The Polyglot Miller’s Tale Returns!

2014 Polyglot Reading, NCS Congress, Reykjavik, Iceland

It’s that time again! We’re rounding up participants for the “Polyglot Miller’s Tale Reading” at the 2022 NCS Congress in Durham, UK.

After some shuffling to accommodate more participants, we’re happy to announce that the reading is now scheduled for Wednesday, 13 July, 7:30p to 8:30p.

Currently, we have volunteers to read in French, Italian, German, Polish, Arabic, Hebrew, Dutch, and (be still my heart!) Lithuanian. We’d still love to add more languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Malayalam, Frisian, Romanian, Norwegian, Serbian, Icelandic, Spanish, Turkish, Afrikaans, Portuguese, Finnish, Estonian, Greek, Russian, Ewe, Farsi, Czech, Taiwainese, and any other language into which the tale has been translated. (For help finding a translation, contact us or refer to our list of translations; if you know of others, please let us know.)

Depending on the total number of volunteers, participants will be asked to read around 50-60 lines apiece.

If you’d like to be part of the fun, please email us (GlobalChaucers at gmail dot com) with this info:

1. which language(s) you’d like to read in;
2. if you possess a copy of The Miller’s Tale in that language (if you don’t, we likely can send a copy to you); and
3. if you consent to being recorded (both audio/video).

In mid-May, we will send your line assignments (and a copy of your lines, if requested).

We appreciate your patience as we pull together what promises to be a lively event.  

Jos Charles’ feeld and its Chaucerian “anteseedynt”

By Candace Barrington

April 13, 2022

This past weekend (8-9 April) I attended the glorious Sewanee Medieval Colloquium organized in exquisite fashion by Stephanie Batkie at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Among the colloquium’s many highlights, getting to meet and talk to Jos Charles was at the top for me.

I became aware of Jos Charles and her verse when feeld appeared in 2018. As I describe in a forthcoming article, I immediately purchased the book but let it languish on my desk as other projects took precedence. When I finally read it a few months later, I was astonished by its powerful engagement with Middle English semiotics and semantics as a way to allow readers to understand one trans woman’s experience.

Jos Charles’s invitation to gain new knowledge “out of olde bokes” (PF 24) is worth accepting.

Lost Chaucer: Now Found

By Candace Barrington

March 30, 2022

This story is not global. And for that matter, it’s not very Chaucerian. And yet, it’s a good story about the ways Chaucer’s name and his Wife of Bath were used to promote cultural projects that had almost nothing to do with either Chaucer or his Tales.

In 2016, I published an essay in Chaucer on Screen, a collection edited by Tison Pugh and Kathleen Kelly. Titled “Lost Chaucer: Natalie Wood’s ‘The Deadly Riddle’ and the Golden Age of American Television,” the essay describes my search for a television episode cryptically referenced in a Natalie Wood biography as a “now-lost” 1955 film, The Wife of Bath, starring Ms Wood. My essay documents the few ephemera and paratexts I could locate, and it records my efforts to imaginatively recreate the film’s contents.

In December 2021, I received a surprise email from Jeff Joseph, a semi-retired motion picture archivist. Lately he has been restoring old television material, and he had recently completed work on “The Deadly Riddle.” The restored episode can now be watched online: https://youtu.be/iH6Yd0qlD3w .

When I shared the link with Gil Gigliotti, my colleague who initially alerted me to the toss-off line in Wood’s biography, I forewarned him that “the newspaper promos and ads were all so wrong.” He reminded me that ads aren’t supposed to be summaries, though noting that he did “find the ad with the hag picture effective (if way misleading). The voiceover ad needs a ‘spoiler alert’!”

So if you have time to spare and want to see how Chaucer was mangled in the 1950s, check out “The Deadly Riddle.”

Glocal Online Forum on Foreign Literature and Comparative Literature (Hangzhou, China)

By Candace Barrington

March 20, 2022

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang_University#/media/File:Zhijiang_Campus.jpg

On 19 March 2022, Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China) hosted the “Glocal Online Forum on Foreign Literature and Comparative Literature.” (“Glocal” is not a typo but a portmanteau formed from “global” and “local.”) Home to the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the university conducted the entire event online because much of China is once again in full lockdown. The conference organizers had to limit the zoom participants to 40—we were told that having a Zoom account is a privilege available to only a few; most in China gain access to Zoom as users (rather than owners)—but we were told that it would be streamed to around 1000 attendees. 

