank des 16. Und 17. Jahrhunderts: Tradition und Transformation einer literarischen Gattung vom frühen Mittelalter bis zur Frühneuzeit,” in: Kontinuitäten und Neuerungen in Textsorten- und Textallianztraditionen vom 13. Bis zum 18. Jahrhundert, eds. Jörg Meier and Peter Ernst. Germanisitische Arbeiten zur Sprachgeschichte, 10 (Berlin: Weidler, 2014), 298-32; “Anticlericalism and Criticism of Clerics in Medieval and Early-Modern German Literature,” Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 72 (2014): 283-306.; “Storms, Shipwrecks, and Life-Changing Experiences in Late Medieval German Literature. From Oswald von Wolkenstein to Emperor Maximilian,” Oxford German Studies 43.3 (2014): 212-28: “Vergangen aber nicht vergessen: Mittelalterliche Literatur im heutigen Deutschunterricht: Fremde, zugleich aufregende Perspektiven für Studenten des 21. Jahrhunderts,” in: Literatur in Deutsch als Fremdsprache und internationaler Germanistik: Konzepte, Themen, Forschungsperspektiven, ed. Claus Altmayer, Michael Dobstadt, Renate Riedner, and Carmen Schier (Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 2014) 107-18.

John L. Flood (University of London) has a recent contribution: ‘Thorne [Dorn(e)], John, (fl. 1493-1548?).’ In: The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (online update, September 2014: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/106754].

Susanne Hafner (Fordham University) has brought to our attention The 35th Annual Conference of The Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University: Reading and Writing in City, Court, and Cloister: Conference in Honor of Mary C. Erler, Saturday, March 7, 2015. Lincoln Center Campus, Fordham University, New York, NY.

Hubert Heinen (University of Texas, emeritus) has a recent contribution, “Die Sinnlichkeit der ‚entsinnlchten’ Minnedame bei Reimar dem Alten,“ Earthly and Spiritual Pleasures in Medieval Life, Literature, Art, and Music: In Memory of Ulrich Müller I, ed. Sibylle Jefferis, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 779, Göppingen: Kümmerle Verlag, 2014, 45-61. Further contributions by American medievalists:
Maria Dobozy; Francis G. Gentry; Edward R. Haymes; Winder McConnell; James Ogier, and Martin P. Sheehan.

Ernst Ralf Hintz (Truman State University) presented at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference of the German Studies Association in Kansas City, September 2014. His paper was entitled: “Hildegard, Elisabeth and Herrad: Two Benedictines, a Canoness and the Virtues Required for Salvation.” He also contributed an article: “Descensus as Spiritual Realignment and Divine Legitimation in Hartmann’s Later Works.” 265-74. In: Text Analyses and Interpretations: In Memory of Joachim Bumke (Kalamazoo Papers 2012-2013), ed. Sibylle Jefferis, Kümmerle Verlag, 2013.

Sibylle Jefferis (University of Pennsylvania) has noted that the Bumke Memorial volume has now appeared. Sibylle Jefferis, ed. Text Analyses and Interpretations: In Memory of Joachim Bumke (Kalamazoo Papers 2012-2013). Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 776. Göppingen: Kümmerle Verlag, 2013. She also has contributed two articles to the volume: “Schondochs Märe Die Königin von Frankreich und der ungetreue Marschall im Vergleich mit dem Sibillenroman von Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken,” 105-12, and “Hartmanns Gregorius und die Prosareduktion Gregorius auf dem Stein,” 221-36.

On behalf of all colleagues who cared deeply for Uli Müller, our special thanks to Albrecht Classen, Sibylle Jefferis and Evelyn Meyer for their efforts in organizing the Ulrich Müller and his Legacy — Sessions at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo 2014. SMGS would also like to express its gratitude to Sieglinde Hartmann and the Oswald-von-Wolkenstein-Gesellschaft for their support in making the tribute a reality.

Evelyn Meyer (Saint Louis University) presented a paper entitled: “Sigune as Martyr and/or Pietà in Wolfram’s Parzival” at the GSA conference in a panel organized by YMAGINA on female virtue in September 2014. She also gave the following presentation in the Womens and Gender Studies Program at Saint Louis University: “Otherness, Race and Gender in Text and image in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival (ca. 1220): Some Highlights.”

Sara S. Poor (Princeton University) has organized a session at the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, May 14-17, 2015 on the topic of “Money in the Middle Ages.”

Ann Marie Rasmussen (University of Waterloo, Canada) has left Duke University to become the Right Honorable John G. Diefenbaker Memorial Chair of German Literary Studies in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She joined her colleagues there on 1. January 2015, starting out on a thoroughly medieval note by teaching an undergraduate seminar on the Siegfried stories and a graduate seminar on King Arthur in Medieval Europe. Her most recent talk was “Pilgerzeichen in der mittelalterlichen Literatur, University of Greifswald, Germany, 8 October 2014. Earlier contributions include: “Moving beyond Sexuality in Medieval Sexual Badges,” in From Beasts to Souls: Gender and Embodiment in Medieval Europe, eds. E. Jane Burns and Peggy McCracken. Notre Dame. IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013. pp. 296-335; also a co-authored piece with Heidi Madden, Western European Studies Librarian (Duke University) in: College and Research Library News March 2013, pp. 140-43, available online: http://crln.acrl.org/content/current

Debra L. Stoudt (Virginia Tech) is an ongoing financial contributor to the Sidney M. Johnson/Ulrich Müller Award. SMGS is grateful in acknowledging her support of new and future colleagues in the field of medieval Germanic Studies.

The SMGS News & Reviews is edited by Ernst Ralf Hintz (Truman State University).
We wish to thank our new technical expert, Ben Ogden, for his expertise in providing the online version with both readability and elegance. We also wish to thank the Department of Classical & Modern Languages at Truman State University for its support of this publication.

The SMGS readership continues to grow steadily as is the interest in receiving the SMGS News & Reviews online. Should you wish to contribute to the section on SMGS News from Colleagues or if you know of a colleague who would be interested in membership (there are no dues), you may contact me by at ehintz@truman.edu or fax (660-785-7486), or write to the following address: Ernst Ralf Hintz, German and Medieval Studies, Truman State University, Department of Classical & Modern Languages, McClain Hall 310, Kirksville, MO 63501-4221 (U.S.A.).

The next issue of the SMGS News & Reviews appears in early May 2015.

On behalf of Marian Polhill, Jeffry Turco and Ernst Ralf Hintz,
All good wishes from SMGS for 2015!