The XXXVI PhD cycle of the course in Language and Literary Studies of the University of Udine and University of Trieste (Italy) is pleased to announce the doctoral conference “Faites vos jeux: game and space in texts and of texts”, which will take place on March 22-24, 2023 in Udine (on-site).
During the three-day conference participants will reflect and analyse how the concepts of ‘play/game’ and ‘space’ interact and contribute to constructing meanings in literary, linguistic, philological and medieval studies.
The conference is interdisciplinary and includes all periods, but a significant strand is dedicated to philology and medieval studies (see below).
Deadline for submission: September 30, 2022.
Communication of acceptance: November 16, 2022
More information (and the whole version of the CfP) can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/giocoudine2023.
- Strand 3: Philology and medieval studies:
- Lexicon and semantics of ‘play’ and ‘game’ (plega vs gamen in Old English or ludus vs iocus in Latin);
- Game representation in the space of medieval texts: for instance, Alcuin’s propositiones or
- ‘mathematical games’; the swimming contest between Breca and Beowulf; game and competition in Hemings þáttr Áslákssonar;
- Texts as spaces where authors play with the meaning as well as with the ‘visible’ and/or phonic aspect of language (kenningar or heiti, runic acrostics and cryptography, anagrams, wordplays, puns, alliteration, rhyme, formulas, and other rhetorical-stylistic aspects);
- ‘Intellectual’ games in the space of texts: riddles and enigmas;
- Aspects of textual criticism, such as the interplay between authors and copyists in text transmission;
- Playing beyond the borders of texts: medievalism (‘Neo-medievalism’ or Middle Ages in Popular Culture, for instance the roleplay Dungeons & Dragons, the imaginary Middle Ages in Game of Thrones, the riddle-game between Bilbo and Gollum in The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien), Digital Humanities (see, for instance, the paper by Karen Arthur titled Playing the Editing Game with an Electronic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight).
Medieval Art Research 