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Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33.3 (2003) 563-564



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Call for Submissions


The editors invite your submissions to the following issues scheduled to appear in 2005. Send two copies of the manuscript double-spaced, including endnotes, following the style guidelines of the Chicago Manual of Style(14th ed., esp. chap. 15 on documentation). Papers accepted for publication will need to be formatted more specifically, in hardcopy and diskcopy, according to journal style. Any illustrations accompanying a manuscript must be camera-ready, glossy prints and must be provided with permissions for their reproduction no later than the submission deadline. For return of manuscripts, please include an SASE. We do not consider articles that have been published elsewhere or are under simultaneous consideration with another publisher. Send to:

Michael Cornett, Managing Editor
Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Duke University
08D West Duke Building
Box 90656
Durham, NC 27708
JMEMS@duke.edu
www.duke.edu/~jmems/jmems

Reform and Cultural Revolution: Writing Medieval and Renaissance Literary History

Edited by David Aers and Sarah Beckwith
Volume 35 / Number 1 / Winter 2005

The new Oxford English Literary History, Volume 2, 1350-1547: Reform and Cultural Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2002) by James Simpson [End Page 563] is a monumental work (661 pages), forming volume 2 of the series that Oxford University Press describes as "the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse literary heritage." Such claims may be standard marketing talk, but the massive volume written by the Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University will undoubtedly be immensely influential on medieval and early modern students and scholars in coming years. Simpson's work features a lucid narrative organizing its study of an impressively wide range of cultural materials, materials that are still habitually separated among different disciplines and "periods." Simpson argues that "the institutional simplification and centralizations of the sixteenth century provoked correlative simplification and narrowings in literature," that the periods whose conventional boundaries and descriptions he rightly wishes to question witnessed a process of "diminishing liberties," a contraction and simplification of medieval jurisdictional and literary fields. His argument is elaborated through a reading of texts and political events from the literature, labor, and politics of the later fourteenth century to the cultural revolution enacted during the reign of Henry VIII. This is a book whose daring intellectual ambitions and rich scholarship addresses issues central to the constitution of JMEMSand its readership. For this reason, we wish to stimulate discussion of its grand narrative and its particular commentaries. How may this new work change the way scholars approach late medieval and early modern culture? Where might the book's implications lead? How might Simpson's narrative be complemented, challenged, or extended? Contributions should demonstrate a theoretical and empirical range appropriate to the unusual scope and richness of the volume under discussion.

Deadline for submissions: 1 November 2003

Open-Topic Issue

Volume 35 / Number 2 / Spring 2005

For this open-topic issue of the journal, the editors invite articles that are both informed by historical inquiry and alert to issues raised by contemporary theoretical debate. We expect that essays will be grounded in an intimate knowledge of a particular past and that their argumentation reveal a concern for the theoretical and methodological issues involved in interpretation. We are particularly committed to work that seeks to overcome
the polarization between "history" and "theory" in the study of premodern Western culture.

Submission deadline (manuscripts, not abstracts): 1 March 2004

 



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