The 2013 conference season brings provocative and important new studies on queens and queenship. It is astonishing to see so much work, so varied in approach and so rich in subject matter. When I first started in graduate school, there were maybe a dozen or so scholars working on a few queens—look at us now! If I omitted your paper, please forgive me. Not all titles with names of queens are about queenship, and not all titles reveal that a queen is at the heart of the matter. Let me know if I missed you and I will correct that as soon as possible.

Here’s what you’ll find at recent and upcoming regional and international conferences:

 The American Historical Association (New Orleans, 2–6 January)

• Katherine L. French (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor): “The Material Culture of Childbirth in Late Medieval London and Westminster”
• Valerie Garver (Northern Illinois University): “Silk for Saints: Wrappings for Relics in the Carolingian Empire”

 The Medieval Association of the Pacific (University of San Diego, 21–23 March)

• Kristen Geaman (University of Southern California): “Anne of Bohemia and the Work of Queens”
• Kriszta Kotsis (University of Puget Sound), “Byzantine Empresses and Bride Shows”
• Anita Obermeier (University of New Mexico), “Henry II’s and Cunegunde’s Sanctity: Chastity or Disability?”

The Medieval Academy of America (Knoxville, TN, 4–6 April)

Elizabeth Casteen (Binghamton University), “Slandering the Queen: Fama, Infamy, and the Sovereign Legitimacy of Johanna I of Naples”

International Congress on Medieval Studies (Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, 9–12 May)

• Alison Basil (Open University): “To ‘Restrain the Malice of Men and Restrict All Opportunities for Evil’: Perceptions of Queenly Patronage in the Vita Edwrdi secundi”
• Thomas Blake (University of Iowa): “‘Fy, mannish, fy!’ Transgressive Queenship in the Man of Law’s Tale”
• Jana Bianchini (University of Maryland):  “Networks of Power: Royal Women and Noble Men in the Infantazgo”
• Dawn Bratsch-Prince (Iowa State University): “‘Qui és aquell qui aytals coses ha gosades dir?’: Men, Women, and the Strategic Use of Gossip in the Aragonese Court”
• Samuel Claussen (University of Rochester): “In the Image of the Queen of Heaven: Queenly Patronage, Cistercians, and the Use of Marian Imagery in Miracle Stories and Chronicles”
• Brandon Taylor Craft (Louisiana State University): “Reputations Restored: Brunhild of Austrasia and Fredegund of Neustria”
• James H. Dahlinger (LeMoyne College): “Marguerite of Navarre on Queenship and Theology”
• Rhoda Lange Friedrichs (Douglas College): “Lust for Power or the Power of Lust? Accusations of Scandal and Concepts of Female Rule in the Late Middle Ages”
• Lois Huneycutt (University of Missouri—Columbia): “Constructing the Converting Queen in Medieval Conversion Narratives”
• Joanna Huntington (University of London): “Just Like a Woman? Margaret of Scotland’s Lordship”
• Mae Kilker (University of Notre Dame): “Reconciling Royal Relationships: Implications of the New Manuscript Ending for the Encomiium Emmae Reginae and Eleventh-Century Dynastic Change”
• Paulette J. Pepin (University of New Haven): “Defining María de Molina’s ‘Queenship’”
• Zita Eva Rohr (University of Sydney): “ Through a Glass Darkly: Gossip, Rumor, and Image at the Courts of Late Medieval Aragon and France”
• Núria Silleras-Fernández (University of Colorado): “‘Our Lord saw a goat, and took his tail and made it into a woman’s tongue’: Women as Gossipers in the Writings of Late Medieval Iberian Moralists”
• Lisa Benz St. John (Independent scholar): “Conspiracy and Attention: Queen Margaret of France and Piers Gaveston, the King’s Favorite”
• Nina Verbanaz (University of Missouri—Columbia): “Necessaria Cames: Salian Queens and the German Monarchy, 1024–1125”

 International Medieval Congress (University of Leeds, 1–4 July)