After generous welcome speeches by three Zhejiang dignitaries—Dean Dong Yanping, Vice President He Lianzhen, and Xu Jun (a highly regarded translation theorist)—we posed for the requisite “group photo,” which in this pandemic era meant a screen shot with all video cameras on. This staid photo is my own screen shot of the speakers and organizers from earlier in the proceedings.  

I shared the English-language keynote session with Jean Howard (Columbia University) and Wang Ning (Shanghai Jiao Tong University). There was no Q&A; however, we did receive warm praise from our moderator, Prof. Guo Yingjian, for adhering to the time limit. Though this might seem like damning with faint praise, anyone who has organized a conference knows better. Staying within the prescribed time limit can be the hardest part of giving a talk. Our moderator clearly appreciated that all three of us made that effort, and I appreciate being recognized for my own effort.  

After the keynote session, the rest of the conference resumed in Mandarin Chinese, so the English speakers were invited to log off. Before I called it a night, I joined the streamed version. Wow! What a difference! Yang Hullin, the featured speaker, appeared in the lower right corner (in a very comfortably appointed room—no blue zoom background for him) with a written version of his talk scrolling and filling half of the screen. Encircling him and his script were multiple chats and animated images contributed by the session’s 800+ participants. This multimodal, colorful, and very busy screen turned the usual somber atmosphere of an academic conference to something akin to a Pachinko parlor. Occasionally, keywords would skip across the top; this screen shot captures “material turn.” I have no idea what was being said, but I am certain the conversations were lively.  

Global Chaucers and Global Conversations

By Candace Barrington  

March 14, 2022.

On 11 March 2022, for the first time since the MLA Conference in January 2020, I presented at a conference. When Lauren Van Nest (representing the Medieval Academy of America’s Graduate Student Committee and the Interdisciplinary Graduate Medieval Colloquium at UVa) contacted me in May 2021 about joining a roundtable titled “Going Digital and Online: Opportunities for Sharing Graduate Student Research,” the world was opening up and travel was beginning to resume. I assumed that I would travel to Charlottesville, Virginia, and present in person.  

As it turns out, the conference had to limit the number of in-person participants. I did not attend in person, so my first conference presentation in two years was virtual. From what I could observe, the program committee co-chairs—Bruce Holsinger, Deborah McGrady, and Eric Ramirez-Weaver—showed what can be done with a hybrid format. Everything wasn’t perfect, but I appreciated that many of us (both there and virtually) had an excellent conference experience. 

The roundtable I joined was moderated by Reed O’Mara, organized by Katherine Churchill, and chaired by Lauren Van Nest. It featured six speakers: Candace Barrington (“Publishing Online and Global Conversations”), Jack Chen (“Early Career Publications: Then and Now”), Danièle Cybulskie (“The Medieval has Two Faces”), Anne Le (“Comitatus: Insights from a Graduate Student Journal Editor”), Aylin Malcolm (“Podcasting for Postgrads”), and Sam Truman (“Between the Classroom and the Gallery: Publishing Opportunities for Graduate Students in a Museum Setting”). Each presentation was focused and insightful. And the discussion itself was lively and informative. 

My contribution focused on two online platforms I’m associated with: New Chaucer Studies: Pedagogy and Profession and the Global Chaucers project. In addition to providing a brief history of each, I also shared research and publication opportunities each provided. Because it’s always good to remind our readers about what Global Chaucers does and provides, here’s the outline of my Global Chaucers overview. 

• The most immediately available resource that Global Chaucers provides is its List of Lists. Our online bibliography identifies (and sometimes provides links to) 
  • Translations into over 50 languages 
  • Novels, verse, and other retellings 
  • Recordings of Chaucerian texts 
  • Theatrical Performances 
  • Musical Adaptations 
  • Film 
  • Visual arts 
  • Online media 
  • Scholarship 
  • Teaching aids

• In addition to the List of Lists, we maintain a blog that publishes 
  • Short essays about global Chauceriana 
  • Announcements about new translations 
  • Notes & queries 
  • Notices of forthcoming conferences 
  • Call for papers 
  • Descriptions of new scholarship 
• We invite you to send us discoveries and announcements that would interest our global community. 

