CEMERS Undergraduate Conference

Undergraduate Conference in Medieval Studies

  • Saturday, April 26, 2025
  • Downtown Center, 67 Washington St, Binghamton NY 13902

Conference Schedule:

10:00 AM

Registration and Coffee

10:15 AM – Welcome

Location: Room 226

Speakers:

  • Celia Klin, Dean of Harpur College
  • Olivia Holmes, CEMERS Director
  • Meg Leja, Sean Dunwoody, Tina Chronopoulos, Conference Organizers

10:30 AM – Session 1 (60 minutes)

Panel 1: New Interpretations of Premodern Women
Location: Room 226

  1. Francesca Smith – Binghamton University
    “‘Cause it’s Witchcraft, Wicked Witchcraft’: The Representation of Witchcraft in Elizabethan and Jacobean Theaters”
  2. Margaret Reppa – Binghamton University
    “Chosen and Choosing: A Feminist Interpretation of Mary in the Quran”
  3. Eleanor Brooks – SUNY Oswego
    “The Genre Question and Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum: What Phylogenetics Can Teach Us about Gender, Authorship, and the Medieval Morality Play”

11:30 AM

Brief Break (10 minutes)

11:40 AM – Session 2 (60 minutes)

Panel 2: Defining Transgression, Defining Enemies
Location: Room 224

  1. Rachel Pasternak – Binghamton University
    “‘Christians in Name, In Fact Pagans’: The Intersection of Irish-English Politics, Identity, and Medieval Heresy in the Trial of Alice Kyteler”
  2. Nicholas Sarris – University at Buffalo
    “Sogdian Syncretism: An Analysis of Silk Road Relations”
  3. Raymond Wronka – Binghamton University
    “Necromancy's Development in The Middle Ages”

Panel 3: Childbirth and Its Figurations
Location: Room 226

  1. Trisha Roon – Binghamton University
    “Importance of Saints in Childbirth Between the Twelfth and Fifteenth Centuries”
  2. Sasha Zvaners – Binghamton University
    “Midwifery Manuals as Battlegrounds for Religious Discourse in Late Medieval London”
  3. Ksenya Mull – Binghamton University
    “Hildegard of Bingen on Female Anatomy”

12:40 PM

Lunch

2:00 PM – Plenary Talk

Location: Room 226

  1. Bridget Whearty – Binghamton University
    “Why What We Do Matters: The Purpose of Medieval Scholarship in Uncertain Times”

2:30 PM

Brief Break (5 minutes)

2:35 PM – Session 3 (75 minutes)

Panel 4: Projecting Power
Location: Room 224

  1. Michael Hummel – Lycoming College
    “Edward III: An Emergent Empire in The British Isles, 1327–1377”
  2. Nicholas Antonoff – Binghamton University
    “The Philosopher's Stone: George Ripley and his Quest for Patronage”
  3. Shan Wu – Penn State University
    “Constructing a Legacy from a Heritage: Medieval Conservation at the Basilica of San Isidoro in León”
  4. Terrance Ring – Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania
    “Against All Witches: A History of the Roman Inquisition”

Panel 5: New Points of Approach in Medieval Studies
Location: Room 226

  1. Matthew Barber – Lycoming College
    “From Crusades to Conspiracies: The Medieval Past in Extremist Rhetoric”
  2. Ari White – Binghamton University
    “The Echo of Silence: What Le Roman de Silence Tells Us About Identity in the Past and Today”
  3. William Milewski – University of Rochester
    “What Lies Beneath: Multispectral Imaging and the Palimpsest as Documentary History”
  4. Christopher Hoffart – Ithaca College
    “Alas for the Red Dragon, for Its End Is Near: Prophecies and Augustinian Temporality in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain”

3:50 PM

Brief Break

4:00 PM – Session 4 (60 minutes)

Panel 6: Complicating Ideas of Love, Marriage, and Identity
Location: Room 226

  1. Ryan Probst – Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania
    “Ovid's Transformational Love Theme in Medieval Courtly Love Literature”
  2. Justyn Cooke – Vassar College
    “Medieval Muslim Sodomy and Fears of Contamination: The Crusades’ Place in the History of Homosexuality in Western Europe”
  3. Owen Beury – Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania
    “Syneisaktism: Spiritual Marriage on the Island of Patrick”

5:00 PM

Send-off / Farewells
Location: Room 226

Questions:

If you have any questions, please direct them to Bing.Mdvl@gmail.com