Keene State Sponsored Sessions for March 2025

I'm pleased to announce another collaborative effort to share our research. My thanks to Meriem Pages and the organizing committee of the Medieval and Renaissance Forum for their interest and support.

45th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum:

Spanning the Globe: Thinking across Geographies in Medieval and Medievalism Studies

Keene State College (Keene, NH, USA)

SESSION V: Saturday, 29 March 2025, from 1:30-2:50 PM EDT

Medieval Comics Team-Up: Approaches for Research and Teaching (Hybrid)

Sponsored by the Medieval Comics Project

Presider, Michael A. Torregrossa, Bristol Community College

Warrior as Weapon, Weapon as Warrior in Beowulf Comics

Richard Scott Nokes, Troy University

Dr. Richard Scott Nokes specializes in medieval literature and founder of Witan Publishing. He specializes in medieval manuscripts, modern medievalism, and digital publishing.  After completing his B.A. in English and Political Science in 1992, Nokes taught English as a Second Language in South Korea. In 1993, he established the American Studies Program at Klaipėda University in Lithuania, and taught Canadian literature at Lithuania Christian College. Nokes came to Troy University in 2003 after earning his Ph.D. In 2003 he was a Fulbright-Hayes scholar researching the Maya epic in Guatemala. In 2007, he was a regional finalist for the President's Commission on White House Fellowships. In 2011 he founded Witan Publishing, producing peer-reviewed academic works of medieval scholarship. Nokes has written, edited, and published dozens of peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books. His most recent book is Beowulf in Comic Books and Graphic Novels (2022).

Medieval Stories in Modern Mediums: Engaging Students with Arthurian Comic Book Adaptations

Rachael Warmington, Seton Hall University

Rachael Warmington’s research explores adaptation theory, medievalism, and the intersection of myth, politics, and identity in contemporary reimaginings of Arthurian legend. Rachael's most recent essay, “Dichotomies of Arthurian Medievalism: Dismantling and Proliferating the Status Quo,” was published in Medievalisms in a Global Age by Boydell & Brewer. Rachael's work includes arguing why Valkyrie does not need to be white in the MCU, debating what a medieval dragon should actually look like despite never having existed, and explaining why Arthur Curry is not the only superhero whose story has Arthurian influence.

Fables for our Time(lines): Engaging Medieval Themes with Umbrella Academy

Carlos Gonzalez, Harvard University

Carlos A. Gonzalez is a PhD candidate and scholar in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department at Harvard University. They specialize in 20th- and 21st-century French and Spanish fiction, concentrating on the global Weird, horror, and other speculative literatures. Their research explores the phenomenological underpinnings of Weird fiction and the ethical questions such an analysis evokes. They live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with their wife, shih tzu, and the creature that lives under their bed.

The Medieval World in Fin de Siècle Comics from Anglophone, Francophone, and Catalan Communities

Maryanne Rhett, Monmouth University

Maryanne Rhett is Chair and Professor of History at Monmouth University. She is trained as a world historian with a specialization in Middle Eastern and British imperial history and has only brief scholarly connections to medieval studies. However, Maryanne is also a scholar of comics with several articles and book chapters on various aspects of comics history and her second book examined the place of Islam in US comics between 1880 and 1922. She is currently working on a series of projects examining History Comics produced before 1945. These comics touch on historical records from prehistory to the contemporary moment.