It’s December 31; time for a “Year In Review” post! Here’s what I managed to accomplish professionally this year:
Publications
Essay Collection: Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth (edited with Misty Urban and Deva Kemmis). Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Chapter: “The Alchemical Transformation of Melusine,” pp. 94-105.
Article: “He Dreams of Dragons: Alchemical Imagery in the Medieval Dream Visions of King Arthur.” Arthuriana 27.1 (Spring 2017). 73-94.
Signed Encyclopedia Entry: “Melusine.” Encyclopedia of British Medieval Literature. Ed. Sian Echard and Robert Rouse. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017. 1316-1318.
Book review: Medieval Science Fiction, Ed. Carl Kears and James Pas. The Heroic Age 17 (September 2017). http://www.heroicage.org/issues/17/reviews.php#kears-paz
Book review: Simple Forms: Essays on Medieval English Popular Culture, by Douglas Gray. Reviews From the Greenwood. The International Association of Robin Hood Studies. 27 July 2017. http://robinhoodscholars.blogspot.com/2017/07/reviews-from-greenwood-melissa-ridley.html
Conference Presentations
Invited presentation: “Collaborative Assessment Design: A Hands-On Practicum,” for “Collaborative Teaching and the Lone Medievalist” (roundtable) Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, Charleston, SC, November.
“Guinevere’s Guilt and Gawain’s Gallantry,” (Paper) at the Southeastern Medieval Association Conference, Charleston, SC, November.
“Textual Archaeology: A Linguistic Transformation of the Giant of Mont-St-Michel,” (paper) Midwest British Studies Conference, Saint Louis, MO, September.
“Feasting and the Characterization of Sir Gawain,” (paper) The Saint Louis University Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Saint Louis, MO, June.
“Compassion and Benignytee: A Reassessment of the Relationship Between Canacee and the Falcon in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale,” (roundtable) at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May.
“Female Friendship in Medieval British Romance,” (paper) at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May.
“Fear and Loathing in Camelot,” (paper) Modern Language Association Convention, Philadelphia, PA, January.
“Radical Pedagogy: A Hypothetical Sketch of the Twenty-First Century Medievalist in the Classroom,” (roundtable) the Modern Language Association Convention, Philadelphia, PA, January.
Teaching (courses marked with an asterisk are new or fully revised preparations this year)
This year, I taught a 4-1-5 load from Spring through Fall.
On-ground
Chaucer*
Research and Argumentation (2 sections)
World Literature (3 sections)
History of the English Language*
The Global Arthurian Legend*
On-line
British Literature to 1500*
Medieval Afterlives: Modern Receptions of the Medieval*
Service
to the Profession
Elected Vice-President of the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
Book reviews editor, Medieval Feminist Forum
Member, MLA CLCS Forum on Celtic Studies
Organized and/or chaired 8 panels at ICMS/Kalamazoo and the Southeaster Medieval Association Conference
at Lindenwood
Co-chair, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion task force
Co-chair, Lindenwood Faculty Learning Community on “Accessibility”
Faculty sponsor, Sigma Tau Delta
Humanities blog administrator
And although that’s certainly not all I did professionally this past year, it’s all that can be recorded on the CV. I guess I do deserve that nap I plan to take this afternoon……? 🙂
Looking ahead, I expect 2018 to bring about the completion of several ongoing projects, including the fully revised first draft of my monograph on violence at the feast in medieval texts, one (possibly 2) edited collections, two guest-edited journal volumes, and several articles currently under revision, many from conference presentations given last year or this year. I’ll be teaching some exciting new courses, including Violence and Trauma: Beowulf to Malory, Women in Medieval Literature and Culture, and Mythology and Folklore, and I’m slated to serve as a respondent for the “Mewn Dau Gae” panel at MLA and to give papers at the Medieval Academy, Indiana Bloomington, and Kalamazoo.
I will, of course, also continue my work as a proponent of and activist for the Humanities generally and medieval studies particularly, and for equity and inclusion in the Academy at all levels, both individually and in my capacity as the Vice-President of the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship and a member of the MLA CLCS Celtic Studies forum. I know we say it a lot, but it certainly bears repeating after this past year: “We still have a lot of work to do.” I am very grateful to have the opportunity to participate in working towards a better future for the profession, one in which people are valued beyond mere numbers, statistics, and publications for the wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and talent they bring to bear on our work: one in which the humane is emphasized.
I hope you have a safe and enjoyable New Year’s Eve, and see you in 2018.
Melissa Ridley Elmes 