Students Present at the 40th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum

On April 12 and 13th, 2019, four Dartmouth students delivered their work at the 40th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum: Listening and Learning in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance held at Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire.

Professor Thomas Luxon of the Department of English & Creative Writing encouraged these students to submit their papers for presentation at The Medieval and Renaissance Forum as he has done in previous years with work produced in his courses. Zachary Quayle, '19 delivered a paper entitled 'The Dangers of Shakespeare's "Schoolboy Rome': Allusion as Floating Signifier in Titus Andronicus" on a panel that included graduate students from Washington University, St. Louis and the CUNY Graduate Center. "The forum was an amazing opportunity to present my work to an audience beyond Dartmouth and to engage with scholars who are studying literature from perspectives I had not considered before" said Quayle.

Paul Jeon '21 delivered a paper on Milton's Samson Agonistes along with Patrick Lawlor '19 whose paper was entitled "Milton and War in Restoration England," and a professor from North Shore Community College, Massachusetts. "I enjoyed the opportunity to present my paper and listen to others' papers at the conference" said Jeon, "It was especially cool that people from all stages of their academic careers (professors, graduate students, undergraduates) were there, and I am very grateful for the Milton course I took for which I wrote my paper." Patrick Lawlor agrees, "It was really fun, as an undergraduate, to present alongside professionals in the field of Renaissance and Medieval Studies."

Leah Casey '21 was on a panel with professors from Bridgewater College and the University of Colorado; her paper was entitled "Alice and Alisoun: The Embodied Female Experience." Her paper compared Chaucer's wife of Bath to Milton's Lady in A Mask.  All four students wrote these papers in courses conducted by Professor Thomas Luxon who has been helping students win acceptance at this conference since 2012.

"The conference was a great opportunity to learn from, and hopefully contribute to, a broader scholarly conversation" said Leah Casey of the event, "I was grateful to get the chance to attend!"

The 41st Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum is scheduled to take place the weekend of April 17th, 2020 at Keene State College.