London, British Library MS Royal 11 D IX, fol.
216 (France, c.1275-1325). © British Library.
Biennial London
Chaucer
Conference:
Chaucer and the
Law
Friday 30th June - Saturday 1st July 2017,
hosted by the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study,
University of London
Keynote addresses by Professor Sebastian Sobecki (University of
Groningen) and Professor Emily Steiner (University of Pennsylvania).
Call for Papers
Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers on topics related to fourteenth- and fifteenthcentury literature, culture and law for the 2017 Biennial London Chaucer Conference. This
two-day conference aims to consider ideas about the law in the age of Chaucer and in relation
to the works of Chaucer and his contemporaries, probing questions about legal practices and
culture, justice, regulation and instruction, and the consequences of making and breaking
laws. Interdisciplinary topics and approaches are most welcome. The conference hopes to
bring together scholars and postgraduate students working in a range of disciplines and
departments.
Topics may include (but are not limited to):
• Canon Law
• Common Law
• crime and punishment
• outlaws
• legal bureaucracy and scribal culture
• laws of nature
• laws of love
• gender, sexuality and the law
• literary ‘laws’ (genre, decorum, metre)
• rules for living/religious rules
• the Old Law and the New Law
• divine justice
• Chaucer as Justice of the Peace
• the Man of Law and the Manciple
• cross-cultural encounters and the law
• breaking laws
• evidence, authority and proof
• eyewitness testimony
• languages of the law
• iconographies of the law
Please send proposals of 250 words to Alastair Bennett, Natalie Jones and Jaclyn Rajsic at
[email protected] by 30 September 2016.