• Jessica Kathleen Barker (Courtauld Institute of Art): “Royal Romance: Expressions of Love on the Funerary Monuments of Kings and Queens in Late Medieval England”
• Laura Cayrol Bernardo (Université de Poitiers), “Royal and Aristocratic Religious Women in Medieval Spain, c. 950-1200: Between the Cloister and the World”
• María Narbona Cárceles (Universidad de Zaragoza), “Le contenu spiritual des devises princières: le cas de Marie de Castille, reine d’Aragon”
• RaGena C. DeAragon (Gonzaga University), “Doing Business with the Crown: Female Agency in Angevin England”Sally Fisher (Monash University), “‘Sum tyme I was in riche aray’: Eleanor Cobham, Elizabeth Woodville, and Margaret Beaufort—The Body, Dress, and Aspirational Behaviour in 15th-Century England”
• Caroline Dunn (Clemson University), “All the Queen’s Ladies: Philippa of Hainault’s Female Attendants”
• Iwona Darska (Institute of Art, Warsaw), “Political and Religious Context of Elisabeth of Austria, Wife of Casimir IV”
• Valerie Garver (Northern Illinois University), “Material Culture, Pleasure, and Early Medieval Queenship”
• Amy Hayes (University of Aberdeen), “Business or Pleasure?: Finding the Queen in Scottish Financial Records”
• Joanna Huntington (University of Huddersfield): The Dominus Effect: Margaret of Scotland, Sanctity, and Lordship”
• Peter Johnsson (University of Toronto), “Tibi Radegundis: Locating an Empowered Female Voice in the Verse Epistle De excidio Thuringiae of St Radegund”
• Hanna I. Kilpi (University of Glasgow), “Living Like a Queen?: Patronage and Courts of Aristocratic Women in 12th-Century England
• Gábor Klaniczay (Central European University): “Local Holy Rulers and International Saintly Princesses: The Fortune of Hungarian Dynastic Saints outside Hungary”
• Hailey Lavoy (University of Notre Dame), “’I received the letter of your Sublimity, filled with what words pleased you’: Queens, Power, and Epistolarity, c. 700–900”
• Penelope Joan Nash (University of Sydney), “How Empress Adelheid, Wife of Otto the Great, Confounded the Contemporary Chroniclers of the Late-10th and 11th Centuries and Continues to Do So Today”
• Grzegorz Pac (Adam Mickiewicz University), “Crowned Mary, Crowning Mary: Queen of the Heavens and Queenship Ideology in Iconographical Art from 10th- and 11th-Century England and Empire”
• Sebastian Roebert (Universitat de Barcelona / Universität Leipzig), “A Queen Reigns: The Example of Elionor of Sicily, Queen of Aragon, 1349-1375”
• Zita Eva Rohr (University of Sydney), “The Pleasure Principle: The Problem of Queenly Reputation in Late Medieval Aragon and France”
• Laura Saxton (Australian Catholic University), “‘She traded her body for the status of queen’: Ambition, Sexuality, and Romance in 21st-Century Representations of Elizabeth Woodville”
• Miriam Shadis (Ohio University), “Sisterly Relations in the Portuguese Royal Family, 1200–1272”
• Scott Stull (State University of New York, Cortland), “From Symbol of Royal Authority to Religious Treasure: Hedwig Beakers in Medieval Europe”
• Elizabeth Thomas (St Andrews): “Church, Society, and Sex: The Law of Royal Marriage in the 12th Century”
• Megan Welton (University of Notre Dame), “All the Queen’s Men: The Early Medieval Queen Outside of the Royal Family”
• Michaela Zöschg (Courtauld Institute of Art): “‘In qua debet corpus dictae dominae tumulari’: Visualising Gender Identities in 14th-Century Tomb Monuments of Queens in Southern Europe”
• Joanna Żywina (Pontifical University of John Paul II): “The Choice of Hedwig of Anjou: Between Love, Desire, and Christian Duty”

 

Royal Studies Network: Kings & Queens 2—Making Connections (University of Winchester, 8–9 July)

• Adriana R. de Almeida (Universidade de Lisboa), “Reaching out from beyond the grave? Means of extending a queen’s protection to her household after her death: the case of Leonor of Portugal, queen of Aragon (1347–1348)”
• Maria Filomena Andrade (Universidade Católica Portuguesa), “Between Portugal and Aragon: compromise and dialogue in the time of Isabel, the Saint Queen (1282–1336)”
• Amanda Bohne (University of Notre Dame), “Social Networks in Athelston”
• Colette Bowie (University of Glasgow), “Ties That Bond: Anglo-Castilian Connections via Leonor of Castile’s Relationship with Her Natal Family”
• Linda Brown (University of Missouri—Kansas City), “Constance of France: the Queen England Never Had”
• Theresa Earenfight (Seattle University), “Sex, Fertility, Virility, Queens, Kings, and Monarchy in the Middle Ages”
• Andrew Griebeler (University of California, Berkeley), “Theodora and Sarah at San Vitale”
• Cecily Hennessy (Christie’s Education), “An Empress’s Investment: The Affinities and Intentions of Galla Placidia”
• Michael Hicks (University of Winchester), “The English Royal Family 1300–1500: Issue, Half-brothers, Cousins, and In-laws”
• Mae Kilker (University of Notre Dame). “Mommy Dearest: 11th-Century Dynastic Change and the New Manuscript Ending for the Encomium Emmae Reginae”
• Jitske Japerske (Universiteit van Amsterdam), “Woman in the Middle. Constructing Identity and Family Ties”
• Kriszta Kotsis (University of Puget Sound), “The Networks of the Iconophile Irene and Theodora”
• Penny Nash (University of Sydney), “’Detached from all feminine characteristics’: Empress Adelheid and noble lay piety in ninth and tenth-century Europe”
• Kathleen Neal (Monash University), “Edward I and the Three Queens: Literae de Statu and Anglo-French Diplomacy in the Late Thirteenth Century”
• Zita Eva Rohr (University of Sydney), “Winning Friends and Influencing People: Social networking by later medieval queens in Iberia and France”
• Cindy Wood (University of Winchester), “The Nature and Extent of the Royal Family, 1399–1509, Using Genealogical Data from Henry III to Henry VII”