• You can also become involved with the project by 
  • Considering the role of Global Chaucers’ translator interviews in your scholarship 
  • Incorporating Global Chaucers’ student surveys in your teaching 
  • Sharing what you learn from the Global Chaucer resources with a blog posting  
  • Joining the conversation: twitter and fb 
  • Subscribing to updates 
• In whatever way you decide to engage with the Global Chaucers project, you can be part of proven efforts 
  • to amplify voices outside the Anglophone inner circle 
  • to transform and redefine the field of medieval studies 
  • to think across institutional boundaries 
  • to recognize the limits of seeing the past through only a Eurocentric lens.  
• Additionally, we invite your ideas for creating more robust networks that facilitate research and support graduate students and early-career medievalists, especially those who are geographically or institutionally marginalized. We want to help scholars make their research more visible and to create global opportunities for collaboration. Please send us your ideas! 

In sum, I left the roundtable excited by the variety of opportunities we now have for sharing our research. I’ll continue to follow medievalist.net, and I’m adding to my listening rotation The Medieval Podcast and Coding Codices: A Digital Medievalist Podcast.  

The Chaucer Studio and Global Chaucers will collaborate on new recordings of The Canterbury Tales in translation

by Shannon Prevost

https://www.wga.hu/html_m/zgothic/miniatur/1351-400/3other/10_1351.html

The Chaucer Studio and Global Chaucers will be working together in the near future to provide and create recordings of The Canterbury Tales in different translations. We learned from Michael Calabrese of California State University that “the idea of translating Chaucer in different languages for global access is an inherent part of what we would like to do.” The co-directors of the studio are pleased to collaborate with Global Chaucers to provide more readings of Chaucer’s works in translation.

The first planned recording will be in Spanish, read by Christina Gomez, executive director of the studio.

In the future we will work with interested parties to record either already existing translations or new translations. Global Chaucers and the Chaucer Studio will work together to provide global distribution and access. We are currently soliciting participants who’d like to translate and/or record with us.

The new set of co-directors at Chaucer Studio are:

• Michael Calabrese (California State University, Los Angeles)
• Tom Burton (University of Adelaide)
• Regula Meyer Evitt (Colorado College)
• Cathy Hume (University of Bristol)
• Joseph Parry (Brigham Young University)
• Christina Gomez (California State University, Los Angeles)

COMMode: Canonicity, Obscenity, and the Making of Modern Chaucer (1700-2020)

by Candace Barrington

Canterbury Ghosts: Discussing Adaptation with Shing Yin Khor

I was delighted to learn about a fairly recent project headed by Mary Flannery, Amy Brown, and Kristen Haas Curtis. Its name, COMMode, wittily points to the scatological humor many readers associate with Chaucer and his Tales. The project investigates and queries the relationship between Chaucer’s modern reception and his obscenity, a set of important questions that have fascinated me for a couple of decades. Moreover, they are reaching beyond the usual suspects. Already the site’s blog has featured descriptions of two global Chaucers: Shing Yin Khor’s oracle cards (link and images above) and Chaucer in 19th-century Australia.

A new Japanese translation of The Canterbury Tales

by Candace Barrington

My copy of the beautifully executed translation of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales into Japanese arrived today thanks to Koichi Kano. In addition to new translations of all the tales, the volume includes Ellesmere images of the pilgrims, extensive notes, and an ample bibliography.

I look forward to learning more about the translations, their translators, and their translation strategies very soon.

Online launch party!

In celebration of the publication of the first volume of a new edition by Classiques Garnier of Chaucer’s Complete Works translated into French by the general editor and translator Jonathan Fruoco, you are invited to an online launch party.

Details of the edition: https://classiques-garnier.com/chaucer-geoffrey-le-livre-de-la-duchesse-et-autres-textes-tome-i-oeuvres-completes.html

The recorded launch party remains available on YouTube.

Friday, September 24, 2021

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EDT

Jean “Binta” Breeze

Jean “Binta” Breeze (image from The Guardian, 11 August 2021)

We sadly note the recent death of Jean “Binta” Breeze, one of Chaucer’s great performing interpreters. Her account of the Wife of Bath’s prologue–“The WIfe of Bath in Brixton Market”–appeared in her 2000 collection, The Arrival of Brighteye and Other Poems and subsequently performed by her on a fabulous video.

Obituaries appeared in The Guardian and The New York Times.